City Boy (20 page)

But there was another bow that glowed brightly as ever in the changeable sky—Lucille Glass. Herbie's first exploration of the grounds in his free time was in the direction of the girls' camp, and soon brought him up against a tall, thick hedge reinforced by a barbed-wire fence. He patiently examined its entire length, and found that it ran to the water's edge at one end and buried itself in brambles at the other end, near the top of the hill. There was one break in it about thirty yards from the water, wide enough for a pair of good-sized boys to walk through side by side, but this was closed with a heavily padlocked gate. Evidently Mr. Gauss was no encourager of romance.

“Uncle Sid,” Herbie said diffidently that night in the bunk, “do we ever get to see the girls?”

A couple of the boys looked at him quizzically; Ted Kahn's grin was so wide that the upper half of his head seemed to be floating in free air. Quickly he added, “I got a sister over there.”

“Why, yes, we'll see them at sundown services Friday night,” said Uncle Sid.

Herbie became more anxious for religious improvement than ever.

O
n the second day of camp Ted Kahn was elected captain of Bunk Thirteen. It galled Lennie to play the follower, but the other boy was so wise in camp ways that for the present he was not to be rivaled. The captain's post was a good one; he assigned the cleaning chores and did nothing himself but inspect, supervise, and make formal salutes and reports. It was Lennie's natural role in life; he felt it, and he knew Herbie felt it. There was something degrading for the athlete in sweeping the floor side by side with General Garbage. He made up for it as well as he could by heaping indignities on the fat boy, at which the others all laughed, but his heart was unsatisfied. He awaited his chance to challenge the captain.

Wednesday night after the bugle had rendered a cracked “Taps” and the camp lay under a misted half-moon, the boys of Bunk Thirteen heard Ted whisper loudly and hoarsely, “Psst! Fellers! Who wants to go with me for a moonlight swim?”

After a pause the voice of Eddie Bromberg, the sallow boy, was heard in an undertone: “Won't we get caught?”

“Naw. I done it a million times.”

Lennie spoke aloud. “Sure, I'll go. Come on.”

Ted answered softly, “O.K., but don't be so doggone brave. Keep your lousy voice down.”

“I'll talk as loud as I please, and come over here and stop my lousy voice if you don't like it.”

“O.K., O.K. Take it easy,” whispered Ted. “Who else is coming?”

No answer.

The captain waited, then said to the small round form in the cot beside his, “How 'boutcha, General Garbage?”

Herbie answered, “How 'bout Uncle Sid? He's apt to come in any second and find we ain't here, then what?”

“He won't. They always have counselors' meeting Wednesday. The first week it never finishes up till midnight. It's O.K., I tell you. Whaddya say?”

Lennie put in, “Don't waste yer breath. That little sissy don't break no rules.”

“Who says I don't?” whispered Herbie indignantly. Lennie's tone left no doubt that an inclination to break rules was the sign of manhood. “I'm game. Let's go.”

“Who else?” said Ted.

“I guess I'm a sissy. I ain't breakin' no rules the first week,” said Eddie Bromberg.

Now that one boy had had the courage to say it, the others whispered a chorus of “Me, too, same here, not me thank you,” and such sentiments. Had Eddie but spoken up sooner, Herbie gladly would have joined the majority opinion, which sounded sensible to him. Flouting the law was very well for Ted, who seemed to be serving a sort of life sentence in Camp Manitou, so that nothing mattered any more; also for a bravo like Lennie. For Herbie it was a foolhardy, unappetizing venture. But his word was passed, and he had to make good. He crept out of bed and followed the dim forms of Ted and Lennie out of the bunk and down the hill to the waterfront.

A clammy fog was rising from the water and curling around the dock, so thick and white that the lake was invisible. Herbie stood at the edge of the dock with the other two law-breakers, nerving himself for a plunge into the whiteness.

“Hey, General, gonna swim in yer pajamas?” jeered Ted.

