His old place was on Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side. Things had changed quite a bit since he’d left, but there were familiar signs that things hadn’t changed much at all.
He didn't know why he had returned—not really. Just that something in the marrow of his bones told him he had to. Then, just as he arrived at the entrance of the old tenement, it dawned on him why: he had forgotten to forward his mail from his former address and figured it was probably time he came back to pick it up.
His name was Isaac or Isaiah. He couldn’t remember which. He was in his early forties, tall but stooped slightly, not from age but from the cumulative gravity of forgotten burdens. His face bore the look of a man who was once sharply handsome but whose features had been worn smooth by years of small regrets, vague triumphs, and emotional erosion.
His hands trembled in his coat pockets as he approached the building on Ludlow Street. He had no key. He could barely remember if he ever had one. But he knew the mailbox was still there. His name—beginning with I—etched into brass or maybe scrawled in fading Sharpie. The mail he’d come to retrieve would remind him who he was.
Inside, the lobby was a ruinous waiting room from a forgotten era. Upholstered chairs slumped under the weight of years with the occasional derelict sprawled, reading The New Yorker from a decade earlier. A single fluorescent bulb flickered above. The air smelled of wet plaster, boiled cabbage, and something unidentifiable but deeply municipal.
And there, guarding the hallway like Cerberus in a windbreaker, stood Dan.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The man who couldn’t remember his name blinked. “Oh. Sorry to intrude on your afternoon. Let me introduce myself.” He went silent, searching his mind frantically.
“Yes? Are you lost?”
“Yeah. Listen, I need your help. I moved out a while ago—used to live here. 4th floor. And I don’t know how it happened, but I never left a forwarding address.”
“You used to live here?”
“It’s been a while.”
“What’s your name?”
“This is going to sound—I don’t know. I’m having a tough time remembering it. I mean, it’ll come to me. I’ve just been walking all day, and the sun gets to ya’. Anyway, I believe … my name starts with an I if that helps.”
Dan folded his arms across his chest. “That’s real specific. Got I.D., Mr. I?”
“Yeah, no, that’s why I’m here. I believe my I.D.—all of my information is …”
“In the mail that you never forwarded.”
“Exactly.”
Dan narrowed his eyes.
The man who couldn’t remember his name paused. “Isaac! Isaiah, maybe. No, my father’s name was Isaiah.”
“Indiana Jones, maybe?”
“Very funny. No, it’s Isaac. Yes. We’re getting somewhere now. Isaac, son of Isaiah. If you can just let me go upstairs. They used to leave the mail by the door.”
“Look, my man, I’ve lived here forever. I don’t remember you. Besides, no one leaves mail by the door. Mail is put into mailboxes.”
“You weren’t here when I lived here.”
“Well, I’m here now.”
“Are you the building manager?”
“No, I’m not the building manager. I’m the acting building manager. Name is Dan. ‘Dan, the acting building manager.’ I volunteer to manage in an unofficial capacity. Understand? That means I’m the one to talk to. There’s no front desk clerk, concierge, or superintendent—we all pitch in. But I’m the one the tenants come to in an emergency. Because I’m responsible. I’m on the weekend neighborhood watch. I had a new security system put in. I’m in constant contact with police. That’s why I can’t let just anyone in here.”
“Well, Dan. Do I look dangerous?”
“There’s something about you that comes across as dangerous, yeah.”
“Listen. It just came to me, I remember there was a buzzer that used to stick on the second floor. Right? Everyone used to complain about it. They used to complain about that and the guy with the parrot in 3C, I think. You’ve heard the parrot squawking at all hours, haven’t you?”
“There’s no buzzer, there’s no parrot. I remember people who live here. You? I don’t remember.”
“This is Ludlow Street, right?”
“Yeah. Ludlow. You would know that if you used to live here.”
A laugh burst from the corner of the room. Isaac turned.
