by Sidney Hart
When the door to the cabin closed I unfastened the rope and climbed back into the skiff where I remained quietly trying to understand what I had just witnessed. Who was this woman? Why would Harlan want to be with someone who seemed so much older when in Heidi he had everything imaginable that anyone could want There didn’t appear to be anything especially sexy about her, and to top it all off, something in the way she spoke, her enunciations and rhythms, suggested that she probably wasn’t even Jewish. So much for the sex with Jewesses hypothesis. Back at the dock I threw the bow line around a post and pulled the skiff close to its mooring. After securing the boat I stayed down at the waterfront to avoid the postmortem Ron would conduct in our room. Harlan’s mysterious liaison had rattled me and I didn’t want to betray my knowledge of that anymore than I wanted to be interrogated about my own romantic misadventure. So here was another secret to harbor. The Judge Crater story was something I’d thought of telling Harlan about but I was so unsettled by what I’d seen that night I couldn’t think clearly. I was filled to the brim with information and needed to spill some of it somewhere. Malcolm was a good friend but not likely to keep the Crater secret if he could harvest some laughs by planting it with the band at Brown’s, and my brothers would laugh at me for being gullible. But Harlan’s secret was one I would not decant.
5.
“So how did it go?” I had barely opened my eyes and Ron’s face was hovering at the edge of my bunk. I looked past him to Harlan’s cot and seeing that he was not in the room I said, “It didn’t go.”
“It didn’t go? What the hell does that mean? Did you pull another Rosie?” It was clear to him that if I hadn’t slept with Diana it had to have been my fault. She was a sure thing.
“I never got to pull anything. She said she forgot she had a date with someone else last night and she was sorry. She came down to the dock just to tell me that. It was … what is she a tease or something? I mean one day she’s grabbing me on the back stairs and telling me I’m not chasing her hard enough and the next she’s irritated and impatient because we have a meeting set up.”
“I told you she’s something special, you misplayed her. There was no meeting, no other date, you just fucked up.”
“How can you say that—you weren’t even there? She came to tell me she had forgotten she had another date. It was the first thing she said to me, she didn’t even say hello.” Still, I was afraid he was right. I’d been so nervous she’d probably smelled my fear from her cabin.
“I didn’t have to be there, I know you. If you were going to meet Harlan you’d have shown some excitement and some charm, but for a girl like Diana you behave like you’ve just been asked to cut off your dick.”
I sat up in my bed, furious. “That’s complete bullshit, how can you say that.”
“Easy, I told you, I know you.” He sank down on his own bunk, its tired springs creaking with complaint. “I don’t know what to do with you. If you can’t make it with Rosie or Diana there’s no chance that I’ll get you laid this summer. You’re hopeless, Mel, completely hopeless.”
I rolled over on to my side and stared at the wall. What if he was right? What if I went home still a virgin? What if I never found a girl who would want me to make love to her and I lived my whole life celibate and chaste, like a monk? I didn’t really believe that it would come to that but it felt oddly consoling to wallow in self-pity. I pulled my blanket over my neck and curled up in the fetal position.
“That’s right, play with yourself. That’s the only action you’re going to get this summer.”
“Fuck you.”
“No thanks, I don’t want you either.”
“It really wasn’t my fault, Ron, she came to say she forgot she had another date. There was no time for anything to happen.”
“You never touched her?”
“No.”
“Never?” The kiss on the back stairs, the kiss that had left me completely breathless must have left her completely unimpressed. “No, never.”
“Then it’s worse than I thought.”
“I don’t care what you think,” I said, lowering myself from the upper bunk and grabbing at my towel. “I’m sick and tired of you and your opinions.” And I stormed off to the shower wondering where the girl of my wet dreams could be found. But Ron wasn’t through with me. Just as I turned the shower on he came around the corner of the stall, his towel draped over his shoulder. Shaking his head and frowning, he said, “Do you see how pathetic you are? Even those lumpy cottage cheese daughters you make fun of probably wouldn’t want you. You’re going to need a lot more work, a lot more. And the first thing we have to do is cure your fagitis.”
“What are you talking about, fagitis?” I soaped my body with a bar of Lava soap, its medicinal smell confirming my manliness.
