Summer Accommodations: A Novel (29 page)

“Yes. You didn't listen to me when I tried to tell you that your friend has something missing. Now I know what it is. It's not something that's visible to the naked eye but to the spirit, that's already a different story. He's missing something that makes human beings different from the other animals, he's missing a conscience.” Abe's voice dripped with piety.

“Finished? Because if you are I'd like you to leave so I can go to sleep.”

“I'm finished for now, Melvin, but I'm not finished with you. You should only know how lucky you are that I am your friend. Ben Braverman was ready to fire you for crawling around near his house. What's the matter with you, are you meshugah? Let Harlan crawl around the Braverman's for his jewelry, but is it really his own jewelry that he is looking for? Is it?”

“Who's looking for jewelry?” Ron asked as he entered. Abe started to answer him but I interrupted not wanting this to become a dump on Harlan rally.

“Abe was just leaving, Ron. It wasn't anything important.”

“Wasn't important!? He almost loses his job for creeping around the lawn at the Braverman house in the middle of the night, but it isn't important?” He got up from Harlan's bed and approached Ron. “This boy is in love, and I'm not referring to Sarah.”

“Get out, Abe, you sonofabitch, get the hell out of here.”

“What kind of a way is that to talk to Abe? In love with who? Who is Mel in love with?” I threw my legs over the edge of the bed to jump down but Ron grabbed me by the ankles locking me in place. “Abe, tell me who you're talking about.”

“It's whom not who. I'd better go. Melvin, I'd like to be your friend, excuse me, I am your friend, you just don't know it yet.” Even after Abe left Ron would not release his grip and squeezed me until it hurt.

“Who was Abe talking about? Ohhhh, not Heidi for godsakes.”

“I don't know who he was talking about and no, I'm not in love with Heidi. Sarah is just fine with me, more than I ever imagined I'd have. Now let go of me.” And I pulled my legs back underneath the blanket and turned to face the wall. The contest for which hurt more at that moment, Ron's bruising grip or Abe's stinging words, ended in a draw.

“What were you doing crawling around the Braverman's house at night anyway, trying to peep on old Ben and Molly?”

“Drop it Ron. Just forget it.”

“What was the jewelry he was talking about? How can you expect me to just drop this? This sounds really interesting. Come on, spit it out Melvin, I'm not quitting and I'll get nasty if I have to.”

“Well, that shouldn't be much of a reach for you.” He punched me in the buttock and stripped off my blanket and sheet.

“You re really pissing me off wise ass, and you'd better cut it out if you know what's good for you. Now tell me what the fuck is Abe talking about!” When I turned to look at him his face was contorted with anger.

“I was looking for Harlan's I.D. bracelet, that's all. Harlan lost it last week and asked me to help him search for it, okay? Satisfied?”

“What I.D. bracelet? Harlan doesn't have an I.D. bracelet, he never wore one once all summer long. Do you think I'm an idiot?”

“When he comes back to the room, ask him if he's found his I.D. bracelet yet. See what he says.”

“I'll ask him all right but don't you say a word, not one word or I'll kick your ass so …” Back from his evening with Heidi, Harlan returned in the middle of Ron's threat.

“Am I interrupting something?” he said as he tossed his wallet and car keys on his cot.

“No, as a matter of fact, you're right on time. So what's this about losing an I.D. bracelet?” Harlan looked at me, then at Ron, and then back at me again.

“Why did you tell him?” He frowned at no one in particular. “Yes, I lost my I.D. bracelet last week and Jack is helping me look for it. Is there anything wrong with that?”

“See!” I said triumphantly.

“You don't have an I.D. bracelet …”

“Will you keep it down in there you faggots!” someone called out from down the hall. Ron pulled the door open, almost tearing it from its hinges, shouted “Fuck you!” into the empty space, and then slammed the door shut. “You're up to something, you scumbag, I know you re up to something. Do you know that you almost got Melvin fired for creeping around the Braverman's house in the middle of the night …”

“It wasn't the middle of the night it was around dawn,” I said.

“What difference does it make, dawn or the middle of the night, you had no business there and you almost got yourself fired, you putz.”

“You didn't tell me you got caught, are you in trouble Jack?”