There, perched on one of the slumping chairs, was a figure dressed in a black suit and thin tie. His hair was slicked back in a style two decades too late, and his eyes glimmered with wild amusement.
“The picture of a man lost, alone, and forgotten,” the man said in a crisp, uncanny Rod Serling impression, “He arrives as a stranger, certain he belongs. But time, as it always does, has moved on... and taken the mailman with it.”
Isaac stared. “Who the hell is that?”
Dan sighed. “Him? That’s Joey. He does impersonations. He’s been on a Rod Serling kick of late. Don’t mind him. He’s a character. Buys his suits from a haberdashery on Orchard.”
Joey then lit a cigarette and continued. “Imagine, if you will, a mailbox so deep it echoes—a chasm lined with regrets, overdue notices, and the occasional cry for help—stamped first class."
Isaac grimaced. “Hey! I’m serious. My life’s on hold right now because I screwed up. I don’t mean to inconvenience anyone. I need to retrieve my mail.”
“Nope,” said Dan flatly. “That’s not gonna happen. I could get in trouble with the law if I went through the mail unauthorized. So, I can’t help you. Besides, if mail sits idle, it’s returned to sender.”
“All of the mail?”
“Well, when did you move out?”
“It must have been …ten years ago, maybe.”
“Ten years ago! And you expect your back mail to be here still?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
Joey stood, blew a plume of smoke, and slowly approached. “The stranger pleads his case to the gatekeeper, but a decade or more has passed and the gatekeeper holds firm. Perhaps behind that door lies truth. Or perhaps... only junk mail and reminders of a life unpaid.”
“You know, you could really get on someone’s nerves with that! I need to look for my mail! That’s all!” Issac barked, eyes widening.
Dan stepped between them. “That’s enough. You got no ID, no key, and no proof you ever lived here. You’re not getting past this lobby.”
Issac swallowed hard. “Wait—I just remembered. My mother. She lives on the first floor. Apartment 1B.”
Dan tilted his head. “You just remembered? How would you just remember something like that?”
“I’m telling you, my head is in a fog!”
Dan turned to Joey, “He just remembered his mother lives here!”
“I—yeah … she’s … she’s elderly. She’s hard of hearing. German Jewish woman, you know. She escaped the Nazis to come here. She’s lived in that apartment since before I was born.”
“She escaped the Nazis?”
“Yeah, people did that, you know!”
“When was that, like, 70 years ago?”
“Maybe more.”
“And you expect her to be still living here?”
“Why wouldn’t she? She would have written to me if she died.”
“How could she have written to you if she was dead?”
“I mean BEFORE she died.”
“Before she died, she could have written to you she was about to die. But you would have never received the letter since you didn’t have your mail forwarded. Am I right about that?”
“Yes, you’re probably right about that, Dan! Could we just check all the same? She was alive when I moved out. I remember the cabbage soup she made that afternoon!”
Dan shook his head slowly. “Fine, Mr. No-name! One knock. If she doesn’t answer, you’re out. Which apartment is it again?”
“1B. You can smell the cabbage soup from here.”
The three of them—Isaac, Dan, and Joey—moved slowly down the hall, footsteps echoing. They stopped before 1B. Isaac lifted his hand to knock. Dan pushed him to the side and pounded on the door.
“Mrs... Whatever-your-name-is! You got a visitor!”
Silence.
“Ma’, it’s your son! Open up!” Isaac bellowed.“She’s hard of hearing,” he said to Dan. “Try again.”
Dan knocked louder.
Joey clasped his hands like a funeral director. “Some men leave home. Others are erased by it. He came in search of a dead letter with no forwarding address; what he found was his soul without a postmark."
“How would you like a signpost up ahead rammed down your f*****g throat, Mr. Twilight Zone?”
Dan turned, “All right, that’s enough.”
“MA’! OPEN UP! It’s me! Isaac!”
“Come on, let’s go,” Dan implored.
