The Decadent Worker

HOW TO BECOME A REINCARNATION OF JUDAS

In early November of 1963 Slim and I arrived at the little house in Harahan, Louisiana, and Brother-in-law said to me, as soon as I sat down, “Kerry, give me some ideas about assassinating John F. Kennedy.”

I was more than happy to oblige; I had been saving up ideas about how to murder the President for years. I’d spoken of assassinating Kennedy to anyone who would listen to me ever since my arrival in New Orleans. My plans for murder ranged rom concealing sodium in his vitamin capsules so as to blow his stomach to pieces to designing a remote control model airplane with a bomb in it to hit him from a safe distance through a White House window.

Brother-in-law just sat there on the sofa, nodding eagerly and grinning excitedly at the worst of my suggestions. It was my turn to be moving about and gesturing wildly.

When I finally wound down, he just smirked and said, “Give me some more ideas.”

Thereupon I ran through my second-rate solutions for disposing of the man both Ayn Rand and I considered a fascist-socialist tyrant…

“Now, Kerry, I think when we assassinate Kennedy — if it becomes necessary to sacrifice one man in order to protect the assassins, then we should go ahead and sacrifice one man.”

“I agree with that.”

“And I think that if, besides sacrificing one man, we also have to sacrifice one woman for that purpose — then we should sacrifice that woman.”

“Yes,” I said, less certain now of where all this was leading.

“And then, if we have to sacrifice two men and two women, I think we ought to go ahead and sacrifice two men and two women. How about you?”

Slim was looking at me and laughing silently. Obviously I looked a little scared…

And so it went — a most baffling discussion — settling at last on what number of sacrificial victims I do not remember — and to what reasonable end I could not begin to guess…

“And what do you think about letting Jimmy Hoffa in on this thing?”

…After allowing a considerable silence to elapse, he grinned obnoxiously and said, “And next we’ll get Martin Luther King.”

“Aw, what do you want to kill King for?” I asked. It was not the first time he had made this suggestion…

“And, Kerry, I think the best way to kill President Kennedy and get away with it would be to involve all kinds of people — but to keep them under the impression they are working on other projects.”

“If you must involve large numbers of people, yes…”

“But in order to do that,” he said, “you would have to have a very large bureaucracy under your control.”

…I said in a disappointed tone of voice, “Yes.” For if anything was certain in my mind, it was that scrawny, TB-ridden Slim Brooks and his weird Nazi burglar of a brother-in-law did not control any bureacracies. Yet, to my bewilderment, Slim looked at Gary and Gary looked at Slim with expressions of absolute triumph in their eyes…

Slim indicated it was time to go and we headed for the door.

“The only remaining problem,” Brother-in-law said, “is who to frame for it… I figure I’ll frame some jailbird.”

“Why a jailbird?”…

A crooked smirk distorted his mouth so much that he had to bow his head in trying to hide it. “Well, Kerry, who would you suggest framing?”

“Aw, why don’t you frame some Communist?” I answered. (From The Dreadlock Recollections (c) by Kerry Wendell Thornley, 1984, pp. 174-8)

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