Saint Mazie: A Novel (26 page)

William passed. A pal of his told me, this fella Gerard who was looking for money to crash in a flophouse tonight. Hit up old Mazie at the cage, that’s what they all do. I didn’t know his face at first. The street’s aged him. He was a pink-cheeked cherub and now he’s got bags under his eyes and chunks of hair gone and there’s no color left in his face.

I said: Do I know you?

He said: Sure you do.

I said: From where?

He said: I met you with William, that day you let us all in the theater. It was a long time ago, but not too long.

I said: Two years ago nearly, I think.

He said: A lot’s changed.

I said: You were just a kid then. Look at you now.

He said: The cold wind changes a man.

I felt bad. What does he need me insulting his looks for?

I said: You look fine, just fine.

He said: I’ll take your word for it. I haven’t looked in a mirror in a long time.

I said: Hey, where’s that buddy William of yours?

He didn’t say anything, just pointed to the sky. I looked up, not understanding right away.

I said: Oh.

He said: Yes.

It was months ago, and I didn’t even know it.

Called four ambulances this month and checked six fellas into flophouses. Feel like I’m just getting started here, like I could do this forever. Just keep helping them. Because someone’s always going to need help.

I looked up just before close yesterday and there was the Captain. Ben, now. I’m going to call him Ben. He hasn’t been a captain in a long time. He’s not the Captain I used to know either.

It was raining, and we ducked into a diner and sat at the counter. I’d promised Rosie I’d be home for dinner for once, and I felt anxious about that, but on the other hand I knew we needed to talk. About what I didn’t know exactly. Only that there were things left to be said.

We both ordered coffee, and I realized it would be the first time the two of us were together without any booze in us. And the lights in the diner were bright. It was just the two of us. We could only be ourselves.

He showed me pictures of his son, his namesake. He was a cute kid, bright eyes, his hair slicked down and parted to the side, a tiny suit coat. A bow tie. I nearly choked up but I didn’t and I’m goddamn proud of myself.

I asked him what his boy was like and he shifted around on his stool. He didn’t seem too happy talking about it.

He said: He’s angry already and he’s not old enough to be angry at the world yet. And we’ve got a fine life there. Anything going on that might tick him off, he doesn’t know about it.

I said: Kids are smart. He looks pretty smart in that picture.

He said: He’s a good kid. I’m not complaining about him. I feel bad. Ah, I don’t know.

I said: You could change your ways. You can be whatever kind of person you like.

He said: I’ve been this way so long I don’t know how else to be.

I said: All you have to do is choose it. It’s up to you.

He said: You sound like my wife.

I said: The last thing I want to sound like is your wife.

We both waited to laugh but then we did and everything melted between us. I let him hold my hand for a while though I knew I wouldn’t go back to his hotel with him. But I felt like I could talk to him, more than I can ever talk to that priest I visit. Ben’s not anonymous exactly, but it feels safe to tell him everything. He’s a real friend now, and he doesn’t want anything from me except maybe to have someone to talk to. And I found myself telling him things I hadn’t even realized until the moment it came out of my mouth.

I told him about walking the streets at night, helping out the fellas. He told me it worried him, me walking alone out there. I told him I’d been getting to know them all, getting to know their true stories. I didn’t think a one of them would hurt me. They were just alone out there, and I understood that. And then this one thing occurred to me.

I said: I’ll tell you the real truth of why I do it, or part of it anyway. There ain’t nothing wrong with being alone, which is what I am, or what I have been. It’s when it turns to loneliness, when you get to feeling blue about it all, that you’re in trouble. There’s the problem, loneliness. And now I’m never really alone anymore, day or night. Even if I walk the streets by myself, I’m always surrounded by people. It’s like being in the cage, only inside out.

He told me he was sorry I felt lonely. He told me to be careful, that I was precious. He held both of my hands in his. He comes into town every few months on business and he’d like to have coffee with me every so often. Would I like that, is what he asked me. Would I.

