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He kept hearing it. The guitar music, gently wafting through the carnival at night. Lee had asked the others if they heard it too, but they all just looked at him like he had grown a second head.
Lee was right. He wasn’t imagining things. That possibility had been thrown out long ago, when he had shown up in this fucking awful place. And the music was getting louder. It was distant, but it was getting louder. Lee had never been a music man, but it sounded sad. Haunting.
He had to find out what it was. He was lying on his mattress when he made up his mind. He had heard the music for the last five nights in a row — whatever “night” this place had. There wasn’t a sun, or a moon. The always-grey sky just got darker. Lee tossed the grungy blanket off of him, grabbing his .38 from where it lay next to the mattress before stretching to his full height.
Lee shoved the pistol into his pocket. He quietly stepped out of the tent. It wasn’t like they weren’t supposed to be wandering about at night, but the other assassins were annoying enough without adding on a poor night of sleep. (Sometimes he wondered if they needed to sleep. They weren’t alive , not in the traditional sense. But what else were they supposed to do when it got dark? They were human, after all. Right?)
Something Lee had always liked about himself was his ability to go unnoticed. It kept him safe, both in life and here. It was what allowed him to not get caught. His footsteps against the hard dirt barely made a sound as he walked.
The carnival got more and more claustrophobic as he traveled further away from the center area. He had been to the edge of it before. Sometimes, when he needed to get away from the other assassins, he wandered the maze of half-abandoned stalls and dilapidated rides. Everything was covered in a fine layer of grime, making the world a shade somewhere between dark grey and tan. Lee ran his finger along a rusty pipe, and it came back gritty. He wiped it off on his jeans, noting with satisfaction that he had left a noticeable patch of reduced dust.
The music got louder as he went. He was getting closer to the source of it. He didn’t recognize what was being played, but he felt as though he should. It sounded nothing like “Heartache Serenade”, but that was the only thing Lee could think of. Ironic, he thought. The one song he wanted to recognize wasn’t in the seemingly endless library of records for the jukebox.
He turned a corner, and there he was. A seemingly familiar figure sat on top of some long-forgotten counter. His back was to Lee. He wore a dull flannel, red and white with odd red stains and tears. His arms curled around a guitar. Lee didn’t know music, but he could tell the instrument was in bad shape. The wood was chipped. A band of tape stretched across it.
Lee had an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was similar to how he felt in those moments before Booth had walked into his life. He rested his hand on the handle of his pistol and took a tentative step forward.
“Hello?” Lee asked.
The music stopped suddenly, discordantly. The figure set the guitar down, quietly stepped back onto the ground, and turned around to face Lee. Lee felt the wind sucked out of his lungs as he saw who it was. Fuck.
It wasn’t someone Lee recognized, but he had the same face as him, the same nose, the same build. The same color jeans. The same color hair, though the strange man’s had waves. The same eyes, but the man’s were several shades bluer and far more intense. Other than his eyes, he was duller, somehow. There was a coating of grime over him, like he was part of the carnival and had been for a long time.
“You…” Lee started, but he had no words to say to the man. Was this some trick the carnival was playing on him? Is that why the other assassins claimed they didn’t hear the guitar?
The figure held his gaze, and Lee had the urge to move his hand and see if the figure did, too. The two stood there for several moments, staring at each other. The figure tilted his head slightly, like a cat figuring out the best way to catch its prey.
“Who are you?” Lee finally asked, perhaps foolishly.
“Take a guess.” The man spoke with the same voice as Lee’s, but a different cadence. The words, though, sounded like they came from a man who hadn’t spoken in years. Dry and cracked.
Asshole.
But it hit him. The Proprietor had told him of the Balladeer, the one that came before him. The one who protested the assassins, but couldn’t stop them. The storyteller that told of a non-existent America, the one where people like Lee were left behind and forgotten. The thing that had died so that Lee could live. Become one of the assassins.
“You’re the Balladeer,” Lee said simply, and he hated how he said it the second it came out of his mouth. It was like how he had spoken to Booth, when he realized who he was.
He had to resist the urge to poke the man to confirm he was real.
The Balladeer nodded once. It was a strange motion. “You’re Lee Harvey Oswald. Who I became.”
