City Boy

by Herman Wouk

  The table had places only for four. As Mr. Krieger rattled on, the waiter moved a narrow serving table alongside, projecting into the aisle. Here Herbie sat, looking like an extremely unnecessary appendage to the group. Menus were placed in the hands of the diners, and the men ordered their meals carelessly and quickly.

  Not so Herbie.

  “What should I have, Pa?” he said nervously, bewildered by the menu.

  “You're old enough to order for yourself. Have whatever you want.”

  Herbie ran his eye up and down the page and got a confused impression of a meal composed of sponge cake, pastry, smoked salmon, goulash, vegetables in sour cream, roast chicken, chopped herring, prunes, and ice cream.

  “I—I'm not very hungry,” he faltered.

  “Then skip down to the main course. That's all we're having,” said the father, and indicated a section of the bill of fare with his finger.

  This was a help. But having to choose among lamb chops, broiled chicken, roast duck, steak, and so forth was still torture—not less for the youngster than for the waiter, a squat, bitter-faced bald man in greasy black trousers and spotted gray cotton jacket. This functionary shifted from foot to foot while Herbie puzzled; he yawned, he rapped his pencil against the order pad, he went “ha-hem” several times, and he stared malevolently at the boy, obviously wishing him far away and in bad health.

  “Come, Herbie, the man can't stand there forever,” said the father.

  Powers said, “The kid evidently doesn't know what he wants. Order for him.”

  “I'll have boiled haddock,” Herbie burst out all at once, picking the item under his eye at that instant.

  Everybody, even the waiter, looked amazed.

  “Don't be silly, boy,” said Jacob Bookbinder. “Boiled haddock, with all those delicious meat dishes to pick from? Come, take a steak.”

  But Herbie felt that his self-respect, his whole grip on manhood, depended on his sticking to the haddock now, although he loathed it. “Can't a guy order what he wants?” he complained. “I ordered boiled haddock, and that's what I'd like.”

  “Give him boiled haddock,” said his father with a shrug. The waiter pried the bill of fare out of Herbie's spasmodically clutching fingers and walked off. Herbie gloomily watched the stooped back disappear through the swinging kitchen doors, and cursed his own folly.

  The consequences were worse than he imagined. Golden's was mainly a meat restaurant. The fish was a desultory item placed on the menu for the rare customer who insisted on fish. Soon the waiter reappeared with four sizzling steaks that smelled heavenly, and a plate containing a pair of round blobs, white and green. The white was the haddock, buried under a thick flour sauce; the green was an unexpected horror, creamed spinach, which came with the fish. As the waiter put Herbie's plate down he winked, and all the men laughed. Herbie felt a blush rise to his face.

  “That fish looks disgusting,” said his father. “Waiter, take that mess away and bring the boy some lamb chops.”

  “Pa, please, this is just what I want,” cried Herbie angrily. He placed his hand protectingly against the plate, and the gluey white mass trembled a little. The boy's throat crawled at the prospect of eating it. But he was going to eat it or die.

  “After all, Bookbinder, he's grown up,” said Powers with a grin. “Didn't he just skip to the eighth grade?”

  Herbie's father glanced at the young man from Manhattan with narrowed eyes.

  “All right, my boy,” he said to Herbie. “But as long as you ordered it, eat it.”

  And Herbie, who understood his father's appeal not to disgrace him, ate it, with all the men watching him. Not a morsel of spinach or haddock remained. Heroes in other books do more noble and more colorful deeds, but Herbie Bookbinder stands or falls as a hero for swallowing down every trace of those two ghastly mounds, green and white, and smacking his lips over them.

  “Well, Bookbinder,” said Powers when the steaks were eaten, leaning back and packing his pipe from an alligator-skin pouch, “do we talk business or do you send the boy home first?”

  “The boy's doing no harm,” retorted Bookbinder, “unless you other gentlemen object to him.”

  There was a difficult pause.

  “Why, I think,” said Louis Glass heartily, “that it'll do Herbie good to hear a business talk. Hear a business talk. Nothing like starting early in life, early in life, eh, Herbie?” He slapped the boy lightly on the back, and lit a cigar.