Herbie was embarrassed to realize he had forgotten to take them off. Lennie was stripped. Ted had a towel around his middle, which he dropped to the dock as he spoke. Two quick splashes, and Herbie was alone in a milky world with the half-closed eye of the moon peering down at him. He took off his pajamas, wondered sleepily what had brought him into these awkward, eerie circumstances, shivered at the dankness of the air, and threw himself off the dock. The water was shockingly warm. He essayed a few splashing strokes and began to feel gay and heroic. Really he should try harder to be like Lennie, he thought. What fun such guys had! He floated on his back, arms clasped under his head, and winked at the moon.

“Boy, this is the life!” he shouted.

Suddenly Herbie's head bashed hollowly against wood, the moon vanished, and all was eternal blackness.

“Hey, General, you drowned?” came a voice from directly overhead.

Herbie floundered and grabbed in panic, and found himself clutching a mossy, slimy post. He had drifted under the dock. His head ached and he could see nothing. But he got a grip on himself, shouted “I'm O.K.,” and carefully felt his way under the dock to the ladder that hung deep into the water. He pulled himself into the light again and climbed out of the water, his legs trembling on each slippery rung.

Ted was drying himself with sharp, fast motions. Lennie was dancing around the dock, hugging and slapping himself.

“Didn't you bring no towel neither, General?” said the bunk captain.

“Naw, I'll use my pajamas.”

The thin cotton cloth, hard buttons and all, felt delightful on his skin as it soaked away the moisture. After the swim the air was brutally damp and cold.

“How 'bout it, Lennie?” he said. “Want a lend o' half my pajamas?”

“Aw, who needs to dry off? Come on, let's get back.”

Herbie would have sworn he heard Lennie's teeth chatter, had he not known that such a sign of weakness in the athlete was impossible.

But as they made their way up the hill, the impossible became not only possible but obviously true. Lennie's teeth rattled so loud that Ted became worried at the noise, and made Lennie cover his mouth with the towel. When they came to the bunk, Lennie seized a dry towel, rubbed himself furiously, then dived into bed and lay hugging himself. His teeth were no longer chattering, but while Herbie and Ted boasted to the other boys in low tones of how marvelous the swim had been, Lennie said not a word. Herbie suspected that he was lying with rigidly clamped jaws to protect his reputation.

The next morning Lennie had a temperature of 102, and was transferred to the infirmary with a diagnosis of chill and incipient grippe. His plan for dethroning Ted was postponed.

It was the Fourth of July, and rumors were splendid about the fireworks display to come in the evening. Even Ted grudgingly admitted that “Uncle Gussie” was prodigal with fireworks. He shot them off himself from the girls' swimming dock while the boys and girls sat on the sloping lawn of the girls' camp in the gloom and watched. The truth is, this fireworks spree was one of Mr. Gauss's few really happy moments in a summer of spying, nagging, penny squeezing, and groveling to parents. And because it did the harassed man's heart so much good, he always indulged in an immensely spectacular display. It was his Frap, in a word. It was perhaps the only moment in camp life which he and the campers equally enjoyed. The rest of the time they glared at each other, so to speak, over the sack of money which the parents had provided, and in which lay the possibilities of happiness for both; and every time one side drew a benefit from the bag the other side suffered.

Bunk Thirteen, like the rest of the camp, was in a state of joyful eagerness at sundown, when lightning struck. An insolent small boy poked a shaved head into the bungalow and announced a message from the camp doctor to the effect that he and the nurse intended to go to the fireworks, so Bunk Thirteen would have to provide someone to stay with Lennie in the infirmary during the display. A bombardment of resentment, rage, rebellion, and exasperation was duly shot off by the boys, all aimed at Uncle Sid's innocent head. Vows to heaven not to submit to this new iniquity were made. Ingenious curses were heaped on the absent doctor. When the noise subsided the question still remained—who was going to stay with Lennie? Uncle Sid wisely ordered the boys to choose among themselves, gave Ted five minutes to report the name of the victim, and slipped out of the bunk.

Ted, looking more like a hawk than ever, surveyed his followers one after the other.

“Volunteers?” he said at last, with a lopsided grin.

The boys stirred and fidgeted, but none spoke.

