Top Down
Page 15
“If you weren’t so much younger than me I’d grab you and hug you,” I joked.
“You had your chance and passed on that, Jack.” She laughed.
I thanked her for the material and the cooperation seven or eight times in different ways, including putting a hand on hers across the table. It was a gesture of gratitude and I assumed she took it that way. We were not about to jump in bed for a nooner—no matter old memories from a cold room, right?
“Got a title for the book?” she asked, getting ready to leave.
“No, no. I’ve got to put it all together and write the damn thing first. Then find a publisher, which might not be that easy. Our big bubble top story might not seem as fascinating now as it would have forty years ago.”
Marti said: “How about The Great Lindenwald Shooting for a title?”
“That could work, we’ll see,” I said, writing it down on a notebook that I pulled out of a pocket. A carryover from my reporting days. Old habits die hard.
“Shootout at the O.K. Mansion?”
I laughed—but didn’t write it down.
“Top Down?” she said. “That’s it!”
I said, “Okay, but it might sound to some people like something to do with a women’s brassiere.”
“General, you have a young marine’s mind, you dirty old marine,” Marti said.
We both laughed, stood, and said good-bye with a good hug.
And then she sat right back down. “Jack, there’s something here that doesn’t quite add up.”
I sat down, too.
“You’re right about doing a book now about us—Dad and all the rest. That story may, in fact, already be gone forever. So?”
“So? What do you mean, ‘so’?”
“So … well, I don’t know.” It was clear to me that she was thinking about something else.
She sighed and was back on her feet. Whatever else was in her mind had not yet come into full focus.
“It was great to see you again,” Marti said.
“Same here.” And I meant that so very much. This had been a treat for me in every way.
We parted for a second time in forty years but with no second big hug.
But before I could get the check from the waiter she was back. She was crying huge tears. She raised her hands and arms toward me and embraced me with a force of affection that nearly knocked me over.
“I just figured it out, Jack,” she said looking up at me, her voice quiet and soft. “You ran away to the marines to avoid running our story in the paper. If you had stayed a reporter you would have done it, you would have had to do it. You would have wiggled out of that off-the-record stuff. You risked your life in Vietnam to keep yourself from doing something really, really awful that would have made you feel guilty and would have made me hate you for life.”
And then she was really gone. This time for good.
Smart Marti was right—almost. I also had figured that if I was going to war anyway, I might as well do it the old-fashioned way—with the marines. But now that Marti had laid out what had really happened so directly and out loud, I could no longer fool myself. Yes, I ran away. And I had been swatting away at it for the last forty years.
I signed the restaurant check, which was pretty hefty. Each of us had had two courses and two glasses of a good Chardonnay. Marti had an espresso and I had coffee afterward.
And I thought: Who knows where I might be right now if I had decided as a journalist to live with my guilt and Marti’s hate and, in 1968, told the full story of former Secret Service agent Martin Van Walters? And what if later I had written a few novels, hanging in there on the Hemingway model? Would I really have ended up in Paris? With whom? Who knows, who knows? What if, what if?
I picked up Marti’s briefcase and walked out onto the sidewalk into the Philadelphia sunshine. It was a great day, perfect for walking.
Author’s Note
Top Down is fiction, but there are some autobiographical elements that deserve mention.
I was, in fact, working as a reporter on the afternoon newspaper in Dallas (The Dallas Times Herald, now no more) on November 22, 1963. My assignment was Love Field, and I did have a bubble top experience with a Secret Service agent similar to the one I described. That was the rough seed for this novel, but the details, as well as Martin Van Walters, his family, and their story, were completely made up. So were almost all of the Secret Service agents and other characters. The only real people were mostly Warren Commission officials and those involved in the investigation.
Also, for the record, I did serve for three years as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps during that time of peace between the Korean and Vietnam wars. But unlike my fictional character Jack Gilmore, I did not return to active duty and go to Vietnam, win medals, or become a general.
There are several people who were generous in their assistance to me. I hereby thank them but with the full caveat that none deserves blame for any of the fictional paths or liberties I took. That is particularly true of the gentleman psychiatrist and PTSD expert Dr. Frank Ochberg and his associate Joyce Boaz. Other blameless helpers were: the staff of the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas including Gary Mack, Nicola Langford, and Christina Carneal; Park Ranger Dawn Sackawitch, Dan Dattilio, and the other terrific National Park Service folks at Lindenwald; the Speer family, active members of the Kinderhook Reformed Church who happened to be there when I wandered in; my writer grandson Luke O’Brien, who was a co-observer on one of my Kinderhook visits; and historian Michael Beschloss, my great friend and thoughtful adviser, most particularly on matters concerning the Kennedy assassination.
My reading involved a variety of books, reports, articles, and videos about the assassination, mental health issues, and the Secret Service. I am particularly grateful for the personal accounts of former agent Clint Hill.
I also owe a tremendous debt and thanks to the steady, creative work of Kendra Harpster, my editor at Random House.
JIM LEHRER, 2013
To the men and women of the U.S. Secret Service
BY JIM LEHRER
Viva Max!
We Were Dreamers
Kick the Can
Crown Oklahoma
The Sooner Spy
Lost and Found
Short List
A Bus of My Own
Blue Hearts
Fine Lines
The Last Debate
White Widow
Purple Dots
The Special Prisoner
No Certain Rest
Flying Crows
The Franklin Affair
The Phony Marine
Eureka
Mack to the Rescue
Oh, Johnny
Super
Tension City
Top Down
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Top Down is JIM LEHRER’S twenty-first novel. He is also the author of three nonfiction books and four plays. He began his work in journalism as a newspaper reporter in Texas. He then worked for more than forty years in public television and is currently the executive editor of PBS NewsHour. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his novelist wife, Kate. They have three daughters.