I was bundled into a rawhide ranch coat; a felt cap with flaps was jammed down over my ears. I was sitting on a bench in front of the Texas Cattle Raisers Association, looking down West Seventh. I had been there for almost an hour, and I didnt think the young man would visit with his mother much longer than that; according to Al Templetons notes, all three of her boys had gotten away from her as soon as they possibly could. What I was hoping was that she might come out of her apartment building with him. She was recently back in the area after several months in Waco, where she had been working as a ladies home companion.
My patience was rewarded. The door of the Rotary Apartments opened and a skinny man who bore an eerie resemblance to Lee Harvey Oswald came out. He held the door for a woman in a tartan car coat and blocky white nurses shoes. She was only shoulder-high to him, but solidly built. Her graying hair was scrooped back from a prematurely lined face. She wore a red kerchief. Matching lipstick outlined a small mouth that looked dissatisfied and pugnaciousthe mouth of a woman who believes the world is against her and has had plenty of evidence over the years to prove it. Lee Oswalds elder brother went quickly down the concrete path. The woman scurried after and grabbed the back of his topcoat. He turned to her on the sidewalk. They appeared to argue, but the woman did most of the talking. She shook her finger in his face. No way I could tell what she was scolding him about; I was a prudent block and a half away. Then he started toward the corner of West Seventh and Summit Avenue, as I had expected. He had come by bus, and that was where the nearest stop was.
The woman stood where she was for a moment, as if undecided. Come on, Mama, I thought, youre not going to let him get away that easily, are you? Hes just half a block down the street. Lee had to go all the way to Russia to get away from that wagging finger.
She went after him, and as they neared the corner, she raised her voice and I heard her clearly. Stop, Robert, dont walk so fast, Im not done with you!
He looked over his shoulder but kept walking. She caught up to him at the bus stop and tugged on his sleeve until he looked at her. The finger resumed its tick-tock wagging. I caught isolated phrases: you promised, and gave you everything andI thinkwho are you to judge me. I couldnt see Oswalds face because his back was to me, but his slumped shoulders said plenty. I doubted if this was the first time Mama had followed him down the street, jabbering away the whole time, oblivious of spectators. She spread a hand above the shelf of her bosom, that timeless Mom-gesture that says Behold me, ye thankless child.
Oswald dug into his back pocket, produced his wallet, and gave her a bill. She stuffed it in her purse without looking at it and started back toward the Rotary Apartments. Then she thought of something else and turned to him once more. I heard her clearly. Raised to shout across the fifteen or twenty yards now between them, that reedy voice was like fingernails drawn down a slate blackboard.
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And call me if you hear from Lee again, hear? Im still on the party line, its all I can afford until I get a better job, and that Sykes woman from downstairs is on it all the time, I spoke to her, I gave her a real piece of my mind, Mrs. Sykes, I said
A man passed her. He stuck a theatrical finger in one ear, grinning. If Mama saw, she took no notice. She certainly took no notice of her sons grimace of embarrassment.
Mrs. Sykes, I said, youre not the only one who needs the phone, so Id thank you to keep your calls short. And if you wont do it on your own, I may have to call a representative of the telephone company to make you do it. Thats what I said. So you call me, Rob. You know I need to hear from Lee.
Here came the bus. As it pulled up, he raised his voice to be heard over the chuff of the air-brakes. Hes a damn Commie, Ma, and hes not coming home. Get used to it.
You call me! she shrilled. Her grim little face was set. She stood with her feet planted apart, like a boxer ready to absorb a blow. Any blow. Every blow. Her eyes glared from behind black-rimmed harlequin glasses. Her kerchief was double-knotted beneath her chin. The rain had begun to fall now, but she paid it no mind. She drew in breath and raised her voice to something just short of a scream. I need to hear from my good boy, you hear?
Robert Oswald bolted up the steps and into the bus without replying. It pulled away in a chuff of blue exhaust. And as it did, a smile lit her face. It did something of which I would have thought a smile incapable: it made her simultaneously younger and uglier.
A workman passed her. He didnt bump or even brush her, as far as I could see, but she snapped: Watch where youre going! You dont own the sidewalk!
