by James Philip
On stage at the Troubadour Sam Brenckmann smelled the whiff of petrol before he caught the acrid tang of smoke and burning, only moments before the lights went out and people started to scream. It never occurred to him to try to be brave, or to attempt to ‘take charge’ of the situation. The ‘situation’ was already completely out of control by then. He groped on the floor in the near darkness for his open guitar case, pulled the lid shut, and kicked away the barstool he had been sitting on in the centre of the stage. He planned to head for the side door out into the alley, it was nearest exit and he knew the way well enough to stumble to it in the gloom.
There seemed to be flames behind him and to his left.
The stench of petrol told him somebody had started the fires.
A rush of thoughts threatened to bury him.
Judy, the baby, all the people trampling over each other trying to get out; he was strangely unafraid for himself. He knew where he was going, all he had to do was kick open the door to the alley and he would be fine.
Unfortunately, others had had exactly the same idea as Sam; and they jostled and cursed, shuffled in the deafening black confusion of the burning club.
There was a lot of smoke suddenly.
People were coughing.
And Sam was very, very aware of the rusty tyre iron rattling around in his guitar case. He had tried wrapping the thing in a towel to stop it scratching the back of his Martin, contemplated throwing it away or leaving it in the back of his pickup. Right now he was really glad he had it with him without actually being able to say why.
Nobody could get out through the side door.
It was locked, jammed, blocked and more people were pressing against it all the time as the smoke got thicker. It became impossible to breathe without crouching down beneath the hot, suffocating, poisoned air quickly filling the club from the roof down to the floor.
Okay!
Forget the side door!
Backstage?
Behind the bar?
No time to think about it!
The flames were licking along and across the ceiling, burning faraway crimson through the thickening smoke. His guitar was still slung over his chest; the big unwieldy case rattling with the lumpy tyre iron dragged him down. He could not catch his breath.
It was like a bad dream.
Stumbling forward, bodies crushing against him.
More than once he stepped over what must have been somebody on the floor. He knew if he stopped moving forward he would be knocked down by the press behind him.
There was a roaring of wind.
A searing heat and then Sam was staggering drunkenly into the parking lot behind the Troubadour, coughing and puking in the deliciously clean, pure air of the California night.
He dropped his guitar case and it flew open.
Metal clanged on tarmac as the tyre iron skittered to a stop against his right foot with a soft, hurtful thud.
Without thinking Sam shrugged off his Martin, laying it carefully – or as carefully as a man wracked with lung-clearing coughing fits was capable – in the open case.
He slowly stood up, hefting the tyre iron in his left fist.
Feeling week and nauseas he looked around. There were men and women tottering, sitting on the cold ground. A teenage girl was weeping a few yards to his left; and approaching him like Sherman tanks were two very big men in bikers’ leathers swinging chains.
He knew they were coming to get him because one of them shone a torch in his face.
“Too bad you didn’t burn, boy!”
Right then Sam realised, belatedly, that Doug Weston had been right all along about the virtues of toting a loaded forty-five.
Chapter 48
Monday 9th December 1963
Main State Building, 2201 C Street, Washington DC
The United States Deputy Secretary of State was in a hurry. George Ball perfunctorily shook Gretchen Betancourt’s hand and waved her to take a seat. He viewed her thoughtfully but only for a moment.
“You come highly recommended,” he said tersely.
“Thank you,” Gretchen parroted respectfully. She had listened to the President’s State of the Union Address through the open door to the Under Secretary’s office, and somewhat worryingly, afterwards she was none the wiser as to the central thrust of, or any of the principal objectives of United States foreign policy, other than the President seemed to honestly think that bombing one’s allies was not that big a deal. After the President had finished speaking the Under Secretary had received a call and spoken in low tones she could not catch for nearly twenty minutes.
“High recommendation is a double-edged sword, Miss Betancourt,” George Ball replied. “Do you plan to stay in Washington the next few days or are you heading for the country like everybody else?”
“Er. I was planning to stay in DC, sir.”
The windows rattled and distant thunder rumbled across the capital.
“In that case I’m sure we can find something for you to do.”
“I speak French, sir,” Gretchen offered, trying not to seem pushy, “I’m told that the place to be is on the South East Asia desk?”
George Ball arched an eyebrow.
“Somebody told you that did they?”
“Yes, sir.”
Again, the windows rattled and the flash of lightning flickered distantly.
“In the old days everybody wanted to be posted to Paris or London, or Rome,” the man observed dryly.
Gretchen nodded.
“Yes, well,” she commented, “that was then and this is now, sir.”
George Ball smiled.
“Yes indeed,” he ruminated.
That smile was still on his lips when the whole building shuddered and the walls around the man and the woman seemed to implode in a paroxysm of flying glass and plaster, smoke, and flame amidst an ear-bursting crash...
Chapter 49
Monday 9th December 1963
Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Los Angeles
The policemen were looking worried now. They had refused to remove Judy’s cuffs until she had her first contraction; then, ignoring the terse orders they had received over their in-car radio to ‘bring the bitches’ – Judy and Sabrina – ‘in to West Hollywood’, they had pulled the LAPD cruiser onto the hard shoulder. Judy’s cuffs had been removed; Sabrina was still cussing and screaming abuse at the cops because they had left her in restraints.
