11/22/63 Part 91

That was a name I knew well. Kileen, where I had bought rubbers from a druggist with a nastily knowing smile. Don't do anything against the law, son, he'd advised me. Kileen, where Sadie and I had shared a great many sweet nights at the Candlewood Bungalows.

Kileen, which had had a newspaper called The Weekly Gazette.

During her second week of cla.s.ses-by then my new AP student had made several new girlfriends, had fascinated several boys, and was settling in nicely-I asked Erin if The Weekly Gazette still published. Her face lit up. "You've been to Kileen, Mr. Epping?"

"I was there a long time ago," I said-a statement that wouldn't have caused a lie detector needle to budge even slightly.

"It's still there. Mama used to say she only got it to wrap the fish in."

"Does it still run the 'Jodie Doin's' column?"

"It runs a 'Doin's' column for every little town south of Dallas," Erin said, giggling. "I bet you could find it on the net if you really wanted to, Mr. Epping. Everything's on the net."

She was absolutely right about that, and I held out for exactly one week. Sometimes the knothole is just too tempting.

6.

My intention was simple: I would go to the archive (a.s.suming The Weekly Gazette had one) and search for Sadie's name. It was against my better judgment, but Erin Tolliver had inadvertently stirred up feelings that had begun to settle, and I knew I wouldn't rest easy again until I checked. As it turned out, the archive was unnecessary. I found what I was looking for not in the 'Jodie Doin's' column but on the first page of the current issue.

JODIE PICKS "CITIZEN OF THE CENTURY" FOR JULY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, the headline read. And the picture below the headline . . . she was eighty now, but some faces you don't forget. The photographer might have suggested that she turn her head so the left side was hidden, but Sadie faced the camera head-on. And why not? It was an old scar now, the wound inflicted by a man many years in his grave. I thought it lent character to her face, but of course, I was prejudiced. To the loving eye, even smallpox scars are beautiful.

In late June, after school was out, I packed a suitcase and once again headed for Texas.

7.

Dusk of a summer night in the town of Jodie, Texas. It's a little bigger than it was in 1963, but not much. There's a box factory in the part of town where Sadie Dunhill once lived on Bee Tree Lane. The barber shop is gone, and the Cities Service station where I once bought gas for my Sunliner is now a 7-Eleven. There's a Subway where Al Stevens once sold p.r.o.ngburgers and Mesquite Fries.

The speeches commemorating Jodie's centennial are over. The one given by the woman chosen by the Historical Society and Town Council as the Citizen of the Century was charmingly brief, that of the mayor longwinded but informative. I learned that Sadie had served one term as mayor herself and four terms in the Texas State Legislature, but that was the least of it. There was her charitable work, her ceaseless efforts to improve the quality of education at DCHS, and her year's sabbatical to do volunteer work in post-Katrina New Orleans. There was the Texas State Library program for blind students, an initiative to improve hospital services for veterans, and her ceaseless (and continuing, even at eighty) efforts to provide better state services to the indigent mentally ill. In 1996 she had been offered a chance to run for the U.S. Congress but declined, saying she had plenty to do at the gra.s.sroots.

She never remarried. She never left Jodie. She's still tall, her body unbent by osteoporosis. And she's still beautiful, her long white hair flowing down her back almost to her waist.

Now the speeches are over, and Main Street has been closed off. A banner at each end of the two-block business section proclaims STREET DANCE, 7PMMIDNITE!

Y'ALL COME!

Sadie is surrounded by well-wishers-some of whom I think I still recognize-so I take a walk down to the DJ's platform in front of what used to be the Western Auto and is now a Walgreens. The guy fussing with the records and CDs is a sixty-something with thinning gray hair and a considerable paunch, but I'd know those square-bear pink-rimmed specs anywhere.

"h.e.l.lo, Donald," I say. "See you've still got the round mound of sound."

Donald Bellingham looks up and smiles. "Never leave for the gig without it. Do I know you?"

"No," I say, "my mom. She was at a dance you DJ'd way back in the early sixties. She said you snuck in your father's big band records."

He grins. "Yeah, I caught h.e.l.l for that. Who was your mother?"

"Andrea Robertson," I say, picking the name at random. Andrea was my best pupil in period two American Lit.

"Sure, I remember her." His vague smile says he doesn't.

"I don't suppose you still have any of those old records, do you?"

"G.o.d, no. Long gone. But I've got all kinds of big band stuff on CD. Do I feel a request coming on?"

"Actually, you do. But it's kind of special."

He laughs. "Ain't they all."

I tell him what I want, and Donald-as eager to please as ever-agrees. As I start back toward the end of the block, where the woman I came to see is now being helped to punch by the mayor, Donald calls after me. "I never caught your name."

