Her father had paid the rent on the apartment for two months —she’d seen the receipt. The apartment house, which was small and shabby, was owned by a Tunisian homosexual who occasionally gave Annie Arab dinners and told her his troubles in a high, hectoring voice. She often helped to tie or pin him into one of the female dance costumes he liked to wear at his parties. His favorite was a red ruffled rumba skirt, open all the way to his thick waist. Once he had awakened his few tenants at two in the morning, screaming, “Where are my TITS!” Up and down the hall stairs he had stumbled, weeping and cursing the bitch who had stolen his beautiful appurtenances with the molded nipples. Annie had observed him from behind the banister of the top floor—she’d been awake, listening to the Milkman’s Matinee on the radio—thinking of an obscure but terrible vengeance against something, someone. The Tunisian, Samuel, had staggered up to her—everyone else had locked their doors. He was drunk, his wig on backwards, his make-up streaked.

“You don’t know, you silly slut,” he moaned, and walking stiffly into her apartment, had slid at once to the braided rug, where he’d slept until morning. She made him coffee then, and he told her how he hated the United States of America and the Jews who ran it, how, if he hadn’t run away from home at fourteen, his life would have been sane and he would have had six fat children by now. From now on, he assured her, he was her friend, even if that bastard father of hers didn’t pay another cent of rent, and he’d let her stay on for nothing, well, nearly nothing. His promises made her painfully uneasy. From then on, he invited her to his drag parties—she didn’t go—and now and then slipped a dollar into her pocket. But he had moments of real-estate passion when he regarded her coldly, and she knew he was figuring on how long she might have the nerve to stay after the rent money ran out.

She received, within one week, two colorful cards from her father, who was in New Mexico. The second one asked, “Do you need a spot of cash?” But since there was no return address, the question was pointless. A young woman in her sculpture class gave her two cheap cotton dresses and told her she ought to try to get a job modeling in a fashion agency. People frequently admired Annie’s looks, but although she heard their compliments they did not penetrate an incomprehension of her own person that was central to her nature.