Maggie's Drawers: The JFK Assassination

Preface

At approximately 12:30 pm on November 22, 1963, President John Kennedy’s motorcade turned off Main Street in Dallas, Texas onto Houston Street. The motorcade traveled one block north and then turned 120 degrees to the left onto Elm Street. The radical left turn required the presidential limousine to slow dramatically. This was a violation of the Secret Service’s own protocol regarding motorcade speeds.

Within seconds of this turn, Kennedy appeared to be hit for the first time. His hands clutched at his throat. The Secret Service agent in the front passenger seat screamed a warning: We are hit! Tragically, the driver of the limousine—Agent Bill Greer—applied the brakes, bringing the vehicle to a near stop. Seconds later, John F. Kennedy’s head exploded in a halo of blood and tissue.

The president was dead…

A skilled sniper had murdered John Kennedy.

But did the accused assassin, Lee Oswald, have that kind of skill? Maggie's drawers is a military term for missing the target entirely on the rifle range. During his time in the Marines, Lee Oswald—the man who allegedly made the shot of the century when he killed John Kennedy—was known for his lack of skill with a rifle. When questioned by the Warren Commission, fellow Marine Nelson Delgado stated the following:

Q: Did you fire with Oswald?

Delgado: Right. I was in the same line. By that I mean we were on line together, the same time, but not firing at the same position, but at the same time, and I remember seeing his shooting. It was a pretty big joke, because he got a lot of Maggie's drawers, you know, a lot of misses, but he didn't give a darn.

Q: Missed the target completely?

Delgado: He just qualified, that's it...

In fact, during one mandatory qualification, Oswald achieved a score of 191. This was one point above that needed for the lowest qualification of marksman. If he had received two fewer points, he would have failed to qualify altogether.

Over the years, most people have formed some kind of opinion about the Kennedy assassination. The theories about his death range from the plausible to the incredible. The majority of theorists believe that there were multiple gunmen that day in Dallas, but no one knows for sure.

There is one thing, however, that people knowledgeable about his presidency can agree on: John Kennedy had many enemies. The anti-Castro Cubans hated him for what they perceived as his betrayal during the Bay of Pigs invasion. The oil companies hated him for his desire to eliminate the Oil Depletion Allowance thus striking a major blow to the pocketbooks of oil millionaires. Texas had an abundance of oil men. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hated Kennedy. The president allegedly stated that he wanted to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds. J. Edgar Hoover hated the Kennedy brothers for a plethora of pathological reasons. With John Kennedy as president, the Vietnam War may not have escalated, but war is good business. The list goes on.

Oddly enough, Lee Oswald had expressed his admiration for the young president.

The only thing not in doubt about that bloody day in November is that John Kennedy was brutally murdered, and someone was responsible. After years of deep interest and growing up surrounded by many of the principals involved in the aftermath of the assassination, I am no closer to knowing the truth.

Maggie's Drawers is a work of fiction that asks, what if…

Chapter 1

…the assassin hobbled down the stone steps.

He paused with both feet planted at each level before thumping down to the next, his dignity only a wisp of memory. Each jolting step was agony.

Freedom was abstract, untouchable. The sky was too blue, too big to be real. Even the air seemed to press against his flesh, rubbing it raw. He wanted to turn around, flee to the safety of his concrete womb.

A guard watched him from the top of the steps. The old man could feel his tormentor’s cold eyes following his every movement. The guard’s job was to wait there until the old man was outside the walls. Then he would return to the one place in his world where he was better, more of a man than others. El atormentador. The tormentor.

The old man’s tired, bent body navigated the final step. The cinder-block sentry shack squatted beside the prison's main gate like a wart on an ugly face. It seemed impossibly distant.

He just stood there for a moment. The world outside was huge and threatening, as alien as a distant planet. He was a prisoner, nothing more. His heart pounded with fear, his mouth so dry his upper lip stuck to his teeth.

He limped to the guard shack, arthritic knees grinding like worn brakes. He stopped there only long enough to sign the state release papers. His frail, liver spotted hand trembled with the effort. He glanced through the tall, chain link fence. At the top, gleaming razor-wire twisted like the strands of DNA he had seen on the History Channel. A sick dread flooded his emaciated body. His knees shook so violently that he feared collapse.

His suit made for him by the prison tailor only six months before—a decent fit then—now hung from his withered frame like a blanket on a straight-backed chair. His gate money was rolled up in an inside pocket of the jacket, a little over two thousand dollars. Not much after nearly fifty years of saving.

The cold wind slapped at his face. He staggered back a step or two toward the safety of the wall. He heard the guard in the shack laugh, but the old man was no longer bothered by petty cruelty.

He had learned to live with that.

The chill northern California morning cut through the cheap, summer-weight material of the prison jacket. The fog had already deposited a thin layer of moisture on his clothing. He needed a real coat, but would never spend the money. Not yet anyway.

