Here's a sad childhood memory.
Just around the corner from us, on Ditmas Avenue, there lived the ugliest man I've ever seen in my entire life. He was a small, always solitary old man. He was not deformed, just plain ugly. His nose and mouth stuck way out, but his chin receded; he had very long canine teeth and the world's saddest eyes. He walked the ugliest little dog.
I confess that when we passed in the street, I looked away, even though I was fascinated enough by his repulsiveness to steal a surreptitious backward glance. I imagine that everyone else whom he passed averted their eyes as well, and that the poor fellow lived in a world not only without friends, but even without eye contact.
Later I learned that he made his living my exhibiting himself nightly at a Coney Island freak show. He was the "Dog-Faced Man."
This was in the late 1940s or early 1950s. I hope that freak shows are a thing of the past.
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