Summer Accommodations: A Novel

by Sidney Hart

  “So, look what I’ve done, I’ve told you two secrets! And now I’ll tell you what I want you to do for me,” he said, leading me into the waiters’ quarters.

  2.

  After Ben Braverman stated his intention to entrap Harlan, withholding the details of his plan, I felt the need to get away from the hotel and all things familiar. I changed my clothes, went into the hallway of the waiters’ quarters and called out to ask if anyone was going into South Fallsburgh. One of the waiters that I knew only to nod hello to, Larry Pincus, offered to give me a lift and we rode into town talking about the Yankees and the Dodgers and the likelihood that they’d have a rematch in the ‘56 World Series. It was just talk. At that moment I didn’t give a damn about a stupid game and wondered how I ever could have been excited or distraught by anything so banal as a baseball game. When we pulled into town I said I had some errands to run and left the car with an agreement to meet back at the post office in one hour.

  Alone on the street I wandered aimlessly from storefront to storefront thinking about Sarah. I knew that we would never be the same with each other again. It wouldn’t matter whether she chose me or Hank, the illusion of perfect harmony, of oneness, was destroyed, lost forever with no hope of restoration. People passed around me chattering happily, laughing, complaining, arguing, but it was as though all the color had been drained from my world; life seemed as slate gray and dull as an overcast sky. There was a deep sadness, a kind of grief that had me in the disoriented state you can see on the faces of the victims of natural disasters, people who have seen a river carry away their home or an earthquake swallow up the ground beneath them. No one seemed to notice my distress. I went into the drug store to remove myself from the pedestrian traffic. I had no need to be there and did not want to shop just to take my mind off Sarah. Anyway, I knew that wouldn’t work. Shopping was not something I did for relief or distraction. It was totally foreign to me. And what was there in a drugstore to buy? Beach toys, water wings and sun tan lotions by the score. Plain old Coppertone wasn’t good enough for the members of the harem. Christ, I mused, it’s a goddamn swimming pool, not a beach, the mountains, not the seashore, how hot do they think the sun gets in the Catskills? In my mind I was ranting, venting frustration about things other than Sarah and this Hank guy. I went to the front of the store without making a purchase, making certain the people at the counter saw I was empty-handed. With forty-five minutes left to kill before meeting Pincus back at the post office I walked out to the street trying to find distraction. Images of Sarah in the arms of faceless men intruded into every thought I enlisted to divert myself from worry; there was no refuge. I scrutinized each couple that passed by on the street and eavesdropped on their conversations. This is where we live, I thought, this is what really matters, this is what we live for: the one, the perfect other in the perfect fit. A couple with a small child passed by, the father grim, the mother with tears in her eyes, the little girl, oblivious to the tension, skipped along humming to herself. A pair of teenaged boys, heads bent close together conspiratorially, joked and laughed, and tried to bump one another into other pedestrians as they passed. A young couple holding hands, smiles lighting their faces, passed in the silence of their pleasure. Then a threesome, two men and a woman approached from the opposite direction. It seemed clear that the shorter of the two men was the woman’s companion while the taller one was just a friend. He kept a slightly greater distance between himself and the woman and bent his head forward to talk across her to the other man. Always the boundaries, always those inside and those outside. How could Sarah have two of us inside her boundaries of intimacy? I wanted to feel more cosmopolitan, more sophisticated and poised in this contest, more witty and glib, beyond jealousy and hurt. Maybe Harlan could accomplish that but not Melvin, I heard myself say in my mind. No, by the time she returns she’ll have made her decision and mine too and that’s just how it is.

  I crossed the main street of the town and kept walking distractedly along the storefronts oblivious to the wares they featured, thinking of Sarah while still trying not to, but then stopped suddenly when I saw where I was. The large plate glass window bearing the name Freddie’s was right next to me. I peered inside through the reflection of the street behind me and saw men huddled at the long bar drinking beer in the afternoon. All at once that seemed a good idea, an act of manliness, an act of defiance. Thursday afternoon with nothing better to do than get a beer. I pushed open the door and went directly to the bar. One man looked up at me, snickered and muttered something to the man next to him who craned his neck around to look at me as I landed at the formica bar.