“Fagitis, as in infected with fag germs, as in in love with Harlan Hawthorne.” He stood opposite me grinning, daring me to act. I stared back, dourly, knowing I didn’t have the courage to start a fight with him, knowing that he could say or do whatever he pleased, knowing that he had the upper hand and that I was left to defend myself with sarcasm and feeble ironies. “Fuck you.”
“That’s brilliant! You’ll win every debate you get into with crisp arguments like that.” He wound his towel into a ropey strip and flicked it at my legs.
“Here we go, when the chips are down for Ron Alter, might makes right.”
“Might makes right when you’ve got the might, Melvin. If you want to be right build up some might. You didn’t seem to mind my might with those two townie assholes. There are the intellectual, work it out peacefully types, and there are the kick-ass get it done types. The Jews were negotiating with the goddamn British for a home in Palestine and getting nowhere. Then the Stern Gang blew up the King David Hotel and suddenly there was progress, suddenly it was understood that this was not a bunch of cringing, bearded, hand wringing old Jews, this was a tougher breed of new Jews. When the might is on your side you don’t complain, it’s only when it’s directed at you that ‘justice,’” he said the word justice with mockery and contempt, “is suddenly the critical issue.” Dropping his towel he walked into the shower and I backed away fearing he had come to rough me up, but laying a hand on my shoulder he said, “I want you to be tough, Mel. I want parents to think, ‘here comes Melvin White, lock up our daughters,’ that’s what I want. This Harlan guy is a fake and you refuse to see it’s true and that makes me mad. And I think that’s why Diana ditched you, she didn’t feel you could be a man with her because you’re still too much a boy.” And then he turned the hot water up and left the shower. His words stung much more than the hot needles of water.
6.
After breakfast in an effort to overcome my sense of humiliation and defeat I went out to walk the grounds of the hotel. Movement alone, purposeless activity, has a soothing effect for me. Rather than dwelling on the cause of the pain my mind is thrust away from myself and into the landscape, into the billowy clouds that change their shape even as you study them; a portrait of Lincoln is transformed into a grazing sheep before your watchful eyes and the bruised and deflated self becomes a poet or a songwriter in your ever aspiring heart. While wandering past the pool and flower gardens towards the tennis courts where the snow white costumes of the players drew my attention, I heard a woman call out, “Good shot, Harlan!” and saw that it was he who was trotting back towards his doubles partner. The players across the net were what the Europeans delicately refer to as “women of a certain age,” their sobriquet for the middle-aged, but Harlan’s partner was an attractive and youthful woman in her early thirties. When he saw me, Harlan waved his racquet in salute.
“Hi, Jack, want to play a few sets with us?” I had never revealed that I couldn’t even if I’d wanted to and merely waved back at him and shook my head no.
“Come on, give it a try, it’ll do you some good,” he persisted. The three women looked up at me with blank expressions as if in a contest to see whose indifference cou
ld outdo that of the others. “Thanks, but no thanks,” I said, always the crowd pleaser. Harlan shrugged and tossed two white tennis balls across the net to the other players who chased after them as they went bouncing past, each squealing joyfully, her racquet extended at arm’s length as she rumbled and blundered after the skittering balls. Harlan smiled and turning to his partner I saw that he winked at her. She cocked her head, smiled, and lifting the hem at the front of her tennis skirt with the tips of her fingers, waggled her hips in a seductive dance. During this provocative instant the large diamond on the fourth finger of her left hand blazed brilliantly at me. She was a married woman. My heart jumped in confusion; feelings of envy and of outrage tumbled incoherently through my mind.
“Come on you two, last set,” Harlan called over his shoulder as he stared into his partner’s eyes and ran his tongue across the rim of his upper lip.
I slipped away from the court and went down to the coffee shop. Inside I studied all the different brands of cigarettes, filtered and unfiltered, king size and regular, plain or mentholated that lined the wall behind the cash register. They were all the same price. Despite all that the manufacturers did to distinguish themselves from one another, their different sizes and shapes, their unique packaging and advertising slogans, they each cost the same twenty-five cents. Yet people defended their favorite brand with the same fervor they defended their favorite baseball team or automobile insisting on the special virtues and superiority of their choice. I had yet to find my brand. Thinking of the woman on the tennis court with Harlan, that sexy woman who made no pretense of disguising her appetite for him, I thought that maybe Harlan hadn’t made his choice yet either. That maybe, in spite of all of her good looks and charm, Heidi just wasn’t the one he’d choose; she just wasn’t his brand.
