11/22/63: A Novel

“I don’t want a damn beer, anyway.” Now that we were away from Sadie, I could see that he was steaming mad. “What I want to do is punch Fred Miller in the face and kick Jessica Caltrop’s narra and no doubt lace-trimmed ass.”

I knew the names and faces, although, having been just a humble wage-slave, I had never actually conversed with either of them. Miller and Caltrop were two-thirds of the Denholm County Schoolboard.

“Don’t stop there,” I said. “As long as you’re in a bloodthirsty mood, tell me what you want to do to Dwight Rawson. Isn’t he the other one?”

“It’s Rawlings,” Deke said moodily, “and I’ll give him a pass. He voted on our side.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“They won’t let us use the school gym for the Jamboree. Even though it’s the middle of summer we’re talking about and it’s just standing there vacant.”

“Are you kidding?” Sadie had told me that certain elements of the town might take against her, and I hadn’t believed her. Silly old Jake Epping, still clinging to his science-fiction fantasies of the twenty-first century.

“Son, I only wish I were. They cited fire-insurance concerns. I pointed out that they didn’t have any insurance concerns when it was a benefit for a student who’d been in an accident, and the Caltrop woman-dried-up old kitty that she is-said, ‘Oh yes, Deke, but that was during the school year. ’

“They’ve got concerns, all right, mostly about how a member of the faculty got her face cut open by the crazy man she was married to. They’re afraid it’ll get mentioned in the paper or, God forbid, on one of the Dallas TV stations.”

“How can it matter?” I asked. “He… Christ, Deke, he wasn’t even from here! He was from Georgia!”

“That dudn’t matter to them. What matters to them is that he died here, and they’re afraid it’ll reflect badly on the school. On the town. And on them.”

I heard myself bleating, not a noble sound coming from a man in the prime of life, but I couldn’t help it. “That makes no sense at all!”

“They’d fire her if they could, just to get rid of the embarrassment. Since they can’t, they’re hoping she’ll quit before the kids have to look at what Clayton did to her face. Goddam smalltown bullshit hypocrisy at its best, my boy. When he was in his twenties, Fred Miller used to rip and roar in the Nuevo Laredo whorehouses twice a month. More, if he could get an advance on his allowance from his daddy. And I have it on damn good authority that when Jessica Caltrop was plain Jessie Trapp from Sweetwater Ranch, she got real fat when she was sixteen and real thin again about nine months later. I’ve a mind to tell them that my memory’s even longer than their blue goddam noses, and I could embarrass them plenty if I wanted to. I wouldn’t even have to work at it that hard.”

“They can’t really blame Sadie for her ex-husband’s craziness.. . can they?”

“Grow up, George. Sometimes you act like you were born in a barn. Or some country where folks actually think straight. To them it’s about sex. To folks like Fred and Jessica it’s always about sex. They probably think Alfalfa and Spanky on The Little Rascals spend their spare time diddling Darla out behind the barn while Buckwheat cheers em on. And when something like this happens, it’s the woman’s fault. They wouldn’t come right out and say so, but in their hearts they believe men are beasts and women who can’t gentle em, well, be it on their own heads, son, be it on their own heads. I won’t let em get away with this.”

“You’ll have to,” I said. “If you don’t, the ruckus might get back to Sadie. And she’s fragile now. This might tip her over completely.”

“Yeah,” he said. He rummaged his pipe out of his breast pocket. “Yeah, I know that. I’m just blowin off steam. Ellie talked to the folks who run the Grange Hall just yesterday. They’re happy to let us put on the show there, and it seats fifty more people. Because of the balcony, you know.”

“Well there,” I said, relieved. “Cooler heads prevail.”

“Only one problem. They’re asking four hundred for both nights. If I come up with two hundred, can you come up with the other two? You won’t be getting it back from the receipts, you know. That’s all earmarked for Sadie’s medical work.”

I knew very well about the cost of Sadie’s medical work; I had already paid three hundred dollars to cover the part of her hospital stay that her shitepoke insurance wouldn’t stand good for. In spite of Ellerton’s good offices, the other expenses would mount up rapidly. As for me, I wasn’t scraping financial bottom quite yet, but I could see it.

“George? What do you say?”

“Fifty-fifty,” I agreed.

“Then drink up your shitty beer. I want to get back to town.”

3

On our way out of that sad excuse for a drinking establishment, a poster propped in the window caught my eye. At the top: SEE THE FIGHT OF THE CENTURY ON CLOSED CIRCUIT TV! LIVE FROM MADISON SQUARE GARDEN! DALLAS’S OWN TOM “THE HAMMER” CASE VS. DICK TIGER! DALLAS AUDITORIUM THURSDAY AUG. 29 ADVANCE TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE