Georgia at 18

 Here we have a flashback.  Georgia at 18.  As I have mentioned, her age fluctuates so she may not have been 18 in 1965 anymore.  I wrote this piece a few years ago but have just now edited it and cut quite a lot of it out.  I think it flows much more smoothly.

It was while working at a Manhattan bakery in 1965  that eighteen year old Georgia found out about Bobby Kennedy’s upcoming speech at a lower East Side park. 

“You’ll have to work that day, I’m afraid,” her boss Bob Mellencamp informed her.  “I’m sorry but we need everyone here.  They’re expecting at least 20,000 people and they’ll be hungry and since we’re the closest bakery around . . .”

Georgia sighed audibly.  She would love to see Bobby Kennedy in part because she greatly admired his social conscience.  Her own social conscience developed early, if not a bit skewed, from her Pentecostal upbringing where she was taught that God was most often crushingly disappointed in everyone.  ­­It was her mother’s speaking of Jesus’ command to care for the underprivileged that stuck to Georgia more than anything else.  The rest she managed to peel off after her move to New York City in an attempt to live on the wilder side of life and to gain some independence.

“Jesus didn’t hate prostitutes like most people in our church do,” she said.  Richmond, Virginia, as far as Georgia had ever seen, only had a dozen or so street prostitutes.  Every Christmas season, Georgia’s mother made turkey sandwiches and brought them to the women.  No one else in the church would accompany her on these outings.

At the same time, Georgia’s mother had less respect for other misfit souls – alcoholics, crossdressers and gay men all stood under her harsh judgement. Some years later, when Georgia’s father attended a single meeting of Gamblers’ Anonymous (“not my thing,” he’d grumbled), she added compulsive gamblers to the list.

“He’s bankrupted us,” she told Georgia in 1980.  He very nearly had.

Unbeknownst to his wife, the nightly poker games had gone from penny antes to much higher stakes.  It turned out that a couple of the players had a few ties to organized crime. Luckily a small stroke a year later ended his poker days but not before he’d had

 to sell his car and wedding ring.  His death in 1982 ended the costs of feeding and caring for him (although he didn’t eat much) and brought Georgia’s mother some small but nonetheless helpful death benefits.

Georgia, so influenced by the 60s peace movement, marijuana, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Tito, a transsexual baker, held on to her mother’s compassion and managed to toss out most of the Pentecostal judgments of her childhood. 

On that bright summer day in 1965, Georgia wanted nothing more than to catch a glimpse of the only Kennedy left with any charisma.  Unfortunately, she felt that she owed Bob Mellencamp more than a favour or two as had he not only hired her when she had absolutely no baking or customer service experience but also sold her marijuana for the best price around.

So it would come to pass that Georgia was working at the front counter when four black men, four Secret Service agents and Bobby Kennedy himself walked into the bakery.

“Christ in a cake,” Georgia said.  This was the first time Georgia had used that expression and it formed in her mind something like this:  she looked up at the men, then down to the cakes in front of her and then up at the men again.  A shining cross hung around the neck of one of the black fellows.

Bob Mellencamp sprang out from the back and hollered out, “Jesus H. Christ,” before scurrying to stand beside Georgia.  “Stay out here with the fellas, Georgia,” he told her.  Bobby Kennedy, he knew, was a connoisseur of the female form.  Make him happy, keep him in the restaurant while he, Bob, called his wife to hurry the heck over with their Polaroid camera. 

“Help these gentlemen, Georgia,” he said, “I’m just gonna go to the back but I’ll get Elizabeth Sue out to help you.”  Dean and Andy, the two bakers besides Bob, were out back kissing and touching the breasts of the two other waitresses, Trudy and Joanie.   The bakery hadn’t been as busy as Bob had anticipated.

“Huh,” said Georgia, “yes, yes what would you all – what would you like?”

The four men ordered donuts with sprinkles and bottles of Coca-Cola.  The secret service agents declined but it was Kennedy himself who asked for the store’s specialty.

“I’ll have a cinnamon roll,” he said and smiled at Georgia.  The bakery’s cinnamon rolls had been featured in an issue of the New York Times and people flocked from all over town to try them out.

