I gave the young woman several dollars, and she said thank-you in a way that indicated gratitude yet maintained dignity. This convinced me that she came from a decent home and made me weepier still about her plight. I told my husband that when he saw the girl at the bagel shop, he too should give her a few dollars. He asked me what I thought I was doing. I have few illusions about the power of small kindnesses to overcome an adult's pursuit of self-destruction.
Inner demons are the world's most powerful creatures.
A round Thanksgiving a year ago, I was pushing my baby carriage on Broadway when I spied the girl coming toward me, dressed as usual in jeans and a nondescript jacket. Her hair was lank, her skin blotchy, with no makeup. But this time she was very animated, rolling her narrow hips as she walked, flirting in a parody of sexiness with a scruffy, fiftyish man with a florid face. Over the next year I often saw her with johns. Other times she was visibly high.