by Sidney Hart
“I am your friend that’s why I won’t lie to you. Come on, Mel, you know who you are, I’m not telling you anything that’d surprise you, you’re a sitting duck for every scam artist there is.”
“This guy Lenny is no scam artist, believe me, he’s too dumb to try anything like that. I think he may have the true story on Crater.” I was standing in a phone booth inside the canteen trying not to be too loud, but Malcolm’s skepticism frustrated me and caused me to raise my voice. I looked around to see if anyone was watching. Harlan was buying a pack of Luckys at the counter and several guests were looking at the New York City newspapers but no one seemed to take notice of me. Lowering my voice I continued. “Why not, Mal, why not here. This was a gambling den hidden in the woods, a perfect place to be private and safe. The big hotels weren’t even built then.”
“Yeah, but has anybody ever said he was in the Catskills? I don’t know the details but I’ve heard things like Yonkers or Chicago but never upstate. So how are you doing for ass?” He was finished with the judge.
“Aw, not very well what about you?” There was a rap on the glass door of the phone booth. Harlan waved at me on his way out of the canteen and was gone before I could stop him. Although Malcolm was my best friend I would have hung up on him to spend time with Harlan, that’s how taken I was with him; my feelings bordered on hero worship. There might come a time when telling Harlan about the judge would be possible, if only just for a good laugh. At that time I had no idea how much Harlan and judge Crater would become involved in the course of the rest of my summer.
“Pretty good. You know the social staff always does better than the guys in the dining room do because we have the chance to meet everybody. I’ll try to get you something here next summer.”
“Yeah, but what’s the money like, is it any good?”
“Hey, Melvin, you know there’s no better money than the wait staff. Do you want money or do you want to get laid?”
“I’m greedy, Malcolm, I want both. I’ll talk to you.” I hung up without waiting for his goodbye, disappointed that he couldn’t get more enthusiastic about the judge, but willing to stick with Ron in the search.
3.
After the luncheon cleanup, while the next wave of vacationers was arriving, I went to the pool for a swim. We had the use of all of the hotel’s facilities with the understanding that we were never to compete with guests for any space they wanted to use. After all, they were the paying customers. Sunday afternoons the pool was less populated than usual because many vacationers were leaving and the new arrivals were unpacking and settling in. The bunk house was full of waiters and busboys who seemed to prefer spending the day complaining about the lousy tips they got to sitting in the sun. I can’t remember ever hearing a group of busboys and waiters celebrating their take. Still, bad as it was said to be, they were on line at the bank every Monday morning between breakfast and lunch, depositing their hoards of crumpled one and five dollar bills into savings accounts. I didn’t want to listen to them, I wanted to find a girl. I was determined to find a girl. Time and the summer were passing me by.
Women were the primary users of the pool. Actually, they used the lounge chairs more than they used the water and by the time I arrived most of the chaises were aligned in parallel facing south where the sun crossed the sky. I found one unoccupied and laid down my towel and Modern Library edition of Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury” and “As I lay Dying” with the intention of reading after a swim. No nubile young things were stretched out within my line of vision so it would not be difficult to concentrate. I was bending over arranging my towel when I became aware that some kind of disturbance was occurring, a mild perturbation of the previously calm poolside atmosphere, and looking up I saw that Harlan was walking down the broad cement stairway to the pool. At the bottom of the stairs he paused, assessed the crowd and began to walk towards the diving board, his towel slung over his shoulder, his bathing suit and sandals the only other things on his body. As he proceeded along the row of sunbathers flanking the north side of the pool arms were raised in greeting and a muted commotion of salutations and teasing remarks coursed in succession through the group, like a wave in a crowded football stadium. Harlan, a close-lipped smile fixed on his face, nodded to each woman in silent acknowledgement until he reached the ladder to the diving board where he dropped his towel, kicked off his sandals and climbed confidently to the top. He walked the length of the board, rose on his toes, and dove knife-like into the glistening aquamarine of Braverman’s “Olympic-sized” pool. The sighs of the onlookers, like a breeze through pines, seemed to rise above the nattering of the gossips and pontificators and still the assembled. Harlan broke through the surface of the water, swam back to the deep end, hoisted his dripping body from the water with just the effort of his arms, and returned to the diving board. Again he went up the ladder in brisk, regular steps until he was at the top and on the board. Then he went to the edge, turned around, backed up so that only the balls of his feet and his toes held him in place, and then sprang up arching his back and diving in a beautiful arc that ended with his body again fully extended sending him into the water as straight as a knife blade. It was a truly wondrous sight and when he broke the water’s surface again I trotted over to the deep end to greet him when he emerged from the pool. The sighs of the women had become enthusiastic cheers of admiration; applause were in order. The women seemed stimulated, restless, squirming in their chairs to see him as he wiped his hair with his towel and then draped it over his shoulders like a cape.
