The Boys in the Mail Room: A Novel

by Iris Rainer Dart

  Barry sat down on the blanket. He was depressed. He knew that he shouldn't be because here he was on the first real vacation in his life, in Hawaii, with so many things to do. The tour of Pearl Harbor, and the tour of the pineapple factory, and the parties that were part of the convention. It was more important than anything he'd ever done.

  The boys were coming out of the water. They ran to their blankets and shook themselves off. They were all laughing and one of them turned the volume up on the radio. Barry wished he had a portable radio. Maybe he would buy himself one when he got home, with his bar mitzvah money. One of the boys stood up again and started walking toward the hotel pool area. He was obviously looking for someone as he passed their blanket and saw Mashe.

  "Hey, Mashe," the kid said. Barry was surprised. He was used to kids calling grown-ups Mr. or Mrs., not by their first name.

  Mashe shaded his eyes with his manicured hand and looked up at the boy.

  "Hello, Howard," Mashe said smiling. "You know, it took me a second to recognize you. You're so grown-up." The boy Howard grinned. He had great teeth. He had great hair.

  "Look, Elly," Mashe said to Aunt Eleanor, who was dozing. "Here's Howard. Did you ever meet my nephew Barry Golden?" Mashe asked Howard.

  Howard extended his hand to shake. Barry felt shy. He put his hand out. They shook.

  "Howard was Eugene's best friend," Eleanor said, smiling.

  Howard looked uncomfortable.

  "I'm looking for my dad," Howard said. "He was supposed to take some of the kids to lunch. Wanna come along?"

  The last three words, directed at Barry, were so much a part of the first sentence that it took Barry a few seconds to realize Howard meant him.

  "Huh?"

  "Lunch. Hungry?" Howard asked.

  "Uh . . ."

  "Go ahead, Barelah," Mashe said. Barelah. Shit. Why did Mashe have to call him that in front of Howard?

  "Your aunt and I will eat later. Go ahead."

  Barry got up slowly. It was what he wished would happen, but those boys were all older and what would he talk about with them?

  Lunch was in the outdoor dining room. It was beautiful. Birds flew right in and landed on the floor, under the tables, eating the dropped crumbs. Howard's father wasn't hungry, so he didn't join them after all, but Howard's sister, Joan, who was eleven, did. She brought her friend named Mattie, who was also about eleven and who wore braces on her teeth.

  Howard was nice but the other two boys were saying dirty things about the waitresses in front of the girls, and punching each other on the arm and doing corny stuff like blowing the straw papers in each other's faces. Barry ordered a cheeseburger and it was delicious. They served it with a piece of pineapple beside it, and it was the first time he'd ever tasted pineapple that wasn't "chunk style" from a can. It was great. Restaurant food was so much better than his mother's cooking. When they'd finished eating, the waitress brought checks and pencils. Barry didn't know what the pencils were for. The others were all writing something on their checks. Barry looked at Howard.

  "Oh," Howard said, "I forgot." And he took Barry's check from Barry. "My dad said I should sign for you, too." Then Barry saw that Howard was writing his parents' name and room number on the check and the words "add tip" and adding up the numbers. Howard was treating him to lunch. Barry's mother's face flashed through his mind.

  "Tell your father 'Thank you,' Howard," he said.

  Howard smiled that great teeth smile.

  One of the other boys belched really loud, and the one who didn't belch laughed hysterically. Barry held his breath for a second. They might be doing that as a criticism of him. But neither of them was even looking at him. They were both already on their feet and running out the door, back to the beach, poking and shoving one another.

  The two girls said they were going to get dressed and go to the hotel shops.

  "Want to come to my room?" Howard asked.

  Oh, yeah, Barry thought to himself. This guy with the good teeth and the good hair wants to be my friend, in beautiful fabulous Hawaii. Oh, thank you, God and Uncle Mashe and poor dead Eugene since now it's your best friend I'm stealing. Thank you, he thought happily.

  What he said was "Sure."