A postcard from Winky, thanking me.

It said: Safe & sound & loved.

Thirty-five years old. I wound up at Finny’s, no surprise there. George Flicker was at the bar and I got looped enough that I didn’t mind him looking at my bosom the way that he always does. Happy Birthday to me, why not have some fun? He walked me home and we kissed and kissed and kissed, and I let him put his hands on me for a minute or two or three. He’s an all right kisser. He said he learned everything he knows from French girls.

She said that? She did. Well, I suppose it was true then. I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you. I’ve told you everything else I know so far, haven’t I? I was just being respectful of the lady. My generation, we showed some respect. It feels good to show respect. It makes you feel like a man. I wasn’t going to kiss and tell unless I had to. And now I suppose I have to.

It’s cold now again, it won’t warm up for a long time. I’m worried about the fellas. I collect nickels and dimes and quarters. I line my pockets with them. I hand them out freely. I pray every night they won’t freeze to death.

Last night she stayed up cleaning the apartment, every inch of it, not just the kitchen but the toilet, too, and her bedroom, and my bedroom, too. She came in while I was sleeping. She was possessed by a cleaning demon. I thought maybe she was walking in her sleep. I tried to rouse her. I shook her by her shoulders. I said her name and I begged and then I gave up. I put the pillow over my head and waited until she left.

I would give anything to make this stop. I’m used to this pain—it feels so familiar, it’s like it’s my little pinky. But still I dare to dream of a life without it.

The month I can’t remember so well, but I believe it was early 1933. It was freezing out, just a bitter, bitter cold, and she’d been on the streets, and she came into Finny’s. Her cheeks were flushed and she looked very pretty. She’d been avoiding me since we kissed, or maybe I’d been avoiding her. But that night we were both exhausted, and we truly were so fond of each other that we gave in to it. We just liked each other and wanted to talk! And I think she needed to talk about Rosie with someone. It was this burden she carried with her. I had my burden; she had hers. And there are times when you need other people to witness your pain. Not anymore, I’m done with that. All my little aches and pains I’ve lived with long enough now, why bother? I’m one hundred years old. Guess what? I’m falling apart. But then we were young and we still felt entitled to some kind of relief. We believed in the possibility of relief. That we deserved a break. So we shared our problems. And then I knew all about Rosie, with the cleaning and the complaining and the in general obsessive behavior. And then we very naturally came up with this solution to both of our problems. Oh, we thought we were so smart. We were even a little smug about the whole thing. We thought we knew our family so well. Our people, they were our people. But we never could have predicted how it was going to turn out in the end.

Well George Flicker and I had an interesting talk tonight. Who knew George Flicker could be interesting?

He’s working for this developer, and there’s going to be a new building downtown. It’s going to be the finest building in the neighborhood, with a beautiful garden in a private courtyard. He told me that when I sit in that garden l’ll feel like I left New York City behind.

It’ll be difficult to get into the building. Everyone wants in. But he thought he could do it, could secure a small apartment for himself and his uncle. He could barely afford it but he thought he could make it happen. A chance to get out of the tenements, he’d make it happen. And he could secure another one for me and Rosie, we could be neighbors in this new building. And then he said the very interesting part, which was that maybe when we moved in there, Rosie could watch over Al.

He said: She just needs someone to worry about is what it sounds like to me.

I could not argue with him on that matter.

He said: And Al, he just needs someone to look after him. I can’t do it forever, Mazie. I need to have a life of my own. And you do, too.

I said: When can we move?

He said the building wouldn’t be ready till next year. That they had to tear down all these filthy tenements there first, then build the new one. They’re going to build fast though, he told me.

He said: Hold on, Mazie. Just hold on.

