Persephone & Bert
I presumed at first that
Persephone & Bert were a couple because they were sitting alone when I first approached them on Yucca near Cahuenga in Hollywood, very close to where I lived for more than 20 years. They both let me know they were homeless, but that wasn't really an issue. Persephone was crying, weeping profusely in fact,
and explaining that there was a suicide, and she had a grandson she loved, and she had a husband who had disappeared, and "many contracts" that she was ignoring. She didn't explain what kind of contracts they were, but did show a Playboy centerfold from the Sixties of a blonde woman named Morrow who she said was her. And it did look quite like her, and I believe it was her, and she said that now she dyed her hair dark. I asked her if she knew Hefner, and she looked at me with an expression that said, "How could I not know him?"
Then she opened a journal of her reflections and poetry,
written in a florid script, and asked me to read it aloud,
which I did to the best of my ability, as it was hard to
make out, but it was about the mythical Persephone,
the Goddess of Innocence and the Queen of the Underworld,
who was kidnapped by Zeus, and though Bert showed no
interest in hearing her poem, she insisted I keep reading,
and then embraced me with all her heart and told me
I was "precious."
I asked many times to take her photo, and she said, "No, I'll GIVE you a photo - a good one - because I look like shit now, because I've been CRYING FOR TWO WHOLE WEEKS." She repeated this like a sad mantra. She started crying intensely, and Bert seemed very uncomfortable with this, and I told her it was cool to cry, and she said, "NO - it's NOT cool." And I said all I meant is that it's okay to cry. And then she wept openly, and then wiped the tears away and laughed with pure joy. And then alternated between laughter and tears.
I told her she didn't look bad, because she really didn't, and Bert made me laugh by insisting that she did, in fact, look terrible. It was funny because Bert's closeness to her made me feel he wanted to be very close, but he kept saying things like this to her, cutting her to the quick, as I said to him, "You know, you have to learn how to speak your mind."
He then grabbed her,
and they did a kind of
ecstatic dance on the
sidewalk together, as people in cars watched but stayed
safely in their cars,
and noticed me snapping
photos, and Bert said, "Take your pictures now," and
Persephone laughed
like a delighted child.
Persephone & Bert
I presumed at first that
Persephone & Bert were a couple because they were sitting alone when I first approached them on Yucca near Cahuenga in Hollywood, very close to where I lived for more than 20 years. They both let me know they were homeless, but that wasn't really an issue. Persephone was crying, weeping profusely in fact,
and explaining that there was a suicide, and she had a grandson she loved, and she had a husband who had disappeared, and "many contracts" that she was ignoring. She didn't explain what kind of contracts they were, but did show a Playboy centerfold from the Sixties of a blonde woman named Morrow who she said was her. And it did look quite like her, and I believe it was her, and she said that now she dyed her hair dark. I asked her if she knew Hefner, and she looked at me with an expression that said, "How could I not know him?"
Then she opened a journal of her reflections and poetry,
written in a florid script, and asked me to read it aloud,
which I did to the best of my ability, as it was hard to
make out, but it was about the mythical Persephone,
the Goddess of Innocence and the Queen of the Underworld,
who was kidnapped by Zeus, and though Bert showed no
interest in hearing her poem, she insisted I keep reading,
and then embraced me with all her heart and told me
I was "precious."
I asked many times to take her photo, and she said, "No, I'll GIVE you a photo - a good one - because I look like shit now, because I've been CRYING FOR TWO WHOLE WEEKS." She repeated this like a sad mantra. She started crying intensely, and Bert seemed very uncomfortable with this, and I told her it was cool to cry, and she said, "NO - it's NOT cool." And I said all I meant is that it's okay to cry. And then she wept openly, and then wiped the tears away and laughed with pure joy. And then alternated between laughter and tears.
I told her she didn't look bad, because she really didn't, and Bert made me laugh by insisting that she did, in fact, look terrible. It was funny because Bert's closeness to her made me feel he wanted to be very close, but he kept saying things like this to her, cutting her to the quick, as I said to him, "You know, you have to learn how to speak your mind."
He then grabbed her,
and they did a kind of
ecstatic dance on the
sidewalk together, as people in cars watched but stayed
safely in their cars,
and noticed me snapping
photos, and Bert said, "Take your pictures now," and
Persephone laughed
like a delighted child.