Mrs.Levitz paced impatiently half a dozen times up and down her side of the block on East Culver Avenue looking for Joey. She had expected him to come calling up the street nearly quarter of an hour ago. Joey the Rag Man was late. And it was very odd. Very odd indeed.This was the day the Rag Man always came. And Mrs. Esther Levitz, had rags. Many, many rags. Joey needed to come and rid Mrs. Levitz of the growing number of rags which she had collected and had so nicely washed and neatly folded and were now taking up almost the entire space of her dining table. Esther Levitz always washed her rags. And folded them. Not all of the women on the block took the time to do that. And Mrs. Levitz knew for a fact that Mrs Kowalski, in particular, never ever washed her rags. Mrs. Kowalaski simply shoved them all, dirty, and smelly into a big burlap sack. Mrs. Levitz thought that was deplorable. And it certainly made Mrs. Kowalski look bad. Esther Levitz somehow made sure of that. Dirty rags. Dirty house. That's what Mrs. Levitz used to tell her friends. In private. But not Mrs. Levitz. Esther Levitz prided herself on never appearing to anyone in a bad light. They don't gossip about me, she had happily told herself. Or my nice clean rags. Esther Levitz was a tidy woman. Neat. Orderly. Shipshape. And unlike the errant Rag Man this very afternoon, Esther Levitz was always punctual.
Mrs. Levitz walked slowly north on Culver and stopped in front of the German Bakery. Joey the Rag Man should have passed the intersection up at Fourth Avenue and Broadway half an hour ago and even if he was moving a little slower than usual, she should have been able to now see him pushing his rickety old cart past number 150 and Mrs. Tompkin's boarding house. But still, the man was no where to be seen. Esther knew Joey's route. And she knew his times and she knew his routine. She knew it well. She knew it like she knew the exact number of steps it took to walk from her small kitchen to the front door. And back. How many street cars passed daily on Burgundy Street and if they were on time at the Fourth Avenue stop. Or not. And she knew Joey the Rag Man's route, his times and his routine as well as she knew the exact number of dreadful little curly hairs on Mr. Levit'z left shoulder which she counted each night before she turned off the little bedside light and went to sleep. If he was anything, and Mrs.Levitz had decided long ago, Joey the Rag Man was many things, slovenly, filthy, rude of manner and smelling of whiskey and stale cigar smoke--Joey the Rag Man was always prompt. Dirty. And something awful to behold. But always on time.
Esther Levitz, annoyed to distraction, chafing with impatience and worn from the unexpected and unwelcome afternoon walk up and down her own street, stopped and stood in front of the Tortelli grocers and took one more long hard, irritable glance back up the street. Nothing. No ramshackle cart. No tattered dirty smelly Joey The Rag Man. Esther Levitz turned to the window of the market, cupped a hand over her brow and peered thru the dingy soot covered glass at the large Hamilton clock Mr.Tortelli had hung last summer just above the counter. The one with the big face. And the big numbers.The mercifully easy to read clock. It was three thirty. "Three thirty!" Mrs. Levitz heard herself exclaim aloud. Joey the Rag Man was decidedly and curiously, and terribly annoyingly, late.
Looking casually about her to see if she recognised anyone on the street with whom she might have a talk with about the inconsiderate overdue Rag Man, anyone at all with whom she could share her indignation, and spying no one who she believed had a sympathetic ear, Mrs. Levitz began to slowly suppose that Joey the Rag Man might not simply be late at all. Just perhaps, she began to think, something had happened to Joey. Certainly he wouldn't be late for no apparent reason, she told herself. Not on purpose. Not when he knew quite well that she, Mrs. Esther Levitz, would be waiting for him. Waiting on him with her dining table full of washed and folded rags. No, Esther decided, something had
happened to Joey. Something bad. Something awful. Something perhaps even unspeakable! After all, he was an old man. He drank. He smoked. And only God knew what kind of terrible derelict life the Rag Man lead. When he wasn't collecting Mrs. Levitz' rags. Then an alarming thought came to her. What if Joey wasn't coming.
At all. What if Joey had had an accident. What if he had fallen? Or been beaten unconscious. By thugs. The streets were a dreadful and dangerous place these days. Simply awful. There were thugs and gangsters everywhere it seemed. Mrs. Levitz believed that. Why, just last week Sophie Skinner's grandson's niece's boy had been hit on the head and robbed over on Hoover Street, not two blocks away from home. In broad daylight! A terrible place. The streets of the city. Maybe Joey had been robbed. Or something even worse. More awful than an accident or being robbed. What if Joey the Rag Man was dead. And what if, Esther Levitz imagined, the terrible awful dreadful idea just beginning to materialise, not only was the Rag Man dead, but he was dead because of murder! For all she knew, Joey the Rag Man wasn't late at all, but instead, laying in the middle of Second Street. An old dirty smelly rag man just laying there. In a gutter. Next to his rickety ramshackle cart. Dead. Lifeless and limp. In a pool of his own blood. Robbed. And killed. Murdered in cold blood. In broad daylight!
Esther Levitz shuddered, took a deep breath, gathered herself together for a few anxious moments, then fully convinced of the horrible and absolute certainty of the Rag Man's bloody and murderous demise, Mrs. Levitz, taking great care to look all about and anxiously over her shoulder, on the chance of daylight robbers or thugs or gangsters or blood thirsty killers lurking nearby, scurried quickly down the block toward her East Culver Avenue tenement.
When she had reached the safety of the stoop at number 211, Mrs. Esther Levitz heaved a great sigh of relief and immediately began to ponder what it was she should do next. What options she might have. And as she climbed the steps to her flat, Mrs. Levitz worried to herself and muttered aloud, "Terrible. Terrible. Simply dreadful! Who in God's name will come now to collect my rags?"
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