  “What can I get you, young fella,” the bartender asked.

  “I’ll have a Ballantine ale, please,” I said quickly. I didn’t like beer but years of Mel Allen and Yankee baseball on the radio had led me to try the ale at the first opportunity and its drier, almost metallic taste was not at all unpleasant. I knew a Tom Collins would have been the wrong thing to ask for, something too city, too upper class. The bartender put the can on the bar and fished a glass from the sink wiping it off with his towel. Then he placed a cardboard coaster in front of me and set the still wet glass down upon it.

  “You a salesman?” he asked with a broad smile while he looked down the bar at the men huddling together. They laughed. I thought about affecting a southern accent and telling him I was a basketball player up for the summer circuit, something more than an ordinary busboy or waiter, but didn’t do it.

  “No,” was all I said. I opened the can of ale and poured it out. “You from New York?” one of the men down the bar asked. This was beginning to feel like a bad idea. I sipped some ale, cleared my throat, and looked down the row of stools to where he was seated. “Yes.”

  “Where, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan?” For a minute I thought I might say Staten Island and really throw him off. No one would have considered somebody from Staten Island a serious New Yorker. “The Bronx.”

  “Really? Me too,” he said enthusiastically. “Course I was just a boy when we came up here from 138th street but even then I was swimming in the Harlem river. Where are you from in the Bronx?”

  “Creston Avenue,” I lied, using my high school’s street address rather than my own as though this baboon could really care and might come to look me up at home some time.

  “Ever swim in the river?”

  “Nope,” I was getting down right folksy, sipping my ale and waiting for a chance to leave without appearing intimidated. In fact, I wasn’t intimidated by them. These men were just out having a beer, not looking for trouble, not meaning to do me harm. Other than making a few snide remarks under their breath just between themselves they’d been civil. It was my fear that had made them seem menacing, my cowardice that had rendered them formidable. “ … but I’ve swum in the Hudson, near the bridge.” The bridge meant the George Washington Bridge. The Tappan Zee had yet to be built. “The water there is very brackish because the ocean flows in almost all the way up to Kingston at high tide.” At least that was what my father had told me driving down the West Side Highway one day. “Maybe even to Albany,” I added.

  “Get outta here, you serious?”

  “Yeah, totally. See, if you time your swim under the bridge to the high tide, you have about an hour when the current is pretty tame and you don’t get swept along one way or the other.” Both men looked at me with something approaching respect. Every day in every way I was becoming a more comfortable liar. “What’s the Harlem River like to swim in?”

  “You know, I don’t remember. I was just a kid.” And he laughed himself right to the men’s room. The ale and the tale made me feel good. This episode might score some points for me with Ron, having a drink in Freddie’s in the middle of the afternoon and making rubes of a couple of old townies. Ready to head back to meet my ride I settled up with the bartender, left him a generous tip, nodded at the man sitting at the bar, and went out into the sun. But the heartbreak over Sarah was waiting for me as soon as I
walked out to the street and saw a pretty girl holding her boyfriend’s hand and raising herself on tiptoes to kiss him on the lips. It made me want to throw myself into the Hudson River.

  3.

  We rode back to Braverman’s saying very little. I was not ready to go back to my room and see either Ron or Harlan. We parked in the staff parking lot and when Pincus asked if I wanted to get a soda with him I thanked him for the ride and said I wanted to take a swim. There was no intention to swim, just the intent to get away and be by myself. I walked down to the lake to see if the rowboat was free. The day camp was ending its afternoon and the campers were out of the water, standing on the dock and shivering, towels pulled tightly around their little bodies. They rubbed their upper arms briskly with their hands and hopped from foot to foot to get warm. I could hear teeth chattering behind blue lips as I passed.

  “Are you finished with the skiff for the day?” I asked the counselor.

  “Yeah. Be sure to tie it up it under the dock when you’re done, Jack.”

