Nightmare of the Boomers - who killed Kennedy?

I did not kill Kennedy
I loved Kennedy
Not the way Jackie did
Of course
She was his wife and my idol
Even though “Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me”
The Golden Calf
But he was my hero
My champion
Of passion
And idealism
Of Camelot
I will not reign in benevolence
But retreat in sorrow and pain

This is a mystery I cannot understand
This was a parade
A bullet
A shattered dream
Because I have no power over dreams
I can only pray

We were just leaving our freshman religion class and I was going down the hall to Ancient History, my favorite class with the whip-thin sarcastic nun, Sister John Patrick. She wore glasses and had pimples and tried to shame us into thinking, although there was no catechism for right answers in Ancient History.
During the year of interruption, my sixth grade, I had studied Canadian and South American history at the public school instead of ancient history at Holy Names. So Ancient History was all new to me. This thinking for yourself was scary stuff: if I could be certain, then I could live in happiness forever in Heaven instead of burning with guilt and shame, unloved in Hell when the End of the World came.
The downtown library was my Temple of Refuge. There I picked out books in the Roman history section and read that the early Christians had sought martyrdom, had been revolutionaries. When I dared speak that in class, Sister John Patrick said, “What do you think about that?” and it was if Perry Mason, no, the Prosecutor – Hamburger – was trapping me into admitting my guilt. I caved.
“I don’t know, Sister,” I said.
I was relieved when she caved too and went on teaching her lesson.

So as we were walking out of religion class and the next class came bursting through the door into their English class, it was the everyday tumult of the tide coming in and the tide going out at the same time and they told us:
Kennedy
Shot
Head
Kennedy’s been shot
Shot in the head
Kennedy may die
Kennedy can’t live

A shadowy army of skinny girls filled the hallway – it always felt like an underground tunnel, and today we were more confused than ever.
We filled the classroom at the end of the hall. Sister John Patrick’s face was paler than ever. Her little mouth was set in a grim line.
She let us talk among ourselves and didn’t call the class to order.
Shot
Kennedy
Texas
Communists
Ku Klux Klan
Russians
Death
Lincoln
Mad men

Someone knocked at the glass-windowed door. Sister answered it and turned back to us.
“President Kennedy is dead,” she said. “We should pray.”
So we all tumbled to our knees on the wood floor and prayed and wept quietly for a little bit.
She told us, “We don’t know who shot Kennedy, but as St. Paul said, we are all responsible. Our society killed Kennedy.”

There was no comfort anywhere for a long time.