Weetzie and My Secret Agent Lover Man had taken Witch Baby and Cherokee to the tent to see the clowns coming out of a silvery-sweet, jazzymist. The silliest, tiniest girl clown hid behind a parasol and was transformed into a golden tightrope walker.
Witch Baby thought of the old ladies and the basketball boys, the street people and the clowns, the tightrope walker goddess and the man who could hardly walk. She remembered the globe lamp burning with life in the magic shop. She remembered Angel Juan’s electric black-cat hair.
This is the time we’re upon.
She skidded down to the sand, took off everything except for the strategic-triple-daisy bikini Weetzie had made for her and jumped into the sea. Oily seaweed wrapped around her ankles and a harsh smell rose up from the waves, only partly disguised by the salt. Witch Baby thought of how Weetzie, My Secret Agent Lover Man, Dirk, Duck and Coyote had once walked all the way from town to bless the polluted bay with poems and tears. She got out of the water and built a sand castle with upside-down Coke cup turrets and a garden full of seaweed, cigarette butts and foil gum wrappers. Then she took pictures of surfer boyswith peeling noses, blonde surfer girls that looked like tall Cherokees, big families with their music and melons, and men who lay in pairs by the blinding water.
When evening came Witch Baby had a sunburned nose and shoulders and she was starving. After she had eaten the sandy candy corn and Three Musketeers bars from her bat-shaped backpack, she was still hungry and it was getting cold.
I won’t find my mother here, she thought, getting back on a bus headed for Hollywood.
She found a bus stop bench in front of the Chinese Theater and curled up under the frayed blanket in her backpack, the same blanket that had once covered her in the basket when Weetzie, My Secret Agent Lover Man, Dirk and Duck had found her on their doorstep. Shivering with cold, she finally slept.
The next morning Witch Baby waited until the tourists started arriving for the first matinee. She rolled backward, leaping and turning on her cowboy-boot skates over the movie-starprints in the cement all day, and some people put money in her backpack. Then she went to see “Hollywood in Miniature,” where tiny cityscapes lit up in a dark room. Hollywood Boulevard was very different from the clean, ice-cream-colored miniature that didn’t have any people on its tiny streets.
If there were people in “Hollywood in Miniature,” they’d be dressed in white and glitter and roller skates, with enough food to eat and warm places to go at night, Witch Baby thought, watching some street kids with shaved heads huddling around a ghetto blaster as if it were a fire.
That was when she saw a piece of faded pink paper stapled to a telephone pole. The blonde actress in the picture pressed her breasts together with her arms and opened her mouth wide, but even with the cleavage and lips she looked small and lost.
“Jayne Mansfield Fan Club Meeting,” said the sign. “Free Food and Entertainment! Candy! Children Welcome!” and there was an address and that day’s date.
So Witch Baby ripped the pink sign from the telephone pole and took a bus up into the hills under the Hollywood sign.
Witch Baby skates until she comes to a pink Spanish-style house half hidden behind overgrown-pineapple-shaped palm trees and hibiscus flowers. Some beat-up 1950’s convertibles are parked in front. Witch Baby takes off her skates, goes up to the house and knocks .
The door creaks open. Inside is darkness, the smell of burning wood and burning sugar. Witch Baby creeps down a hallway, jumping every time she glimpses imps with tufts of hair hiding in the shadows, and breathing again when she realizes that mirrors cover the walls. At the end of the hallway, she comes to a room where blondes in evening gowns sit around a fire pit roasting marshmallows and watching a large screen. Their faces are marshmallow white in
Witch Baby thought of the old ladies and the basketball boys, the street people and the clowns, the tightrope walker goddess and the man who could hardly walk. She remembered the globe lamp burning with life in the magic shop. She remembered Angel Juan’s electric black-cat hair.
This is the time we’re upon.
She skidded down to the sand, took off everything except for the strategic-triple-daisy bikini Weetzie had made for her and jumped into the sea. Oily seaweed wrapped around her ankles and a harsh smell rose up from the waves, only partly disguised by the salt. Witch Baby thought of how Weetzie, My Secret Agent Lover Man, Dirk, Duck and Coyote had once walked all the way from town to bless the polluted bay with poems and tears. She got out of the water and built a sand castle with upside-down Coke cup turrets and a garden full of seaweed, cigarette butts and foil gum wrappers. Then she took pictures of surfer boyswith peeling noses, blonde surfer girls that looked like tall Cherokees, big families with their music and melons, and men who lay in pairs by the blinding water.
When evening came Witch Baby had a sunburned nose and shoulders and she was starving. After she had eaten the sandy candy corn and Three Musketeers bars from her bat-shaped backpack, she was still hungry and it was getting cold.
I won’t find my mother here, she thought, getting back on a bus headed for Hollywood.
She found a bus stop bench in front of the Chinese Theater and curled up under the frayed blanket in her backpack, the same blanket that had once covered her in the basket when Weetzie, My Secret Agent Lover Man, Dirk and Duck had found her on their doorstep. Shivering with cold, she finally slept.
The next morning Witch Baby waited until the tourists started arriving for the first matinee. She rolled backward, leaping and turning on her cowboy-boot skates over the movie-starprints in the cement all day, and some people put money in her backpack. Then she went to see “Hollywood in Miniature,” where tiny cityscapes lit up in a dark room. Hollywood Boulevard was very different from the clean, ice-cream-colored miniature that didn’t have any people on its tiny streets.
If there were people in “Hollywood in Miniature,” they’d be dressed in white and glitter and roller skates, with enough food to eat and warm places to go at night, Witch Baby thought, watching some street kids with shaved heads huddling around a ghetto blaster as if it were a fire.
That was when she saw a piece of faded pink paper stapled to a telephone pole. The blonde actress in the picture pressed her breasts together with her arms and opened her mouth wide, but even with the cleavage and lips she looked small and lost.
“Jayne Mansfield Fan Club Meeting,” said the sign. “Free Food and Entertainment! Candy! Children Welcome!” and there was an address and that day’s date.
So Witch Baby ripped the pink sign from the telephone pole and took a bus up into the hills under the Hollywood sign.
Witch Baby skates until she comes to a pink Spanish-style house half hidden behind overgrown-pineapple-shaped palm trees and hibiscus flowers. Some beat-up 1950’s convertibles are parked in front. Witch Baby takes off her skates, goes up to the house and knocks .
The door creaks open. Inside is darkness, the smell of burning wood and burning sugar. Witch Baby creeps down a hallway, jumping every time she glimpses imps with tufts of hair hiding in the shadows, and breathing again when she realizes that mirrors cover the walls. At the end of the hallway, she comes to a room where blondes in evening gowns sit around a fire pit roasting marshmallows and watching a large screen. Their faces are marshmallow white in
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