Summer Accommodations: A Novel (30 page)

I crossed the main street of the town and kept walking distractedly along the storefronts oblivious to the wares they featured, thinking of Sarah while still trying not to, but then stopped suddenly when I saw where I was. The large plate glass window bearing the name
Freddie's
was right next to me. I peered inside through the reflection of the street behind me and saw men huddled at the long bar drinking beer in the afternoon. All at once that seemed a good idea, an act of manliness, an act of defiance. Thursday afternoon with nothing better to do than get a beer. I pushed open the door and went directly to the bar. One man looked up at me, snickered and muttered something to the man next to him who craned his neck around to look at me as I landed at the formica bar.

“What can I get you, young fella,” the bartender asked.

“I'll have a Ballantine ale, please,” I said quickly. I didn't like beer but years of Mel Allen and Yankee baseball on the radio had led me to try the ale at the first opportunity and its drier, almost metallic taste was not at all unpleasant. I knew a Tom Collins would have been the wrong thing to ask for, something too city, too upper class. The bartender put the can on the bar and fished a glass from the sink wiping it off with his towel. Then he placed a cardboard coaster in front of me and set the still wet glass down upon it.

“You a salesman?” he asked with a broad smile while he looked down the bar at the men huddling together. They laughed. I thought about affecting a southern accent and telling him I was a basketball player up for the summer circuit, something more than an ordinary busboy or waiter, but didn't do it.

“No,” was all I said. I opened the can of ale and poured it out. “You from New York?” one of the men down the bar asked. This was beginning to feel like a bad idea. I sipped some ale, cleared my throat, and looked down the row of stools to where he was seated. “Yes.”

“Where, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan?” For a minute I thought I might say Staten Island and really throw him off. No one would have considered somebody from Staten Island a serious New Yorker. “The Bronx.”

“Really? Me too,” he said enthusiastically. “Course I was just a boy when we came up here from 138th street but even then I was swimming in the Harlem river. Where are you from in the Bronx?”

“Creston Avenue,” I lied, using my high school's street address rather than my own as though this baboon could really care and might come to look me up at home some time.

“Ever swim in the river?”

“Nope,” I was getting down right folksy, sipping my ale and waiting for a chance to leave without appearing intimidated. In fact, I wasn't intimidated by them. These men were just out having a beer, not looking for trouble, not meaning to do me harm. Other than making a few snide remarks under their breath just between themselves they'd been civil. It was my fear that had made them seem menacing, my cowardice that had rendered them formidable. “ … but I've swum in the Hudson, near the bridge.” The bridge meant the George Washington Bridge. The Tappan Zee had yet to be built. “The water there is very brackish because the ocean flows in almost all the way up to Kingston at high tide.” At least that was what my father had told me driving down the West Side Highway one day. “Maybe even to Albany,” I added.

“Get outta here, you serious?”

“Yeah, totally. See, if you time your swim under the bridge to the high tide, you have about an hour when the current is pretty tame and you don't get swept along one way or the other.” Both men looked at me with something approaching respect. Every day in every way I was becoming a more comfortable liar. “What's the Harlem River like to swim in?”

“You know, I don't remember. I was just a kid.” And he laughed himself right to the men's room. The ale and the tale made me feel good. This episode might score some points for me with Ron, having a drink in Freddie's in the middle of the afternoon and making rubes of a couple of old townies. Ready to head back to meet my ride I settled up with the bartender, left him a generous tip, nodded at the man sitting at the bar, and went out into the sun. But the heartbreak over Sarah was waiting for me as soon as I walked out to the street and saw a pretty girl holding her boyfriend's hand and raising herself on tiptoes to kiss him on the lips. It made me want to throw myself into the Hudson River.

3.

We rode back to Braverman's saying very little. I was not ready to go back to my room and see either Ron or Harlan. We parked in the staff parking lot and when Pincus asked if I wanted to get a soda with him I thanked him for the ride and said I wanted to take a swim. There was no intention to swim, just the intent to get away and be by myself. I walked down to the lake to see if the rowboat was free. The day camp was ending its afternoon and the campers were out of the water, standing on the dock and shivering, towels pulled tightly around their little bodies. They rubbed their upper arms briskly with their hands and hopped from foot to foot to get warm. I could hear teeth chattering behind blue lips as I passed.

