1
The Beginning:
A Pillow and a Yellow Blanket
\"Click.\" As I heard the lock drop on the door of the brown
station wagon， I looked back and caught the apprehension
in Janet s eyes. A chill went through me as ! turned to watch
the silhouette of IYevor， our eleven-year-old son， as he
stepped silently toward the subway steam grate beside the
white concrete building not five feet in front of where I
stood on the curb.
The huddled body Trevor approached on the sidewalk
was almost lost in the chilly darkness on the corner of 15th
and Moravian Streets. A man in dirty pants and plaid shirt，
his head cradled in his right arm， was lying there like a dis-
carded newspaper. Although we were in the center of Phila-
delphia near the exclusive Union League Club， two-and-a-
half weeks before Christmas， we might as well have been on
a deserted Skid Row intersection. We were there alone with
that shoeless man， staring at his grease-stained white socks，
wondering whether he was unconscious or， worse， ready to
explode with rage.
The man did not move from the steamy grate. The air that
wafted up from underground surrounded him in a damp
cloud of warmth.
I stood frozen. My own breath veiled my view as it turned
to fog in the silent chill of a December evening. Each time I
inhaled， the stench of sewage filled my head. An unseen rat
scurried in between Trevor and me. I felt an eerie， nauseat-
ing churning in my stomach.
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