Saint Mazie: A Novel (5 page)

My great-grandfather was responsible for the movie selection, staff management, concessions, and the care of the theater itself. Basically anything that was contained within the doors of the theater, he managed. And Mazie sold the tickets and handled the money, and if anyone got out of line, she also ran security. Rudy was a tiny, gentle man. I have seen pictures of him and he looks much shorter than everyone else around him. He had immaculate skin and hands, as did my mother, and I do, too. Look at my hands. Look at how tiny they are. [Holds up hands.] Those are the Wallach hands. So Rudy wasn’t in any place to be roughing up any of the bums. Also he was the child of intellectuals. That’s right, I always forget that part. My great-great-grandparents were Russian intellectuals escaping some sort of persecution I never quite understood, and they moved to New York when he was just a baby. He was just this fine, sensitive man, fair to everyone, and he wasn’t interested in any of that rough-and-tumble business. So I guess it happened quite naturally that it fell to Mazie.

The movies make me sick in my gut.

I knew this before and then I forgot but now I remember, oh buddy do I remember.

I shut down the cage last night early. All day long I’m sitting there, wondering what’s going on inside. So I wandered through the theater. The high ceilings made the place feel like a castle out of a storybook, somewhere far away. Europe is what I was thinking, although what do I know of Europe?

I wanted to watch the last show of
Tarzan
. I slipped into the theater, onto those bruised red velour seat cushions, soft under my fingertips. There was a romance to it, I could see it. All those rows of big, beautiful, round bulbs that lined the walls. Rosie shows up once a week and tells the ushers to dust the lights. Sweep and dust, dust and sweep, she repeats it. She should ask that gypsy of hers if she were a general in a past life.

The movie was just starting, and everyone hushed up. At first I liked seeing all the animals, the giraffes and the lions and the snakes and the alligators. They looked like trouble. It was dreamy, watching something wild and alive and different than my own life, up high, so much bigger than anything I know.

But it only took a minute till I started to feel wobbly. The animals on the screen swelled up, then they floated and waved around in front of my eyes. Something gooey started to boil in my stomach. I turned my head away from the screen but it was too late. I was retching in the aisle like a bum on the corner after the bars closed for the night. Someone shushed me, but then there was someone else by my side, a small hand holding my hair. Some lady, I figured. When I stopped retching I looked up and there was Rudy.

I said: I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

He said: Let’s get you outside, Miss Mazie. Get some air in you.

I put my arm around his neck and we stumbled together through the lobby and out the front door, and then he leaned me up against the cage.

He asked me if I was sick and I said no. He asked me if anyone in my house was sick and I said no.

He said: Sometimes one of the boys gets sick, and then we all do. Just out of nowhere.

I said: It’s not that, I’m fit as a fiddle. It’s looking up at the movies. I don’t know what to tell you. All that jumping around.

He said: No more movies for you.

I said: Who needs to go to the movies anyway? Real life’s more interesting. Flesh and blood.

I was getting my spunk back in the cold air. I was feeling a little humiliated too. Bending over that like that, him seeing me weak, I didn’t like any of it.

I said: It’s just a movie, who cares.

He said: So you stick to tickets and I’ll stick to the movies. Front of the house, back of the house, that kind of thing.

I said: It seems fair.

We shook on it and it was like his hand nearly disappeared in mine. He’s a strange little doll of a man, that Rudy.

It’s one thing to walk the streets, and it’s another thing to watch them. I used to be just one of the crowd, stretching my legs, mixing with the rest of those lugs. But now I’m sitting still while the world moves on around me, and I’m seeing things a little differently through the bars of this cage. Hustlers and cons I knew here and there but not so much. Now I watch them every day and I’m learning. They don’t care where they land as long as they get what they’re looking for. Maybe they never hit me up before because I was always on the run on the streets, but now I’m a sitting duck and they won’t leave me alone. I must have a bright red target on my forehead that says Easy Mark. But that sign would be wrong. I’ll teach them soon enough not to mess with me.

A charmed life’s what I’ve had up till now I see.