Isaac turned to the door, placing a hand on the wood. “No, please! She’s in there. She must be. Maybe she’s asleep. She might have my mail. She used to keep things for me!”
Dan pointed. “Out!”
“Schwartz! I remember now. My name is Isaac Schwartz! My mother’s name is Ida Schwartz! She lives here! You have to believe me!”
“There’s no one by that name living in this building. You’ll have to leave, or I’ll call the police.”
Isaac was marched back through the hall; Joey followed, whispering dramatically, “In a world where time wobbles, cabbage soup goes unheated, and mothers are so hard of hearing, they answer only in dreams, every window casts the wrong reflection, every door knob tells a different riddle. Home isn’t a place; it’s a mirage."
“Shut up!” Isaac snapped as he was shown the exit.
Outside, the air had grown colder. The city roared obliviously around him. Issac stood on the curb, unsure what to do next. Joey remained behind him like a shadow with a stage voice.
“Portrait of Isaac Schwartz, a man denied. A life postponed. All for a key he doesn’t possess... and a mailbox full of ghosts.”
“F**k off!”Isaac said as he took off down Ludlow. He didn’t look back.
Isaac wandered the streets like a man sleepwalking through his own obituary. The buildings loomed overhead like stone-faced judges, their windows blank and unblinking. He turned down Broome, then Essex, then back again, always circling Ludlow as if orbiting the epicenter of a trauma he couldn’t name.
Then he saw him.
A postman.
Blue uniform. Cap low. Wheeling a squeaky mail cart overflowing with envelopes and unspoken verdicts.
“Hey!” Isaac shouted, stumbling forward.
The postman didn’t stop. He turned the corner onto Rivington like a figment vanishing into a dream.
Isaac followed. “Hey! Hey, wait!”
He turned onto Rivington—but the postman was already halfway up Clinton, then somehow across Delancey. The cart’s wheels clacked like typewriter keys, recording an invisible history. Isaac’s lungs burned, and his legs stiffened, but he couldn’t stop.
He cut through a narrow alley behind what used to be a butcher shop. Once, long ago, he’d stolen a pickle from a barrel there and been chased with a meat cleaver. The smell of sawdust and brine returned in a flash, as did the memory of his first kiss in the alley behind Bernstein’s Books, where the girl had tasted like bubble gum and library dust.
Isaac passed a boarded-up storefront that had once been his father’s favorite deli—"Herschel's Fine Cuts." He could still hear his father complaining about the prices, even though the pastrami was free.
On Orchard Street, he nearly lost the postman again. But just as the figure turned toward the Williamsburg Bridge and was about to vanish into myth, a different sound stopped Isaac cold—a low mechanical hum.
A mail truck pulled up beside him.
It idled like a beast catching its breath. The driver leaned out, cigarette in one hand, elbow on the door frame. He had eyes like smoked glass and a voice like dry felt.
“I’m looking for Isaac Schwartz!”
“I’m Isaac Schwartz!”
“Oh yeah? ’The’ Isaac Schwartz? Used to play stickball with my little brother?” he said.
Isaac nodded, panting. “Stoopball.”
“Stoopball. Morris Feldman.”
“Yeah, I remember Morris.”
“He died. Couple’a years back. Yeah.”
“Sorry.”
The postman looked away as if to remember, then quickly looked back.
“Could be I got somethin’ for you, Isaac,” the postman said. “Hop in.”
Isaac didn’t argue. The cabin smelled like ink, engine grease, and unmistakably boiled cabbage. Isaac and the postman exchanged looks.
“Where you been all these years?”
“I couldn’t tell you if I tried.”
“That bad, hah? The old neighborhood. Right? I remember your father, Isaiah. Had the haberdashery over on Orchard, right? That was your father.”
“Isaiah, yes,” Isaac said breathlessly.
“How is it to be back? You see what these rich b******s did to our neighborhood? It’s hardly recognizable!”
“It’s happening all over.”
