11/22/63

I closed my eyes and saw pages flying off a calendar — the kind of corny transition they used in old movies. I saw them flying out my bedroom window like birds.

One more thought came before I dropped off: the dopey sophomore with the even dopier straggle of goatee on his chin, grinning and muttering, Hoptoad Harry, hoppin down the av-a-new. And Harry stopping me when I went to call the kid on it. Nah, don’t bother, he’d said. I’m used to it.

Then I was gone, down for the count.

3

I woke up to early light and twittering birdsong, pawing at my face, sure I had cried just before waking. I’d had a dream, and although I couldn’t remember what it was, it must have been a very sad one, because I have never been what you’d call a crying man.

Dry cheeks. No tears.

I turned my head on the pillow to look at the clock on the nightstand and saw it lacked just two minutes of 6:00 A.M. Given the quality of the light, it was going to be a beautiful June morning, and school was out. The first day of summer vacation is usually as happy for teachers as it is for students, but I felt sad. Sad. And not just because I had a tough decision to make.

Halfway to the shower, three words popped into my mind: Kowabunga, Buffalo Bob!

I stopped, naked and looking at my own wide-eyed reflection in the mirror over the dresser. Now I remembered the dream, and it was no wonder I’d awoken feeling sad. I’d dreamed I was in the teachers’ room, reading Adult English themes while down the hall in the gymnasium, another high school basketball game wound down toward another final buzzer. My wife was just out of rehab. I was hoping that she’d be home when I got there and I wouldn’t have to spend an hour on the phone before locating her and fishing her out of some local waterhole.

In the dream, I had shifted Harry Dunning’s essay to the top of the pile and begun to read: It wasnt a day but a night. The night that change my life was the night my father murdirt my mother and two brothers…

That had gotten my full attention, and in a hurry. Well, it would get anybody’s, wouldn’t it? But my eyes had only begun to sting when I got to the part about what he’d been wearing. The outfit made perfect sense, too. When kids went out on that special fall night, carrying empty bags they hoped to bring back filled with sweet swag, their costumes always reflected the current craze. Five years ago, it seemed that every second boy who showed up at my door was wearing Harry Potter eyeglasses and a lightning-bolt-scar decal on his forehead. On my own maiden voyage as a candy-beggar, many moons ago, I’d gone clanking down the sidewalk (with my mother trailing ten feet behind me, at my urgent request) dressed as a snowtrooper from The Empire Strikes Back. So was it surprising that Harry Dunning had been wearing buckskin?

“Kowabunga, Buffalo Bob,” I told my reflection, and suddenly ran for my study. I don’t keep all student work, no teacher does — you’d drown in it! — but I made a habit of photocopying the best essays. They make great teaching tools. I never would have used Harry’s in class, it was far too personal for that, but I thought I remembered making a copy of it just the same, because it had provoked such a strong emotional reaction in me. I pulled open the bottom drawer and began thumbing through the rat’s nest of folders and loose papers. After fifteen sweaty minutes, I found it. I sat down in my desk chair and began to read.

4

It wasnt a day but a night. The night that change my life was the night my father murdirt my mother and two brothers and hurt me bad. He hurt my sister too, so bad she went into a comah. In three years she died without waking up. Her name was Ellen and I loved her very much. She love to pick flowers and put them in vayses. What happen was like a horra movie. I never go see horra movies because on Halloween night in 1958 I lived thru one.