BLACK PRESIDENT, Chapter 21. Rudy learns JFK is shot–Sarah is devastated. Birdie tries to shield the Kennedy kids from tragedy. Sal re-thinks Rudy's wild story(seems more true!).
https://www.sos.mo.gov/wolfner/bibliographies/jfkassassination.asp
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
November 22, 1963
Rudy Tempers threw some clothes into a backpack around 8:30AM and walked out of his apartment. He soon arrived at the end of Ashby Avenue, right at the freeway entrance, where he held up his sign and stuck out his thumb. It was Friday and every driver who passed by that morning read his hastily-scrawled “Seattle or Bust!” The first ride Rudy scored was a large truck hauling a fleet of new Chevys up north. The driver wasn’t very talkative so Rudy quit trying to make conversation. After dropping cars off at a dealership, refueling and grabbing breakfast at a truckstop, they passed through Sacramento around noon. First the cab’s radio reported current temperature of 75 degrees, then cut to music. The heavy pounding blues of Joe Turner had just begun when suddenly it was cut short.
“We interrupt this program for a special bulletin. President Kennedy has been shot and seriously wounded in Dallas, Texas. We will bring you updates as soon as they appear. To repeat, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy has been seriously wounded during his motorcade ride through Dallas, Texas.” Suddenly the quiet truck driver was alert and expressing his shock with his rider.
“Jesus Christ! President Kennedy...shot...”
Rudy instantly had the bizarre thought that Kennedy had been shot by Sarah, that she had finally flipped out and had flown to Texas, bought a rifle and popped him one. Revenge for her seduction. But, the next instant that scenario seemed hardly possible, given Sarah’s apparent gentle nature.
While the word of Kennedy’s assassination was going out on all the news services, Mr. D and four other shooters were scrambling to get as far from the scene as possible. Two shooters at the Grassy Knoll turned themselves into “hobos,” by rolling in the dirt and following Jack Ruby out past the back of the Texas Book Depository to waiting cars. Another two from the Book Depository became “maintenance men,” carrying garbage down from the fourth floor to the first floor and out to a waiting garbage dumptruck. On his own, across the plaza, Mr. D became a highway inspector. His rifle had been left tied to the top rung of the ladder he’d stood on, dangling down in the manhole. The location had given him the best dead-on aim at Kennedy of anybody. With his arm planted firmly on the pavement, he had nailed Kennedy right in the head as the motorcade had approached, and he would later scoff at the theories of how one shooter from the Book Depository could deliver so many shots, including one that would make the President’s head rocket backwards. Hell, that had been his bullet that had knocked Kennedy back, almost tearing his head off. Basic law of physics.
As the motorcade had approached the overpass, Mr. D had seen the first couple of bullets strike the President, watched close-up through the scope as Kennedy winced in pain from the neck wound, Jackie’s pink clothes in and out of the frame, John Connally doubling over in front. It was then just a matter of filling the lens with Kennedy’s face and slowly pulling the trigger. And BOOM. It had been no different than aiming at a stationery target that was being reeled back toward the shooting booth at a practice range. All the other shooters had had to try and catch the shifting Kennedy in their sights, and most had done an admirable job from their various distances. But really, he had been the only one with The Shot. And when the big one hit there was no doubt that Kennedy’s game was over. Mr. D had seen Kennedy looking right and left. Then his distorted face had gone blank, just as blank as a white piece of paper.
As Mr. D walked down the asphalt road, away from the overpass, he had little fear of being caught. Pre-planning had covered all contingencies. Within the hour the manhole inside which he had crouched was tarred and graveled over by a conscientious road crew.
Sarah was doing her daily laundry, grabbing the piles of diapers, miniature pants and shirts times two and all the little socks, placing the heaps of soiled baby clothes into the machine when her grandmother Bela entered the washroom with tears streaming down her face. Sarah dropped the clothes and went right to her side.
“What’s wrong! Is it...Leon...?” asked Sarah, reliving the news of his fall from the roof just five months before.
“Kennedy...President Kennedy’s been wounded,” was how it came out of Bela’s mouth, no punches pulled. Had she been aware of her daughter’s affinity with the President of the United States, she might have tried a gentler approach.
“Somebody shot’em in Dallas...jus heard bout it on da TV.”
Sarah found a chair and sat down. Tears welled up in her eyes and streamed down her cheeks, dropping one by one off her chin onto her blouse. The women hugged, cried together, then called down to the garage where Leon was surpervising some repairs, doing paperwork and other lightweight tasks.
“Hello, Ron’s Auto,” he answered.
“Lee...honey...it’s me,” said Sarah trying to compose herself. “Have you heard about Kennedy?”
