Oswald's Watch

Some old timers will tell you that while Oswald sat up in the book depository looking down over the motorcade twisting through the Dallas streets below, his watch sat on a nearby windowsill, loyally explaining the world to him.

The way they describe this watch, it sounds similar to the one my grandfather had – the all-metal flip-open types that have a little notch that you press to have the cover pop out. You have to wind it up for it to work, because this is before batteries.

“Everyone knows it was an inside-job. Someone hired him to do it, to at least sit up there,” they will say. “And that watch, it was a gift from the government agent who was the point-person with Oswald. That’s why it disappeared afterward. As soon as they came to get him, they grabbed the watch so that there wouldn’t be any evidence because that was the only thing that could have pinned them to the assassination.”

Why give him a gift that’s so traceable? You think – Sounds a little sloppy for government agents. Of course you don’t say anything. This is their history lesson. As far as they’re concerned, your doubt is your ignorance, your treason.

“Who do you think runs this place?” they will ask, as if sensing your skepticism. “They’re smart, some of them at least, but they’re also American, they’re too proud. And when you get too proud, you get sloppy.”

And then they will lean back on the stone benches at Washington Square Park, crossing their hands over their expansive bellies, satisfied with themselves. They continue staring at the unfinished chess game that sits patiently in front of them, acting as if they are completely disinterested in your reaction. But you can see that glimmer that flashes from the corner of their eyes as they glance your way, assess you.

“I wonder what happened to that watch.” A knight positions itself to take a rook. “The things it must know."

It was just doing its job really, it was just telling time. You consider how much it understood as it lay there, making sure that Oswald was on schedule, executing his plan (or his orders, depending on who you ask) correctly.

“Tick,” it noted, and then, “tock,” it added. Over and over, repeating, as if mad.

“This is now, and now, and now, and nothing will ever be what it once was. Nothing will ever be the same.

And I can go on about this endlessly, about as long as you’d like.”

But who knows if Oswald was ever listening to it.

“It knew,” they will say, and a bishop will slide across the board, threatening the Queen. “Don’t think that it was innocent; it was an accomplice to the crime."

As Oswald glanced at it, sweat pooling under his armpits and in the center of his back, one droplet sliding down along his spine, maybe there was a moment when the watch began to doubt, to panic. What was happening here? Who was this man? To sacrifice its promise, to break its vow and undermine the plot – it could keep just a second or two to itself, like some secret slip-up, Oswald would never know and then everything might be different. Just a second or two.

“To just sit there like that…” They shake their heads. A lower lip presses out and flops over, hanging down towards a chin. A King inches its way forward, slow and somber. “No sir. There’s no excuse.” There’s the smell of pipe smoke in the air until the wind pulls it away. “Commie probably, or a coward, and I don’t like either.”

The Dallas sun glares in from across the street as it peeks out from behind a building and the watch is blinded, its face singed. There is a hammer clicking back somewhere in the room. Its tensing coils crack across the floor and suddenly that same sound echoes simultaneously in all the corners. And still the gears continue to shift and turn without pause.

A cough at the chess table. A white puff of breath escaping into the air.

Shots fired in Dallas. Millions of them, from everywhere. The acrid smell of gunpowder through the entire

City, thick and potent, suffused with the moisture from the humidity. The world holds its breath but still the second-hand continues on its path, past the twelve and towards the one, a minute restarting itself, as if the past was undoable, as if we could try things over again.

And you’ll open your eyes and it’ll be there, staring you in the face. The pawn moves into position, another piece falls, rolling around on the board. There is the sound of metal hitting stone, vast and deep, the hollow bell that rings at the end of a world.

“Checkmate,” someone will say.