The Amorous Busboy of Decatur Avenue

by Robert Klein

  I looked at the portly guy with the wavy hair and the ready smile and wondered if he had voted against me. “I may already have a date,” I lied. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.” The proposition smelled suspicious. Why had he asked me and not one of his fraternity brothers? I made some subtle inquiries on the matter, and discovered that he had indeed asked five of his comrades and had received five emphatic rejections. Steve Murray told me that he heard that the sister was “something from under a rock.” Steve was his old belligerent Brooklyn self, though a new pledge of the fraternity. “I wouldn’t advise it,” he said. “Bernie’s a fucking idiot, and his girlfriend is only a slight improvement on her sister. Anyway, he’s got a lot of nerve trying to take advantage of you that way.” I was touched by Steve’s concern, but I wanted to be a part of homecoming weekend, and I was determined to ingratiate myself with the members of Kappa Nu.

  My date turned out as advertised: an ungainly girl who would have been pretty if she were fifteen pounds lighter. She was shy and insecure but agreeable, and seemed grateful to be out and about, even with a reject like me. Because I was loath to dance and raise my profile in the party basement, we struck up a conversation at the table. She was a very bright high school senior who was bucking for Sarah Lawrence and Radcliffe. As I talked to her in that noisy place, with the Marcels’ “Blue Moon” blaring, the obvious occurred to me. She was no longer some name being bandied about: “Suzie’s sister,” a “thing” that Bernie was trying to pass off on someone. She was a kid named Leona. Maybe she had some problems; well, so did I. In fact, she and I had more in common than I cared to think about.

  Still, I was among people for whom “dates well, dresses well” was an important criterion for social acceptance. My Ivy League jacket and paisley tie were right in tune, but “dates well” meant “pretty,” and I was embarrassed not to have a better-looking date. I was also ashamed of having such thoughts, and of being part of this scheme of Bernie’s, and I fervently hoped the girl would never know how, or for what reason, I was there sitting next to her. Furthermore, I could discern several poorly hidden snickers from brothers who knew the circumstances surrounding Bernie’s dilemma. Just what I needed, another ego boost. A couple of juniors, Kenny Zwickel and Freddy Linzer, came over to us, drunk and out of control. One of them was wearing a pig nose and gesticulating at the two sisters, who, if they knew what was going on, didn’t show it. “Hey, Bernie, introduce me to your girlfriend. Does she have a sister? Oh, you’re the sister, nice to meet you.” Then Linzer turned to me. “Who are you? You a new pledge?” Finally, he staggered away, laughing, and barfed all over the bar. Bernie pretended to be amused and gave me one of those “Whaddaya gonna do with them?” looks. Classy guys, these Kappa Nu boys. I felt even worse knowing how desperately I wanted to be their brother.

  Several guys had seen the incident and angrily dragged the offenders upstairs, leaving a trail of vomit behind. Barfing at the parties was definitely looked down upon, and harassing another brother’s date was a serious offense; so was bird-dogging, which was trying to steal someone else’s date. How about further humiliating a sixteen-year-old kid who didn’t get into your fucking fraternity? What do you call that?

  Steve Chaleff came over and told Bernie that he would bring charges against “those two fucking imbeciles.” “Pardon my language, ladies,” he said to the girls. “Can I talk to you for a minute, Bob?” He gestured for me to follow him to a corner of the bar. He was forced to shout to be heard over the earsplitting music, but the content of his message made his delivery seem gentle. “I want to apologize for the behavior of those guys. You’re a guest here, and they were completely out of line. I also want to say that I’m sorry you didn’t get in. But keep your chin up, we’ll keep fighting, you never know.”

  This brief exchange buoyed me considerably, to have one of the most respected brothers, considered by one and all a mensch and a big wheel, take the time to intervene in the situation and to comfort me. Still, as I walked back to the table, it struck me how pathetic I had become, to so cherish something as small as an apology from the wrong guy.

