The Moviegoer

Binx and Kate marry the following June and the relationship between Binx and his aunt improves now that she sees that “[Binx] was not one of her heroes but a very ordinary fellow” (237). On Mardi Gras the following year, “Uncle Jules suffered a second heart attack” (237) and died, and in May, “Lonnie Smith died of a massive virus infection which was never positively identified” (237).

Binx mentions a visit to Lonnie with Kate the day before he died, when she becomes very upset after seeing Lonnie “so hideously thin and yellow” (238). They talk with Binx’s other half-siblings and share in their grief at Lonnie’s illness, and Binx sends Kate home on the streetcar, promising her that he will think of her, “cape jasmine held against her cheek, until my brothers and sisters call out behind me” (242).