"Amberson," I tell him over my shoulder. "George Amberson."

"And you want it at eight-fifteen?"

"On the dot. Time is of the essence, Donald. Let's hope it cooperates."

Five minutes later, Donald Bellingham nukes Jodie with "At the Hop" and dancers fill the street under the Texas sunset.

8.

At ten past eight, Donald plays a slow Alan Jackson tune, one even grown-ups can dance to. Sadie is left alone for the first time since the speechifying ended, and I approach her. My heart beating so hard it seems to shake my whole body.

"Miz Dunhill?"

She turns, smiling and looking up a little. She's tall, but I'm taller. Always was. "Yes?"

"My name is George Amberson. I wanted to tell you how much I admire you and all the good work you've done."

Her smile grows a little puzzled. "Thank you, sir. I don't recognize you, but the name seems familiar. Are you from Jodie?"

I can no longer travel in time, and I certainly can't read minds, but I know what she's thinking, just the same. I hear that name in my dreams.

"I am, and I'm not." And before she can pursue it: "May I ask what sparked your interest in public service?"

Her smile is now just a lingering ghost around the corners of her mouth. "And you want to know because-?"

"Was it the a.s.sa.s.sination? The Kennedy a.s.sa.s.sination?"

"Why . . . I guess it was, in a way. I like to think I would have gotten involved in the wider world anyway, but I suppose it started there. It left this part of Texas with . . ." Her left hand rises involuntarily toward her cheek, then drops again. ". . . such a scar. Mr. Amberson, where do I know you from? Because I do know you, I'm sure of it."

"Can I ask another question?"

She looks at me with mounting perplexity. I glance at my watch. Eight-fourteen. Almost time. Unless Donald forgets, of course . . . and I don't think he will. To quote some old fifties song or other, some things are just meant to be.

"The Sadie Hawkins dance, back in 1961. Who did you get to chaperone with you when Coach Borman's mother broke her hip? Do you recall?"

Her mouth drops open, then slowly closes. The mayor and his wife approach, see us in deep conversation, and veer off. We are in our own little capsule here; just Jake and Sadie. The way it was once upon a time.

"Don Haggarty," she says. "It was like shapping a dance with the village idiot. Mr. Amberson-"

But before she can finish, Donald Bellingham comes in through eight tall loudspeakers, right on cue: "Okay, Jodie, here's a blast from the past, a platter that really matters, only the best and by request!"

Then it comes, that smooth bra.s.s intro from a long-gone band: Bah-dah-dah . . . bah-dah-da-dee-dum . . .

"Oh my G.o.d, 'In the Mood,'" Sadie says. "I used to lindy to this one."

I hold out my hand. "Come on. Let's do the thing."

She laughs, shaking her head. "My swing-dancing days are far behind me, I'm afraid, Mr. Amberson."

"But you're not too old to waltz. As Donald used to say in the old days, 'Out of your seats and on your feets.' And call me George. Please."

In the street, couples are jitterbugging. A few of them are even trying to lindy-hop, but none of them can swing it the way Sadie and I could swing it, back in the day. Not even close.

She takes my hand like a woman in a dream. She is in a dream, and so am I. Like all sweet dreams, it will be brief . . . but brevity makes sweetness, doesn't it? Yes, I think so. Because when the time is gone, you can never get it back.

Party lights hang over the street, yellow and red and green. Sadie stumbles over someone's chair, but I'm ready for this and catch her easily by the arm.

"Sorry, clumsy," she says.

"You always were, Sadie. One of your more endearing traits."

Before she can ask about that, I slip my arm around her waist. She slips hers around mine, still looking up at me. The lights skate across her cheeks and shine in her eyes. We clasp hands, fingers folding together naturally, and for me the years fall away like a coat that's too heavy and too tight. In that moment I hope one thing above all others: that she was not too busy to find at least one good man, one who disposed of John Clayton's f.u.c.king broom once and for all.

She speaks in a voice almost too low to be heard over the music, but I hear her-I always did. "Who are you, George?"

"Someone you knew in another life, honey."

Then the music takes us, the music rolls away the years, and we dance.

January 2, 2009December 18, 2010 Sarasota, Florida Lovell, Maine

AFTERWORD.

Almost half a century has pa.s.sed since John Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, but two questions linger: Was Lee Oswald really the trigger-man, and if so, did he act alone? Nothing I've written in 11/22/63 will provide answers to those questions, because time-travel is just an interesting make-believe. But if you, like me, are curious about why those questions still remain, I think I can give you a satisfactory two-word response: Karen Carlin. Not just a footnote to history, but a footnote to a footnote. And yet . . .

