Carnovsky's Retreat Read online

  He thought it wasn’t good enough, that I’d pass, but I am not passing this week. I need an income. Yes I am too old to work for tips and yes, much to smart to work menial I’m sure. I have been too this and too that all month in the newspaper and now it’s time to take what shows. Who am I anyway? It isn’t like they are rolling out the red rug for me in front of the brass doors at Waldorf-Astoria. I’m not royalty.

  And the truth is I think I may like this job. Free food, short hours, and it puts me at the racetrack, right where I want to be. So what’s not good enough about that? If I can pocket two incomes at once, in the course of half a day?

  In Kramer’s eyes I am dropping down the class ladder. Bulkitis only says he’s happy if I’m happy. Confesses: “I was really worried when you bought White Owls last week, Oscar. That’s not you.” Absolutely correct, that’s water seeking its own level.

  As for Jimmy Myers, whom the cat dragged in here this morning before school, he is stunned to learn I must soil my hands with work of any kind. He had the conviction I was sitting on a nest-egg.

  “A millionaire! Where did you get that?”

  “My mother says you got plenty.”

  “It’s news to me.”

  “She says you don’t have to work for a living.”

  “I hate to disappoint, but I’m low man. I don’t even have burying-money, like 2B. Or the price of Havanas.”

  “What about Hartack?”

  “Good while it lasted. Money has a way of getting itself spent sometimes, to sustain a belly. You need something steady coming in, like the bottle business.”

  It’s tough preaching hard work and responsibility to this kid when all he sees here is a horseplayer at his leisure, a millionaire on sabbatical.

  I caught a beautiful sunny morning on which to travel out and receive my official indoctrination from a little gentleman named Wiley, a thousand-year-old man who is captain of the waiters there. I can see this job just fine, I like it already, except there is one slight obstacle they put in—clubhouse employees may wager as much as they wish, only never in the club where the customers can see you. And naturally they have a rule against leaving the room during working hours.

  Wally Wiley has a direct line to one of the clerks, who holds his money by prior arrangement—“my broker” he calls him. John the salad man in the kitchen has his own kid running relay races to a buddy in the grandstand. There are other ways—for example the busboys can shake free more easily and they could have some of your money in tow—yet everything I heard was to no avail. You can bet with such tricks, you just can’t win money. Because you can not handicap in a rush. The tote must be allowed to settle. Sometimes a late move is dictated. So yes you can get your money down, but no way to be smart with it. A challenge, that’s all.

  One other possible snafu, they expect Fish to have a Social Security Card and join the union. Can he do such things? He will have to look into the matter very soon. But they treat Fish like a brand new man, a neophyte starting out in life, and it is true I had this job, waiting on table, at the age of seventeen. Which is not to argue it is easy work, or work unworthy of respect. Watch out here for my colleague Wiley!

  I respect everyone, that’s the truth, I even respect a man who doesn’t work at all—face it, I was that guy two days ago. Wiley (installed in the clubhouse here when Man O’War was standing on shaky legs) puts it like this: more people in the world are working as waiters than any other job, including factory. So anybody looks down on a waiter is only looking down on himself.

  Rests his case, I’m sure. There are no kids doing the job in this room, and no dopes either. Even the busboys have some age on them. My opening came about, in fact, when a man named Fortini passed away from old age, over the winter. To which Wiley adds with a perfect straight face, “He didn’t go in harness but we thought we should bury him in style anyway—laid him out on a bed of lettuce, gave him the whole treatment. Fortini liked a touch of pomp.”

  April and sunny and I am sitting on the Jamaica train with a Gonzales in one hand, The Telegraph in another, and a pencil tucked in behind my ear, and guess what? I’m on my way to work! Who could predict it? And yet the feeling is the same as always, like the feeling a kid gets when he pulls his catching mitt out of the mothballs. The heart gives a jump. It’s a brand new season, so let’s go.

  I noted that the racetrack is crawling with security in plain clothes, some of whom eat in here and one who stands all day. His outpost. (You must keep an eye on the uppercrust too.) He gave me an itch at first, the way you itch when a cop puts in an appearance in your rear-view mirror. You did nothing wrong but he doesn’t know that, and he’s a cop, so you feel him on the back of your neck as you drive along most innocent.

  One of these blue-suits could have been on my case—say a night cop from Brooklyn doubling down here days, or someone who last summer was working the missing persons shift. But I was over my worry in a hurry, simply because I know I am not someone they need. It isn’t as if the whole nation has been turning over every stick and stone because the gross national product slipped in my absence.

  They looked for a few days, Tanya made them do so I’m sure. But after that why bother? What would they do if they found me? It’s a free country, America, you can be missing here and still not be a crook.

