11/22/63: A Novel

“That’s quite a criticism, coming from a pack-a-day chick,” I said, but she was right, the diesel stench was nasty. I fell back. There was no need to tailgate now that I knew Sadie Jump-Rope had been right about the number. She’d probably been right about the interval, too. The buses might run every half hour on ordinary days, but this was no ordinary day.

“I did some more crying, because I thought you were gone for sure. I was scared for you, but I hated you, too.”

I could understand that and still feel I’d done the right thing, so it seemed best to say nothing.

“I called Deke again. He asked me if you’d ever said anything about having another bolt-hole, maybe in Dallas but probably in Fort Worth. I said I didn’t remember you saying anything specific. He said it probably would have been while you were in the hospital, and all confused. He told me to think hard. As if I wasn’t. I went back to Mr. Kenopensky on the chance you might have said something to him. By then it was almost suppertime, and getting dark. He said no, but right about then his son came by with a pot roast dinner and invited me to eat with them. Mr. K got talking-he has all kinds of stories about the old days-”

“I know.” Up ahead, the bus turned east on Vickery Boulevard. I signaled and followed it but stayed far enough back so we didn’t have to eat the diesel. “I’ve heard at least three dozen. Blood-on-the-saddle stuff.”

“Listening to him was the best thing I could have done, because I stopped racking my brains for awhile, and sometimes when you relax, things let go and float to the surface of your mind. While I was walking back to your little apartment, I suddenly remembered you saying you lived for awhile on Cadillac Street. Only you knew that wasn’t quite right.”

“Oh my God. I forgot all about that.”

“It was my last chance. I called Deke again. He didn’t have any detailed city maps, but he knew there were some at the school library. He drove down-probably coughing his head off, he’s still pretty sick-got them, and called me from the office. He found a Ford Avenue in Dallas, and a Chrysler Park, and several Dodge Streets. But none of them had the feel of a Cadillac, if you know what I mean. Then he found Mercedes Street in Fort Worth. I wanted to go right away, but he told me I’d have a much better chance of spotting you or your car if I waited until morning.”

She gripped my arm. Her hand was cold.

“Longest night of my life, you troublesome man. I hardly slept a wink.”

“I made up for you, although I didn’t finally go under until the wee hours. If you hadn’t come, I might have slept right through the damn assassination.”

How dismal would that be for an ending?

“Mercedes goes on for blocks. I drove and drove. Then I could see the end, at the parking lot of some big building that looks like the back of a department store.”

“Close. It’s a Montgomery Ward warehouse.”

“And still no sign of you. I can’t tell you how downhearted I was. Then…” She grinned. It was radiant in spite of the scar. “Then I saw that red Chevy with the silly tailfins that look like a woman’s eyebrows. Bright as a neon sign. I shouted and pounded the dashboard of my little Beetle until my hand was sore. And now here I a-”

There was a low, crunching bang from the right front of the Chevy and suddenly we were veering at a lamppost. There was a series of hard thuds from beneath the car. I spun the wheel. It was sickeningly loose in my hands, but I got just enough steerage to avoid hitting the post head-on. Instead, Sadie’s side scraped it, creating a ghastly metal-on-metal screee. Her door bowed inward and I yanked her toward me on the bench seat. We came to a stop with the hood hanging over the sidewalk and the car listing to the right. That wasn’t just a flat tire, I thought. That was a mortal fucking injury.

Sadie looked at me, stunned. I laughed. As previously noted, sometimes there’s just nothing else you can do.

“Welcome to the past, Sadie,” I said. “This is how we live here.”

4

She couldn’t get out on her side; it was going to take a crowbar to pry the passenger door open. She slid the rest of the way across the seat and got out on mine. A few people were watching, not many.

“Gee, what happened?” a woman pushing a baby carriage asked.

That was obvious once I got around to the front of the car. The right front wheel had snapped off. It lay twenty feet behind us at the end of a curving trench in the asphalt. The jagged axle-stub gleamed in the sun.

“Busted wheel,” I told the woman with the baby carriage.

“Oh, law,” she said.

“What do we do?” Sadie asked in a low voice.

“We took out an insurance policy; now we file a claim. Nearest bus stop.”

“My suitcase-”