by Sidney Hart
“You’ll find out soon enough. Take the shirts, I’ll carry the suitcases.”
“How long have you been up here?” I asked, looking for another entry into civility. I had just graduated from high school, but the vacationers had started arriving at the hotels in the area in mid-June so some staffers had to be there ready to serve them.
“Couple of weeks. Sammy’s been talking about you the whole time like you were his long lost son. Do you know him?”
“Not really. Well, I know who he is, I’ve met him before, but I was just a kid then and we didn’t talk to each other or anything.” I felt it best to minimize my knowledge of Sammy and let Ron tell me what he thought I should know. Actually, I knew a great deal about Sammy from my brothers. I knew that Sammy had never been married, that he worked the resorts in Miami Beach in the winter and the Catskills in the summer, though Braverman’s was the draw not the other Catskill hotels, that he had a loyal following of guests who would only sit at his station and be served by him, and that he was extremely self-conscious about his lack of formal education and diligently studied dictionaries in an effort to compensate.
“Well, he’s a prick as far as I’m concerned, a case of arrested development. He’s old enough to be the father of everyone working in the dining room but he’s still flicking his towel at your ass after you come out of the shower.”
“Well, he sounds like someone to feel sorry for. My brothers say he’s very self-conscious about not having an education. Here he is working with all these college boys and …”
“Don’t break my heart. My father didn’t go to college either but he educated himself, started a business, and made a life for his family. Don’t feel sorry for Sammy, Melvin. One summer here and you won’t feel sorry for anybody. Except maybe judge Crater, if you can find him.”
“We’d all like to find the judge, I’m sure, but why here?”
“Don’t you know he’s our resident ghost?”
“Come on, you’re not serious.”
“You bet I am, you’ll see.”
Now, everyone loves a good ghost story and the further you go from New York City the greater the number of ghosts you will encounter. We’re raised with the story of the headless horseman in Sleepy Hollow near Tarrytown and his horrifying decapitations but as you proceed north up the Hudson River the number of lesser known spooks swells. For example, in Hudson, New York it is said Mabel Parker can be heard on the second floor of her former home now called Dietz House; Albany’s Russell Sage College uses buildings that were once part of a children’s sanitarium (Parson’s home for children) and they say numerous ghosts there still can be heard; and at Belhurst Castle in Geneva, New York amid the Finger Lakes, the ghost of the beautiful Italian opera singer killed in the collapse of a secret tunnel she and her lover employed can be seen—a woman in white standing silently on the hotel’s front lawn in the middle of the night. There are dozens more reported all over the state but the ghost that I was to become intimately involved with was the ghost of Braverman’s, the ghost of judge Crater.
Unless you were born in the days when radio was the major source of home entertainment, judge Joseph Force Crater’s name may be unfamiliar to you. The judge was a New York City lawyer who, four months before his disappearance on August 6, 1930, was appointed to the New York State Supreme Court by the then governor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The stories about Crater’s character ranged from that of a teetotaling Methodist to a womanizing gambler with connections to the unseemly. His was the most notorious missing person case of the century up to that time, similar to that of Jimmy Hoffa’s in the 1970’s, and his name was used and abused by radio comedians in order to tease laughter from their audiences. His mysterious disappearance had reduced him and his name to the status of a reliable punchline. But you’ll hear more about the judge later.
“Anyway, even if you don’t meet the judge you’ll meet an annoying assembly of irritating and bad tipping complainers and gluttons, so get ready for a typical Catskill summer.”
This seemed a grim forecast and it troubled me to hear it from Ron. This wasn’t summer school at a university but it wasn’t a prison work farm either. I was on the verge of calling him a cynic but thought it the better course to just let this forecast pass. He had been in a bad mood when I arrived so it clearly wasn’t my fault. His grousing was really not much more than the petulant whining of an over-tired child and I took note of that for future reference. We returned to the bunkhouse in silence, Ron kicking stones down the path as we went.
2.
