You Can Take Me, You Can Leave Me

1913. New York, The Lower East Side.

Herschl. He’d disappeared.  Now every morning, just before nine-thirty, Sadie posted herself at the corner of Ludlow and Greene, corseted, rouged, hair curled, an eager sentry in a freshly laundered cotton shirtwaist and skirt.

Ten. Ten-thirty. No Herschl. Throat parched, bunions on fire, Sadie sought the solace of cold lemon tea and a chair pulled up to a bowl of ice chips set in front of her small fan. He would come back. She had her magic spirits; she had her tenant, Mitzi. He’d come riding by like a king on the seat of his ice wagon with his metal tongs and lovely muscles and black peppered-with-white curls, the ice stacked behind like small pieces of Eskimos’ houses. His sweet smile, that polka-dotted bandana around his neck — an adorable Russian gypsy. Wait.