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.
Mazie’s Diary, February 1, 1935
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.
George Flicker
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.
Pete Sorensen
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.
Elio Ferrante
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.
Phillip Tekverk
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.
Lydia Wallach
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.”
Mazie’s Diary, March 13, 1939
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.
Mazie’s Diary, March 15, 1939
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.
Excerpt from the unpublished autobiography
of Mazie Phillips-Gordon
I’ll admit sometimes it’s peaceful to watch a man passed out on the street, snoring, curled up, that last lick of whiskey still on their lips. It’s hard to tell if they’re passed out from pleasure or pain, but my prayers for them always are that it’s boozed-up bliss. I never want to wake them up when they’re like that. It wouldn’t be fair. They spent all night getting there.
Phillip Tekverk
I suppose I was careless with her.
Excerpt from the unpublished autobiography
of Mazie Phillips-Gordon
Flophouses are just that, a place you go to flop face-first. There’s only a bit more comfort in sleeping there than on the streets. They’ve got bugs and mold, and sheets like paper and mattresses that suck you in like a dirty old hole in the ground. But they’ve got showers, if you’re the kind who cares about showering, and they’re warmer than the streets in the winter. And sometimes a warm bed is all it takes to make a man feel like he’s champion of the world.
Lydia Wallach
And I wanted to tell you that I was glad that I finally unpacked all of those boxes. A lot of it was garbage, and I just threw it away, but some of it was useful, and even triggered a nice memory or two. So it was good that you asked me these questions, it was good that you wanted me to look. I just wanted to say thanks for that.