How to Find Your Way in the Dark

by Derek B. Miller

  “You’re bellhops?” the kid said.

  “We will be once we’re suited up. I can’t remember the name of the guy. You gonna remind me or are you sworn to secrecy?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Ben Adelman.”

  “No, not Ben. I know Ben. I meant the guy at the top. The fat cat in the office who never comes out.”

  “Oh. Mel Friedman. But he’s not here this week.”

  “That’s fine. Where’s Ben?”

  “I think he’s in the concierge office.”

  “OK. Thanks. I’m Lenny and this is Sheldon. We’ll see you around.”

  “Yeah,” said the bellhop with no name or personality or interest. “OK.”

  Lenny marched into the reception and placed his hands on the countertop as a pretty redhead approached him. Lenny ran his finger over the surface and examined it for dust. He then sucked his finger, and said, “Lemony. Nice touch.”

  This made the girl smile.

  “I’m Lenny Bernstein and this is Sheldon Horowitz. We’re the new bellhops. Mel Friedman told us to come in today. Our bus was a little late and we’re afraid that Ben Adelman’s gonna fire us before he hires us. What’s your name?”

  “Miriam,” she said, still smiling. She was a little older than Lenny and her red hair was braided in the back. Unleashed, it might have reached her waist and expanded to the hallway. Her eyes were hazel, and her look was patient. In it, Lenny saw love.

  “We need your advice, Miriam. Maybe even some help. Would you help us?”

  Miriam nodded a few times. There was a moment where things might have gone one of two ways. Either Lenny’s ruse was working or Miriam was going to blow a whistle and a couple of linebackers were going to tackle them to the ground and then rustle them off as if they were calves at a rodeo.

  But that wasn’t what happened. Instead, Miriam pulled out two pieces of paper from a drawer on her side of the desk, placed them on the counter, and slapped down two pens. “Fill in these, bring them back to me, and I’ll stamp them. You bring them to Ben and you just might survive.”

  “He’s in the concierge office, right?” said Lenny, which Sheldon found unnecessary but smooth.

  “Yes.”

  “We owe you one, Miriam.”

  “You owe me two.”

  “Is it too soon to tell you that I love you?”

  “Probably.”

  “I’ll save it, but you should know that every minute I’m not saying it it’s because I’m building up the courage.”

  “OK,” she said. “Bring the papers back once they’re filled out.” Then she shooed the boys away with the backs of her hands. Lenny might have been mistaken, but he was sure he saw rays of light dance out of her fingernails.

  * * *

  Ben Adelman was in his thirties and considered himself far too old for this kind of work because that was what his father, a successful owner of a meatpacking plant who’d once been a butcher, had said to him. “Men in their thirties should be doing something respectable and, frankly, better paid than managing ungrateful and masturbatory adolescents during tourist season.”

  In truth, Ben Adelman agreed. And if it wasn’t for the women who came each season looking to avenge their husbands’ indiscretions or were furious at being deposited here for the summer like so much compost, Ben might have found more dignified work. For now, he was content with the undignified work and the sex. To sustain this state of mind, he had a simple policy: Everything needs to go smoothly.

  Ben was sipping a mug of hot coffee despite the heat when two unfamiliar teenagers walked in wearing rucksacks.

  “No rucksacks in my office,” he said, placing the mug on his desk.

  “Right you are, Mr. Adelman,” said the kid who was going to do the talking.

  Lenny chucked them into the hallway and closed the door.

  “Who are you two?” Ben asked.

  “Your new bellhops, Mr. Adelman. I’m Lenny Bernstein and this is Sheldon Horowitz. Mel Friedman hired us. I think he was bullied by Dr. Green, but that’s over my head so I’m not going to talk about it.” Lenny stepped forward and handed Ben the papers with the blue-inked information and the red rubber stamp. Ben looked at the two knuckleheads and shook his head.

  “Mel Friedman doesn’t hire bellhops. Jennie and Harry Grossinger don’t hire bellhops. I hire bellhops.”

