11/22/63: A Novel

I have never been a crying man, but almost any man who’s lost the woman he loves would, don’t you think? Yes. But I didn’t.

Because I knew what had to be done.

PART 6 THE GREEN CARD MAN CHAPTER 29 1

I wasn’t exactly arrested, but I was taken into custody and driven to the Dallas police station in a squad car. On the last block of the ride, people-some of them reporters, most of them ordinary citizens-pounded on the windows and peered inside. In a clinical, distant way, I wondered if I would perhaps be dragged from the car and lynched for attempting to murder the president. I didn’t care. What concerned me most was my bloodstained shirt. I wanted it off; I also wanted to wear it forever. It was Sadie’s blood.

Neither of the cops in the front seat asked me any questions. I suppose someone had told them not to. If they had asked any, I wouldn’t have replied. I was thinking. I could do that because the coldness was creeping over me again. I put it on like a suit of armor. I could fix this. I would fix this. But first I had some talking to do.

2

They put me in a room that was as white as ice. There was a table and three hard chairs. I sat in one of them. Outside, telephones rang and a Teletype chattered. People went back and forth talking in loud voices, sometimes shouting, sometimes laughing. The laughter had a hysterical sound. It was how men laugh when they know they’ve had a narrow escape. Dodged a bullet, so to speak. Perhaps Edwin Walker had laughed like that on the night of April tenth, as he talked to reporters and brushed broken glass from his hair.

The same two cops who brought me from the Book Depository searched me and took my things. I asked if I could have my last two packets of Goody’s. The two cops conferred, then tore them open and poured them out on the table, which was engraved with initials and scarred with cigarette burns. One of them wetted a finger, tasted the powder, and nodded. “Do you want water?”

“No.” I scooped up the powder and poured it into my mouth. It was bitter. That was fine with me.

One of the cops left. The other asked for my bloody shirt, which I reluctantly took off and handed over. Then I pointed at him. “I know it’s evidence, but you treat it with respect. The blood on it came from the woman I loved. That might not mean much to you, but it’s also from the woman who helped to stop the murder of President Kennedy, and that should.”

“We only want it for blood-typing.”

“Fine. But it goes on my receipt of personal belongings. I’ll want it back.”

“Sure.”

The cop who’d left came back with a plain white undershirt. It looked like the one Oswald had been wearing-or would have been wearing-in the mugshot taken shortly after his arrest at the Texas Theatre.

3

I arrived in the little white interview room at twenty past one. About an hour later (I can’t say with exactitude because there was no clock and my new Timex had been taken with the rest of my personal effects), the same two uniforms brought me some company. An old acquaintance, in fact: Dr. Malcolm Perry, toting a large black country doctor’s medical bag. I regarded him with mild astonishment. He was here at the police station visiting me because he didn’t have to be at Parkland Hospital, picking bits of bullet and shards of bone out of John Kennedy’s brain. The river of history was already moving into its new course.

“Hello, Dr. Perry.”

He nodded. “Mr. Amberson.” The last time he’d seen me, he’d called me George. If I’d had any doubts about being under suspicion, that would have confirmed them. But I didn’t. I’d been there, and I’d known what was about to happen. Bonnie Ray Williams would already have told them as much.

“I understand you’ve reinjured that knee.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Let’s have a look.”

He tried to pull up my left pants leg and couldn’t. The joint was too swollen. When he produced a pair of scissors, both cops stepped forward and drew their guns, keeping them pointed at the floor with their fingers outside the trigger guards. Dr. Perry looked at them with mild astonishment, then cut the leg of my pants up the seam. He looked, he touched, he produced a hypodermic needle and drew off fluid. I gritted my teeth and waited for it to be over. Then he rummaged in his bag, came out with an elastic bandage, and wrapped the knee tightly. That provided some relief.

“I can give you something for the pain, if these officers don’t object.”

They didn’t, but I did. The most crucial hour of my life-and Sadie’s-was dead ahead. I didn’t want dope clouding my brain when it rolled around.

“Do you have any Goody’s Headache Powder?”

Perry wrinkled his nose as if he had smelled something bad. “I have Bayer Aspirin and Emprin. The Emprin’s a bit stronger.”

“Give me that, then. And Dr. Perry?”

He looked up from his bag.

“Sadie and I didn’t do anything wrong. She gave her life for her country… and I would have given mine for her. I just didn’t get the chance.”