A few seconds later, he appeared on the screen running after her. His butt was a little flabby and bounced.
He caught up to her near the shore, and she stopped, turned around, then turned Bud around to face the camera on the dune. Jill shouted something, but I couldn’t make it out.
I asked, “What did you say?”
“Oh… something about swimming with the sharks. Pretty stupid.”
She took his hand and they waded into the water.
Bud, in my opinion, was being led around by his dick. He really never initiated anything, and didn’t seem to be enjoying himself as much as, say, I would in that situation. I asked Jill, “How long did this affair last?”
“Too long. About two years.” She added, “I’m not as embarrassed about the sex on tape as I am about who I did it with.”
“He’s very good-looking.”
“So am I.”
Good point.
They were cavorting in the calm sea, washing each other front and back, then looking out at the sea and sky. She seemed to be saying something, but it was totally inaudible. I asked her, “What did you say there?”
“I don’t remember. Nothing important.”
I looked at the running clock in the lower right of the screen. It was 8:19P.M. TWA Flight 800 from Kennedy Airport was just lifting off the runway and was about to begin its climb over the ocean.
Jill and Bud were talking as they stood waist deep in the water, and I could see by the expression on Bud’s face that something she said had annoyed him. Before I could ask, she said to me, “I think I was finally telling him that he was overly cautious about everything, and he got annoyed with me. In a few seconds, I grab his rear end… there… he was still annoyed, and he wanted to leave, but I wanted to do it on the beach, like in From Here to Eternity, so…”
She grabbed his thing-a-ma-jig and said something. He didn’t look as happy as he should have been at that moment, and began looking around as if to see if they were alone. She didn’t literally lead him by his dick, but figuratively she led him by his dick, although she was now holding his hand as she led him back to the shore.
The running clock said 8:23P.M. TWA Flight 800 was about three or four minutes into its flight and was banking left, toward the east, toward Europe.
Jill and Bud were standing on the shore, full frontal nude, but they seemed to have forgotten about the camera because neither of them looked up at where it was positioned on the dune about fifty yards away. The sun had set, but there was a little light left on the horizon and in the sky, and I could still see their naked bodies silhouetted against the sea and sky.
Jill said something to Bud, and he obediently lay down on his back in the sand. She got on top of him, and I could see her hand going between their bodies to put him into her.
Jill asked me, “Would my husband ever see this?”
I froze the frame at 8:27 and 15 seconds. I looked in the sky to the right, to see if I could make out any aircraft lights, but I couldn’t. I scanned the horizon, to see if I saw boat lights, but there weren’t any.
“Mr. Corey? Would my husband ever see this?”
I looked at her and replied, “Only if you want him to.”
She didn’t reply.
I hit the Play button and glanced at the bottom of the screen where the lovers were doing it on the beach with the surf rolling over them. I looked at the sky, but still no aircraft lights. For the record, it was 8:29 and 11 seconds when Mrs. Winslow climaxed. I could see it, but I couldn’t hear it.
Jill Winslow lay on top of Bud Mitchell, and I could tell they were both breathing hard, then she sat up and straddled him with her legs, facing southwest. I could now see the distant lights of an aircraft, far out over the ocean-eight miles, actually, and about twelve thousand feet above the water.
She said to me, “Stop it! Stop!”
I hit the Pause button and looked at her. She stood and said, “I can’t watch this again. I’ll be in the kitchen.” She walked barefoot out of the family room.
I sat there for a full minute, looking at the frozen screen-Jill Winslow sitting on top of Bud Mitchell, the surf caught in mid-motion, the stars no longer twinkling, a thin, wispy cloud frozen like a splotch of paint on a black ceiling. And almost opposite Smith Point County Park, two lights-one red and one white-were captured on the film. You wouldn’t think they were anything other than stars in a still photograph, but in a motion picture, you would see them blinking and moving from west to east.
I got up from my chair, sat on the coffee table, and leaned toward the big plasma screen. I hit the Slow Motion button and watched closely.
At 8:29 and 19 seconds, I saw a glow on the horizon to the right, and I froze the frame. The video camera at the top of the dune was about twenty feet high, including the tripod, and from this vantage point you could see a little more than most of the eyewitnesses who’d seen this from a boat, or from ground level, which on the south shore of Long Island was barely ten feet above sea level, if that. I looked at the glow awhile and decided it could be-could be-a missile launch.
From where I’d seen the glow, I could now see a tongue of bright, red-orange light rising into the sky. It rose quickly, even in slow motion, and I could now make out a white plume of what looked like smoke, trailing behind it. I glanced at Jill and Bud, but they hadn’t seen it yet. It was 8:30 and 5 seconds, and I hit the Pause, slid off the coffee table, and knelt in front of the TV screen, staring at the point of light until my eyes got blurry. I rocked back on my haunches and continued the tape in slow motion.
There was no mistaking what I was seeing now, and what over two hundred other people had seen, including Captain Spruck, who, to be honest, I had doubted. I could see why he was so obsessed with this now that I saw it myself, and I owed him an apology. More important, the American people were owed an apology, but I didn’t know from whom.
I thought of my meeting in Jack Koenig’s office and him looking me in the eye and saying, “There is no fucking videotape of a couple screwing on the beach with the plane exploding behind them,” then, “No fucking rocket either.”
Well, fuckyou, Jack. And fuck Liam Griffith, and fuck Ted Nash for starters. Lying bastards.
The streak of light, trailing its white plume of smoke, rose higher until it was about mid-frame on the TV screen. At this point, I saw Jill’s head turn toward the light, and she stared up at the sky, then Bud sat up quickly so they were face-to-face, then he turned and looked over his shoulder to where she was staring. The light was almost incandescent on the TV screen, and I could see it was gathering speed. I glanced at the lights of the aircraft, then back to the rising streak of light. I was too close to the TV to see the whole screen, so I stood quickly, backed up to the coffee table, and sat.
There was no audio in slow motion, but there was nothing to hear anyway, and I stared, mesmerized by what I was seeing, because I knew exactly what was going to happen.
The burning light seemed to make a sudden turn as it converged on the blinking lights, and I saw the evidence of the turn more clearly in the smoke plume, as it twisted.
A few seconds later, there was a flash of bright light in the sky, which looked strange in slow motion, like a Roman candle burst, then a few seconds after that, a huge fireball began to grow in the black sky-like a bright red flower, blossoming in a time delay film. I froze the frame at 8:31 and 14 seconds and stared at it.
Jill and Bud were caught in the freeze-frame almost standing up straight now, both facing the red sky burst. I hit Slow Motion and watched as the fireball grew larger. I could see that, indeed, the burning aircraft was rising, then I saw two streams of burning jet fuel descending toward the ocean, and as they got closer to the surface, I noticed the reflection of the burning fuel on the smooth, glassy surface, and yes, the reflections appeared to be two streaks of light risingupward, but there was no mistaking the burning fuel droppingdownward from the sky to meet its own reflection.This way is up.Right?