“It’s looney tunes, is what it is. Listen. Morris—he spoke good about you. He always liked you.”
“He was a good kid. Morris.”
“He was a bookmaker, just so you know. Started off to make ends meet and then he went a little wild. Went to Vegas. Got in with the wrong crowd. Went into debt. And they killed him.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah. Debt! When we was kids, you could always work off your debt. But now … they don’t wanna hear it. Anyway …” The postman reached behind his seat and produced a small bundle of envelopes, yellowed and slightly curled at the corners. He handed them over solemnly.
“Where’d you get these?” Isaac asked.
“Dead letter bin. Comes around now and again, like old curses. You were gone, so I figured I’d keep them for you.”
Isaac turned them over. His name, Isaac Schwartz, was scrawled in his mother’s handwriting.
“You’re a lifesaver.”
“Don’t mention it. You treated my brother right; I treat you right. Someone’s gotta uphold the golden rule, no? These b******s—they’ll walk all over you if you let ‘em.”
His fingers trembled as he opened the first envelope.
My dear Isaac,
You left in such a hurry. I don’t know why. You didn’t say goodbye, not properly. But I understand. Things got heavy. I’ve lived long enough to know the weight people carry when they disappear.
Your father’s papers arrived yesterday—immigration, debt notices, something from the VA. I don’t know what it all means. I wish you’d call. Or write. I made cabbage soup. It’s in the freezer for you.
I miss you terribly.
Love,Ma.
Isaac pressed the paper to his chest. His mother’s words were like a match struck in the fog. Tears began streaming down Isaac’s face. He doubled over.
“You all right there, Isaac?” the postman asked, taking his eyes off the road.
“I’m okay, I’m okay.”
“Wanna hug or somethin’?”
“No, keep your eyes on the road, please!”
“Don’t be falling apart on me.”
Isaac nodded, took a breath, then opened the second letter.
Mr. Schwartz,
We regret to inform you that your claim for remission under Section 37B has been denied due to incomplete records and unverified residency. Your father’s estate balance, including outstanding debts from 1963 through 1987, has been transferred to your name.
Due to a clerical backlog, this notice is retroactively enforced as of ten years ago. Immediate appearance is required at the originating address of record—Ludlow Street—pending administrative closure.
Failure to comply may result in asset forfeiture and memory retention penalties.
Sincerely,New York Municipal Debt Reconciliation Department
Isaac looked up, pale. “This can’t be real.”
The postman smirked. “Oh, it’s real enough.”
“What the hell is this? What do they mean, 'memory retention penalties'?”
The postman flicked his cigarette out the window.
“Ludlow Street used to have a jail; most of the inmates were debtors imprisoned by their creditors, right on the corner of Broome. They say the basement’s still there. Buried under time. People owed too much; they went in. Didn’t always come back out.”
Isaac’s throat tightened.
“Why do I have to bear my father’s burden?”
The postman shifted into gear. “It’s the debt you pay. You return to make good. Back to your tenement. Make things right.”
Isaac frowned. “Make what right?”
The postman shrugged. “We Jews call it ‘make teshuva’—unburden yourself from whatever you brought back here. Then return to the pure soul you were born with.”
The mail truck dropped Isaac off with a hiss of hydraulics and the smell of stale upholstery. The postman gave him a small, two-fingered salute and drove off without another word.
Isaac stood before the tenement once more.
It was darker now, though the streetlamps flickered on in quiet protest. The building looked taller somehow, its windows more numerous, like eyes that had multiplied to keep better watch. The brass doorknob felt warmer this time like someone had been waiting behind it.
He pushed it open.
Inside, the lobby was quiet. No derelicts. No decaying chairs. Just Joey, sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by envelopes.
“I see you’ve read all my mail,” Isaac muttered.
Joey lit a cigarette, creased his lips, and stared directly ahead.
