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een a success.
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 seventytwo
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 checkins
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