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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,