III. A Threat.
It was inevitable that The Umpire should eventually run afoul of Magda. A ballet dancer in the forties and fifties, now elderly, Magda was a tough old broad who had cultivated a life-long habit of never taking any shit from anyone. Magda was famous for threatening junkies—with a pistol—who attempted to shoot up in her shared bathroom.
I was sitting there in the lobby when Magda came walking through, dressed jazz-age cool, her hair in a snow white bun. Though she wasn’t frail, she walked with a cane, perhaps for defensive purposes. As soon as she caught sight of Magda, The Umpire began running through her usual repertoire of signs, unambiguously disparaging this time.
Most people just ignore The Umpire, or else, if they’re feeling cruel, they make a series of their own gestures back at her. Magda, on the other hand, advanced right up to where she was standing, and said, “Something bothering you, honey?”
Though showing, I thought, some distress, The Umpire continued to alternately hold her nose and give the old heave-ho.
“You got something to say to me?” Magda asked.
The reply was another series up hand signals.
I cringed, half expecting her to assault the Umpire with her cane. Instead, showing remarkable restraint, she marched up to the front desk, and said, “You better keep that woman away from me, or I’m gonna kill her.”
“Ah, come on, Magda,” the manager said, in his Brooklyn accent. “Give her a break. She’s crazy.”
The Umpire had followed, either unafraid, or, more likely, compelled by her madness, and now stood nearby, making her signals behind Magda’s back.
“I know damn well that bitch is crazy,” Magda said. “I’m gonna kill her crazy ass.”
Ed Hamilton
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