“He goddamn well is in trouble and it's because of you. And stop this goddamned Jack crap! His name is Melvin, Melvin goddammit.”

“I'm not in trouble, Harlan, don't listen to him.”

Teeth clenched and nostrils flared Ron came towards my bunk, rage reddening his face. “I've had it with you. I've tried to warn you about him, I've tried to teach you a few things, to get you laid, to … to let you in on important things that no one else knows about. His voice trailed off while he stared at me with hatred like nothing I had seen before in his eyes, a hatred even more intense than that he'd shown to Joe and Johnny, the townie thugs. “I'm finished being nice to you. I'm finished with you, finished with you and your miserable idolizing of this fake and his phony upper east-side style and moves.”

Approaching the double decker Harlan looked at us and said, “Well, that's not so bad is it? To have Ron finished with you may be a bonus in the end. I wish he was finished with me is all I can say. Then his jealousy of me, for God only knows what …” but before he could finish Ron interrupted.

“You smarmy sonofabitch. I don't know why you came to this hotel, I don't know what you have up your sleeve, but I know that if I ever catch you doing anything that causes pain to anyone I'll smash you into little bits like a piece of cheap glass.” Harlan did not flinch or avert his eyes as Ron delivered his threat. Standing only inches apart the obvious disparity in their size was stunningly clear. Harlan towered over Ron. And more striking still was the frigid, dead-eyed stare, a fearless killing look he gave back to Ron's overheated glare.

Then he said, “I'm not intimidated by you, Ronald, not in the least.” I jumped between them, unthinking, and forced them apart. “Cut this out you two, just cut it out. I won't allow this fight to happen. I pushed Harlan back towards his cot knowing that Ron would have resisted me, maybe even taken a punch at me if I had grabbed hold of his shoulders. They continued to stare coldly at each other neither one blinking, neither one speaking, neither one relenting. “Let go of this, you two. There'll be no fight in here tonight and that's it.” Grabbing his towel from the railing at the foot of his bed Ron stormed out of the room.

“That was very good, Jack, very brave. Ron could go berserk at any time. I wouldn't trust him if I were you. He's capable of going crazy and causing real harm.”

I went back to my bunk and hoisted myself up onto my bed knowing I would say no more to either one the rest of the night. Something I had read before leaving home began repeating over and over in my mind like an annoying jingle or phrase of music that pesters you relentlessly and won't give you peace. “Nothing worth knowing can be taught.” As I lay there trying to go to sleep, fully aware that I was too agitated to succeed, Oscar Wilde's words buzzed around and around in my mind persistent as a horsefly: “nothing worth knowing can be taught”. It's about experience, I said to myself, it's about your own experience not someone else's, and that's what is meant when they say experience is the best teacher. That night I had kept Ron and Harlan apart and succeeding with that was so stimulating I was wide awake. “Nothing worth knowing can be taught, nothing worth knowing can be taught.” Of course, choosing to force Harlan back from their confrontation made the intervention easy; I took Harlan's self-control for granted. But I was not yet willing to truly believe what my experience was trying to teach me about Harlan. Was I on the verge of coming to terms with the complexities of his character, that he was neither a good person nor a bad person but both, good and bad and often at one and the same time? At least that was what I wanted to think. Sarah, Ron and Abe were able to see him only as a bad person, a danger. They hadn't heard him discourse on life, on women, on his own family. Living under the weight of such secrecy had to have had a profound effect upon him and his mysteriousness may have been the product of nothing more forbidding than that. Still, I could not explain these facts to anyone, not even Sarah, at least not until after the summer. She was sensitive enough to understand there was more than he was revealing. She could accept that the whole story isn't always told; that sometimes we remain in the dark; sometimes we are just left to wonder.

“I
'm going to go into New York for my day off,” Sarah said coming up behind me in the dining room after lunch the next day.

“Oh, hi, going to visit your folks?”

“My folks and some other people.” She blushed and I saw that she was suddenly very uncomfortable. “Doris, my head counselor, said her husband is driving back into New York after lunch, today, and Doris said I can leave early and get a ride with him. So I'm going now and then I won't be here for our date tonight.” I could tell she was trying to hide something from me and she was doing a lousy job.