  “I don’t know about any of that. We work hard, do what we’re told, and we stay out of trouble.”

  Sheldon figured that two out of three might possibly be true. Which two, however . . .

  “Really?” said Ben, putting the papers on the desk and leaning back.

  “That’s our story and we’re sticking to it, sir.”

  Ben looked at them. They looked like every other teenage bellhop he’d every hired. One of the kids had blue eyes, but aside from that, they were boilerplate.

  Ben, resigned to the easy path, gave his spiel. “This is one of the premier hotels in the world. We have the best acts, the best patrons, the finest decor, and a gourmet menu that’s kosher. Every week we order 300 standing ribs of beef for steaks and roast beef, 1,000 pounds of poultry, 27,000 eggs—all cracked by Rosie by hand—1,000 pounds of potatoes, 500 pounds of Nova Scotia lox, 70 cases of fresh oranges for juice alone, and 700 pounds of coffee. Every single morning the bakery produces 4,600 rolls and another 4,600 mini pastries. We make 36 pounds of cookies with every meal and 800 portions of pie, and the guests have a choice of at least three kinds during lunch and dinner. Grossinger’s covers almost 850 acres of land, and we’re home to thousands of guests every week. We’ve got 60 chambermaids and 20 women in the laundry room washing 7,500 sheets and pillowcases and 20,000 bath towels every week.”

  Sheldon wanted to ask whether they also had a seven-ton steam engine like the armory did to power the place, but he kept his mouth shut. Were all tours like this?

  “We are a machine of excellence and Grossinger’s has everything. You two will be among the tiniest cogs in that enormous machine, but oddly enough, you’ll be important ones because you will be the first and last people our guests see, and you don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression.”

  “That’s good,” said Lenny. “That’s a good line. I’ve never heard that.”

  “Don’t interrupt. Do you two knuckleheads think you have what it takes not to fuck things up? Because that really is what this job is all about. Doing it is pretty easy. Doing it consistently and not fucking it up to the point where I notice it—that’s the heavy lifting.”

  Sheldon thought this was an excellent question. In his heart of hearts, he had no idea what the answer was. Luckily, Lenny did.

  “Absolutely!”

  “Fine,” said Ben, who in the deepest and darkest depths of his soul couldn’t care less. “We’re understaffed for the summer anyway. Ten dollars a week, you eat with the rest of the staff, you share a room. Normally, I’d put you in the attic but we’re reshuffling so you two actually luck out and get a guest room we’re not using. The toilet runs. Deal with it. I’ll slot you into the schedules when I have time. Miriam will get you settled. To be clear: You steal, you’re fired. You insult a guest, you’re fired. I want to fire you because I want to, you’re fired. Any questions?”

  Neither Lenny nor Sheldon had any questions.

  Pigeons Again

  THEIR HOTEL ROOM WAS THE greatest place on earth.

  No question about it.

  There were two separate beds—already made up with bedspreads—a dresser, a desk with a fancy lamp, two end tables, and a bathroom only for them.

  It got better.

  There was a window. That by itself wasn’t miraculous. Their homes had windows too. This window, however, had a view. The boys would never know whether this was Miriam’s doing or whether it was an act of God or a temptation from the Devil himself, but the fact remained that it looked out toward the lake. They couldn’t see the lake. What they could see were hundreds of bouncing boobs and bare legs moving back and forth along
the footpath on their way to either get wet or dry off.

  Some of them were ugly. About half belonged to men. Many were not ugly and belonged to women. Some changed their understanding of what a woman was.

  Lenny jumped on the bed in his socks out of sheer happiness while Sheldon sat on the yellow quilted bedspread reading the New York Times like an old man. If he was a smoker, he would have held a cigar between his teeth and never stopped shaking his head.

  “I—can’t—believe—all—those—tits—are—Jewish,” said Lenny.

  “Some of the girls are Cuban and Puerto Rican. They’re with the bands.”

  “The more the merrier,” said Lenny, still bouncing.

