One of the Wonders of Echo Park

Carin’ Karen lost her toe
How it happened I don’t know
Her mother pushed her on the track
Now she can’t get her toe back


I wonder what became of Karen Poe and how she really lost her toe.  While that mishap is history still shrouded in mystery, what was clear, to all who could hear, was how her mother yelled and screamed. We heard her shrill cry even when we dreamed.

An image frozen in my mind from 1956 right to the present time (may her life have turned from terror-filled to joyously sublime), is Karen at ten, two years older than I, run-walking away from her sickly yellow house through the weedy patch in want of tending while the screams from inside were never-ending. The look on her defiant young face said, “I’m free! You can’t catch me!”

All the while her mother, (drunk? I wonder now) was hollering out the window:

“Come back you good for nothing stupid girl!! Or I’ll cut off your other toe. Come back and finish-up the washing.”

Karen didn’t, but ran… risking another squashing.

I had run from my own home across the Macadam hoping to meet no Bogey or bad man, down the path by the Fox house, past pepper tree and dog’s house. On my way to see Jeffrey, my dear. We'd  married at seven - the previous year! Fleet my feet beat over ivy terraces to the street which was really “The Alley” where we kids would rally. The last thing I wanted was to see Karen so haunted.

Alone on the school yard her shell was just too hard… a tough nut to crack… ghostly toe on the track. Her mom yelled. Her house smelled. Her dead dad her heart held.

We thought we had the Cinderella story being acted out right there off the alley, right down the hill from Denise and Sally, with Karen doing all the chores – laundry sprouted like mushroom spores, while the wicked mother, malcontent treated Karen with devilish and selfish intent.

I wonder how it was to be Karen Poe and to want for fathering; to want for mothering, sister and brother-ing. “Want” was one of her middle names. At Elysian Heights Elementary I never saw her join in  games.

What can have happened to Karen’s mother, do you think - to beat down her poor daughter? Was it the drink?

None of us kids was ever quite sure how Karen’s great toe parted company with her foot.

The story went something like this:  Karen’s mom took the sweet little three-year-old Miss down to Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, the main drag. Karen was not yet quite so broken as she ended up at the hands of the old hag. Curious at three, she ran from her mama’s vice-like grip, to see what she wanted to see. She didn’t trip… just a step or two, but she lost her shoe, scaring that mama into a rage so great, inside of it she couldn’t see straight. So Mrs. Poe pushed. The crowd on the street hushed.  Karen's foot was on the track. Karen's mother then stood back. The street car couldn’t swerve so it promptly cut off Karen’s big toe. It just never looked right after that -except as a testament to her woe.

Maybe that’s why kids shunned her and kept her at bay. Her wound was visible; ours tucked away.  Our hurts were invisible it made us indivisible. United, the gang was afraid of the Poe’s, repulsed by the sight of Karen’s missing big toe.

Carin’ Karen lost her toe
How it happened I don’t know
Her mother pushed her on the track
Now she can’t get her toe back

A lonely set of four at the end of a lonely foot bearing weight and bearing witness to this lonely only child trapped by hate in a rough patch… in need of tending and sorely in need of mending.

I only know whenever I crossed that bit of Sunset Boulevard where the old Red Cars ran I never stepped on the tracks. Forgetting Karen was too hard. Forget her? I never can. Even after they removed the Red Car Line and all the steel tracks, so shiny and fine it made my teeth chatter, caused my hands to make fists, when crossing from North to South across Sunset bound west.  It made my own toes curl to think of Karen’s great one sheared off so. I wonder what happened to Karen’s big toe.

Face Book yields lots of Karen Poes… how am I to know IF she survived her childhood, IF she rose high from being so low? Could she be well? Escaped from that hell?  Enough to link in with a social network?
If she ever had kids, did SHE go berserk?

I hope, I hope, I hope she made it.  Karmic debt? She's more than paid it.