  Barry must have gotten more sun than he thought in the short time he was on the beach, because he could feel the elastic around the waist of his bathing suit rubbing against his body, and it hurt as he walked down the air-conditioned hallway behind Howard toward Howard's room. Howard was dark-skinned and already looked as though he had a tan. He stopped at a room and took a Key out of a pocket in his suit. Howard was fifteen. He got to have his own room. Not a cot in the living room. Of course, he was in Hawaii with his parents, not his aunt and uncle. It wasn't just a room. It was a suite. Howard had his own suite. Much fancier than Mashe and Eleanor's. Barry tried not to look impressed. But he was.

  "Well, c'mon in," Howard said. Barry was still standing in the doorway.

  Barry noticed that the television was on, and there was the remains of a room-service breakfast still on the table in the living room.

  "Those jerks haven't cleaned up yet," Howard said.

  The other thing Barry noticed was the newspaper. It was spread all over the sofa. Howard had obviously been reading it. Barry didn't know anyone but grown-ups who read the newspaper.

  "You look a little like Gene," Howard said to him.

  "Who?"- Barry asked.

  "Gene. Your cousin."

  Barry didn't know who Howard meant. Then it hit him.

  "You mean Eugene?"

  Howard laughed. "His parents were the only ones who called him Eugene. He hated it."

  Barry smiled. "The way they call me Barelah."

  "Right," Howard said. He was sitting at the table now, shaping and reshaping a little pile of sugar he'd spilled there from the room service leftovers. He had stopped smiling.

  "I loved him," he said to Barry, not looking up. "I loved Gene."

  "Yeah," Barry heard himself mutter. "He was a nice guy." Why was Howard saying that about Eugene? Because when someone was dead you could say things like that about them and no one thought you were soppy or—or what? Queer? Is that what Howard meant when he said he loved Gene, who was fast becoming in Barry's mind a different person than the Eugene of the bar mitzvah and the encyclopedias.

  "Want a cigarette?" Howard asked him.

  Barry shook his head. A lot of the kids at school smoked cigarettes. He'd never tried it.

  Howard got up and walked toward the bedroom. "I've got some L&M's somewhere," he said.

  As Howard walked into the bedroom Barry thought about leaving. But he didn't. He told himself he was staying because Howard paid for lunch, and leaving would be rude. Howard was talking to him from the other room.

  "You can't blame Mashe and Elly," he was saying. "Parents don't ever know their kids. I guess if you think about your own parents, you'll know what I mean."

  What was he talking about?

  "Come in here," Howard said.

  Later when he thought back about that afternoon he remembered there was something about the way Howard said "Come in here" that made Barry know exactly what would happen next, and that made him get slowly to his feet as if under a spell and walk into the bedroom. The blackout curtains were closed so it took a moment for Barry's eyes to adjust. When they did he saw Howard was naked. With a hard on. Barry's breathing was heavy and he had a hard on too.

  Howard smiled. Barry wanted to look away from Howard's body and especially from his penis. But he was riveted to the spot.

  "You can touch it," Howard said.

  Barry felt a rush of blood all through him.

  "No?" Howard said, tauntingly. "Then how 'bout taste it?"

  This was it. He would run now. Run out of this room and down to the beach to the safety of Mashe and Eleanor and he could find a book to read. A good book to read all day, every day, and not once look up to see Howard and the other boys. If he could get out of this one, he wou
ld read three books. Yes, God, I promise. Three books over Christmas vacation was a major achievement. His English teacher had said so just last week.

  He walked slowly toward the bed.

  "Take your suit off, Barry," Howard said.

  He did. It excited him even more as he watched the suit fall to his feet and then felt Howard's strong hand take his arm and pull him into the bed.

  Howard was touching him, caressing him, tasting his body. Barry was filled with heat. He kept his eyes closed tightly. Howard's mouth was on his balls, then around his penis. Barry opened his eyes now and looked down at Howard's beautiful hair. He was amazed at what was going on. Oh, God. It felt so good. A queer. Oh, God. The frenzy built inside him to such a pitch he didn't even hear the key turn in the door.

  Howard heard it. He jumped to his feet, pulled on a nearby robe and ran to the living room.

  Barry's heart was pounding. He heard the voices.

  "Maid service."

  "Not now."

  "I'm the last shift, sir."