Marguerite Oswald started back toward her apartment. When she turned away from me, she was still smiling.
I drove back to Jodie that afternoon, shaken and thoughtful. I wouldnt see Lee Oswald for another year and a half, and I remained determined to stop him, but I already felt more sympathy for him than I ever had for Frank Dunning.
CHAPTER 13
1
It was seven forty-five on the evening of May 18, 1961. The light of a long Texas dusk lay across my backyard. The window was open, and the curtains fluttered in a mild breeze. On the radio, Troy Shondell was singing This Time. I was sitting in what had been the little houses second bedroom and was now my study. The desk was a cast-off from the high school. It had one short leg, which I had shimmed. The typewriter was a Webster portable. I was revising the first hundred and fifty or so pages of my novel, The Murder Place, mostly because Mimi Corcoran kept pestering me to read it, and Mimi, I had discovered, was the sort of person you could put off with excuses for only so long. The work was actually going well. Id had no problem turning Derry into the fictional town of Dawson in my first draft, and turning Dawson into Dallas was even easier. I had started making the changes only so the work-in-progress would support my cover story when I finally let Mimi read it, but now the changes seemed both vital and inevitable. It seemed the book had wanted to be about Dallas all along.
The doorbell rang. I put a paperweight on the manuscript pages so they wouldnt blow around, and went to see who my visitor was. I remember all of this very clearly: the dancing curtains, the smooth river stone paperweight, This Time playing on the radio, the long light of Texas evening, which I had come to love. I should remember it. It was when I stopped living in the past and just starting living.
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I opened the door and Michael Coslaw stood there. He was weeping. I cant, Mr. Amberson, he said. I just cant.
Well, come in, Mike, I said. Lets talk about it.
2
I wasnt surprised to see him. I had been in charge of Lisbon Highs little Drama Department for five years before running away to the Era of Universal Smoking, and Id seen plenty of stage fright in those years. Directing teenage actors is like juggling jars of nitroglycerine: exhilarating and dangerous. Ive seen girls who were quick studies and beautifully natural in rehearsal freeze up completely onstage; Ive seen nerdy little guys blossom and seem to grow a foot taller the first time they utter a line that gets a laugh from an audience. Ive directed dedicated plodders and the occasional kid who showed a spark of talent. But Id never had a kid like Mike Coslaw. I suspect there are high school and college faculty whove been working dramatics all their lives and never had a kid like him.
Mimi Corcoran really did run Denholm Consolidated High School, and it was she who coaxed me into taking over the junior-senior play when Alfie Norton, the math teacher who had been doing it for years, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and moved to Houston for treatments. I tried to refuse on the grounds that I was still doing research in Dallas, but I wasnt going there very much in the winter and early spring of 1961. Mimi knew it, because whenever Deke needed an English sub during that half of the school year, I was usually available. When it came to Dallas, I was basically marking time. Lee was still in Minsk, soon to marry Marina Prusakova, the girl in the red dress and white shoes.
Youve got plenty of time on your hands, Mimi had said. Her own hands were fisted on her nonexistent hips: she was in full take-no-prisoners mode that day. And it pays.
Oh, yeah, I said. I checked that out with Deke. Fifty bucks. Ill be living large in the hood.
In the what?
Never mind, Mimi. For the time being, Im doing all right for cash. Cant we leave it at that?
No. We couldnt. Miz Mimi was a human bulldozer, and when she met a seemingly immovable object, she just lowered her blade and revved her engine higher. Without me, she said, there would be no junior-senior play for the first time in the high schools history. The parents would be disappointed. The schoolboard would be disappointed. And, she added, drawing her brows together, I will be bereft.
God forbid you should be bereft, Miz Mimi, Id said. Tell you what. If you let me pick the playsomething not too controversial, I promiseIll do it.
Her frown had disappeared into the brilliant Mimi Corcoran smile that always turned Deke Simmons into a simmering bowl of oatmeal (which, temperamentally speaking, was not a huge transformation). Excellent! Who knows, you may find a brilliant thespian lurking in our halls.
Yes, I said. And pigs may whistle.