“Are you finished with the skiff for the day?” I asked the counselor.

“Yeah. Be sure to tie it up it under the dock when you're done, Jack.”

Jack. He must have known me as Sarah's date. How else would he know my name? That felt good, like my world hadn't changed, like everything would be all right. I climbed into the boat and pushed off into the lake. The cold August nights and the weakened late summer sun on its course of recession towards the equator, its autumnal equinox, had rendered the lake's waters cooler. A wind came up wafting the cold off the water and chilling my body. I coughed a deep chesty cough. Shouldn't smoke again, I thought, recalling Harlan's father and his cough, fed by the prodigious mucus factory in his chest. I let the boat drift towards the opposite shore, towards Harlan's parents' cabin. I still don't know if that was intentional or accidental and quite likely, I will never know. There was no reason to expect I'd learn anything true about Harlan from his parents but maybe I'd learn if they were who he said they were, the judge and the showgirl. Now that was a love story. Imagine walking out on a life in progress and disappearing into anonymity after such a public existence. Was it worth it? Did their love withstand the disappointments of life and feel as good as it had that long ago August. I was very tempted to ask. Imagine, me, a kid, a stranger with no right to the answers to such questions, why should he tell me anything?

I rowed up on to the beach in front of the cabin and then pulled the skiff by its bow until it was completely out of the water. No one hailed or greeted me from the stillness of the house. Not even a cough broke the silence. I banged on the front door of the cabin.

“Hello? Anybody home? It's Jack White, Harlan's friend.” The silence persisted, a quiet that a theater audience might envy. There was a car in the driveway, a light burning in the hall and still no answer, but I was determined to talk to the judge—if that in fact was who he was. “Hello, hello, it's Jack White,” and then, for the hell of it, I said, “not the FBI.”

There was a rustle inside, footsteps approached, and the judge, Harlan's father, parted the curtains at the window next to the door, raised an index finger, and then undid the locks to let me in. The smell of cigarette smoke was still fresh in the room and a gray haze lingered in the air. Waving the now invisible smoke away he smiled and stuck out his hand.

“Come in, Jack White, come in. I was afraid it was Harlan come to lecture me about the evils of tobacco, though he's a chain smoker himself, don't you know.” No wheeze, no cough, no shortness of breath. “Can I get you something to drink, a coke, a beer, a cup of coffee?”

“A drink of water would be fine,” I said, wondering what had become of the cardiac patient I'd visited just days before.

“Just water? You're sure? No sodas or beer? Okay. So how has your summer been, Jack?” he asked, walking me to the kitchen where he removed a bottle of water from the refrigerator.

“Boy, you've made some recovery, judge,” I said, “ the last time I saw you, you were pretty sick. Weren't you supposed to get an operation of some kind? Isn't that why Harlan was trying to raise money? Wasn't that for you to have heart surgery to save your life?”

“Raise money? An operation? I don't know what you're talking about, Jack, I don't need an operation. I had pneumonia, same damn pneumonia I get every year. There's nothing wrong with my heart. Oh, Jesus, has Harlan been at it again? I can see by the look on your face that he has. Oh, Jesus.” The judge shook his head. “I hoped maybe he'd make some money, meet a nice girl, reform his ways. I even thought that with a friend like you he'd see there's a better way. Oh, Jesus, you didn't give him any money I hope.”

“Almost.”

“Well don't,” he frowned. “Don't say anything about this to his mother, Jack, Helene's the one who's really not well.” He rubbed his brow to remove the film of perspiration there and paced the room. “Damn! Damn, damn, damn.” I sipped my water and looked at the things around me. There were ordinary furnishings worn with use and needing repair or refreshing, not what you'd expect of people with money. Was Harlan really acting alone in his hunt for the money? Is this another set up because I'm an easy dupe, someone to be gulled? I shouldn't have come here, I thought, I am way over my head. Why trust the judge, this man, any more than I'd trust Harlan?

