"Patsy!": The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald (56 page)

“I know better. From now on, we'll enjoy
The Adventures of Ozzie and Marina
. With our own two children to raise.”

“You used to want to be James Bond in a spy movie.”

He laughed. “Now? The guy next door on a TV show.”

They left the living room, proceeded along to her bedroom. Alternately weeping, laughing and kissing, they spent the night in each other's arms. Owing to her condition they did not engage in sex. Still, Lee and Marina made love, if in a spiritual sense.

*

All that Ozzie needed now to complete his transition to domestic normality was a decent job. Magically, one appeared.

Lee hadn't received that typesetting position. The employers, running a routine check, became aware of his previous communist ties. Any bitterness dissipated when what certainly seemed like serendipity occurred. Through a friend of a friend of a friend, Ruth Paine learned that a Mr. Truly, manager of the book depository, needed to fill a slot. She passed this on to Lee during one of his weekend visits. Continuing the pattern of his youth, Lee had changed addresses, now living at a rooming house temporarily managed by Earlene Roberts on North Beckley. Ruth offered to let Lee move in now that things were normalized between him and Marina. But Lee insisted this would be too much of an imposition.

As soon as he found work and put a little money aside, he'd rent a place where his family could truly become a family, creating the beginning of an American Dream come true.

“You're a former marine? I do like to support servicemen.”

“Thank you, sir. I'm a family man; my wife is about to have our second child. I can guarantee you an honest day's work.”

“Do understand, essentially you'll be a shipping clerk.”

“Sir, just give a chance. You won't be disappointed.”

Truly rose from behind his desk even as Lee, sensing that the interview was concluded, did so as well. “Can you start at eight a.m. sharp next Monday morning?”

Lee excitedly called Marina with the good news. She wept. Everything appeared to be falling into place, as Truly mentioned one of Lee's co-workers often drove over to Irving after work.

“He's offered to give me a lift on Fridays, bring me back early Monday morning. I won't even have to hitch-hike.”

“Everything's turning out ... perfect.”

But the world, as I've learned, abhors perfection even as space does a vacuum. There's got to be a catch somewhere...

Yet things kept getting better. When he arrived at the Paines' house on Friday, October 18, with three days work behind him, he—wondering if in all the confusion anyone would recall this was his 24
th
birthday—knocked on the Paine's door at seven p.m.

“Surprise!” Marina, cradling June in her arms, appearing ready to burst with child, cried out. She, the Paines and their children had readied a birthday celebration. They wore silly paper hats, threw confetti in the air, blew on plastic whistles and proffered inexpensive, wonderful little presents: a cheap tie, a plastic shoe-horn, a bottle of Old Spice shave lotion.

“I've never had such a fabulous birthday. Not ever!”

Maybe it's going to be alright now. He seems so sincere in his desire to conform. That's what every non-conformist most wants. He took the other route only because no one gave him the chance to fit in. Now, he's finally been allowed that ...

As if for a final gift, Marina felt her first pangs of labor on mid-afternoon, Sunday. As Lee still could not drive, Ruth took Marina to Parkland Hospital while Lee remained behind, watching over her two children and June. On Monday morning at six, minutes before Wesley Frazier swung by to pick Lee up, Ruth called to say that Marina had given birth to another girl.

“Oh, Mama. You're wonderful!” Lee cooed later that day, visiting his wife and new child in the hospital.

“Lee,” Marina giggled. “You never called me that before.”

”Well, that's who you are from now on. Mama!”

Oh, God! Please don't let him confuse me with Marguerite
.

They decided to name the baby Audrey Marina Rachel, but always they called her ‘Rachel.' People at the book depository noticed that their fellow worker not only did his job diligently but excelled as if hoping for an eventual promotion. Mr. Truly held Lee up as a model of responsibility.

He's good. So very good. Which is fine. Still, something's not quite right. He's better than good. It's as if the perfect worker showed up. Could he be too good to be true?