He forced himself forward, uncertain, terrified of what lay ahead...and behind.

He scanned the parking lots and the bleak terrain surrounding the prison, hoping not to miss anything. He knew they were there...somewhere. He could feel eyes following his pathetic reentry into the world.

These men no longer hid in the shadows. They would be respectable citizens now. Many of them would be dead, but not all of them. Dead or not, their legacy of corruption lived on. He could trust no one. The power just beyond the curtain was vast and unforgiving of those who betrayed them. Fifty years ago or five minutes, nothing would be forgotten. And nothing was ever as it seemed. Experience had carved that lesson deep in his flesh.

He reached inside his jacket and touched his shirt pocket. He felt the reassuring crinkle of the yellowed newspaper clipping from the Tulsa Tribune. It was his only link to Jackson Burke. And Burke was the one man he might turn to for help. Until very recently, he had never dreamed of contacting his former cellmate. But God had a way of forcing men to rethink their dreams. Man plans, God laughs.

He really had no other choice.

He took a deep breath, and took a single step on his journey of a thousand miles. Then another.

With each step he expected the bullet that he would never hear or feel. Quick. Professional. An ironic end for el asesino.

Jackson Burke...he repeated the name over and over in his mind like a mantra.

He walked and waited for the bullet.

Chapter 2

Jackson Burke watched as the old Jeep pickup truck racketed down the long gravel driveway and stopped in front of his house. Shadows from the huge, new-budding trees danced everywhere like pernicious spirits. The house was centered on forty wooded acres of blackjack oak and scrub pine north-west of Tulsa in unincorporated Pawnee County. The closest town was Cleveland. The isolation was near total.

Burke's only friend, Curt Turner, climbed out of the truck. He went by CT. He was somewhere around sixty—looked ten years younger—and as thin as a POW. He had done two tours in Vietnam but didn't spend much time talking about it. His bald head and chest-length beard effectively camouflaged his actual age. The perpetual hole in the knees of his jeans added to the uncertainty. With his door open and one foot on the running board, he honked the horn and shouted a greeting. Hey, Jack, diggin' a grave?

Yeah, yours, you old drunk, Burke said, relieved at the interruption. He shivered in the damp, cold air. At seven a.m. the sun had not yet had a chance to take the chill out of the mid-March morning.

He had met CT over twenty years ago. Burke had been a very young man who had become entangled in a situation that was far beyond his youthful ability to handle. Through a mutual acquaintance, he had been introduced to the older man. Together, they had resolved the situation. It had been an ugly resolution. People had been hurt, but Burke had walked away relatively unscathed. An unlikely friendship—one that survived Burke’s college and professional career, the murder of his family and prison—had been the end result.

When Burke returned to Oklahoma after being released from prison, the friendship had been renewed and reinvented. Age and the passage of time had equalized their roles. They were no longer mentor and mentee. The two men knew each other's secrets.

CT ambled to the side of the house where Burke stood in the sodden muck of his septic tank's leach field. Burke leaned on his shovel, staring at the ground as if waiting for it to open up on its own.

While he waited for CT to approach, he stared at his own reflection in a dirty pool of water at his feet. Burke, a former investigative reporter and felon, was close enough to six feet tall to lie about the missing half-inch or so and get away with it. His hair, once muddy brown, was now predominantly gray and cut so short it stuck straight up like the quills of a porcupine. It looked as though he had cut it himself with the lid of a soup can.

He was slender, with sturdy, muscular legs. His face was smooth for his age and a little feminine except for his nose. Broken more times than he could remember, it took some unexpected turns that made him look mean when he wasn't smiling—which was most of the time.

Walk in the garden, Jack? Or is the smell just helping clear your head? CT raked his fingers through his long beard, smiling behind the tangle of hair.

I think it's leaking from the main line somewhere. I figure all I have to do is dig down, find where it's leaking, and fix it. No point paying someone else when it's just labor.

Sounds good. Except every time you fix something yourself, I wind up in shit. This time, that wouldn't just be a figger of speech. CT's heavy Okie twang was exaggerated by his attempt at humor.

I can handle it myself. Burke stabbed the shovel into the chocolate-brown puddle of water at his feet like a man killing a snake. His reflected image disappeared in a muddy splash. Hey, you want a drink?

Hell, CT said, I guess. It's gotta be 8 a.m. somewhere in the world.

*****

Burke drank beer. CT drank vodka and orange juice—no ice. He made his friend a drink, then pulled an ice cold Pecan Street out of the refrigerator for himself and poured it slowly into a glass—even breakfast beer had to be served in a glass—careful to produce the proper collar of foam.

Some old guy’s been looking for you, CT said, taking a long pull on the vodka. Went sniffin' around that cop Carter asking around for you.

Burke glanced at his friend. The familiar stab of anxiety settled over him like a wet blanket. He's not going to find me, is he?