  Steve Chaleff notwithstanding, there were still a number of enemies among the partying joyous chosen, with their smart, safari-helmet Kappa Nu homecoming hats, and all it took was four blackballs. I had a rough idea who was against me, and there were more than four. To make matters worse, some of them were only sophomores and could happily blackball me for another two years. I hadn’t even considered the other guys who were rejected and had backers in the house. I was suddenly homesick.

  It had always been assumed by my parents and me that I would be a doctor. To my family, there could be no finer or more prestigious attainment. It had been one of those ideas repeated so often as to never be questioned. I had gone to Alfred University to be a doctor, but a few things had gotten in my way—chemistry, college algebra, zoology, inclination, comprehension, preparation, concentration, aptitude, attitude, perseverance, and depression. The first semester mercifully ended with a D-plus in chemistry, and I failed a subject for the first time in my life—math. The premed course was tough, and the students were first-rate and knew what they were doing, and I didn’t. My academic performance so far had pretty much guaranteed that I would more likely be the archbishop of Boston than get into medical school. I decided to go into history and political science. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make that change until September, so I had to “buckle down,” as my father said, just to stay in school.

  The one positive scholastic experience I’d had was the History of Civilization course in which I received a B. I had always liked history, an interest I acquired from my father. In the Civ course, I got my first taste of the satisfaction of college learning taught by knowledgeable experts, in depth and with meaning. This was what college was supposed to be about. I was incredibly impressed with ancient Greece, which, thousands of years before, had developed democracy, philosophy, theater, and architecture. Western history seemed to go downhill from there, a mixture of ignorance and slaughter and corrupt values from the Romans on to the Middle Ages, culminating in me trying to get into Kappa Nu.

  Speaking of ignorance and corrupt values, ROTC had become a time-consuming aspect of life at Alfred. It was not the program itself that was beginning to wear on me, it was the people in it: the third-and fourth-year cadets who had entered the optional advanced program. This involved a few weeks of summer boot camp and resulted at graduation in a commission as second lieutenant in the United States Army Reserve, whereupon they did at least a two-year hitch. Some of these guys could be a real pain in the ass.

  At the moment, there was quite a soldierly buzz about the place, since a large semiannual military parade was scheduled, in which the entire corps of cadets would march before a few hundred spectators. A delegation of army brass was expected to review the troops. This had been the cause of several additional ROTC practice drill sessions in which the nervous student commanders had driven us hard. Several of us were given extra demerits by a few of the fussy upperclassmen superiors, some of whom had seen too many war movies. It was galling to hear one of these yokels berate me in front of the boys: “Klein, you’d better learn to shave. Is that hair on your lip, or have you been eating soup? Do a better job shining those shoes and that brass, too. Is that clear, Klein?” “Yes sir!” was my only response.

  Certain guys protested defiantly in their own way: guys like Howie Slonim, a dapper Kappa Nu sophomore who hid his long pomaded hair under his hat on uniform days. At the last drill, he had presented himself for inspection with his curly blond hair sticking out from his cap like a Harpo Marx wig. The lovable lunatic Mike Wiener, who had spewed the peas through his nose, won the prize by showing up for inspection in full uniform, with no pants. When a senior officer from Kappa Psi Epsilon told Steve Murray he was on report, Steve pointed to his crotch and said, “Report this.”

  In a new development, Major Davis, the faculty commanding officer, asked me to be the drum major, leading the enti
re corps of cadets in the military parade. He did not ask me for military reasons. Unfortunately, my reputation as the Alfred Saxon on homecoming weekend had preceded me. I was recommended for the role by a Kappa Nu brother, a junior named Brezner who was in the advanced ROTC. More favors, more of the old tongue up the you-know-what.

  Major Walter Davis was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of the South, whose IQ was about a hundred points higher than that of his colleagues on the ROTC faculty. He looked like a major, impeccable in his uniform, with the scrambled eggs on the peak of his hat. I liked him and respected him; his class in military science and tactics was interesting and well presented. He did not pretend to be a hero, like some of the other officers, and told us that he had never been in combat or fired a shot in anger. “Ah spent the war at a supplah depot in Hawaii,” he liked to say. He was quite keen on my taking the job. “Klahn, you’re musically inclahned. Ah know ya’ll can do it. Ah saw you at homecoming. You were struttin’ lahk a real Saxon warrior.”