“Harlan has been a problem for his mother and me, you must have some awareness of this aspect of my son, Jack, surely you've seen that part of him.” He approached and stood too close to me. “I have tried to make him see the right way but he's determined to remind me of the path I chose, his life is his means of reproach, his disgrace is meant for me. Sex and money are all he cares about and he insists that is what I taught him. Outrageous.” He retreated to the window. “He's had everything we could give to him, love, a good home, education …” his voice trailed off as if into the mystery of what they had overlooked, what they had failed to provide. “You know,” he said, suddenly amused, “even this damn ring story seemed to be working for a time. He seemed genuinely excited, motivated, wanting to connect with this saga, this noble family history.” His eyes teared. “There is no ring, Jack, there never was. It was just a story to get him involved in something bigger than himself. I'm sorry if it's caused you any trouble. I didn't see how something so innocent could become such a problem, but then, I always underestimate my son's capacity for mischief.”

“Mischief? Mischief? Judge, that's like saying a pyromaniac is someone who plays with matches. Who is he, sir, who is Harlan?”

“He is my twenty four year old only child, my son, my heir, my cross.”

“Does he go to Harvard?”

“Jack, what do you want with that, what do you want, would that make him better for you if he was at school in Cambridge?” He pulled a cigarette from a pack he'd hidden under a seat cushion and lit up. “You want one?” he asked absently and again began pacing the room. “It had been my hope that this summer would be different. A nice bunch of boys, some good money, some pretty girls, the girls they love him, he's like a movie star to them. Ben said it would come together, he'd straighten out, it would all be there for him, the money, the girls, the guys.”

“The guys don't like him, sir, they don't trust him. I always defended him, I thought they were too harsh, maybe envious, I don't know, none of it matters now.” I became unsure of why I'd come to the house. Learning that Harlan was a grifter in a charmer's clothing was something I already knew and the judge may have been no better, maybe not the judge at all. Why show him respect?

“Jack, you have to help him, he'll listen to you, he always speaks so highly of you, of your kindness and sensitivity. Help me to help him. This may be our last chance.” I shrugged.

“Don't you care? Don't you have any feelings of compassion for your friend?”

“I'm not sure he's my friend when he tries to shake me down for an operation you obviously don't need to have. And while we're at it, how do I know you're really the judge? No offense, but why should I believe that's the truth?” Holding up an index finger, the social hold button before there were hold buttons, Harlan's father left the room for a minute and then returned with a piece of paper in hand.

“Will this be enough?” He handed me the paper, a certificate from the City of New York saying he was licensed to practice the law, he being Joseph Force Crater. I'd never seen any of the city's documents and was still wary this was a valid license. Flustered, I dared to do what I had imagined only minutes before.

“So, was it worth it judge?”

“What? Was what worth it?”

“Everything.” I began to lose my nerve now that the words were out. “Giving up your position, leaving your life for this?”

“Jack, that's not for you to ask. Don't be impertinent. Think how you can help your friend.”

“Right now, judge, I'm the one who needs help. I have to think of myself, Harlan is your problem, you think about him.” I placed the glass of water on the coffee table and let myself out.

“Please, Jack, have some mercy, he needs your help,” he called out to me.

The judge had tried luring me back by strumming on the strings of guilt, but I was not the guilty one and my strings were not taut enough to make the right sound.

W
ith Sarah gone and Ben Braverman having confided Abe's secrets to me, if indeed they were his secrets and not some confabulation that Ben had concocted spontaneously to confound me and simultaneously amuse himself, after both these upsets, I decided to get drunk that night after work. The decision to get drunk as opposed to just drinking too much, an occurrence of drunkenness, is a morbid and pathetic circumstance. It is a plan hatched in a state of defeat, a self-inflicted wound masquerading as a flamboyant and Baroque gesture or what the English call “fuck all.” I have to admit I didn't enjoy alcohol that much despite having willingly participated in all of the passage rites of my generation, the beer parties and the rye, gin and scotch clandestine tastings, so getting drunk was more a torture than a comfort but somehow that seemed the right thing to do because it was what men under stress usually resorted to in the movies. I had no idea what my father and the other men of my family did when stressed and the fact that I hated feeling drunk did nothing to deter me from this decision. It is the kind of flailing we are capable of resorting to when we've been disoriented by a shock and there is no other word to explain the effect of Sarah's announcement: I was in shock.

