#437 Dee- Jerome Charyn
Dee grew up as a princess, the daughter of a west side
mogul. But that wasn’t her world, she was drawn uncontrollably to the Hospital
her father sponsored that housed all manner of odd and wonderful people.
“Sommerset had to pull her screaming out of the hospital’s
halls. The sickly faces had frightened her, yet she dreamt of touching the wild
patches of hair that belonged to these old men. There wasn’t one face as
bewildering or as beautiful along Central Park West, where she lived in a
monstrous cave of fourteen rooms at the Sam Remo.”
She eschewed her silver spoon life and became a freak
herself. “She was the waif with cropped hair who lived in a pauper’s castle.”
She spent her life photographing circus freaks and monstrosities like her good
friend Eddie, an eight-foot man known as the Jewish Giant. After many years and
many accolades she was stricken with guilt for exploiting her friends, but to
Eddie, she was a muse. Without her, he could no longer write poetry.
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