I’ve seen too many 1963 pictures of the Book Depository with that Hertz billboard and clock squinting from the rooftop: "Hertz Rent-a-Car. 12:30. Chevrolets."

It’s probably unsafe not to drive in Dallas, especially in August. I feel self-conscious walking everywhere I go in this city.

Humidity squeezes into my pockets, the air between buildings sags like wet cardboard. I gurgled on the walk back to my hotel from Dealey Plaza today.

I brought my feeble snapshot camera to Dallas instead of the 35mm, since the pictures were just for reference. I switched into close-up mode by mistake for a roll of film—about 10 exterior shots of the Book Depository that really are closeups of an inconsequential 3rd-floor window.

My Uncle Richard in San Antonio, who’s just baffled I’m writing about Lee Harvey Oswald, was carjacked in his driveway yesterday. Michael, my cousin, called to tell me—imitating Richard’s voice in full-bore bellow: "Ahm not givin’ you mah keys!"

Who am I to drive a car in Dallas, and why can’t I just rent a bicycle instead?

I’ll rent a car, drive to Turtle Creek, where Oswald took a shot at General Walker. Then his rooming houses etc., and the Texas Theater, which I’m told is abandoned.

I’m still trundling through the oral histories at the Sixth Floor Archive. Yesterday, I heard Jack Davis, the man whom Oswald sat beside at the Texas Theater, call it "the picture show."

The police swarmed the theater at the beginning of Cry of Battle (which starred James MacArthur, Helen Hayes’s son, better known as Dan-o from Hawaii Five-O ), part of a double feature with War Is Hell.

The DART trains are swift little wisecrackers, but the buses slow and prone to traffic jams.

Dallas subway’s a little too modern for me. I want screeching wheels on bitchy tracks and the lurch of ancient trolleys.

I can’t understand anyone’s accent. Michael’s wife, Aubra, born in Dallas, says this in the northeast.

"It was my day off, so I decided to go to the picture show. And that’s where, well, Oswald sat next to me. At the picture show. Then the police came to get him."

I can’t get through a conversation without asking, "Pardon me?" and "Excuse me?" and "I’m sorry, could you repeat that?" I’m sure they’re telling me nice, friendly things. All their words sound underwater.

"Ahm not givin’ you mah keys!"

I asked my father how Richard was doing. I hear he gets around a little better these days. After his carjacking, Dad. He got tested? What? Are you saying he’s got what? He was carjacked.

I just want to find out what happened when two kids pulled a knife on him and took his car keys.

 

If something happens to . . . It was 1958 when . . . If something
happens to Richard . . . We drove the Skylark to Granville, TX . . .
If something . . . It couldn’t have been 1958 . . . But how come
Tony doesn’t visit his cousin Tommy, he lives in Chicago . . .
If something happens . . . It was 1958 when you drove there . . .
Why does Tony want to write about him, I can’t figure that out . . .
It wasn’t a Skylark, I never owned one . . . This neighborhood
ain’t the same . . . I said 1958 . . . You don’t know nothin
about cars . . . Tommy flew C-130 transports for six years . . .
Why does he want to write about that Harry Oswald, anyway,
we’ll never know . . . Tony was always too smart for his own good . . .
We drove to Tennessee but you know how Richard’s asthma is . . .
This neighborhood’s gone to hell, but Arturo built the carport
for me . . . Gina drove from Montgomery, Alabama, to Tennessee . . .
I know you retired in 1967, I keep talking about . . . Arturo’s
a nice guy . . . The 1950s, when we lived in Germany . . .
No, we were based in Trinidad then, once a month the government
would fly a plane over with D.D.T. to kill the mosquitos . . .
Does Tony think someone else shot the goddamn Kennedys . . .
You drove to Granville in 1958 . . . Spiders as big as your
hand . . . If something happens to you, Richard . . . We had no more
problems on the base, I don’t know about the other people . . .
They drive big tanks into the C-130s . . . They probably had those
mosquitos, but we were taken care of . . . We flew to Florida
once a week to buy beer for the colonel . . . You mean to tell me
Tony can’t write about anything else, come on . . . They paid for
his school, then he gave back six years to the government flying
those big transports . . . Arturo cuts our lawn, too, front and back,
but I need a translator to talk to my own neighbor . . . That’s all,
six years, then he got a job for Southwest, flies Chicago to Dallas,
that’s his route . . . You got me -- how the hell would I know if
it’s Love Field . . . I guess I’m selfish that way, so’s Richard,
we think he’s in our country now he should speak our language . . .
No, it wasn’t the 1960s, I was in Trinidad in the 50s, hell,
I retired in 1967 . . . He better learn English soon, I ain’t got
many years left . . . If something happens to you . . . Why doesn’t
he write about the family instead of that Harry Oswald . . .
Gina drove from Montgomery, Alabama, to Tennessee
just to pick up Angela . . . Same every day, Chicago to Dallas . . .
Gina has three babies, Angela two . . . You owe one year for every
year of school they paid for, that’s four years plus I don’t know
where the other two come from . . . I don’t see why Tony
can’t write about the family, we have a lot of stories, you know,
so many from the old country . . . They piled five babies in back
of one of those SUVs, just those two women driving . . . But now
he’s got himself a good job . . . If something happened to you,
Richard, I’d hire a couple Mexican girls to take care of the place.