“Hi sweetheart. Yeah. Heard on the radio a few minutes ago. They interrupted the news. Was going to call you in a few minutes. Y ou...OK?”
“Do you think he’ll be alright? she asked him, speaking haltingly into the phone.
“He’s dead, honey,” Leon said bluntly. “They just announced it. He’s gone.”
Bela was surprised to see her daughter’s subdued distress suddenly escalate into heavy sobbing. By one-thirty in the afternoon it seemed like everyone down around Ron’s garage was tearful, running this way and that, deeply affected by the news of Kennedy’s assassination. Cars were moving erratically in the street, taking turns faster than usual, darting around, tires squealing, as if a part of the world had been thrown off-kilter, into a rarely-used gear. At the same time, some people who were walking on the sidewalk seemed slowed down, moving in a trance. Just as soon as word of the assassination attempt had interrupted the TV program she, John John and Caroline had been watching, Birdie had moved swiftly to turn off the console. Gone were the furry puppets, suddenly replaced by the familiar face of Walter Cronkite, his words telling the horrific story. Caroline spoke first.
“That man said daddy’s name.”
Birdie had caught enough of the drift of the broadcast to be cautious.
“Yes, honey. But we need to get a snack now. Birdie’s hungry again.” But Caroline was persistent.
“That man said our daddy’s been shot.”
Birdie could see that Carolyn wasn’t going to let go. The news bulletin which had so abruptly interrupted their show had had an ominous tone that was hard to dismiss. Kneeling down next to the children, wrapping her heavy arms around them, Birdie tried to contain her own personal feelings regarding the news she’d just heard. But right then the quietude of the room they inhabited was shattered, first by the sound of running footsteps, and then the door bursting open. Two secret service agents, a man Birdie knew as “Don,” along with Mr. Hamilton, head of security at the White House, approached the children, their eyes betraying the intensity of their mission.
“We need to move John and Caroline to a safer location, Birdie. You can help by accompanying them,” said Don, not bothering to waste time with pleasantries. Birdie wanted to ask what was happening, but knew enough to just obey orders. It was obvious the shooting was already affecting the lives of his children. As the men hustled them all down the hall, then into the grey world of subterranean hallways, stained cement walls and floors leading to the underground White House bunker, the possibility of Kennedy actually being dead from his wounds struck Birdie with full force. She held her tears back, though, and kept her eyes on John John and Caroline. Their fearful, questioning looks called for her constant reassurance as the group’s footsteps echoed endlessly in all directions.
*******
At the Coca Cola bottling plant, Sal was almost falling asleep at the noon hour shift while trying to watch the seven-ounce bottles stream by in front of the x-ray machine, when the belt suddenly stopped, jolting him to attention.
“Wha...what’s happening?” he shouted down to Sonny, who was busy shutting down the machine that filled each bottle with the Classic Coke concoction of sugar water, carbonated syrup, and acid strong enough to dissolve nails.
They got Kennedy, blew his brains out in Dallas,” said Sonny, as tackless as usual.
“Jesus Christ, God almighty, no shit?” Sal stood and looked around the plant. He had never heard it so quiet before, as if someone had pulled the plug on a loud TV set. He wondered if it would remain shut down for the entire day or kick in again soon; he hesitated to wander too far from his post.
“Sonny...are they closing for the day?”
“Don’t know. Probably not, knowing management. But at least they can say they gave it a moment of silence.”
Suddenly, Sal thought of old Rudy and all the heckling they had given him, running him out of there. For some reason the preposterous story Rudy had told, about the woman who screwed Kennedy, combined with the news of assassination, made the idea of the woman more real to him. Two weird happenings. Maybe Kennedy had been shot by a jealous husband. Sal had heard somewhere that in Texas it’s legal to shoot an adulterer messing with your wife, and, for that matter, even the wife herself. But whether or not it was that kind of thing that got Kennedy killed, Rudy’s story had suddenly gained some credibility.
Sal and his fellow Coke workers would later say to friends that they heard about a woman other than Jackie that JFK screwed and, in doing so, got just a little of the after-glow from the dying ember that was Camelot. After the plant closed down that afternoon, Sal went off to the nearby skating rink, Iceland in Berkeley, which, surprisingly enough, was still open. He rented a pair of skates and glided out on the ice, into a space probably 30 degrees colder than the November air outside. It didn’t take long for Sal to notice that he was the only person present, maybe the only American who had decided it was appropriate to mourn a fallen President in that manner. The sound of his skates digging into the frozen surface on each turn was surprisingly loud, he remembered. After about fifteen minutes the manager of the facility announced over loud speakers that they would be closing in tribute to JFK.
One of those events where most of us can recall exactly where we were and how and when we got the news. And, to this day, we don't know but what your version of things is closer to the truth than what we were told.