  Such praise from the major was hard to ignore until I saw the getup he wanted me to wear. In addition to my standard uniform, I would have to wear white spats and, worst of all, a busby. This was a huge, cylindrical fur hat about two feet high, like the guards wear at Buckingham Palace. It was the most uncool ensemble I had ever seen, and I found that initially I could not walk two feet wearing that stupid hat without falling over like a toy soldier. Furthermore, the major showed me the high-knee, exaggerated strut step he wished me to use on the parade field, like a Tennessee walking horse or a college band, all the while moving a large baton up and down to the martial music. This was beyond embarrassing, but I did it, and I had to contend with everyone in the dorm imitating my strut step for the rest of the year.

  There was a small consolation. Major Davis told me that the brigadier general reviewing the parade gave me excellent notices.

  In March, I volunteered along with a few other rejects to make artificial carnations out of tissues for the Kappa Nu St. Patrick’s parade float, St. Pat’s weekend being a major event on campus. St Patrick was purportedly the patron saint of ceramic engineers, a rather esoteric field of responsibility. This flower making was especially humiliating and took hours that I would much rather have spent elsewhere, but I was a determined boy. I was becoming somewhat of a familiar face around the house, through my invitations to the parties and my voluntary slavery, though my discomfort there had lessened only slightly: I was still far from an equal. Some of the guys ignored me, while the ones who were on my side were a little too nice, a little too guilty, watching me make flowers on the fraternity’s behalf, the fraternity that wouldn’t accept me as a member.

  My grades had improved to respectability, but Kappa Nu continued to be a dead end. The last big weekend of the school year was Parents’ Weekend, which I dreaded, since I’d been invited with my folks to the festivities at the house. Sitting with them next to the thirty-foot bar compounded my feelings of being second rate; my parents, too, appeared uncomfortable, as the situation was not lost on them. Somehow I had spread this contagion to my mother and father. Thank God the term was finally over.

  Chapter Six

  Boy Hero

  Somewhere on this earth, there walks a man who owes his life to me. Though few are able to make such an immodest claim, I am not exaggerating in the least.

  The summer I graduated from high school, I had a job in the Catskill Mountains at a small, reasonably dumpy resort called the Alamac Hotel and Country Club. “Country club” was an appellation frequently affixed to second-rate hotels in the area, to add the panache so lacking in the rickety buildings and the bumbling staff. But this was hardly the kind of country club where one would expect to see William F. Buckley in whites, brandishing a tennis racquet. This was 1958 in Woodridge, New York, in the heart if not the height of the now defunct Borscht Belt. Resorts tiny and large dotted the landscapes of towns named Woodridge, South Fallsburg, and Liberty: Jewish resorts, all located in the incongruously named Sullivan County. These hotels and bungalow colonies had sprung up earlier in the century, after the huge European migrations. Escape from the sweltering city at affordable cost drew hundreds of thousands to Swan Lake, Monticello, Woodbourne, Ellenville, and all the points between. They came by car, bus, and overloaded over-the-hill limousines that eight people would share, suitcases tied to the roof. Except for a few ritzy giants of the Borscht Belt hotel world, such as the Concord, Kutsher’s, and Grossinger’s, which were top of the line and expensive, Sullivan County was a truly egalitarian getaway. Bungalow colonies and rooming houses with kitchen privileges offered the urban working class fresh air and green grass. Small hotels like the Alamac offered their middle-class patrons modest accommodations with maid service, sports, entertainment, and three gargantuan meals a day. The second most popular sport was the sedentary card game, featuring pinochle, gin rummy, and the latest sensation, canasta. The first most popular sport was eating.