Chapter Six
Sunday afternoon after the gala steak dinner meal was served, my wad of crumpled bills sorted and arranged by their denominations, farewell handshakes exchanged and the dirty dishes stacked in my bus box, I sat down and stared out the bay window at the crowd at the swimming pool. With little more than a month left to the summer season I had almost $700 set aside for tuition and personal expenses like cigarettes, movie tickets and train fares. While I felt this was an accomplishment, nonetheless it dwelt within a climate of sadness. This beautiful summer had been spent working seven days a week every week with no relief and while there had been some good times and some fun there had been no romance or passion. I lit a Marlboro and rocked back on the rear legs of my chair. Kids frolicked in the pool splashing water into the air where the larger droplets hung briefly glittering like jewels. My sadness seemed to deepen. All of this effort for the future, a distant future, a promise—a fantasy. Right then I suddenly understood that the price youth must sometimes pay for this promised future is youth itself.
One of the cocoa oil-basted beauties strolled lazily towards the refreshment stand at the near end of the pool, confident in her allure, cognizant of the many eyes assessing her and wearing a smile that suggested she was amused by her private thoughts. She could not see me as I puffed away behind the bay window and watched her with longing. What if Rosie and Diana are the only girls I get to try with this summer, I thought feeling sorry for myself, what if those failures are all I’ll have to launch me into my college years. I crushed my cigarette in a saucer and said, “No!” aloud, startling Ron’s busboy, Stan, who was under one of his tables picking up the pieces of a broken dish.
“Are you okay, Mel?” he asked, his concern evident in his face. I nodded briskly to reassure him. “Good. Guys begin to crack up and go nuts around this time of summer. They go out and get drunk and crack up their cars or jump into the lake with all their clothes on or just start screaming. I thought that’s what you were doing. Screaming I mean. Did you scream just before?”
“No. I was saying ‘no’ out loud, that’s all. I’m okay, I’m not cracking up, I’m just pissed that there are no girls around.”
“Oh, you want girls. Well, there are plenty of girls around but not for the mountain rats. Come back as a tennis pro next year and then you’ll have all the girls you want.”
“Great idea.” Jerk, I thought. I’d have to spend a few years learning to play the game before I could get a job teaching it and by that time I’d have laid somebody so why bother? Just then, magically, Heidi Braverman came through the swinging kitchen door and pointed at me.
“There you are. I think I may have good news for you.”
“Good news?”
“Yes. One of my friends is probably going to break off with her date soon and I think you two might be right for each other.”
“Who is she, what’s her name?”
“Not so fast, Jack, not so fast, I said I may have good news for you, I think she’s breaking up with her friend, I’m just waiting to see.”
“Oh great, this is just a tease, Jack, in case you’re not miserable enough already.”
“It is not a tease, I think it is probably going to happen. You just never know, that’s all.” Worried that I might fall from her good graces I quickly shifted into obsequiousness.
“I’m sorry, I’m really grateful that you are even thinking about me and girls in the same context. That really is very generous and considerate of you. Really.” Had I been convincing? Should I have groveled just a little bit more?
“Don’t be silly, Jack, you’re such a nice guy there’s no reason you two shouldn’t work out together, it’s just a question of time. You’ll see.” She patted my cheek. “Your guests really love you, I hear only good things from them and you know what a tough jury they are.”
“I didn’t know I was on trial. And thanks for keeping me in mind for your friend.” Thank God.
All that week while waiting for Heidi to tell me if I was set up with the girl she had told me about, Sammy talked of nothing but the anticipated arrival of Bernstein. Bernstein was his friend of the week, the person who embodied one of the riotous or hilarious memories Sammy often regaled us with. This made me apprehensive because the friend of the week wasn’t always as enthusiastic or breathless with laughter as Sammy imagined he would be and the resulting disappointment was painful to witness. Sammy’s mental gallery of guests past was a kind of private resort he retreated to regularly to refresh himself; here were his school ties, his sense of connection and continuity. In that private retreat he husbanded the jokes and the gibes, all of the pratfalls and seltzer sprays of the old comedic exchange, keeping them vital and then imbuing them with new life. Bernstein, Sammy seemed to think, was going to invigorate him with an infusion of love supersaturated with nostalgia.
