Mildred leaves with Harriet; the domestic collapse and Green's Bottom

pivotal · summer YDAU

• When: the leaving "this summer" (per scene 066, YDAU); Green's account to Pat is 4 Nov YDAU (scene 052)
• What: Mildred left Green, taking Harriet, "for some guy that told her he ranched fucking longhorn cows east of Atlantic City NJ." In Green's own halting account to Pat, the break came when Mildred learned that Doocey — who "had a thing for" her — had, while Green was at work, been telling her how he had sex with the chickens he kept under the trailer and coaching her to do the same; "she drew the line," they left for the Pine Street shelter, and there "this guy with a hat said he had a ranch in New Jersey and off she goes, and with Harriet." Green stayed on, got lice from the man who took Mildred's old shelter cot, and "was still trying to deliver ice to machines at gas stations" — "Who wouldn't have to get high just to stand it?" This collapse is the Bottom that brings him into Ennet House.