“What is it that you're not telling me? There's something else going on here, I can tell.”

“Well, I didn't want to hurt your feelings but there is a boy that I've been seeing at home who's going to meet me tomorrow.” For the first time since we'd started seeing each other I felt jealousy and fear gather me in their arms and squeeze. Who was this “boy” and why hadn't she said something about him before? I sorted the spoons from the forks and staring into the drawer said nothing. That was why she was trying on clothes last night; that was what the suit and gloves were about last night, I thought. “He's somebody I've been dating for about a year and he goes to college near where I'll be going. His name is Hank.”

“Do you love him?” I asked in the same voice one might use to ask ‘am I going to die?' because the feeling of dread was as intense, and the potential for the answer ‘yes' equally devastating.

“I don't know.” She looked at her wristwatch, frowned, and put a hand on my shoulder. “I have to go and change. I'll see you when I get back on Saturday. We'll be okay,” she said, giving me a peck on the forehead and hurrying off. Christ! I was stunned. How could she be doing all of the physical things that we'd been doing with each other if she was in love with somebody else, somebody with a name like Hank? I felt myself choke up and looked around the dining room. Most of the staff had cleared out and only a few other busboys were around sweeping and straightening up their tables and chairs. The last thing I wanted was to begin bawling in front of everybody so I slammed my silverware drawer shut and hurried out through the kitchen.

It was hot outside. The sun was high and the dusty patch of ground behind the kitchen was bare save for the garbage bins that held the day's detritus from the dining room. I felt myself choke up with grief. She's lied to me, I thought. How could she give me her body so liberally, her breasts and her kisses and her sweet and powdered pussy for me to touch and kiss; how could she let me be with her in that way and still have someone else on her mind? I had no illusions about men being that way but her? Sarah? Men will say they don't need love to have sex with a woman and I believed that was true even if I had had no such experience personally at that time. But Sarah? Her? Slut! Whore! CUNT! my mind screamed. And just the night before when she had said no to me and my wish to enter her, when she said we were going too fast, I had held back, I had retreated and then slinked away ashamed and filled with self-loathing, for this? That was when I broke down and cried, hugging the back of the garbage bin and hiding from the world, sinking to my knees on the barren ground. And what was most humiliating to me as I thought about it huddled there in the stench of the rotting garbage amidst the swarming, buzzing flies was that it was I who was the callow and tender virgin betrayed; I who was the pathetic naif;
Me!

When I composed myself I wandered off onto the hotel grounds still wearing my busboy's uniform. We were told not to go to the coffee shop or to any public space in these clothes so by just walking along the driveway I was violating no rules. And if they wanted to fire me, fine! Fuck ‘em! Fuck Sarah! She'd come back from New York City all ready to sit me down and lecture me about how I should feel and how I shouldn't think. Wouldn't that be a hoot, her finding that I was already packed and gone. With my head down and my gaze fixed on the pebbled path I almost walked right into Ben Braverman but his two-toned white and brown shoes caught my eyes before I collided with him.

“Looking for something Melvin?” His voice had an amused tone.

“No, sir. Just taking a walk.”

“You're not looking for something? I ask you that question because for the last few mornings I've seen you crawling around in my yard at dawn.” I looked up at him through eyes wide with fear, eyes that witnessed his expression change from one of bemusement to one of concern. “Are you okay Melvin? You look like you're going to faint, come here.” And he put a heavy arm over my shoulder and held me up against himself. “You know, I've known your family for a long time, your father and mother, your two brothers, so don't think that I don't care about what happens to you, but you have to be truthful with me. Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes I'm a little upset about something but I'll be okay,” I said, grateful for his nonchalance but wishing he'd release me.

“Well, Melvin, I'm a little upset too. What are you looking for in my yard at the crack of dawn?” His tone had become more challenging.

“Harlan lost his I.D. bracelet somewhere so I'm helping him look for it.” Suddenly the notion that this alibi was plausible seemed completely ludicrous, dangerously ignorant. “He thought that if you saw me in your yard you'd be less upset…” It was becoming clearer by the nanosecond that this explanation was absurd.

