Saint Mazie: A Novel (29 page)

Rosie and Al lived for a long time in Knickerbocker Village together, though they never married, which would have been scandalous if we’d had anyone left in our lives to care. Their apartment became a haven for all the intellectuals and bohemians that eventually moved into the building. The police came more than a few times to ask him questions about his radical politics, which, as it turns out, he still was very much active in. I guess it’s possible he resumed his activities once he settled down with Rosie. Perhaps the building triggered his renewed interest, being around all those thinkers. The Rosenbergs were have said to have dined at their table more than a few times. The police never arrested him or roughed him up though. Those days were done, thank god. He was a frail man now, and Rosie looked after him. Tiger Lady’s what we used to call her.

Mazie had long since moved out. I didn’t see her very often. Al told me she had an aunt in Boston she’d grown close with and she visited her once a year. I thought that was good for her. Her sisters had never been so reliable. She was a churchgoer too. Al told me she went to workingman’s mass every Sunday, late at night, or maybe it was early in the morning. While Al didn’t necessarily approve of God, he did approve of the workingman so I remember him telling me that as a point of admiration.

I waved at her sometimes at the theater. But she always seemed busy, and whatever had existed between us once, it was like none of it had happened. I missed her but I guess I didn’t have the right to say that or much of anything to her. It was true that there was a crossover in time between her and Alice. I didn’t tell you that right away because my wife is the one I think of from that time in my life. Mazie wasn’t the girl I was going to marry. Alice was. And some secrets are better left hidden. We don’t need to know everything about everyone. I have to admit I’m a little tired now of you digging up the secrets. Just today, just now. I’m tired.

I did not speak English yet, or only a little bit I did, but not very well. I felt very lonely even though the apartment was crowded. We were happy to be there though, because the Knickerbocker was a special place, well kept and beautiful. And we had many family members in the building, too, so there was always someone to feed us or look after us, which was helpful for my mother after the divorce. But in my apartment there was my mother and four brothers. So, the only girl, even harder.

I was silent for a long time, but I was also a daydreamer and an adventurer. I could climb like a little monkey and I could fit through windows that no one else could. There were many passageways to explore there. There is a basement that connects all the buildings, for example, and side entrances and exits where you can escape undetected. All of this was very helpful later when I began to skip school, and then after that when I started hanging out in the East Village with those bad boys in the leather motorcycle jackets and the tight jeans. Those are good stories. I can tell you those too.

But when I was little I had nowhere in particular I wanted to go but the garden. I liked to listen to all the birds chirping. I would pretend I was Snow White. In my daydreams my brothers were my dwarves. I would hold my hands out and wait for the birds to come land on my shoulders and arms and fingers but they never did. In the early mornings, before anyone in the apartment woke up, that’s what I would do, I would sneak out to the garden and daydream, sing along with the birds.

This is where I found this couple, the older Jewish couple. I had never met them before, but later I learned their names were Rosie and Al. They were sitting next to each other on one of the benches, hidden behind a row of high hedges. It was September, but they were wearing their winter coats because they were old, and old people get cold sometimes. She was snoring loudly, so loudly that I could hear her over the birds. That’s why I had gone over there, to investigate the noise. He was not snoring at all. He had a long gray beard and fisherman’s cap, and he was blue in the face. I had never seen a dead person before but I knew right away that’s what he was.

Suddenly I realized the birds had stopped chirping. I shook the woman awake. I said, “Miss, wake up, wake up.” It was the most I had spoken all year. I was four or five. She finally woke up and I pointed to him and said, “He is sick.” Which was a lie but I could not bring myself to say the real truth. She shrieked, and I ran off, back to my apartment. I heard an ambulance soon, and I watched it all through my window. I told my mother nothing.

Two days later I snuck out of my window again, back down to the garden, and I found the woman, Rosie, on the bench. And now it was her time to be dead, and this was when I began to cry. Once stunned me. Twice wounded me. Now there was no way to hide this information from my mother. Someone had to call the police, and it was she who made that call. She hugged me, and she made all my brothers hug me, one by one. After that morning I talked all the time.

I’m late, I’m pregnant, all of it, all that could happen, it’s true. It’s George’s and no one else’s.

Could I keep it and never tell him is what I’m thinking today. I could move away and he might never know. I never wanted one though. Why would I now?

What if the mattress turns red again? None of us have ever been able to have a baby. All the Phillips girls, our bellies are made of shit.

He loves this Alice. I saw them today together. Across the street from the theater, her in her nurse’s uniform, him in his best suit, her carrying flowers, him with his arm around her, her talking, him nodding. The two of them acting like real people in love. Not like we were. We were just horizontal is all.

I came in last night late, and he was there, too. In the hallway. And now my heart swells for him a little bit more because I can’t have him. His hand was on his door handle and mine was on mine and I thought for a moment I’d tell him the truth, and I know he’d care because he’s an all right fella but what good would it do? It wouldn’t change a thing. It wouldn’t change my mind. It might change his, but not for the right reasons. I don’t need to tell him and he doesn’t need to know.

So we both stood there with our backs to each other and there was all this silence between us and then we both wished each other good night. No glance over the shoulder. Just the best of wishes for a gentle sleep.

Ben was in town on business again. Him with all his meetings, and his high-class suit and now he’s gone gray, too. He looks the same though, just more prestigious. Me, I’m looking older. He gets to look important.

He took me out for a honey bun and a coffee after work. I didn’t mean to tell him I was pregnant. Especially him. But it came out anyway.

I said: The world is all bitched up. Always was, always will be.

