6/23/13

"Therapy strongly recommended"


Lee made sure to be out of bed early before his mother woke. Her heavy white thigh peeking out from under the gown that had bunched around her waist in the night was the last thing he saw before slipping past her open bedroom door. Previously, it had made him nauseous seeing his mother like that, especially when he’d been forced to sleep in bed with her, but not recently. Now it only made him angry. He’d been released from the Youth House three days ago. He hadn’t said more than two words to her since he came home.
 
Home…
What a joke.

Stupid psychiatrist…

He ran up the stairs from the basement flat and out into the dirty Bronx sunshine. The lively heat on his skin was a contradiction to the coldness he was feeling beneath it and he continued running until he reached 183rd Street where he ducked behind a pillar and breathed in heavily the smoky shade of the subway terminal.

It was May 10th, 1953. Mother’s Day.

He muttered to himself in a Texas accent as husbands and children passed by, probably taking the moms out for their special day. Or to church. Flowers and pretty hats and red lipstick and grotesque smiles.

I’m my own father…  mother never gave a damn…
There were a dozen cigarette butts beneath Lee’s cowboy boots when an elderly lady walked by, handing out pamphlets. He had no idea what she was selling. On a whim, he reached out. He related to what he read.

Six years later, when a reporter in Moscow asked him what prompted his embrace of Marxism and defection to the Soviet Union, Lee HarveyOswald responded, “I became interested about the age of 15, an old lady handed me a pamphlet about saving the Rosenbergs...”

9 comments:

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

If I correctly understand this cautionary tale of history we are doomed to repeat, then the real worry is not the one who appears (rightly or wrongly) to be a threat now, but the one who will read about the former's case in the pamphlets (or on the blogs!) and identify himself (rightly or wrongly) as another innocent victim of the system.

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

From the first PDF (which is a mordibly fascinating read, by the way): "To avoid an assignment in the Philippines, he shot himself in the arm. Sent there anyway, his punishment was kitchen duty."

I don't know whether to sympathise or to snort. =P

cyurkanin said...

I thought of you when I read that lol

Not sure about what we are to learn from this one except maybe that Oswald had a pretty screwed up childhood. Many do and they turn out fine but man, his was really messed up...

cyurkanin said...

As usual, I seem to have deleted your most recent comment instead of publishing it. UGH! Maybe I should do a story on Freud next... sorry. But yes, it WAS "inspired" by recent events, just as Oswald was "inspired" by the Rosenbergs, Snowden was "inspired" by "Assange" and everyone is always "inspired" by someone/something else, ad infinitum.

Sorry again!

cyurkanin said...

Found your original comment: "
That first comment was just me overanalysing things, as usual. I couldn't help thinking that this was also inspired by a more recent espionage case."

Unknown said...

It would seem that Oswald's childhood definitely "prepped the soil", so to speak. That pamphlet was just the right fertilizer for those awful seeds to grow.

cyurkanin said...

It was definitely part of the compost that was his childhood :(

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

It's a conversion story! =D (You know I lurrrve those. =P) I'm now suppressing the inevitable professional apologist joke.

cyurkanin said...

"It's a conversion story!"

~ Yes, Oswald was a flower blooming... lol Not QUITE sure I'd put it quite that way but I get your gist.