Act One

by Moss Hart

  Suddenly the car made a sharp turn around a bend and I saw a sign, hanging crookedly between two entrance posts, proclaiming, “Entrance Half Moon Country Club.” I stared hard at the sign, its painted letters peeling and flaking off, and I felt that tight knot beginning to form in my chest again. First impressions are likely to be true ones, and the first impression one received of the Half Moon Country Club even as one approached it was one of slovenliness. It was not really dirt that one was conscious of, for dirtiness is not always immediately visible to the naked eye; but slovenliness and loose management are somehow instantly and unpleasantly apparent, even as one drives through an entrance gate.

  The crooked sign that swung lopsidedly in the breeze swung from chains that had the rust of years on them, and the boulders that lined each side of the dusty road had not seen a coat of white paint since they had first been put in as markers. What had once been a sorry attempt at flower beds between the boulders was now just weeds and poison ivy, and the road itself had large holes in it, still filled with rain puddles, so that the car had to twist and turn to escape the deepest ones. The very last hole, and the largest of all, the driver did not see or did not bother to by-pass, so that a wave of stagnant water swept over the car and drenched us all. The car had come to a stop in front of the main building of the Half Moon Country Club, and it seems quite fitting to me now that for the first moment or two after we got out of the car we actually could not see the building, or anything else, for that matter. Our faces, our hair and clothing streamed muddy water.

  We stood there sopping wet—wiping the mud from our faces and eyes, and trying to look about us. The driver of the car had dumped our sodden suitcases and paper bundles on the ground beside us and rattled off without so much as a word of apology for the soaking. There was no one in sight, nor was there any sign of life within the building itself. I looked up at it and my heart sank. It was badly in need of a fresh coat of paint and its roof was pockmarked all over with sunbaked brown spots where the shingles had fallen off and had not been replaced. The middle section looked like nothing so much as an abandoned old shack—such as a fishing club might have put up to spend a few uncomfortable nights in—that had been added to in haphazard fashion until it had grown to be the ugly mass of wood and dented fly screens we now stood in front of. Torn yellow shades hung askew from the upstairs windows, and some badly worn and rapidly unraveling wicker furniture stood ghostlike on the porch.

  My brother shot me a look. No words were needed for me to know what he was thinking. I looked away and spoke with an irritable assurance that could have fooled nobody.

  “All camps look like this before they open,” I said. “They’re getting everything ready for Decoration Day. Don’t let’s just stand here looking—let’s go find somebody.”

  I led the way inside and they followed, our shoes sloshing over the empty porch. There was a tiny lobby and registration desk just inside the door, and beyond this a rather large lounge or sitting room, with a sagging ceiling and enormous overstuffed chairs all garishly slip-covered and stiffly set out to face what appeared to be the dining room beyond, since we could see tables and chairs stacked high against one wall.

  We proceeded on through, and since there seemed to be no sign of life in the dining room either, we went on in to the kitchen, a smoke-blackened cavern whose walls and cupboards suggested that the fire department had just left and there had not yet been time to wash away the soot and grime. The stove was thickly caked with last year’s grease; a pile of dirty cups and saucers lay in the sink, a filthy dishrag flung over them. But an unmistakable coffee pot stood on the stove. It was a badly battered and dented old-fashioned enamel coffee pot, but I have never seen a more welcome sight in a kitchen anywhere. We made straight for it like lost souls. Holding my breath I shook it, then sighed with relief to find it half full and still warm. There was not a scrap of food to be found anywhere—at least none that had been left out in the open. A starving mouse would have headed back to the hills after one foray around that kitchen!

  The icebox and one cupboard, however, had shining new padlocks on them—a pretty good hint of where the food was hidden—and probably the only new things in the whole damn place, I thought bitterly, as I walked back to the stove. “At least let’s get warm and dry off,” I called to my father and brother. “There’s no food any place except what’s locked up.”

  But my brother let out a sudden shout of victory. Rummaging around in the back of one of the cupboards he had come up with a box of Fig Newtons, obviously left over from last summer. They were hard as rocks, of course, but not moldy, and after submerging them in the boiling coffee for a while we stood by the stove fishing them out with spoons, downing the first food that had passed our lips in over fourteen hours.

  It was while we stood by the stove gulping the last mouthfuls of the coffee and scooping up the fast disintegrating Fig Newtons, that the first sign of life at the Half Moon Country Club came in through the screen door that led out of the kitchen. He was a young man, a few years older than myself, with a fat, good-natured face covered at the moment with a thick layer of dust and wisps of straw and sawdust sticking to it, and he seemed totally unsurprised to see us standing around the stove, our damp clothes sending up little clouds of steam around our heads.

  “So you got here,” he said, addressing me directly. “The new social director, huh?”

  I nodded. “I was beginning to think we had made a mistake—that we got here on the wrong day.”

  “Oh, no,” he answered, “it’s the right day. Mr. Axeler expected you all right. This your father and brother?” He evidently knew all about us. “My name’s Herb Morris,” he added, as we shook hands all around. “I’m the desk clerk when the season begins. Right now I’m unpacking new crockery and putting mattresses on the beds. Want me to take you to your bunks?”