At 5:00 Ron said that we should go to the kitchen so he could orient me to the system and introduce me to the chefs. I slipped into my white Dacron shirt, clipped my bow tie to the left collar point, neatly folded my side towel into a narrow oblong and, tucking it under the right side of my belt, stepped into my black lace-ups. We entered through the screen door at the rear of the kitchen. The dishwashers were lolling about, smoking and distracted, seemingly indifferent to one another. Looking like the supernumerary street people of “The Beggar’s Opera” these shabbily dressed men of indeterminate ages with several days’ growth of beard, red and rheumy looking eyes, some trembling on the brink of D.T.’s, looked at us impassively with the dead-eyed stares of water buffaloes as Ron led me to the dish racks and rows of plates, bowls, glasses and goblets.
“It’s pretty straight forward, bowls and monkey dishes here, salad plates, dessert plates, dinner plates there, glasses and goblets over there,” he said, while gesturing limply with his right hand, like Leonard Bernstein cuing the violas. “You bring your silver back to your station for drying and sorting in the side stand.” The side stand was a serving table at each station that the waiter used to set down and unload his tray. In the shelf beneath that top was the bin for the busboy’s dirty dishes, and in the drawers beneath the bin were compartments for the cutlery. Braverman’s did not have a kosher dining room so we used the same dishes and silver for every meal, both meat and dairy. “The water pitchers are over there, one per table. They’re heavy when they’re full so don’t try to carry more than four at a time, two in each hand,” he said, motioning at the pitchers that looked like brightly colored bowling balls with spouts and handles. Against the wall, between the double doors to the dining room and the shelves where the dishes were stored, were deep sinks, amalgamations of iron and zinc, where the dirty dishes were washed, and in front of them wooden tables for the busboys to drop their loaded bus boxes and retrieve clean ones for the bins in their stands. Across the kitchen, on the wall farthest from the dining room so their heat would not radiate into the eating area, were the ovens and stoves, huge metal structures looking like fugitives from an iron foundry. In the middle of the floor, occupying the space between the sinks and the ovens were rows of butcher block tables where most of the cleaning, cutting, chopping and preparing of food was done.
“You’ll catch on after a few meals. If you have a problem one of the guys will help you out. C’mon, I’ll show you the dining room.”
“I know it,” I said too loudly and insistently, trying to establish some semblance of competence. “I’ve eaten in there with my family many times,” I added more softly. “But you can show me the waiters’ stations.”
“C’mon, I’ll show you where I work. If you’ve eaten in here you know where Sammy’s station is,” he said as we passed through the double doors. Sammy’s station was diagonally across from the kitchen, up towards the entrance to the dining room, nestled in the arc of an oversized bay window. It was called “the Gold Coast” because it was situated near the front of the dining room, close to the entrance, but not so close as to disturb those seated there with the commotion and tumult of the hungry horde stampeding by to the less important tables at the side and rear of the room. The bay was the largest window in the dining room and overlooked the hotel’s “Famous Olympic-Sized [sic] Pool” that was featured in all its advertisements and promotional literature. To be seated there was to be twice blessed: to d
isplay one’s self while simultaneously appraising all who passed before you, and to be able to do that from the coveted tables of the hotel’s legendary headwaiter, from Sammy’s station. In the tiny culture of Braverman’s at the time, this would have been tantamount to sitting with Sherman Billingsley at the old Stork Club in New York City. And one paid handsomely, and gladly, for the honor so it was expected that as his busboy I would be rewarded as well.
“I’m right across from you over here,” Ron said, standing in the broad center aisle that divided the room in half and pointing to the tables opposite Sammy’s. “The waiter just above me is Ivan Goldman. He’s an All American basketball player from the University of Kentucky. Just below you is Abe Melman, the lawyer. You’ll meet the others as we go along,” he said, weariness in his voice. Ron seemed to get frustrated and irritated easily when discussing things that held no special interest or meaning for him. “Let’s go back in the kitchen and I’ll introduce you to the chef.”