Lung Block, yea, Lung Block. I don’t teach it anymore. I taught it a few times, and honestly? It grosses the kids out. Breadlines, they get, they nod their heads. Lung Block, it’s gross, it’s terrifying, and it doesn’t really educate them about anything new. They kind of already know about mold and bad air, and if they really want to learn about the specifics of mold, I’ll trust their health or science instructors to educate them on the particular details. But, just to explain here, these apartments had maybe one or two tiny windows and no ventilation, and they were packed with people. And they got sick.

There were more than a few Lung Blocks in New York City. So many of the tenements were terrible for air quality, germs, mold, but this one particular block, down by the water—north of the South Street Seaport, like southeast of Chinatown—a good percentage of the tenants there got sick with respiratory illnesses. Tuberculosis for one, which is highly contagious, so once it started, they all fell down. There were just germs everywhere. And hundreds of families lived there; everyone crammed into these small spaces. On top of that there were bunch of bars and brothels. It was just a seedy, germy block. Hundreds of people died. This was in the late 1920s. And New York being New York, instead of fixing the buildings, they just decided to tear them down and start over. And that is how Knickerbocker Village came into being.

I should have had two more great-uncles, but they died from tuberculosis. They lived in a bad building. It wasn’t a bad building when they moved in, but it became one. By the time they figured out they should move somewhere else, it was too late. They were no longer in control of their destiny, or the destiny of their children. And so my mother’s father grew up with tragedy, and then my mother grew up in the shadow of tragedy, and then I suppose I grew up in whatever shade was left behind. Rudy with his heart attacks, two dead great-uncles. These stories that people pass on. You feel them. They haunt you.

A thing you and I talked about for a while is how she starts to disappear into these men. Like we felt like
we
lost her to them. Like she became so obsessed with them that the other parts of her started to disappear. Or maybe those parts were visible to someone else? But the diary totally changes. It’s just about these men; that’s all she cares about. And you were like, “I get it. I get the obsession.” And I was like, “I get it, but I reject it. Because there’s more to life than just that. You have to care about more than one thing.”

One more body in the late-night frost. I tried to rouse him but his skin turned my skin cold.

I thought: We’re both the same color. We’re both blue.

But then I realized he was bluer than I’ll be in a long time.

Called six ambulances this month and they’re sick of my voice and my face and I don’t care.

Lately I’ve been noticing that the bums are waiting for me to get to work. Just a few of them, same fellas, sometimes a bigger group of them. Waiting for their morning handouts so they can get a little of this or that and move on through their day. What’s it hurt? Tee’d tsk tsk me, but what did Tee know about fun?

All of it makes me feel needed. And that I can help them. I can’t help Rosie, but I can help them.

A guy named Wilson died and I didn’t know him but all the fellas were reeling this morning. He’d been good to them. They said he’d looked out for them. Someone stabbed him in his sleep, and he’d been sleeping on an old mattress in an alley and the mattress was all red when they found him. I was shuddering when they told me this and I didn’t even know it till Rudy came out and shooed them all way. Ghost white I was, that’s what Rudy told me.

A boy with blond hair in my line, sixteen, seventeen, everything about him ragged and worn, his clothes, some scars, a sad, dazed squint. Willowy and breakable. Too young to be in line with those other fellas, and I told him so. Too young to be that battered is what I thought. He deepened his voice, swore he’d been working on the trains for a few years already. I asked his name. Rufus. It couldn’t be, I thought. Not the same. I asked if he had a mother named Nance. He told me it was the name of the woman who bore him but that he barely remembered her.

I said: Who raised you?

He said: A hundred kind people and a hundred mean people and no one in particular.

I couldn’t stand to see his face in my line. He told me he’d been working on the rails here and there, but that he dreamed of working on an apple farm in New Jersey. It seemed safer than the rails, where it was nothing but drunks and trouble. He’d heard it was all sunshine and fresh air on the apple farm. I gave him a few big bills. I told him to go to New Jersey now, get a head start on apple-picking season.

I said: I don’t want to see you around here again, you hear?

He promised he’d never come back. Who knows if he was telling the truth or not? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been conned. Only I needed to know I tried.