“Vey is meir, it's as bad as Abe says it is. You really are blind when it comes to Harlan. What is the matter with you aren't two big brothers enough for you?” That infuriated me. I wasn't going to lose both Sarah and my sense of dignity in one day.

“Wait a minute, Mr. Braverman, I didn't do anything wrong, I didn't peep on you and your family, I didn't steal anything, I didn't …”

“Calm down Melvin, it's not your fault. That Harlan Hawthorne cocksucker would sell you out as soon as shake your hand. He has something up his sleeve and I just haven't figured out what it is yet. He removed his arm from my shoulder but turned me to face him. “I don't want you to say anything to him about what I just said, do you hear me? If you do then the innocent crawling around in my yard will become a criminal act and the South Fallsburg police will not be kind to you, understand?” I nodded wondering if he talked to Heidi about Harlan in this way. Then startlingly, as if reading my mind, he spoke directly to that question. “My sweet Heideleh is beginning to lose some of her infatuation with this ganef. She's learned her father is not such an ignorant putz after all. I warned her right from the start. She still spends time with Harlan but she's much more cautious. You're little girlfriend Sarah told her about his fooling around with another woman, the mother of one her campers, so she's very upset that this bum Harlan would do that to her. Cheating. That's a terrible thing to do to somebody.”

“Yeah, I know.” What I didn't know was whether Sarah would be cheating on me that night with Hank or, if by being with me, she had been cheating on this guy Hank for the last three weeks. And why her sudden hankering for Hank? All at once a flood of images came cascading through my mind, scenes of Sarah lying naked, each breast listing a little to the side, the hand of a faceless man stroking her crotch; Sarah on her side, the columnar swell of her thigh joining with a rounded capital of buttock supporting the pediment of her back; the mischievious look on her face as she reaches down between my legs and seizes my erection in her hand. But is it me that she's grasping for in this picture?

‘What is it Melvin, you look sick, are you all right?”

“Yeah. No. I think I have to go back to my room.”

“Let me help you back. I'll help you and then maybe there's something you can do to help me out. Once again he draped his arm across my shoulders and started walking me back towards the waiters' quarters.

Ben was still robust and strong for a man in his sixties. He was as tall as I and stood quite erect. He had a full head of snow white hair that he trimmed short and wore unparted, large shoulders and powerful arms. There was a bulge at his waist but nothing you would call a pot belly. Looking at him and weighing the possibility I believed that he was definitely capable of doing what Ron had described to me my first day at Braverman's: angrily kicking a man to death. “So, I hear you're curious about my nephew Abe.”

“Where did you hear that from?”

“Where else? From Abe! Abe is a good listener. He spends his time listening in on the conversations around him.” He leaned forward and turned his face to be in front of mine. “Surprised Melvin? I run a big business here, I need to have information.”

“So it's true that Abe is a member of your family. Does he eat with your family, is that why we don't see him in the kitchen at meal times?”

“True, it's all true. Want to know what isn't true?” His voice was merry with teasing. “Want to know?” he repeated, causing me to nod my head. “Promise that you'll keep this just between the two of us. I'm telling you because I want to give you an incentive to do something for me. And I'll tell you right now, if you break your promise I'll find out and then the good deed that could befall you will not be done.” I stopped in my tracks and turned to him. I had had enough with secrets and mysteries and surprises dropping out of the sky on me like bird shit. Sarah's secret was the only one I wanted exposed; who will it be, me or this Hank guy?

“No offense Mr. Braverman but don't tell me any secrets and don't expect …” Grasping my arm with a strong hand, he held and fixed me in place. His face was stern and serious.

“Don't you talk to me that way, sonny, I can be friendly or I can be tough but either way you'll do what I want you to do.” A smile spread across his lips like a cloud changing shape in the sky. “His name is not Abe, it's Bernard. He got those fahrcocteh diplomas in a junk shop. Some poor bastard named Abe Melman either died or went broke, who knows, but he is Bernard Steinberg, my nephew, my older sister's oldest son, not Abe Melman.” I was more wary of this story than surprised. I no longer knew what to believe about anyone. “Very blase, Melvin. You don't believe me? It's the truth, he's my nephew. And I'll tell you something else. He is a holy man, a hidden saint. Have you ever heard of the
lamedvovniks,
the thirty-six righteous men, saints every one, one more humble than the next? No? Well, we think that Bernard is one of them. The fate of the world depends on these humble men. They have hidden powers. They alone are privileged to see the Divine Presence. In bad times they can rescue us from evil and danger. Maybe Bernard will perform a miracle for you. He thinks very highly of you but he is upset that you persist in admiring this Harlan character despite all that you've already seen and recognized about him.”

