Lullabies for Little Criminals Book

Damn. This book just about broke my heart. It wormed its way in and split me three ways---three different identities rubbernecking in the lives of Jules and Baby.

The story is seen through the eyes of Baby, a 12 yr old who lives with her Dad in Montreal. Her Mom died when she was one and Jules, well… bless him, but he's not the most responsible guy on the planet.

Jules is the first rip in my identity crisis: He is still a child himself, having had Baby at 15 and deciding to take her out of the backwoods of Canada to the gritty side of Montreal. He's a junkie with get-rich-quick dreams and an undiagnosed mental illness. I love Jules. I can't help it. I know too many people like this, I've been where he is. I know, intimately, what he's going through. He's still a kid but loves his daughter enough that he keeps trying to pull it together to keep her with him. Baby's love for Jules is unconditional. He is her best friend and they watch out for each other only as fucked up kids can.

As I was walking home, I spotted Jules on the street corner. He was craning his neck all over the place, looking around for someone. He started gesticulating in a way that made it seem as if he was having an imaginary argument in his head. He kept putting his hand, palm up, in front of him, as if he was asking the universe, "What? What? What?" His hat was down over his eyes, and when I called out his name he had to tilt his head way up to get a look at me. I knew it wasn't me that he had been looking for, but when he saw me, he shouted out happily anyhow."

So, Jules and Baby go from crappy apartment to crappy apartment living off what Jules can sell from the garbage he collects and soup kitchen handouts. Baby is aware that she is different from other kids but instead of this depressing her, she feels special. She feels that her life is much more exciting and since she has nothing, then she's better off than the kids that do and end up wanting more. Pretty astute for such a young kid. Baby's definitely an old soul.

Here is the next rip: Baby. I think back to being 12 and there is no way that I can even compare her life to mine. I had the suburban white girl upbringing. Baby befriends pimps and junkies and moves to foster homes and detention centers when her Dad is not well enough to take care of her. But, she does all of this with the strongest will. She is amazing. I can't say that enough. Her insights are beautiful:

Suddenly I realized that I wanted everything to be as it was when I was younger. When you're young enough, you don't know that you live in a cheap lousy apartment. A cracked chair is nothing other than a chair. A dandelion growing out of crack in the sidewalk outside your front door is a garden. You could believe that a song your parent was singing in the evening was the most tragic opera in the world. It never occurs to you when you are very young to need something other than what your parents have to offer you.

Me? I wanted to make sure that my new painter's cap matched my ten speed.

Baby endures so much in such a short time. And I know that I'm talking like Baby is real and that this is true, so I know that I need to credit the writing. I can feel the seedy alleys off St. Catherine Street. I can smell the wood smoke coming out of the pimp's dreads. I am there with Baby the first time she shoots heroin or loses her virginity. It's all so real and the writing is still fairy tale like in its delivery.

"Come here, Baby," she said. She threw her cigarette into the grass and spread her arms to me. "I want to give you a hug. You don't get enough hugs, I can see that. I'll give you one of my special teddy bear hugs."

I stepped closer to her to receive my hug and get it over with. She squeezed my cheeks and smelled my hair. She put my head between her two palms. Then she pulled my whole body to her and hugged me. I waited for her to let go of me, but she didn't. At first I thought I was going to die of claustrophobia, but then I noticed that she smelled like cocoa butter. I liked her smell. It reminded me of postcards and pictures of brown palm trees…. Then I decided to just enjoy it. She had fat arms, the type of arms that held sailors and soldiers and thieves. The kind of arms that held someone who was going away to jail for ten years. They were the arms of a woman who had eaten a hundred delicious cakes and pastries to get them this comfortable. I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed her tighter. I wanted to feel every part of my body touched by her. We stood like that, just hugging, for a long while.

Normally, I would skim a hug scene like this, but I was right there, smelling cocoa butter and seeing sailors. I love this book.

The final rip was the one that broke me. This was the Mom in me. The need to take Baby and to shelter her even though she'd probably fight me (and herself) at every curve. To ward off the fiends that are waiting so eagerly to corrupt. I felt for Jules and his fight to stay sober and his fear for Baby. I felt for every one of the street kids that Baby encounters until I was spent. I gave too much. I had to follow Baby's advice:

You see only the beautiful things when you stand still. You only see things that you don't ordinarily notice. The birds are the prettiest things, I imagine.

What happened to the Halcyon days of youth?