Mazie’s Diary, August 6, 1922
I found Rosie on the floor in the kitchen, sobbing, when I came home early this morning. Hysterics. I couldn’t calm her. The sunlight lit up her face, those lines drawn in her forehead, her mustache untended to, eyes bulging and pink. I gave her a glass of water and she pushed it away. I tried to hold her and she shook beneath me. I shushed her, I stroked her hair, and it was no use at all, none of it. Finally I slapped her, and she looked as if she might murder me right there on the kitchen floor, but it was better than her sobbing like that.
She said: You can’t just do that to me. You can’t disappear on me.
I said: Rosie, I didn’t mean it like that. I got caught up on something. It was just a man.
I should have just told her everything then, told her I loved him, told her who he is to me, who he was to me. But he’s my secret goddammit. He’s all mine.
I said: Where’s Louis?
She said: He’s gone, doing whatever it is he does out there.
I said: Who ever knows what Louis does?
She said: I was fine when he left. It’s only when I’m left alone I get like this. I don’t mean to get like this.
I said: You’ve been better lately.
She said: I haven’t. Not truly.
She didn’t know what I was doing all day and I didn’t know what she was doing all day either. She could weep in the mornings and scream in the afternoons for all I knew.
She let me hold her then. Soon enough Louis got home. Maybe he could hear her howling from wherever he was. By then she had calmed. Still, we were slumped on the ground together. He whistled as he entered.
He said: The kitchen’s really sparkling today, wife of mine.
He leaned over her, kissed her on her head. Gave her his hands and she took them, and then she was up, standing. Gave me his, and I was up, too.
I’m in bed now, a flask next to me. There was something I was supposed to be dreaming about but I forgot already what it was.
George Flicker
When I came home I moved right back into the apartment I grew up in on Grand Street. I was a world traveler! I had fought in a war. I had saved people’s lives. I got a Bronze Star; do you see that over there on my mirror? [He points at a dresser.] A Bronze Star! And now I was crammed back into that same damn one-room apartment. It was not pleasant. My parents were older, and they were starting to smell like old people, just like I do now. With Al not being well, everyone’s nerves were frayed, and we were stepping all over each other. My mother swore I was half a foot taller than when I’d left, like I’d had some sort of growth spurt in France.
And I had to start all over finding work, building a career. Girlie, I’m telling you, it’s no fun to start over when you’ve already started over once or twice, and you’re doing it right under the nose of your mother. But in France I had worked for a tie manufacturer, and he had taught me how to make ties, and how to sell them, too. When I moved to New York I got a job at a tie factory for fifteen cents an hour. I started to save enough money to buy my own ties, which I sold on the streets. But what I was really thinking about was real estate. It was not an original thought, of course. I don’t know anyone in New York City who doesn’t think about it. It’s impossible to walk those streets and not think about real estate. Louis Gordon was in it, I remember. He owned a few buildings here and there, along with all his other…investments. You know, he was a dabbler.
Elio Ferrante
It’s pretty unlikely that he was solely a gambler based on what you’ve told me. Money laundering, sure, that was a possibility. Could have been a loan shark. Could have run booze, could have run drugs. There are myriad possibilities.
Mazie’s Diary, September 22, 1922
After breakfast this morning Louis asked us if we wanted to take a walk down to the ocean.
He said: Come on, nobody’s out there. The street is all ours.
Louis opened the front door and the most delicious ocean air came in, cool and moist. A gentle slap in the face. Rosie stopped scrubbing. She rubbed the back of her neck with her hands.
Louis said: Let’s pretend like we own it all. Like we’re the king and queen of Coney Island.
I said: I’ll play princess, Rosie. You’re the queen.
Rosie said no, and there’s no arguing with her after breakfast. All those dishes in the sink and everything. But I said yes.
I took his elbow, and we walked all the way to the end of the road. The seagulls in their loop de loops. When we got to the sand we stood quietly and I leaned against him. He took my hand and kissed it.
He said: What if we had a conversation about your sister? About her mental state.
I nearly keeled over. For years I’ve been waiting for him to want to talk about it. Rosie’s madness.
I said: I worry sick about her sometimes.
He said: She worries about you, too.
I said: But we’re not talking about me.
He said: No, we’re not.
I said: Do you think she’s crazy?
He said: You live with her, you know what I know. For weeks she’ll be fine. Months and months even.
I nodded, this was true. All had been quiet until I went off with the Captain.
I said: What about behind closed doors? That I don’t know.
He said: Behind closed doors, she sleeps like an angel.
He grimaced for a moment.
He said: Except when she doesn’t sleep at all.
I said: What can we do?
He said: Be there for her when she needs us. Show up when we’re supposed to. Schedules are important to her.
I said: But what about my life?
He didn’t answer me, he just shrugged. A tiny airplane dragged over the ocean, and he pointed at it, but didn’t say a damn thing. The wind that had felt so lovely before now stung my eyes.
I said: Haven’t I done enough? Don’t I do enough?
He walked off.
I said: But what about me?
George Flicker
Look, he was never arrested for anything, not that any of us knew of. In my book he was no worse than anyone else of his ilk. Likely he was much better.
I’ll tell you this story though. I remember I saw him one last time, right when I got back in town from France. It must have been two in the morning. I’d have done anything not to be in that apartment. The streets were empty, and I was marveling at how much cleaner they were than when I had left. Less riffraff, for starters. But there was no garbage either. I remember just the fall leaves beneath my feet.
And then he sort of startled me, and I don’t really startle easily. I’m small now, I’ve shrunk, my bones are tiny, but I was at my peak then. You know, I was this young, healthy, fit guy who’d served his country. I wasn’t so far away from battle that I wasn’t on my toes.
But Louis was an enormous man, and he tapped me on the shoulder and all I could see was this big figure behind me and I jumped. Well, he started laughing. He said, “It’s me, Georgie, your old neighbor Louis.” I said, “Louis! Of course!” My heart was racing, I had to bend over for a second. I was kind of half laughing, half breathing hard.
So he patted my back until I calmed down. He said, “Aw, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Then we just shot the breeze for a while, it was no big deal. He thanked me for my service. He’d heard about the medal from my mother, I guess. Then he offered me his card and said if I ever needed anything, some work, money, anything at all, he’d be happy to help me out. “Two pals from the neighborhood,” is what he said.
And I remember thinking exactly this to myself at the time: George Flicker, no matter how bad it gets, you never call this man for a job. Because you are no criminal.