“My friend is in labour you useless dipshits!” Sabrina yelled. “You need to take her to the nearest hospital!”
Another cruiser drew up behind the first car.
Doors opened and slammed shut.
Disembodied voices crackled over the radio.
The policemen started arguing amongst themselves.
“That shithead might have paid the Captain to turn over that fucking commune!” One man protested. “Nobody said anything to me about rousting a bunch of kids or bringing in a pregnant woman!”
Sabrina and Judy were left alone in the back of the car.
“Dipshits!” Sabrina muttered.
Judy was trying, and failing, to stay calm.
“If my ex-husband has anything to do with this I’ll cut his balls off!” Sabrina went on.
“This has happened before?” Judy asked breathlessly.
“Not for a while. The LAPD aren’t as crooked as some places...”
The door behind Sabrina opened.
“Hold still,” the cop, hardly more than a kid and a little shamefaced, complained as he fumbled to unlock Sabrina’s hand cuffs.
Judy had been trying to distract herself staring at the street light across the road. At that moment the light blinked out. The cops outside the car stopped talking.
“What’s happened?” Sabrina demanded imperiously.
“The city lights have just gone out,” she was informed. From where the cars were parked the broad sweep of the sprawling city ought to have been brightly laid out before the cops standing in the road.
/> Instead, there was only the blackness of the night.
“All of them!” Somebody else added, worriedly. “All the lights have gone off across the whole city!”
The car radio which had been constantly spewing background noise, chatter and static had also fallen silent. Only the headlamps and tail lights, and the low rumbling of the idling engines of the LAPD cruisers broke the still darkness.
Judy groaned as her second contraction began.
Chapter 50
Monday 9th December 1963
Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, California
Rescuing Dwayne John – the Civil Rights ‘courier’ – from the clutches of the FBI had been relative child’s play because J. Edgar Hoover’s men had ridden a coach and horses through Dwayne John’s constitutional rights. However, getting hold of the court order necessary to extricate Darlene Lefebure from the ‘protective custody’ of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been a nightmare. California Attorney General Stanley Mosk, had been reluctant to involve his office in what was basically – however one felt about it - a lawful ‘federal enforcement situation’. He had had to wait until the FBI men guarding Darlene Lefebure actually infringed, unambiguously, the young lady’s rights. This they had now done by refusing her access to counsel on three separate occasions.
But something was very wrong.
Even in the distance the flashing lights in the street were a bad omen.
Up close there were Berkeley PD patrol cars and other, unmarked vehicles parked where they had skidded to a halt in the road and on the front lawn of the big timber-framed house within a short walk of the University campus.
A gaggle of stern-faced uniformed officers guarded an ad hoc perimeter and two ambulances were waiting, engines running and tail gates open.
Miranda Sullivan stepped out of Harvey Fleischer’s Lincoln and viewed the surreal scene over the roof of the car. On the other side of the car Stanley Mosk marched up to the nearest cop and identified himself.
“What’s going on here?”
“A shooting, sir. Four dead that we know about so far.”
Miranda followed the California Attorney General up the path to the house, and in a dream, followed him inside.
A dapper man wearing an Inspector’s badge barred their way.
“Careful where you step, sir,” he cautioned, recognising Stanley Mosk. “There’s a lot of blood. It looks like some kind of contract killing. We don’t know if anybody escaped. Hell, we don’t know how many people were in the house.”
“Three or four men and a young woman,” the Attorney General retorted.
Miranda realised that the vile iron taint in the air was the smell of freshly spilled blood. She wrinkled her nose, distracted.
“We haven’t found the body of a woman so far,” the detective reported. “But my guys are still searching the back yard.”
“When did this happen?” Miranda asked numbly.
“Maybe an hour-and-a-half ago. The neighbours reported gunfire and a man in the street shooting towards the house from the middle of the road with an automatic weapon. The first patrol car was on the scene about ten minutes later. It was all over by then.”
Miranda drifted after Stanley Mosk, deeper into the house.
In the back room where she and Lieutenant Brenckmann had met Darlene Lefebure there were two bodies. Two bodies covered in blood and lying in puddles of blood. There was blood spattered all over two walls. The left side of one victim’s head and face was missing, scrambled across the floor.
Miranda gagged, pushed past the detective and ran out into the darkness.
Where she was violently sick.
Chapter 51
Monday 9th December 1963
Main State Building, 2201 C Street, Washington DC
All the lights had gone out, the air was full of dust and smoke and Gretchen’s ears were ringing. At first she heard nothing but the ringing, and then, slowly, she thought she sensed other sounds, all coming from a long way away as if she was wearing ear mufflers. She tried to move but there was something pinning her legs to the floor.
Gretchen had no idea what had happened, or initially, no memory of where she was.