Lee arrived early for work and left late, though no extra pay compensated him for that beyond the rigid $1.25 an hour for filling textbook orders. Arriving at the Paines' each Friday, he would hug his wife, cuddle June and Rachel, then get down on the floor and play with little plastic cowboys and Indians beside the Paines' boy Chris, in a way Michael failed to do. If Michael Paine felt uncomfortable with domestic duties, Lee reveled in them.

On Sunday afternoons, Lee stretched out on the carpet of the Paines' living room and watched football. Michael Paine, visiting his estranged wife, had to literally step over Lee.

“I never thought I'd see a radical spend a full day in front of the TV grooving on sports,” he said sarcastically.

Momentarily, Lee grew sullen. “That side of me is gone.”

One Saturday evening, Lee said to Marina: “Let's take in a movie.” They headed for the drive in, the children in the car with them. There, they feasted on fresh popcorn and stale hot dogs, watching a ridiculous piece of junk called
Cuban Rebel Girls,
enjoying every minute of their time together.

Lee seems quite taken with the blonde girl playing the lead. She is very pretty. He has always been fascinated, obsessed even, by beautiful women. Particularly blondes.

Now, though, he's riveted by her in a way I've never seen before. As if there's a personal connection ...

How like a man! We women notice everything. Particularly when it concerns our husbands and other women ...

“That girl, Marina? She almost got to play 'Lolita.'”

“Really? But, Lee. How would
you
know that?”

“Oh! Uh ... I ... read it in a magazine.”

By the time they reached the Paines' home, whatever had consumed her husband had passed, he ‘the new Lee' again.

*

“Hello, Lee.”

“Hello, yourself. Who's this?”

A stunned silence at the other end, followed by: “George.”

Shit! I had willed him out of my mind, so completely and intensely wanting him gone that I allowed myself to forget that he even exists.

I pretended that if I forgot him, then he would forget me too. But it doesn't work that way. Except in a mind as strange in its strategies as my own. Now, reality again intrudes ...

“Oh!”

“Lee? Are you alright?”

“Yes, yes. Of course. Forgive me. I ... got confused.”

“That's understandable. How many times have we shifted your ‘legend' in the past two years? Anyone would.”

“Something must be important or you wouldn't call me here.”

Lee was at his rooming house. He'd finished work, eaten dinner at a simple cafeteria, and was preparing to call Marina, as he did every evening at around seven. L.H.O.: Norman Normal.

“Lee! 11/22/63. Right?”

“Oh, yeah. Right, right.”

“Man! I can't believe how easy it was to get you set up at the Book Depository. The motorcade will have to come close to stopping in front of your building. Should be an easy shot.”

Everything is clear to me now. I'm working at the book depository not because I made it happen, or destiny did the
job. I'm there because George moved his pawn across the chess-board.

In my idiotic way—what did Marina call it once, my inconceivable innocence?—I believed if I simply failed to show up and do the killing that day, then it wouldn't happen.

“Of course,” Lee mumbled, barely aware he still spoke to George, half-believing he was only thinking out loud. “The president's motorcade will approach the building as it comes down Houston. Then there's that sharp left onto Elm.”

“It's important you do the job from the sixth floor.”

“I work on the second and third. Take lunch on the first.”

“The sixth, Lee. That's imperative.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Lee, it sounds as if you'd forgotten all about this.”

“No. Not really. I just had another baby. Or Marina did—”

“I'm very much aware of that. Congratulations.”

“A little disoriented, that's all.”

“From this moment, you must focus on the shooting. Nothing else can matter.
Nothing
. Do you understand?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good boy. Be assured, we've got you covered. It's best if we don't talk again until that day. There will be a support system to spirit you out of town moments after the shots are fired. Don't worry. All will go like clockwork.”

They hung up. Lee, shivering and sweating worse than ever in his life, could not bring himself to call Marina. Nor did he go into the lounge and watch television. He lay still as he could on his bed, staring up at the ceiling as he'd done many times before.

