Tiny Tim is Dead

Amidst cardboard shelters and trash-can hearths, Otis Pope, a sardonic army veteran, decides who is allowed to stay in the enclave, and who must go. Currently part of this “family” are Verna, a disoriented frequently pregnant, sometimes gritty, other times child-like woman; her nameless and mute eight-year-old son; Charlie, a down-on-his-luck unemployed blue collar worker; Azalee Hodge, an outspoken woman trying to climb back up and Filomeno Cordero, a recent illegal from Central America, who finds the group on Christmas eve. Discovering a worn-out copy of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the group responds to Verna’s pleas to re-enact the old story as a gift for her son. She can’t wait to be Tiny Tim. The others cast Pope in the Scrooge role. Filo, unfamiliar with the story, casts himself as Bob Marley, complete with reggae performances.