He said: Do you really believe that?

I said: No, I guess I don’t.

Ben told me he thought I’d be a great mother, but that I should know children were hard, much harder than he’d imagined. He didn’t know why they didn’t just listen. Why couldn’t they just be quiet when they were told?

He asked what I was going to do and I said I didn’t know but I think I do. What do I need a baby for when I got all those men out there needing me?

He gave me a wonderful hug when he left me. He told me no matter what, he’d always respect me and love me.

I think he might be the best friend I have in the world. Who would have thought? The Captain and me, buddies.

He talked about her ceaselessly, his famous friend Mazie in the city. She was so special to him there was just absolutely no way he wasn’t sleeping with her. It’s just the way men and women work. I could talk for hours about it but who would want to listen?

You know, I held her no more and no less against him than any of his other girls. She was just the one I thought about because I knew her name. Mazie. You don’t forget a name like Mazie.

Moving day tomorrow. You’ll be packed up again. This table I’ve sat at so many times with you will be gone, somewhere, in someone else’s home. The Salvation Army is coming to take it away in the morning.

Rosie said: I don’t want it.

I said: Me neither. What am I going to do with a table like that?

Rosie said: It’s just that Al likes the table he has already, and things need to be just so with him. He’s so finicky.

I said: You met your match then.

Rosie said: But it’s a fine table.

She rapped it with her knuckles.

Rosie said: Are you sure you don’t want it?

I said: It’s like I’m sitting down to dine with ghosts at that table.

Rosie said: I never minded the ghosts.

I said: I know.

Rosie said: They keep you company.

I said: All I want to do is forget them.

I didn’t know about that part. No. That part I didn’t know. She never told me. Oh, I’m sorry. Oh, that poor darling. [Puts head in hands for a moment, inhales.] Are we done here? Can we be done now? I’m tired. I’m just an old man now. I’ve only got so much energy in the day. You’re a gorgeous girl. Very convincing. But I’m done now.

And then she was gone for five years. No diary updates, nothing. How dare she, I know. Five years, no Mazie. Five years of using our imagination. Five years of filling in the blanks.

What happened in those five years? You can’t stop New York City from changing, don’t even try it. And there were global events, obviously. A war was coming. I will spare you the lecture. You’re a smart lady. You know your history.

I’m sorry I’ve been difficult to reach. I’ve been out of the country. I had to present a speech in Paris. I gave you all the files I had on her, I thought somehow that would be enough. But apparently it isn’t.

Mazie and I met for coffee a few times. We talked about what she would have to do to write a book. I asked her what books she liked and she said she only read magazines,
True Confessions
and
True Romance
and the like. She said, “I can’t believe people would be willing to spill their beans like that.” She did not seem to fully grasp that she would have to spill her own beans if she were to write an autobiography. This concerned me. I said, “You know you’ll be telling your life story, right? Just like all those people do.” She got huffy. She said, “I’m not like those people. I’m a lady.”

I couldn’t quite figure out how to handle the situation. I thought maybe I was in over my head, but at the same time I was young and headstrong and extremely entitled. I was there because a smart woman had told me I should be interested, but at the time I was too foolish to understand why. Mazie was, to me, a common person, and I believed I should be able to manage common people. So I told her she would need to outline what she wanted to say. That if she had an outline I could go to my boss and show it to him and maybe he would let me buy this book. And if she needed help we could probably hire someone who would work with her. But the first thing she needed to do was figure out what she wanted to talk about. Or rather what story she had to tell.

I just wanted you to know that I unpacked the boxes finally, and I’m sorry to report there wasn’t a picture of her in there. I did find a picture of a plaque that Mazie had made when my great-grandfather died. She had put it on the back of the aisle seat in the last row, where he loved to sneak in and sit at the end of the last show every night. When they shut down the movie theater one of my great-uncles managed to remove it from the theater. It said, “Here sat Rudy Wallach. He was a good man. Now look up and watch the movie.”

I don’t like reading you. There’s good things that happened to me in my life but more sad things it seems. Better just to save some of this thinking for my prayers, that’s what I believe, that’s how I act. Still, I know some things. I know about these men. I should write about these men. So they won’t be forgotten.

Last night I walked to the footwalk of the Manhattan Bridge and watched the bums standing by the fires in the old oil drums there. I had myself an illicit cigarette. One of the bums called my name, no one I recognized but that doesn’t mean a thing. I’d know him eventually. I know all of them eventually. I slipped him a dime and a bar of soap, pleaded with him to use it.

I stayed there in front of the fires with him for a good while, bathed myself in the smoke. He told me his sob story. Once he was rich, now he’s poor. That’s a good one. It’s very popular. I don’t know why I didn’t bid him good night. I just kept nodding and listening like he was the most fascinating man. I thought something interesting might happen, like he might become a different man than he already was. But I know that the story always ends the same way. With them on the streets.

Then I realized what I was waiting for. I wanted Tee to show up and walk with me, whisper in my ear, tell me which man was injured and needed my help and which one to let alone, he’s sleeping, just needs to rest for the night. I’ve felt that way before. Not most nights, not anymore anyway. But looking back at you made me remember her, how she walked right next to me on the streets of the Lower East Side. In this city we fight for our space, but Tee was never afraid to be up close.

When he got to the part where he’d managed to lose it all through no fault of his own, I pressed another nickel in his hand and left him. He blessed me, and I blessed him. Our frail blessings. Then I walked up the Bowery, heading toward home. I was with her and without her at the same time. I emptied my pockets of everything they had in them. I didn’t want one cent left at the end of the night.