11/22/63: A Novel

Yes, I thought, and Al’s notebook. My manuscripts-the shitty novel that doesn’t matter and the memoir that does. Plus my available cash. I glanced at my watch. Quarter past nine. At the Texas Hotel, Jackie would be dressing in her pink suit. After another hour or so of politics, the motorcade would be on the move to Carswell Air Force Base, where the big plane was parked. Given the distance between Fort Worth and Dallas, the pilots would barely have time to put their wheels up.

I tried to think.

“Would you like to use my phone to call someone?” the woman with the baby carriage asked. “My house is right up the street.” She scanned us, picking up on my limp and Sadie’s scar. “Are you hurt?”

“We’re fine,” I said. I took Sadie’s arm. “Would you call a service station and ask them to tow it? I know it’s a lot to ask, but we’re in a terrible hurry.”

“I told him that front end was wobbly,” Sadie said. She was pouring on the Georgia drawl. “Thank goodness we weren’t on the highway.” Ha-way.

“There’s an Esso about two blocks up.” She pointed north. “I guess I could stroll the baby over there…”

“Oh, that would be a lifesaver, ma’am,” Sadie said. She opened her purse, removed her wallet, and took out a twenty. “Give them this on account. Sorry to ask you like this, but if I don’t see Kennedy, I will just dah. ” That made the baby carriage woman smile.

“Goodness, that much would pay for two tows. If you have some paper in your purse, I could scribble a receipt-”

“That’s okay,” I said. “We trust you. But maybe I’ll put a note under the wiper.”

Sadie was looking at me questioningly… but she was also holding out a pen and little pad with a cross-eyed cartoon kid on the cover. SKOOL DAZE, it said below

his loopy grin. DEAR OLE GOLDEN SNOOZE DAZE.

A lot was riding on that note, but there was no time to think about the wording. I jotted rapidly and folded it under the wiper blade. A moment later we were around the corner and gone.

5

“Jake? Are you okay?”

“Fine. You?”

“I got bumped by the door and I’ll probably have a bruise on my shoulder, but otherwise, yes. If we’d hit that post, I probably wouldn’t have been. You, either. Who was the note for?”

“Whoever tows the Chevy.” And I hoped to God Mr. Whoever would do as the note asked. “We’ll worry about that part when we come back.”

If we came back.

The next bus pole was halfway up the block. Three black women, two white women, and a Hispanic man were standing by the post, a racial mixture so balanced it looked like a casting call for Law and Order SVU. We joined them. I sat on the bench inside the shelter next to a sixth woman, an African-American lady whose heroic

proportions were packed into a white rayon uniform that practically screamed Well-to-do White Folks’ Housekeeper. On her bosom she wore a button that read ALL THE WAY WITH JFK IN ’64.

“Bad leg, sir?” she asked me.

“Yes.” I had four packets of headache powder in the pocket of my sport coat. I reached past the gun, got two of them, tore off the tops, and poured them into my mouth.

“Taking them that way will box your kidneys around,” she said.

“I know. But I’ve got to keep this leg going long enough to see the president.”

She broke into a large smile. “Don’t I hear that. ”

Sadie was standing on the curb and looking anxiously back down the street for a Number Three.

“Buses runnin slow today,” the housekeeper said, “but one be along directly. No way I’m missin Kennedy, nuh- uh!”

Nine-thirty came and still no bus, but the ache in my knee was down to a dull throb. God bless Goody’s Powder.

Sadie came over. “Jake, maybe we ought to-”

“ Here come a Three,” the housekeeper said, and rose to her feet. She was an awesome lady, dark as ebony, taller than Sadie by at least an inch, hair plank-straight and gleaming. “How-eee, I’m gonna get me a place right there in Dealey Plaza. Got samidges in my bag. And will he hear me when I yell?”

“I bet he will,” I said.

She laughed. “You better believe he will! Him and Jackie both!”

The bus was full, but the folks from the bus stop crammed on anyway. Sadie and I were the last, and the driver, who looked as harried as a stockbroker on Black Friday, held out his palm. “No more! I’m full! Got em crammed in like sardines! Wait for the next one!”

Sadie threw me an agonized look, but before I could say anything, the large lady stepped in on our behalf. “Nuh-uh, you let em on. The man he got a bum leg, and the lady got her own problems, as you can well see. Also, she skinny and he skinnier. You let em on or I’m gonna put you off and drive this bus myself. I can do it, too. I learned on my daddy’s Bulldog.”