The Destruction of Camelot

Cleveland, Ohio November 21 1963

Frantz parked his truck alongside two others, grabbed his holdall and walked into the cafe. The waiter gestured him immediately to a table by the window.

“I’m having some spare parts delivered for my truck. I´m looking for a room for a couple of nights,” he said to the waiter after he’d taken his order.

“You can stay at my sister-in-law’s,” the waiter informed him, “she’s got a motel near here. I can drive you there after my shift finishes. Ten bucks per night, including breakfast.”

“Sounds good to me.” said Frantz. Even though he hadn’t budgeted for overnighting on this trip, he knew that he needed to have his wits about him and get a good night’s sleep. Sleeping in the truck wouldn’t cut it.

A dark-haired woman sat down at the next table and for a moment their eyes locked. She reddened and smiled.

“It looks like more snow,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, “the first snow fell on November 1 this year, the roads are dangerous right now”

“You got that right,” he said, “I’m not moving out of here until I get a replacement for the blown gasket on my truck.”

He drew the curtain back and gestured to his truck parked alongside two others in the parking lot as the snow softly fell outside.

He learned that she lived nearby; that she was French and staying with her aunt for three months to learn English. She was working in a couture boutique downtown. Since his mother was French, he spoke the language fluently and they laughed and joked together. He invited her to join him and soon he began to feel a warmth and headiness that he hadn’t experienced since the summer he’d spent with his high-school sweetheart who’d moved to another state with her parents a year before.

She was warm and funny.

“I’m driving the truck for my dad. It’s a special delivery and I’m gonna be here for a few days, would you like to join me for a bite to eat later?”

“Sure,” she said, in a perfect American accent. “Let’s meet back here at 7.”

She had changed into an elegant houndstooth dress and high heels and he was glad that he’d showered and changed into a suit at the motel where he’d settle into a few hours earlier.

She drove to a downtown restaurant for dinner.

They were a handsome couple and people stared as they made their entrance.

They ate quietly, savouring the French country cuisine that she’d chosen. They went for a drink in a nearby bar and he kissed her goodnight at the end of the evening.

“Bonsoir,” he whispered.

March 2013

He walked slowly up the stairs, his metal-toed boots dragging, feet heavy with the weight of the years. The house was unfurnished and the contractors had scheduled the demolishment for the next week.

Nearby buildings had been pulled down and the light gleamed on the walls in a way that it never used to. Back then it had been surrounded by other buildings and permanently dark.

He held his hard hat in his hand, in reverence for the past that was overcoming his present. He saw the arched recess at the top of the flight of stairs. Though now bare, he remembered the roses that stood there always, smelling like roses used to smell until hothouse breeding of the intervening decades had eliminated such unneccessary beauty.

November 22 1963

“I didn’t think you’d still be here, ” she laughed, as she plopped her bags on the window seat.

As they ate lunch, they heard a kerfuffle outside. A silence descended over the cafe as a bus boy turned off the jukebox. Men rose from their tables and clustered around the radio in the corner.

“It’s President Kennedy,” he said, as he returned to the table, “He’s been shot”.

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