November 22 1963

by Braver, Adam

  It will be given prompt attention, he was told.

  Out on the ambulance dock, Mrs. Kennedy insisted on riding with the casket. Al tried explaining to the Secret Service that it wasn’t safe. He’d have to keep the rollers down in the hearse and angle the casket in sideways, meaning that it couldn’t hook on to the peg that was there to keep it from moving and shifting. If she sat in the jump seat, a quick turn could cause the casket to smash her. But the Secret Service men weren’t listening. She could ride back there if she wanted to.

  Al and Peanuts loaded the casket into the back of the hearse, rocking and angling it to make it fit. Mrs. Kennedy stood to the side. He was aware of how she watched every move. It should’ve made him nervous, but her presence gave Al comfort. He opened the door for her and reached down to lift the jump seat, which was flattened on the floor. Seating her there was a bad idea, but it was out of his hands now. Al nodded to Mrs. Kennedy to let her know it was ready. She looked in and then froze in place, looking uncertain of how she’d get down into the well. Taking her elbow, Al gently guided her. Then the moment changed with a flash of light, and the sun burnt straight into his eyes, and it was hard to breathe, and Al realized he was pinned against the car by Secret Service men, his arm pulled behind his back.

  Mrs. Kennedy stopped. She glared at them. Without raising her voice above a whisper, she delivered a censure that would keep Al going for the rest of his life: “Leave that young man alone. That’s the only gentleman I’ve met since I’ve been here.”

  It would be a quick ride up Harry Hines. Al knew he could get them to Love Field in a matter of minutes. But he’d need to drive slowly, to ensure Mrs. Kennedy’s safety in back. O’Neal took one last drag off his Kool and then walked up to Kellerman in his bowlegged confidence, telling him they’d meet the agents at the tarmac. There was no time to see O’Neal’s expression change. Before he was even done talking, three agents jumped into the back of the hearse, two more in front. Kellerman ignored O’Neal, and slid into the driver’s seat. Police cleared the way. Bystanders leaned in. Tears and pale faces. Almost prostrate against the car. When finally there was an opening in the crowd, Kellerman gunned the car, taking it out of sight.

  O’Neal looked at Al, and then back at his disappearing car. “Goddamn,” he said. “Why, all those sons of bitches done stole my hearse.”

  Al nodded, watching the top of Mrs. Kennedy’s head fade away, hoping those sons of bitches didn’t take a curve too sudden.

  Sometime during the four hours it took to autopsy President Kennedy’s body at Bethesda Naval Hospital, a new casket was picked out for him. Larry O’Brien, who later went on to be commissioner of the National Basketball Association, had been waiting with Kenny O’Donnell and Dave Powers when he noticed that the handles on the bronze casket were bent. He turned to his colleagues and said, “God, we have to get a new casket.” Moments later they were in a car, heading to Gawler’s Sons on Wisconsin Avenue. They took an elevator up to the showroom, repeating over and over that they wanted to see the “middle-priced” caskets. Not the low end. And not the high. Only the “middle-priced” caskets. They selected a mahogany model, and had it and the bill dispatched to the hospital.

  Gawler’s Sons’ bill itemized everything. They were used to working with the government. Embalming. Shaving, dressing, and casketing the body. Services of funeral director and staff at the church and cemetery. Necessary Equipment. Wilbert Triune Vault. Solid mahogany casket, as selected. Total Services and merchandise: $3,160. They were paid immediately.

  Years later Larry O’Brien was asked why they insisted on a middle-priced casket. “I think what you were grasping for in your mind was he was one of the people,” O’Brien said. “He was sort of typical of America, an average American.”

  Peanuts and Al went out to eat at the waffle shop across the street from the O’Neal Funeral Home. It was eight o’clock, and by then nothing else was open. They hadn’t known what to do for the rest of the day, so they kept themselves busy doing lots of little somethings. They hadn’t spoken much. In fact, they’d barely even looked at each other most of the afternoon. They walked against the traffic light to the waffle shop and took their usual seats. They didn’t bother to look at the menu. Al told the waitress that he’d have a grilled cheese and a malt, and Peanuts looked up at her and said, “Make that two.” She looked at both of them kind of sad, and then she swallowed a lump so big anybody could’ve seen it and turned away.

