Lee Harvey Oswald and Me

A short story
by Maggie Shearon

I always figured it was Lee Harvey Oswald's fault. Or maybe the Cubans, the Russians, the Mafia, the CIA. I mean who the hell shot Kennedy anyway? All of them up there, smoking those cigars, running numbers for the guys in Jersey, poking little flags into Commie territory, all just sitting around waiting for that big old convertible to drive on by. What the hell did they think would happen? It's an Irish story, right, Rose?

Anyway, Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy and slam! Danny Boy Malloy was back in Philadelphia, pulled from my everlasting nap, dreaming of milk and hearts, slammed into it all again. There I was, looking for Momma, looking for Da, seeing some child that wasn't me there on the couch, watching that console television set, and Kennedy all over that television set, on that one day when Oswald shot Kennedy and I had one fresh memory.

How long is eternity? A long time, or just a little minute from our day? A minute, till your head bumps back against your chair, and then you wake with a start, wondering what you must have missed?

Napping. Lee Harvey Oswald caught them napping, I guess. But not me: I was gone already, still my newborn self, dead in my swaddling clothes.

It hurts, this rush of air, this shift of time, a thousand tiny claws against my skin. Without my mother? Without the heat of her blood, without the beat of her heart, me now, woken from the deep sleep that only babies and the dead remember, swimming in oblivion, there in that limbo where all babies go. Wherever I was, it must not have been remarkable.

And I'd been baptized probably, I would have thought, but maybe with poisoned water, alive then gone, gone they thought, gone I thought, except for the crying and the whispering and the prayers and the remembering some first sound: the low hum of lights, squish-squish nurses' shoes. Baby coughs, weak-lunged tears, clicking rosaries and mumbled prayers for the slow surrender of a wound-down clock.

More whispers next. I learned to be a good listener. With practice, you can even whisper the questions you want to have answered, and then listen for the answers, while they put their hands to their faces and whisper, "Why can't I let him go?"

Did Jesus whisper in my ear? I heard him say, "Relax, nap time anyway, don't you worry about it, Danny Boy. Don't worry about the now time, and don't worry about the future new time. Most of all, don't worry yourself about those Kennedys. There's more where that one came from. Just get some rest, Danny, more playtimes ahead." Did he whisper? I can't remember that whisper, but it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

And later do I remember the falling, falling into the world with one dead Kennedy and ten million Irish wailing his name? Woken from my nap in my sleeping, drifting shell, tossed back into the now time of slamming into a remembering. But do I remember it, or did I later just make up the words?

But I was back, slammed into a new time of disordered space, home now, to see what I had left.

The first thing I noticed was that television set. There was a girl there; she looks like me, and she's watching me, but she doesn't know it yet. She's two, maybe three. Pink dress, white socks, blue shoes, spilled milk, and old pee.

There was a woman there. I watched her smoke a cigarette. She smelled like something underneath, like salt and hospitals: Momma.

Later that day, Da came home too. He told her the boss let everybody out early, told the guys to get home and watch it on their television sets. Cement dust and metal pipe, dressed in the city, no not the city, but the layer just under the city that carries the water. Juicy Fruit gum in his pocket.

"Gotta tinkle, Momma" the girl said to the momma on the couch, leaning into the television, crying and smoking and crying some more. Kennedy shot? Kennedy shot. In that convertible. His head in Jackie's lap. Kennedy. Our Kennedy. And the little girl cries, and the mother turns, and the ashes fall over the wet pink dress, but it doesn't matter now, not with Kennedy shot.

The girl fiddles with the folds of her wet dress, while no eyes ever leave the television set. And Momma says this: "Is it true, is it true, is he gone our Kennedy, our president, our hope, and our man? And he was a fine president, and so handsome, and such a strong swimmer. Oh god, his poor mother, Rose. Is it true? Maybe they aren't telling us, Dan, maybe Walter Cronkite isn't telling us, they want to be sure he is okay first. Maybe he will be okay. Oh John is gone. Our president is gone. In the name of the Father. Ah look, they're showing it again, they are showing it again—look at Jackie holding him there, look at Jackie. And of the Son. Oh Sweet Jesus, please take care of John F. Kennedy and Jackie and John-John and Caroline. So young. So young. And of the Holy Ghost. Our president, Catholic, he was a Catholic, Jesus. Finally a Catholic. And what will happen to Jackie and little Caroline? Amen. Poor poor John-boy, oh poor poor little boy without your father, and he was such a good father, oh poor Jackie, and what will happen to us now? First Danny Boy and now the president all leaving us, all gone." She says this while she clutches her rosaries and puffs her cigarettes.

"Come back come back," my mother screaming a vibration of missing that tosses me from my napping. Sorry Momma, no president, just a little burned heart, pulled back into their red brick bleeding.

"Here I am," I want to shout, awake with the vibration of something not right. But they are keening for their Kennedy, calling back their president. He had one moment in a Cadillac, now calling that eternity.

When the television stations had all signed off, Da picked up the girl, and Momma put out her cigarette. I pressed my face against the tube, stretched my arms along the wood; I felt warmer then.

A couple days later, Ruby killed Oswald and Ruby kept his mouth shut. We watched it on the console television set.

Copyright 2007 by Maggie Shearon