“We oughta pull straws,” said Eddie Bromberg.

“Aw, forget it,” said Ted. “I seen them fireworks five years already. I'm sick o' watchin' old Uncle Gussie have a good time for himself while we sit around swattin' fireflies and mosquitoes. I'll stay in the infirmary.”

He spoke bravely, but his face was grief stricken. All day he had been saying that the fireworks were the only fun in a whole summer at Manitou. He was like a poorhouse inmate cheated of Christmas dinner. Herbie felt such a strong impulse of sympathy that to his surprise he heard his own mouth utter, “I'll do it, Ted.”

The captain stared. “You? Why should you of all guys stay with Lennie? He rides you silly.”

“Aw, I just don't care about fireworks, that's all.”

“Look, General Garbage, it's my fault he's in the infirmary. I got him to go swimming. I'll take the knifing.”

“O.K., then there'll be two of us with him,” said Herbie. “I ain't gonna see no crummy fireworks and sit around with no bunch o' gigglin' girls.”

The other boys, amazed and delighted, kept stone still. Ted looked around at them and at Herbie. The wrestle going on inside him showed itself in a popping of his eyes and strange contortions of his big mouth. He loved the fireworks. Herbie had not seen them, and he had; Herbie did not know what a brilliant contrast they were to the rest of the camp routine, and he did.

“You're crazy to do it, Herbie,” he said at last, putting out his hand, “but I'll sure say thank you. I know it oughta be me. Thanks, Herbie.” He pumped the other boy's arm happily.

Nobody, least of all Herbie, overlooked the significance of his given name twice repeated by the captain. It fell sweetly on the fat boy's ears. The speaking of a name can be the conferring of an award above gold medals.

Herbie missed the fireworks, but he never regretted them. From that day he was “Herbie” to all the boys in his bunk except Lennie. Outside the bunk, however, Herbie's designation was fixed. First impressions are hard to change. He had been publicly pilloried on the train as General Garbage, and General Garbage he remained all summer. And if at the age of seventy he should run into a seventy-one-year-old gaffer formerly of Bunk Thirteen, he would be remembered, if at all, as General Garbage.

Despite the delight of a restored name, Herbie's stay in the infirmary was painful. His strong imagination kept contriving images of himself and Lucille, sitting hand in hand on the lawn under the stars, watching the colored fireballs of the Roman candles and the golden showers of the rockets. Actually, his sighs were wasted. The boys and girls, away in the happy ground beyond the hedge, sat on two separate sets of hard benches twenty feet apart, with the corridor between them constantly patrolled by counselors. No word was exchanged between campers of opposite sex that evening. But not knowing this, Herbie suffered for the dream, not for the paltry reality. More and more he yearned for tomorrow's religious services. He was reasonably sure that the doctor and nurse would not insist on attending them, too.

So it turned out. Next evening after dinner, Bunk Thirteen joined the march to the girls' camp, complete except for Lennie. Evidently the doctor and nurse had felt compelled to attend the fireworks in the line of duty, in case Mr. Gauss set fire to himself, but they would not for a moment deprive a single lad of religious improvement.

In planning services for Camp Manitou, “Uncle Gussie” had a tangled problem which he solved with his usual neatness. Although he was not Jewish, most of his campers were, having been recruited from those areas of the Bronx adjacent to Public School Fifty. Mr. Gauss himself was of German descent, and his grandparents had been stout Protestants. In a life of trivial preoccupation and struggle he had lost interest in church and Book. This is not to say that he was behindhand in praising church or quoting Book when necessary, but his doing so was merely a compliment to popular feelings which he knew about but didn't share. In his visits to parents he raised no religious questions. He had observed that strict Jewish parents brought up the topic at once, and their children were lost to him in any case, since the Manitou kitchens did not at all follow the Mosaic food laws. The others, from whom he drew most of his campers, were satisfied with a few words in the booklets about “beautifully inspiring services each Friday evening under the shining Berkshire stars.” The timing of worship on Friday night instead of Sunday morning was adequately Hebraic for his purpose.