“Your dives are fantastic, Harlan, really great,” I raved.
“Thanks. Do you dive?”
“No, not me. But you dive like Johnny Weissmuller.”
“Tarzan? Me?” He laughed, and changing his voice jokingly said, “Me Tarzan,” and we both laughed. I was aware that there were those in the assembly of women who were watching us, or more truthfully watching Harlan. Still, it felt good to be in his company and share in the attention. I was too young to know that the problem with reflected glory is that you are required to be no more vital than the crust of the moon, a lifeless surface mirroring another’s fires.
“So where did you learn to dive like that, school? Camp?”
“My mother taught me, she was a champion.” He cocked his head and jumping up and down on his left foot he tapped at his left ear to evacuate the water trapped there. “Come on. Get out!” he chided the obstinate liquid.
“Harlan?” An attractive woman approaching from behind me called his name tentatively, like a petitioner at a royal court. “Could I talk to you for a minute?” He smiled, rubbed his head with his towel again and stood waiting for her to speak. “I saw you diving and I just wanted to tell you how thrilling it was for me to see someone as accomplished as you are right here at the hotel.” She averted her eyes, as if embarrassed, and then looked up at him again. “What I wanted to ask you was would you be willing to give my little boy, David, diving lessons? I don’t mean back flips and those kinds of high board athletics but simple ‘in you go’ kind of dives from the edge of the pool.” She demonstrated the “in you go” method by poking her extended hand into the air with a brusque jerk. “He’s afraid of jumping into the water and having someone like you spending time with him would be so good for his self-confidence.” She was almost dithering.
“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t have very much free time but maybe I could spend a half an hour with him a few times next week.” I was aware that while talking he had somehow appraised the woman’s figure and the level of interest in his voice had changed with his appreciation of her sexual attractiveness.
“Oh, would you?” she gushed, grabbing his arm at the wrist and stroking his shoulder with her other hand. “I can’t thank you enough. You go back and practice your diving and I’ll talk to you at dinner. Thank you so much!” And with a goodbye wiggle of her fingers she left. I had achieved a weed-like status with her, an unremarkable feature of the landscape so or
dinary as to be virtually invisible.
“Well,” I said, “looks like you have an admirer.”
“It’s not me she admires, it’s my diving. The diver is not the dive, DiMaggio is not the homerun.” I scrunched up my face in confusion. “One day you’ll understand, don’t worry.” And he sped up the long metal ladder again and fell, arms and legs flailing wildly, into the pool, disappearing for a long time before rising to the surface with a broad smile illuminating his handsome face. I closed my eyes and shook my head in appreciation and when I looked again there was a beautiful girl leading a troop of children to the kiddy end of the pool. Though I had never seen her before she had a comfortably familiar air about her that permitted me to smile at her as though it was a perfectly natural thing to do. She returned my smile and then dashed to the pool’s edge where a little girl was poised, waving wildly at Harlan and calling for his attention.
“No, no, no, Rosalie!” the pretty girl called out as she scooped the child up in her arms and made a playful game out of her rescue. Harlan waded to the shallow end of the pool where they exchanged some words and then he swam back to where I was standing.
“Who’s that?” I asked, hopeful that it might occur to him to introduce me to her.
“You know, I’m embarrassed, I don’t remember her name. I don’t think she’s free though. She’s dating the tennis pro and they’re pretty involved from what Heidi tells me.”
