Porcelain In the Piano
Ellenville NY 1947
School was over! To the Catskills! To the Catskills! This was an opportunity to exchange polluted city air for pristine mountain air. Many Jewish families in the summer, rented a kochalayn (you do the cooking), which was a spare wooden bungalow with a kitchen, a bathroom and two bedrooms.
On the other hand, large and small hotels were scattered throughout the Catskill Mountains. Those who could afford the cost, tried their best to eat a quantity at each meal over or above the fee they paid for the fresh mountain air.
In 1977, the lady who was a boarder at my parent’s apartment in the 1920s worked at a hotel in the Catskills. She was as a maid at the Central Hotel in Ellenville, NY where a job was available for a busboy. All I needed were two white shirts and a navy-blue pair of pants. I went to Pop Meyer’s on Tremont Ave, selected a navy blue patch of material from which he sewed a custom-made pair of pants for five dollars.
I had never worked as a busboy, but neither did all the busboys in the Catskill Mountains when they had their first shot at it. With great apprehension I left by bus to Ellenville.
On the first day, I made the mistake of selecting a square tray instead of a curved tray for the emptied juice glasses. As I swung the door open to the kitchen entrance, I pivoted, hitting the corner of the tray into the door jamb. All the glasses crashed at the feet of Mr. Tucker, the owner of the hotel.
“I’m sorry Mr. Tucker. I used the wrong tray.”
“It’s ahwrite. It’s ahwrite, by the end of the veek you’ll be out uhv here.”
He needed me, and he knew it. Much to their delight, I spoke Yiddish to the guests and even sung some Yiddish songs while bussing the tables.
So, it was ahwrite, I was not out of there, but whenever he passed me, hatred spewed from his pores as Old Faithful spews from the earth’s crust.
Friday dinner was a main event. Hundreds of husbands, propelled by their testosterone entered the race to the Catskills. Six o’clock was dinner time. At about ten-to-six I stopped at a bathroom straighten my hair. Mr. Tucker passed by the open door and growled, “It’s dinner time meiskait (ugliness), he mussed up my hair then snarled, “Get into dah dinink room right now!”
Not a word passed between us after that encounter. But, a few weeks later, in preparation for a Friday dinner, busboys were mopping the dining room floor. I was wringing out a mop between the rollers of my pail when charming Mr. Tucker made his appearance.
“Vot? You mop mine floor vearing shorts?”
“Mr Tucker, maybe I should call a cab and go to Ellenville to rent a tuxedo?”
He stood there nonplussed as the four other busboys burst into laughter.
From that time until the Labor Day weekend Mr. Tucker kept his distance.
On Labor Day weekend, we had so many guests that I was given seven tables to bus instead of the usual five. That was OK, more tips.
There was enough room for only one bussing stand and that stand filled quickly. I was in good shape. I tried to bus the tables, but with second orders of the main dish and more seltzer bottles, I couldn’t keep up with the demand.
Behind one of my tables stood an upright piano. I eased my way to the piano then opened the two upright sliding doors at the front. I placed the surplus dishes in there until dinner was over.
Much to everyone’s surprise, Mr. Tucker hired entertainers after dinner. A middle aged man under strings of dyed, jet-black hair ran in front of me and up to the piano. He pushed the piano to the center of the dining room, followed by a heavily mascaraed middle aged woman. The lights darkened, a spotlight was focused on the piano. She grasped the piano with one hand then nodded to the pianist. His fingers dove into the keys; a discordant sound filled the room. He tried again. A grating sound came from the piano.
It wasn’t a triangular kitchen door window, it was a cathedral’s stained glass window. Mr. Tucker, who face was glued to it, was on the verge of a multicolored explosion. He came running into the dining room shouting,
“Bestid! Bestid!” then opened the piano’s sliding doors. Some of the bussed dishes came skidding to the floor. The guests thought the entire show featuring Mr. Tucker and myself was priceless.
He refused to pay me for the weekend, but the NY Labor Board warned him to send me a check or action would be taken against his hotel.
I received my check for the three days, $3.36.
For further memoirs read: Seabury Place: A Bronx Memoir by Daniel Wolfe
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