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Alyce, 71-years-old. Her house was being foreclosed, she said, so she may be living at City Hall for a while. She had been homeless before. In 2003, she was living in her car when she lent a shovel to two men so they could make money, shoveling snow "during that blizzard." Returning the tool, they decided to rape her in her car. She told me about three other rapes, one in detail, so I asked her, "How many times have you been raped?" She couldn't say. In any case, the first time was before she was even 21. Let go from a restaurant hostess job, she was walking down the street, still in her "Japanese pyjama" uniform, when she saw a HELP WANTED sign outside a bar. Inside, guys bought her drinks, and spiked her drinks, apparently, because next thing she knew, she was driven across the Ben Franklin Bridge to New Jersey. They took her to a hotel and raped her, she said, though afterwards she couldn't recall what had happened. She was clearheaded enough to tell them where she lived, however, so they took her home. Telling me this story, she was about to pull up her pant leg to show me a scar, but changed her mind.

Inside the litte basket was an injured pigeon.



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