Jami Attenberg - Saint Mazie

Mazie’s Diary, December 4, 1934

What if the mattress turns red again? None of us have ever been able to have a baby. All the Phillips girls, our bellies are made of shit.

Mazie’s Diary, December 5, 1934

He loves this Alice. I saw them today together. Across the street from the theater, her in her nurse’s uniform, him in his best suit, her carrying flowers, him with his arm around her, her talking, him nodding. The two of them acting like real people in love. Not like we were. We were just horizontal is all.

Mazie’s Diary, December 6, 1934

I came in last night late, and he was there, too. In the hallway. And now my heart swells for him a little bit more because I can’t have him. His hand was on his door handle and mine was on mine and I thought for a moment I’d tell him the truth, and I know he’d care because he’s an all right fella but what good would it do? It wouldn’t change a thing. It wouldn’t change my mind. It might change his, but not for the right reasons. I don’t need to tell him and he doesn’t need to know.

So we both stood there with our backs to each other and there was all this silence between us and then we both wished each other good night. No glance over the shoulder. Just the best of wishes for a gentle sleep.

Mazie’s Diary, December 7, 1934

Ben was in town on business again. Him with all his meetings, and his high-class suit and now he’s gone gray, too. He looks the same though, just more prestigious. Me, I’m looking older. He gets to look important.

He took me out for a honey bun and a coffee after work. I didn’t mean to tell him I was pregnant. Especially him. But it came out anyway.

I said: The world is all bitched up. Always was, always will be.

He said: Do you really believe that?

I said: No, I guess I don’t.

Ben told me he thought I’d be a great mother, but that I should know children were hard, much harder than he’d imagined. He didn’t know why they didn’t just listen. Why couldn’t they just be quiet when they were told?

He asked what I was going to do and I said I didn’t know but I think I do. What do I need a baby for when I got all those men out there needing me?

He gave me a wonderful hug when he left me. He told me no matter what, he’d always respect me and love me.

I think he might be the best friend I have in the world. Who would have thought? The Captain and me, buddies.

Benjamin Hazzard, Jr.

He talked about her ceaselessly, his famous friend Mazie in the city. She was so special to him there was just absolutely no way he wasn’t sleeping with her. It’s just the way men and women work. I could talk for hours about it but who would want to listen?

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.