Daily City Kennedy Assassinations

     Yet, here we were---Ruth, Campbell, and I---at 12:30 on the Fourth of July in a reserved back room of the Single Bullet Bistro in the Granger Hotel sipping Manhattans and waiting for the 1 PM Assasination Reenactment to begin when in ran Jimmy "the Crusher" Donovan. Donovan, who had left the Midwest Professional Wrestling Circuit to become Ruth's Campaign Manager, charged up and whisked the Candidate's drink from his hand. Ruth responded with an inarticulate cry and launched a savage right at the Crusher's face. Donovan caught Ruth's fist in one massive hand and squeezed hard.

     "I said no more and I meant it!" he bellowed as Ruth winced loudly and slapped at Donovan's hand in an almost comic way.

     "He's got you there, Chief," Campbell laughed.

     My mouth hung open at the spectacle for the Crusher's submission hold threatened to put Ruth in need of reconstructive surgery. Then, just as suddenly, Ruth swarmed all over the Donovan behemoth and locked him into a sleeper hold.

     "You submit?" the Candidate yelled.

     "Why sure!" laughed the Crusher. "And so will Al Gore when you slap that move on him in the first debate!"

     As the laughter dispersed, I realized what I had seen was all an elaborate act. Or at least for the most part, since Ruth shook his right hand several times to dispel the pain and ordered another drink.

     "Oh, no! No time for that!" announced Donovan. "That's what I came to tell you. Their Kennedy Reenactor---what's his name, Bernie Coy---he pulled a shoulder muscle during the last run. I suggested you might like to give it a whirl."

     Ruth laughed in his face, then suddenly yelled, "You're fired!"

     "But you won't get shot, Stan," Donovan soothed.

     "Better not, it's only goddamn reenactment!" Ruth blurted.

     "No, no, no! You ride through---you make it through just like Kennedy would have if Oswald hadn't snuffed him. See what I mean? We'll spin it as: 'What Camelot could have been'. The voter's will just eat it up. What d'ya think?"

     Ruth said nothing, his eyes had glazed over as if he were either envisioning a shining city on a hill or hallucinating that the nymphs on the room's wallpaper were making lewd suggestions to him.

     With little further ado, Ruth donned his trademark light grey porkpie hat and strode purposely for the hotel exit. Donovan, Campbell, and myself chased after Ruth and climbed with him into the chocolate brown customized campaign van waiting at the curb. After a few brief instructions to the driver we sped away towards the Reenactment staging area. We arrived just as the detailing boys were hard at scrubbing away the last of the morning's corn-syrup blood spatters from the dark blue Lincoln Continental limousine. A pair of technicians busied themselves in the trunk testing and resetting their special effects rigs that made it look like the Kennedy and Connelly impersonators were actually getting shot. The woman portraying Jaqueline watched as one of the two technicians moved away from the car and donned a dark brown toupee with a cable attached to it that ran to the trunk. At his signal, a sharp pop burst from his head spattering blood everywhere, leaving a chunk of scalp and what looked to be brain and bone flopping loosely on his head. He obligingly tilted his head for his partner to examine the blood soaked hair piece. But the Jaquline actress frowned and loudly insisted that the floppy bit of flesh should be moving a little more floppily.

     It was all too nightmarish watching a man who had just had his head blown apart arguing with two other people whether it "looked good" or not. Donovan had meanwhile thundered away out of sight and soon returned with the event organizer, Dexter Redfield, in tow. Redfield eagerly pumped Ruth's hand and the details were soon worked out. Instead of a reenactment, Ruth would ride the route in what would ultimately pass for a photo op as tawdry as the Dukakis' Tank episode from 1988.

     The technician's were told to unhook their gear and the other actors brought in to hear the change of plan. Some laughed outloud, some grumbled. But by 12:56 PM, the motorcade formed up on its mark next to the old Daily City Water Tower. Ruth took his seat in the limo next to Betty Higgans, the Jaqueline impersonator while Campbell gleefully assumed the role of Secret Service agent at the rear of the car.

     I decided to head back out into the center of town to take a picture of Ruth as he passed by. At 1 PM on the dot, they came past me. The throng of people at first shouted in anticipation of action only to shout even louder at seeing that it was Ruth in the limo. Several ardent admirers rushed the limo which was forced to slow down, but owing to Campbell's alertness, they were easily shoved aside. The limo picked up speed as it finished rounding the bend by the Granger Hotel which did double duty for the reenactments as the Texas Schoolbook Depository, and begin approaching the grassy knoll area.

