THEY CALL THEM CAMISOLES "They Call! Them Camisoles" By . WILMA WILSON LYMANHOUSE Los ANGELES, CALIF. COPYRIGHT, 1940 LYMANHOUSE PUBLISHERS Dedicated To Sister, of course. 213535 THEY CALL THEM CAMISOLES An open letter to the girls of Dormitory 4, Ward 6, Camarillo State Hospital, Class of '39. Dear Girls—Not long ago, when we had been locked in for the night by our keepers in that guaranteed finishing school we attended, we were wont to exchange our girlish confidences. In our virginally white dormi- tory, which contained for that semester, approximately twelve lady bar-flies, fourteen arrested mental cases, three stool pigeons and one chronic com plainer, I would announce, when I could be heard over the din—my intention of writing this book. Although you were all too polite to comment, none of you believed me: some thought that I, true to alco- holic patient form, would be too busy drinking again, upon release. Others thought I would fear, or should fear, institutional retaliation. The rest followed the very sound insane asylum policy of believing nothing a patient there claimed, regardless if their comitment papers did announce them sane, if slightly pickled. Notwithstanding—you all agreed a book about the in- side workings of a bughouse SHOULD be written. So here, it is —our little saga. When you've finished this book, you will think I've been too moderate. Definitely, I've"pulled my punches". You know, and I know, I could have delved into sundry hospital scandals and muck-raked generally. (How I would love to write up "sick bay's ghost"!) But I felt, in the interests of accuracy, I should write solely of such incidents where I had been on the scene and strictly ignore tales we heard of other wards. 7 Like men in trenches—we went through such tribula- tion together—we forged unbreakable bonds of friend- ship. No shipboard romances ours! i wonder where you all are now? Joe, the lanky darling, is probably putting up her kids' school lunches. And ironing! Letty is, no doubt, under some table, where, she insists, she sleeps the best. Alma is likely on her ranch, missing us, but not missing us to the extent of taking a P. G. course to meet us again. Margo is, I've heard, doing well at the studios, relying on coca-colas to revive her flagging interest in scripts. Most of you, I fear, are ensconced in gay cocktail lounges, realizing, when you stop to think at all, that at any moment a parole officer may tap your shoulder and inform you, "Come in, gal—back to your Alma Mater to get your doctorate." Wherever you are, my dears, in the words of our redoubtable Miss Seton, I salute you—"Good MORNING, girls. Rise and SHINE!" "BILLIE" WILSON 8 213535 THEY CALL THEM CAMISOLES CHAPTER I We found ourselves, Virginia and I, in Holly- wood's famed Laurel Canyon, attending a party for the Fourth Estate. A couple of newshawks had squired us, but we soon lost them in the melee. We didn't mind. We were having a grand reunion. Our respective mothers kept us apart whenever possible, for we made excep- tionally capable drinking partners. As the night wore thin, we saw the festivities were becoming a shade too Bacchanalian for our tastes, so we departed unobtrusively. The unobtrusiveness was deemed politic; we'd each expropriated a straw-wrapped bottle of Scotch. It was far to the boulevard, but we made it. Once there we settled ourselves on the curb to await a bus. The very fact that we expected a bus on Hollywood Boulevard at that hour showed to what heights our alcoholic exuber- ance had soared. All that hove to on our horizon was a dejected milkman and his equally dejected-looking horse. He drew rein and surveyed us critically. What you girls need," he announced at length, "is a nice cold drink of buttermilk." "What we need," retorted Virginia, a nice warm ride home." He looked at us, and he looked at the Scotch. 11 VENTURA COUNTY FREE LIBRARY ventura california "Get aboard." When he'd gotten his horse into high gear, we offered him a drink, although it was apparent even to our clouded perceptions that he'd al- ready been imbibing freely. He seized the bottle and drank deeply—so deeply as to arouse our awe. We realized we were in the presence of a master. His endurance wasn't equal to his capacity, however, because before we'd tra- versed six blocks we heard a faint "clunk" and saw our benefactor had collapsed onto the bot- tles in the van. We looked at each other blankly. "What shall we do now?" asked Virginia. "Do?" I replied. "We'll drive this convey- ance home." "I wanna ride the