“Bernstein! Bernstein will get a big kick out of you, Melvin,” Sammy said as we set up for the dinner meal on Wednesday night. By then Sammy usually had recovered from any disappointment of the previous week and was gearing up for his next reunion. “He loved your brother Jerry like a member of his own family. He’ll have elaborate expectations of the execution of your employment.” I envisioned Sammy picking over the “e’s” in his dictionaries.
“Did I ever tell you about the time me and Bernstein had Milton Berle in stitches? I thought he’d bust a gut. It was a riot, I’m telling you.” I could only pray that Bernstein felt the same way. “We were tummeling right here in the dining room during lunch, a little loud but nothing so terrible, when Berle walked in with a cigar in his hand. Bernstein ran right up to him and swiped the cigar from him and began to do a Groucho Marx imitation, ‘say the secret word and you win a ganse …’” at which point Sammy reeled off a punchline which, like those that ended so many jokes told in the Catskills, went completely past me because I neither spoke nor understood Yiddish.
“Can you beat that? A riot! It was a riot!”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling and nodding.
Filled with anticipation and good cheer Sammy suddenly turned on Artie, pronounced “Ahdee” in New Yorkese, Ivan’s busboy. “Come over here shithead,—you don’t mind if I call you by your firs
t name do you?—what the hell is this?” He pointed to a mop left leaning against Ivan and Artie’s serving stand.
“Sorry Sammy,” Artie Goldstein said remorsefully grabbing the mop’s handle and hoping to escape into the kitchen.
“Stop! Sorry is already too late. We open in five minutes you putz. Who would even want to walk in here with that smelly rag exuding evil effluvia in their face!?” I was right, he had been at the “e’s”. “Now get that schmatte out of here and if it ever happens again I’ll give you sorry.” As Artie skulked off Sammy couldn’t resist tossing a verbal grenade his way. “And better you should forget that Suzie Feldstein because she is never going to give you the time of day.” I looked at Ron whose gritted teeth made his jaw muscles bulge and shook my head. There was nothing to be gained from protesting; energy would be better spent on incantations to assure that Bernstein would indeed be happy to see Sammy and to relive their old good times.
At one of my tables of eight that same week there were only six people dining. Two of the husbands were weekenders and their chairs sat empty from Monday morning until Friday night. The couples had arrived together in separate cars but the men returned to the city in only one leaving the other for their wives to share. On Friday afternoon the husbands would meet in mid-town and crawl back to Braverman’s along the trafficked gauntlet of Route 17 to rejoin their families.
Paula Hirsch and Stella Meyers were the weekday widows at that table. They were good friends and they were friendly to the others sharing meals with them. I cannot tell you how old they were. At the time I was incapable of accurately judging the age of anyone over twenty-five but I would venture these two women were in their thirties or forties. Stella Meyers was a sweet faced woman who hauled fifty unappealing extra pounds on her frame which might have caused her to be erased from memory had it not been for her close relationship to Paula Hirsch. Mrs. Hirsch’s appearance combined the sublime and the ridiculous; she had a face that could stop a clock but a figure that could stop your heart. Her body was so exquisite in form that you had to struggle to keep your eyes from it. What’s more she was well aware of her allure and dressed in tight fitting pedal pushers and scoop-necked tops that always revealed an ample crevasse of cleavage. She festooned her body with gold bangles and chains and her fingers sparkled with jeweled rings. She wore make-up day and night, mascara and cheek blush at breakfast, that plus false eyelashes at dinner, and she was lavish in her flirtatiousness. “Darling, would you mind doing something special for me?” she’d say, taking my hand and stroking my palm with her thumb. “Would you please go into the kitchen and see if there are any black olives that I could have with my whitefish, would you sweet?” The other women at the table glared at her through narrowed eyes while their husbands looked at one another and smiled knowingly. Sammy, who made it known to his staff that he disapproved of her “cuckolding coquettishness” and threatened to fire any waiter or busboy who lingered near her after hours, arched an eyebrow at me and frowned. By staring into her face, one I thought capable of damping down even the great Chicago fire, my own fires were cooled and my role of obliging servant made all the easier.