The kids made a racket in the next room. Ruth Paine told her two neighbors that Marina's husband was having no luck finding work. He was living in a rooming house in Oak Cliff until he could find a job and an apartment for his family. Marina was due any day, of course.
Dorothy Roberts mentioned Manor Bakeries. They had a home-delivery service. Then there was Texas Gypsum, where somebody said they were hiring.
Ruth Paine said Marina's husband didn't drive, so that cut down the prospects.
Mrs. Bill Randle, Linnie Mae, said maybe she would have a piece of that coffee cake after all. It looked real good.
Dorothy Roberts said, "Is it warm for October or is it just me?"
A van door slammed across the street.
Then Linnie Mae Randle mentioned her brother. How he was saying the other day he thought they needed another fellow at the book warehouse where he worked, on the edge of downtown Dallas.
Ruth translated for Marina.
One of the little girls came in, wetting her finger to pick crumbs off the tabletop.
Dorothy opened the door to the carport.
"Out on Elm Street," Linnie Mae said. "Near Stemmons Freeway."
Five minutes later Ruth and Marina and June Lee and Ruth's small children, Sylvia and Chris, cut across the lawn to the Paine residence next door, a modest ranch house with an attached garage. Ruth turned at the door and watched Marina coming along slowly, vast, wide, ferrying one more soul across the darkness and into the world, or into suburban Dallas. The Oswald family was catching up to the Paines. Not that Ruth minded. She didn't even mind having Lee come out to visit once a week. She was separated from her husband and it was nice, actually, having a man to do certain jobs around the house.
Inside, Marina asked Ruth if she would telephone. Ruth looked in the phone directory for Texas School Book Depository. She talked to a man named Roy Truly about a job for a young veteran of the armed forces whose wife is expecting a child, and they already have a little girl, and he has been out of work for a while, and is desirous of employment, and is willing to work part-time or full-time, and is there a possibility of an opening?
Marina stood nearby, waiting for Ruth to translate.
It was a seven-story brick building with a Hertz sign on the roof. Lee was an order-filler. He picked up orders from the chute on the first floor and fixed them to his clipboard. Then he went up to six, usually, to find the books. Most of the order-fillers were Negroes. They had elevator races in the afternoon. Gates slamming, voices echoing down the shaft, laughter, name-calling. He took the books down to the girls on one, to the wrapping bench, where the merchandise was checked and shipped.
All these books. Books stacked ten cartons high. Cartons stamped Books. Stamped Ten Rolling Readers. Stacked higher than the tall windows. The cartons are a size you have to wrestle. When you open a fresh carton you get the fragrance of paper, of book pages and binding. It floods you with memories of school.
He liked carrying a clipboard. The clipboard made him feel this was a half-decent way to earn a dollar. He didn't have to listen to crazy-ass machines. There was no dirt or grease on the job. Just dust rising when the men ran to the elevators in the afternoon, three or four men pounding across the old wood floors to begin the race down-sunny dust forming among the books.
Lee sat in the dining room at the Paine house, wondering where the women had sneaked off to. Then Marina and Ruth walked in carrying a cake and singing "Happy Birthday." He was taken by surprise. It was a shock. He laughed and cried. Twenty-four.
He stayed over that night, a Friday, and the next evening he sat on the floor watching a double feature on TV, with Marina curled up next to him, her head in his lap.
The first movie was Suddenly. Frank Sinatra is a combat veteran who comes to a small town and takes over a house that overlooks the railroad depot. He is here to assassinate the President. Lee felt a stillness around him. He had an eerie sense he was being watched for his reaction. The President is scheduled to arrive by train later in the day. He is going fishing in a river in the mountains. Lee could tell the movie was made in the fifties from the cars and hairstyles, which meant the President was Eisenhower, although no one said his name. He felt connected to the events on the screen. It was like secret instructions entering the network of signals and broadcast bands, the whole busy air of transmission. Marina was asleep. They were running a message through the night into his skin. Frank Sinatra sets up a high-powered rifle in the window and waits for the train to arrive. Lee knew he would fail. It was, in the end, a movie. They had to fix it so he failed and died.
Then he watched We Were Strangers. John Garfield is an American revolutionary in Cuba in the 1930s. He plots to assassinate the dictator and blow up his entire Cabinet. Lee knew this was the period of the iron rule of Machado, known as the President of a Thousand Murders. The streets were dark. The house was dark except for the flickering screen. An old scratchy film that carried his dreams. Perfection of rage, perfection of control, the fantasy of night. John Garfield and his recruits dig a tunnel under a cemetery. Lee felt he was in the middle of his own movie. They were running this thing just for him. He didn't have to make the picture come and go. It happened on its own in the shaky light, with a strand of hair trembling in a corner of the frame. John Garfield dies a hero. He has to die. This is what feeds a revolution.
Lee sat there after the movie ended, with loud late-night commercials coming one after another, fast-talking men demonstrating blenders, demonstrating miracle shampoo, and Marina next to him, asleep, softly breathing.
It wasn't only the movies that made him feel a strangeness in the air. It was the time of year. October was his birthday. It was the month he enlisted in the Marines. He shot himself in the arm, in Japan, in October. October and November were times of decision and grave event. He arrived in Russia in October. It was the month he tried to kill himself. He'd last seen his mother one year ago October. October was the missile crisis. Marina left him and returned last November. November was the month he'd decided with Dupard to take a shot at General Walker. He'd last seen his brother Robert in November.
Brothers named Robert.
He got Marina settled in bed, then sat next to her and murmured serious baby talk to help her fall asleep again. He felt the power of her stillness, a woman's ardor and trust, and of the child she carried. He would start saving right away for a washing machine and car. They'd get an apartment with a balcony, their own furniture for a change, modern pieces, sleek and clean. These are standard ways to stop being lonely.
The landlady let him keep a jar of preserves and some milk in a corner of the fridge. He sat with the other roomers about half an hour a week, watching TV was all. He never spoke to them or raised his eyes to see them clearly. They were gray figures in old chairs, total nobodies. He was registered as O. H. Lee.
The rooming house was in an area of Oak Cliff that he knew well. The Gulf station where he'd rendezvoused with Dupard was across the street. The speed wash, now called Reno's, was half a block away. He went into the speed wash but Bobby didn't work there anymore. The place in daylight was home turf to half a dozen women and their scruffy kids. The children ate and played. The Coke machines sent bottles clunking into the slot.
His room was eight by twelve. Bed, dresser, clothes closet. He spent hours there reading the Militant and the Worker. One night he took the 22 bus back downtown. He walked the streets, looking into bars. He walked all the way down South Akard and stood outside Gene's Music Bar. Two men brushed past him, entering, and he followed them in. He stood near the door. The place was crowded. There were hard benches along the walls, rough-hewn benches. He could easily clear the room with an AR-15, which is what they use to guard the President, firing full auto. The idea was to stand here as long as he could without being noticed, just to watch, to see how queers work out their arrangements.