they called her minnie the midget.
she was not really that small. but she was small enough and had a baby face and big blue eyes and for a long time she was able to pass for a little girl, especially in a dim light.
especially at night, under street lights, or at the entrances to bus stations and subways where she told sad stories to passersby, mostly about how mommy was sick and how daddy had drunk up the rent money or lost it at the track.
she worked this ticket for many years, all over this great land, from seattle to miami beach, from tijuana to bangor maine, up and down the mississippi river from chicago to new orleans, and back and forth on route 66, getting her kicks and boosting from the hicks.
but you can’t grift father time, and the lines began to appear on minnie’s face as clear as the tracks on the atchison topeka and santa fe railroad.
the pickings got slimmer and slimmer.
one night just before christmastime, a few blocks from the bowery in the greatest city in the world, minnie found herself on a park bench, accompanied only by a pint bottle of wine.
the snow began to fall. minnie took a few hits of the wine.
out of the mist a small figure appeared. it looked, from outward appearances, like a little waif of a girl, the kind minnie had spent so much of her life impersonating.
the little girl stopped and stared at minnie.
who are you? minnie asked.
i am the ghost of christmas past, said the little girl. and i just want to remind you of all the real little girls, with real sick mommies and real drunken daddies who might have benefited from all the money you so shamelessly scallywagged from honest folk all these years.
yeah, well, merry christmas to you too, minnie said.
the little girl passed by, and a few minutes later a second figure appeared.
it seemed to be a tall, regally erect grayhaired woman. minnie thought she looked like the statue of liberty, or like abraham lincoln’s wife in a movie she had seen a few days ago on 42nd street.
who might you be? minnie asked.
i am the ghost of christmas future, said the woman. i would just like to inform you that the time is coming when an enlightened society will take proper care of all needy and deserving children, and such skullduggery as you have inflicted on a gullible public all these years will no longer be a viable option, even for someone as cynical and depraved as yourself.
that sounds wonderful, minnie said. merry christmas and happy new year.
the grayhaired lady went on her way.
a few minutes later a third figure appeared.
a redfaced rednosed man, hatless, with his white hair blowing in the cold breeze, wearing a long coat that might have been red when it was new and clean.
you must be the ghost of christmas present, said minnie.
no, said the man, i am only santa claus, and i would like to buy you a drink.
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