She said: But so does he, so that makes two of us, smelling like shit.
I asked her if she missed dancing and she told me she doesn’t even remember who she was before, and it’s easier that way. I got distracted for a second, trying to remember what the moon used to mean to me. Now it’s just another light to guide me while I look after these fellas.
Mazie’s Diary, November 18, 1934
George told me he’s in love with a woman named Alice. A good woman. She’ll be a doctor someday.
I said: You find love, you take it.
Phillip Tekverk
In the spring of 1939 I met Fannie Hurst across the street from the Venice Theater, at a place called the King Kong Bar & Grill, the name of it being the most significant thing about the establishment. The bartender seemed to know Fannie. I asked if she were a regular patron. She said she stopped in from time to time when she was downtown. She said, “I like to have a quick one by myself sometimes. They don’t seem to mind what you do down here. In my neighborhood they whisper a bit more. I wouldn’t call it whispering so much as talking loudly to anyone who might listen. It’s not very polite. Not that I can complain, I’m a gossip like the rest of them, like all writers, like all people with too much time on their hands. And I don’t mind anyway. You get to a certain age, let them whisper, let them talk, let them scream. Fannie Hurst likes to hang out downtown in bars by herself. Doesn’t everyone wish they could do that?”
I said that I could and did all the time, and she said, “But you’re a man.” And even though she was nearly thirty years older than I was, and an affluent, successful woman, she recognized a gap between our privilege. “Sometimes a girl likes to have a quiet drink away from it all. Read into it however you like.” I noticed then she was drinking whiskey, straight. It was one in the afternoon. “Mazie understands,” she said. “She’s a solo artist. A diva. And she’s a warrior queen. Did you know they call her the Queen of the Bowery? I’ll never be the queen of anything.”
“I’ve been to one of your dinner parties,” I said. “You’re a queen, don’t worry.”
Mazie had just had her appendix out and was no longer drinking hard alcohol, so we purchased her some beer, which at the time you could take away in a cardboard container. Together we crossed the street to this run-down theater Mazie called home. A group of bums shifted around in front of the theater. Before we approached the cage Fannie said to me, “Prepare for greatness.”
George Flicker
I’ll fill you in on the good stuff, if you care to know it. The good stuff of my life. I married Alice, as I said, and she became a doctor, an obstetrician. She worked at Presbyterian for a long time, decades, but also she volunteered at a clinic downtown one day a week, working with immigrant women. She did that until we had our son, Mel, named after my father, and once he was old enough she went back to volunteer work again, and there’s a fund set up there now in her name because she was so instrumental in developing its growth. So I couldn’t be any prouder of my wife, Alice. She was a personal hero of mine.
Mel went on to have three children, Max, Miranda, and David, and they each have had two children and they are all gorgeous, just gorgeous. It is never a dull moment at the holidays, I’ll tell you that much. I went on to own not one, not two, not three, but five apartment buildings on the Lower East Side. I know, can you believe it? I wouldn’t believe it myself only I know what kind of work I put into it.
One of the buildings I bought was actually the tenement I grew up in, all crammed into that tiny apartment with my family. It was the fourth building I bought. I had to wait that long for it to be up for sale. I had my eye on it forever. I probably had my eye on it when I was five years old and didn’t even know what that meant yet.
And what I did when I bought it is, I tore everything out. I gutted the place, and I made each floor its own apartment, except for the top two floors, which were joined together in one duplex, which is where Alice and I lived for many years. Each apartment is full of light and space and air. All the things we’re entitled to, or should be anyway.
Oh, it’s tremendous, you should see it. Call my grandson, sweetheart, and have him invite you over. Tell him I sent you. The skylight in the bedroom is something else. When we finished construction and finally moved in, Alice and I would just sit in bed for hours staring up at the sky. We’d go to bed a few hours early and just lay there looking at the moon and the stars, holding hands and talking. She passed in that bed exactly that way. I was next to her. My beautiful Alice, my gorgeous girl. She was blind by then so I told her what I was seeing. There were clouds that day. Winter clouds. It was January. I said, “Alice, the sun is out barely, and the clouds are gray and blue and they’ve got a kind of outline around them and there’s a bit of white from the sun and it looks like it’s going to be a cold, cold day.” And then she let go of my hand and was gone.
Phillip Tekverk
People have different definitions of greatness. Was she wry and funny? Yes. Charismatic certainly. Beauty — and I won’t apologize for this — is part of my definition of greatness, and she wasn’t beautiful anymore, although I suspected she had been. Her hair was straw yellow, bleached for too many years. And she wore this green celluloid shade, which looked ridiculous. I suppose it was to block the sun, but it wasn’t flattering in the slightest. Her face seemed sort of hazy around the edges, as if her chin were on the verge of melting into her neck. She was well put together otherwise though. Although she was hunched over, she had a wonderful bosom, which she showed off perfectly, and I come from a family of women obsessed with their personal lighting. And she was direct and sharp and I liked her, and I had been told to admire her and so I did.
It all happened very quickly. Fannie gave her the beer, and they greeted each other like they were sisters; it was all very familiar and loving. Then Fannie said, “You must meet this young upstart in the publishing world.” And I said my name and introduced myself and then I lit a cigarette and gave it to Mazie. She eyed me, and I got the sense she trusted absolutely no one on first impression. Yet I could tell it was very clearly a positive appraisal. Perhaps she was flirting with me, I don’t know. She was a little long in the tooth for me, but if it hadn’t stopped any of the older gentlemen who took me out for drives in the country, why should it stop her? Then it seemed like she caught herself. I wish I could remember more of our conversation. I was quite captivated by her looks even as I rejected them. She was not beautiful but she was a presence. I suppose that could have made her great in someone’s book.
Anyway I razzle-dazzled her with the idea that she should write the story of her life and she seemed uninterested at first, but I assured her that she — and I stole this phrase instantly from Fannie, of course — she, as the Queen of the Bowery, should tell her story to her subjects. I don’t know if that appealed to her ego but it had a hook to it. She still was uncertain, but I felt that I had gotten under her skin, so I resolved to pursue it.
George Flicker
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.