Read Online Up in the Old Hotel (Vintage Classics) by Joseph Mitchell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Joseph Mitchell
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out-of-towners, but bums are the clumsiest thieves in the world. They always get caught, and it’s best to get temptation out of their way.’ Although her language frequently shocks the Oak Street cops, they admire Mazie. Detective Kain, for instance, says that she has ‘the roughest tongue and the softest heart in the Third Precinct.’ ‘She knows this neighborhood like a farmer knows his farm,’ he says. ‘I believe she’s got the second sight. If anything out of the way is happening anywhere along the Bowery, she senses it.’
Detective Kain has for some time been trying to solve a mystery in which Mazie is involved. Mazie has a telephone in her booth, of course, and in June, 1929, a man whose voice she did not recognize began calling her daily at 5 P. M., asking for a date or making cryptic remarks, such as ‘They got the road closed, Mazie. They won’t let nobody through.’ After three months he stopped calling. Then, around Christmas of the following year, he began again. He has been calling intermittently ever since. ‘I won’t hear from him for maybe six months,’ Mazie says. ‘Then, one day around five , the phone will ring and this voice will say, “All the clocks have stopped running” or “Mazie, they cut down the big oak tree” or some other dopey remark. He never says more than a few words, and when I say something he hangs right up. One afternoon he gave me the shakes. He called up and said, “Mazie, I got a nephew studying to be an undertaker and he needs somebody to practice on.” Then he hung up. A minute later he called again and said, “You’ll do! You’ll do!” Somehow, I get to feeling he’s across the street in a booth. The worst thing is I suspect every stranger that buys a ticket. I strike up conversations with strangers just to see if I can find one who talks like him. I think he’s trying to drive me crazy.’ Among her friends, Mazie refers to her caller as The Man. If she has visitors around five o’clock and the telephone rings, she says, ‘Pick up the receiver and see what The Man has to say this time.’ Fannie Hurst once listened. ‘It was macabre,’ she said. Detective Kain has listened often, has warned the man, and has tried vainly to trace the calls. Mazie’s number has been changed repeatedly, but that does no good.
Mazie closes her cage shortly after 11 P.M., when the final show is under way, and goes to an all-night diner near Brooklyn Bridge, where she glances through the
Daily News
while having a couple of cups of coffee and a honey bun. The only things in the
News
that she regularly reads from beginning to end are the comics, the ‘Voice of the People,’ and ‘The Inquiring Fotographer.’ She says she doesn’t read political or war stories because she can’t understand them and because they make her blue. ‘The world is all bitched up,’ she once said. ‘Always was, always will be.’ ‘Do you really believe that?’ she was asked. ‘No,’ she said, after a moment of deliberation, ‘I guess I don’t.’ She spends half an hour in the diner. Then, practically every night, before going home to bed, she makes a Samaritan tour of the Bowery and its environs. She carries an umbrella and a large handbag, which contains a flashlight, a number of cakes of soap of the size found in hotel bathrooms, and a supply of nickels, dimes, and quarters.
If it is a cold night, she goes first to an alley near the steps leading to the footwalk of Manhattan Bridge. Bums like to keep fires going in discarded oil drums in this alley. She distributes some change . Then she inspects Columbus Park, a block west of Chatham Square, where every winter a few bums pass out on benches and die of exposure. The police say Mazie has rescued scores of men in this park. Then, passing through Chinatown, she returns to the Bowery and heads uptown, pausing whenever she recognizes a bum and giving him enough money for a meal, a drink, or a flop. Frequently, in addition to small
Detective Kain has for some time been trying to solve a mystery in which Mazie is involved. Mazie has a telephone in her booth, of course, and in June, 1929, a man whose voice she did not recognize began calling her daily at 5 P. M., asking for a date or making cryptic remarks, such as ‘They got the road closed, Mazie. They won’t let nobody through.’ After three months he stopped calling. Then, around Christmas of the following year, he began again. He has been calling intermittently ever since. ‘I won’t hear from him for maybe six months,’ Mazie says. ‘Then, one day around five , the phone will ring and this voice will say, “All the clocks have stopped running” or “Mazie, they cut down the big oak tree” or some other dopey remark. He never says more than a few words, and when I say something he hangs right up. One afternoon he gave me the shakes. He called up and said, “Mazie, I got a nephew studying to be an undertaker and he needs somebody to practice on.” Then he hung up. A minute later he called again and said, “You’ll do! You’ll do!” Somehow, I get to feeling he’s across the street in a booth. The worst thing is I suspect every stranger that buys a ticket. I strike up conversations with strangers just to see if I can find one who talks like him. I think he’s trying to drive me crazy.’ Among her friends, Mazie refers to her caller as The Man. If she has visitors around five o’clock and the telephone rings, she says, ‘Pick up the receiver and see what The Man has to say this time.’ Fannie Hurst once listened. ‘It was macabre,’ she said. Detective Kain has listened often, has warned the man, and has tried vainly to trace the calls. Mazie’s number has been changed repeatedly, but that does no good.
Mazie closes her cage shortly after 11 P.M., when the final show is under way, and goes to an all-night diner near Brooklyn Bridge, where she glances through the
Daily News
while having a couple of cups of coffee and a honey bun. The only things in the
News
that she regularly reads from beginning to end are the comics, the ‘Voice of the People,’ and ‘The Inquiring Fotographer.’ She says she doesn’t read political or war stories because she can’t understand them and because they make her blue. ‘The world is all bitched up,’ she once said. ‘Always was, always will be.’ ‘Do you really believe that?’ she was asked. ‘No,’ she said, after a moment of deliberation, ‘I guess I don’t.’ She spends half an hour in the diner. Then, practically every night, before going home to bed, she makes a Samaritan tour of the Bowery and its environs. She carries an umbrella and a large handbag, which contains a flashlight, a number of cakes of soap of the size found in hotel bathrooms, and a supply of nickels, dimes, and quarters.
If it is a cold night, she goes first to an alley near the steps leading to the footwalk of Manhattan Bridge. Bums like to keep fires going in discarded oil drums in this alley. She distributes some change . Then she inspects Columbus Park, a block west of Chatham Square, where every winter a few bums pass out on benches and die of exposure. The police say Mazie has rescued scores of men in this park. Then, passing through Chinatown, she returns to the Bowery and heads uptown, pausing whenever she recognizes a bum and giving him enough money for a meal, a drink, or a flop. Frequently, in addition to small
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