When I was very young, my family rented out a room to a boarder. It seems that it was a more common thing to do back then, in the early 70’s, than it is now. Working, middle class families would often rent out a spare room for a weekly rate to help make ends meet. Indeed, we had a spare room, albeit a small one. It was in the upstairs part of the house, at the end of the hall, and situated somewhat off to itself from the rest of my family’s domain.
Our tenant was one Mr. Walter Zanick. I only knew his name from the very rare occasions when I’d see a letter addressed to him. It would be delivered with our mail, and my mother would lay it on the floor outside the door to his room. He’d leave every morning, six days a week at about 6:00 am, before any of us were awake. Occasionally, if I couldn’t sleep, I’d hear him coming in late at night. After midnight at the earliest, sometimes later, in the wee hours of the night. I remember seeing Mr. Zanick only a handful times over the years, usually on a Sunday morning, when he’d leave the house later than normal, and say a simple “Hello” if I happened to be playing outside as he left. Other than that, it was almost as if he didn’t exist; I rarely ever saw him or heard him. I simply knew that he was the gentleman that lived in the room at the end of the hall.
One Saturday afternoon, when I was nine years old, I recall my parents getting the spare key to Mr. Zanick’s room (a skeleton key, at that) and unlocking his door. I asked why they were going into Mr. Zanick’s room. They had gotten a phone call informing them that he had passed away the day before. When the door to the mysterious room at the end of the hall swung open, I remember how strikingly different it seemed compared to all the other rooms in the house. Ours was the type of house that was “lived in” with knick knacks all about, books and records (yes, vinyl records), and always plenty of toys in the kids room. In stark contrast was this room I’d never seen the inside of before, which couldn’t have been bigger than about 10’x6’. There was a neatly made single bed against the wall, and a modest sized dresser against the opposing wall, with barely a few feet of space between the two. Next to the headboard of the bed, under the sole window in the room, was a small nightstand. There was a watch, a pair of glasses, and some cufflinks on the dresser. A sole book laid atop the night stand, and behind that was a single, plain wooden picture frame with a color 8x10 photo. It all seemed so empty, and cold, and lifeless. My parents removed about a half dozen suits from the small closet, and packed them into a box, along with a number of shirts and slacks from the dresser, some still wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, as was customary from the local Chinese laundry back in those days.
Apparently Mr. Zanick had no family, no relatives and no next of kin, so there it was; all that remained of this mysterious gentleman’s life was packed up neatly into a box or two and were donated to St. John’s Lutheran Church for their next rummage sale. All except for the photograph that was in that single picture frame on his nightstand. I had asked my parents if we could keep that, and they said sure. The photo was of Mr. Zanick celebrating New Years Eve at what could have been any of the local bars in South Brooklyn at the time. Party hats, (mostly) smiling faces and a hearty toast were displayed all along the bar. I don’t know if they were truly his friends, just acquaintances, or simply a random gathering of other neighborhood folks who had nowhere else to go on New Years Eve. I suppose that will always remain a mystery, much like Mr. Zanick himself. Even though it’s become creased and faded over the decades, I still have the photograph to this day. It makes me wonder how painful it must be to grow old without any family, or any real friends, or anyone to celebrate those special occasions with. Then again, behind those raised glasses on that particular New Years Eve, those were indeed smiling faces.
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