Then, déjà vu set in. Even as the Lincoln limo slowed to a near halt at an intersection directly across the way, where Elm, Main, and Commerce converged ...
That rings a bell! Where ... I know! Seventh grade English class. With the best teacher I ever had. She taught us Greek tragedy and the kids all laughed, breaking her heart. Because she had hoped we might be moved by anything so old.
I’m moved by it! I will never forget what you told us. About fate overwhelming free-will. Me, the pathetic little guy sitting here in the back of the room. The boy no one notices.
A face in the crowd ...
Oedipus on his way from Corinth to Thebes, got into an argument during the journey ... History’s first example of road rage, you called it, hoping that would make this more relevant to the arrogant kids seated before you ...
Young Oedipus killed old King Laius, the man he had been journeying here in hopes of saving ... Oh, the irony of it all! ... His own father ... And he did so ... I recall what you said now ... At a place where three roads meet ...
“A magic meeting place, students. The harbinger of true tragedy. Which is not drama in an ordinary sense, even those with sad endings.”
“So what is it, teacher? What then is a tragedy?”
“’Tragedy’ implies a special kind of tale. One that allows the individual to comprehend his place in the universe.”
“Give me Wagon Train any day.”
“Say what you will. Someday you’ll understand. Only tragedy can help us understand ourselves as unique human beings.”
The Connollys in the convertible’s front seat, the Kennedys in the rear, Secret Service men surrounding them on all sides, and police riding motorcycles on the flanks...
Lee spotted something in Dealey that caught his attention. It was ... how to describe it? ...
... a grassy knoll ...
Of course. Just like the one in Suddenly. Where Sinatra as ‘Johnny Barrows’ had been planning to shoot the president!
Sensing the moment had arrived, Lee brusquely brought his weapon up under his chin. Through the sights, he could clearly see that grassy knoll.
And, off a ways from the gleeful crowd, several tramps, lumbering around, grouped together.
That’s George on the right. Johnny Rosselli beside him. Despite their hobo costumes both are wearing cowboy boots. As, for that matter, am I. And the time is ... high noon. So what is this: the final wild west shootout, right here in Dallas?
Still, Lee held his fire as neither seemed armed. Then, from behind a small bush, a third man appeared, bringing a rifle that looked identical to Lee’s up and ready to fire.
He’s the one. I’ll take him out before he has a chance—
For a split-second, though, Lee found himself unable to squeeze the trigger. Peering through a telescopic site from the grassy knoll crouched ... Lee Harvey Oswald!
I’m about to shoot myself!
Then the twin shifted positions, bringing the motorcade into his sights. Less than a split-second later, Lee regained his composure and fired. But before he heard the roar of his rifle, another shot went off, this one from his double up on the knoll. That caused Lee to jerk ever so slightly.
Lee’s own shot passed over the shoulder of his twin. The double glanced up, winked at Lee, and ran away, accompanied by George and Johnny, even as everyone in the area gasped.
Another shot exploded, Lee knowing it came from the same building he occupied, either the third or second floors below. Twisting around to see the results, Lee watched as JFK’s head flew backward, blood bursting upward and outward.
Secret servicemen swarmed over the area, throwing their own bodies over Mrs. Kennedy and the Connollys to protect them from more potential firings. Cops rushed into the crowd, hoping to locate the culprits.
Do whatever you want. It’s too late. Can’t you see?
Hungry for vengeance, Lee, not realizing that he’d dropped the rifle, rushed down the stairs to the third floor, hoping he could find the shooter there. And, if the man didn’t plug him first, kill the son of a bitch with his bare hands.
Who could it be? Perhaps Buesa! Leader of the anti-Castro Cubans. That would make the triad complete along with the Mob and the CIA.
No one was there. Lee hurried out and down to the second, that area likewise deserted. If someone had been here, and Lee guessed there had, that person had already slipped away.
Like a ghost in broad daylight, this a nightmare at noon.