I was about to tell him that I was less in thrall to Harlan and that I had begun to understand why people were wary of him but, being in a somewhat unfocused and distressed state to begin with, his deluge of strange and mystical information had left me reeling and more confused. I was so upset about Sarah that Ben Braverman's impression of me didn't mean a thing.

“So, look what I've done, I've told you two secrets! And now I'll tell you what I want you to do for me,” he said, leading me into the waiters' quarters.

2.

After Ben Braverman stated his intention to entrap Harlan, withholding the details of his plan, I felt the need to get away from the hotel and all things familiar. I changed my clothes, went into the hallway of the waiters' quarters and called out to ask if anyone was going into South Fallsburgh. One of the waiters that I knew only to nod hello to, Larry Pincus, offered to give me a lift and we rode into town talking about the Yankees and the Dodgers and the likelihood that they'd have a rematch in the ‘56 World Series. It was just talk. At that moment I didn't give a damn about a stupid game and wondered how I ever could have been excited or distraught by anything so banal as a baseball game. When we pulled into town I said I had some errands to run and left the car with an agreement to meet back at the post office in one hour.

Alone on the street I wandered aimlessly from storefront to storefront thinking about Sarah. I knew that we would never be the same with each other again. It wouldn't matter whether she chose me or Hank, the illusion of perfect harmony, of oneness, was destroyed, lost forever with no hope of restoration. People passed around me chattering happily, laughing, complaining, arguing, but it was as though all the color had been drained from my world; life seemed as slate gray and dull as an overcast sky. There was a deep sadness, a kind of grief that had me in the disoriented state you can see on the faces of the victims of natural disasters, people who have seen a river carry away their home or an earthquake swallow up the ground beneath them. No one seemed to notice my distress. I went into the drug store to remove myself from the pedestrian traffic. I had no need to be there and did not want to shop just to take my mind off Sarah. Anyway, I knew that wouldn't work. Shopping was not something I did for relief or distraction. It was totally foreign to me. And what was there in a drugstore to buy? Beach toys, water wings and sun tan lotions by the score. Plain old Coppertone wasn't good enough for the members of the harem. Christ, I mused, it's a goddamn swimming pool, not a beach, the mountains, not the seashore, how hot do they think the sun gets in the Catskills? In my mind I was ranting, venting frustration about things other than Sarah and this Hank guy. I went to the front of the store without making a purchase, making certain the people at the counter saw I was empty-handed. With forty-five minutes left to kill before meeting Pincus back at the post office I walked out to the street trying to find distraction. Images of Sarah in the arms of faceless men intruded into every thought I enlisted to divert myself from worry; there was no refuge. I scrutinized each couple that passed by on the street and eavesdropped on their conversations. This is where we live, I thought, this is what really matters, this is what we live for: the one, the perfect other in the perfect fit. A couple with a small child passed by, the father grim, the mother with tears in her eyes, the little girl, oblivious to the tension, skipped along humming to herself. A pair of teenaged boys, heads bent close together conspiratorially, joked and laughed, and tried to bump one another into other pedestrians as they passed. A young couple holding hands, smiles lighting their faces, passed in the silence of their pleasure. Then a threesome, two men and a woman approached from the opposite direction. It seemed clear that the shorter of the two men was the woman's companion while the taller one was just a friend. He kept a slightly greater distance between himself and the woman and bent his head forward to talk across her to the other man. Always the boundaries, always those inside and those outside. How could Sarah have two of us inside her boundaries of intimacy? I wanted to feel more cosmopolitan, more sophisticated and poised in this contest, more witty and glib, beyond jealousy and hurt. Maybe Harlan could accomplish that but not Melvin, I heard myself say in my mind. No, by the time she returns she'll have made her decision and mine too and that's just how it is.