In 1976 and 1977 I was employed by the United States Department of Justice, which is housed in the building you see in the title shots of the old TV series The FBI Yes, that big building. Inside, it's a total maze.
I worked on the sixth floor, in the Accounting Department, which was like a very bare maze, with temporary walls, cubicles, everything unfinished. Every couple months they'd want to redecorate something (doesn't something have to be decorated to be redecorated?) They were always redecorating -- I honestly don’t know if they’ve finished yet, since as I write this it’s only been 30 years -- so we'd move to another set of cubicles and mazelike hallways.
Parts of the Smithsonian Institution are across the street from the DOJ and a block or two down is the Nation al Gallery of Art. During one of our moves, I spent my lunch break at the Gallery gift shop, picking up small prints for all my coworkers. (I believe they cost 50 cents each; I doubt they still do.) I chose two prints per person, and two for myself, and at the last minute decided not to give anyone what I had chosen. Instead, I presented them all and asked everyone to choose for themselves.
Each and every one of my coworkers selected the two pictures I had chosen for them. I ended up with the two I wanted.
(I will digress long enough to mention that I was our department’s first word processor; I worked on a Mag Card II, which was, unlike its predecessors, not as big as a room. Processing words on it was not my only duty to be sure, but I did that too, and one day a letter came by for me to type. It is the letter I most enjoyed typing in my career as support staff (which is not what I’ve been most of my life): it clearly stated that in the legal case U.S. vs. John Ono Lennon, the latter had won, and the former was therefore and thereby ordered to pay the court costs.)
Once in a while I found myself on a mission, either to the offices of the Assistant Attorney General for Administration, on the first floor, which was moderately cushy, or to the offices of people who worked closely with the Attorney General of the United States, situated, along with the AG himself, on the fifth floor. I couldn’t believe the fifth floor was part of the same building as the sixth. What contrast! Plush carpet, walls lined with portraits of past attorneys general, offices into which you could have fit my apartment, except they had better appointments than my place, and they were real offices. You know, with doors. .
Most of the portraits were the usual poker-up-the-posterior sat-for full-face get it over with already paintings. One was different. There was an almost-full-body portrait of young Bobby Kennedy. Well how not young? He died young. I’ll describe the picture as it is in my memory instead of the real picture, which is similar but not identical. RFK is on a sandy beach, in profile, the wind whipping through his hair, and he is wearing a pea jacket. If you know anything about the relationship between him and Jack you know this is his brother's jacket. (I read once how he was out on a boat and the jacket flew out into the water, and he dove in to save the jacket, it meant that much to him.) It's an extraordinary painting. I don't know who painted it.
When I came to the DOJ, Gerald Ford was the President of the United States, and the Attorney General under his administration was Edward Levi. During my stay, though, we had a change of administration. Jimmy Carter was elected to the presidency. I was at the inauguration, out in the cold. Shortly after that a new Attorney General, Griffin Bell, was sworn in. We peons were all allowed to leave our desks and go to the Rotunda to watch Carter swear Bell in. It was then I realized how very short Carter is in height, as opposed to spiritual stature, in which he is very tall.
Soon after Bell was sworn in, I had occasion to visit the fifth floor. I was in the habit of standing in front of Bobby’s portrait for a minute, whatever hurry my bosses might be in, and wanted to do so now, but it was gone!
Where had the picture gone? The other portraits were undisturbed. Were Bell and RFK enemies? I knew that even though LBJ and RFK were nominally in the same political party, the former despised the latter. Was Bell of the same mind?
I later found out (by asking): Bell liked the portrait so much he had it moved into his private office.
A couple years ago, my fiancé and I visited D.C. together for the first time; a friend of his was marrying, in Virginia. We gave ourselves some extra time to tour the town. We spent a day -- insufficient -- in the Holocaust Museum, which of course had not existed during my sojourn in the DOJ. Nor had email or the internet as we know them now existed; I used them (and the phone) before we set off for D.C. to arrange two little adventures. Thus while we were there, a nice lady from the office of one of our congressmen gave us a dandy tour of the Capitol building, and an absolutely lovely gentleman from the DOJ led us to where the portrait of RFK now hangs. Don’t ask me where that is; the place is still a maze. I don’t think we were on the fifth floor, though. I know we weren’t on the sixth.
There it was, just as I had remembered it. Okay, different -- but essentially the same. I took a picture of it. I stared at it. I said a sad goodbye to it, but how happy I was to have seen it again! And I told our benefactor, for that is how I think of him, the following story.
We all have heroic fantasies. We don’t all admit it, and we don’t usually talk about them, but it’s human nature: we want to be good and we want to be special. My heroic fantasies usually involved getting justice for someone I perceived as having been treated unjustly; sometimes my justice closely resembled revenge. No matter; the fantasies weres about the deeds I did, not the rewards I subsequently gained. However, there was one exception. I had a heroic fantasy in which I did not even know what my deeds were; they were something grand, and I did not worry that I couldn’t identify them; the important part of the fantasy was the reward. My deed was sufficiently heroic to warrant the bestowal of the award by none other than the President of the United State. I have disliked more presidents than I have liked in my lifetime, but that’s not important; whoever happened to be President would do just fine. After all, I have saved the country. I am not a small hero; I am a big hero. Speeches are made. Ceremonies are performed. I have been called to the White House for this hoopla and to-do, and now it is time for the President to congratulate me personally, thank me fervently and offer me any reward I desire. "Name it and it’s yours." Perhaps he imagines I want a million dollars, which won’t go far these days, but it’s a nice round number; perhaps he imagines I would prefer a private island, or his autograph, or a seat on the next space shuttle. But no. I answer without the slightest hesitation: Give me the portrait of Bobby Kennedy that once hung on the fifth floor and now hangs in some obscure but honorable spot on one of the maze-like walls of the Department of Justice.
