Mama & Mrs. Schlock(c)2018

Brooklyn tenement hard to believe story…

by Dee-Dee Diamond

The weather -worn paint unpainted itself into a crackled crocodile pattern. It was not beige; it was not brown. This old tenement that was the first place I knew as home was tired, but occupied fully with families in the late 1940’s. It was a 4-story walkup.

The neglected, ugly building facade had its identical twin attached-glued… (without even a hiccup), between them.

Their contrast was like an advertisement for a “before & after renovation”. A visual proof of the 2 different landlords’ maintenance of their rent-controlled properties.

#670 Stone Avenue showed up worse because its sibling #674 the Siamese- twin building was freshly painted a flawless matte forest green.

I was always embarrassed by its appearance like it personally was my fault…that my home looked that way. I was too young to understand an absentee landlord’s behavior, then.

The hallways were textured dung- hued plaster. The dim lit stairwell, who's wooden steps creaked, was lit by wall scones that were once gas…the place was built in 1924 or earlier.

The eight-apartment doors were dark wood on their bottom half, with bubbled glass tops. Weak light shone thru the almost translucent, distorted uppers, into the flats’ kitchens.

One night while my family, dad, mama, my sister, brother, and I, plus a guest mama’s girlfriend, were enjoying dinner at our kitchen table.

Mama suddenly jumped up and out of her chair, silently without warning, then she ripped open the kitchen door, and in fell Mrs. Shlock.

She tumbled clumsily onto our kitchen’s linoleum floor.

Mama was secretly on her guard; thus, she alone spotted the shadow of Mrs. Shlock thru the door’s glass. We were occupied with eating, drinking and chatting.

Caught in the snooping act, the fallen woman, lifted herself off our kitchen floor, crawling out stuttering, “I-I was just passing on my trip upstairs, to my apartment” she blatantly lied.

We the family didn’t really believe mama when she suspected our fellow tenant, from the upper floor, this Mrs. Schlock, was eavesdropping at our door.

“Why would she ever want to do this nutty thing”? We’d question her in disbelief.

“She has this odd obsession with me” Mom would say. (In that era, we didn’t use the term “stalking”).

Well, mama was right, we uncontrollably howled, when the now infamous Mrs. was sprawled across our linoleum floor.

This was not the first encounter mama had with this Mrs. Shlock.

There was the afternoon my mother went up to Mrs. Shlock’s apartment on a mission.

Mama almost fainted…when she eyed prominently above her parlor sofa, a painting of a Chinese couple in a garden.

My mother’s lifetime girlfriend from Toronto, Yetta had painted it as a wedding present for my parents, some 20 years earlier.

Confronted Mrs. Schlock fibbed and had the gall, to insist, “Its mine, its mine…”

That truly pissed off my parents as you can well imagine!

They were forced to haul her to small claims court, with the artist, in tow, to get it back. Papa even took a day off of work which he never did, to be in court.

The truth is Mrs. Schlock the thief, saw the painting in our storage space, in the cellar, and just stole it, when she decided she liked it…and it was Mama’s that was a fact! Of course, the court had her return their painting.

Mrs. Schlock was a perpetually a disheveled hausfrau…while her husband was a handsome spiffy gent. He was always clean-shaven & his clothes neatly pressed. It was gossiped on Stone Avenue, that she had tricked her husband. Evidently lying ran in her family as they pretended, she was wealthier and years younger than she really was. Poor naive Mr. Schlock was fooled both ways!

His Mrs. was years older than him.

Now come to to think of it…Mr. & Mrs. Schlock were as a badly attached pair like #670 and #674 Stone Avenue.