Mazie’s Diary, December 16, 1917
Something’s going to break soon. I got no control over myself and I like it.
Mazie’s Diary, January 4, 1918
I wasn’t ready to go home yet but there was nobody left in the bar worth talking to. Talked to a bum on the street instead, an old fella. We split whatever was in his bottle and I gave him a smoke. I was feeling tough. I asked him how long he’d been on the streets.
He said: Longer than you’ve been alive, girlie. You gotta be tough to last that long.
He beat his chest.
I said: I could survive out here.
He said: You don’t want to try.
I said: I could do it. You wanna see me?
He said: You got a home, you’re lucky.
I said: Why don’t I feel that way?
Then he got gentle with me.
He said: If someone loves you, go home to them.
A bad wind blew in and I grew suddenly, terribly cold. I couldn’t bear the night for another minute. I handed him the rest of my smokes and wandered home.
Mazie’s Diary, January 5, 1918
Rosie was trying to sweet-talk me early this morning. A nice change from yelling I guess.
She said: Don’t you want a sweetheart?
I said: The whole world’s my sweetheart.
Mazie’s Diary, January 18, 1918
Now she’s sharp and angry. She told Jeanie the dancing was done. No more classes, she said. And she told me I’d be on the streets if I came home late one more time. A month ago she didn’t want to lose me, now she’ll throw me on the streets?
I said: I know the streets. I’ve been there before.
She said: You can’t take those dresses of yours on the street.
I said: I don’t need none of it.
She said: You’d be nowhere without me.
Jeanie and I looked at Louis but there was nothing, no help. His heart is broken too, I think. His giant heart, exploded.
Mazie’s Diary, January 21, 1918
Took a few turns at the snuffbox of some rich man slumming downtown tonight. I can’t say I didn’t like it. Slapped his hand away from my tit though — he didn’t earn nothing just by sharing. He’s no hero like the sailors. Just a spoiled rich prick.
Everything started tumbling around me. I left when the fistfights started. I couldn’t help but laugh even as I lifted my skirts over the drunks bloody on the floor. That was not the right bar for a girl like me, though I couldn’t say it was the wrong one either.
But then I was walking down the streets and the moon was judging me, it was staring at me and judging me, I swear it was. I stood on the corner, and I let it judge me. I’ll judge you back, too, moon. What do you know? Stupid moon. Horrible moon.
I came home and got down on my hands and my knees in front of Rosie, still on the couch. She put her hands in my hair.
She said: Why can’t I have a baby?
I said: I don’t know.
She said: Why won’t you be a good girl?
I said: I don’t know.
We stayed like that until I came in here to write this down. She clawed at my neck when I walked away.
It’s her pain, not mine.
Mazie’s Diary, January 22, 1918
I was gone all day and all night. No candy shop, no track. Just the streets and the bars and the men and the women and the whiskey and the beer and the smokes and the snuff. Nothing but these things, and then more of these things, and then bed.
Mazie’s Diary, January 24, 1918
When I woke up this afternoon I went into the kitchen and Rosie was sitting at the table with Louis. Maybe the fever broke, I was thinking. I looked in her eyes and they seemed clear. But my eyes were hazy, so what did I know? I couldn’t trust what I saw for nothing.
She sounded clear though.
She said: I’ve tried everything with you. Louis, you know I’m right.
He didn’t want no part of it, I thought, but he nodded. He was pressing his fork against his eggs.
She said: Something’s gotta change. You know I’m right too, Mazie.
I felt bad about interrupting his eggs. Louis loves his eggs.
He said: Here’s the thing.
At last! The big man speaks.
He said: It’s a favor more than anything else.
Favor’s a word I can’t refuse when it comes to Louis, and he knows it. He’s taken care of us forever and he didn’t have to. He waited to say that word. He waited till he couldn’t wait anymore. Kept the favor in his pocket. Bet he’s got more than a few in there.
He said: Rosie’s been sick and I’ve been needing help down at the theater.
He put down his fork and then he took Rosie’s hand. Or did she take his? I couldn’t tell. They were propping each other up now. That’s what it meant. That’s how that works when you’re together with someone. I get it, even if I don’t have it.
He told me he wanted me to work the ticket booth, that it was true that the hours were long but it was important work to him. He had put a lot of money into the theater.
He said: You’re good with numbers. There’s money coming in and out all day. And I need someone I can trust there. There’s sticky fingers all over this city, you know that.
He told me it would just be for a little while and when I asked how long he told me he didn’t know, and I don’t think he was lying, it wasn’t exactly a lie.
I said: It’s a cage and you know it. You’re putting me in prison.
He said: Tell me what I ever ask you for.
Rosie said: He gives you everything!
I could not argue with either of them about anything. I know they were right. They had me cornered. Finally, Rosie had me.
I said: Death is upon me.
They laughed at me like chickens.
Rosie: It’s good that you’re funny. It’s good that you find things so funny. You’ll be needing that sense of humor.
But I wasn’t kidding around. That ticket booth! All day, hours and hours, the whole world going on around me. I’m going to miss everything. The world will pass me by. I will grow old and then die in that cage.
2. Excerpt from the unpublished autobiography of Mazie Phillips-Gordon
I chose only to help the men, not the children. Men, I can help. I can give them some change, a place to sleep. I can call an ambulance. Their needs are simpler. And if they still fail, there’s no one they can blame but themselves. But the kids I steer clear of. There’s people better at it than me, who have the time to give. I’ve got a jar full of lollies for them, and that’ll do. I got nothing to say to them. Every kid on the Bowery knows they can come to me and I’ll give them a treat, and that’s all. Give them a treat and then shoo them away.
Lydia Wallach
So she and my great-grandfather Rudy Wallach worked together for two decades at the Venice Theater. I have seen pictures of the theater, both the interior and the exterior, but none of these pictures are in particularly good condition. I know that the theater was beneath the tracks of the Second Avenue elevated train line, which I imagine made it quite noisy. I can also tell you the theater was in the style of the era, which is to say it was a classical-style movie palace, with European design influences. There were velvet seats — I presume they were red, though it was obviously impossible to tell from the photos I saw — and high ceilings with some ornate decor. The theater seated approximately six hundred people, and there was a ground floor as well as a balcony level. In its initial conception, it was, for lack of a better description, a very classy joint.
Mazie’s Diary, February 1, 1918