  "I don't care. Not now."

  "I have orders to take the tray back to the kitchen."

  "Fuck your orders."

  "Hey, listen, mister—"

  "Take the goddamned tray."

  Barry was on his feet. He didn't want to be here. He was really afraid. He was a queer. He'd suspected it for a long time. But now. Letting another boy do that to him. He didn't feel very well. He remembered that party he'd gone to in Brooklyn, where Gloria Heller had suggested they all play Five Minutes in Paradise, and he found himself in somebody's parents' bedroom. He was on top of a big pile of coats that were on top of a bed, and Judy Krassner was on top of him. Crawling all over him, and he could smell perfume from the dresser of somebody's mother, he forgot whose house it was, and it made him queasy. At least he thought it was the perfume.

  He picked his bathing suit up from the floor and slid it on. He heard the maid say the word "Mahalo" to Howard and the door to the corridor closed. A second later Howard stood in the door to the bedroom.

  "Scared?"

  "Yeah."

  Howard moved into the room and sat on the bed.

  "If you wanna leave you can," he said, and he took another cigarette from a pack of L&M's on the night table. "And I don't even care if you tell Mashe and Eleanor." His voice was very even. Not angry at all.

  "I never would," Barry told him.

  Was he crazy? Tell Mashe and Eleanor that he'd been in bed with Howard?

  "Gene was always afraid of them," Howard said, inhaling deeply on the L&M, and blowing out a large cloud of smoke, then a smoke ring.

  He's beautiful, Barry thought.

  "The first night we were together he got so nervous he made himself sick," Howard said. "He was afraid if he went home they could look at his face and know. So he called them and told them he was staying overnight with me."

  Eugene and Howard. That was what he meant. Howard looked at Barry. "You look like him. Like a shorter version of him." Howard smiled. Barry smiled. Howard liked him a lot. He felt that. Howard was so beautiful it made him weak. Eugene had been with Howard when they were both his age. Maybe queerness ran in his family. Maybe it caused meningitis.

  "Don't be scared," Howard said.

  "I'm not," Barry lied.

  Howard put the cigarette out, untied his robe, and dropped it to the floor.

  During the seven-day Hawaii stay Barry and Howard were together a lot but there wasn't any more sex or even any talk about it. Even though the experience was never out of Barry's mind and he was anxious to try to be with Howard again, he was relieved.

  When they arrived at the New York airport, Howard got into a taxi behind his parents, closed the door and then looked out the window and waved at Barry, who was standing on the curb. That was the last time Barry ever saw him.

  During the four years of high school that followed, Barry had two girl friends. Sarah Levy, an intellectual with giant breasts who asked him to squeeze her nipples hard while he kissed her but thought other sexual activity was whorey. And Margo Barnes, a shiksah, who would only kiss and no tongue please or I'll take a cab home. There were no more homosexual affairs and Barry was relieved that he hadn't met anyone who brought those feelings out in him since Howard.

  When he was seventeen and a senior and working as a delivery boy for Eldor, Barry met Andy May, one of Mashe's designers.

  Andy was twenty-five, very good looking and slim and funny. He made Barry laugh. A few times after work some of the other people at the office would get together and go to the movies, or to get dinner and Barry would join them and end up sitting near Andy. Andy would tell jokes about the models he worked with and after the group got to know Barry and to trust him, there were lots of jokes about Mashe from all of them.

  Andy did a brilliant imitation of Mashe that killed Barry.

  He did Mashe's bow-legged walk and supercilious raised eyebrow to perfection. Everyone loved it.

  Barry knew Andy would ask him to come home with him eventually. Not just because when Mashe talked about Andy he ended the conversation by saying, "That faygelah," which always made Barry cringe, but because there was some very warm feeling between them.

  When he finally did go to Andy's tasteful apartment in the Village that first night, the release was enormous for him. And he was sure he was in love. After the sex, which they both wanted so badly that it began the moment they closed the door behind them, Barry told Andy about Howard and about Sarah Levy and Margo Barnes and Andy laughed a lot at the stories and made Barry laugh at them, too. And it was only because Mrs. Golden still peeked into his room every morning that Barry crept out of Andy's bedroom at 4 A.M. and took the long subway ride home.

