11/22/63: A Novel

Sadie got to the guy who’d hit the fare post and helped him back to where we’d been sitting. He was white-faced and groaning. I guessed that he’d been leading with his balls when he hit the post; it was just the right height. His black friend helped me get the housekeeper to her feet, but if she hadn’t been fully conscious and able to help us out, I don’t think we could have done much. That was three hundred pounds of female on the hoof. She was bleeding freely from the temple, and that particular uniform was never going to be of further use to her. I asked if she was okay.

“I think so, but I fetched my head one hell of a wallop. Lawsy!”

Behind us, the bus was in an uproar. Pretty soon there was going to be a stampede. I stood in front of Sadie and got her to put her arms around my waist. Given the shape of my knee, I probably should have been holding onto her, but instinct is instinct.

“We need to let these people off the bus,” I told the black workingman. “Run the handle.”

He tried, but it wouldn’t move. “Jammed!”

I thought that was bullshit; I thought the past was holding it shut. I couldn’t help him yank, either. I only had one good arm. The housekeeper-one side of her uniform now soaked with blood-pushed past me, almost knocking me off my feet. I felt Sadie’s arms jerk loose, but then she took hold again. The housekeeper’s hat had come askew, and the gauze of the veil was beaded with blood. The effect was grotesquely decorative, like tiny hollyberries. She reset the hat at the proper angle, then laid hold of the chrome doorhandle with the black workingman. “I’m gonna count three, then we gonna pull this sucker,” she told him. “You ready?”

He nodded.

“One… two… three!”

They yanked… or rather she did, and hard enough to split her dress open beneath one arm. The doors flopped open. From behind us came weak cheers.

“Thank y-” Sadie began, but then I was moving.

“Quick. Before we get trampled. Don’t let go of me.” We were the first ones off the bus. I turned Sadie toward Dallas. “Let’s go.”

“Jake, those people need help!”

“And I’m sure it’s on the way. Don’t look back. Look ahead, because that’s where the next trouble will come from.”

“How much trouble? How much more?”

“All the past can throw at us,” I said.

7

It took us twenty minutes to make four blocks from where our Number Three bus had come to grief. I could feel my knee swelling. It pulsed with each beat of my heart. We came to a bench and Sadie told me to sit down.

“There’s no time.”

“Sit, mister.” She gave me an unexpected push and I flopped onto the bench, which had an ad for a local funeral parlor on the back. Sadie nodded briskly, as a woman may when a troublesome chore has been accomplished, then stepped into Harry Hines Boulevard, opening her purse as she did so and rummaging in it. The throbbing in my knee was temporarily suspended as my heart climbed into my throat and stopped.

A car swerved around her, honking. It missed her by less than a foot. The driver shook his fist as he continued down the block, then popped up his middle finger for good measure. When I yelled at her to come back, she didn’t even look in my direction. She took out her wallet as the cars whiffed past, blowing her hair back from her scarred face. She was as cool as a spring morning. She got what she wanted, dropped the wallet back into her purse, then held a greenback high over her head. She looked like a high school cheerleader at a pep rally.

“Fifty dollars!” she shouted. “Fifty dollars for a ride into Dallas! Main Street! Main Street! Gotta see Kennedy! Fifty dollars!”

That isn’t going to work, I thought. The only thing that’s going to happen is she’s going to get run over by the obdurate pa-

A rusty Studebaker screamed to a stop in front of her. The engine bashed and clanged. There was an empty socket where one of the headlamps should have been. A man in baggy pants and a strap-style tee-shirt got out. On his head (and pulled all the way down to his ears) was a green felt cowboy hat with an Indian feather in the band. He was grinning. The grin showcased at least six missing teeth. I took one look and thought, Here comes trouble.

“Lady, you crazy,” the Studebaker cowboy said.

“You want fifty dollars or not? Just take us to Dallas.”

The man squinted at the bill, as oblivious of the swerving, honking cars as Sadie herself. He took off his hat, slapped it against the chinos hanging from his chickenbone hips, then put it back on his head, once more pulling it down until the brim rode the tops of his jug ears. “Lady, that ain’t a fifty, that’s a tenspot.”

“I’ve got the rest in my billfold.”

“Then why don’t I just take it?” He grabbed at her big handbag and got one strap. I stepped off the curb, but I thought he’d have it and be gone before I could reach her. And if I did reach her, he’d probably beat me stupid. Skinny as he was, he still outweighed me. And he had two good arms.