After dinner I went to the bar in the lounge where Julie the bartender made me a Tom Collins. He joked with me about coming alone and ordering a drink. “Alcohol won't get you laid if you don't have a girl drinking with you. Ha, ha. Ha, ha.” I felt worse after the first Tom Collins. The bar filled up slowly when Talent Night ended, Ben's mid-week effort at killing time before the weekend performers started trooping through. My presence raised the eyebrows of some and the hopes of others, the latter being the anxious parents of what I would politely call unprepossessing daughters. The carbonation had evacuated my second Tom Collins by that time and the wedge of fresh lime that Julie had perched on the lip of the glass now lay in a lifeless heap at the bottom of the drink. My head spun.

“Let me buy you a fresh drink,” I heard someone say as my glass was sailed across the bar in Julie's direction.

“Thank you, but I really don't want another drink,” I said, not looking at the man who had seated himself beside me at the bar.

“It's not polite to refuse a generous offer, Melvin. Even if you don't drink it be gracious and watch the bubbles fizz in the glass.” He punctuated his advice with a squeeze of my shoulder which made me look up to see who this sport was. The man had a sharp featured face and a crew cut, was probably around forty years old with a trim and youthful physique. He was wearing a loose fitting sport coat, smoking a long, unfiltered cigarette and he had the coldest blue eyes I'd ever seen, cold as dry ice.

“My name is Joe,” he said, extending his hand, “Joe,” he repeated as if it were a hard name to learn. I shook his hand but didn't speak; he already knew my name.

“Having a good season? They say you can't find a room to rent in the Catskills anymore this summer because they're all booked.”

“It's been all right,” I said unenthusiastically. Who knew who this guy could be, maybe an IRS agent looking for tax cheats.

“You're a pretty quiet fella, Mel, doesn't that hurt your tips?” I thought I'd say something sarcastic, like ‘let me give you a tip, pal,' but not knowing who he was, and daunted by those cold, icy eyes I said,

“It isn't personal, but I don't know you and I would prefer to be left alone tonight. I've got some things on my mind and I'm not good company.” He rolled the tip of his cigarette around the base of the ashtray leaving a gray trail of ash then stared at me through narrowed eyes as he lifted the butt to his mouth and took a deep drag. The smoke came out through his nose slowly surrounding his face as if in a mist.

“Let me be clear with you, Melvin, you and I are going to do some talking tonight. You and I are having this conversation because Ben Braverman has arranged for us to meet on his behalf.” My stomach flipped and then sank quickly. This was about the trap for Harlan Ben had talked to me about that afternoon. He said someone would get in touch with me. Joe was the someone. “Have I made myself clear to you?” I nodded. “Good. Let me explain to you that I am here very willingly, eagerly you might say, because this Harlan Hawthorne character is bad news, a rotten apple, a parasite, a scum bag, do I make myself clear?”

“Clear as day,” I said, falling back on cliche to keep the clear word in play. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously and then relaxed.

“Look, Melvin, I understand that you're very close to this boy but you don't know him you only think that you know him. This guy is nothing but a grifter, a gigolo and a user, a cheap crook who steals money and jewelry from the women that he beds.”

“You can prove this?”

“You know, it's the damnedest thing, women never want to press charges against him. He must have something special, some move or some …”

“He listens.”

“He listens?! What the hell does that mean?” He was as confused as a gorilla that has just been handed a plastic banana.

“Women adore Harlan because he understands and cares about them, maybe too many of them, but he's not mean, and he's not a thief.”

“Oh boy,” Joe said, wiping his brow, “we've got a lot of talking to do, you and me, a lot of talking.”

“If you don't mind I'd rather that we do that some other time.” I started to leave but Joe grabbed my shoulder and held me in place despite my demurrals.

