Libra (45 page)

Stuckey listened to him talk about the United Fruit Company, the CIA, collectivization, the feudal dictatorship of Nicaragua, movements of national liberation. Thirty-seven minutes in all, which Stuckey was compelled to reduce to four and a half for his five-minute show, and this was a shame because Oswald’s presentation was intelligent and clear and his way of leaping out of difficult comers extremely deft.

Stuckey invited Secretary Oswald out for a beer when the interview was over. Then he sent a copy of the tape to the FBI.

 

 

That’s how it went, that’s the kind of summer it was. One day he was going after roaches with a pancake flipper, mashing them flat—one of those soft plastic flippers that are always on sale. He’d lost his job. They fired him because he didn’t do the work, which seemed reasonable enough. Storms shaking the city. They shot Medgar Evers dead in Jackson, Miss., a field secretary of the NAACP. Later they would dynamite the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, four Negro girls killed, twenty-three injured. One day he was hunting down roaches in his kitchen, unshaved, wearing clothes he hadn’t changed in a week. The next day found him in a gawky Russian suit and narrow tie, with his looseleaf notebook at his side, engaged in radio debate on
Conversation Carte Blanche,
another public-affairs show on WDSU. This time they’d checked up beforehand and had questions ready about Russia and his defection, catching him by surprise. Working the bolt on the Mannlicher. Cleaning the Mannlicher. They had plans for him, whoever they were. Heat lightning at night. It was easy to believe they’d been watching him for years, working things around him, knowing the time would come.

 

 

A man, a madman, whatever he was, shadow-boxed outside the toilets at the Habana.

Ferrie didn’t seem to know sometimes whether a story was funny or sad. He told Lee about the time he tried to perfect a tiny flare device equipped with a timer. He wanted to make thousands of these devices and attach them to the bodies of mice. He wanted to parachute the mice into Cuban cane fields. He was driven by the image of fifty thousand mice scattering through the sugar cane as the timers ignited the flares. He wanted to be the Hannibal of the mouse world, he said, and seemed dejected by the failure of the plan.

“During the revolution,” Lee said, “Castro made it a point to burn his own family’s cane fields.”

“Listen to me. This Walker business is strictly in the past. You ought to forget him. A dead General Walker means nothing to Fidel. He is old hat. He is day-old shit. No one listens to Walker anymore. Your missed bullet finished him more surely than a clean hit. It left him, hanging in the twilight. He is an embarrassment. He carries the stigma of having been shot at and missed.”

“How do you know I want to try again?”

“Leon, do we actually have to speak the words? Don’t we know when a death is passing in the air? They’re beginning to crowd you. Banister says they’re serious men. They’ve been in your apartment.”

“I know. I had a feeling.”

“You sensed it. See? Nobody has to say anything. The scales will simply tip and then we’ll know.”

“What were they looking for?”

“Signs that you exist. Evidence that Lee Oswald matches the cardboard cutout they’ve been shaping all along. You’re a quirk of history. You’re a coincidence. They devise a plan, you fit it perfectly. They lose you, here you are. There’s a pattern in things. Something in us has an effect on independent events. We make things happen. The conscious mind gives one side only. We’re deeper than that. We extend into time. Some of us can almost predict the time and place and nature of our own death. We know it on some deeper plane. It’s almost a romance, a flirtation. I look for it, Leon. I chase it discreetly.”

The shadow-boxer was on another level now, making the slowest of moves, working out the mathematics. He stood in place, head down, and dragged his arms across his upper body, finding resistance, a retarding force, like someone gesturing in space.

“Your man Kennedy has a little romance of his own with the idea of death. Men preoccupied with courage have their dark dreams. Jack’s a little death-haunted all right, but not pathologically, not creepy-crawly like me. Poetic. That’s your Jack.”

“He’s not my Jack,” Lee said.

“He knows the course. He’s been close to dying several times. A brother killed in action. A sister killed in a plane crash. A baby dead. A Catholic. A Catholic gets it early. Incense, organ music, ashes on the forehead, wafer on the tongue. The best things shimmer with fear. Skelly Bone Pete. We used to stay out of certain alleyways, certain dark streets. That’s where he was waiting with his wino breath and stinky underwear. Specialized in kids.”