  “Thanks,” I replied. “But where is Mr. Axeler?”

  He gestured vaguely toward the outdoors. “Out there some place,” he said.

  “We didn’t see him any place around when we drove up,” I said. “I’d like to get to him.”

  “Oh, you’ll see him,” said Herb, smiling, “you can’t miss him. He’s on a horse.”

  I looked at him, for the smile apparently meant to convey something. “On a horse?” I asked.

  “Never gets off it all summer,” said Herb, and smiled broadly, “except to eat and sleep and go to the bathroom. He runs the whole place from that damn horse. We call him the Mad Cossack. You’ll catch onto things soon enough. Want me to help you with your stuff?” He moved toward our suitcases and bundles.

  “Thanks, Herb,” I said gratefully. “That’s about the first kind word we’ve had since we got off the train.”

  Herb grinned. “A kind word is what everybody needs the first time they get a look at this place. This way to the slave quarters, folks. Follow me. Your father’s bunking in the main house, so I’ll take him upstairs first.”

  We followed him up the stairs to a series of cubbyholes under the roof. There were four of these cubicles, each with walls and a door, but they could hardly be called rooms. There was no window, only a skylight, and though it was a cool spring morning outside, the airless, sun-baked room was already sweltering.

  “Who else sleeps up here, Herb?” I asked, looking around the place in dismay.

  “The baker and his two helpers,” he replied. “They think it’s cool up here, I guess, after standing in front of an oven all day. Here, let me open the skylight for you. I had to close it on account of the rain yesterday. It’s not so terrible when it’s open, but you’re a dead duck if it rains during the night and the damn thing won’t shut.”

  I hardly dared look at my father. He was sitting on the edge of the uncovered mattress, staring about him. He was not used to luxury in his surroundings, God knows; but he was shaken, I could see, by the utter squalor of this miserable hole under the roof. There was nothing I could find to say to him. I dared not try to explain away
this new catastrophe. My brother was looking directly at me again and saying nothing.

  “Why don’t you unpack your stuff, Pop,” I said instead. “I’ll go find Mr. Axeler and come back for you.” I turned to Herb again. “Where do my brother and myself sleep?” I said, so inaudibly that he had to ask me to repeat it.

  “Oh,” he answered, “your brother bunks in Buckingham Palace with the rest of the kitchen help, the waiters and me, and you’re all by yourself in the Bastille, over by the social hall. Come on,” he yelled cheerfully, “this way to Buckingham Palace.”

  Buckingham Palace turned out to be a converted chicken house some hundred yards back of the kitchen, set tastefully between the cesspool and the incinerator, and landscaped at its entrance by uncovered garbage pails. One had to stoop to enter it and stay bent over until one stood in the middle under its V-shaped ceiling. It had been turned into a kind of army barracks, with two long rows of army cots lined up against both walls, foot lockers under the cots, and hooks in the wall above each cot to hang clothing from. There was an open shower and toilet at the far end of the room, uninhibitedly free of either shower curtain or door. Some naked electric light bulbs hung from the ceiling, last year’s flypaper and dead flies still sticking to the cords.

  Herbert bustled about seemingly oblivious of what we were thinking and feeling, which must have been all too clear from the stricken looks on our faces.

  “Take this bed here next to mine, Bernie,” he said. “These are the only two beds in the whole place that don’t get the smell from the kitchen, the cesspool or the garbage. That’s the one good thing about being up here first. Last year I had that bed over there, and half the nights I slept outside and let the bugs eat me, because I could stand the bugs better than the smell. Ready for a look at the Bastille?” he finished brightly, turning back to me.

  “I think,” I said darkly, “I think I’m ready for anything now.”

  I followed him out without looking back at my brother. What was there to do or say until I could think of a way out? I walked along with Herb, seemingly incapable of thinking of anything but finding Mr. Axeler and demanding our fare back home, contract or no contract, furniture in storage or no. Herb whistled cheerfully beside me.

  “It’s pretty crummy all right,” he said blithely, “but what the hell? Once you’re here you’re stuck good. It’s too late to find another job for the summer. That’s how he hooks everybody and keeps you here. If you need to make your tuition for the fall term in school, like me and the waiters and the rest, why once he’s got you up this far away, what can you do?”

  “But you were here last year, Herb,” I said. “Why in the world did you come back?”

  He shrugged. “Bad timing. My uncle promised me a job in his store and went back on his word. I waited just too long, so I had to run back to the Mad Cossack. It was the only summer job I could be sure of getting, and I need that tuition money. You’ll get used to it. You get used to anything if you need the dough bad enough.” He chuckled. “But I’ll bet I’m the only one here from last year at that. He never gets the same dopes here twice.”

