SCENE 17: SORRY BOBBY (Reprise)

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INT. OVAL OFFICE. JUNE 6, 1968. NIGHT

LBJ watches RFK speaking on television. 

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Crowds: We want Bobby!  We want Bobby!

 

LBJ

Bobby?

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RFK (looks right at Lyndon through the TV)

You did the right thing, Lyndon.

 

(then returns to his speech)

But I tell you, I think whether it's between blacks and whites, between the poor and the affluent or over the war in Vietnam - that we can start to work together again.... So thank you California for this win! and it's on to Chicago, and --

 

Gunshot - Gunshot - gunshot

 

RFK is shot and falls to the floor.

 

LBJ

No! No no no no no no

 

LIGHTS TO BLACK Over the speakers we hear the Shards theme as the radio announcements taken from the day RFK is shot

 

CRONKITE (TV) Senator Robert F. Kennedy was shot dead by an assassin’s bullet in his Los Angeles hotel. Shards theme plays.

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LBJ (legato/sad)

Come back, Bobby I don’t think I can handle this

Part of the man that I am was just lost in Los Angeles

 

LBJ (CONT’D) (Picks up, rockin now, he’s mad)

You win Bobby, now they will love you more than me

They’ll race to your side saying you’d have provided the magic key

And if only I’d died, they’d have come to my side and seen me as a hero too

But I’ll end up instead, between two martyrs dead, with my legacy ripped in two.

 

RFK (IN A GHOST LIGHT)

They will tell the tale how Jack lit the flame.

They will laud his life. They will sing his name.

 

LBJ

Will they talk about all the good I did?

 

RFK No, they’ll just read the names of each poor lost kid

They will say you were not my brother

 

LBJ

No one could be your brother.

 

(Bobby recedes as a ghost)

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Come back Bobby, just when I’d finally abandoned this

If I passed you the mess I knew you would finesse and untangle this

So, I’m hoping tonight that the songs that they write about my poor life

Will mention the part where I opened my heart and did

some things

right.

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