One of the bar girls stood by the juke box swaying, a West Texas woman who looked sandblasted, with bleached-out hair and skin, little gold lashes. Ferrie waved her over. He took a black bow tie out of his pocket and gave it to her. She clipped it to Lee’s shirt collar. They thought that was pretty cute. Her name was Linda Frenchette and she held her hands up to her face and flexed her thumbs, snapping Lee’s picture.

“He doesn’t like to smoke or drink,” Ferrie said. “He never says dirty words. We want to be nice to him.”

“Nice for a price,” she said.

“You get the front end. I get the back end. Like bumper cars,” Ferrie said.

They thought that was cute too.

They all got into Ferrie’s Rambler and drove up Magazine. The theme of the ride was “Taking Lee Home.” Linda Frenchette sat in the back seat. She had tequila in a wineglass and clapped a hand over the top of the glass every time the car stopped short. She found a TV lunchbox on the seat with cartoon figures painted on the surface and some hand-rolled cigarettes inside. Ferrie took one and lighted it while Lee steered from the passenger seat. Hashish, said Cap’n Dave. They rolled up the windows and let the heavy scent collect, strong and rooted. Ferrie passed the stick around. A pudgy little thing tapered at both ends. They were taking Lee home.

They parked in front of a nice-looking house with a two-story porch, a couple of doors up from Lee. He’d used their garbage can several times. Linda lighted up another stick. They passed it round and round. It was 3:00 A.M. and with the windows up and the smoke collecting, there was very little world out there. They gave Lee instructions on smoking the dope. They argued about it, fiercely. He was smoking just to smoke. Then Ferrie recited the history of hashish, lighting up another stick, which took forever. Everything moved through time. The heat in the car was getting hard to take and the smoke seared Lee’s throat. Linda dipped her tongue in tequila and softly licked his ear. They were in a place where a heartbeat took time.

“This is one of those times I don’t know if I’m doing it or remembering it,” she said.

“Doing what?” Ferrie said.

“In other words am I home in bed thinking about this or is the whole thing happening right now?”

“What whole thing?” Ferrie said.

His voice was far away. He rolled down his window to let the smoke out. Lee looked straight ahead. Bright ashes tumbled down his shirtfront. He realized Linda was reaching over the seat back. She groped, is the only word, at his belt buckle and fly.

“I’m hoping dear Jesus I’m at home. Because the idea that I have to get there yet is too much razzle to imagine.”

Lee let Ferrie open his pants. Then Linda had his cock jumping in her fist and was hanging way over the seat back with her mouth open wide, sounding a comic growl.

Lee looked straight ahead. He heard Linda breathing through her nose. She changed her position, hitting her head on the jutting ashtray. He tried to recall the name of a girl he wanted to date once, plaid-skirted, when he was dating age.

Then Ferrie’s voice began to reach him in weighted time, moving slowly, one word, another, deeply shaped, like ads for epic movies, those 3-D letters stretched across a bible desert.

“They’ve been watching you a long time, Leon. Think about them. Who are they? What do they want? I’m with them but I’m also with you. There are things they aren’t telling us. This is always the case. There’s always more to it. Something we don’t know about. Truth isn’t what we know or feel. It’s the thing that waits just beyond. We share a consciousness, like tonight. The hashish makes us Turks. We share a homeland and a spirit. What Linda says is true. You’re at home, in bed now, remembering.”

Then he reached across the dangling woman to straighten Lee’s bow tie.

 

 

Marina had a standing invitation to stay with her friend Ruth Paine in Dallas. Ruth Paine would be a big help when the new baby came. She knew some of the Dallas émigrés and wanted to improve her Russian, which gave Marina a chance to return the favor.

It looked like New Orleans was over. In a way it had never begun. Lee wanted her back in Russia to free himself of responsibility. She thought he would settle for Dallas, at least for now.

Ruth Paine was passing through New Orleans from the East or the Midwest and she could take Marina back to Dallas with her. This is what Marina discussed with Lee. He would go to Mexico City to get his Cuban visa and Marina and June would go to Dallas with Ruth Paine, a Quaker and good friend.