  All the cops in the world can’t change it now. I am the Invisible Mensch, that’s all, your friendly waiter, and happy to bring out a nice slice of the cherry cheesecake—very good today, yes—and something to drink with it perhaps? No problem. And anyway the one in here, Edmundson, has no desire to make an arrest. Too much like work, he testifies, content to have another club sandwich on the plate in front of him, compliments of the house.

  As a general rule people do not look down on waiters. A few of course, but then a few will also look up. Most respect you if you give good service, for which they are after all paying good money. I give it without exception and enjoy a nice relationship with my customers. And the place runs smooth from the kitchen out, a veteran team, very well organized.

  My goal in any case is getting by, so none of it concerns me too much. I pick up my tip and put it in my pocket. The money I make is small change compared to the sums I have been making since the War at Carnovsky’s but I am in a position to appreciate it nonetheless. Admit it, dollars are real. Yesterday I swept up $1.10—I had to untuck it from an ashtray filled with lipstick filters—and I got a kick from it, just like a mousie picking cheese crumbs from the dust. You cash a bet at any price, because the money is real and everyone can use it.

  Another of my crazy notions: every time I pick up a one-dollar tip from the debris I am tempted to pack it straight into an envelope and ship it off to Walter. No message, just the bill. I would always give him a dollar in the past, to watch his headlights shine. So naturally he would know the source and being a smart boy he would also know enough to keep it mum. Every kid loves a secret and Walter always loved that dollar—so I would be sending him a daily double out of the blue.

  Too risky, of course, You cannot play games. Play fair—if you’re gone you’re gone. Yet it can be fun to dream things up and in any case thinking is not a crime anymore. Since they got rid of Joe McCarthy, no one puts you in jail for what you think now.

  A new outlook on the races from on high. It’s a far cry from my usual, what Hearn calls my office—I like to set up shop right along the rail by the sixteenth pole where you can see them parade just before the post, check the jockey’s face and the horse’s ass at the same time, and then a few minutes later you catch the finish in the same spot. I like being in the pit when the mud flies up.

  It still has got a beauty to it from the clubhouse but of a very different kind. You miss the sharp flavor. Watching them go from on high is like watching fish in a tank, where they float around and make no noise.

  Include Linda Stanley among the ones who look down on waiters. In fact she has begun to look down on me in general, now that we have shared all the secrets
. Now she knows who it is she visits on Saturday night and she also sees where, and so now we find ourselves disagreeing. We do not have a fight, we simply “disagree.” Because now I am from a “different generation” where I was not from any particular generation last month, or it didn’t matter if I was. And she looks down on waiters:

  “Oscar what you need is a challenge.”

  How can she know what I need, if I don’t know myself? I’m happy with my job, and it’s enough of a challenge getting my money to the window on time.

  “You are a highly intelligent man, that’s all I mean. That’s why you left the old job, because it wasn’t enough of a challenge for you.”

  “I liked my old job. And I was making a living, not looking for a challenge. I had no complaints with my situation at all. And Linda, really and truly, I’m sorry if you are not impressed but I have no complaints with this one either.”

  “That’s just because you don’t complain. You don’t believe in complaining. But you can still feel the cause.”

  “You don’t complain either and do I tell you your job stinks?”

  “I didn’t say that, Oscar. I said you needed more.”

  “Such as what? What does ‘more’ look like? Should I be running for President against Ike?”

  “Oh Oscar.”

  This is how it’s done, to disagree without a fight. We are getting expert at it, the two of us. Linda does complain, however—she complains about me. Though for my own sake, I’m sure.

  Linda Stanley may not accredit it but waiting table is an education in itself. It’s people on parade. Today we had a pair in who insisted on changing tables twice (and of course they landed on mine) and then staged a wrestling match over the menu.

  “I told you, Meg, I’ll take care of this.”

  “Oh great—like you did last night!”

  I wanted to ask her what he did last night—forget to hold the mayonnaise? But he must be the one in charge and she makes it her aim to embarrass him. They behave like snakes and in the meantime you must be nothing but charming in response if you value your percentage.

  “It’s a volatile situation,” says Captain Wiley of my guests. “With this kind it can go either way. He’s a psycho. So you look for two percent or twenty-five. With a psycho, it’s never fifteen.”

  But does Wiley look down on customers? I will remember to ask him one of these days.

  I never wrestled Tanya for a bill or a menu. She ordered hers and I ordered mine, less confusion that way. We don’t bother one another in general because you have to see it as a partnership, not a romance only. And you have to get along. Starts out with a romance (or else forget it) and it ends up one of two ways: a partnership or a battle-royal. It depends upon respect.

  Wally Wiley is a philosopher, a sachem, always happy to impart his wisdom. He was a jockey once, about 150 years ago, and he is still a wire-haired terrier. If there are great waiters (and why not?) the way there are great rocket-scientists and great shortstops, then Wiley is among the elite. I take pleasure in watching him work the floor, the old pro, but best I like his gems of wisdom.

