The Americans

Love Field

16 Love Field November 22, 1963 First, a black mark in the sky, a speck that grows into a plane widening, dramatically circling before it touches a gray strip of land designed for its landing. Then the players descend the wheeled stair to the stage for the cameras, our collective eye: first her, then him, as is custom, and their entourage trailing behind, those who believe the world is young and the future spreads out like geography. It’s the beginning of all that, and what a show it is, 17 the bouquet of roses we see given to her on the scratchy screen, the film pouring its light, edges burned. And who knows what’s truth, what’s myth, or if they arrive as hawks or doves, brave with risk in a bright and swirling land where the dust seems to crown from its own gray dust. Here’s the raw footage. Here’s the film clicking in the projector, and, as all things seen through it are black and white, isn’t it important to note her roses are red and not yellow, 18 and that neither of them squints in the bright Texas sun? If you can stand what the light inside the darkness does to your eyes, watch them pause there for a moment: our champion, our grace, in that high noon that holds all the freshness of the morning. ...