Butlife is such a jokeI had found a brilliant thesp. A natural. And now he sat in my living room on the night before our show opened for the first of four performances, taking up almost the entire couch (which bowed humbly beneath his two hundred and seventy pounds), bawling his freaking head off. Mike Coslaw. Also known as Lennie Small in George Ambersons okay-for-high-school adaptation of John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men.
If, that was, I could talk him into showing up tomorrow.
3
I thought about handing him some Kleenex and decided they werent up to the job. I fetched a dish wiper from the kitchen drawer instead. He scrubbed his face with it, got himself under some kind of control, then looked at me desolately. His eyes were red and raw. He hadnt started crying as he approached my door; this looked like it had been going on all afternoon.
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Okay, Mike. Make me understand.
Everybody on the teams makin fun of me, Mr. Amberson. Coach started callin me Clark Gablethis was at the Lion Pride Spring Picnicand now everybodys doin it. Even Jimmys doin it. Meaning Jim LaDue, the teams hot-rod quarterback and Mikes best friend.
I wasnt surprised about Coach Borman; he was a thud who preached the gospel of gung-ho and didnt like anyone poaching on his territory either in season or out. And Mike had been called far worse; while hall-monitoring, Id heard him called Bohunk Mike, George of the Jungle, and Godzilla. He laughed the nicknames off. That amused, even absentminded reaction to slurs and japes may be the greatest gift height and size conveys on large boys, and at six-seven and two-seventy, Mike made me look like Mickey Rooney.
There was only one star on the Lions football team, and that was Jim LaDuedidnt he have his own billboard, at the intersection of Highway 77 and Route 109? But if there was any player who made it possible for Jim to star, it was Mike Coslaw, who planned to sign with Texas A&M as soon as his senior high school season was over. LaDue would be rolling with the Bama Crimson Tide (as both he and his father would be happy to tell you), but if someone had asked me to pick the one most likely to go pro, I would have put my money on Mike. I liked Jim, but to me he looked like a knee injury or shoulder separation waiting to happen. Mike, on the other hand, seemed built for the long haul.
What does Bobbi Jill say? Mike and Bobbi Jill Allnut were practically joined at the hip. Gorgeous girl? Check. Blonde? Check. Cheerleader? Why even ask?
He grinned. Bobbi Jills behind me a thousand percent. Says to man up and stop letting those other guys get my goat.
Sounds like a sensible young lady.
Yeah, shes the absolute best.
Anyway, I suspect a little name-calling isnt whats really on your mind. And when he didnt reply: Mike? Talk to me.
Im gonna get up there in front of all those people and make a fool of myself. Jimmy told me so.
Jimmys a helluva quarterback, and I know the two of you are pals, but when it comes to acting, he doesnt know jack shit. Mike blinked. In 1961 you usually didnt hear the word shit from teachers, even if they had a mouthful. But of course I was only a substitute, and that freed me up some. I think you know that. As they say in these parts, you may stagger, but you aint stupid.
People think I am, he said in a low voice. And Im strictly a C student. Maybe you dont know that, maybe subs dont get to see the records, but I am.
I made it a point to see yours after the second week of rehearsals, when I saw what you could do onstage. Youre a C student because, as a football player, youre supposed to be a C student. Its part of the ethos.
The what?
Figure it out from the context and save the dumb act for your friends. Not to mention Coach Borman, who probably has to tie a string on his whistle so he can remember which end to blow.
Mike snickered at that, red eyes and all.
Listen to me. People automatically think anyone as big as you is stupid. Tell me different if you want to; according to what I hear, youve been walking around in that body since you were twelve, so you should know.
He didnt tell me different. What he said was, Everybody on the team tried out for Lennie. It was a joke. A goof. He added hastily. Nothin against you, Mr. A. Everybody on the team likes you. Even Coach likes you.
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A bunch of players had crashed the tryouts, intimidating the more scholarly aspirants into silence and all claiming they wanted to read for the part of George Miltons big dumb friend. Of course it had been a joke, but Mikes reading of Lennie had been the farthest thing in the world from funny. What it had been was a goddam revelation. I would have used an electric cattle prod to keep him in the room, if thats what it took, but of course there was no need of such extreme measures. Want to know the best thing about teaching? Seeing that moment when a kid discovers his or her gift. Theres no feeling on earth like it. Mike knew his teammates would make fun of him, but he took the part anyway.