  The waiter brought dessert. It was a house custom at Golden's to serve French pastry on a little flat stand, which was placed on the table when coffee was served, and left there. The stand accommodated eight pieces. The waiter simply counted the number missing at the close of the meal, and charged for them on the bill. None of the men accepted a piece when the waiter offered it to them, so he set the little stand down before Herbie and departed. The boy felt his shattered appetite pull itself together as he surveyed the eight creamy pastries, all of different shapes and colors.

  Louis Glass polished the pince-nez that hung on a black ribbon around his neck. “Well, gentlemen, I see no reason why we can't settle our business between the time we start our coffee and finish it. Start our coffee and finish it,” he said.

  “That'll suit me beautifully,” remarked Powers. “I'm late for a theater party now.”

  Bookbinder and Krieger said nothing.

  Herbie tentatively selected a chocolate-covered cylinder filled with whipped cream, and sank his teeth into it. He seemed to hear chimes of Paradise. By comparison with this, the frap itself sank out of sight.

  “There's only one thing to be discussed,” went on Louis Glass. “I've described to you, Bookbinder, the advantages that will accrue to both you and Krieger from a merger of Bronx River with Interborough. I've made it as clear as I can that Interborough, which is now the largest ice company in New York, will guarantee to give both of you top executive positions. As I happen to be their attorney, I am speaking with some authority, with some authority. I have also given you my opinion that the so-called blue paper is a totally irregular document, no more than a scratch-pad memorandum, in effect, which does not transfer in due and proper form any stocks to you, and have advised you that if you choose to stand on it your stand will be overthrown in court. Overthrown in court.”

  During this speech, Herbie finished the whipped-cream roll in three rapturous bites. He now chose a charming oval piece entirely covered with green and chocolate cream, and bit into it.

  “Your decision, then, as I see it,” proceeded the lawyer, waving away clouds of blue smoke from Powers' fast-puffing pipe, “must be the sensible one of accepting this great increase in your good fortunes—I refer to the merger—or the highly dubious one of a court fight as to whether you or Mr. Powers has control of the Place, which I have stated you will lose. Stated you will lose.”

  Herbie heard these words dimly through the fog of ecstasy conjured up by French pastry, and wondered why Mr. Glass had the habit of acting as his own echo. But he forgot the perplexity as the last bite of mint and chocolate vanished, leaving him with the urgent question, which cake to eat next. The boy was not aware that these things would have to be paid for. They had been set before him like a bowl of fruit at home, and so he regarded them. After the haddock horror, it seemed to him that the only way to retrieve the glory of a restaurant meal was to consume as many pastries as he could hold. So he selected a chocolate éclair, and went to work on it.

  When the lawyer finished talking, Bookbinder and Krieger looked at each other. Herbie's father started to speak, but Krieger hastily and loudly broke in, “I say this way. Blue paper maybe yes, maybe no, who say for sure? I say peaceable. Executive position ten thousand a year very fine, maybe three thousand not so fine. But peaceable black and white on paper how much guaranteed? All gentlemen, word good as gold, but black and white on paper not yet. Thirty years in the ice business always black and white more peaceable. Mr. Glass very fine explain, everybody good friends all stick toge
ther. I say this way—”

  (The éclair gone, Herbie commenced a rapid demolition of a round brown pastry that looked rather like a potato but was filled with exquisite orange-flavored cream.)

  “If I understand you correctly, Mr. Krieger,” interrupted Louis Glass, “I believe you need say no more. Interborough is prepared to guarantee in writing, as a condition of the merger, both of your salaries at”—he glanced at Powers, who continued puffing at his pipe and gave a tiny nod—”five thousand a year, merely as a beginning. Merely as a beginning.”

  “You understand him wrong, and what he said meant nothing,” exclaimed Jacob Bookbinder, his expression so drawn and belligerent that he hardly resembled the man who had been smiling at his son a little while before. “Herbie had seen this expression, which he thought of as his father's “business face,” more than once, and it terrified him. He paid more attention to the talk now, as he absently began to eat a flaky yellow Napoleon.

  “Jake, I say this way, peaceable,” began Krieger, but Herbie's father said coldly to the lawyer, ignoring his partner, “Krieger is repeating what he said to me when he and I talked this out, but I guess what you want is our conclusion. In short, it's no sale. I think the blue paper is good.”

