I inherited this from Alice, while helping her consolidate her seven storage spaces. It was her 45 vinyl record carrying case when she was a pre-teen. Inside I found several gems, including the beautiful picture sleeve singles for "Lonesome Town" by Ricky Nelson, "What am I Supposed to Do" by Ann-Margret and "Johnny-Angel" by Shelly Fabares.
...... ( From a text that I received October 10, 2009 ) ......
"Stand back while I spin the roulette wheel and see where it stops !", "I will be incommunicado for several weeks my darling, as I just got my last lump sum of cash for the sale of the house." "I'll be in touch"...
That is the last time that I ever heard from my mysterious friend Alice. Alice and I became acquainted in my early days while I was working at a diner, right off the Hudson river. Alice was a big girl and not easily missed in a crowd. She was about 5'10" with wispy brown hair the color of nutmeg and a roundish, cherubic face with kind, expressive brown eyes.
We became fast friends and even talked and met outside of work, although I never actually really knew anything about her. Alice would never tell me where she lived, worked, or where she really came from. There were so many contradictions about her even in the beginning but I just ignored them, after all it was New York City. Very youthful for her undisclosed age she was a big girl, reminiscent of little Edie from the film Grey Gardens, intellectual, but very warm and kind hearted. I could never quite peg her years and Alice would grimace if I tried to guess it, so it was taboo and strictly verboten to ask Alice her real age. In fact, Alice told me that she was once brought in to a police station and questioned as to why she scratched her birth date off both her license and passport !
......"Go Ask Alice" ......
Alice could talk about any subject with great knowledge and was an incredible authority on classic celebrities and the Zodiac. She could tell you the sun, rising and moon sign of any movie star. This was however, one of many very odd details about her as Alice seemed to have many "missing" time periods in her life. It became apparent to me that Alice seemed to have no memory of the popular music, events or celebrities during the 1980's and some of the late 1990's. She seemed to know way too much about the early 1950's to be as young as she put out to be. Despite these numerous peculiarities Alice and I just clicked immediately and in many ways we were kindred spirits. We would often sing together and quite well. I would start crooning " Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte " and Alice would join in right away in perfect harmony. Yet, despite all of these connections Alice remained an even more enigmatic and elusive story than Merlin himself to me. I almost felt that she was leading a double life and was merely "slumming" it on the streets whenever she wanted some adventure.
After many months of conversations it turned out that Alice had not worked in many years and that she lived off a large amount of inherited stocks and bonds that she would cash-in whenever she ran low on funds, but then by 2008 that mountain of funds was running out. Alice would live from motel to motel all around the city, in Manhattan, Queens and even Jersey. Unfortunately, Alice was extravagant and lived in motels on room service and outside of them in fine restaurants and was often running out of money in between those stock and bond cash-ins. Alice told me of many times that she would have to stay up all night at the airport or in a bus station until her money came through. I was perplexed and shocked by this behavior and I was even more shocked at her response to my... "Why don't you get a job?, I'll help you get one". Alice's answer was, "You don't understand I was not meant to have to work !" What could I say to that?
Alice and I were both information seekers and scattered scanners. I remember that she was a member of the "Cloud Society" online and Alice would often print out their beautiful photographs for me. We both loved anything retro especially from the 1950's, such as rotary telephones, record players, vinyl and even typewriter machines. There was still something missing to our friendship that I could not quite put my finger on.
Time went by and yet Alice remained a puzzling mystery. She wouldn't even tell me what borough she was staying in for the night when she would call. It was a bit of a turn off for me as I felt she was hiding some dark secrets... or did not trust me and so I felt that we could not be real friends. I never met anyone who knew her in any capacity, not even acquaintances on the street. Her family were all gone (or so she said), like mine. Alice came and went and returned throughout those years, until she ran out of stocks. That is when I saw Alice get more and more desperate and yet she would do nothing to change her situation. Alice also had a storage unit in every borough which was expensive and draining her, yet she kept them and continued to live in motels and dine out, as if the cash flow would never end. Alice would not listen to reason and I watched her gambling with luck and taking insane chances with her precarious existence, helplessly.
... "Alice doesn't live here ... or there ... anymore" ...
Alice only had one last resort once all the stocks and bonds were gone and that was to sell her house in Brooklyn. She had inherited it from her late mother and it had only been a burden as it was falling apart after years sitting empty and neglected. It was unlivable without working plumbing or water. It also had no heat, no electric and numerous leaks from the roof into almost every room in the large home. It was all very Grey Gardens which was quite appropriate, as I had said before that Alice was very reminiscent of Little Edie Beale in many ways. I would have roughed it and stayed there in her situation, found a job and fixed my life, but not Alice. She said she was meant to wander the city, study the cloud formations overhead and learn different philosophies on transient, nomadic life.
It was harder and harder to have sympathy for her, watching her throwing away all that money that she never had to work for. I really liked Alice though, very much so in fact I grew to feel as if she was a long lost family member and she was one of the few ghosts in this novel that I actually became close friends with.
I never saw or heard from Alice again after that text that I received in 2009. I did receive several missed calls from her... mostly in the middle of the night, but could never get through to her again after that. It appeared that she had sold the house and was going to start the motel life again. Alice was ready the roll the dice and spin the roulette wheel once more, but this time it was her last bet. In between, I had moved to Wheeling, West Virginia, and Manhattan was a million miles from my mind. One winter day bored at home, I found an old birthday card from Alice and I discovered that it had an address written inside of it. It was the closest I ever got to knowing anything about dear sweet Alice. It was a PO Box from Grand Central station NYC. Both of the letters that I wrote to her were returned, undeliverable, no such person at such address. I still wonder what really happened to Alice, but I'm sure now that I will never know.
Alice ...... last seen in Manhattan ...... disappeared October of 2009