George said the shooters would be rescued at once. But no one is here for me. It can only be this: George figured out my plan to try and stop him.
And—checkmate!—left me to hold the bag.
I’ve got to get out of here ... Got to get back to Marina and the kids ... Got to ...
If I don’t make it? Please, God: Have Sinatra play me in the movie. No, no. Way too old now. What was the name of the kid who played Frankie’s younger brother in Come Blow Your Horn?
Can’t recall ... but he’d do ...
*
Lee, now possessed by an eerie sense of calm, realized that he’d left the rifle with its fingerprints up on the sixth. Not willing to go back up to retrieve it, he proceeded to the stairs as if to exit the building. He collided with a policeman, gun drawn, dashing up, truly behind and to the side of him.
“Does this man work for you?”
“Oh, yes. That’s Lee, one of our most dependable—”
The policeman, Marrion L. Baker, rushed past Lee and on up to the next floor, Truly dutifully following behind.
Got to appear steady. Calm. That’s important. What did FDR say? Nothing to fear but fear itself ...
So Lee, controlling his desire to cut and run, stepped over to the soda machine, popped some coins in, then descended to the first floor swigging his Coke.
As he left the building, Lee noticed some two-dozen boys in blue readying to seal off the area he had just left.
In the nick of time ... Got to get away.
Let’s see, how best to proceed? First, head back to the apartment, which is what any innocent man would do ...
Lee jogged seven blocks up from Elm Street. He hailed a bus proceeding in the opposite direction and rode on it for two blocks. Most passengers looked drawn, bloodless, as if they still could not comprehend what they’d been told.
At the next stop Lee disembarked, standing on the street corner until a taxi came by. He raised a hand, requesting to be driven over to Neeley Street.
Before they reached it, Lee told the driver to stop and let him off. After paying, he rushed the remaining block to the house on North Beckley in which he had rented a room for the past month.
As he entered, the hall clock struck one.
“Mr. Oswald, did you hear what—”
Lee did not pause to speak with the landlady, frozen in shock. Rudely sweeping by, he hurried into his room.
Again relying on his marine’s carefully acquired instincts, Lee grasped at once that someone had been there.
George! Of course. Aware that I might not be playing ball with him anymore, he would have created a dual scenario. In case I betrayed his trust, have ’evidence’ ready to plant so that I’d become the fall guy here ...
Immediately Lee realized his snub-nosed Smith & Wesson revolver was missing. At first, nothing else seemed gone. Then he noticed one of his favorite light jackets, the gray one he wore most often on cool nights, was not in the closet.
Wait a minute! My double, the twin on the grassy knoll ... he was wearing it!
“Mr. Oswald, where are you going now?” the landlady asked as Lee tore past her, out onto the street. Again, Lee did not answer Mrs. Roberts. As he hurried down the street, Lee saw a police car approaching from the other end, its siren wailing. The vehicle stopped directly in front of the house he’d just left. Two boys in blue stepped out, greeted by a concerned Mrs. Roberts.
This is all like a bad movie ... with me as both the star and the main character, rolled up in one.
Tha
t’s not the problem. George is the writer, director and producer. I’m lost in the maze of his movie, not my own.
Keeping his head down, not sure precisely where he was going but knowing he had to get away, back to Irving, Lee heard three shots just around the next corner. Momentarily he froze.
Then, drawn as if by a magnet, he found himself moving in that direction, where people were all at once wailing.
“The poor cop!” someone yelled. “Some man just shot him!”
More sirens, whirring in this direction. As Lee approached the corner, ready to turn, around it flew a man on the run. A man in a gray jacket, carrying a smoking gun in his right hand. A man wearing cowboy boots much like Lee's own. A man identical in appearance to Lee Harvey Oswald.
“Hey, guy!” Lee’s twin, almost bumping into him, laughed. “What d’ ya know?”
With that, the double tossed the pistol to Lee, swiftly wriggling out of the jacket, allowing it to fall to the side-walk. Like a wisp of smoke, the twin vanished into the crowd.
