I’ve never seen a street fair.… Besides, Lennie would feel bad if we didn’t come by.” She felt itchy and uncomfortable. The situation was sticky. Yet the day was so beautiful, so summery, she could not stay worried. On the corner of his street a magnolia was in full bloom. The smelly rank puddle of the Charles, the river that hardly flowed, reflected the sky blue as a country lake from the B.U. bridge, busy with sculls and kayaks and sunfish and sailboats.
He grumbled about parking. “Freaks panhandling, lot of losers like Lennie selling nonsense to each other.” But they did find a place, a car pulling out just as they drove up.
It looked like any other Saturday and she was disappointed till they came around the corner to Garden. At first it just looked like a street full of people milling. She had imagined lights and structures, perhaps rides and games and she did not know what else. Garden Street was closed to traffic and booths and tables had been set up, and ahead she could hear rock music. Men with carts were selling ice cream on a stick and hot dogs and soft drinks and balloons with peace symbols.
“Look, there’s Phil the Failed.” Tom waved. Phil was slouching with his hands in his pockets looking bored while Miriam was chatting with a woman selling loaves of wholegrain bread, spread out in ornamental step pyramids about her as she squatted on a red blanket, wearing what lookedlike an old tablecloth. Miriam was in wide elephant pants in a soft blue tie-dye print. The top was cut low in front and in back consisted only of yarn ties. The line of her tanned back was graceful and the soft fabric moved as she moved, flowingly. He hair was plaited in a fat glossy braid.
“If that little string should break, two more loose balloons,” Tom said. “Let’s get a hot dog.”
Beth had a lemon slush: syrup poured over crushed ice. She began to enjoy the fair. Everything was dancing, the flickering trees, the people walking with rangy grace to the jingle of ice-cream bells and the sputter of a motorbike making a slow way through the crowd, the throb of rock music ahead. Green and gold and blue: the sun was hot, a foretaste of summer. All along the sidewalk paintings leaned and hung, rectangles of color claiming as they passed, Look! Look! with the artists sitting on the ground or folding chairs. On occasional tables or spread on the ground as in photographs of native markets, jewelry, pottery, leather belts and sandals, macramé, hand-woven fabrics, elaborate candles of dripped and molded wax were set out.
“Look here, Beth, this part-time thing is silly. We’re both adults, we’ve been through the marriage mill, we know what we want. It’s a great thing to sleep with a woman and wake up with her.”
“But I don’t want to live with anyone. I’ve never before had a door that really shuts and a place only for me. It wasn’t till both Dick and Marie got married that I finally got a room of my own. Even then, I had to share it with Mother’s sewing machine and everybody’s off-season clothes.”
“Hey, please. I don’t have any place to crash, I didn’t eat last night. Give me a quarter?” The girl looked fourteen. Tom ignored her, but Beth fumbled for change in her pocket.
“There’s one every ten feet,” he snorted, and he was right. Hare Krishna chanters passed them, orange and white with their shaved heads glinting, moving like butterflies through the crowd. Their music came back through the thickness of people like a rhythmic echo. Phil was bargaining at the curb with a burly guy in a yellow T-shirt that said HOT TUNA and a grotesquely thin girl in a man’s white undershirt and torn bells. A folded bill and a matchbox changed hands. Phil popped the pill and ground the matchbox under his heel. Miriam was down the block where some street musicianswere playing while the next rock group set up their vast system of amps and cables. She was dancing with another woman, big and ruddy and
He grumbled about parking. “Freaks panhandling, lot of losers like Lennie selling nonsense to each other.” But they did find a place, a car pulling out just as they drove up.
It looked like any other Saturday and she was disappointed till they came around the corner to Garden. At first it just looked like a street full of people milling. She had imagined lights and structures, perhaps rides and games and she did not know what else. Garden Street was closed to traffic and booths and tables had been set up, and ahead she could hear rock music. Men with carts were selling ice cream on a stick and hot dogs and soft drinks and balloons with peace symbols.
“Look, there’s Phil the Failed.” Tom waved. Phil was slouching with his hands in his pockets looking bored while Miriam was chatting with a woman selling loaves of wholegrain bread, spread out in ornamental step pyramids about her as she squatted on a red blanket, wearing what lookedlike an old tablecloth. Miriam was in wide elephant pants in a soft blue tie-dye print. The top was cut low in front and in back consisted only of yarn ties. The line of her tanned back was graceful and the soft fabric moved as she moved, flowingly. He hair was plaited in a fat glossy braid.
“If that little string should break, two more loose balloons,” Tom said. “Let’s get a hot dog.”
Beth had a lemon slush: syrup poured over crushed ice. She began to enjoy the fair. Everything was dancing, the flickering trees, the people walking with rangy grace to the jingle of ice-cream bells and the sputter of a motorbike making a slow way through the crowd, the throb of rock music ahead. Green and gold and blue: the sun was hot, a foretaste of summer. All along the sidewalk paintings leaned and hung, rectangles of color claiming as they passed, Look! Look! with the artists sitting on the ground or folding chairs. On occasional tables or spread on the ground as in photographs of native markets, jewelry, pottery, leather belts and sandals, macramé, hand-woven fabrics, elaborate candles of dripped and molded wax were set out.
“Look here, Beth, this part-time thing is silly. We’re both adults, we’ve been through the marriage mill, we know what we want. It’s a great thing to sleep with a woman and wake up with her.”
“But I don’t want to live with anyone. I’ve never before had a door that really shuts and a place only for me. It wasn’t till both Dick and Marie got married that I finally got a room of my own. Even then, I had to share it with Mother’s sewing machine and everybody’s off-season clothes.”
“Hey, please. I don’t have any place to crash, I didn’t eat last night. Give me a quarter?” The girl looked fourteen. Tom ignored her, but Beth fumbled for change in her pocket.
“There’s one every ten feet,” he snorted, and he was right. Hare Krishna chanters passed them, orange and white with their shaved heads glinting, moving like butterflies through the crowd. Their music came back through the thickness of people like a rhythmic echo. Phil was bargaining at the curb with a burly guy in a yellow T-shirt that said HOT TUNA and a grotesquely thin girl in a man’s white undershirt and torn bells. A folded bill and a matchbox changed hands. Phil popped the pill and ground the matchbox under his heel. Miriam was down the block where some street musicianswere playing while the next rock group set up their vast system of amps and cables. She was dancing with another woman, big and ruddy and
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