4
I slept in my Dallas apartment at night and watched Marina stroll the baby in Fort Worth by day. While I was so occupied, another sixties watershed moment was approaching, but I ignored it. I was preoccupied with the Oswalds, who were undergoing another domestic spasm.
Lee came home early from work one day during the second week of October. Marina was out walking June. They spoke at the foot of the driveway across the street. Near the end of the conversation, Marina spoke in English. “Vut islay-doffmean?”
He explained in Russian. Marina spread her hands in a what-can-you-do gesture, and hugged him. Lee kissed her cheek, thentook the baby out of the stroller. June laughed as he held her high over his head, her hands reaching down to tug at his hair. They went inside together. Happy little family, bearing up under temporary adversity.
That lasted until five in the afternoon. I was getting ready to drive back to Neely Street when I spied Marguerite Oswald approaching from the bus stop on Winscott Road.
Here comes trouble,I thought, and how right I was.
Once again Marguerite avoided the still unrepaired ha-ha step; once more she entered without knocking; fireworks followed immediately. It was a warm evening and the windows were open over there. I didn’t bother with the distance mike. Lee and his mother argued at full volume.
He hadn’t been laid off from his job at Leslie Welding after all, it seemed; he had just walked away. The boss called Vada Oswald, looking for him because they were shorthanded, and when he got no help from Robert’s wife, he called Marguerite.
“Iliedfor you, Lee!” Marguerite shouted. “I said you had the flu! Why do you always make me lie for you?”
“I don’t make you do nothing!” he shouted back. They were standing nose-to-nose in the living room. “I don’t make you do nothing, and you do it anyway!”
“Lee, how are you going to support your family? You need a job!”
“Oh, I’ll get a job! Don’t you worry about that, Ma!”
“Where?”
“I don’t know—”
“Oh,Lee! How’ll you pay the rent?”
“—but she’s got plenty of friends.” He jerked a thumb at Marina, who flinched. “They aren’t good for much, but they’ll be good for that. You need to get out of here, Ma. Go back home. Let me catch my breath.”
Marguerite darted to the playpen. “Where’d this here come from?”
“The friends I told you about. Half of em’s rich and the rest are trying. They like to talk to Rina.” Lee sneered. “The older ones like to ogle her tits.”
“Lee!”Shocked voice, but a look on her face that was… pleased? Was Mamochka pleased at the fury she heard in her son’s voice?
“Go on, Ma. Give us some peace.”
“Does she understand that men who give things always want things in return? Does she, Lee?”
“Get the hell out!”Shaking his fists. Almost dancing in his impotent rage.
Marguerite smiled. “You’re upset. Of course you are. I’ll come back when you’re feeling more in control of yourself. And I’ll help. I always want to help.”
Then, abruptly, she rushed at Marina and the baby. It was as if she meant to attack them. She covered June’s face with kisses, then strode across the room. At the door, she turned and pointed at the playpen. “Tell her to scrub that down, Lee. People’s cast-offs always have germs. If the baby gets sick, you’ll never be able to afford the doctor.”
“Ma!Go!”
“I am just now.” Calm as cookies and milk. She twiddled her fingers in a girlish ta-ta gesture, and off she went.
Marina approached Lee, holding the baby like a shield. They talked. Then they shouted. Family solidarity was gone with the wind; Marguerite had seen to that. Lee took the baby, rocked her in the crook of one arm, then—with absolutely no warning—punched his wife in the face. Marina went down, bleeding from the mouth and nose and crying loudly. Lee looked at her. The baby was also crying. Lee stroked June’s fine hair, kissed her cheek, rocked her some more. Marina came back into view, struggling to her feet. Lee kicked her in the side and down she went again. I could see nothing but the cloud of her hair.
Leave him,I thought, even though I knew she wouldn’t.Take the baby and leave him. Go to George Bouhe. Warm his bed if you have to, but get away from that skinny, mother-ridden monster posthaste.
But it was Lee who left her, at least temporarily. I never saw him on Mercedes Street again.
5
