Scene outside my window, 3:39 p.m.

The boyfriend was obviously fresh from school, still wearing his backpack, and raging at Olive, the girl who looked like a boy. She had a military buzz-cut that should have been covered by the pink toboggan the boyfriend flailed about. The customers in the pizza parlor were aware of this scene.

"How could you do this to me?" he screamed at her, in her face, as she sobbed and wobbled. He's Italian. He has the accent. "All I wanted to do was get a bite to eat! You can't even go inside this restaurant and get a soda. No, you need alcohol. The girl I was on the phone with last night would have gone. But look at her."

She continued to cry and stagger and was unable to respond. Making her way to a nearby stoop, she aimed her ass for the steps but missed and crumbled to the ground. A passerby offered her help which she refused.

"Nineteen years old," the boyfriend said and gave her the pink toboggan. "And your life is done. How could you do this in two hours? Look at you. Your life is done."

Olive got up and followed him like a sheepish gimp, a puttering jalopy. He told her she loved drama, she loved problems. Olive was happy only when she was sad. Two blocks away I still hear them and she's sitting down again, her pink head resting between her two knobby knees.