Harry walked down the steps and into the garden. Many of the patients were out there. He had been told that his wife, Gloria, was out there. He saw her sitting alone at a table. He approached her obliquely, from the side and a bit from the rear. He circled the table and sat down across from her. Gloria sat very straight, she was very pale. She looked at him but didn’t see him. Then she saw him.
“Are you the conductor?” she asked.
“The conductor of what?”
“The conductor of verisimilitude?”
“No, I’m not.”
She was pale, her eyes were pale, pale brown.
“How do you feel, Gloria?”
It was an iron table, painted white, a table that would last for centuries. There was a small bowl of flowers in the center, wilted dead flowers hanging from sad, dangling stems.
“You are a whore-fucker, Harry. You fuck whores.”
“That’s not true, Gloria.”
“Do they suck you too? Do they suck your dick?”
“I was going to bring your mother, Gloria, but she was down with the flu.”
“That old bat is always down with something. Are you the conductor?”
The other patients sat down at the tables or up against the trees or they stretched out on the lawn. They were motionless and silent.
“How’s the food here, Gloria? Do you have any friends?”
“Bad. And no. Whore-fucker.”
“Do you want anything to read? What can I bring you to read?”
Gloria didn’t answer. Then she brought her right hand up, looked at it, curled it into a fist and punched herself in the nose, hard. Harry reached across and held both of her hands. “Gloria, please—”
She began to cry, “Why didn’t you bring me any chocolates?”
“Gloria, you told me you …
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Author: High Times / High Times