  Powers said, “Mr. Krieger, is that your opinion, too?”

  Sardonically, Bookbinder put in, “I'll save you a half hour of talk. Krieger and I and our wives have a voting trust binding all our stock. Krieger must go along with me.”

  The lawyer and Powers looked at Krieger. The partner nodded half-heartedly.

  Herbie could not follow the duel and lost interest. For some reason the Napoleon did not taste as good to him as the first four pastries had. He finished it quickly and began on a cherry tart. And now he became aware of a new, disturbing fact: the waiter was standing near by, staring at him with a mixture of horror and fascination. With each bite he took of the tart the waiter's eyes seemed to open wider. Herbie could not imagine what the man was looking at. He glanced uneasily at his suit to see if a blotch of food had fallen on it, and looked behind him, but evidently there was no marvel in sight but himself, a perfectly ordinary boy. The waiter's eyes made him self-conscious. He gobbled down the tart, not enjoying it very much, and reached for something he had been saving, a morsel consisting of four walls of solid chocolate brimful of coffee-colored cream. As he bit into it he saw with some discomfort that the waiter's jaw dropped open and he actually grew pale. He concluded the man must be sick—probably from the food in this miserable restaurant. Herbie was feeling none too well himself. The beautiful chocolate cake somehow tasted not much better than the boiled haddock had, and was just as gluey.

  The conversation had jumped ahead several notches during Herbie's preoccupation with the waiter. He tried to pick up the thread, nibbling at the pastry more and more slowly. Powers was saying, “—certainly don't see why I had to come uptown at night to hear this same foolish story. I thought you men had come to your senses.”

  “I cannot help calling it most ill-advised, most ill-advised,” the lawyer said, crushing out his half-smoked cigar. “I assure you the blue paper as it stands is worthless. In my opinion, Mr. Powers would be justified in proceeding to sell Bronx River Ice, but we must recognize that as the attorney for Interborough I cannot advise them to purchase a property, title to which is in any way doubtful. Any way doubtful.”

  “I'll talk to Burlingame in the morning,” said Powers angrily, “and if he wants to buy I'll sell, with no provision at all for Messrs. Bookbinder and Krieger. Businessmen don't act the way they have done, and they have forfeited any claim to consideration. That's all I have to say.”

  “Yes, I'm a crazy businessman,” Bookbinder shot back. “I want to remain a businessman, instead of becoming Burlingame's assistant.”

  “Pa.”

  The word came faintly from Herbie's direction. His father turned and looked at him.

  “Pa, I don't feel good.”

  Herbie was slumped in his chair, looking straight ahead with dull eyes. In one listless hand hanging at his side was a fragment of chocolate cake. The color of the boy's face was not unlike that of the creamed spinach he had eaten.

  “Lord in heaven! He's sick. Why did you have to eat that rotten fish, boy?” said the father in great distress.

  “Mister, don't you blame our food!” shouted the waiter. He advanced to the table and raised his right hand high. “I hope I drop dead if that boy didn't eat seven pieces of French pastry. Seven pieces, mister! I saw him with my own eyes. From that even an elephant would get sick. I personally don't feel good from watching him.”

  Herbie stood up unsteadily.

  “I guess I'll go home, Pa,” he said. His stomach seemed to him to be rippling like a lake in a breeze; he could see mistily before his eyes the colored images of all the pastries he had eaten, swimming slowly around; and the word “frap” kept repeating itself in his brain—frap, frap, frap—and was somehow the most loathsome sound that man had ever uttered.”

  “Come, my boy, I'll take you.” Bookbinder jumped up and grasped the boy's arm. “Gentlemen, our business was finished anyway, so excuse me for leaving like this. Mr. Powers, believe me you'll live to thank me for keeping our business in our own hands. Krieger, pay my check. Good night.”

  He rushed the boy outside and stood with him at the curb, signaling for a taxi. But none came at once, and Herbert, teetering on the curb, endured all the agonies of a rough sea voyage and then suddenly enjoyed the sovereign relief that comes of leaning over the rail. His father sympathetically gave him aid, and then walked the pale, shaky boy home. Fresh air was better for him, now, than a taxi. The walk gradually revived Herbie, and through the darkness of his discomfort the drift of the business talk began to come back to him.