And of course Coach Borman didnt like it. The Coach Bormans of the world never do. In this case, however, there wasnt much he could do about it, especially with Mimi Corcoran on my side. He certainly couldnt claim he needed Mike for football practice in April and May. So he was reduced to calling his best lineman Clark Gable. There are guys who cant rid themselves of the idea that acting is for girls and queers who sort of wish they were girls. Gavin Borman was that kind of guy. At Don Haggartys annual April Fools keg-party, he had whined to me about putting ideas in that big galoots head.
I told him he was certainly welcome to his opinion; like assholes, everybody had one. Then I walked away, leaving him with a paper cup in his hand and a perplexed look on his face. The Coach Bormans of the world are also used to getting their way through a kind of jocular intimidation, and he couldnt understand why it wasnt working on the lowly sub whod stepped into Alfie Nortons directors shoes at the last minute. I could hardly tell Borman that shooting a guy to keep him from killing his wife and kids has a way of changing a man.
Basically, Coach never had a chance. I cast some of the other football players as townspeople, but I meant to have Mike as Lennie from the moment he opened his mouth and said, I remember about the rabbits, George!
He became Lennie. He hijacked not just your eyesbecause he was so damn bigbut the heart in your chest. You forgot everything else, the way people forgot their everyday cares when Jim LaDue faded back to throw a pass. Mike might have been built to crash the opposing line in humble obscurity, but he had been madeby God, if there is such a deity; by a roll of the genetic dice if there is notto stand on a stage and disappear into someone else.
It was a goof for everyone but you, I said.
Me, too. At first.
Because at first you didnt know.
No. I dint. Husky. Almost whispering. He lowered his head because the tears were coming again and he didnt want me to see them. The coach had called him Clark Gable, and if I called the man on it, hed claim it was just a joke. A goof. A yuk. As if he didnt know the rest of the squad would pick up on it and pile on. As if he didnt know that shit would hurt Mike in a way being called Bohunk Mike never could. Why do people do that to gifted people? Is it jealousy? Fear? Both, maybe. But this kid had the advantage of knowing how good he was. And we both knew Coach Borman wasnt really the problem. The only person who could stop Mike from going onstage tomorrow night was Mike.
Youve played football in front of crowds nine times bigger than the one thatll be in that auditorium. Hell, when you boys went down to Dallas for the regionals last November, you played in front of ten or twelve thousand. And they were not friendly.
Footballs different. When we hit the field, were all wearing the same uniform and helmets. Folks can only tell us apart by our numbers. Everybodys on the same side
There are nine other people in this show with you, Mike, and thats not counting the townspeople I wrote in to give your football buddies something to do. Theyre a team, too.
Its not the same.
Maybe not quite. But one thing is the sameif you let them down, the shit falls apart and everybody loses. The actors, the crew, the Pep Club girls who did the publicity, and all the people who are planning to come in for the show, some of them from ranches fifty miles out. Not to mention me. I lose, too.
I guess thats so, he said. He was looking at his feet, and mighty big feet they were.
I could stand to lose Slim or Curley; Id just send someone out with the book to read the part. I guess I could even stand to lose Curleys Wife
I wish Sandy was a little better, Mike said. Shes pretty as hell, but if she ever hits her mark, its an accident.
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I allowed myself a cautious inward smile. I was starting to think this was going to be all right. What I couldnt standwhat the show couldnt standis to lose you or Vince Knowles.
Vince was playing Lennies road-buddy George, and actually, we could have stood the loss if hed gotten the flu or broken his neck in a road accident (always a possibility, given the way he drove his daddys farm truck). I would have gone on in Vinces place, if push came to shove, even though I was much too big for the part, and I wouldnt need just to read, either. After six weeks of rehearsals, I was as off-the-book as any of my actors. More than some. But I couldnt replace Mike. No one could replace him, with his unique combination of size and actual talent. He was the linchpin.
