He pulled up outside the building, and I got out to unload the wheelchair and Lon. The driver called, “Need any help, sir? Glad to pitch in.” They are so polite in Texas.
“Thanks, I’m used to it,” I said.
Indeed, Lon somehow willed himself to be lighter. I don’t know how he managed to vanquish the laws of physics, but it seemed he had obliterated a good twenty pounds of matter from the universe, and I fairly tossed him into the chair. Then I paid the driver, $1.75 plus a quarter tip, and turned to wheel Lon up the steps to the North Dallas Medical Arts Building. Damn, the driver seemed to linger, waiting for me to call for help to pull Lon up the steps, but then another fare slipped into the cab, and off they went.
I wheeled Lon the half block down Poydras and turned him left – that is, west, if it matters – and slowly down Elm a block to the Dal-Tex Building. Meanwhile, the threat of rain had cleared itself up; a broad, cloudless Texas sky vaulted overhead, full of brightness. In the opening between Dal-Tex and the County Records Building on our side of the street, I could see the crowd gathered in front of the Book Depository; it seemed like they were three or four deep already, and there were batches of people across the street, on the grass of the plaza. I wonder if it was as merry as it seemed or if that’s my memory playing tricks, filtering through the knowledge of the event that I knew was about to occur.
I suppose that was one America there, gathered gaily in the sunlight. You could hear indistinct crowd noises, a kind of purr or mutter from the breast of the mob, somehow fueled by happiness, glamour, hope, good thoughts of self and president and country. I knew I was about to take all that away and didn’t feel particularly great about it, but I felt – I say this over and over, do you think I’m overcompensating a bit? – I felt that in the long run, when things settled down, even if we never healed our wounds over the young man slain, our collective future would be brighter and fewer boys would come home in boxes or wheelchairs.
“Hugh,” Lon said, “I’ve got a great idea. Let’s not do this. Let’s take a cab to the airport and fly to Tijuana. We’ll spend the next six weeks drinking margaritas and screwing whores, even if I can’t screw anything. How does that sound?”
“You can’t screw whores because of a tragedy called paraplegia, and I can’t screw whores because of a tragedy called marriage,” I said. “Even if we both dream of whores, that’s the end of that.”
“You’re right. I guess we ought to go ahead.”
“Besides,” I said, “we can’t find any cabs. This isn’t Manhattan, you know.”
At Elm and Houston, we got a good look at the celebration. More and more people seemed to be gathering and spreading across the grass of the plaza as if it were some racecourse infield or county fair. The sun was bright, and I could see hats, cameras, and sunglasses and feel those positive feelings in the air. From pop music: “good vibrations.” It felt more like a circus or ball game than a political event, but I suppose that had to do with the unique identities of Jack and Jackie, who were more like movie stars than politicians.
When the light changed, I pushed Lon across Elm, then we turned up the street, to the entrance of the Dal-Tex Building. I checked my watch. It was 12:07 and felt a little early. But it wasn’t easy going up Elm, with the crowd continuing to rush down to get a good place to view the Kennedys, and a few times I had to pull back or turn sharply to avoid colliding with anybody.
When I got to the three broad steps that led to the entrance of the Dal-Tex Building, it was 12:15. I turned Lon outward and pulled him up the steps, then, evading this fellow and that, pivoted him and steered him to the main entrance. Luckily there were no revolving doors, a royal ordeal for anyone in a wheelchair. Someone held the door for us, and I slid into the dark lobby. To the right, behind a thick window and illuminated from within by fluorescent lighting, full of bustle, was an office of the sheriff of Dallas County. I could see a few uniformed deputies inside, but mainly, it was women at desks with typewriters, talking on phones or filling out official documents. There was a receiving counter, and a few people stood in line to be waited on by a sergeant. No one in there showed the slightest awareness that in a few minutes, the president of the United States would come by in a Lincoln limo, waving happily to the folks, breathing the sweet air, and enjoying the lush sunshine one last time.
I got to the elevators, punched up, and waited till a door opened. A few late stragglers were there, and I pulled Lon to the side to let them out, as they straightened hats or pulled ties tighter or shrugged into jackets against the slight chill in the air. When the car was empty, I backed Lon in, and the doors were just about shut when a woman ducked in. She smiled, punched – ah – three, and turned and asked me for a floor. “Six,” I said, because lying was natural to my state of being. Again: overcaution, a sign of paranoia, fear, lack of confidence.
The three of us rose in silence, and she got out at three, smiling, turning to say politely (as usual), “Good afternoon,” and I think we both muttered something. Then I quickly hit seven to make sure the elevator continued its ascent after the stop on six.
At seven, I pushed Lon out. The hall was darkish, empty, with no sign of human buzz or hum anywhere. Most people had gone to the plaza to see President Kennedy.
I pushed Lon down the hall, watching the signs on or at the doorways slide by, watching the numbers climb, until at last we came to an intersection and turned to the left, down another, better-lit corridor (the offices to the right, behind opaque glass, had exterior windows).
FUNTASTIC FASHIONS
MARY JANE JUNIORS
712
I pushed the door and stepped into the two-room office suite that was the headquarters of Funtastic Fashions, apparently, from the idealized pictures on the wall, some kind of line for naive young women whom you might find in the farm belt, all wholesome gingham and flower-patterned jumpers and dresses in heavy patterns, as worn, in the artist’s sketches, by pictograms representing the perfect, happy, well-adjusted junior miss. Odd how some details stick in mind: in one, Our Heroine was running with a dog, and the dog reminded me of a neighbor’s dog from some distant past. I could remember the dog, though not the neighbor or the city or the year. But the dog rang a bell.
I pulled the door softly shut, hearing it click locked, and pushed Lon across wood flooring beyond the secretary’s desk. The name on the door to the boss’s office was simple: Mr. Goldberg. It meant nothing to me; nor did the pictures on the wall of a middle-aged fellow who looked to be Jewish, with a wife and three children, all five beaming at the success Mr. Goldberg had made in Dallas, Texas. I slid Lon into the boss’s office, a square, high-ceilinged wood-floored room full of light, with an overhead fan rotating sluggishly with a slight hum. It was dominated by two large windows, and immediately across the way, I could see the upper floor of the Texas Book Depository. I pushed Lon to the window, and as we approached, the angles widened and revealed, in all its detail and seething mass of witnesses along both curbs, the spectacle of Elm Street trending left as it descended the gentlest of inclines, shielded at our end by the canopy of a few oak trees, yielding to the broadness of the plaza, green in bright sun, dotted with last-minute scurriers trying to get into at least the third rank along the curb for maximum proximity to the glamour couple. From our vantage, we could not see the grassy knoll, we could not see the amphitheater, the pillars, the marble benches, all the flourishes of Athens on a good day in 300 B.C., that the Texan city fathers had constructed there. But we could see every square inch of Elm Street once it emerged from the trees.