The morning sun had not yet risen over the US Capitol building. The Statue of Freedom looks east in the dim light, awaiting the dawn. She wears a military helmet adorned with stars and the head of an eagle, symbol of America’s power, itself crowned with a crest of feathers.
Eventually the sun rises over this sombre November day. The US flag is at half-mast; the sky is an icy blue. America is in mourning.
Hundreds of thousands of citizens have come to attend the murdered president’s funeral. Gathering in front of the two rows of soldiers, they weep for their departed leader. The procession has left the White House. The horses’ hooves clack on the pavement, the sound of drums deafening the mourners. The horses wear raincoats and carry no riders. The flag of the Union’s fifty states flaps in the breeze. America was injured; America was betrayed. The horse-drawn hearse makes its way along Pennsylvania Avenue before arriving at the capitol, where the coffin will be displayed on the Lincoln catafalque. US Navy officers pay homage to their commander-in-chief.
“My name is John Kennedy. I’m the President’s son. Caroline is the eldest, but I'm the boy and I’ll be the one to carry on the family name. I don’t know why my mother wouldn’t let me hug my father’s coffin at the Capitol in front of the other presidents, and the princes and kings. Still, I didn’t make trouble. I'm a good boy. Mother told me to behave like the US Navy officers, and to salute as I walked by them. That’s better. It’s nicer than what Caroline did. Mother told me to think hard about Papa when I did the military salute. That’s what I did; I thought about all the things Papa told me. Papa told me that one day a man would walk on the moon. And not just any man, an American man! America has the best astronauts in the world. Better than the Russians. Papa didn’t like the Russians much. Papa even had a replica rocket in his office. It’s a very big replica, and it’s not a toy. It came from NASA, where they make the real ones. Still, I wasn’t allowed to play with the replica, but I could look at it. Papa said that the moon was farther away than I realised, but I already knew that it was high up in the sky, higher than the big buildings in New York. I told him that I wanted to go to the moon; he laughed and said we could go and see the airplanes: that was a good start. So we went to see the fighter planes. There were a lot of pilots in uniform who seemed to respect my father. Because my father was the commander-in-chief of the whole army, I got to climb up into a plane and sit beside the pilot, who showed me all the buttons and how the levers worked. It sure was fun. I wanted to take off on my own in that fighter plane, to help protect America. “One day, if you follow in your father’s footsteps, you’ll be giving the orders!” the pilot told me. I liked the US Navy. The men from the navy defended our great country; they were brave patriots. While my father was talking with the generals, a young pilot took me aside and told me about the war. He told me about pigs in a bay, which I didn’t really understand. Why would the US army be launching missiles at pigs? He told me they were communists, and they lived on a very dangerous island. I tried to imagine what communist pigs were like. He laughed and told me they weren’t animals, they were Cubans. I thought that communists came from Russia. He told me I’d understand when I was older and put his cap on my head. Papa said that I looked very smart with the pilot’s hat on my head. A week later, my father held a photo op in his office in the White House. “That’s my son, John!” he told the photographer. He took a lot more photos of me than he did of Caroline. That’s because I'm the boy, but she’s older than me. Mother wasn’t there. Then all of a sudden, the red telephone rang. “The children,” father said sternly, and our nana came and took us outside. I wanted to listen, but I wasn’t allowed. Papa had a secret red telephone for talking directly to President Khrushchev and his atomic bombs. Papa and the Russian president are the only people in the world who can explode atomic bombs and kill lots of people. Sometimes I get scared thinking about Papa having all that responsibility. That’s why I cried when the red telephone rang. Caroline reassured me and said that papa was very good at sorting things out. He couldn’t stop them from killing him, though. Someone shot my father. Mama said that he was well protected; there was no risk. But someone killed him anyway. You’d have to be a very bad man to kill someone‘s papa, and the best president in the world. I asked my mother why she didn’t cry. She answered: “We Kennedys don’t cry!” But I cried, and Caroline did too. I was ashamed, but Mama said that it was OK for children to cry. My uncle didn’t cry. One of them, anyway. I have two. Robert was my favourite. I didn’t like Uncle Ted so much. Robert didn’t cry, but Ted did. My father wouldn’t have cried either, and one day I'll be just as strong as he was.”
Alan Alfredo Geday