“Mr. Braverman wants this Harlan character out of his hotel, out of his daughter's life, out of town and, if necessary, out cold but under any circumstances, o-u-t, out! You cannot walk away just now, you can't because I don't want you to, because I'm not through with you, because if you walk I'll call the police and Ben B will say you were at his house in the middle of the night looking for something to steal. Up here that's all Ben has to do to get you put in jail, clear?” That word again. He gritted his teeth and dug his fingers into my shoulder with a surprisingly fierce strength. “I'm asking you if I've made myself clear!” His nostrils flared and his index finger located a nerve in my left shoulder that when pressed hurt so it caused my knees to buckle. “Yes!” I said in a shaky voice, “clear as day.”

“Good.” He took another king size cigarette from the packet in his shirt and lit it with the ember of the one he had been smoking. After it was afire he took a deep breath and then seemed to blow the smoke out of every portal in his head. I even thought I saw his ears participate in the venting of the smoke. “Let me tell you about your buddy Harlan. First of all, his name is not Harlan Hawthorne but it's the name he uses up here. He takes people by surprise that way, disarms them, yeah that's what he does, he disarms people by using that name. Isn't that what happened to you?”

“It isn't his name it's his style and the fact that he is very smart. And I wouldn't say that I've been disarmed,” hearing the defensiveness in my voice I shifted my tone, “it's more like I've been charmed, flattered by his willingness to teach me about things.” I would not tell him that I no longer idolized Harlan and it was interesting hearing this portrayal of him, one closer in every way to Sarah's perception of Harlan.

“Teach you about things,” he repeated, nodding his head. “Has he taught you how to slip a ring off a woman's finger so gently she doesn't even feel it disappear, or where to step on a woman's instep at exactly the same time you slide her bracelet off her wrist so that she is distracted by the pain and more focused on the prospect of podiatry than on her jewelry, has he taught you how he does that? Or has he shown you how to peel a twenty off a roll of bills, examine it very prominently and then quickly switch a two dollar bill for it so that if he's caught it can be passed off as an honest mistake, you know, confusion over the number two. And there's more, there's always more, like the name. You give that name to a person in the Catskills and it disarms them, throws them off their pace, you know what I mean?” I didn't and I told him so. “Everybody has a rhythm, a pace, a way that he operates in new situations. It's as identifiable as a signature, a fingerprint, always the same. Just the name, Harlan Hawthorne, derails people. This gives him the chance to see its effect; does it make people wary or eager to know him, intimidated or friendly to a fault. Then he can set his traps, lay his nets, snare his marks.” Joe had smoked his cigarette down to his fingers while he was talking to me and again he lit another from the ember of the shrunken butt.

“I don't think we're talking about the same guy. Maybe the guy you're talking about heard the real Harlan's name and decided to use it for himself.” Joe did not burst out laughing but I knew he thought my proposition was ludicrous by the gape-jawed, wide-eyed look he gave me.

“Are you stupid Melvin? Do you think for a minute that
I'm
stupid or something? Because if you do you're in for a big surprise. No, there is only one Harlan Hawthorne and this is him.” Even though I had refused it, I took a sip of the Tom Collins on the bar. My head had the fuzzy feeling it usually got after a few drinks and I knew that to go farther would certainly make me sick to my stomach and if I got sick enough he'd have to let me leave. “Let me have a scotch on the rocks, Julie. Make it a double. So let's talk about Ben's plan.” Julie brought him his drink and shifting around in his seat Joe took the drink in his hand and smiled a friendly smile at the glass before swigging a large gulp of it. “You understand that any business that deals with a lot of cash is an opportunity to skim bucks out of the register and directly into your pocket. It's a good way to keep your silent partner, Uncle Sam, silent. This is the case in bars, restaurants and gas stations, and in resort hotels. People either pay you in cash or they write you a check. If you are careful and not too greedy you can skim a few thousand dollars a summer and no one is any the wiser. That's a lot of money, a year's salary for your average clerk or secretary, the kind of people who come here for a summer vacation. But you don't deposit that cash in a bank, no, no. That would leave a record of the money for the taxman who knows very well about cash skimming, he just can't prove it most of the time. You stash the cash somewhere until you want to spend it, take a trip, buy a fur coat or a car, you know, some kind of luxury. Now,” he took his scotch in hand again, finished it in a swallow and sailed the glass down the bar to Julie who nodded and reached for the scotch bottle behind him. “More ice this time please, Jules. So usually the owner of this cash business has a safe or some kind of strongbox hidden away in or near his house. This is where you come in.” I took another sip of my Tom Collins. The gin taste came through the lime and my nausea increased but I sipped the drink some more. While I might recently have become disenchanted with Harlan I was not going to listen to my part in this scheme to trap him if I could avoid it. I'd sooner get what we called “the whirlies” and throw up on Joe's shoes. “Are you all right? You're turning green and sweating, uh oh, you're gonna be sick!” And he jumped up and moved away from the bar taking his suede shoes out of harm's way. I took a deep breath and put my head between my knees.