  “They won’t let us into the other hotels,” Sheldon said. “No Jews. No Negroes. No dogs. What you’re looking at is an American-style fuck-you to everyone who told us to take our ball and go play somewhere else.”

  “I just love it here!”

  “I got to hand it to you,” Sheldon said, flopping down the paper. “You are one fast-talkin’ Jew.” He reached over for the ice tea he had ordered from room service.

  The fittings for their new uniforms weren’t until eight in the morning, after which they would have three hours of training, touring the grounds, and being told the rules. For now, it was vacation time. Sheldon wanted to go to the lake, but he couldn’t entirely get Lenny’s attention so he was stuck with the newspaper and the ice tea until the mastermind calmed down.

  “I didn’t come up with it on the spot, you know,” Lenny said, bouncing. “I was thinking about this during every algebra class for a year. I even made various diagrams that depended on what the first bellhop said and whether or not we got the supervisor’s name.”

  “You said you had a plan and you had a plan.”

  “We’re going to be paid to be here!” Lenny said. “Everyone else is paying, and we’re being paid! This is heaven. This is what it looks like when you’re good. I realize that we lied our way in, so I have some theological thinking to do.”

  Sheldon didn’t. He kicked back his ice tea like it was bourbon and slammed it down as though he were in a bar and someone was going to immediately slide another drink over. He had Bruno’s confession. He knew the name of the Mob boss in Hartford the Krupinskis had screwed over. He knew about Lorenzo. He also had a job, his best friend by his side, some money in his pocket, and Mr. Henkler’s .45 automatic.

  Sheldon was a man ready to enter a casino and start pushing his luck.

  He flipped up the paper again. Page fifteen caught his eye.

  MESSAGE FOUND ON PIGEON IS BEING INVESTIGATED

  NEW YORK, June 18 (AP)—Mac Gang heard a cooing sound on his garage roof shortly after midnight and thereupon found a wornout homing pigeon.

  He turned it over to police, who found this penciled note attached to one leg:

  “12 car loads of munitions will arrive at usual place. Watch out for Gover. Off 42264. Time is 12:15.”

  On the other side was:

  “Deutschland Auber Alles.”

  Police are investigating.

  Pigeons again.

  * * *

  “Sheldon!”

  It was Lenny. He’d stopped bouncing, changed into a bathing suit, and was yelling Sheldon’s name the way he usually yelled it after trying and failing to get his attention.

  “What?”

  “Swimming. Now. We’re going swimming. Grossinger’s has its own lake! Let’s go.”

  “I think it’s a pond.”

  “A distinction without a difference, as Miss Simmons would say. I’m leaving.”

  Life and Death

  LENNY CHOSE TO COMMIT showbiz suicide during their third week at a nearby hotel called the Edgewood Social Hall. It was not exactly a high-priced or especially classy resort, but it was secluded in a tender valley of rolling green fields and mountain flowers bursting with orange pollen that attracted a symphony of bees. Lenny had convinced Sheldon to ride over there on their bicycles to scope it out during their lunch break. They surveyed it as though they were young generals preparing an assault.

  “I see only death,” said Sheldon.

  “It’s gonna be great,” Lenny said.

  “You’re going to walk in there tonight and make jokes about Nazis and then come out smiling, that’s what you think is going to happen?”

  “I’m on a roll here, you have to admit it.”

  “Dice don’t stay lucky.”

  They’d been working at Grossinger’s for two weeks and two days. With nothing to buy other than ice cream and pizza at the local market, the pay and tips were turning them into millionaires as far as they were concerned. During every free moment they could find—when not ogling the girls or trying to figure out how to get lonely housewives interested in teenagers (they weren’t)—they visited nearby hotels and tried to land Lenny a gig.

  Tonight was going to be Lenny’s opening act.

  Tonight, he was going onstage at ten o’clock in front of an after-dinner crowd and under a spotlight. The act for that time slot had come down with a black eye, which apparently was a common ailment, and the guy didn’t have the creative chops to work it into his act, so the manager, Whitaker, told him to piss off. Lenny—on his knees—begged Mr. Whitaker for the chance to fill in. Whitaker, with bigger problems than Lenny, agreed.