Thirteen-hour days, and all I can do is drink myself to sleep lately. Rosie says it gets easier. Rosie’s got it easy herself right now. Jeanie’s been going to the track instead of Rosie. I can’t say I’m not jealous. How long could it go on though, me sitting here? It’s been two weeks. I’m sure they won’t want me to stay here forever. Whatever lesson they want me to learn I’ll swear I learned it.

Jeanie doesn’t even like the track that much. She says there’s a man there who’s sweet on her though, always tipping his hat at her, running after her, opening doors she didn’t even know needed opening.

She said: It’s like he made these doors up out of thin air.

She told me he was a horse doctor from Long Island. His name’s Ethan Fallow.

I said: What kind of name is that?

She said: I don’t know, but he’s taller than me, so I don’t care.

That train, that goddamned noisy train. I have to yell all day long to be heard over it. People lean in with their hands on their ears to hear what I have to say. At least I’m making them pay attention to me.

I don’t know what to make of that fella Rudy. He’s nice and respectful, so I can’t say as I mind him. But he’s always creeping around late. I can’t wait to leave when it’s closing time, and he’s still there after dark. He’s free to do what he likes. He’s not ripping anyone off I don’t think. Only what about his family? All those little boys running around afoot. He and that wife of his are baby machines. You’d think he’d want to go home to them. Or maybe not.

As I said, he was dead long before I was born. I’m sorry I don’t have a “he bounced me on his knee in the theater” story or anything like that. But yes, he was a legendary cinephile at that time, as legendary as one can be for that sort of thing. I know what you’re thinking. Oh he
really
liked movies, good for him. But he was part of a network of movie theater managers who had late-night screenings of art films imported—or sometimes smuggled, depending on the state of war—from Europe. Of course it’s not really a big deal to anyone. He’s not in any history books, or anything like that. It was just this sort of very cool thing that he did—cool if you find people being obsessive about things cool, that is. Which I do, a bit.

But I don’t know terribly much beyond that. I do know that it was something that drove my great-grandmother crazy, because she had wanted him home more with his sons. It became something that my grandfather and his three brothers treasured because eventually they were permitted to attend these late-night screenings. It was influential on them to a certain extent. One of my great-uncles did move to Hollywood for a short period of time, I think just a few years, and he was an extra in movies though he never got a speaking part. And then there was another brother who eventually ended up in the Midwest, in Madison, where he helped to start a film archive, and he stayed there until he died, which was not that long ago actually. I did not go to the funeral, because I had a lot of funerals last year, and one more seemed unnecessary.

And, of course, I work as a lawyer for a cable company, the name of which I don’t feel comfortable stating in this interview, on rights and issues for their original programming. I minored in film at NYU—we were in a class together there, right? I thought you looked familiar. And I always thought I would do entertainment law, the whole time I was in law school. There was really no question I would do otherwise. My family has always relaxed by watching movies. When I think of my childhood, I think of my hand in a bucket of popcorn. It’s quite visceral, this memory. Whenever I smell butter I feel small and comforted and safe. Just talking about it now makes me want to lick my fingers.

I met a nun today. Holy moly, my first nun.

It’s not like I’ve never seen a nun before. They’re all over the place, those Catholics, trying to save everyone’s soul on the Bowery, all the people having too much fun for their own good. But they’ve always left me alone before. I don’t know why. Maybe my dresses are too fine for them to bother with me. But I’m sitting in that booth all day, a working stiff, doing what I do. So now they’re after me I guess.

All right, I was taking a nip from the flask, it’s true. A nip and a cigarette, no one can blame me. I’d read all my
True Romance
s, and there wasn’t another show for twenty minutes. Jeanie had already stopped by to drop off my lunch, she was off to the track. People were hustling by on the sidewalk, but no one stopped to say hello. Cars choking on the street, cursed train rumbling above. Nothing left to do but drink.

So I lift the flask to my mouth, and then out of nowhere, there she is, her face pressed up against the glass of my cage, her hands to the bars. I screamed.

She said: Before you drink, think.

I caught my breath, but then I was seeing red.

I said: I’m thinking just fine.

I tipped the end of the flask into my mouth. She shook her head, judging me on behalf of Jesus. She had honey-blond hair, a little wisp of it sneaking out from her habit. Her eyes were like blue glass, they had a shimmer to them. No makeup, just her face. She wasn’t much older than me, and she was short like me, but I didn’t know if she had the same curves under that habit. There we were, two girls on Park Row. Only one of us was showing a lot more skin.