  Food in these parts and its quantity were legendary, a major facet of a guest’s stay. There was no limit on the amount or the portions, no sign on the wall: TAKE ALL YOU WANT BUT EAT ALL YOU TAKE. People took and ate and called for more: prodigious amounts of roast chicken, boiled beef flanken, brisket, and goulash, and enough sour cream to clog an artery the size of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Though only a minority were religiously observant, kosher customs were observed, making breakfast and lunch dairy, nonmeat meals. Guests gorged themselves at breakfast on eggs, various fruits, berries, and vegetables with sour cream, and an assortment of smoked and marinated fish. Lunch featured strange, delicious concoctions of mushrooms, various vegetables, and grain laden with butter, which were ingeniously designed to imitate meat. These so-called vegetable and protose cutlets and the vegetarian meatloaf were served with fresh creamy mashed potatoes. People frequently extended the gluttony beyond the dining room to avoid personal embarrassment, and many a customer could be seen smuggling the occasional herring away from the table, in a newspaper under his arm, in order to consume it in his room.

  Our hotel consisted of a main building, a three-story walk-up. There were several smaller buildings housing guests, along with the casino, which was used for bingo, dance lessons, and live entertainment several times a week. Jugglers, dance teams, magicians, hypnotists, and singers: These were the usual bill of fare. For some unknown reason, there was a special affinity for roller-skating acts, which usually featured a couple from Latvia or somewhere else in Central Europe. The poor things had to put a lot of effort into each brief show, like assembling a roller track and other equipment on the stage, not to mention the expenses for sequined costume maintenance. The highlight of the act would be when the Latvian man would spin his wife around by his teeth so that her body was parallel to the floor and her face was taking five Gs, which made her cheeks flap back like the monkey’s in the unmanned rocket test.

  Saturday was the big night, the primary-show night, with a singer and the closing act, which was most anticipated of all: the Borscht Belt comedian. The singers, no matter what their nationality, would always include among the show tunes and standards a couple of songs catering to the Jewish clientele. Some might call it pandering when an Italian kid from Brooklyn named Tony Caputo sings “My Yiddishe Mama,” but nevertheless, it drew tears. Special material about the Jews without a land of their own: an emotional song, “Tell Me Where Can I Go?” brought the house down, especially after the part where Israel is created, which had happened only ten years earlier: “Now I Know Where to Go.” They loved opera arias and light classics, consistently buying into the high schmaltz of pretend opera singers with little talent and too much phony vibrato. The comedians, the stars of the show—Catskills legends like Bernie Burns, Larry Deutsch, and Lou Menchell—strutted their stuff with mock insult and a clipped rhythm with roots in the nineteenth-century East European shtetl.

  At times they would throw in jokes with Yiddish punch lines, mystifying and confusing those of us who did not understand the langu
age. “I says to my wife. I says let’s make love. She says I can’t. So we went to the doctor. You know what happened?” Punch line: “Echubda echubda chubda chubda shmetzel.” Those who understood Yiddish would double over in laughter, leaving those of us under sixty to inquire of an old person next to us, laughing hysterically, if he would translate the punch line so that we could laugh, too.

  The comedians always did well. They invariably demolished the audience and jumped into their Cadillacs to do one or two more shows that night. Though I loved comedians on television, this was my first opportunity to see live ones and their mastery: getting laughs on demand, fulminating, crackling laughs that seemed to last minutes at a time, that left the audience with aching stomachs and cheeks and teary eyes. These are merely the physiological manifestations of laughter. Though I could not intellectualize it at that young age, the palliative effect of laughter was obvious. People looked happy. For a time they forgot about their mother’s cancer or their financial debt or their disappointment in their children, and all because of a skillful comedian.

  It resounded like a Chinese gong over my head: Wouldn’t that be a wonderful life? Though I had played out such notions before, as in my daydreams about the TeenTones, the possibility was still unreal to me, so I continued my company line—that I would be a doctor.

  Though my job was to be the hotel lifeguard, a show-business window opened for two weeks in the middle of the summer when the master of ceremonies/social director quit. I was known as a bit of a cutup who had performed in the staff show, so the management asked if I would introduce the professional acts in addition to my pool duties, until the new MC was hired. I jumped at the opportunity to be on the stage, and they paid me an additional twenty-five dollars a week.