  The food came quickly. Whereas they normally would have devoured it after a long day, both Peanuts and Al just stared at their plates now. The waitress sat on a stool at the end of the counter. She kept counting her checks over and over, in between fiddling with her nylons.

  Al looked at Peanuts. Neither one had touched his dinner. “Let’s go,” he said. “I don’t have much of an appetite.”

  It was a silent walk back to O’Neal’s. Al was afraid to talk, knowing the way things can build and build inside a person. He didn’t know what he might say or how he might say it.

  Once inside the funeral home, he walked straight back into the casket room, closed the door, and cried like he’d never cried before. Crying for all the strength he’d had to have that day. Crying for Mrs. Kennedy. And crying for the fact that he knew tomorrow would be coming no matter what, and he’d wake up again in his same bed, wondering if he’d done enough to make yesterday better.

  Al Rike wanted to hang up the phone while he was talking with his sister Carolyn. Once word got out that he’d actually been in the trauma room, she was one of many callers. Al hadn’t talked with any of the others, explaining he’d need to call back later, but he felt obligated not to brush Carolyn off as quickly. She had started the conversation saying, “Well?” And he said, “Well, what?” And she said, “You sure as heck know, ‘Well, what?’”

  He was forthcoming with a little information, at least, he thought, enough to satisfy her. She gasped when he confirmed that he’d been in the room with Mrs. Kennedy, and then there was a pause that sounded as if Carolyn might be crying. After regaining her composure, Carolyn started in with the questions. She wanted to know everything about the first lady, every detail and smell in the room.

  Al stopped listening. And then he told her he didn’t feel like talking about it right now.

  She said, “You going to keep something like that to yourself? You need to share the information.”

  He bit down on the underside of his lip, trying to will an end to the conversation without her feeling offended. The afternoon was just so deep inside him that he didn’t know how to tell it without a common language that would make it anybody’s story. Even the little bits that he had said about Mrs. Kennedy felt detached already—just lifeless descriptions.

  It was too soon to know if there would come a time when he’d talk nonstop about it. In fact, would there be a point when that was all he talked about? An hour or so in Parkland Memorial Hospital could define him, a calling card for the rest of his life. And as he would tell the story over the years, details might come and go. The experience may be refined. Sometimes he might be alone in the hospital room beside Mrs. Kennedy, other times he’d see her coming in and out of the room twice. Sometimes she dropped ashes, other times she didn’t. Sometimes Peanuts had more to say, sometimes he was barely there. Sometimes the argument over the body might have taken place in the hallway or the nurses’ station, sometimes in the doorway. Sometimes the ring slid onto the knuckle, sometimes it just stopped short. Sometimes Al’s arm was pinned. Sometimes the sun was not so bright. Sometimes she scared him, sometimes she comforted him. And sometimes the whole day was what drove Al to become a police officer.

  Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes.

  All these bits and pieces might collaborate, turning into a story that will be told so many times that it ends up true.

  But at that moment, Al wanted to be selfish. Bury it inside.

  His, alone.

  Until February of 1966, the bronze casket remained in
storage in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. It seems as though it was Bobby Kennedy’s idea to get rid of it, arguing that it belonged to his family and they could do with it what they pleased. Bobby is quoted in a phone conversation as saying, “What I would like to have done is take it to sea.” One can imagine that Vernon O’Neal’s initial persistence to take back the casket and display it in his Dallas mortuary must have spurred on the family’s need to destroy it. That thought had to be horrifying.