“Oh, too bad. She looks really cute.”
“Well if things break you’ll be the first to know, I promise.” Then he drenched me with handfuls of water he scooped from the pool in rapid succession. I was delighted with his horseplay.
Chapter Four
To this day it astounds me how strong and irrational is my capacity to make judgments about total strangers. Driving in my car, glimpsing a woman making a turn at a traffic light, I know instantly that there is no possibility of chemistry between the two of us and I know this within milliseconds. She might be young and comely or ripening into middle age, it doesn’t matter. It is not about pretty or ugly, old or young, rich or poor, it is something else entirely, something closer in function to the human immune system which distinguishes familiar from foreign. This process extends to animals, to cities, to whole countries, this so-called gut reaction. Despite my years of education, my good intentions and my noble aspirations, I remain imprisoned inside this system of appraisal and, sometimes, it is only with great effort of will that I can subdue this primitive response when attempting to do business or break bread with a perfectly reasonable human being to whom my initial reaction had been one of rejection.
With Harlan Hawthorne my first impression had been confused. He was so different from anyone I had known, I felt lost and without reference points, yet I liked him and knew that I wanted him to like me and that ambition made me very uncomfortable with myself. I didn’t understand why I even cared but I did. I don’t think I ever saw him tense or harassed on the job, a job notorious for pressure and irritation. You might find him smiling or laughing softly at a table of young singles, men and women both, and each one of them in his thrall, or listening with effortless concentration to the lamentations of a teen aged girl, like a wise uncle, not a sexual predator. Yet, for all of his charm, outside of the dining room he had no special friendships. Even Heidi Braverman was rarely seen in his company, their private schedule separating them both from the rest of us at night. I would have been his friend happily but he seemed not to want one and I found that style to be attractive as well; Harlan as the urban Marlboro man, the strong silent type, the characteristic ideal American male of the time. You’d never find him sorting through the pile of mail in the waiters’ quarters after breakfast like everyone else and he was never called to the pay telephone that hung on the wall next to the entrance to the bunkhouse. Rather than make him seem peculiar, these facts only served to reinforce his solitary and mysterious tone for me.
Why he had chosen to work as a waiter haunted me continually. Ordinarily, I thought, someone like Harlan would have been at a beach resort on Cape Cod or on the south shore of Long Island, or perhaps in Vermont or Maine or the Berkshires, but never the Catskills. Never. He said he’d come for the money just like the rest of us, but I didn’t believe him and was reluctant to press him or challenge his position. My fascination, indeed my awe of him, discomfited me and made me too eager to please him or too often awkward in his presence without apparent cause. There were several sleepless nights spent debating with myself if the odd, intense feelings that I was experiencing could mean that I was a homosexual. I had never had any sexual thoughts about him or any male, never tried to imagine us in any circumstance of physical intimacy and the mere thought of someone else’s erect naked cock within three feet of me aroused only disgust. Wrestling with this problem on one occasion I forced myself to picture us sucking each other off and my repulsion was so great there was no doubt in my mind that a sexual liaison with him was not my desire and while I was reassured my fear was unfounded, I was no more enlightened about the intensity of my interest. And there was little consolation in knowing that my curiosity was not unique. Several times I overheard other waiters and busboys puzzling over Harlan’s presence in the Catskills. A few days after the Rosie Moldar debacle, for example, returning to my room after lunch, I came upon Ron and another busboy, Gerry Goldstein, talking about him.
“He’s here for the Jewish pussy, Ron, that’s what he’s all about, I just know it.” Gerry was a short, homely, acne-ridden boy with the filthiest mind I had ever encountered. To even hear Harlan’s name come from his lips seemed to be a contamination and I wanted him gone.
“Gerry, you know shit about Harlan, about women, and about sex, so why don’t you go outside and fuck yourself for a while because Ron and I would like to talk about some things,” I said entering my room. Accustomed to being abused, Gerry seemed not to take offense at this kind of mistreatment.
“What, do you two homos got to do something to each other or something, like play with your turkey necks Melvin?”
