you run with, right?” Meg said. “I’m adopted, and my parents really love me. And that’s too bad, because my real mother was probably some unwed mother that I could have grooved with.” She picked up the pussy willow and waved it thoughtfully. “Sometimes I’m so messed up you don’t even know,” she said. “I’m not even sure if I’m really here.”
“I worry about that, too,” Marie said. “Sometimes I think I’m dead and I’m hallucinating the whole thing.”
Three girls, all dressed in dark-blue skirts and jackets, with dark-blue hats, and with lace handkerchiefs in their jacket pockets, came up the staircase, looked around, and silently went down the stairs again.
Meg, whose slacks were splitting slightly at the seams, took them off, went to get a needle and some thread, and sat down to sew.
“Have you ever had the idea you might be in somebody else’s dream?” Dot asked.
“Well, if you’re hallucinating the whole thing, you can change it, right?” Meg said, biting off the thread. “It’s like when you’re having a bad trip—you see what’s real, or what you think is real, and you get upset. You’ve got to say to yourself, ‘You’re on a drug, it’s only a drug.’ Sometimes it takes awhile to change it. But can you imagine how creative your mind must be if you’re dreaming the whole thing?”
The conversation stayed on metaphysics for another hour, during which the girls in the dark suits appeared twice more and the boy with bare feet never uttered a word. At one point, Dot and Meg began to reminisce about how they had become acquainted—in a juvenile home, where Meg had been sent as a “habitual runaway,” and Dot for the vaguer offense of what she described as being “in danger of leading an idle and desolate life.” They spoke of a ghost story the Mexican inmates used to tell—about “La Harona,” a woman who, crazed by syphilis, killed her children.
“They said if you shouted ‘La Harona!’ five times, she would come to you,” Meg said, “and a lot of kids in my unit wanted to test it.”
“I was so terrified I cried all night,” Dot said. “They said she comes through mirrors.” Both girls still seemed terrified at this thought.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if you could look at yourself without looking in a mirror?” Meg said. Then she began talking about a boy friend who had first brought her to Vito’s. “I was completely freaked out at the time,” she said. “Pete just brought me here, and I grooved on the place. He used to wear two belts and wild flowers. Now he plays in a jazz group and wears a suit, but I still love him. The chick he married loves me, too, but I think two’s company.”
One of the three girls in blue suits now appeared at the top of the stairs again, wearing gold-rimmed glasses and carrying a piece of the red clay. She began to dance by herself.
Dot and Meg spoke of their last day at the juvenile home. They had sculpted a large eye together in an art class, and they had asked for permission to take it with them when they left.
“But the teacher at juvey said, ‘You have to finish it,”’ Meg said. “And, of course, we told her it was finished. But she said, ‘No, that isn’t finished, you have to paint it.”’ “So we didn’t get to take it,” Dot said.
By this time, Vito and Sue were getting up from their nap, and a crowd gradually assembled at the top of the stairs. A fourth girl in dark blue now joined the three others. An Oriental boy in a paisley shirt and suede pants appeared, and then a girl in a scarlet pants suit, and one in a purple pants suit (both wore matching derbies and ties), and a man in what looked like a matador outfit, a man with chaps and a ten-gallon hat, a girl in a piece of silk bordered and tufted with fur, a girl in a fringed deerslayer jacket and orange bell-bottom trousers, a bearded man in a kind of bishop’s mantle, and several others in puff hats or floppy hats or with red bows tied
“I worry about that, too,” Marie said. “Sometimes I think I’m dead and I’m hallucinating the whole thing.”
Three girls, all dressed in dark-blue skirts and jackets, with dark-blue hats, and with lace handkerchiefs in their jacket pockets, came up the staircase, looked around, and silently went down the stairs again.
Meg, whose slacks were splitting slightly at the seams, took them off, went to get a needle and some thread, and sat down to sew.
“Have you ever had the idea you might be in somebody else’s dream?” Dot asked.
“Well, if you’re hallucinating the whole thing, you can change it, right?” Meg said, biting off the thread. “It’s like when you’re having a bad trip—you see what’s real, or what you think is real, and you get upset. You’ve got to say to yourself, ‘You’re on a drug, it’s only a drug.’ Sometimes it takes awhile to change it. But can you imagine how creative your mind must be if you’re dreaming the whole thing?”
The conversation stayed on metaphysics for another hour, during which the girls in the dark suits appeared twice more and the boy with bare feet never uttered a word. At one point, Dot and Meg began to reminisce about how they had become acquainted—in a juvenile home, where Meg had been sent as a “habitual runaway,” and Dot for the vaguer offense of what she described as being “in danger of leading an idle and desolate life.” They spoke of a ghost story the Mexican inmates used to tell—about “La Harona,” a woman who, crazed by syphilis, killed her children.
“They said if you shouted ‘La Harona!’ five times, she would come to you,” Meg said, “and a lot of kids in my unit wanted to test it.”
“I was so terrified I cried all night,” Dot said. “They said she comes through mirrors.” Both girls still seemed terrified at this thought.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if you could look at yourself without looking in a mirror?” Meg said. Then she began talking about a boy friend who had first brought her to Vito’s. “I was completely freaked out at the time,” she said. “Pete just brought me here, and I grooved on the place. He used to wear two belts and wild flowers. Now he plays in a jazz group and wears a suit, but I still love him. The chick he married loves me, too, but I think two’s company.”
One of the three girls in blue suits now appeared at the top of the stairs again, wearing gold-rimmed glasses and carrying a piece of the red clay. She began to dance by herself.
Dot and Meg spoke of their last day at the juvenile home. They had sculpted a large eye together in an art class, and they had asked for permission to take it with them when they left.
“But the teacher at juvey said, ‘You have to finish it,”’ Meg said. “And, of course, we told her it was finished. But she said, ‘No, that isn’t finished, you have to paint it.”’ “So we didn’t get to take it,” Dot said.
By this time, Vito and Sue were getting up from their nap, and a crowd gradually assembled at the top of the stairs. A fourth girl in dark blue now joined the three others. An Oriental boy in a paisley shirt and suede pants appeared, and then a girl in a scarlet pants suit, and one in a purple pants suit (both wore matching derbies and ties), and a man in what looked like a matador outfit, a man with chaps and a ten-gallon hat, a girl in a piece of silk bordered and tufted with fur, a girl in a fringed deerslayer jacket and orange bell-bottom trousers, a bearded man in a kind of bishop’s mantle, and several others in puff hats or floppy hats or with red bows tied
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