11/22/63: A Novel

According to newscaster Frank Blair on the Today show, Kennedy had moved on to Miami, where he was greeted by a large crowd of cubanos. Some held up signs reading VIVA JFK while others carried a banner reading KENNEDY IS A TRAITOR TO OUR CAUSE. If nothing changed, he had seventy-two hours left. Oswald, who had only slightly longer, would be in the Book Depository, perhaps loading cartons into one of the freight elevators, maybe in the break room drinking coffee.

I might be able to get him there — just walk up to him and plug him — but I’d be collared and wrestled to the floor. After the killshot, if I was lucky. Before, if I wasn’t. Either way, the next time I saw Sadie Dunhill it would be through glass reinforced with chickenwire. If I had to give myself up in order to stop Oswald — to sacrifice myself, in hero-speak — I thought I could do that. But I didn’t want it to play out that way. I wanted Sadie and my poundcake, too.

There was a pot barbecue on the lawn at 214 West Neely, and a new rocking chair on the porch, but the shades were drawn and there was no car in the driveway. I parked in front, told myself that bold is beautiful, and mounted the steps. I stood where Marina had stood on April tenth when she came to visit me and knocked as she had knocked. If someone answered the door, I’d be Frank Anderson, canvassing the neighborhood on behalf of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (I was too old for Grit). If the lady of the house expressed an interest, I’d promise to come back with my sample case tomorrow.

No one answered. Maybe the lady of the house also worked. Maybe she was down the block, visiting a neighbor. Maybe she was in the bedroom that had been mine not long ago, sleeping off a drunk. It was mix-nox to me, as we say in the Land of Ago. The place was quiet, that was the important thing, and the sidewalk was deserted. Even Mrs. Alberta Hitchinson, the walker-equipped neighborhood sentry, wasn’t in evidence.

I descended from the porch in my limping sidesaddle fashion, started down the walk, turned as if I’d forgotten something, and peered under the steps. The.38 was there, half-buried in leaves with the short barrel poking out. I got down on my good knee, snagged it, and dropped it into the side pocket of my sport coat. I looked around and saw no one watching. I limped to my car, put the gun in the glove compartment, and drove away.

13

Instead of going back to Eden Fallows, I drove into downtown Dallas, stopping at a sporting goods store on the way to buy a gun-cleaning kit and a box of fresh ammo. The last thing I wanted was to have the.38 misfire or blow up in my face.

My next stop was the Adolphus. There were no rooms available until next week, the doorman told me — every hotel in Dallas was full for the president’s visit — but for a dollar tip, he was more than happy to park my car in the hotel lot. “Have to be gone by four, though. That’s when the heavy check-ins start.”

By then it was noon. It was only three or four blocks to Dealey Plaza, but I took my sweet time getting there. I was tired, and my headache was worse in spite of a Goody’s Powder. Texans drive with their horns, and every blast dug into my brain. I rested often, leaning against the sides of buildings and standing on my good leg like a heron. An off-duty taxi driver asked if I was okay; I assured him that I was. It was a lie. I was distraught and miserable. A man with a bum knee really shouldn’t have to carry the future of the world on his back.

I dropped my grateful butt onto the same bench where I’d sat in 1960, only days after arriving in Dallas. The elm that had shaded me then clattered bare branches today. I stretched out my aching knee, sighed with relief, then turned my attention to the ugly brick cube of the Book Depository. The windows overlooking Houston and Elm Streets glittered in the chilly afternoon sun. We know a secret, they said. We’re going to be famous, especially the one on the southeast corner of the sixth floor. We’re going to be famous, and you can’t stop us. A sense of stupid menace surrounded the building. And was it just me who thought so? I watched several people cross Elm to pass the building on the other side and thought not. Lee was inside that cube right now, and I was sure he was thinking many of the things I was thinking. Can I do this? Will I do this? Is it my destiny?

Robert’s not your brother anymore, I thought. Now I’m your brother, Lee, your brother of the gun. You just don’t know it.