     Suddenly something went wrong. From across the green, I saw Ruth slump forward and Betty Higgans clutched his shoulder. All of sudden, Ruth pitched violently forward, a great spattering of red bursting from the top right of the back of his head. Campbell had by then climbed on the back of the limo and I heard him order the driver to haul ass.

     People all over the plaza went limp with shock and horror. Knowing they would loop the car back to the staging area, I barged my way through the stunned crowd and wound up macing one hysterical elder woman who refused to let go of me. By the time I got there, an ambulance was just leaving the scene, lights and siren blistering my senses. The Crusher and Campbell stood like a pair of wooden blocks watching it speed away. Betty Higgans sat in the back seat of the limo sobbing uncontrollably. John Paget, the actor portraying Governor Connelly, had been pulled from the limo and lay on the ground as paramedics swarmed all over him like hornets on roadkill.

     "Get the hell off of me!" I heard him shout. "I'm perfectly fine!...No, you idiot, it's not blood, IT'S PAINT!"

     "WHAT?!" I shrieked at Campbell and his stunned partner.

     Donovan knodded slowly.

     Campbell shook his head, "Someone fired a couple of paintballs at the candidate. From what I could tell and based on my military experience, only two were fired. They came from close range at a high angle. Probably some lone kook in the Granger Hotel."

     "There were three fired," Donovan insisted sternly. "The one that hit him in the back of the head came from a long way off---they were probably using some sort of high-powered paintball gun. But I know I saw a shadowy figure point something at Stan from the grassy knoll. How do you explain how Paget got hit in the arm?"

     "In my professional military opinion," Campbell snorted, "the first paintball struck Stan in the back of the neck but didn't burst. It was deflected around Stan's shirt collar, flew over Paget's shoulder and burst on his hand."

     "Crap." spat Donovan angrily. "You're talking garbage. I'm telling you, there were two shooters! This is obviously part of a shameful conspiracy to humiliate Stan's Candidacy. I bet I know who's behind it, too!"

     "We'll just have to see what the sheriff says about it in his investigation." Campbell shot back hotly.

     "So, Stan's alright?" I blurted. The two looked at me in surprise.

     "Oh, hell yeah," the Crusher replied almost dismissively.

     "He'll feel worse from the hangover," winked Campbell. "but he'll be back on the flight line at Oh-eight hundred tomorrow."

     Just at the moment a shaggy looking kid in his late teens wearing a Led Zeppelin t-shirt came up to us. He was carrying a video camera in one hand and a video tape in the other.

     "You know, like I got the whole thing on tape and I like, you know, thought you'd need it to help nail who ever did it, like." he said.

     Both Donovan and Campbell's eyes lit up. Both snatched the tape but as the Crusher had the longer reach, he won it. Campbell smiled, his eyes glittering with menace.

     "What's your name?" he said turning his attention to the kid with the camera.

     "Michael Bruder. But, like everybody calls me 'Zep' on account that I'm really into Led Zeppelin, you know."

     "Oh. That's nice." Campbell smiled. "Thanks for turning this in, young man. We'll see it gets to the proper authorities."

     "Yeah, thanks a lot," Donovan then gave the kid a thumbs-up sign with one of his massive hands. "Rock on, dude!"

     I left the two then to go and see Stan at the tiny Daily City Medical Center. Unfortunately, I was turned away because I wasn't his immediate family or part of his staff, but I was assured that the doctor planned to release him the following day. As I left the hospital, I walked past a gurney splattered with half-dried red paint some of which had dripped onto the floor. There, caught in the corner of one of the gurney's casters lay what turned out be a red ping-pong ball object. It was made of soft vinyl and leaked a steady trickle of red paint from it---the same red paint as the stuff all over the gurney! Hurriedly I wrapped it in a handkerchief and exited the building.

     Nobody has been arrested by Daily City Police or the Bremer Sheriff and neither are talking about it until they have viewed Zep Bruder's tape of the attack. While I am not wholly happy with Campbell's Single Paintball Theory, I don't think much of Donovan's figure on the grassy knoll, either. But as normal paintballs are fairly small, the evidence of the single over-sized paintball I found on the gurney makes the Crusher's idea that a high-powered paintball weapon had been used at a great distance. And there are several places ringing the Reenactment area that make that a real possibility.

     Were agents acting for other presidential candidates involved? If so, what did the other candidates know and when did they know it? Or, was it just the angry act of a lone kook? Hopefully, Daily City authorities will share their information soon.