The Exhibition

By David Halliday

The Exhibition is a story written like an Brueghel painting. Time turns on itself. Events are repeated and altered. Characters both dead and imaginary appear. At the core of the story is an exhibition of paintings. The paintings tell the story of the moments before, after, and surrounding the events in Dealey Plaza, on November 11, 1963. The assassination of John Kennedy. And amongst the crowd that packs the exhibition at the Zig |Zag bar is a serial murderer.

“I think you should have included those other pieces.” Sharmaine sipped her coffee.
“The assassination shots?”
Sharmaine nodded.
Willy shook his head.
“Jack said that they were too gruesome for his bar. He didn’t want his customers retching. The image of Kennedy’s brain’s splattered across Mrs. Kennedy’s face doesn’t run up the food bill. And the other one of Mrs. Kennedy trying to escape by crawling out over the trunk of the limousine. People still have to drive home. The third one, the autopsy of Kennedy was my favourite. I love the image of those doctors looking like Supreme Court judges dipping their fingers into the President’s head like it was a box of donuts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Halliday
• Release date: Nov 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370982417

David Halliday

I have published poems, short stories, plays, art works in reviews and publications across the United States and Canada. I have several published books:murder by Coach House Press. This book is a series of poems and illustrations set up like scenes in a movie, describing the murder, trial, and mob execution of an innocent man. Winner of the 2001 Eppie for poetry.The Black Bird by. The Porcupine’s Quill. This is a book of poems, illustrations and short prose pieces describing the fictional making of the John Huston film, The Maltese Falcon.Making Movies by Press Porcepic. This is a book of long poems, interviews, short fiction pieces about a fictional BBC documentary about a fictional Canadian film maker, Samuel Bremmer and his company of actors and colleagues. It follows his career through the creation of a series of his movies.Church Street is Burning, a book of poems, was a finalist in the 2002 Eppie for poetry.The God of Six Points, published by Double-dragon-ebooks. A man who believes he is a god believes he has murdered one of his subjects.Sleeping Beauty, published by LTD ebooks.com is a murder mystery. A woman lands in a small village where the only escape is to be murdered. Finalist in the 2003 Dream Realm Awards. Winner of the 2004 IP Book Awards.The Hole, published by LTD ebooks is one in a series of cop stories. There are unusual happenings in the quiet suburb of Islington. People have begun to disappear. And they have been disappearing for generations. For the soon to retire Sam Kelly, this is his last case as a detective. All the clues point to a mysterious hole, which appears to have no bottom.In 2007 I was short listed for the C.B.C. Literary Contest in poetry.

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The Exhibition

Published by David Halliday at Smashwords

Copyright 2016 David Halliday

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The story was like a painting.

1. The Back Of The Bus

Margaret Armstrong sat at the back of the bus. Her mind still half asleep. Off to work at the beauty salon. The smell of something stale. Her head leaning against the window. Her teeth chattering with the vibrations of the engines. She stared out at the madding crowd.

All their useless lives. Rushing off to someplace. No place. Paying for your time with empty thoughts... If Mrs. Wright comes in this morning and complains about her losses. I’ll take a knife and slit her throat. So she lost a son. He was forty five years old. Hadn’t found himself yet. Like anyone cares.

The bus doors gasped as they opened their mouths. Two kids stepped onto the bus. Knapsacks weighing down their stride. Laughing. A tall thin gentleman stepped onto the bus. Tie and white shirt.

Accountant. Margaret Armstrong smiled. Guardian of order.

The accountant’s Adam’s apple bounced up and down as he made his way down the aisle of the bus and took a double seat, his long legs falling off to one side. A large middle-aged woman followed the accountant onto the bus, glaring at his back. Struggling to keep her balance as the bus moved on. Margaret could read her mind.

Doesn’t anyone have any manners, anymore? Two kids and a grown man both piling onto the bus before an elderly woman.

Margaret looked out the window of the bus.

Get used to it, lady. Be happy they don’t put you out of your misery. At the hands of some teenager looking for cash to buy something electronic. Oh God, how bored we are with your thoughts. And don’t think that your time was better. The Jew baiting. The uppity Negroes. The drunken Irish louts. There was no age of gallantry. No gentlemen in white gloves holding open your doors. It was a creation of the greeting card industry. All there was, was your bleached out kitchens, whispers behind drawn curtains and your fat ass growing wider.

Margaret closed her eyes and screamed inside her head.

Why do I bother? They’re all so ugly!

A dark skinned man, East-Asian, dragged a grocery cart down the street, the wheels wobbling. His shoulders slouched. His eyes yellow and lost. Behind him a young man ran, trying to catch the bus, crashed into the cart and rolled on the sidewalk, got to his feet and started cursing the dark skinned man. The bus doors closed. The bus moved on. The young man threw his arms up in the air and surrendered to fatigue. The dark skinned man smiled. Margaret turned her eyes back inside the bus. The two young boys were now punching each other in the arm and laughing. The fat woman farted and pretended to look out the window. The accountant started to giggle uncontrollably.

The bus made two more stops. Gathering into its bowels, the flotsam of the morning. A young woman in jeans and knapsack stepped down the aisle. The accountant stood up and offered her a seat by the window. She passed by him and took a seat in the rear of the bus. A young man, his head shaved, his pants hanging like a disconsolate lover, took a seat across from Margaret. His lips muttered mutely to a tune that was fed from his head phones. Margaret took out her own earplugs and began to listen to Usher. She recalled the concert she’d gone to see him. The singer’s voice so creamy soft, his skin brown like chocolate.

All these love songs about pain. Why are we all suffering? Why do we listen? Where does all this loneliness come from? All this rage? Why do we all feel so cheated?

Margaret was jolted from her song at the next stop. She opened her eyes. The bus doors opened. And he walked in.

God, what are the chances?

He stepped to the middle of the bus and took a seat. In front of the accountant. He kept looking around.

Did he see me? What if he sees me? Should I deny that I know him? How do you do