Fix the Bus

Here is a little fun piece about Jack Ruby.  Here I put myself in Jack’s brain and try to see the world as he saw it. I shift point of view a little because I didn’t know how else to write it.

So was Jack Ruby in on it?

Look, I wasn’t there. There are things I can not possibly know. This is what I think happened based upon the events that have been recorded.

The thoughts of Jack Ruby are my thoughts as I, as Jack Ruby, would have thought them.

Got it?

Okay, so was Jack Ruby in on the plot to kill JFK?

No.

As his many friends would tell you: Jack was the last guy you would bring in on a caper so important and delicate.

Jack Ruby, had he been born fifty years later, would have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder.

He was too frenetic.

Too impulsive.

Too undisciplined a thinker.

Jack Ruby was a person you used. He was not a person who could work with a team.

That’s why Jack ended up where he did.

Oh, he was a smart guy.

He just wasn’t a team member.

And so he was used.

Oswald didn’t know Jack Ruby, but it came to pass that Jack knew Lee Oswald.

If Lee Oswald knew Jack, Jack never would have allowed Oswald to see his face on the night of 11/22/63 when Oswald “met” the media.

The architect of the assassination never would have permitted it.

Why would he take the risk of Lee screaming out, “Jack Ruby, you bastard, you set me up.” Or, “Get me out of this, Jack. Tell them I’m innocent.”

That Jack was there indicates two things:

One, Lee did not know Jack.

Two, Jack was prepared to kill Lee that night.

Jack Ruby’s attorney thought the idea absurd that Jack was sent to silence Lee.

I think not.

Something was eating at Jack all day.

And it sure wasn’t the shock of JFK’s death.

That’s the bullshit the Warren Commission wants you to believe.

Jack Ruby had been dreading this day. He had hoped his involvement would not be necessary.

He had been recruited well beforehand to solve a potential problem should the need arise.

He was told the gravity, not the specifics, of the mission should he accept.

There would be no backing out.

If he accepted and was successful, his family would be compensated. And he would have done a good thing. He would be able to redeem his life. If he backed out, failed or spoke, he would be killed. Either way, he would be a dead man.

There was a chance he might never be called.

If called, he would be told what to do.

He accepted.

Jack wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but he wasn’t stupid.

Something with stakes this high had to involve the President.

So if he asked people beforehand if they were going to be there in Dealey Plaza for the fireworks, he was just using a figure of speech.

Why would any assassin tell Jack Ruby anything?

Jack Ruby knew nothing about the plot.

When JFK was shot, Jack was as shocked as anyone else.

Then he began to think.

His first concern was whether JFK was dead.

If he’s not dead, he thought, I might get arrested if somebody talks.

What happens if my name gets mentioned?

So he went to Parkland.

JFK was dead.

Jack felt a little relief.

His relief turned to concern when he heard that a killer had been identified.

He became mortified when he learned that the killer, Oswald, had been captured alive. Jesus, Jack thought, what if he talks.

Sometime in the early afternoon, Jack was told what his mission was.

Kill Oswald.

Jack was to use his police contacts, work his way into the building and kill him.

Jack threw up.

He scrambled to get details.

He went to the DPD.

He spoke to his friends at KLIF radio.

He talked to reporters at the Dallas Morning News.

Jack had heard from his buddies at the police department what had gone down.

He heard about Tippit.

Jack instantly knew that Oswald was supposed to have been killed at the Texas Theater but had managed to get caught alive.

Jack became emotionally unhinged.

He spent the day erratically going here and there.

He closed the club.

He took out money to pay off debts and settle up.

He called his brother and sister in Chicago.

He visited and spoke to his other sister, Eva, in Dallas, many times.

He wept openly in public.

He tried to sleep at his sister’s place but threw up instead.

He was going nuts.

He knew killing Oswald would mean the end of his life as he knew it.

There must be a way out, he thought.

He went to synagogue later that night.

He spoke to his rabbi hoping to get guidance for a problem he could not explain or reveal.

While there at synagogue, he met his handler who held Jack’s hand.

He spoke to Jack at length.

His handler reminded Jack that we are all called by God at some point to sacrifice ourselves.

He reminded Jack that he would be doing a noble thing for the Jews.

He told him the story of Abraham who God had commanded to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

If Oswald talked, the handler told him, people would blame the Jews for JFK’s death.

It won’t matter, he told him, that Christians were involved. People would fixate on the Jews.

Such a fixation would harm Israel.

The handler pounded this point home again and again.

Jack agreed.

His life had been a failure.

Jack had big dreams as a boy. None of those dreams had panned out.

He had wanted to be a big shot.

Instead he was tagged with a name like Sparky which infuriated him.

It reminded him of his volatile personality which had gotten him into so much trouble in his life.

Why couldn’t I have been given a cool nickname like, Tex, or Spike, he said to himself.

Instead, he lamented, I got named after a stupid fucking horse from a cartoon.

Why couldn’t I have been born normal, he asked God. Why couldn’t I be the

one who had three kids, a happy home and a life as a respected doctor?

Instead I run dead-end nightclubs dealing with white trash and hookers.

He confided all this to his handler.

His handler listened patiently.

This is your shot at redemption, Jack, he told him. All your pain goes away.

Jack agreed.

And so he went to the DPD that Friday night to kill Oswald at the midnight conference.

But a combination of not getting close enough and a lack of guts gave him pause.

To be honest, a part of him identified with Lee Oswald.

He’s a schmuck and a chump like me, thought Jack. Just another guy who is being used.

Jack Ruby was a tough man but not a cruel man.

He did get a good conduct medal upon being honorably discharged from the US Army Air Force.

The girls who worked for him at the Carousel Club loved him.

He in turn loved his mother.

He was hardly the ruthless businessman.

Truth be told, Jack was nearly broke.

He was always borrowing money.

He was a soft touch in return.

Accounting was not his forte.

Ralph Paul was his best friend. This is part of his testimony before the Warren Commission on 4/15/64, which, ironically, is tax day. He is being interviewed by Mr. Leon D. Hubert, Jr., assistant counsel of the President’s Commission.

Mr. HUBERT. So, you would be seen counting the money?
Mr. PAUL. Yes; that’s right–that’s why I wanted to know who told you.
Mr. HUBERT. But that’s all it amounted to, just-that you had counted the money for him? Mr. PAUL. That’s all–I would bring it downstairs–he never carried it with him actually–I don’t know why he carried so much money the last time. Actually, he used to throw it in the back of the car in the trunk and he said, “That’s the place that nobody looks.”
Mr. HUBERT. You mean you have known him to go home with money in the sack and he never put it on his person at all?
Mr. PAUL. No–in the back of the car.
Mr. HUBERT. Even when he parked his car at night he wouldn’t take it upstairs?
Mr. PAUL. What do you mean–no; he never took it up to the house he left it in the car.

Jack was not the best businessman.

This was true. He couldn’t even keep a decent ledger of his expenses.

When it came time to do his taxes, he would dump receipts out of his pockets onto the desk of his accountant.

His accountant would throw up his hands in frustration.

Jack thought about all this as he stared at Oswald that night at the DPD.

He reflected on the comic reality of his life .

He decided not to kill Lee that night. He wasn’t ready.

He wanted to see people he loved one last time as a free man.

Most importantly, he wanted to say goodbye to Sheba, his beloved dog.

Dogs were important to Jack Ruby.

He could throw a man down the stairs of his club, but he could not stand to see a dog mistreated.

And so on his last day as a free man, he said goodbye to Sheba, buttoned up his coat, adjusted his hat, then walked into the police department garage.

Copyright 2018 Archer Crosley All Rights Reserved