“That’s him!” someone screamed, rounding the corner at the head of an angry mob, pointing at Lee. “I saw that man shoot officer Tippet.”
You see me? You actually see me? I’m not an invisible man today? Everyone’s looking at me! If for all the wrong reasons.
“I bet he killed Kennedy, too! Get him!”
Someone in some old movie once said: This is like a bad joke without a punch line. Only I don’t want to be in a movie. Not anymore. Home with my family, watching this on TV ... Just like everyone else ... All those Normals.
I mean, That was then, this now. Things change.
“Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”
I’ve got to get rid of this evidence. That’s the first thing I must do. Then I’ll make my way to Marina ... Did I once actually associate with Sean Connery in a James Bond movie? The undefeatable, irresistible spy? Not anymore. Now? At this very moment? Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster ... anguished, confused, terrified ... pursued through a fairytale woodland by angry villagers ... the Normals ... why, God, wasn't I allowed to ever be one among them? Would that somehow have messed up your master plan? If there even is such a thing ... or a God behind it ... life actually adding up to something meaingful rather than simply survival or the failure to do achieve that in the here and now ...
Scooping up the gray jacket, still holding the pistol, Lee turned and ran. Moments later he ducked into an enclave by a shoe-store as police cars roared down the street, searching for him. The fall-guy. The ... What’s the word? Oh, of course—
What did Warhol say? In our time, every man will be famous for fifteen minutes. How I once longingly awaited my turn.
Now? Please, God. Let it be over!
Then, there it was. Directly before him. A movie theatre!
The Texas, in appearance, with its old neon lights offering visual echoes of faded grandeur from the golden days of screen palaces, not very different from the one in New Orleans.
There, long ago, Lee had seen Suddenly, and his adventure began. More recently, The Manchurian Candidate, when such dreams died. And Lee resolved to at long last reclaim his life.
That’s it. I’ll go to the movies. That’ll make everything better, just like always. I’ll watch what’s up there on the screen and figure out from what I see where to dump the jacket and the gun before heading to Irving.
What’s playing? Cry of Battle with Van Heflin.
Great. I missed that on its first-run. Here’s my chance to catch up on a WWII flick. I’ll go to the movies.
And even if should they pick me up today, I have nothing to worry about. Because I’m ‘covered.’ I dropped off the portfolio, telling everything, naming names, for Hosty at FBI headquarters.
Wow! I’m actually depending on the FBI to save me from the CIA. But that’s how it goes, I guess.
Any enemy of your enemy is your friend ...
... though I can only hope they remain enemies today.
*
At the home of Ruth Paine, Marina sat glued to the TV. Beside her, Marguerite wept openly. Mrs. Oswald, the older of Lee’s two ‘Mamas,’ had been watching the presidential motorcade when all hell broke loose.
She, like millions of other Americans, had been held spellbound by the obscene spectacle that followed. Only for her, as for Marina, the terror felt specific when it was announced that a suspect in the killing of police officer J.D. Tippet, who was trying to arrest a guilty looking fellow, a few minutes earlier had been taken into custody. A few minutes earlier taken into custody.
He might also be the man who earlier shot the president, though that was not yet confirmed.
The man’s name was Lee Harvey Oswald.
Marguerite wailed at the top of her lungs, threw herself down on the floor, kicking her legs, waving her arms.
When, after a half an hour she finally calmed down, as much as Marguerite ever did calm down, she couldn’t be alone.
Robert? I could go to him ... Though, no, that doesn’t seem exactly right. I know! Marina. I should be with her at this moment of crisis. Mama will go to ‘Mama.’
So she had come by, greeted at the door by an ashen Ruth Paine, who ushered Marguerite in. Neither she nor Marina were able to say anything to each other. They exchanged glances and sat still before the TV set, watching the world go by ...
And, on this dark day, understanding that they, two women together in a Texas suburb, were connected to the heart of the matter as no one, save only perhaps Mrs. Kennedy, could be.
