opened my mouth and nothing came out.
'You
remember Kennedy?' he said.
I
nodded.
'How
old were you then?' Schembri asked.
A moment's
mental calculation. 'Seventeen.'
Schembri
smiled. 'Hell, you were just a kid.'
I
nodded.
'And
you remember where you were, what you were doing when you heard?'
I
nodded again. I remembered as if it were yesterday. Everyone remembers where
they were and what they were doing when they heard.
'Helluva
thing,' he said quietly. 'Just a helluva thing.'
He
fell silent for a moment.
I
clenched my fists. 'What do you know?' I asked. 'What were you going to say
about why I'm here?'
He
winked. 'Same time… same channel,' he whispered, leaning towards me across the
table. He started up from his chair. 'See ya tomorrow eh?'
I
watched him go, my mouth open, my eyes wide. I felt awkward and ignorant and
insubstantial. He disappeared into the throng heading for the doors and I felt
nothing.
January
of '63. The year started with fifty dead as Vietcong guerrillas shot down five
helicopters in the Mekong Delta. In February Kennedy warned Cuba off once more
as they fired rockets at a U.S. boat. On the upside, the Supreme Court released
one hundred and eighty-seven blacks jailed for a protest in South Carolina.
Martin Luther King was arrested once more in Alabama. Castro went to see
Khrushchev.
These
were important times, times of change and upheaval, but however significant
these events may have appeared they would be blown away in a heartbeat compared
to what was coming our way.
In
June Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader, was shot, and with Governor George
Wallace of Alabama still arguing with Kennedy, still defying the court order to
open the university to negroes, it seemed that these wars would continue
endlessly, that just as progress was made another event would turn it backwards
upon itself and undo whatever good had been done.
By
August of '63 Kennedy was a weary man. He'd lost his second son only thirty-six
hours after that son was born. A march of two hundred thousand people came to
Washington, and there in the masses were Marlon Brando, Burt Lancaster, Judy
Garland and Bob Dylan. The world was watching and listening, waiting to see
what would happen, and Kennedy knew it.
In
September Governor Wallace ordered his State Troopers to seal off Tuskegee High
School, and one hundred and eighty-nine negroes were arrested for protesting.
As
the Senate Committee listened to Joseph Valachi deliver the goods on organized
crime, as the U.S. officially recognized the South Vietnamese government,
discussions about a certain incident that was to occur in Texas occupied the
minds of a few men behind closed doors, and the world would change irrevocably.
Nathan
Verney and I, however, were consumed with girls.
It is
difficult now to understand how one single subject could so preoccupy an
individual's mind as to exclude almost everything. Yet it did.
I was
in 11th grade, and when I should have been working for my high school diploma I
was actually working on my strategies to catch the attention of Caroline
Lanafeuille or Linny Goldbourne. Perhaps Linny had in some way replaced Sheryl
Rose Bogazzi in my dreams. Linny was all light and life and laughter. No-one
really knew a great deal about her, 'cept that her father was some heavy
political guy. She was always there at the center of things, always the one with
the wildest stories and the funniest jokes, and if Caroline represented all the
things I would want in a girl, then Linny represented all that I could want, but never have. She was dark-haired, hazel-eyed, her mouth full and
passionate, and when she laughed a sound came from those lips that could have
driven sailors to the rocks. She was as much a part of the world I wanted to
belong to as Sheryl Rose
'You
remember Kennedy?' he said.
I
nodded.
'How
old were you then?' Schembri asked.
A moment's
mental calculation. 'Seventeen.'
Schembri
smiled. 'Hell, you were just a kid.'
I
nodded.
'And
you remember where you were, what you were doing when you heard?'
I
nodded again. I remembered as if it were yesterday. Everyone remembers where
they were and what they were doing when they heard.
'Helluva
thing,' he said quietly. 'Just a helluva thing.'
He
fell silent for a moment.
I
clenched my fists. 'What do you know?' I asked. 'What were you going to say
about why I'm here?'
He
winked. 'Same time… same channel,' he whispered, leaning towards me across the
table. He started up from his chair. 'See ya tomorrow eh?'
I
watched him go, my mouth open, my eyes wide. I felt awkward and ignorant and
insubstantial. He disappeared into the throng heading for the doors and I felt
nothing.
January
of '63. The year started with fifty dead as Vietcong guerrillas shot down five
helicopters in the Mekong Delta. In February Kennedy warned Cuba off once more
as they fired rockets at a U.S. boat. On the upside, the Supreme Court released
one hundred and eighty-seven blacks jailed for a protest in South Carolina.
Martin Luther King was arrested once more in Alabama. Castro went to see
Khrushchev.
These
were important times, times of change and upheaval, but however significant
these events may have appeared they would be blown away in a heartbeat compared
to what was coming our way.
In
June Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader, was shot, and with Governor George
Wallace of Alabama still arguing with Kennedy, still defying the court order to
open the university to negroes, it seemed that these wars would continue
endlessly, that just as progress was made another event would turn it backwards
upon itself and undo whatever good had been done.
By
August of '63 Kennedy was a weary man. He'd lost his second son only thirty-six
hours after that son was born. A march of two hundred thousand people came to
Washington, and there in the masses were Marlon Brando, Burt Lancaster, Judy
Garland and Bob Dylan. The world was watching and listening, waiting to see
what would happen, and Kennedy knew it.
In
September Governor Wallace ordered his State Troopers to seal off Tuskegee High
School, and one hundred and eighty-nine negroes were arrested for protesting.
As
the Senate Committee listened to Joseph Valachi deliver the goods on organized
crime, as the U.S. officially recognized the South Vietnamese government,
discussions about a certain incident that was to occur in Texas occupied the
minds of a few men behind closed doors, and the world would change irrevocably.
Nathan
Verney and I, however, were consumed with girls.
It is
difficult now to understand how one single subject could so preoccupy an
individual's mind as to exclude almost everything. Yet it did.
I was
in 11th grade, and when I should have been working for my high school diploma I
was actually working on my strategies to catch the attention of Caroline
Lanafeuille or Linny Goldbourne. Perhaps Linny had in some way replaced Sheryl
Rose Bogazzi in my dreams. Linny was all light and life and laughter. No-one
really knew a great deal about her, 'cept that her father was some heavy
political guy. She was always there at the center of things, always the one with
the wildest stories and the funniest jokes, and if Caroline represented all the
things I would want in a girl, then Linny represented all that I could want, but never have. She was dark-haired, hazel-eyed, her mouth full and
passionate, and when she laughed a sound came from those lips that could have
driven sailors to the rocks. She was as much a part of the world I wanted to
belong to as Sheryl Rose