LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 1

       EDITH (1997)

      It’s our second day in New York City. We’re with Dennis Lomack. Mom is in St. Vincent’s, resting. She has recently done something very stupid and I’m the one who found her. Dennis has been taking us around town, trying to get our minds off of everything, trying to make up for the last decade.

      Tonight, he brought Mae and me along on a date with a redhead to a dance recital. Mom would take us sometimes into New Orleans to see The Nutcracker, but this isn’t like that. We’re in the basement of a church. It’s cramped and damp. On stage a woman in a white sundress dances by herself. She looks like a feral cat. Her rib cage shows on the sides and down the front. She has thick dark hair that sways at her waist as she moves. The stage is covered in folding chairs and she dances with her eyes squeezed shut. She seems aware of nothing, banging her legs and arms and not even noticing. The chairs collapse and fall around her and she keeps going. She slows and cocks her head at an angle as if she’s listening for something, then makes little twitchy movements with her hands. Even from my seat, I can smell her dirty hair. It wafts with each spin.

      She blurs and I realize I’m crying. I don’t know why.

      That’s not true. I do. It’s because she reminds me so much of Mom. The way she dances, so desperate, but also so closed off. She isn’t dancing for us. She’s somewhere deep inside herself and the seats could be empty and still she’d dance like this.

      Mae looks terrified. I squeeze her hand but she doesn’t notice. I don’t know Dennis well enough to guess what he’s feeling. Probably nothing. In the dark theater his face looks like it’s carved out of a rock. His date has fallen asleep on his shoulder.

      Outside, Dennis pries the redhead off his neck, twirls out from under her, and puts her in a cab. It’s almost a dance too, the way he does it. His movements are so calculated. Obviously, he has a lot of practice getting rid of people. As the cab pulls away, the woman looks at us through the glass like she’s a sad golden retriever. Mae waves. I already don’t remember her name. Rachel? Rebecca? It doesn’t matter. I doubt we’ll ever see her again.

      We walk back to Dennis’s apartment in silence. He walks between us, holding our elbows. It’s a long way, 30 or 40 blocks. The air is cold and most of the stores are closed with the metal grates down over the windows. The benches we pass have men lying on them. Some have sleeping bags, but others are just wrapped in newspapers. The ones who didn’t get a bench lie in doorways or on the ground. Dennis leads us around the men in silence. I’ve never seen so many homeless people before. At an intersection, a group of women

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