  “Pa,” he said timidly, “can Mr. Powers really sell the Place and throw you an' Mr. Krieger out?”

  “Don't you worry about that,” said Bookbinder. But his face was tense and sad “Forget everything you heard, Herbie. For you it's castor oil and bed.”

  And thus with castor oil, bed, and a chilly awareness that he had faded to distinguish himself, ended Herbie Bookbinder's first evening as a man among men.

  ELEVEN

  On to Manitou

  The following Monday, the first of July, the emigration of children from the city began.

  For the first time, Herbie Bookbinder gave up the well-known city pleasures of summertime—baths under fire hydrants, cold watermelons from horse-drawn wagons, picnics at city beaches or parks, and infinite lazy loitering in sun and shade wherever he pleased—and set out to taste the unknown delights of a country camp. The Bookbinder family loaded baggage and selves into the Chevrolet in front of 1075 Homer Avenue for the trip to Grand Central Station. An ancient watermelon wagon went by, pulled by the same old white horse, with the same old ragged, dirty-faced driver chanting his call: “Waw-dee-MAY-lun! Waw-dee-MAY-lun!” The wagon was piled high with fat green melons and chunks of ice; Herbie felt a pang of yearning for a chilly slice, and a wisp of regret at leaving home. But these sentiments faded as the car grunted and started on the journey. What was “Waw-dee-MAY-lun,” after all, compared to the coming feasts and splendors in far-off Manitou?

  A beam of dusty sunlight slanted down across the empty dome of Grand Central Terminal and struck a large square yellow banner hanging on the wall in one corner of the huge concourse. Sewn on the banner in letters of red were the words:

  Camp Manitou

  in the Berkshires

  Mr. Gauss was proud of the Old English lettering, so full of dignity and distinction. Unfortunately for Herbie, Felicia, and their parents, who were frantically searching for the banner ten minutes before train time, Manitou is rather hard to read at distance of more than ten feet. On all sides they could see banners: Camp Hiawatha, red and blue; Camp Algonquin, green and white; Camp Penobscot, green and gray; Camp Iroquois, blue and gold; Camp Pueblo, Camp Wigwam, Camp Totem, Camp Tomahawk, Camp Nokomis, Camp Tepee, and so o
n in fifty shapes and a hundred colors. If these flags suggested a renascence of the race of the American Indian at a tremendous war council, the huddles under them did not. In fact, nothing less resembling the noble naked redskin could have been imagined than these boiling knots of perspiring, peevish city children dressed in their “other” suits and frocks, submitting sullenly to last-minute kisses of red-eyed mothers or quarreling with each other or balking loudly at orders from the camp leaders.

  Here and there the solid Indian array was pierced by a “Camp Williams” or “Camp Happiness.” Herbie was very glad he was not going to one of those dull places, but to one with a magic name like Manitou.

  “There it is! I see Mr. Gauss!” cried Felicia at last, and the Bookbinders hurried to present themselves to the fat Pied Piper who was leading a line of children to his own private land of wonder.

  To their disappointment, the manner of Mr. Gauss was far less cordial than it had been. He seemed, indeed, quite short with them. This was not really so; Mr. Gauss simply had a limited supply of the butter of good nature. Spread on one family at a time it was rich, but thinned over eighty at once it left a dry taste.

  Herbie cast his eye around the mob under the yellow banner and quickly noticed Lennie Krieger at the center of an admiring cluster of smaller boys, loudly making predictions about the baseball pennant races. Separate herds of boys and girls seemed to be forming. The fat boy peered here and there, and spied Lucille in the girls' group. He smiled and waved at her, but she turned modestly away.

  “Looks like fun, huh, Fleece?” said Herbie, but there was no answer, and he perceived with surprise that his sister was no longer beside him, but was being led away by a tall, bulbous woman whose face was a field of freckles. He later learned that this was Aunt Tillie, “head counselor” of the girls. Now in his turn he felt his hand grasped in a large, dank, leathery grip. He looked up at his captor, an immense fair-haired, square-faced man with tiny eyes and thick, rimless glasses.