I slipped through the back door, and with the penlight clamped in my teeth, connected the tapwire to the tape recorder. I slid the recorder into a rusty Crisco can to protect it from the elements, then concealed it in the little nest of bricks and boards I had already prepared.
Then I went back to my own shitty little house on that shitty little street and began to wait.
They never used the lamp until it got almost too dark to see. Saving on the electricity bill, I suppose. Besides, Lee was a workingman. He went to bed early, and she went when he did. The first time I checked the tape, what I had was mostly Russian — and draggy Russian at that, given the super-slow speed of the recorder. If Marina tried out her English vocabulary, Lee would reprimand her. Nevertheless, he sometimes spoke to June in English if the baby was fussy, always in low, soothing tones. Sometimes he even sang to her. The super-slow recordings made him sound like an orc trying its hand at “Rockabye, Baby.”
Twice I heard him hit Marina, and the second time, Russian wasn’t good enough to express his rage. “You worthless, nagging cunt! I guess maybe my ma was right about you!” This was followed by the slam of a door, and the sound of Marina crying. It cut out abruptly as she turned off the lamp.
On the evening of September fourth, I saw a kid, thirteen or so, come to the Oswalds’ door with a canvas sack over his shoulder. Lee, barefoot and dressed in a tee-shirt and jeans, opened up. They spoke. Lee invited him inside. They spoke some more. At one point Lee picked up a book and showed it to the kid, who looked at it dubiously. There was no chance of using the directional mike, because the weather had turned cool and the windows over there were shut. But the Leaning Lamp of Pisa was on, and when I retrieved the second tape late the following night, I was treated to an amusing conversation. By the third time I played it, I hardly heard the slow drag of the voices.
The kid was selling subscriptions to a newspaper — or maybe it was a magazine — called
“Well son, that’s fine,” Lee said. “You’re quite the little businessman, aren’t you?”
“Uh… yessir?”
“Tell me how much you make.”
“I don’t get but four cents on every dime, but that ain’t the big thing, sir. Mostly what I like is the prizes. They’re way better than the ones you get selling Cloverine Salve. Nuts to that! I goan get me a.22! My dad said I could have it.”
“Son, do you know you’re being exploited?”
“Huh?”
“They take the dimes. You get pennies and the promise of a rifle.”
“Lee, he nice boy,” Marina said. “Be nice. Leave alone.”
Lee ignored her. “You need to know what’s in this book, son. Can you read what’s on the front?”
“Oh, yessir. It says
“
“I don’t want to be no millionaire,” the boy objected. “I just want a.22 so I can plink rats at the dump like my friend Hank.”
“You make pennies selling their newspapers; they make dollars selling your sweat, and the sweat of a million boys like you. The free market isn’t free. You need to educate yourself, son. I did, and I started when I was just your age.”
Lee gave the
“Son, have you listened to a single word I’ve said?”
“Yessir!”
“Then you should know that this system has stolen from me just as it’s stealing from you and your family.”
“You broke? Why didn’t you say so?”
“What I’ve been trying to do is explain to you
“Well, gol-lee! I could’ve tried three more houses, but now I have to go home because it’s almost my curfew!”
“Good luck,” Marina said.
The front door squalled open on its old hinges, then rattled shut (it was too tired to thump). There was a long silence. Then Lee said, in a flat voice: “You see. That’s what we’re up against.”
Not long after, the lamp went out.
My new phone stayed mostly silent. Deke called once — one of those quick howya doin duty-calls — but that was all. I told myself I couldn’t expect more. School was back in, and the first few weeks were always harum-scarum. Deke was busy because Miz Ellie had unretired him. He told me that, after some grumbling, he had allowed her to put his name on the substitute list. Ellie wasn’t calling because she had five thousand things to do and probably five hundred little brushfires to put out.