Carter brought out that old Thunderbird of his yesterday, one he got last year. Wanted me to take a listen, see if it was missin’. Said he thought it was only hitting on seven. Sounded fine to me. CT finished his drink in one more swallow. He held it out for a refill.

Burke refreshed him, a little more orange juice this time.

Said a guy was looking for you. CT repaired cars and pretty much anything else from his house in Skedee, a town where the population hovered between fifty and fifty-two depending on deaths and births and the occasional miscount due to drunkenness. People in nearby towns called it Hole-in-the-Wall because of the persistent rumor that outlaws were in charge there. CT's appearance and reputation did little to dispel the rumor. Over the years, he’d built a reputation with a lot of local cops because of his honesty and a knack for getting the most out of any older American made car.

Anything else? Burke said.

Just that you knew the guy in prison.

Then I’m sure he isn’t going to find me. Burke's voice was colder than it usually was when he talked to his only friend.

Didn't give me a name, CT said. Made like I shouldn't ask. Said he was gonna give the guy your phone number, but since it's unlisted, and he isn't supposed to have it, he thought he’d tell me instead.

Why not just come and tell me, or call?

"He mentioned he didn't feel all that welcome at casa de Burke."

Carter’s an asshole.

I was thinking a guy just out of prison has to be pretty desperate or pretty stupid to go to a cop asking for help.

Prison is full of stupid people, Burke said. He pushed his beer aside. It wasn't fun anymore. Why do you think he went to Carter?

When you came back here from California there was all that crap in the paper about undesirables living in this fair community. Most of it was comin’ from Carter. CT's voice gentled some. Burke knew he didn’t bring up the past very often. The story made national news. Would have been pretty easy to pick up, even in prison. Carter sort of made a point of letting the world know you shot a fifteen-year-old kid.

CT didn't mention the others. They had an understanding.

Yeah, like I said, Carter’s an asshole. The discussion was making Burke uncomfortable. It was a time in his life he tended to suppress.

Wouldn't be hard for someone to know Carter could put him in touch, CT said. Even a stupid person.

Carter say if he told him anything?

He just passed it on to me as quick as he could, I imagine. Like I said, nothing wrong with that old ‘Bird. Said if you were interested, you'd need to come by.

Hope he's not leaving a light on for me.

CT combed his fingers through his beard, raising his chin as if preparing for a blow. Carter had a message for you though. Said HBO is showing all five Death Wish movies. Wanted to know should he record them for you.

*****

CT climbed back into his truck, moving a little slower than he had before the vodka. Like a lizard warming up in the weak morning sun, thought Burke.

Give it some thought, man, CT said through the open window of his truck. Seeing what the guy wants would get you out of the house for a while.

I get out enough.

Diggin' in your own shit isn't exactly an active social life, Jack.

The Jeep started with the deep, contented rumble of a well-kept engine. Burke looked at the dirty and rusted exterior and wondered at the contradiction. Then he realized that CT had a tendency to treat himself the same way.

Thanks for your concern, man, Burke said, his lack of sincerity deliberately exaggerated. Say hi to Jeanna for me.

For a couple of seconds CT didn't respond, just looked at the sky through the windshield at something Burke knew no one else could see.

She took off, man, CT said, fumbling with his key chain. Said she wanted to see what made her more miserable. Living with me, or without me.

Burke looked at the ground for a second trying to generate some sympathy. He failed. Guess the jury didn't take long on that one, huh?

Bite me, CT said as he popped the clutch. Gravel sprayed as the tires spun, shooting the old truck down the driveway. Pebbles pelted Burke's legs. He grinned as he rubbed away the pain.

Chapter 3

It was the nightmare that changed Burke's mind about seeing Carter. It would change the way he saw things for days. It stained him, tainted his surroundings. His refuge became a place of mayhem and morbid memory. Luckily it didn't happen too often, not anymore anyway.

There was nothing unrealistic about the dream. It unfolded just like it had in real life. The sprawling, downtown San Diego park was usually safe before dark. The sun had just dropped into the ocean. He didn't want to tell his wife that a walk probably wasn't safe.

He was a tough guy.

The four young Hispanics—baggy clothes, greasy pompadours—circled them, spitting taunts and racial obscenities. The butterfly knives in their hands slashed and teased at the air inches in front of his face. There was no way he could keep them all in sight at once.

His wife, holding his hand so tightly it hurt, whispered things to him that he could never quite make out in the dream but that he remembered vividly when awake. His small son clung to his leg for protection, shaking with the menace that surrounded them.

He gave them everything they asked for: his father's old stainless steel Rolex, money, even the wedding rings. Then the words that he could never take back or stop, even in the dream, spewed from his mouth like vomit. Pride, machismo. Insanity. You little girls can go home now.

He never saw the guns. In the nightmare he didn't even hear them, though he supposed he had at the time. Everyone falling. Trying to crawl to his son through his personal fear, even though he could