“With or without whipped cream?” she asked, noticing the slight trembling in her fingers.

“Well, I think I better get it with.”

Elizabeth Sue appeared from the bathroom, her pink lipstick freshly applied.

“Let me help you serve these gentlemen, Georgia.”

Elizabeth Sue told them to sit down at the counter and since there were only four stools there was some commotion over who would sit where.

“Sit down, boys,” Bobby said to the men, “The crew and I are happy to stand.”

Grumblings of ‘but, Senator,” could be heard as Georgia sprayed whipped cream on Bobby’s cinnamon roll.

“Here you go,” she said and gave him the plate.              

How amazing this is, thought Georgia.

The group sat for 20 minutes eating and joking with each other.  Georgia and Elizabeth Sue stood nervously behind the counter, flipping their hair and offering coffee.

“My mother is never going to believe this,” Georgia whispered to Elizabeth Sue.

“Won’t she now?” replied Kennedy, smiling a thousand watts at Georgia.  “Well you tell her I said hello.”

“Yes, senator, yes I surely will,” said Georgia.

Bob Mellencamp had Georgia take pictures of he and his wife standing with the senator.

“This is a great day, sir,” he said more than once.  “This is a great day to be an American.”

Georgia looked outside and saw dozens of faces plastered to the glass and heard girls shrieking.

“It’s Bobby Kennedy!” they shouted.

“Well, boys, we’d better get going,” said Kennedy and out they strode but not before the senator insisted on paying for the snacks and drinks, leaving a three hundred per cent tip.

It was an hour after they had gone, and 30 minutes into Bobby’s speech that the bakery got a call for Georgia.

“Is this the young red-haired beauty who served Senator Kennedy?” the voice asked.

Georgia in her tizzy had to think to remember that Elizabeth Sue’s hair was jet black.

“Yes,” said Georgia.

“Well, young lady, Mr. Robert Kennedy would very much like to see you in his hotel room tonight for a late supper.  Do you think you can make it?” 

“My god, what? “  Georgia, gaining her wits, thought that this was some kind of a joke.

“We can pick you up from your apartment,” the man said and proceeded to recite Georgia’s address.  “We’ll see you at 9:00 then?”

Georgia was overwhelmed and giddy, stunned by what life was throwing at her.

“Okay,’ she told the caller, who had by then provided enough information for Georgia to think him legitimate.  That he knew her address threw her but she was far too distracted to delve into how on earth he got it so quickly.

 “But please pick me up in front of the bakery.”

Three hours later, Georgia found herself sitting across from Bobby Kennedy, a plate of steak and potatoes in front of her, a glass of white wine in her hand.

They talked of everything and nothing, she would remember years later although the specifics escaped her.  She remembered her hands shaking and sweat pouring down her back as he reached for her.  She wasn’t one to engage in sexual activity with just anybody and not usually ever with a married man.  But by god this was Robert Kennedy.  She didn’t do anything that she hadn’t wanted to do, she knew when she thought back on it.   But years later, during Lewinsky and Clinton, she wondered if Kennedy had in fact taken full advantage of her youthful naivete.  It didn’t bear thinking about because it turns out she didn’t have intercourse or even perform fellatio that evening but only engaged in a bit of kissing with tongue.  Her nerves, her intestines, her lightning quick gag reflex, images of Ethel with the children and her own great-grandmother flashing in her head, stopped Georgia from going any further that night.  As Bobby was gently biting on her lower lip, she threw up into his mouth.

With lightning speed he pulled away from her and spit onto the floor.

“You’d best get out,” he said and in her recollection two Secret Service fellas were all too fast upon her, accompanying her down the elevator and through the back door, through the kitchen.

“This is something we’ll never want you to speak about,” the tallest one told her.  “That makes sense to you of course.” 

They left her in the back alley beside the dumpster where she soon saw a limousine pulling up and a dark-haired young woman alighting.

Georgia, who as she grew older tended to tell everyone almost everything in her head, never uttered a word about this experience.  Five years later she would marry a Canadian strictly for the purpose of moving north. She told everyone that it was to escape the terrible mess the United States was in and that was half of the truth.  The other half died in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in 1968.