There's a red plastic radio on the shelf above the grill tuned to NBC News...unavoidable news.  Iris has walked into a scene of emotion and jangled nerves in this cafe, it's unavoidable, nowhere to hide tonight in America, nowhere to escape.  The latest from Washington, D.C., the latest from Dallas, Texas...a rushed interview with an "eyewitness" Secret Service man...further information concerning Lee Harvey Oswald, "the lone assassin."
    Then music: "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" by the Shirelles.
    Mandy and her customers discuss the news in voices that range from thoughtful to vehement, angry to aggrieved.  Iris listens, thinking, Why do you care that a white man has died?  Why do you put your faith in any of us?  What she most wants to do isn't cry but cradle her head in her arms by the counter, shut her eyes, vanish.
    Manyd appears to be the most agitated.  She's been crying, that's why her face is so puffy, lined, her big breasts rising and falling with feeling, the lenses of her glasses misting over.  Oh Gawd, she's saying, ain't it the terriblest terriblest shame, that poor man, poor Mrs. Kennedy left with those little children, how's she gonna tell those children what a cruel thing happened to their daddy out in plain daylight, and Iris realizes that it's she whom Mandy is addressing, she says, "Yes, it's terrible," but her voice is faint and unconvincing, as if she's thinking of something else or has something to ask of Mandy in turn - Why put your faith in any of us? - but thinks better of asking.  Just bites her lip, keeps her mouth shut.
    The boysenberry pie costs forty-five cents, the coffee ten cents, Iris carefully counts out seventy cents from the change in her pocket, adds another nickel, some pennies - her last penny, in fact - as if she's suddenly eager to get rid of all her money, meager as it is.
    While Mandy is elsewhere, back to Iris, Iris leaves her little pile of coins by her plate, hurries out of the cafe before Mandy returns to see how much she's left and call her back.
    "Bye!" Iris calls.
    She hears Mandy call something after her.  As she leaves, the Shirelles are still singing "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?"

    Not to police, nor to the doctor in charge of the Syracuse Memorial Hospital emergency room or any of the nurses there, not to Alan Savage, not to any of the Savages will Iris Courtney make any attempt to explain why...what logic, what purpose, walking alone at night in a neighborhood so far from her own, a part of her mind not numbed with fatigue but brightly alert, even hopeful, imagining she's in Hammond somehow...in Hammond, in Lowertown...the slow-smiling eyes, the bared teeth glistening, Mmmmmmmmmm!  hey girl! but you must never look, it's dangerous.
    She'll say, I didn't see their faces.
    She'll say, Yes they were black but I didn't see their faces.
    Walking at the curb on Tenth Street to avoid the doorways, the mouths of alleys.  Now the rain has stopped it's cold.  Her breath is steaming.  There's a tavern brimming with noise and warmth blinking MOLSON'S in the window where black men stand at the bar in a haze of smoke and someone calls, whistles, dances after her...but she doesn't look...it's dangerous.  Iris Courtney's studied, slightly swaying walk and her loose arms suggest she's drunk or drugged but her eyes are fully open, bright, intelligent - don't talk to me, don't approach me, don't touch me - and for several blocks she makes her way unimpeded like a dreamer in a charmed landscape until at Oswego Street and West Avenue a car with a noisy muffler cruises through the intersection, skids to a stop, backs up like a comically agitated insect...its rear hiked, its back tires luridly exposed.  A black boy's head emerges from the driver's window and there's a soft-sliding call, "Hey: you looking for a ride?"
    Iris stares at the pavement before her.  Murmurs, "No...no, thanks."
    "Say what, honey?  Huhhhhhhhh?"  And, louder: "You looking for a ride?"
    The car, filled with young black men in their late teens, early twenties, is noisily idling in the street, spewing out clouds of exhaust.  It's a holiday!  You can feel it!  From the car radio rock music blasts and all the boys are talking at once, there's a car door flung open, long long legs spring out, black-sneakered feet enormous as clubs.  Iris Courtney turns quickly to walk in the opposite direction but somehow it happens (she blinks: he's there) one of them is on the sidewalk grinning, blocking her way basketball-style...and when she turns like a trapped animal there's another, gangly limbed and antic, reefer-happy, blocking her way...so she's transfixed, thinking, Don't struggle, don't resist, then they won't kill you - but when the playful black boys grab her and drag her into the backseat of the already moving car she loses control, she's weeping and hysterical suddenly, screaming, kicking, pummeling with her fists...sprawled helplessly and gracelessly across their laps, three of them jammed in the back as the car guns off, tires squealing, and there's wild laughter as their hands run over her in amazed delight, fingers deft and hard, there's a smell of sweet-acrid smoke and cheap wine and they're grabbing her breats, squeezing, sticking their fingers into her, into her crotch, she's panicked, squirming like a maddened eel, screaming and sobbing...even as her consciousness detaches itself from her struggling body floating and suspended voiceless above it as if she has already died.
    But she hasn't.

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