Then they would see what came next.

 

 

They stood firing their weapons in the misty light. He was detached from the action, empty, squeezing off a round, a round, another. Strictly pouring lead. The other men had little to say to him and kept a calculated distance. This was all right with him. It was a summer of things taking shape at the edges.

David Ferrie wore earmuffs, firing at cans of tomato paste, unopened. Mass-market gore spritzed in the morning air. He didn’t use the hearing protectors they wear on gun ranges. Ordinary dime-store earmuffs, but he could shoot. The Cuban could shoot. The rangy guy, Wayne, with the long wandering face, and kind of stoop-backed, fired only a couple of rounds, then drifted off.

Ferrie had to get back to New Orleans to speak to the Junior Chamber of Commerce. He said he’d be back next day to take Lee home.

The leader, T-Jay, seemed half amused by Lee. Strong-looking, a slight paunch, a tattoo bird flying out of his fist. Marlboro man, thought Lee.

T-Jay was aware of his desire to go to Cuba. Had Ferrie told him? Had Lee told Ferrie? Did Agent Bateman know? Had he told Bateman why he wanted a passport? These questions passed quickly through Lee’s mind. Didn’t mean a thing. Summer was building toward a vision.

T-Jay told him to train with the Mannlicher, not one of the new rifles. This was his intention all along. It was Lee who’d asked to, come out to the camp. He’d insisted to Ferrie. He needed target work, serious time with his weapon.

Except that he was out of ammunition. Ammo for this type carbine was hard to find. He’d hit every gun shop in New Orleans. T-Jay seemed amused, all-knowing. He said he had an ample sup-. ply, obtained directly from the Western Cartridge Company on the basis of past dealings. See? Everything is taken care of. It’s falling into place.

He curled into a sleeping bag on the floor of the long shack.

He has a lot to show the Cubans. There is correspondence from the Fair Play Committee and the Worker. He has handbills and membership cards.

He knows one thing sure. He is going to study politics and economics.

Take ’em to Missouri, Matt.

There is still this mix-up over his discharge, which they refuse to change to honorable.

Marina thinks he is in another parish looking for work in the aerospace industry.

The President reads James Bond novels.

He has proof of his subscriptions to left-wing journals. He has the court summons describing the incident that led to his arrest.

The revolution must be a school of unfettered thought.

Rain-slick streets.

Aerospace is the coming thing, with courses at night in economic theory.

He is working on a new project in his steno notebook. He has headings like Marxist, Organizer, Street Agitation, Radio Speaker and Lecturer. Under these he is writing concise descriptions of his activities, with attachments. He has the news story of his court appearance with his name spelled correctly. He has tax returns he took from the offices of the graphic-arts firm where he worked in Dallas, just to save, just to have in case of something like this, to take and keep. This would qualify as intelligence.

I am experienced in street agitation.

I have a far mean streak of independence brought on by neglect.

Aerospace.

 

 

It wasn’t until they hit the gleaming traffic, the raw flash on the edges of New Orleans, that Ferrie brought up the subject.

“President Jack has been working overtime. Did you know this? To put Castro in the ground. The deepest of cover operations. Ask me how I know. I do legal research for Carmine Latta. Carmine has knowledge of this thing. The Agency has worked with crime figures to put the hit on Fidel.”

The bright crush around them. Faces in side windows.

“Listen. They can’t do it without Kennedy’s knowledge. He has some dirty business, who does he consult? CIA is the President’s toilet.”

Children carried past, squinting in the hard light.

“Carmine has talked to people from Chicago, from Florida. This is amazing material, Leon, for you to think about. Think about it. On one level the government is seeking conciliation with Cuba. On another level it is sending out assassins.”

The next day—it was September 9—Lee picked up the Times-Picayune and read that Castro was charging the U.S. with plotting assassinations.

“United States leaders should think that if they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders,” he said, “they themselves will not be safe.”

Lee read the story several times. It was as if they had control of the news, Ferrie, Banister, all of them, all-knowing. Of course it was only coincidence that Ferrie mentioned the thing one day and it appeared in the paper the next. But maybe that was even stranger than total control.