Jack Ruby owned a Dallas strip joint called the Carousel Club. Carlin, whose nom du burlesque was Little Lynn, danced there. On the night following the a.s.sa.s.sination, Ruby received a call from Miss Carlin, who was twenty-five dollars short on the December rent and desperately needed a loan to keep from being turned out into the street. Would he help?

Jack Ruby, who had other things on his mind, gave her the rough side of his tongue (in truth, it was the only side Dallas's Sparky Jack seemed to have). He was appalled that the president he revered had been killed in his home city, and he spoke repeatedly to friends and relatives about how terrible this was for Mrs. Kennedy and her children. Ruby was heartsick at the thought of Jackie having to return to Dallas for Oswald's trial. The widow would become a national spectacle, he said. Her grief would be used to sell tabloids.

Unless, of course, Lee Oswald came down with a bad case of the deads.

Everybody at the Dallas Police Department had at least a nodding acquaintance with Jack. He and his "wife"-that was what he called his little dachsund, Sheba-were frequent visitors at DPD. He handed out free pa.s.ses to his clubs, and when cops showed up there, he bought them free drinks. So no one took any particular notice of him when he turned up at the station on Sat.u.r.day, November twenty-third. When Oswald was paraded before the press, proclaiming his innocence and displaying a black eye, Ruby was there. He had a gun (yes, another .38, this one a Colt Cobra), and he fully intended to shoot Oswald with it. But the room was crowded; Ruby was shunted to the back; then Oswald was gone.

So Jack Ruby gave up.

Late Sunday morning, he went to the Western Union office a block or so from the DPD and sent "Little Lynn" a money order for twenty-five dollars. Then he wandered down to the cop-shop. He a.s.sumed that Oswald had already been transferred to the Dallas County Jail, and was surprised to see a crowd gathered in front of the police station. There were reporters, news vans, and your ordinary gawkers. The transfer hadn't occurred on schedule.

Ruby had his gun, and Ruby wormed his way into the police garage. No problem there. Some of the cops even said hi, and Ruby hi'd them right back. Oswald was still upstairs. At the last moment he had asked his jailers if he could put on a sweater, because his shirt had a hole in it. The detour to get the sweater took less than three minutes, but that was just enough-life turns on a dime. Ruby shot Oswald in the abdomen. As a pig-pile of cops landed on top of Sparky Jack, he managed to yell: "Hey, guys, I'm Jack Ruby! You all know me!"

The a.s.sa.s.sin died at Parkland Hospital shortly thereafter, without making a statement. Thanks to a stripper who needed twenty-five bucks and a half-a.s.sed s...o...b..at who wanted to put on a sweater, Oswald was never tried for his crime, and never had a real chance to confess. His final statement on his part in the events of 11/22/63 was "I'm a patsy." The resulting arguments over whether or not he was telling the truth have never stopped.

Early in the novel, Jake Epping's friend Al puts the probability that Oswald was the lone gunman at ninety-five percent. After reading a stack of books and articles on the subject almost as tall as I am, I'd put the probability at ninety-eight percent, maybe even ninety-nine. Because all of the accounts, including those written by conspiracy theorists, tell the same simple American story: here was a dangerous little fame-junkie who found himself in just the right place to get lucky. Were the odds of it happening just the way it did long? Yes. So are the odds on winning the lottery, but someone wins one every day.

Probably the most useful source-materials I read in preparation for writing this novel were Case Closed, by Gerald Posner; Legend, by Edward Jay Epstein (nutty Robert Ludlum stuff, but fun); Oswald's Tale, by Norman Mailer; and Mrs. Paine's Garage, by Thomas Mallon. The latter offers a brilliant a.n.a.lysis of the conspiracy theorists and their need to find order in what was almost a random event. The Mailer is also remarkable. He says that he went into the project (which includes extensive interviews with Russians who knew Lee and Marina in Minsk) believing that Oswald was the victim of a conspiracy, but in the end came to believe-reluctantly-that the stodgy ole Warren Commission was right: Oswald acted alone.

It is very, very difficult for a reasonable person to believe otherwise. Occam's Razor-the simplest explanation is usually the right one.

I was also deeply impressed-and moved, and shaken-by my rereading of William Manchester's Death of a President. He's dead wrong about some things, he's given to flights of purple prose (calling Marina Oswald "lynx-eyed," for instance), his a.n.a.lysis of Oswald's motives is both superficial and hostile, but this ma.s.sive work, published only four years after that terrible lunch hour in Dallas, is closest in time to the a.s.sa.s.sination, written when most of the partic.i.p.ants were still alive and their recollections were still vivid. Armed with Jacqueline Kennedy's conditional approval of the project, everyone talked to Manchester, and although his account of the aftermath is turgid, his narrative of 11/22's events is chilling and vivid, a Zapruder film in words.