Everything will be alright. I'll simply not show up. The motorcade will pass as it's supposed to. The shot will not be fired. It's possible that George may haunt me for the rest of my life after I fail to pull the trigger. What do I do about that?

I've got it! I'll write a tell-all journal, drop it off at some safe place. The FBI! That'll be perfect, as they hate the CIA. I'll label it 'to be opened only in the case of my death.'

Then, immediately after the Motorcade passes by without incident, I'll call George, tell him I'm out. But that he had better not go after me in any way, or ever try to harm JFK again, as that journal is in FBI hands now.

I'll swear to keep my mouth shut, so long as the Company leaves me and my family alone ... What can he do about that?

The President will not die by my hand. He'll live by it.

A normal life for me at last. God knows, I've earned it!

*

In the wee small hours of the morning, Lee woke with a start. The nightmares had returned, even as they did to Sinatra in
The Manchurian Candidate.
He sat up in bed, panicky.

Wait a minute. What did George say earlier? ‘We'll have you covered.' As with the team when I flew down to kill Castro.

Not just me. Two other gunmen as well.

That's George's ‘way': The triple-shot. Then and now.

‘Shots fired.' That's what he said. Not 'shot.'
'Shots‘!

What else? ‘The entire team' will be rescued before anyone can get their hands on us. Of course. I was to be his pawn, but not George's only one. There will be many.

Part of his great game-plan. Or so George thinks ...

*

On Thursday, November 21, Lee Harvey Oswald left work and met Wesley Frazier at five after five on Elm Street where that co-worker parked his car. Earlier, Lee had asked if he might drive up to Irving with him that evening. Frazier said ‘sure.' That blue-collar worker had been surprised, however, as Lee never made the trip on a weekday. Only weekends. Except for the past one, when Lee mentioned he'd stay in Dallas, get stuff done.

“Anything special going on tonight, Lee?”

“Every time I see Marina is special.”

“That's nice. I meant—”

“I
know
what you
meant
.” Lee's voice sounded so harsh Wes did not pursue the issue further. To his surprise, Lee, so eager to listen to hot hits on the radio and talk, talk, talk about work, sports, and TV shows and such, remained stonily silent.

“Hello, stranger,” Marina said caustically as Lee stepped out of the car, Frazier driving off. His wife had been watering the grass in front of the Paine home. She wore cut-off blue-jeans and a red shirt, knotted at the waist. Her hair was set in pigtails. Marina looked like the girl next door. No one would guess she'd recently given birth. Her trim figure had returned.

Everything I ever wanted, though of course, I did not realize I wanted that ...

“Hello, yourself.” He knew why Marina appeared disturbed. Up until a week earlier he had called her twice a day, during his lunch break from the pay phone, again in the evening after he returned to the rooming house. For ten days, she had not heard from him. Nor had he arrived the past Friday as usual.

“So, on Sunday night, I saw baby June playing with the phone. That gave me an idea. ‘Let's call Daddy!' I said. June giggled, seeming to understand. When the landlady answered I asked for you. She said ‘no one lives here by that name.'”

Cautiously, Lee stepped closer. “I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you. I'm registered there under my old alias, O.H. Lee.”

“So it's as I feared? Starting your old foolishness again. The little boy who wants to play at being James Bond?”

“This isn't what you think, Marina.” Desperately, Lee tried to approach her, hold his wife close. She turned, though not before he witnessed an ugly expression cross her face as Marina stepped inside. “Please believe me,” he called out, following.

“I made the mistake of believing you when you returned from Mexico. Remember? ‘It'll never happen again, Marina. I swear!'”

Though she slammed the screen door behind her with terrible finality, Lee opened it and followed doggedly in her path. “I meant what I said then, and I mean it now.”

Scooping Rachel up from her crib, even as June came rushing out with a goofy ear to ear grin smeared across her little face, Marina swiveled around, eyes dark, unforgiving. “What movie are we living in now? Don't expect me to guess. Tell me for once.”