There was a headline that read COLD DOLLS. A report – if you could call anyone who worked for the Post a reporter – made connections between the dolls and the fact that the guy kicked to death in Chinatown was only fourteen, a boy with a cardboard sign proclaiming he was homeless and had AIDS. Child abuse was epidemic all over again, just like 2003, the piece in the paper said. Violence on TV and the movies to blame, was the conclusion. I threw the paper in the garbage can. On my way home, crossing the Bowery, I saw a couple of cops with AKs on the corner. The city was getting edgy. A young guy who looked Arab crossed the street away from the cops, who glanced at him twice. Later I read that on one bus uptown some cop got on and gave the passengers a free lecture on how to spot a terrorist. Some asshole in a van was honking, and at first I didn’t hear my cell go off in my pocket. I dug it out, and called back. When Johnny Farone answered, I was so surprised I must have sounded really pissed off, instead of relieved, and I said, “Why the hell didn’t you call me before?”