“Is that a way of praying?” Marina asked, dumbfounded, when Ruth Paine and her little daughter stepped into the room. Each carried a candle they’d lit in the kitchen.
“Yes,” Ruth replied. “It’s just my own way.”
She set the candles down carefully on a table and was about to ask the two Oswald women, Mar the younger and Mar the elder, as she had always thought of them, if Ruth could be of any help. Anything, however small or big, to relieve their shared horror.
Before Ruth could speak, Walter Cronkite on CBS announced that the president had officially been pronounced ‘dead.’
“Now the two children will have to grow up without a father,” Marina mumbled.
“I don’t understand, dear,” Marguerite asked, speaking for the first time since her arrival. “Do you mean Mr. Kennedy’s children or your own?”
Marina uttered a strange sort of noise but did not speak. At that moment there came a knocking at the door. Ruth rose and crossed the room to answer it, returning momentarily with six members of the Dallas police force.
They circled Marina and Marguerite. “Mrs. Oswald,” one policeman ventured.
“Yes?”
“Yes?
That took him off guard, for Marina and Marguerite had answered simultaneously, two voices merging into one. Like a chorus in some musical play. Or, for that matter, in a Greek tragedy.
“I would imagine you understand why we’re here.”
“Whatever Lee did, he did for his country,” Marguerite announced in her best faux Southern-belle accent.
“Marguerite, for once in your life, shut up.”
“Why, what a terrible way to talk to your mother-in-law. And after all I’ve done for—”
“Just please shut the fuck up.”
“If Lee were here, he would never allow you to speak to me in such a manner.”
“Lee’s not here, Marguerite. And, more likely than not, he never will be again.”
“By that, Ma’am, are you suggesting that your husband may indeed be the person who killed Tippet and Kennedy?”
“My boy? No such thing—”
“I said shut up! No, officer, I can assure you that Lee most certainly did not harm either of those gentlemen.”
“If you’ll forgive me, all the evidence points his way.”
“Well, the cards will fall as they will fall. But I know in my heart Lee is innocent of both these crimes.”
“Why can you say that with such authorit
y?”
“Officer, I hate to agree with Marguerite on anything. But it’s as she put it: Lee Harvey Oswald loved his country.”
“More than anything else?”
“Yes, officer. Even more than me and our babies.”
“Perhaps. But right at this moment, the entire country perceives him as an enemy of the people.”
“Is that so? Well, here’s one thing I learned from Lee. Perception and reality are usually two different things.”
“Is there anything else that you learned from him?”
“Yes,” Marina concluded after a long pause. “Just because you love something, doesn’t mean it has to love you back.”
*
“There’s nothing we can do now, nurse, to help him.” The doctor took a step back from Lee Harvey Oswald as life left the ruined frame on a table before him.
“He seems such a little man, doesn’t he?”
“Short, certainly. Then again, so was Napoleon. If he truly is what they said on TV, even as the ambulance was delivering him to us, here, then I can assure you: Lee Harvey Oswald will figure greatly in American history from this day on.”
“Is he what people claim he is? The killer of Kennedy?”
They walked out of the sterile white room together as aids covered up Oswald’s body. “All that’s known for certain is that he was arrested for shooting a police officer who was trying to arrest him on the possibility that he might be JFK’s assassin.”
“You said, doctor, that you were watching the TV in the lounge when somebody shot Oswald?”
“Yes. And a minute later I saw it again on instant replay.”
“Who possibly would have done such a thing?”
“Some local club owner named Jack Ruby. He stepped out of the shadows as Oswald was being brought to a car for transfer to the city jail. Ruby fired a gun and then they arrested him. As the authorities took Ruby away, he wept and said he did it for Mrs. Kennedy, and the children, and how terribly he felt for them.”
They proceeded down the long corridor, removing their cotton surgical masks and thin rubber gloves as, like zombies, the two trudged along. “That all sounds ...”
“Unbelievable?”
Patsy! : The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald Page 44
