This is Barb Troiano. She lives upstairs from me. She’s a fish hoarder. When I took this shot, she was going through a mackerel phase, but there’s been other stuff, believe me. Scallops in their shells, shad roe, eels. I’m not completely sure where she gets this fish, but I sense she’s got a connection to the Fulton Fish Market, I think a mob guy she used to date. She’s spoken fondly of Eddie, and I’ve seen him, or some older guy, hobbling up to her apartment with wooden boxes. He looks to be about five foot two, maybe Irish. Not bad looking. Old flames die hard.
Needless to say, her apartment stinks. About four times a year the social services send a group of men in hazmat suits to clean through all this misery (she doesn’t even eat fish, so this compulsion is truly wasteful). They often resort to hanging a thick plastic tube out her window that leads to a dumpster, which quickly gets filled. Then for a week or two I’ll see social workers marching in and out of her place with clipboards. I can hear Barb crying that she’ll never do it again. She’s reformed. But then she’ll start screaming that she hasn’t had a paint job in 16 years and she’s due one, as if these social workers had any say over that. She’s got a complicated mind. On two occasions she’s dropped typing books off at my apartment. Barb seems to think they’ll help with my career.
The eviction notices build up, but it’s hard to evict anyone in this welcoming city, especially an older person. And the thing is, Barb is nice. She does an amazing Billie Holiday interpretation. That’s probably one of the reasons Eddie fell for her. I wonder what she looked like when she was young.
It’s now early spring and I’m sensing it’s about time for another hazmat show upstairs. It smells, but it has been worse. At the moment, I’m thinking slightly over the hill mussels. Poor Barb. She’s a tormented soul. Maybe a good candidate for Lexapro, not that she’d ever see a psychiatrist. I don’t want her evicted. Where would she go? I just want her to stop what she’s doing.
Erica De Mane 
Slip a good recipe for ciopino in Barb’s mailbox.
Zingara, I’ve never known her to cook. She gets take out, or goes to an old school Italian place on 11th Street, called Gene’s. I wonder what they think of her smell?
Erica! Love you!
Love you too, Mark. And I’m missing the sea breezes. Enrica
That butt-load of fish slithering out of the freezer reminds me of the time I used to teach English to Vietnamese refugees. Some of the families began a thriving business making n u o c m a m (fish sauce) in their back yards. You may know that the process involves the dripping of the rotting fish & collecting the run-off which becomes the fish sauce. The American neighbors found that the odors, the flies & the constant traffic of patrons buying the product, became intolerable. The law was called, they put a stop to it & I’m guessing that the patrons found that “World Market” was a place to buy fish sauce.
Zingara, That’s a great story. And my grandparents’ neighbors in Westchester used to complain about the boards of drying tomato paste in their front yard. They didn’t know how good they had it.
Yes, Mark, I love Erica, too! She’s smart, witty, creative & knowledgeable…what’s not to love?!?! I’m proud to be one of her groupies.
Zingara, I second your emotions where Ms. De Mane is concerned. She is a national treasure and one who really deserves far wider exposure than she is enjoying at the moment.
Girl of Steel, Thank you so much. But actually I feel sufficiently exposed at the moment. Although, tis true, a little extra cash would be nice.
I once had to deal with a large, but somewhat smaller batch of mackerel. Summer of ’68 I was in Maine in a “Marine Biology” program (scuba diving and fishing) and three of us caught about 60 mackerel one day on Mt. Desert Island before we had to go back to the summer camp (basically a summer school for those who needed it). The camp cooks took all the fish and fried them up for breakfast the next day. Needless to say, we were even less well liked by the other campers after that episode.
That’s some fish story. I’d move if I were you. She’ll never change and before long, she’ll be into sharks, dolphins and whales. Woman has a problem…don’t we all.
Actually, Michael, I didn’t mention that she is dead. Last year. I went to her funeral. So many ‘animals’, as the firemen call them, in her apartment. All racing around, frantic, as the place was finally cleaned out. Gloria Troiano was her real name. Not fish, but take out containers, years full. She was the mistress of Carmine De Sapio, the Tammany Hall mobster (also a Fordham grad). Grand dame of insane misery and confusion. I miss her.
I’m sorry you didn’t know her the way I did. I knew Gloria Triano my entire life. She was my mother’s best friend. She attended my wedding in 1990. I had last seen her in 1994. Her hoarding became known to me in the 90’s, she never allowed any of my family in her apartment. I spoke to her on the phone probably 3 months before she died. She told me that adult protective services was looking after her. She wouldn’t allow me to visit her. She was NEVER Carmine’s mistress. She was his personal secretary for more than 20 years. She was married twice. She was actually extremely intelligent. I’m sorry you had to witness the crazy. She was a great lady, that i am grateful to have known.
Jeannine, Thanks so much for writing. I wish I had known her then.
Molto Trieste…ma, Requiam in pace, Gloria…
…oops, *typo alert*…r e q u I e m in p a c e m.
Oh, what a story. While i feel badly for those of you who must endure the smell, and I am sure it is truly hideous and pervasive, I can not help but think that she is a tortured soul. I feel badly for her.