The other day, the wife and I were at the “antique” mall. A friend of ours was turning 26; as you know, fifty is Gold, twenty-five is Silver, and twenty-six is Complete Box of Howard the Duck Bubble Gum Cards. (Never has my life been more improved than the day I learned that “antique” malls were 15% oak armoires and 85% Smurf Burger King glasses and legless Hulk Hogan dolls.)

We strolled the endless aisles of kitsch and mothballed dreams for an hour when, just as we were getting ready to decide between the disco ball and the inexplicably-for-sale bust of Hitler, I came across a sight that will stay with me for the rest of my life or as long as it’s on this page. Around the last corner, someone was selling a life-sized floor-to-ceiling painting capturing the moment when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. What struck me about this painting was not its existence or the attention to detail evident in its creation. No, what made the painting clutch my memory by its leg hairs was the fact that, where Oswald’s head should have been, there had been a hole cut so that people could stick their heads through and have their pictures taken being assassinated by Jack Ruby. You too could reenact one of the darkest nights in our nation’s history, but with the wacky. Maybe with a funnel cake in your hand over by the Scrambler. I think John John would have wanted it that way.

fig. A: artist’s rendition of the artist’s rendition