This Book Does Not Exist (8 page)

As for
JFK
, I was completely taken with the movie.
Afterwards, I learned everything I could about the assassination and (in my newly teenaged eyes) the probable conspiracy. I read books and asked questions of the people around me who were alive when both JFK and Oswald were killed. I remember lending Jim Garrison’s autobiography to a girl I had a crush on in 7
^th
grade. She never offered to return the book, and I was too shy to follow-up with her in person. Since that was my only option, I let it go.

Now, years
later, with my fixation on the conspiracy to assassinate JFK having left me long ago, much like the Garrison book, albeit without the quiet rejection, I find myself standing in East Cleveland, in a position I never imagined being in, reminded of my past through the odd discovery of a wind blown DVD.

Removing the disc from the sleeve and spinning it on my finger, I wonder if I would still enjoy the movie, or if my adoration was just a product of naïveté, of me being thirteen, of it being my first R-rated experience.

I return the DVD to the sleeve and the sleeve to the envelope. Not sure what else to do, I set it back down in the pothole and turn towards the building and its slogan.

“Come to
Geppetto’s
today because tomorrow may be too late”

I should already be in the other world. I can’t delay it any longer.

I start for the entrance to
Geppetto’s
again.

Once inside, everything appears the same. The room is empty but ominous.
The Door
looks harmless, but my memories of it aren’t, and I can’t shake the feeling I’m being reckless, that coming back here is a deadly mistake.

I approach
the Door
. I grasp and turn the handle.

The Door
opens.

—
the
white light—

Suddenly, I don’t know if I can do this.

It’s too late.

I try to concentrate on seeing Naomi.

My concentration breaks.

I am in the other world.

I’m not standing on a street in the neighborhood I grew up in.

I’m somewhere I’ve never been before. Somewhere unknown.

The sunlight is obnoxious, and people I don’t recognize are everywhere. Their style is old-fashioned, from another era. My guess would be the 60’s.

When I raise
my hands to push a dull ache out of my temples I realize I have on a different shirt
, a white button down. Before I walked through
the Door
, I was wearing a white T-shirt. I look down at my chest. A skinny black tie is hanging from my neck. My pants are new, too. Dark denim has been replaced with black wool.

This incident is nothing like the last one.

As I turn to survey the area behind me, a pair of glasses slides down my nose.
When I take off the square black frames and thick lenses, my vision immediately deteriorates into a mess of a blur. I’ve lost my contacts, and my eyesight is awful. Too much near work. Too much time spent staring at screens.
Quickly, I put
the glasses back on so I can see more than a foot in front of me.

I stare through the crowd and down the road, which is cordoned off.
Excited people line up behind barricades while security-types in suits patrol the edges of the street.

I grasp that this is some sort of parade route.

Looking past the barricades, I see a grassy knoll.

A girl about my age cuts me off to get closer to the parade route. I ask her where I am, if this is Dallas, and she either doesn’t hear me or ignores the question.

Then I spot a building.

I think it’s the book depository.

No. Given the DVD, the parade route, and the grassy knoll, I’m positive it’s the book depository.

The Door
has taken me to Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Geppetto said to come to
the Door
because he had a read on Naomi’s location.

Why the hell would she be here?

At least I have a place to start. I have reason to believe Naomi is nearby, and I have experience within an incident already, not to mention expectations for what will occur in this environment.

Someone is going to shoot the President.

I’m operating within a set of parameters.

Theoretically.

I look from the book depository to the grassy knoll and back again.

There is a glint of something in the window.

A gun.

I flashback to the pilot attacking me during the last incident.

The shooter could be aiming for me.

Geppetto said this other world would help.

What if he lied?

What if
the Door
actually wants to prevent me from finding Naomi?

That would mean I
can
only reach her if I beat
the Door
.

I take off for the book depository.

I stopped the pilot. I can stop the shooter.

I rush up the stairwell towards the 14
^th
floor. My recollection of
JFK
tells me Oswald was there when he fired the shot.

I reach the landing. A slate-colored door leads out of the stairwell. On it, the number fourteen has been painted in red.

I tap open the door and tiptoe into the hallway. Searching, I see an empty doorway and a man in front of a window. The man is holding a large rifle against his shoulder. He is down on one knee, aiming the barrel of the gun through the window, towards where I suspect the President’s caravan will emerge.

I take a long, looping step in his direction.

When my foot hits the ground, he faces me, leaving the rifle pointed out the window.

It isn’t Oswald.