  This was it. The beginning of it all. Lenny felt the weight of history on his shoulders. His first gig. The one that everyone was going to ask him about when he became a success later. “What was it like, Mr. Bernstein?” they’d ask. “It was a hot day and my buddy Sheldon and me went to check out the place before the big moment.”

  “You talking to yourself ?” Sheldon asked, straddling his bicycle.

  “I’m narrating my future autobiography, Sheldon.”

  “Should I be taking notes?”

  “Tonight,” Lenny said, looking off into the distance. He was speaking to the hotel, a whispered seduction to a lover. He gave himself the chills.

  They’d been watching comedians almost every night for the past two weeks. Though they were both working the longest hours possible to bring in as much cash as they could, Lenny said that watching the other acts was the education he needed. Radio wasn’t enough and newspapers were useless. He wanted to see the men walking back and forth across the stage like tigers in a cage. He wanted to see the way they removed the microphone and placed the stand to the side to show they meant business. He wanted to see how they warmed up a cold crowd, how getting personal with people in the front row got things moving—in one direction or another—and how to handle the hecklers. Lenny had ideas and plans, and made notes and notations to his notes, and Sheldon thought that if Napoleon had prepared this well at Waterloo the British would be French today.

  The boys spoke to each other about comedy in military terms because war was in the air but also because it was the lingo used by the comedians themselves.

  Comedy—for some reason neither one of them yet understood—was always talked about in terms of life and death. Comedians killed or they died onstage. They murdered their audience or were murdered by them. Some nights they brought the house down, and other times they bombed. It was a full-contact blood sport and it wasn’t for the fainthearted.

  Sheldon wasn’t fainthearted but he didn’t want to do it. Funny was good. Sheldon liked funny. But Sheldon would rather laugh at the world than have it laugh at him. It was more than personality, though. Sheldon sensed a relationship between making jokes and a threatening world, and he was coming to see that the first was somehow a response or even a reply to the second. When Sheldon asked Lenny about it, he was surprised to find that Lenny had actually thought about it too and had a pretty good answer.

  “If they’re laughing,” Lenny said, still staring at the Edgewood, “how are they are going to bludgeon you over the head?”

  It was a good answer. But no one was laughing in Europe now. Is that why everyone was laughing twice as hard over here?

  * * *
>
  Those were daytime thoughts. When the night finally came, questions were replaced by answers. Answers begot action. Action was the name of the game. And for Lenny, tonight, tonight, TONIGHT became now.

  * * *

  THE SPOTLIGHT HIT LENNY like a blinding slap so intense that it erased the audience of sixty men and women and undid the world that God had made and returned him to the moment of creation. Right here, right now, God created the heavens and the earth, and darkness was upon the face of the audience.

  It was ten o’clock, and the audience was already sauced. The act before Lenny was a ten-minute argument between a mother and son. The mother gave her son hell for never calling, and at the end, they both realized that it was a wrong number.

  It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t BIG. It wasn’t new. It was safe and straight and unadventurous. Lenny wasn’t going to do that. He was going to break out of polite discussion and kill, kill, kill!

  * * *

  Sheldon was out there in the dark with orders to out-heckle any heckler, but beyond this thin lifeline, Lenny was on his own. Sheldon, for his part, had his head cradled in his palms at a table, and if anything was going through his head, it was “better him than me.”

  * * *

  But Lenny didn’t care. This was his moment. He was a hunter. He was a killer.

  Right now. Right this very second. Right absolutely positively . . .

  “Hello, everyone! I’m Lenny Bernstein,” he said, when the manager gave him a bored two-finger cue to get on with things. “I can tell you already have a question about my age. The answer is, I’m forty-seven years old. I think I look pretty good for my age, but my wife, I think, is getting jealous and it’s becoming an issue. I say to her, ‘Honey, if you want people to think you look good for your age . . . tell them you’re sixty!’ ”