VOLUME | ONC 2023

5. John Fitzgerald

Harriet...

The silence following the lawn mower powering down startled me out of my reading. I used my core to sit up, looking out at the backyard to see if I could spot my father. I could hear him emptying grass into the garbage bin.

I longed to read on, although I knew his work would soon be complete.

"Nana, your diary is better than Days of Our Lives, and General Hospital combined."

I peeked ahead, just to see if I had time for one more entry. It looked short enough. And even if it wasn't, my dad could wait.

November 11th, 1963

No one's working. Everybody is standing in front of Mr. Mathison's radio. The broadcast says President Kennedy has been shot. It says he was ambushed in his motorcade in Dallas and that he'd been with his wife.

God, I beg for your protection and your mercy over the first family. Show us your mercy, Lord.

Lizzie...

Afraid of being too close to the epicenter of anxiety that the office was, I stood in the doorway, away from the rest of the dread-ridden office.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States is dead. John F. Kennedy has died of the wound received in assassination in Dallas less than an hour ago. We repeat, it has just been announced that President Kennedy is dead."

The first trumpets of The Star-Spangled banner rang out, proud and patriotically through Mr. Mathison's radio.

Unable to extinguish the trembling in my hands nor the tears that pricked my eyes, I snuck away to what had become my workplace haven, my hiding place.

I found a place in the corner, next to the window. Clutching my abdomen, I braced myself with the other hand against a bookshelf.

An innocent man had been punished, and I couldn't help but think for the sake of trying to right our nation's wrongs. Had it been a coincidence that he'd been murdered five months after his proposal and not three months following his meeting with the leaders at the March on Washington?

His family. His poor, crushed family.

A sob escaped my lips as I thought of his heartbroken widow, "Oh, God."

And what did it mean for Negroes? What did it mean for our plight?

"Hey, hey," Roosevelt walked toward me, fatigue marring his otherwise handsome, laissez-faire casualness.

He reached into his breast pocket, offering me a clean, black handkerchief, "You okay?"

I looked up at him through tears.

"Right," he leaned against the bookcase opposite me. I had seen him confused, impassioned, perturbed even, but never lost.

"Did they have to play that God-forsaken song at the end of it? Like we're celebrating some momentous occasion," I dabbed at my eyes, trying to contain the cyclone of emotions inside me.

"That was fucking awful, huh?"

My head snapped to attention, "It sounds wrong, hearing you curse."

"I do it all the time. Much to my mother and the good Lord's dismay."

"I bet," a pause, and then, "You didn't have to come."

"I don't have to do anything, except pay taxes and die," just as quickly as it had come from his mouth, he looked regretful.