The head chef, Rudy, was a crazy Hungarian whose temper tantrums were well known to me from my brothers’ dinner time antics and stories, each in turn acting out one of Rudy’s outrageous eruptions. Rudy, they said, brandished meat cleavers and carving knives whenever he felt his authority challenged. Deft and strong, he could divide a side of beef into steaks, rib roasts, and chops while muttering expletives in Hungarian, punctuating the occasionally vehement whack of the cleaver cutting through animal flesh and crashing into the wooden work table beneath, with the bloodcurdling shriek of the name of the waiter or bus-boy who recently had most irritated him.
Rudy’s voice was loud enough to hear even before we pushed through the swinging door to the kitchen but once inside, it was booming.
“Vhat you mean you don know?” he raged at the busboy cowering in front of him. “Is missing, maybe stolen. Maybe you took.” He grabbed a meat cleaver from the work table and to punctuate his point, swung it in the air and brought it down on the table with a crash.
“I didn’t do it Rudy, you gotta believe me, I didn’t do it,” the busboy said, his voice quavering, his legs going rubbery beneath him.
“Dot’s it. I hate liars. Dot’s it!” and brandishing his cleaver in his right hand, he engulfed the quaking boy with his left arm and began dragging him across the room.
“Shit, he’s taking him into the meat locker.”
“What?” I said, my own knees turning to rubber.
“Who’s talking?” Rudy bellowed. “Shot op or I come get you too!”
“Help me, please help me, somebody please,” the boy pleaded.
“Can’t we do something?” I whispered to Ron, but he grabbed my arm and pulling me close to him hissed at me through clenched teeth,
“Stand still and shut up.”
Rudy dragged the limp, simpering boy to the wooden door of the meat locker and still grasping his cleaver in his right hand, pulled the refrigerator door open and then hurled the busboy inside. Looking back at me and Ron and several others of the dining room staff who had assembled in the kitchen, Rudy glowered, shook the cleaver in the air, and then entered the meat locker slamming the door behind him and closing in the feeble cries of his victim.
“Who was that? What the hell is going on? Isn’t anybody going to do something?” I was terrified, but the others just seemed morose and resigned.
“It’s Rudy’s sick sense of humor. He won’t hurt him but it’s his way of initiating a new busboy. He won’t be satisfied until the kid shits in his pants. Consider yourself lucky it wasn’t you. Since you’ve seen the act he’ll have to wait for another new guy to do it to next time.”
“Jesus, that’s sick,” I said, relieved there would be no bloodshed, and especially relieved he hadn’t selected me for his charade.
“Yeah, Rudy’s a good guy, just a little sick is all,” said one of the waiters. “By the way, my name’s Ivan, Ivan Goldman,” he said extending his right hand. “You’re Melvin, right?” Before I could answer the door to the meat locker flew open and the hapless busboy came stumbling out screaming. His hands were clutched over his groin and blood was gushing out from under them soaking his pants and leaking on to the floor. He collapsed into the pool of blood at his feet sobbing and moaning with the most agonized and pathetic cry I had ever heard. I was still holding Ivan Goldman’s hand in an arrested handshake, and my breathing had stopped at the sight of the blood. Everyone in the kitchen was frozen in place, as if in a tableau vivant, when Rudy appeared in the doorway of the refrigerator the bloody cleaver in one hand, and in the other, a piece of flesh smeared with blood, a cylinder-like piece of flesh several inches long, dripping blood.
“Dis von vhas vell hung! Look at dis!”
“Oh God!” several of the waiters cried out “You’ve gone too far Rudy, too far. What have you done?! My God! What have you done??!!” Ron shouted. Chaos. Pandemonium. Waiters, dishwashers, kitchen helpers all running and shouting at once while Rudy stood in the doorway of the meat cooler laughing. I stared at the bloody object in his hand with total disbelief. It was a penis. He was waving the busboy’s penis in his clutched fist. And then he began to dance around the writhing busboy, a brutish jig of contempt, while the mutilated and emasculated victim screamed and writhed along the floor. Never in my life had I known such horror, such terror and disgust. Then, all at once, I felt very light, almost as if floating, and yet I couldn’t move. It was as though my legs were stone, inert, too heavy for such a light body, but still I was determined to go to the boy on the floor. Struggling against gravity, trying to reach him, I felt the room suddenly begin to spin, turn upside down, and then right itself, while the floor rose up and hit me on the head. It was a most peculiar feeling. I was sure I had not fainted, merely stumbled, executed a somersault of a kind that had caused me to strike my head, and then landed in a seated position. As my mind cleared I realized everyone in the kitchen was standing above me laughing, the kitchen staff, the dishwashers, Ron, and the other waiters and busboys. The busboy who had been writhing in his own blood just minutes before, now stood with his arm over the mad Hungarian’s shoulder, while Rudy, enormously pleased with himself, grinned down at me. “Vhas funny joke, no?”