  The next few months were wonderful. High school really seemed like more bullshit than ever. Barry couldn't wait to get to Eldor to work. Even though he and Andy had to act as though nothing was going on, the restraint was sweet and the longing delicious. Barry's only problem now was college. One night early that year Mashe had called the Goldens to say he was coming over. He wanted to talk about something important. Barry's mother put on makeup. Barry's father "took a shave," as he called it. Barry was told to stay home. It might concern him. It did.

  It seems that with Eugene dead, Mashe was worried about not having anyone to whom he could pass on his business if, in case, God forbid he should drop dead himself someday. Therefore, because Barelah had become so dear to him, he would like to pay his way to go and study business at the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania next year. Provided, of course, that during the summer and after he graduated he would come to work at Eldor in a capacity which would have increasing importance as the years went on.

  Barry's father sighed. Why not? He wouldn't have to pay the kid's tuition himself. Barry's mother threw her arms around Mashe and told him there was surely a place in heaven waiting for him.

  Barry was confused. He didn't know what he wanted to do. Granted he was impressed with Mashe's wheeling and dealing, and the way he manipulated not only his employees but everyone he did business with, but he wasn't so sure shmatahs was what he wanted. He still had some feeling about show business, and was curious about how people got into that. But somehow it got away from him. Somehow everyone was hugging and saying how blessed they all were to have their health, and by the time Mashe left that day it felt as if the deal was closed. Barry sent a letter off the next day to the University of Pennsylvania asking for an application, but he continued to feel uneasy about it.

  By the time he met Andy he'd already been accepted to Wharton and the families had celebrated the acceptance at Mamma Leone's. Barry's mother told him she had never been so happy about anything in her life.

  "Philadelphia? In business school?" Andy liked to tease him about it.

  When Andy said it it sounded funny, even though the thought of it when he was alone made Barry ache.

  The day of Barry's high school graduation his mother had a small party. Andy came and
brought a few of the people from Eldor. Mashe and Eleanor were there, of course. It was weird for Barry to see Andy in his parents' living room. So out of context. One of the people who came to the party was Rita, a secretary from the front office at Eldor, who sometimes went out to dinner in the group with them. She was brazenly flirting with Mashe in front of Eleanor, and Barry kept wishing the party would be over. Finally it was, and Barry said a small prayer as Andy shook Mr. Golden's hand and said "Nice meeting you, sir." And kissed Mrs. Golden's hand and left with the girl Rita and some others.

  Barry slept late the next day. It was the first day of summer vacation and Mashe said he could come in at noon. The group was going to dinner after work, so he'd wear something special. Barry turned over lazily and was surprised to see his mother in his room. She was leaning against the door, as if she'd been there for a while. Her face was pale and her mouth was contorted in a sneer of rage. Barry, now wide awake, sat up.

  "Mah?"

  "Pack your bags," she said quietly.

  Barry knew something was deeply wrong. But what?

  "Why?" he asked tentatively. "What do you mean?"

  "Pack up. And get out of this apartment. We tried. God knows, your father and I tried to raise you and make you a decent man, and you did this to us, you ungrateful little louse! You will be out of here by noon, and we'll say kaddish for you because as far as we're concerned you're dead."

  Barry's mother turned and ran out of the room.

  Oh, my God. She knew. But how? And how much?

  Barry jumped out of bed and ran after her. She was already in her room. She'd thrown herself across her unmade bed, sobbing.

  "Mother. Talk to me."

  Terrible agonizing sobs.

  "Mother."

  She raised her head and looked at him. That face. So filled with pain. She was gasping for air and then she coughed.

  "Where's Daddy?" Barry asked.

  "Not here. Couldn't stand the shame," she managed to get out. "Of you. You're a freak. You're a fairy. My own son. Tell me it's a lie. Tell me."

  "Mah. It's not like that."

  "Not like what? I'm talking about you and that Andy." She was screaming. "That goyishe sissy. Don't you get in bed together and touch each other? Don't you? Don't you do things with him you're supposed to do with a girl? Maybe you are a girl, my Barry? Maybe?"