Saint Mazie: A Novel by Jami Attenberg Read Free Book Online

He’s nice and respectful, so I can’t say as I mind him. But he’s always creeping around late. I can’t wait to leave when it’s closing time, and he’s still there after dark. He’s free to do what he likes. He’s not ripping anyone off I don’t think. Only what about his family? All those little boys running around afoot. He and that wife of his are baby machines. You’d think he’d want to go home to them. Or maybe not.

Lydia Wallach
    As I said, he was dead long before I was born. I’m sorry I don’t have a “he bounced me on his knee in the theater” story or anything like that. But yes, he was a legendary cinephile at that time, as legendary as one can be for that sort of thing. I know what you’re thinking. Oh he really liked movies, good for him. But he was part of a network of movie theater managers who had late-night screenings of art films imported—or sometimes smuggled, depending on the state of war—from Europe. Of course it’s not really a big deal to anyone. He’s not in any history books, or anything like that. It was just this sort of very cool thing that he did—cool if you find people being obsessive about things cool, that is. Which I do, a bit.
    But I don’t know terribly much beyond that. I do know that it was something that drove my great-grandmother crazy, because she had wanted him home more with his sons. It became something that my grandfather and his three brothers treasured because eventually they were permitted to attend these late-night screenings. It was influential on them to a certain extent. One of my great-uncles did move to Hollywood for a short period of time, I think just a few years, and he was an extra in movies though he never got a speaking part. And then there was another brother who eventually ended up in the Midwest, in Madison, where he helped to start a film archive, and he stayed there until he died, which was not that long ago actually. I did not go to the funeral, because I had a lot of funerals last year, and one more seemed unnecessary.
    And, of course, I work as a lawyer for a cable company, the name of which I don’t feel comfortable stating in this interview, on rights and issues for their original programming. I minored in film at NYU—we were in a class together there, right? I thought you looked familiar. And I always thought I would do entertainment law, the whole time I was in law school. There was really no question I would do otherwise. My family has always relaxed by watching movies. When I think of my childhood, I think of my hand in a bucket of popcorn. It’s quite visceral, this memory. Whenever I smell butter I feel small and comforted and safe. Just talking about it now makes me want to lick my fingers.

Mazie’s Diary, March 1, 1918
    I met a nun today. Holy moly, my first nun.
    It’s not like I’ve never seen a nun before. They’re all over the place, those Catholics, trying to save everyone’s soul on the Bowery, all the people having too much fun for their own good. But they’ve always left me alone before. I don’t know why. Maybe my dresses are too fine for them to bother with me. But I’m sitting in that booth all day, a working stiff, doing what I do. So now they’re after me I guess.
    All right, I was taking a nip from the flask, it’s true. A nip and a cigarette, no one can blame me. I’d read all my True Romance s, and there wasn’t another show for twenty minutes. Jeanie had already stopped by to drop off my lunch, she was off to the track. People were hustling by on the sidewalk, but no one stopped to say hello. Cars choking on the street, cursed train rumbling above. Nothing left to do but drink.
    So I lift the flask to my mouth, and then out of nowhere, there she is, her face pressed up against the glass of my cage, her hands to the bars. I screamed.
    She said: Before you drink, think.
    I caught my breath, but then I was seeing red.
    I said: I’m thinking just fine.
    I tipped the end of the flask into my