horse!" she wailed. "We'll take turns," I corrected her, coldly. Thus it was that the infrequent boulevardiers abroad so early beheld a strange sight. I was frantically steering the by-now totally demor- alized horse past Grauman's Chinese while Vir- ginia rode, triumphantly not "pulling leather". We had quite a little altercation at Highland Avenue; she wanted to essay a touch of circus- rider technique. She compromised by trying to sell some butter to a group of baffled street- cleaners on Vine Street. "I'm not adverse to picking up some small change should we encounter persons desirous of dairy wares," she articulated owlishly. She talks like that when she's blotto. With a Ben Hur flourish we pulled up in front of her apartment on Van Ness Avenue. Gazing speculatively at the recumbent milkman, I at- 12 tempted a little something in the line of resusci- tation. Plunging my thumb through a milk- bottle cap, I deluged him with the contents. He just sort of sneezed and turned over, resting his cheek blissfully on a dozen eggs. Virginia wrote "Thanks" with her lipstick on his shirt-front, and we started to enter the apartment. Half- way up the steps Virginia was struck with an appalling thought. "Billie," she whispered, "I'm afraid Pegasus is cold." "I'll bet he's hungry, too!" I replied, aghast. "Good ol' Peg," she said, biting her lips to keep from crying, "Let's take him in with us." We returned to the startled horse, who had not yet recovered his equanimity. We had a hell of a time trying to disrobe him. From his port side, Virginia was begging me for a pair of scissors, since she couldn't get his brassiere off. I couldn't help her—I was too busy wishing they put zippers on harness. We finally got him denuded save for a bertha-like effect about his neck, and led him toward the apartment. The horse looked very unhappy about the whole thing. Fortunately, Virginia lived on the ground floor, but the building must have been a jerry-built affair, for his hooves clopped hol- lowly and shook the whole house. Just then the landlady appeared. She was clad in lots of curlers and no teeth. For some reason or other she was quite upset. "You can't bring that animal in here!" she cried, unreasonably. 'There's no law against putting up a friend for the night," Virginia told her, equably. 13 "Keep calm—he's housebroke," I assured her. "He can sleep in the bath-tub." The landlady seemed to be having the vapors. She was gasping something about "the police", but her enunciation was not of the best, sans bridgework. Virginia and I were having a little trouble with Pegasus. He must have heard rumours about strange apartments, with or without etchings, and he balked at Virginia's doorway. We both got at his head and tugged. Became inextricably wedged When he was halfway through the door he took a deep breath or something and became inex- tricably wedged. We heard the frenzied land- lady at the hall 'phone, dialing. Virginia and I are old campaigners. We gave one another a 14 long, level look; no words were necessary. I flung up the window and slid out. Virginia had moved in that very night and her two bags were not unpacked. She locked them, and tossed them to me, hastily inventorying the room as she did so. "How about this end-table?" she queried. "It's a very nice end-table," I replied, polite- ly. I knew it wasn't hers. It came hurtling through the window at me. "I like the lampshade and the pastel, too," I advised her. These came out—with Virginia on the other end. We stole away, not resting until we reached the densely protective sha- dows of Paramount Studio, some three blocks away. As far as we know, the horse is still there. * * * The years passed, bringing my chronological age to the point where sedateness is implied, but adolescent escapades like that involving the horse still occurred—and frequently enough to cause my harrassed mother, at long last, to take steps. But what steps! In the beginning, she had a lot of ideas, mostly bad. She first tried nauseous remedies in my coffee. The stomach that had welcomed rotgut thrived on them. She spent money she could ill afford getting her only child in and out of quack sani- tariums where they indubitably shorten one's life-span by trying a series of "cures", from making one bulge with strong drink followed by drastic emetics—down to leeches. As a last resort, mother tried a new high in specifics. She committed her sane, if irre- 15 VENTURA COUNTY FREE LIBRARY VENTURA, CALIFORNIA sponsible daughter, to the—but let me tell it as it happened.