Prayers for the Living by Alan Cheuse

the cab staring straight ahead at the back of the seat in front of him, and he loses himself in the smell and design of the upholstery, like a snail’s whorl of a shell, spinning around and around into a tighter and tighter knot, and he’s fingering the star-shaped shard until all the doors appear to open at once. A man climbs in, the smell of the street on his coat, the younger man in a suit, a big boy, with a high, nasal voice, and the woman, still jabbering—“Shut up already!” says the hawk-nosed man; “Shut up—don’t you dare!” the woman says back to him.
    And he sniffles in the woman’s perfume and the odor of a cigar as the hawk-nosed man lights up.
    And only then, his fingers responding to the sharp-pointed star, does he turn away from the pattern on the upholstery, lift himselfup and out of the pattern—this was how he put it to me—and look to his right, on the seat to his right, and there he sees the little girl. When she got there he doesn’t know. She could have been there the whole time or she could have climbed in with her parents, her brother. But nonetheless there she is. Pale, pink, freckled face. Hair like wispy reddish cotton candy from a carnival, all done up in a knot. Like a doll’s hair. A little skirt she wears beneath her tiny fur wrap. White-stockinged feet that don’t reach to the floor of the cab. And as he stares at her something happens in her eyes—and she wiggles her nose in disgust—and that’s when he smells it too, and looks around for the source. An odor like the horse in its dying. Garbage. Manure. Filth of the gutter. And only when she opens her eyes wide—if a girl that small can feel horror, show horror—and points a finger at him, and cries out, only then, just as he lets another one go in his pants, does he understand what has been done to him, and what he has done.

    â€œT HE POOR CHILD .”
    â€œPoor.”
    â€œAnd this is how he lost his father?”
    â€œThis is how.”
    â€œAnd this is how you lost your Jacob?”
    â€œThis is how.”
    â€œI’m telling you . . .”
    â€œYou’re telling me? I’m telling you!”
    â€œBut it has a good side, no?”
    â€œIt has a good side? Sure, it has a good side. I’m sitting here drinking coffee with you. That’s a good side. I’m still here. And Manny is still here.”
    â€œNo, I meant, this is how they met, wasn’t it?”
    â€œHow did you figure it out?”
    â€œThe hair. You described the hair. So it’s her, isn’t it?”
    â€œIt’s her. The first her. The mother of the other her. The opposite of the third her.”
    â€œIt was her family in the taxi.”
    â€œIt was her family. Her father, her mother, her mixed-up brother.”
    â€œThe brother-in-law? He’s mixed up?”
    â€œYou should meet him now that he’s a grown man.”
    â€œI saw him at temple.”
    â€œUp close you should see.”
    â€œI’ll take a look next time.”
    â€œTake a good look. It’s all part of the family show. After years away he shows up, and he’s part of the family again.”
    â€œHere.”
    â€œI don’t take sugar, so why are you passing me the sugar?”
    â€œDarling, don’t talk bitter.”
    â€œBitter? All of a sudden I’m talking bitter? Mrs. Pinsker, Rose, I am sweet. Very sweet.”
    â€œIt was only a joke, Mrs. Bloch. Minnie.”
    â€œSome joke.”
    â€œDon’t get miffed.”
    â€œAll right, I won’t get miffed.”
    â€œAnd you’ll tell me more?”
    â€œI’ll tell you. I’ll tell you things. I’ll tell you that when they brought my Manny home to me without his father . . .”
    â€œDon’t tell me if it makes you remember.”
    â€œRemember? I don’t remember, darling. And I don’t forget. I’ll tell you this. Manny said to me,