  The main concern expressed to Bobby was that his plan might be perceived as destroying evidence, and that in addition to the public perception, there could also be a legal issue. Lawson Knott, the administrator at the General Services Administration office, told Bobby that he needed authorization from the Department of Justice. On February 11, 1966, Nicholas Katzenbach, Bobby’s former deputy attorney general, who had now assumed the role of attorney general, wrote to Knott, explaining that he saw no possible evidentiary value to the casket. He expressed concern about its potential for public display, terming that notion “extremely offensive and contrary to public policy.” And, on a practical matter, he noted that it was clear that the casket could never be used for burial purposes.

  The casket was weighted with two hundred and forty pounds’ worth of sandbags and loaded onto a C-130 at Andrews Air Force base. It was February 16. 8:38 AM. The plane headed out over the Atlantic near Delaware, away from all traffic and commercial activities. At ten o’clock the casket was shoved out the tail hatch, guided down by parachutes. It landed softly, with only a trace of impact. It left no bubbles as it sank into the sea.

  MRS. KENNEDY IS ORGANIZING HERSELF

  IT’S LIKE IT IS WITH BIRDS. They hide their wounds and diseases. Instinctively they know they are prey, and any sign of weakness puts them at mortal risk. So by daylight the sick bird stands proud and tall, singing to the morning. And it is a song of longing, one of beauty and one of grace. The kind of song that causes all to take notice. But at night that bird closes her eyes, afraid she won’t wake up to see the next day. Afraid her song already will be forgotten.

  Jackie sits on a plane, or is it in the emergency room—no, it must be a plane. It must be Air Force One. Already she has spent too much time in hospitals. Grief has become a part of her. Like a growth inside.

  The plane idles on the tarmac at Love Field, shaking and rattling, the smell of fumes leaking through the vents. And though she sits in a quiet space, there is a constant bustle around her. She can hear the reporters moving through the cabin, balancing reverence and duty. The press is being hastily arranged: Johnson can’t wait; his political instinct is too developed. Almost freakish. Despite the staging, they give her space. The bedroom, all to herself. Nobody knows what to do. Someone had asked if she wanted company, and she’d nodded her head. They took that as a no. They’re trying to be respectful, she supposes.

  The plane jolts again, as though a large cache of luggage is being loaded. She figures it is her husband. She feels for her wedding ring before remembering how she placed it on his finger once the surgeons had given up. It’s only been an hour and twenty minutes, but it feels like a lifetime ago. It seems impossible that he is lying in a casket. It also seems impossible that he was sitting next to her when the day started. Already he is being reduced to a series of still memories. Even his blood on her dress seems like an old stain or part of the pattern.

  But she waits. Rubbing her hands together, sometimes too sweaty, sometimes not sweaty enough, made emptier by the absence of her ring. In her arm is a pain from the needle’s stick. It would calm her down, the doctor said. But she wanted more than calm. Don’t you have something that can make it all go away? Something that will reverse time? She didn’t say that. She should have.

  Jackie waits in the bedroom. She is only waiting because she has been told to wait. Always the good girl. The one who waits.

  Sophisticated.

  Charming.

  Graceful.

  Demure.

  She used to be known by adjectives. Now she is just an object. There are no modifiers to describe her.

  Kenny O’Donnell knocks on the door. He peers in without opening it all the way. Although his hair is parted evenly with the combed streaks still kempt, his face looks tired, drawn, and pale, like someone who knows 4 AM. He doesn’t appear confident, nor does he seem weak. He says her name once. His eyes keep to the floor. “Mrs. Kennedy,” he says again. Even from where she sits, she can smell the tobacco on his breath.

  She isn’t ignoring him. It’s just that she has forgotten how to speak. The same way one momentarily forgets how to tie her shoes, or spell the simplest of words, or her first pet’s name. If she could speak, she would tell him it’s okay to look her in the eye.

  “They’ll be swearing in the new president momentarily,” he says. “He requests that you be there. Johnson wants you by his side.”

  If she could speak, she would tell him no. That she cannot imagine anything more humiliating and distasteful. But she can’t speak. All she can do is shake her head.

