A half-nude, three-foot figure called me to a table just beside the vending machines. His T-shirt and shoes were miniature; his legs — kielbasa-shaped, cotton-stuffed — were fixed to a flat pubis. “I’m Dicky!” he squeaked. I wagged my pen in front of his tight little face. “Dicky,” I repeated. He nodded. His plastic eyes stared back with the cool, lightly mocking look I sometimes saw in medieval portraits of Christ. Dicky was not exactly soothing, not exactly ugly — what was he, evil? Holy? Sexy? “I love you,” I tried. “I love you, Dicky.” It was right then, right as Dicky’s jaw flung open, that his ventriloquist — his father, his frère, his semblable; the standard abbreviation going forward is vent — sneezed. At that second, Dicky did too. The vent trumpeted into his tissue and held it in front of his wooden child, who did the same, loudly and juicily. After I bent back down to kiss Dicky’s cheek, he flapped his arms, murmured “ Mother! ,” and sank limply to the table.…