Part V: Snakes – Then: November 22, 1963: #6 (Chapter 86)
We spent the morning marching behind a horse-drawn hay wagon, plucking shriveled ears off brittle stalks, and throwing them into the rickety wagon.
The wheels squeaked in
military rhythm with the crunch of our feet on the ground.
Very few words spoken.
Later, I would see on
television the horse-drawn carriage bearing the President’s body, reminded of
the silent cortège in the corn field, the military precision of stripping corn
stalks of their dead ears.
Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs.
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
To clear row after row
for the living.
By noon, my feet frozen,
I was starving. We returned to the C.A.P. armory, where we were issued hot
cocoa, apples, potato chips, and bologna sandwiches.
Inside, we sat on some
long benches, where P.J. and I huddled together, chewing our sandwiches in
silence.
P.J. dropped his sandwich
on his lap and looked me straight in the eye. “The world ended yesterday,” he
said as if he were stating a deep truth, “and our lives’ll be different because
of it.”
I wasn’t quite sure what
he meant, but I nodded.
“I thought about becoming
a priest.” He grabbed my shoulder and forced me to look into his face, his
eyes, now mean and slitty. He touched my neck with his sweaty hand.
I drew away from him. “My
cousin Danny wants to be a priest, too,” I said, not quite sure where this
conversation was leading. “When he says Mass in his backyard, I’m the altar
boy.”
“Girls can’t be altar
boys.”
“I know, but we can
pretend, can’t we?”
“Better be careful. My
mom knows a lady who cuts her hair short and dresses in men’s work clothes, and
now she’s a man. She’s even got a thing.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“Well, it’s true, so
there. I saw ‘it’ myself.”
“You’re full of baloney,
P.J. Bert. Now how would you know if someone had a thing or not?”
“Promise not to tell?”
“Promise!”
“Stick a needle in your
eye, and if you tell, pray to God you hope to die?”
“Yes, yes! Now tell me.”
“Well, one night, I got
up to pee, and I heard voices in my mom’s bedroom.”
“So?”
“She’s divorced, you
twit.”
“Oh.”
“So, I hear these voices,
and I’m curious, and I stand at her door, and I notice the door’s open a crack,
so I push it open a bit more, just to get a peek. It was Mom’s friend, and she
was just getting up from the bed, and I saw ‘it’ hanging between her legs.”
“Wow,” I said, vowing
never again to play altar boy. Although I knew P.J. was telling a tall tale – I
was 13 and knew people didn’t change sex just by dressing differently – but I
decided to play it safe and stop acting like a boy.
“So be careful. Anyway,”
he said, drawing in deep breath, “I’ve changed my mind about becoming a
priest.”
“Why?”
“The world’s become too
ugly now. Kennedy was our last hope.”
I felt the lump once
again crawling up my throat. “Why did he have to die, anyway?” I began to cry.
“I don’t know, but he
did, and that’s not going to change.” P.J. paused. “It’s no use now.”
“What’s no use?”
“Trying to save the
world. I thought I could make a difference, but it’s hopeless.”
I wanted to disagree with
P.J., tell him things would be okay again, but I couldn’t. While our President
lay in state, the usual comforting words seemed hollow. P.J. was right: things
were not okay, nor would they ever be okay.
JFK laying in state
Photographer: Abbie Rowe, National Park Service
“I’m going to become a
lawyer instead,” P.J. added, a steel edge to his voice. “And make lots of
money. Maybe have lots of women.”
Right.
The thought of any woman, let alone women, hanging on P.J.’s arm was almost enough to snap me out of my funk and make me laugh, but not quite.