“Yeah.” Lee paused, taking in the Balladeer. There was something about him that sat wrong with him, and not just their similar appearance. Lee had never had the hope that the Proprietor claimed the Balladeer represented. He had been desperate his whole life, gripping anything he could get and holding it close to his chest, always grasping for more with dirt-stained fingernails. The Balladeer had clearly been free of that. There was once a spark in his eyes, bright hair and a never-ending smile. But he was dull now, like Lee. “You’re not what I imagined.”
The Balladeer made a noise like a chuckle, but not quite. “And what did you imagine, Oswald?”
“I thought you’d be happier.”
“Happier,” the Balladeer repeats. “Yes, well, your friends made sure I wasn’t when they turned me into you.”
None of his words, individually, bit. But there was contempt behind them. If Lee was a different man, they may have made him feel a twinge of guilt. But not Lee. He was Lee Harvey Oswald , the champion of the assassins, the man who changed the world with a single motion of his finger.
Lee didn’t say anything. The Balladeer sighed, taking a step towards him. Lee tensed up, fully aware that his hand was still on his pistol, but the Balladeer walked by him. What is he… he thought, before turning on his heel to follow him.
If the Balladeer had some destination in mind, it was unclear. The man just kept walking, taking turns seemingly at random. Lee followed him. What else was he supposed to do?
“Are you angry at me?” Lee asked, after several minutes of walking.
“Yes,” the Balladeer said quickly. Lee doesn’t know if it's supposed to hurt or not. He doesn’t know if it does. “And myself. If I hadn’t let them turn me into you, you would still be a normal man.” Not a great man. The Balladeer turned around. There was a streak down his dusty face, almost as if a tear had run down it. “But you were the one to shoot him.”
Lee could still remember the reverb of the gun going through his entire body. He remembered the burning of the gunpowder. The bang as it went off.
He could remember his denials to the police as he was taken into custody.
But the Balladeer, strange as he was, was not the police. He was not the government.
“I was,” Lee said.
“You could at least be ashamed. I would think the little bit of me that exists in you would be.”
Lee narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
A look of amusement passed over the Balladeer. “They didn’t tell you?”
“They said you died and then I existed. In my current state.” The Lee Harvey Oswald that shot the president. Not the Lee Harvey Oswald that walked into work that morning.
“Well, I suppose they weren’t wrong . But I became you. They turned me into you.”
Lee gripped at his shirt. He was the Balladeer. He was the exact opposite of the Balladeer, and yet he was the Balladeer. No wonder the first thing he can remember with clarity is “Heartache Serenade”. No wonder they looked so alike.
“Whatever was left of me after you came into existence … I think that’s what I am. The shell of the Balladeer.”
After the events that brought him here, nothing should surprise Lee anymore. And it didn’t hit him as hard as it should, but it still took a moment for Lee to gather his thoughts.
“Do the others know?”
The Balladeer shook his head, then responded with a question of his own. “How long has it been?”
Lee shrugged. “Time is …”
“It’s weird here,” the Balladeer finished. “I know. I shouldn’t have asked.” He paused, tilting his head at Lee again. “But no longer than a few years. You aren’t one of them yet. Not how they want you to.”
Booth had read him the same way, picked up on his disaffection immediately. Lee took a step back.
“You should leave now,” Lee said slowly, gathering as much danger in his voice as he could muster.
Everything told him that the Balladeer would protest this. The Balladeer would stay. He would mock him, laugh at him for thinking Lee held any power over him. But he just smiled sadly. “Okay. But Lee? Don’t tell the others. I’ll reveal myself to them in due time. But don’t tell them now. They’ll just think you’re mad.” With that, the Balladeer stepped behind a stall and out of sight.
Lee Harvey Oswald was not a madman. He knew this, but the way the others looked at him when he asked them about the guitar music — he did not like being looked at like that. Like he is not of sound mind.
He stood there, under the rapidly lightening sky, for a long while, processing the conversation he just had. Eventually, he heard someone calling his name, calling him back to the carnival. To the other assassins.
As he walked back, he passed the place where he first saw the Balladeer. His guitar was gone.