Janey, now thirteen years old, lives in a tenement on the corner of Fourth Street and First Avenue. She lives in three rooms. The first room measures six feet by ten feet and has a window. The second room is six feet by ten feet and has the advantage of being divided into two rooms six feet by five feet for each room. The third room is the same as the first room. The third room contains the following luxuries: one bathtub which covered by a metal slat becomes a dining room table or a couch; one toilet; one sink; one refrigerator usually in partial working condition; and one stove. The gas pipes may or may not be working depending on the time of year. Janey lives in the first room. She doesn’t do anything.

Arnold lives in the other two rooms of this apartment. He has the most varied life of anyone Janey knows and he has a lot of money. He plays music in the circus and rehearses his own rock-n-roll band.

Janey sees Arnold every day because she has to. He’s her source of human contact. Sometimes she hates him; sometimes she depends on him.

When Janey thinks she has to see people because she’s going crazy and/or it’s not good for her to be alone all the time even though she loves being alone and doing nothing, when night strikes and only at night she goes out of her room and walks the streets.

She walks up and down the same streets the hookers walk only the hookers make some money. The junkies, petty gangsters, bums, and pimps occasionally say hello to her.

After a night or two Janey hates walking the streets and doing nothing so she goes back to her room and does nothing.