Suddenly, the building around her seemed to lurch sideways again and more dust, glass and smoke billowed over, around her, and onto her prostrate body. This she registered disinterestly, like an observer from afar, her conscious mind too shocked to be afraid. She thought she was blind. After an interminable period lapsing into and out of awareness she discovered she was still face down, covered in debris; pulverised plaster, shards of glass, splinters of wood, brick and concrete dust, shredded papers, and a section of curtain, smelling of burning, but otherwise nothing very substantial other than whatever was pinning her legs to the ground.
She listened, numbly, to a woman crying.
There were voices somewhere in the murk.
The weight lifted off Gretchen’s legs and she was unceremoniously rolled onto her back.
A torch was waving over her.
“She’s alive...” The words reached Gretchen’s brain through the humming, ringing noise in her ears. Her eyes were full of grit. She hurt all over, and thought she was going to pass out when strong hands reached under her arms and raised her to a sitting position. The moment came and went and left her blinking into the dusty gloom trying to make sense of the wreckage in the shifting loom of the torches.
Her face was wet.
She stared stupidly at the blood on her hands.
“You have to get up!”
The man who said it looked like a scarecrow, his face blackened and his suit filthy and torn, his eyes like white saucers in the darkness.
“We can’t stay here!” He was shouting; she was barely hearing what he was saying.
There were small explosions somewhere beneath Gretchen’s feet as she swayed unsteadily, supported by the man who had shouted at her.
Small explosions?
Many, many small explosions and an odd, faraway bang, bang, hammering. With each new detonation the floor flinched.
Gretchen was half-led, half-dragged into a broad corridor. Although there was dirt and dust, and the smell of smoke was stronger here, there was less structural damage deeper into the carcass of the building, and nothing to stumble on or over. People around her were running.
Running for their lives...
Through the buzzing, ringing in her ears Gretchen thought women were screaming. She had no idea where she was being taken, just that the sound of shooting – that was what the bang, bang hammering was – was getting closer and closer.
“This way!” Her scarecrow rescuer cried.
He bundled Gretchen ahead of him into a darkened room.
As the door slammed behind her she stumbled and fell. Her frantic arms found nothing to arrest her tumble, until jarring onto a carpeted floor they crumpled beneath her.
Gretchen’s forehead hit something unyielding.
Her last memory before her personal universe went dark was of a never-ending burst of what could only have been automatic gunfire in the corridor outside.
[ THE END ]
Author’s Endnote
Thank you again for reading Timeline 10/27/62 – USA Book 2: California Dreaming. I hope you enjoyed it - or if you didn’t, sorry - but either way, thank you for reading and helping to keep the printed word alive. Remember, civilisation depends on people like you.
* * *
Note: if you have read USA ‘Book 1 – Aftermath’ the rest of this ‘Author’s Endnote’ is the same as the corresponding section in that book.
As a rule I let my books speak for themselves. I hope it does not sound fuddy-duddy or old-fashioned, but broadly speaking I tend towards the view that a book should speak for itself.
However, with your indulgence I would like briefly – well, as briefly as is possible without being overly terse – to share a few personal thoughts with you, the reader about the Timeline 10/27/62 World.
I was no
t yet seven-and-a-half years old in October 1962 when I realised my parents were paying an awful lot of attention to the radio, devouring every line of print in their daily newspaper and were not quite themselves, a little distracted in fact, now that I think about it. I heard the word ‘Cuba’ bandied about but did not know until much later that the most dangerous moment of my life had come and gone without my ever, as a child, knowing it.
I was not yet eight-and-a-half years old when one day in November 1963 the World around me came, momentarily, to a juddering halt. I had heard the name of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and I even knew that he was the President of something called the United States of America. I did not know then that he was a womanising, drug dependent and deeply conflicted man who had lied to the American people about his chronic, periodically disabling illness which in any rational age ought to have disqualified him from the Presidency; but I did know that he was a charismatic, talismanic figure in whom even I, as a child more interested in soccer, model trains and riding my new bicycle, had invested a nameless hope for the future. And then one day he was gone and I shared my parents’ shock and horror. It was not as if a mortal man had been murdered; JFK had become a mythic figure long before then. It was as if the modern day analogue of King Menelaus of Sparta - hero of the Trojan Wars and the husband of Helen, she of the legendary face that launched a thousand ships - had been gunned down that day in Dallas.
The Cuban Missiles crisis and the death of a President taught a young boy in England in 1962 and 1963 that the World is a very dangerous place.
Many years later we learned how close we all came to the abyss in late October 1962. Often we look back on how deeply Jack Kennedy’s death scarred hearts and minds in the years after his assassination.
There is no certainty, no one profound insight into what ‘might have happened’ had the Cold War turned Hot in the fall of 1962, or if JFK had survived that day in Dallas. History is not a systematic, explicable march from one event to another that inevitably reaches some readily predictable outcome. History only works that way in hindsight; very little is obvious either to the major or the minor players at the time history is actually being made. Nor does one have to be a fully paid up chaos theoretician to know that apparently inconsequential events can have massive unforeseen and unforeseeable impacts in subsequent historical developments.