On November 22, 1963, Joan sat on the gym floor, dressed out for gym class when the news of President Kennedy’s assassination blared through the loud speakers, reverberating down the halls.
Coach Mancini came out of the office to talk to her girls, tears streaming down her face. All stood as she gave the final report.
No one wanted to believe it. What if the news reports were wrong? Maybe he wasn’t that badly hurt. Maybe someone else had been shot.
Mrs. Mancini took a deep breath in between all of the ‘what-ifs’ and began to sob. She suddenly shifted from her class, eyeing the comfort of her office, retreating and shutting the door.
Joan looked around the gym floor and spotted a wall free to sit. Her friends followed, mimicking her crossed-legged sit and dumb-stricken look.
Before hearing the news, basketballs had been checked out for shooting through the inside hoops. Now, Trudy and Ellen started dribbling the balls back to Joan and others, prompting a back and forth dribble. The balls made a hollow BOING sound. Joan thought of the week prior when students and faculty had been gliding across this waxed wooden floor for the monthly sock hop, gyrating to Elvis and Bill Hayley and his Comets. The sock hop had been exhilarating fun and now this doom, this hollow sound.
An early June evening found Joan and a couple of friends sitting at a dark, ornate table in the Exodus Library. Cyndee held up the long crumpled piece of paper Mr. Gardner had printed up. “He can’t want us to go through this whole list for such a short ‘fun’ assignment?”
Joan shook her head no. “He wants us to choose a few reads about Merlin and King Arthur.”
“Yeah, I think, he’s trying to give us a break from the thirteen colonies.” Loyal had already jumped up, grabbed the list out of Cyndee’s hands, and headed for filing cabinets and correct rows.
“Here,” Loyal said. “This’ll cheer up your mood.” He plopped “The Crystal Cave” in front of Joan on the dark table.
Cyndee popped her head up from her story. “Did Guinevere have any other lovers besides Sir Lancelot?”
Loyal gave Joan a you’ve-got-to-be kidding look before answering. “I don’t think so.”
Joan buried her head back in her book, feeling way to warm and comfy. She couldn’t concentrate on what she read, dangerously close to falling asleep. She thought of the two men in dark suits, chasing her in so many dreams. She still didn’t know why. Her mind wandered to soldiers in camouflage, searching for an enemy in darkness. She prayed they could stay safe.
Now, when Joan thought of Vietnam, she remembered President Kennedy’s assassination. The two events had woven together in her memory like and intricate tapestry. She replayed the news clip in her head of Jackie reaching over the backseat of the convertible, trying to grab the secret service agent when the shots rang out. Jackie, stoic in the blood splattered pink suit, standing next to the Johnsons as Lyndon was sworn in as President on the Texas tarmac, waiting for the flight back to Andrews Air Force Base and Washington DC. Joan pictured John John as he saluted his father’s coffin, proceeding toward its final resting place where the eternal flame burned.
Countless happier images rolled through Joan’s brain: John John hiding under his father’s desk in the Oval Office, Caroline steering her father’s sailboat in Nantucket. “Camelot is really over,” Joan whispered as the library closing lights flickered off and on.
“Lost in your thoughts, Joan?” Cyndee asked. “Did you say something?”
“No,” Joan answered. “Not really.”
Janis Lee Scott is an author from the San Joaquin Valley. She now lives in Oregon, writing and painting cows and lighthouses. She is a writer, a mother, a grandmother, and a volunteer. She is the official album artist for up-and-coming country and western star Reverend Shane.