11/22/63: A Novel

There was heavy traffic coming into Dallas, and by the time we reached our seats, the third of five undercard matches was going on-a large black man and an even larger white man slowly pummeling each other while the crowd cheered. Not one but four enormous screens hung over the polished hardwood floor where the Dallas Spurs played (badly) during the basketball season. The picture was provided by multiple rear-screen projection systems, and although the colors were muddy-almost rudimentary-the images themselves were crisp. Sadie was impressed. In truth, so was I.

“Are you nervous?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Even though-”

“Even though. When I bet on the Pirates to win the World Series back in ’60, I knew. Here I’m depending entirely on my friend, who got it off the internet.”

“What in the world is that?”

“Sci-fi. Like Ray Bradbury.”

“Oh… okay.” Then she put her fingers between her lips and whistled. “Hey beer-man!”

The beer-man, decked out in a vest, cowboy hat, and silver-studded concho belt, sold us two bottles of Lone Star (glass, not plastic) with paper cups nestled over the necks. I gave him a buck and told him to keep the change.

Sadie took hers, bumped it against mine, and said: “Luck, Jake.”

“If I need it, I’m in one hell of a jam.”

She lit a cigarette, adding her smoke to the blue veil hanging around the lights. I was on her right, and from where I sat, she looked perfect.

I tapped her on the shoulder, and when she turned, I kissed her lightly on her parted lips. “Kid,” I said, “we’ll always have Paris.”

She grinned. “The one in Texas, maybe.”

A groan went up from the crowd. The black fighter had just knocked the white one on his ass.

10

The main bout commenced at nine-thirty. Close-ups of the fighters filled the screens, and when the camera centered on Tom Case, my heart sank. There were threads of gray in his curly black hair. His cheeks were becoming jowls. His midsection flabbed over his trunks. Worst of all, though, were his somehow bewildered eyes, which peered from puffy sacs of scar tissue. He didn’t look entirely sure about where he was. The audience of fifteen hundred or so mostly cheered-Tom Case was a hometown boy, after all-but I also heard a healthy chorus of boos. Sitting there slumped on his stool, holding the ropes with his gloved hands, he looked like he’d already lost. Dick Tiger, on the other hand, was up on his feet, shadowboxing and skipping nimbly in his black hightops.

Sadie leaned close to me and whispered, “This doesn’t look so good, honey.”

That was the understatement of the century. It looked terrible.

Down front (where the screen must have seemed like a looming cliff with blurred moving figures projected on it), I saw Akiva Roth squire a mink-wearing dolly in Garbo shades to a seat that would have been ringside, if the fight hadn’t been on a screen. In front of Sadie and me, a chubby man smoking a cigar turned around and said, “Who ya got, beautiful?”

“Case!” Sadie said bravely.

The chubby cigar-smoker laughed. “Well, you got a good heart, anyway. Care to put a tenspot on that?”

“Will you give me four-to-one? If Case knocks him out?”

“If Case knocks Tiger out? Lady, you’re on.” He stuck out a hand. Sadie shook it. Then she turned to me with a defiant little smile playing around the corner of her mouth that still worked.

“Pretty bold,” I said.

“Not at all,” she said. “Tiger’s going down in five. I can see the future.”

11

The ring announcer, wearing a tux and a pound of hair tonic, trotted to center ring, yanked down a mike on a silver cord, and gave the fighters’ stats in a rolling carny-barker’s voice. The National Anthem played. Men yanked off their hats and put their hands over their hearts. I could feel my own heart thudding rapidly, at least a hundred and twenty beats a minute and maybe more. The auditorium was air-conditioned, but sweat was rolling down the back of my neck and humidifying my armpits.

A girl in a swimsuit strutted around the ring in high heels, holding up a card with a big number 1 on it.

The bell clanged. Tom Case shuffled into the ring with a resigned expression on his face. Dick Tiger bounded happily to meet him, feinted with his right hand, then unleashed a compact left hook that decked Case exactly twelve seconds into the fight. The crowds-the one here and the one in the Garden, two thousand miles away-let out a disgusted groan. The hand Sadie had rested on my thigh seemed to spring claws as it tensed and dug in.

“Tell that ten to say goo’bye to his friends, beautiful,” the chubby cigar-smoker said gleefully.

Al, what the fuck were you thinking?

Dick Tiger retreated to his corner and stood there bouncing nonchalantly on the balls of his feet while the ref commenced the count, sweeping his right arm up and down dramatically. On three, Case stirred. On five he sat up. On seven he took a knee. And on nine he rose and lifted his gloves. The ref took the fighter’s face in his hands and asked a question. Case replied. The ref nodded, beckoned to Tiger, and stepped aside.