I said: I ain’t hurting anyone.

She said: Except yourself.

I said: Oh brother.

I started blowing smoke in her direction and she took a step back.

I said: What’s your name, sister?

She said: Sister Tee.

I said: What’s the Tee for?

She said: It’s T-e-e not T. Tee’s for Theresa but there’s ten Theresas in the church so we all have different nicknames and I’m just Tee, because I’m wee.

This made me like her. She’s just a kid, I thought. I’m one too, I guess.

She said: We’re not talking about me though. We’re talking about you. And your soul.

I said: I’m Jewish so you can stop worrying about my soul.

She said: Everyone can be saved.

I said: Sister Tee, you wouldn’t even know where to begin with me.

It made her laugh a little bit. She was sweet. I’d have liked to see her out of that habit, all dolled up, in a club on Second Avenue, dancing up a storm with the sailors. Slap some rouge on those baby cheeks of hers and she’d grow up real fast. But it was not to be, me and Sister Tee.

A line started to build for the next show.

I said: All right, go find another drunk to help. I got work to do.

She said: Remember to think about what I said.

I said: Scram.

I waved her off with my hand.

She swished off in her skirts, and I was missing her already.

I said: But come back sometime. Come back and say hi.

She was bold, and I liked it. For a nun, she had flair. And I liked how she seemed both old and young. I thought maybe she would be my first friend on Park Row. Even if she thinks I’m no good, I bet she’d still be my friend.

The war’s coming to an end, everyone’s saying it, on the radio, in the papers. I’ll believe it when I see it. But it’s putting everyone in a good mood. There’s a parade every other day. I think folks think we throw enough parades we can make anything happen. There’s been soldiers coming home, for weeks and weeks now. Hurrahs floating in the air. I can sometimes hear them. It’s all off in the distance, though. It’s out there and I’m in here
.

In here I deal with the bums and the stragglers and the cons. The men in suits sleeping off the night before. Why they don’t just go home I’ll never know. I have to say they’re all starting to make me laugh. Except the ones with the children. The mothers with the kids for the funnies, that’s fine, that don’t get to me. I’ll give them a lolly, sure. I’ve got a jarful just sitting there. They pay full price and move along. But the cons with the kids, saying they’re begging on their behalf, using them. I can’t tell what’s true or not.

This woman Nance has been coming around more lately, I’ve seen her for a few weeks. I’d heard of her before, back when I used to have a lot more free time on my hands and I knew all the gossip from the bars. She says she has children but I’ve never seen them. I shoo her away from my line.

Off with you, I tell her. Stay away from my paying customers. We’re running a business here.

She scatters from the theater. Park Avenue, across the street to the King Kong Bar, a pause at the window, around the corner and she’s gone. Just a skirt in the distance. Too old to be a street urchin, too pretty to be a common whore. Only thing left’s a con.

Where’s our Jeanie, we’ve all been wondering lately. In the arms of Ethan Fallow, I suppose. He came by Grand Street last night. He brought her a bouquet of tea roses, and she held them in her lap for an hour, and then they went for a walk and I didn’t see her again before bed. There’s a first, me beating Jeanie to bed.

It seems like it takes a lot of time, courting. You sit and wait for them to call you. Then you sit and wait for them to come to your home. Then you sit and wait for them to tell you how beautiful you are. Then you sit and wait for them to fall in love. I’ve no patience for any of it. I want instant love.

Jeanie’s been spending a lot of time at the track, too. Making up errands she needs to run. And she’s been hanging out with Bella Barker now that she’s back in town again. Only now her name’s Belle Baker, like that makes any difference. She’s still got the same voice, the same eyes, those pits of sadness. Barker or Baker, you are who you are.

Jeanie does whatever she wants now. She works Rosie and Louis like a con. She took all my tricks and made them perfect. I’m not jealous of most of it. I wouldn’t want to hold Ethan Fallow’s hand for hours on end. I wouldn’t want to nod my head at everything Belle says.

Only the freedom I envy.

Jeanie gets to do whatever she wants, I told Rosie last night.

Rosie said: Jeanie I don’t worry about.