What if I fuck up? he asked, then heard what hed said and clapped a hand to his mouth.
I sat down beside him on the couch. There wasnt much room, but I managed. Right then I wasnt thinking of John Kennedy, Al Templeton, Frank Dunning, or the world Id come from. Right then I was thinking of nothing but this big boy and my show. Because at some point it had become mine, just as this earlier time with its party-line telephones and cheap gas had become mine. At that moment I cared more about Of Mice and Men than I did about Lee Harvey Oswald.
But I cared even more about Mike.
I took his hand off his mouth. Put it on one huge thigh. Put my hands on his shoulders. Looked into his eyes. Listen to me, I said. Are you listening?
Yessir.
You are not going to fuck up. Say it.
I
Say it.
Im not going to fuck up.
What youre going to do is amaze them. I promise you that, Mike. Gripping his shoulders tighter. It was like trying to sink my fingers into stones. He could have picked me up and broken me over his knee, but he only sat there looking at me from a pair of eyes that were humble, hopeful, and still rimmed with tears. Do you hear me? I promise.
4
The stage was a beachhead of light. Beyond it was a lake of darkness where the audience sat. George and Lennie stood on the bank of an imaginary river. The other men had been sent away, but they wouldnt be gone long; if the big, vaguely smiling hulk of a man in the overalls were to die with any dignity, George would have to see to it himself.
George? Where them guys goin?
Mimi Corcoran was sitting on my right. At some point she had taken my hand and was gripping it. Hard, hard, hard. We were in the first row. Next to her on her other side, Deke Simmons was staring up at the stage with his mouth slightly hung open. It was the expression of a farmer who sees dinosaur cropping grass in his north forty.
Huntin. Theyre goin huntin. Siddown, Lennie.
Vince Knowles was never going to be an actorwhat he was going to be, most likely, was a salesman at Jodie Chrysler-Dodge, like his fatherbut a great performance can lift all the actors in a production, and that had happened tonight. Vince, who in rehearsals had only once or twice achieved even low levels of believability (mostly because his ratty, intelligent little face was Steinbecks George Milton), had caught something from Mike. All at once, about halfway through Act I, he finally seemed to realize what it meant to go rambling through life with a Lennie as your only friend, and he had fallen into the part. Now, watching him push an old felt hat from props back on his head, I thought that Vince looked like Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath.
George!
Yeah?
Aint you gonna give me hell?
What do you mean?
You know, George. Smiling. The kind of smile that says Yeah, I know Im a dope, but we both know I cant help it. Sitting down beside George on the imaginary riverbank. Taking off his own hat, tossing it aside, rumpling his short blond hair. Imitating Georges voice. Mike had nailed this with eerie ease in the very first rehearsal, with no help from me. If I was alone, I could live so easy. I could get a job and not have no more mess. Resuming his own voice or Lennies, rather. I can go away. I can go right up in the hills and find a cave, if you dont want me.
Vince Knowles lowered his head, and when he raised it and spoke his next line, his voice was thick and hitching. It was a simulacrum of sorrow hed never approached in even his best rehearsals. No, Lennie, I want you to stay here with me.
Then tell me like you done before! Bout other guys, and about us!
That was when I heard the first low sob from the audience. It was followed by another. Then a third. This I had not expected, not in my wildest dreams. A chill raced up my back, and I stole a glance at Mimi. She wasnt crying yet, but the liquid sheen in her eyes told me that she soon would be. Yes, even herhard old baby that she was.
George hesitated, then took hold of Lennies hand, a thing Vince never would have done in rehearsals. Thats queerboy stuff, he would have said.
Guys like us Lennie, guys like us got no families. They got nobody that gives a hoot in hell about them. Touching the prop gun hidden under his coat with his other hand. Taking it partway out. Putting it back. Then steeling himself and taking it all the way out. Laying it along his leg.
But not us, George! Not us! Idnt that right?
Mike was gone. The stage was gone. Now it was only the two of them, and by the time Lennie was asking George to tell him about the little ranch, and the rabbits, and living off the fat of the land, half the audience was weeping audibly. Vince was crying so hard he could hardly deliver his final lines, telling poor stupid Lennie to look over there, the ranch they were going to live on was over there. If he looked hard enough, he could see it.