“Fuck you!” Rudy’s ruse was common knowledge.
“Fuck off, asshole,” Ron Barked.
“I’ll go do my homework. Let’s see, Goldstein’s law states that the angle of the dangle is equal to the heat of the meat when the mass of the ass is constant.” he singsonged as he left.
‘So, what is it?” Ron asked.
“Nothing, I just wanted to get rid of him.”
“Don’t give me that shit, Melvin, I know when something is eating at you, what is it?” he insisted.
“I don’t want to spend any more time speculating about Harlan, talking about him behind his back. I just don’t want to. He’s a friend, just like you, and it makes me feel disloyal.”
“It’s not disloyal to be interested in someone. Besides, I don’t like him and I don’t trust him. There’s something just a little too smooth and easy in that goy, er, I mean guy,” he snickered.
“Fuck you. I hate that Jewish stuff all the time. Anybody who isn’t Jewish is the enemy and anyone that you admire or look up to has got to be a Jew, or at least an honorary Jew. I’m Jewish but I’m not so tribal I can’t make friends with people who aren’t Jews.”
“Do you know who wrote ‘God Bless America’ and ‘White Christmas?’ Irving Berlin, a Jew. ‘Rodeo’ and ‘Billy the Kid?’ Aaron Copland, also a Jew. The opera ‘Porgy and Bess?’ George Gershwin, another Jew. Be proud. They’re Jews and so are you, Melvin, and being Harlan’s friend won’t change that. You’re so knocked out because you think that he goes to Harvard, aren’t you.”
“It’s pretty impressive, you have to admit, but I know guys who are going to go there in the fall and,” my voice trailed off as I heard myself think, “and I’m not falling all over them.”
“Listen, I don’t have to admit anything. There you go with your Ivy League bullshit again. It doesn’t matter where you go to school, it only matters that you get a good education.” He waved his hand at me in di
sgust and started to change out of his waiter’s clothes. “This is not a rehearsal, Melvin, this is your life. If you keep looking only at the future your life will slip by and you won’t even notice it.”
“Hey! I’m just eighteen years old! What’s slipping by? What are you talking about? Going to a good college is what I should be thinking about now. That and getting laid.” My joke broke the tension and we both laughed.
“Speaking about getting laid, where is this Diana you’re always talking about? I’ve never seen her around. Is she real or is she somebody that’s made-up.”
“Oh she’s real,” Ron said with a laugh.
“So, if this Diana is real when do I get to meet her?”
“Hey, you just struck out with Rosie, take a rest. There’s not that much good material up here so take your time. Why don’t you try out one of the teenaged daughters?
“Oh sure,” I said, feigning contempt, though the truth was that almost every week or two it was as if the same raven-haired beauty arrived in the company of her parents causing me to fall secretly and hopelessly in love with her. Hopelessly because she never in any way acknowledged that I even existed. She’d spend her day poolside in a leopard print bathing suit and backless slippers with big, furry pompoms at the toes,—mules, though for the life of me I can’t imagine why that lounge wear would be given the name of such a reliable drudge, they should have been called sloths—her suntan oil, her fashion magazine, her towel, but not so much as a glance for me. Sometimes I’d pull up a chair in her line of sight while she spread out on a chaise longue in the sun. Then I’d open my book, a Faulkner novel or a Dostoyevsky tome, holding it so that the author and title were clearly facing her and hope that she would be so impressed by my taste and intellect she’d approach me to solicit a seminar. What a dreamer! A girl who looked like that was quickly in demand and usually petulant with all comers from the dining room. Her parents probably spent half of their vacation time reminding the band and the tennis pros about the statutory rape laws. The members of the harem would critique these younger lovelies and I even saw one of them deliberately spill her gin and tonic on the bare abdomen of a particularly gorgeous girl, though she swore it was an accident in her profuse apology. In the blinding sun and reflections at poolside I learned to content myself with a single intense examination imprinting her image on my retina as if it were a photographic plate. Then I could turn back to my book and with my eyes shut behind dark glasses ogle the curves and folds of her young, goddess-like sublimity.
