We’d all heard the rumors. Of a white van. And its frightening pilot: a woman whose giant eyes stood on the edges of their sockets, threatening to jump. The Bug-Eyed Lady. The name spread like head lice through my elementary school, as did her alleged crimes.

I recalled, mistily, an incident at a carnival when I was 4 or 5. I’d wandered away from my parents, in pursuit of an enormous teddy bear. I followed the bear behind the Ferris wheel, through a canvas flap. As I looked on fondly, the bear ripped its head off — and lit a cigarette.

One of the saddest times of my life was the month Tummywumps, my ginger tabby, went missing. I’d left a window open overnight, and while I dozed, she sliced a hole in the screen and stole away like a jewel thief.

I was sitting at the bar of a subpar pub. On the stool next to me sat a glittering heap of rouge and jewels which proved to be a woman of advanced years. She couldn’t’ve been a duchess, not at O’Finnegan’s. But there was something distinctly aristocratic about the way she fingered her pearls.