The stage lensed slowly to full dark, Cindy McComas for once running the lights perfectly. Birdie Jamieson, the school janitor, fired a blank cartridge. Some woman in the audience gave a little scream. That sort of reaction is usually followed by nervous laughter, but tonight there was only the sound of people weeping in their seats. Otherwise, silence. It went on for ten seconds. Or maybe it was only five. Whatever it was, to me it seemed forever. Then the applause broke. It was the best thunder I ever heard in my life. The house lights went up. The entire audience was on its feet. The front two rows were reserved for faculty, and I happened to glance at Coach Borman. Damned if he wasnt crying, too.
Two rows back, where all the school jocks were sitting together, Jim LaDue leaped to his feet. You rock, Coslaw! he shouted. This elicited cheers and laughter.
The cast came out to take their bows: first the football-player townspeople, then Curley and Curleys Wife, then Candy and Slim and the rest of the farmhands. The applause started to die a little and then Vince came out, flushed and happy, his own cheeks still wet. Mike Coslaw came last, shuffling as if embarrassed, then looking out in comical amazement as Mimi shouted Bravo!
Others echoed it, and soon the auditorium resounded with it: Bravo, Bravo, Bravo. Mike bowed, sweeping his hat so low it brushed the stage. When he stood again, he was smiling. But it was more than a smile; his face was transformed with the happiness thats reserved for those who are finally allowed to reach all the way up.
Then he shouted, Mr. Amberson! Come up here, Mr. Amberson!
The cast took up the chant of Director! Director!
Dont kill the applause, Mimi growled from beside me. Get up there, you goof ball!
So I did, and the applause swelled again. Mike grabbed me, hugged me, lifted me off my feet, then set me down and gave me a hearty smack on the cheek. Everyone laughed, including me. We all grabbed hands, lifted them to the audience, and bowed. As I listened to the applause, a thought occurred to me, one that darkened my heart. In Minsk, there were newlyweds. Lee and Marina had been man and wife for exactly nineteen days.
5
Three weeks later, just before school let out for the summer, I went to Dallas to take some photographs of the three apartments where Lee and Marina would live together. I used a small Minox, holding it in the palm of my hand and allowing the lens to peep out between two spread fingers. I felt ridiculousmore like the trench-coated caricatures in Mad magazines Spy vs Spy feature than James Bondbut I had learned to be careful about such things.
When I returned to my house, Mimi Corcorans sky-blue Nash Rambler was parked at the curb and Mimi was just sliding in behind the wheel. When she saw me, she got out again. A brief grimace tightened her facepain or effortbut when she came up the drive, she was wearing her usual dry smile. As if I amused her, but in a good way. In her hands she was carrying a bulky manila envelope, which contained the hundred and fifty pages of The Murder Place. Id finally given in to her pesterings but that had been only the day before.
Either you liked it one hell of a lot, or you never got past page ten, I said, taking the envelope. Which was it?
Her smile now looked enigmatic as well as amused. Like most librarians, Im a fast reader. Can we go inside and talk about it? It isnt even the middle of June, and its already so hot.
Yes, and she was sweating, something Id never seen before. Also, she looked as if shed lost weight. Not a good thing for a lady who had no pounds to give away.
Sitting in my living room with big glasses of iced coffeeme in the easy chair, she on the couchMimi gave her opinion. I enjoyed the stuff about the killer dressed up as a clown. Call me twisted, but I found that deliciously creepy.
If youre twisted, I am, too.
She smiled. Im sure youll find a publisher for it. On the whole, I liked it very much.
I felt a little hurt. The Murder Place might have begun as camouflage, but it had become more important to me as I got deeper into it. It was like a secret memoir. One of the nerves. That on the whole stuff reminds me of Alexander Popeyou know, damning with faint praise?
I didnt quite mean it that way. More qualification. Its just that goddammit, George, this isnt what you were meant to do. You were meant to teach. And if you publish a book like this, no school department in the United States will hire you. She paused. Except maybe in Massachusetts.