“Hey, come in here,” says
Geppetto
. His voice remains calm.
His face is expressionless. Both are
memorable for the very fact that they are so un-memorable.

If he was going to shoot me, I think, he would have done so already.

I enter the room.

Geppetto
speaks. “I’m not the ghost of Lee Harvey Oswald in case you were wondering.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“You and me both. Do you like your new outfit?”

“You said you know where Naomi is.”

“I have a sense,” he says, before pointing out the window.

What I see outside is mostly what I saw when I first came through
the Door
– the grassy knoll, the parade route, people from the 20
^th
century – with one extreme difference: it is all moving in slow motion.

“So,” continues Geppetto, “it was good you took the initiative and went to check out your old neighborhood.”

“The pilot. There wasn’t a body. There weren’t any cops. The plane didn’t crash. No one really died.”

“But you remember the incident don’t you?”

“You would have to tell me if
the Door
wanted to kill me, wouldn’t you?”

“It may try at times,” he answers, “but it doesn’t necessarily want to. It just has to make things difficult.”

“Make what difficult? Finding Naomi?”

He nods.

“Why is she here? Did you kidnap her?”

“Come on, Mike. I’m trying to guide you. Naomi is here on her own volition.”

“But you told me people who are falling in and out of love find
the Door
. What does that have to do with us?”

“That’s between you and her. Not me. Complete the incidents, and you’ll get to the point.”

“How many are there?”

He shrugs. Outside, along the parade route,
the Presidential caravan waltzes into our frame of vision, traveling in slow motion.
Geppetto
shifts his rifle in its direction.

“If you look at the car, and I know it’s relatively far away,” he says, “but you should be able to gather that President John F. Kennedy, Jr. is sitting inside. Now, on the other hand, if you look at the woman with him, who in 1963 was Jackie Onassis – and again, I get that it’s hard from this high up – you’ll see that it’s someone else. A different woman.”

I lean over the windowsill and strain my eyes to focus. Given what I remember from the
Zapruder
film, which was used extensively in
JFK
, the woman does appear different. Her hair seems longer, futuristic as far as the 60’s are concerned, and a bit lighter. Her features might be more angular, too. Yet, something about her looks familiar…

“Is that Naomi?”

Geppetto hesitates,
then
says, “I can’t tell for sure.”

“
You told me to come to
the Door
because you knew where Naomi was and now you’re not sure?”

Geppetto remains still. Kennedy’s car inches forward. I watch the woman…

I think it
is
Naomi.

I say this to Geppetto even though I’m not sure I believe it or if I just want it to be true.

“I have to go get her.”

I turn to run.

Geppetto grabs me.

“You won’t stop me.”

“I’m helping you. I shouldn’t have to say that over and over. Listen to me. The second you leave this room everything will speed back up. Either you won’t get to the car before it’s gone, or you’ll reach the woman after Kennedy’s been shot.”

“I don’t care about him. I care about Naomi.”

“The man next to her will have a hole in his head.”

“Who’s going to shoot?”

“If not me, then someone else.”

I start to move.

“At least let me finish. This isn’t some spurious sci-fi time traveling scenario where you run around and save Kennedy’s life, and then I open up
the Door
and you go back to your world to discover that everything has changed, as if he never was killed. The JFK assassination isn’t cosmically tied somehow to a series of actions and reactions that led to Naomi’s ‘disappearance,’ as you describe it. That’s not how this works. So, if that’s what you thought, you can stop thinking it now.”

The President’s motorcade continues to progress along the parade route at an unnaturally sluggish clip. I could track every rotation of its tires if I wanted to, but all I care about is how to reach Naomi, which is what I tell
Geppetto
.

“I can’t tell you that,” he responds, “because it’s not up to me. I will say this – your search has to go
one way
or the other. It has to end, or it has to persist. You could search for Naomi for the rest of your life, unwilling to accept the possibility she may not want to be with you, and the possibility, in fact, you may not want to be with her either. You chose, after all, not to move to New York so you could live with her. Don’t say you were worried about your career because right now you aren’t acting like that’s the most important thing in your life.”

“What are you trying to say to me?”

“You promised Naomi you’d leave LA with her if she needed to for med school – even though you weren’t sure you meant it. She may have her issues, Mike. But so do you. It’s okay. We all do.”

“You’re questioning how much we love each other?”

“I’m explaining some things you may have unconsciously chosen not to see. For instance, there is more than one way to end your search for Naomi.”