  “For the good of the country, Johnson is saying.” O’Donnell looks at the wall, almost ashamed at the words coming out of his mouth. He clearly has been sent to convince her. That’s not surprising, though. The industry of politics is about persuasion, not conviction. He starts to speak again, but then stops. “Ten minutes,” he says, looking at his watch. “Ten minutes until the swearing in.”

  She continues to shake her head.

  “Mrs. Kennedy, I know this is . . . But the eyes of the world are watching. The public needs to know that we will be okay.”

  “Okay?” She is not sure if she said that or just thought it. But she sees O’Donnell swallow, the lump in his throat grown cancerously, while a bead of sweat forms just above his eyebrows. He licks his lips and then smacks them, as though he intended to say something. But there is just a helpless breath.

  Part of her would really like to believe that this will all be over in ten minutes. That they’ll be okay. But Jack’s blood is still on her dress. His hair still on the pillow. Her lipstick still on what is left of his cheek. Maybe in politics the story line can shift that quickly, but this is her life, and she can’t just swear in somebody new to put things back to normal. At this point, she doesn’t even believe in normal. Nothing will heal this. The doctors can try to pump her full of Vistaril and other drugs to dull her nerves, but there isn’t a medication invented yet that can reach that place inside her that will not stop screaming, the one that even God can’t touch.

  “Mrs. Kennedy, it is important that you . . .”

  “You really think . . . ?”

  “I do.”

  She drops her face into her palms. There is no way. She cannot imagine posing with Johnson. Being before cameras. She jerks up suddenly, unsure of whose hands are touching her face. Feeling the confidence of words in her throat. “Tell him I’m sorry, Kenny. Tell him I can’t. Whatever you need to say.”

  “I wish you would reconsider, Mrs. Kennedy. The country is looking to you for hope, Mrs. Kennedy. They’re not looking to Johnson. They’re looking to you.”

  She wishes she could believe him. But he seems too convinced, as though his loyalty has been questioned at the policy table. “And for whom are you speaking?” she asks.

  This startles O’Donnell. He backs out of the doorway and then steps forward again. Voices rustle. A woman’s voice, followed by a man’s, a long, unfamiliar drawl that seems too jovial for the moment. And then she hears laughing. Laughing? Finally, there is a hush when footsteps rock the plane. Heavy and languid.

  “Is he on board?” she asks.

  “Judge Hughes is getting ready to administer the oath. Mrs. Johnson is also here.”

  “They fly on Air Force Two.”

  “He is practically president now, Mrs. Kennedy.”

  “But they fly on Air Force Two.”

  O’Donnell steps all the way into her quarters. He shuts the door behind him. “Jackie,” he says,
moving closer to her. “You know I . . .”

  “No.” She needs to cry, but they’ve got her so doped that it has dried her out.

  “If Johnson had just done his job,” O’Donnell says, “just kept control of Texas like he was supposed to, then . . . If he had just done what he was supposed to do.”

  “Worthless,” she says. A simple, disdainful word. The perfect word for how she felt about having to take this trip. And Jack’s aides all knew it, mumbling and groaning at taking a fundraising trip to mend the fractures between Texas Democrats. Senator Yarborough and Governor Connally had been sniping, and Johnson, supposed to be the peacemaker, jumped right into it with Yarborough. Sniped at each other all through breakfast, and, like the parent of two petulant children, Jack insisted Yarborough and Johnson ride together in the motorcade. Smile and learn to get along. That’s what the whole trip was for. What it’s all ended up for. Worthless. She says it one more time, feeling that little bit of a scream work its way through her numbed body.

  “Nevertheless, you’re going to have be there, Jackie. I don’t see any way . . .”

  “Tell him no.”

  “I’ll tell him you may not be up for it. That you are considering.”

  “Whom do you work for now, Kenny?”

  “I don’t like his people any more than Jack does.”

  “Jack’s dead, Kenny.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She pauses and considers how little control she has; has it been lost that easily? Worthless, she thinks.