other passengers, they marry each other on board the vessel. After arriving in New York, they locate and stay with their cousin Sourmelina "Lina" Zizmo, in Detroit, Michigan. Lina is a closeted lesbian and the only person who knows of the siblings' incestuous relationship. Lefty takes on a job at Ford Motor Company, but is later retrenched. He unknowingly joins Lina's husband, Jimmy, in bootlegging. Desdemona gives birth to a son, Milton, and a daughter, Zoe. Lina gives birth to a daughter, Theodora or "Tessie". The relationship between Lefty and Desdemona declines after she learns that there is an increased chance of genetic disease for children born from incest. In 1924, after Milton's birth, Lefty opens a bar and gambling room called the Zebra Room. Milton and Tessie marry in 1946. They have two children, Chapter Eleven and Calliope ("Callie"). Prior to Callie's birth, Desdemona predicts the child to be a boy, although the parents prepare for a girl. Chapter Eleven is a biologically "normal" boy; however, Callie is intersex. Unaware of this, her family raise Callie as a girl. Elements of family life are portrayed against struggles in the rise and fall of industrial Detroit. The family gets caught up in the 1967 Detroit riot resulting from racial tensions, after President Johnson authorizes the use of federal troops, and the family restaurant is raided during this period. Because of the threat of school integration, the family moves to a house on Middlesex Boulevard, Grosse Pointe. When she is 14 years old, Callie falls in love with her female best friend, whom Callie refers to as the "Obscure Object". In separate encounters, Callie has her first sexual experiences with a woman, the Obscure Object, and with a man, the Obscure Object's brother. After Callie is injured by a tractor, a doctor discovers that she is intersex. She undergoes tests and examinations at a clinic in New York, and it is determined that her body will naturally develop more masculine traits. After learning about the syndrome and facing the prospect of sex reassignment surgery to make her anatomy appear "normally" female, Callie runs away and assumes a male identity as Cal. He hitchhikes cross-country and reaches San Francisco, where he joins a burlesque show as Hermaphroditus. Cal is arrested by police during a raid on his workplace. He is released into Chapter Eleven's custody and learns of their father's recent death.