  Jack. He must have known me as Sarah’s date. How else would he know my name? That felt good, like my world hadn’t changed, like everything would be all right. I climbed into the boat and pushed off into the lake. The cold August nights and the weakened late summer sun on its course of recession towards the equator, its autumnal equinox, had rendered the lake’s waters cooler. A wind came up wafting the cold off the water and chilling my body. I coughed a deep chesty cough. Shouldn’t smoke again, I thought, recalling Harlan’s father and his cough, fed by the prodigious mucus factory in his chest. I let the boat drift towards the opposite shore, towards Harlan’s parents’ cabin. I still don’t know if that was intentional or accidental and quite likely, I will never know. There was no reason to expect I’d learn anything true about Harlan from his parents but maybe I’d learn if they were who he said they were, the judge and the showgirl. Now that was a love story. Imagine walking out on a life in progress and disappearing into anonymity after such a public existence. Was it worth it? Did their love withstand the disappointments of life and feel as good as it had that long ago August. I was very tempted to ask. Imagine, me, a kid, a stranger with no right to the answers to such questions, why should he tell me anything?

  I rowed up on to the beach in front of the cabin and then pulled the skiff by its bow until it was completely out of the water. No one hailed or greeted me from the stillness of the house. Not even a cough broke the silence. I banged on the front door of the cabin.

  “Hello? Anybody home? It’s Jack White, Harlan’s friend.” The silence persisted, a quiet that a theater audience might envy. There was a car in the driveway, a light burning in the hall and still no answer, but I was determined to talk to the judge—if that in fact was who he was. “Hello, hello, it’s Jack White,” and then, for the hell of it, I said, “not the FBI.”

  There was a rustle inside, footsteps approached, and the judge, Harlan’s father, parted the curtains at the window next to the door, raised an index finger, and then undid the locks to let me in. The smell of cigarette smoke was still fresh in the room and a gray haze lingered in the air. Waving the now invisible smoke away he smiled and stuck out his hand.

  “Come in, Jack White, come in. I was afraid it was Harlan come to lecture me about the evils of tobacco, though he’s a chain smoker himself, don’t you know.” No wheeze, no cough, no shortness of breath. “Can I get you something to drink, a coke, a beer, a cup of coffee?”

  “A drink of water would be fine,” I said, wondering what had become of the cardiac patient I’d visited just days before.

  “Just water? You’re sure? No sodas or beer? Okay. So how has your summer been, Jack?” he asked, walking me to the kitchen where he removed a bottle of water from the refrigerator.

  “Boy, you’ve made some recovery, judge,” I said, “ the last time I saw you, you were pretty sick. Weren’t you supposed to get an operation of some kind? Isn’t that why Harlan was trying to raise money? Wasn’t that for you to have heart surgery to save your life?”

  “Raise money? An operation? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jack, I don’t need an operation. I had pneumonia, same damn pneumonia I get every year. There’s nothing wrong with my heart. Oh, Jesus, has Harlan been at it again? I can see by the look on your face that he has. Oh, Jesus.” The judge shook his head. “I hoped maybe he’d make some money, meet a nice girl, reform his ways. I even thought that with a friend like you he’d see there’s a better way. Oh, Jesus, you didn’t give him any money I hope.”

  “Almost.”

  “Well don’t,” he frowned. “Don’t say anything about this to his mother, Jack, Helene’s the one who’s really not well.” He rubbed his brow to remove the film of perspiration there and paced the room. “Damn! Damn, damn, damn.” I sipped my water and looked at the things around me. There were ordinary furnishings worn with use and needing repair or refreshing, not what you’d expect of people with money. Was Harlan really acting alone in his hunt for the money? Is this another set up because I’m an easy dupe, someone to be gulled? I shouldn’t have come here, I thought, I am way over my head. Why trust the judge, this man, any more than I’d trust Harlan?