“I'll be okay, don't worry. I told you I had a lot on my mind.” His face darkened as he stared at me.

“If I have to I'll stick
my
finger down your throat and get the sick over with because we are going to discuss the plan and your part in it and we're going to do that tonight.” He turned to Julie. “Get that goddamn drink out of here,” he said, motioning to the Tom Collins with his head. I sat up, and despite the throbbing in my head and the sickening, nauseated feeling that gripped my entire body, I tried to look focused.

“Could you give me a drink of ice water please, Julie?” Warily, Joe approached the bar. I started to giggle. The extra alcohol made him now seem less imposing and the memory of him lurching away from his stool to protect his suede shoes made his vanity appear totally absurd. My giggling abruptly plunged out of control into unstoppable laughter and this behavior was clearly irritating to him. I don't remember if it was the alcohol or the fear, hysterics or hysteria, I just couldn't stop. Julie brought the ice water down to our end of the bar but when I reached for it Joe grabbed my wrist.

“Don't make me hurt you, son.” It was said in a low, cold tone as icy as his eyes and it stopped my laughter as abruptly as if it had been freeze dried. “All you have to do is tell Harlan about a sack that you saw Ben put down a chute near the storm cellar doors at the back of the house, that's all. I guarantee you that he will be very interested, full of questions and changes of plans. Suddenly he'll be the one to search the grounds near the Braverman's house, not you. I'm telling you to tell him what I told you to. There's no ‘please', no ‘okay?' this is something you have no choice in, something that you must do.” Though my infatuation with Harlan, I can think of no other word to describe my feelings for him, had ended before this encounter, and with Sarah's surprise announcement at work in me like a poison, I still could not think of being Ben's agent. The bar had filled up with people and the nervous laughter of women was all around me. I looked at Joe for a full, soundless minute and then pitched forward and vomited. Seeing what was coming Joe skipped aside to protect his suede shoes. Then he poured the ice water over my head.

“Yeah, turning on your buddy is a disgusting thing to do, but you'll do it if you know what's good for you, Melvin.”

“I'm sick.”

“Bring me some coffee, Jules,” he called out. “Hear me? You'll do what you're told. Now drink some coffee, it'll sober you up.”

2

There is a quality of exhaustion that sets in towards the third week of August for those working in a resort hotel. The very name of the month seems to echo this state of enervation: August— exhaust. I even made jokes about it with Sammy. “Boy, I'm Augusted” or “I feel like I'm in a state of Augustian.” Almost every employee has been working the entire summer without relief, no days off, two months of servicing the wants and needs of the guests assigned, the gracious and the gruff, the generous and the greedy, regardless of their nature they must be served. And by that point in the summer season everyone has a good idea of how much money will be taken away when Labor Day, the finish line in the annual summer gold rush, is reached. For me, money had ceased to be an issue after Sammy guaranteed I would never go unrewarded and my ambitions had been focused on romance and friendship, ambitions that had collided with stunning surprise when Sarah exposed Harlan's repeated betrayals of Heidi, and then what I took to be her own as well: the Hank revelation.