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I just read "The Ballad of West Tenth Street" by Marjorie Kernan. It is a sweet fairytale of a novel about... well, it doesn't really help for me to describe what it is about. As a critic's blurb mentions, it shouldn't work but it does. I found it particularly sweet, having spent my youth and young adulthood on the very streets our author sets her tale.
In any case, there is a bit between Sadie and an Indian gentleman. Sadie is the widow of a 60's rocker who OD'ed, and she is on her way to see their oldest daughter, who is in a hospital because she is a cutter. Sadie is caught up in her grief and being comforted by Mr. Palek, a man she has known for years and not known at all.



"What is it, this ailment that your daughter has?" he asked her.

"Well you see, she stopped talking about a year ago. Then she began cutting herself, her skin, in places where we couldn't see that she had. It got worse until she was doing herself real harm. I think sometimes that young people cross a line and think there's only farther to go."

"But she is still a good and gentle girl otherwise, as she always was?"

"Yes."

"Well, then it is quite clearly the work of a demon. One that has seized her. Such evil creatures roam the shadows, searching for ones with no cruelty in them, ones that they may frighten into doing their will."

"That may be so, but what should I do?"

"Your daughter must fight this demon. You must tell her this, that demons are simple lonely creatures and by nature really quite weak. In fact, they are remarkably stupid. Like mice, they can be caught quite easily, in a jar filled with oil. Tell her to ask this demon a question of logic, regarding why it is there, and you shall see - it will flee, disgraced by its inability to answer."


So, on this rainy Sunday afternoon, my wish for us all is to find the question that will disgrace the demon.