  “But how does he get guests to come to this place, Herb?” I asked. “They don’t have to come up here—they can go to some decent place.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t look as bad as this when it gets fixed up. He sprays some paint around and spreads some gravel, and puts some lousy geraniums on the porch and in the dining room.” He grinned. “The slave quarters remain the same, though—just the way you saw. He gets away with it because the guests who come here are mostly the parents of the kids in his camp down by the lake. They only stay three or four days at best and they don’t care much. They don’t give a damn about having any fun—they don’t expect to enjoy themselves. They just come up to see their kids swim around or get a medal for archery, and then get the hell out. He’s got them hooked because it’s the only place they can stay that’s near the kids’ camp. But last year he decided he wanted to attract a young crowd, so he built a social hall and hired a five-piece band and a social director.” He stopped and laughed aloud. “That poor bastard social director! I bet he won’t forget last summer for the rest of his life—that is, if he isn’t in the booby hatch right now.” He looked at me sideways. “How did you get hooked into this, by the way? From the guff he hands out in the office?”

  I nodded.

  “Yeah, he can sure make it dreamy,” he went on. “I thought I was coming up to the Waldorf last year. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I got here.”

  “Well, I’m not going to stay here,” I said hotly, “I can tell you that.”

  He seemed genuinely surprised. “You’re not?” he asked. “You’ve got something to go back to?”

  “No,” I admitted, “but I’m not going to stay here.”

  “I see,” said Herb politely, immediately discerning the emptiness of the threat. “Well, in case you do stay, there’s your cathedral. That’s the social hall.” He pointed to an unpainted building a few hundred yards ahead.

  I followed his finger and stared at a small unpainted structure open on three sides and festooned across the front end with a score of what had once been Japanese lanterns and which now hung in ribbons, swaying limply in the breeze.

  “Not exactly the Palace,” said Herb, watching me stare. “Better come inside and have a look, anyway,” he added. “If you do decide to stay, there’s a hell of a lot to do.”

  Silently, I followed him across the field into the social hall. It was unpainted inside, as well as out, and had been constructed in the cheapest possible fashion. One good Vermont storm would have smashed it to smithereens, and I wondered how it had survived the winter winds. There were some non-survivors of the winter littering the floor—a chipmunk, several field mice, and a number of bats that had perished, I thought bitterly as I stepped over them, in a search for either entertainment or food. I stood staring up at the tiny stage. The curtain, half drawn, had a great hole in it, and what I at first took to be some sort of free-hand design across its center was merely bird droppings. The one trough of footlights had been viciously kicked in, a farewell gesture, I had no doubt, of that “poor bastard social director.” I kicked at it myself and two beer cans rolled slowly out.

  The floor of the stage itself was carpeted with the glass of broken light bulbs, and directly in the center stood a great mound of empty Coca-Cola bottles, at the top of which was a stick with a pair of torn lady’s underpants hanging from it—a forlorn token of one of last summer’s victories. I walked up onto the stage and peered into the one dressing room. Some animal had also died there, and although its remains were nowhere to be seen, the stench was deadly. I held my nose and walked over to read some words that were scrawled across the make-up table mirror. It was one succinct sentence consisting mainly of four-letter words and it suggested what Mr. Axeler could do with himself, his social hall, his guests and his camp—and it did not lean heavily on innuendo. I was glad I had braved the smell and walked over to the mirror. I felt better somehow for having read that message.

  A large wardrobe trunk stood in one corner of the dressing room; I wanted to inspect it, but Herb’s voice was calling to me from outside the social hall. “Hey, come on,” he was shouting, “let’s get going. I’ve got to get back to the mattresses.”

  I went out the back way and joined him. “All right,” I said, “just show me where I bunk. I’ll have to stay here for tonight anyway.”

  Silently he pointed to a tin-roofed shack almost directly in front of us. He sighed. “That’s it,” he said, “that’s the Bastille. It’s all yours.”

  I stared at it incredulously. “But that’s a tool shed, isn’t it?” I asked, still unable to believe what my eyes were seeing.

  “It was a tool shed until last year,” said Herb. “You hit it right on the nose. I guess the Mad Cossack ran out of lumber when the social hall was finished, so that’s where the social director bunks.”

  He walked ahead of me and pushed open the door.
“Phew,” he exclaimed as a burst of fetid air rushed to meet him. “They ought to keep this door open. You could fry eggs in here with that tin roof.” He stood aside to let me enter. Even Herb preferred to stay outside and let me look around alone.

  I did not linger long. Rust-colored water, dripping slowly from the tin roof, had run down the discolored walls and formed little pools on the earthen floor which was rudely covered with wooden slats set fairly wide apart. One good rain could set the whole place awash, it seemed, for the ground under the slats was pure mud. Old toothpaste tubes, bottle caps, a shredded athletic supporter, and some rusted sardine cans lay scattered underneath the slats, just where they had been tossed the summer before. Whatever else he may have been, my predecessor was not a neat man, a fellow who could have believed that cleanliness had anything to do with godliness, and he had been richly free of the phobia that dirt breeds disease, for that room was as dirty per square inch as anything I have ever seen.

  The temperature must have been somewhere in the high nineties and the air was as rank as the Jersey flats at the end of a heat wave. I began to feel a little queasy. I looked briefly at the army cot, its uncovered mattress darkly stained with spilled beer and coffee, and quickly rejoined Herb outside. I took a great lungful of fresh air, walked past him, and then threw myself full length down onto the ground.

  Herb kneeled down beside me solicitously. “You all right,” he inquired, “you feel sick?”