Isaac stepped over the threshold into the hallway. He felt it immediately—something weighty and slow pressing on his chest. Like humidity. Or guilt.
From the stairwell above came the sound of something dragging. Isaac turned. Dan was standing at the top of the first flight. Still in his windbreaker. Still with that bland, officious expression.
“Back so soon, Mr. I?” he said.
“I need to settle something.”
Dan nodded once. “I’ll show you the way.”
He stepped aside, revealing a narrow staircase that hadn’t existed before, twisting up like an intestinal memory. Dimly lit. No railing. Just brass nameplates nailed into each riser, one after another.
G. SchwartzI. SchwartzL. SchwartzReturn to SenderReturn to SenderReturn to Sender
Isaac climbed, one step at a time, past names he didn’t recognize and ones that rang faint bells in forgotten rooms. At the top was a simple door labeled: Administrative Closure Office.
He knocked.
It opened immediately, revealing a room that looked like a DMV designed by M.C. Escher. Desks on the ceiling, clocks spinning backward, clerks typing on invisible keyboards.
A woman looked up from behind an enormous stack of manila folders. Her glasses were cracked; her lipstick was administrative red.
“Isaac Schwartz?”
He nodded.
“Please sign here.” She handed him a clipboard. It was blank.
“What am I signing?”
“Receipt of consequences.”
He signed.
She handed him a single envelope.
FINAL NOTICEStamped in red.
He opened it.
Inside was a single sentence: “You are now free to remember.”
Isaac blinked.
The lights flickered. Somewhere in the bowels of the building, a typewriter dinged.
The buzz of a stuck service bell on the second floor. The squawk of the parrot in 3C, shrill and indignant: “You again?”
Memory cracks open like an old mailbox forced with a kitchen knife.
His mother, humming off-key in the kitchen, wielding a ladle like a conductor's baton. The rhythmic thump of cabbage hitting the pot.
Stoopball with Morris, the corner bully-philosopher who quoted Aristotle between pitches. A sharp throw, a sharper insult, and always the same call: “Do-over!”
Lillian, red curls and a chipped tooth, who once gave him a marble for his birthday and a black eye the same afternoon. Years later, behind Bernstein’s Books, she would kiss him like it was a dare—and disappear the next week without a word.
His father’s laugh—deep, brief, and used sparingly, like a precious spice. Usually, while reading overdue bills aloud as if they were comedy.
The smell of soup. Always the soup. Eternal, boiling, fragrant with regret.
And then—the postman. “Some people you gotta hear from, even if they don’t write. It’s looney tunes, is what it is.”
The memory hits him like a wave. Isaac steadies himself on the banister, eyes wide. “I lived here.”
He was back in the lobby. Dan stood beside him, holding out a steaming bowl.
“Cabbage soup,” he said. “Your mother’s recipe. Found it upstairs. Between the records of your delinquent taxes and your bar mitzvah photos.”
Isaac took the bowl. Sniffed.
“Smells... right.”
Dan clapped him on the back. “Congratulations. You’ve achieved bureaucratic redemption. Mazel tov.”
“What now?”
Joey took another hit from his cigarette and stepped forward into the spotlight. “In a building where memory accrues interest and guilt is paid in installments, one man has retrieved his mail—and maybe a piece of himself. His name is Isaac Schwartz, late of Ludlow Street, recently reinstated in the Book of the Remembered. Whether he stays or goes is his choice now. The debt is settled. The soup is warm. And the mailbox... is finally empty.”
Isaac smirked. Then sat on the lobby floor and spooned the soup into his mouth.
© Michael Arturo, 2025
“The Book of the Remembered: A Deep Dive into ‘Late of Ludlow Street’”
Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.
Support by hitting the like button or leaving a comment.
Michael Arturo writes fiction, contemporary political/social commentary, parodies, parables, satire. Michael was born and raised in New York City and has a background in theater and film. His plays have been staged in New York, London, Boston, and Los Angeles.
