Jackie oughtn’t watch.
Yet she waited, heart in wild rhythm,
for The Kennedy Conspiracy Theories to begin. Anniversaries of the incident
were hard, the ten years intervening barely helped. She would finally watch.
Jackie set aside the stack of papers from her latest volunteer committee. She made her
way across the plush aquamarine carpet and pushed the intercom button.
“I’ll have lunch now. In my sitting room…The usual Friday diet plate will be fine. What’s
on Ari’s calender?... In Paris until Monday. Okay, then. Consuela? Bring a pitcher of daiquiris,
too.”
Jackie opened the drapes. The cold steel and concrete of Fifth Avenue below looked nothing
like Dallas in March. That unpleasantness belongs to a different time and place. It doesn’t matter
anymore. She lit a cigarette with the big ceramic table lighter, inhaling deeply.
When the maid left, Jackie turned the television’s volume knob up. Words and images veered
in and out of her focus. The Warren Commission. Lee Harvey Oswald.
The KGB. Castro… Did someone else show up as well, with an agenda of his own?
Everything afterwards was a blur. She only remembered her silly hat...
[...read the rest of the story...]
I was old enough to understand some of what was going; plenty old enough to have listened to the adults and teachers around me discuss the whole thing for the next ten years; go to an elective afternoon class to rewatch the McGruder film six times and discuss it among the the rest of the 8th graders in the class...cruelty newly blossomed...; Lee Harvey Oswald's name; Robert, and Sirhan Sirhan...and the new RFK brings all of those thoughts and images back. This was a darkly wonderful denouement. Thank you...*said with a faint smile at the irony*
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