  “Harlan has been a problem for his mother and me, you must have some awareness of this aspect of my son, Jack, surely you’ve seen that part of him.” He approached and stood too close to me. “I have tried to make him see the right way but he’s determined to remind me of the path I chose, his life is his means of reproach, his disgrace is meant for me. Sex and money are all he cares about and he insists that is what I taught him. Outrageous.” He retreated to the window. “He’s had everything we could give to him, love, a good home, education …” his voice trailed off as if into the mystery of what they had overlooked, what they had failed to provide. “You know,” he said, suddenly amused, “even this damn ring story seemed to be working for a time. He seemed genuinely excited, motivated, wanting to connect with this saga, this noble family history.” His eyes teared. “There is no ring, Jack, there never was. It was just a story to get him involved in something bigger than himself. I’m sorry if it’s caused you any trouble. I didn’t see how something so innocent could become such a problem, but then, I always underestimate my son’s capacity for mischief.”

  “Mischief? Mischief? Judge, that’s like saying a pyromaniac is someone who plays with matches. Who is he, sir, who is Harlan?”

  “He is my twenty four year old only child, my son, my heir, my cross.”

  “Does he go to Harvard?”

  “Jack, what do you want with that, what do you want, would that make him better for you if he was at school in Cambridge?” He pulled a cigarette from a pack he’d hidden under a seat cushion and lit up. “You want one?” he asked absently and again began pacing the room. “It had been my hope that this summer would be different. A nice bunch of boys, some good money, some pretty girls, the girls they love him, he’s like a movie star to them. Ben said it would come together, he’d straighten out, it would all be there for him, the money, the girls, the guys.”

  “The guys don’t like him, sir, they don’t trust him. I always defended him, I thought they were too harsh, maybe envious, I don’t know, none of it matters now.” I became unsure of why I’d come to the house. Learning that Harlan was a grifter in a charmer’s clothing was something I already knew and the judge may have been no better, maybe not the judge at all. Why show him respect?

  “Jack, you have to help him, he’ll listen to you, he always speaks so highly of you, of your kindness and sensitivity. Help me to help him. This may be our last chance.” I shrugged.

  “Don’t you care? Don’t you have any feelings of compassion for your friend?”

  “I’m not sure he’s my friend when he tries to shake me down for an operation you obviously don’t need to have. And while we’re at it, how do I know you’re really the judge? No offense, but why should I believe that’s the truth?” Holding up an index finger, the social hold button bef
ore there were hold buttons, Harlan’s father left the room for a minute and then returned with a piece of paper in hand.

  “Will this be enough?” He handed me the paper, a certificate from the City of New York saying he was licensed to practice the law, he being Joseph Force Crater. I’d never seen any of the city’s documents and was still wary this was a valid license. Flustered, I dared to do what I had imagined only minutes before.

  “So, was it worth it judge?”

  “What? Was what worth it?”

  “Everything.” I began to lose my nerve now that the words were out. “Giving up your position, leaving your life for this?”

  “Jack, that’s not for you to ask. Don’t be impertinent. Think how you can help your friend.”

  “Right now, judge, I’m the one who needs help. I have to think of myself, Harlan is your problem, you think about him.” I placed the glass of water on the coffee table and let myself out.

  “Please, Jack, have some mercy, he needs your help,” he called out to me.

  The judge had tried luring me back by strumming on the strings of guilt, but I was not the guilty one and my strings were not taut enough to make the right sound.

  Chapter Eleven

  With Sarah gone and Ben Braverman having confided Abe’s secrets to me, if indeed they were his secrets and not some confabulation that Ben had concocted spontaneously to confound me and simultaneously amuse himself, after both these upsets, I decided to get drunk that night after work. The decision to get drunk as opposed to just drinking too much, an occurrence of drunkenness, is a morbid and pathetic circumstance. It is a plan hatched in a state of defeat, a self-inflicted wound masquerading as a flamboyant and Baroque gesture or what the English call “fuck all.” I have to admit I didn’t enjoy alcohol that much despite having willingly participated in all of the passage rites of my generation, the beer parties and the rye, gin and scotch clandestine tastings, so getting drunk was more a torture than a comfort but somehow that seemed the right thing to do because it was what men under stress usually resorted to in the movies. I had no idea what my father and the other men of my family did when stressed and the fact that I hated feeling drunk did nothing to deter me from this decision. It is the kind of flailing we are capable of resorting to when we’ve been disoriented by a shock and there is no other word to explain the effect of Sarah’s announcement: I was in shock.