“No!” I said emphatically.
“I was great, wasn’t I Rudy? Did you hear that scream? I was fuckin’ great,” the busboy-victim said, provoking me to scan the area for Rudy’s meat cleaver.
“Is turkey neck and cow’s blood. Funny. Don be imbarrass. Dey all faint.”
When we sat down for dinner Ron nudged me with his elbow and then pointed across the room to a sandy-blonde haired fellow who was laughing quietly with Rudy. “That’s Harlan,” Ron said. “He’s a real charmer.” I already had gotten the feeling that Ron disliked Harlan when Sammy was asking about him but, after our little face-off in the parking lot, I couldn’t tell if Ron was just a guy with a chip on his shoulder, or someone who was selective in his dislikes.
“Uh-huh,” I said, being as neutral as I could. “Which one is Abe?” Abe was another professional waiter in his fifties that my brothers had told me about. A man with a law degree who eschewed the practice of law to wait on tables. In describing him to me my brother Steve had said of Abe, “He’s a man who loves humanity; it’s people that he hates.” When I took the job at Braverman’s I thought Abe would be the puzzle I might attempt to solve, but suddenly there was Harlan Hawthorne to be considered and everything about him, from his appearance and manner to his attendance at Harvard, made him immediately more interesting.
“Abe doesn’t eat with the staff. The Braverman’s have him eat at their house. I think he’s a relative of theirs but nobody knows for sure.”
“Is he really a lawyer?”
“That’s what they say. It drives Sammy crazy that Abe has a college degree and a law degree and is still waiting tables just like him. Sammy thinks that if you have degrees you should have it made. Listen to the two of them go at each other, well, I should really say listen to Sammy go at Abe. He carries a dictionary in
his pocket and studies it whenever he can. He uses the ten dollar words like some people use stilettos. You’ll see.” He broke off abruptly and suddenly sat there stiffly.
“Hi! I hear you’re my new roommate, hi Ronald.” Harlan Hawthorne was standing over us wearing a congenial smile. I started to stand up to shake his hand, but pressing his hand down on my shoulder he said, “Hey, you don’t have to get up for me Mel, I’m just another one of the shleppers like you.” God he was something. Soft spoken, handsome, possessing what my mother called “presence,” his was a poised and relaxed confidence contained in a lithe, athletic physique. He had the look of someone who had never been introduced to failure, the look that implied acceptance wherever he found himself, the look of princely dominion.
“Is there room for me here?” he said to Ron who shifted to his right on the bench allowing Harlan to sit down between us. “So Mel, I hear you’re going to be Sammy’s busboy. That’s a great deal for you, Mel. You should make some good money doing that.” It crossed my mind to say, “So, I hear you’re fucking Heidi Braverman. That’s a great deal for you,” but I was too unfamiliar and too impressed with Harlan to play that Bronx schoolyard game with him. I smiled and nodded.
“Do you play tennis Mel? We could play a couple of sets tomorrow if you like.”
I’d never played tennis. I’d played paddle ball with wooden racquets and pink, Spalding rubber balls on cement courts in the city playground but not tennis. I was becoming aware that Harlan addressed me by name in almost every sentence he spoke to me. My salesman father once had explained that he did that whenever he met someone new to engrave the person’s name on his memory. Those were my father’s exact words, “engrave his name on my memory,” and it was such an unusual and literary turn of phrase for him to use I never forgot it.
