Conversations with a Masked Man by John Hadden

Author:John Hadden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2015-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

SON: … allows the whole thing to go up in smoke …

FATHER: … more deaths …

SON: … and more rending of the American soul.

FATHER: Yeah.

SON: A lot more.

FATHER: Yup, true.

* * * *

The universe sometimes sends a cascade of signs, as if to cry to the slightly awakened creature: See? See? Do you see?

I was staying at an apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, preparing to accompany a dear friend, my old roommate, to his father’s memorial service at the church in Harvard Yard. My friend’s father had been prominent in the life of Harvard and had been a member of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He was one of the architects of the Vietnam War, and had privately expressed regret about his part in it to his son. He was one of the only other parents I knew at the school and he treated me with kindness. I missed him; my friend was bereft.

I went to look around Harvard Yard the day before the service so that I could get my bearings and be there on time. I’d always liked the buskers, the street people, and the old Orson Welles cinema. Cambridge was a countercultural hot spot; Baez and Dylan had been there. I lived in Boston for several years and I was drawn to Cambridge, but I avoided the Square and I’d never gone into the Yard. Maybe I was afraid to run into someone from Groton or I was intimidated by the ghosts of a dozen ancestors who had been there. The famous landmarks—Memorial Church, Weidner Library, Lowell House—seemed familiar to me though I had never seen them before. The breeding grounds of power are lovely, wonderful places.

Back at the apartment, a pile of CDs on the floor beckoned to me. I picked one up. It was a recording of a Simon and Garfunkel concert in Central Park. I put it on.

“When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school/It’s a wonder I can think at all …” Long forgotten sensations washed over me. Through the years, my friend and I had shared long talks about our fathers. The conversation is ongoing, and we are grateful for each other’s interest and understanding––and grief, on many levels. I thought of all the talks we’d had at school, and how the music had been such a comfort to us both.

I looked around at the books lining the room in the shelves, and saw An Unfinished Song, by Joan Jara, a book about her husband and the Chilean coup in 1973. The book had affected me deeply, and had led me to write my first play. I reached for the book, another friend, tears running down my face. I felt blessed in friends.

SON: Do you think Kissinger is a war criminal?

FATHER: No, no, no, he was doing what the president wanted him to do.

MOTHER: But you just finished saying that Nixon was doing what …

FATHER: The future president. Well, that’s what he was there for, at least in his mind.

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