  “Horse, man, and money,” he says, one of his favorites. “That’s life, Oscar—horse, man, and money. The part you are, the part you aren’t, and the part you can’t control. Think about it.”

  I like it a lot, it’s perfect. When I think about it, however, I can’t make horseshit out of it. It’ll come to me, I’m sure. But whenever we witness an oddity, if a customer stiffs a waiter or conversely leaves a twenty-dollar bill (“likeness of Jackson”) on the table, or if we see one of the married track officials waltz in here with a girl-chick on his arm in broad daylight—anything of the slightest departure—Wiley is apt to shake his head and pronounce,

  “Horse, man, and money, Oscar. The part you are and the part you aren’t.”

  And the part you can’t control, don’t forget. When he abbreviates, I finish it off for him in my head. It’s like a singing jingle for candy bars or tutti-frutti, and makes about the same sense to me, just a little music.

  I once took up drawing on Saturdays at the Cooper-Union. I couldn’t do it then and I can’t do it now—least of all horse man and money. Maybe I can draw a car or something like that, but no muscles and nothing wrinkled.

  Spotted Hearn this morning by the walking-ring.

  “You look the same,” I told him.

  “Glad to hear it. That’s all I ask. And yourself as well, Oscar. Where have you been keeping yourself?”

  “Right here every day they ran.”

  “No sir.”

  “Every day. I’m staff. Working up in the clubhouse—waiting table.”

  “Tell me another.”

  “It’s gospel, Hearn. I got a fresh start in life. Come in today and see for yourself. I’ll discount you.”

  “A fresh start at the bottom! What for? What the hell for, Oscar? You can do better than that.”

  “Sure I can. I can also do worse. But I enjoy it, Hearn, really it’s all right with me.”

  “Jesus, Oscar.”

  Add him to the list, he looks down on waiters. I will have to report him to Wiley. And what does he do himself, Hearn? I think nothing. Stubbed his toe in the War and receives a monthly check in the mail. It’s enough to keep his suits smelling fresh dry-cleaned and his leather shoes polished. Who knows, he might have a sideline in the numbers or deliver Chinese food on the midnight shift. Maybe sends out a fleet of women to walk the streets, and skims off his 75%.

  But Hearn is okay. Like Linda, he is just concerned for me—he means to be nice. I won’t report him. Seeing Hearn with his boy Mikey gave me a bright idea, though, that may solve my problem with Jimmy Myers. He is turning up the heat on our Ebbets Field plan but now I’m working I can beg off and maybe substitute a day at the races, even up.

  His folks won’t mind because after all I am the gentleman who brought a bottle of wine to dinner. Upperclass Oscar, gets fed spaghetti from a can and he brings a nice wine to go with it! So I’m gentry.

  And Jimmy’s eyes would pop at a real racehorse. He could pick a few winners, maybe get lucky with a longshot and clean up—and he can run my bets to Silva in the grandstand. I’ll buy him his unlimited hot dogs here, at cost.

  The day after Linda I am always of two minds about it. A split person. I believe that if we “disagree” and if we don’t choose to stroll out on a Sunday in the park—if we are not at least a little bit in love—then we should not be rooting around like animals on Saturday night. No one’s fault. I’m no less guilty for this than she is—a couple of weak links on the same chain, that’s all.

  However I can also believe the exact opposite: why not this sort of attachment? Who does it harm? We both know the score and take our therapy where we find it. You can’t get a sex life anywhere like a bottle of milk, it can be hard to come by. You can do without of course, and many will, but if every citizen had a nice neat schedule like ours, a schedule you can count on, I’m sure a lot of sad sacks would cheer up fast, the shy and those who lack confidence would perk up right away, and all the phonies would die of honesty.

  It tides you over. Leaves room for the world’s work to get done—cure diseases, new inventions, etcetera—and no one jumps off the stoop in despair. If by accident you have a baby it could present a problem, but at least you have the baby and that’s something.

  Linda sees to this aspect for us and I’m sure she does a good job, with help from our friend the Doctor. A slip-up is always possible (the part you can’t control, boys and girls) and if we slip up we have to own it. If we slip, I become Fish officially and she has no choice but to drag me out to Jersey, introduce me around. And I hand out cigars, White Owls for the goyim.

  The horsemen eat in here from time to time, and the higher-up the more likely. Wiley puts it this way: if his hands are clean we’ll see him for lunch. If he has touched a horse lately, he’ll be eating in his trailer or in the back-stretch kitchen. When I remarked to him that he maybe looked down on o
wners, my friend’s reply was, “Truth is a defense, Oscar, watch and see.”

  Not unusual to see owners claiming each other’s stock over a glass of whiskey. One young one is in soaking up doubles all afternoon and never shows the effects. His stomach is lined with tin. Drinks up ten or a dozen and still walks nice, talks nice, and remains considerate of others. He is what Wiley calls a twenty-percenter. But the man doesn’t even pee. He’s a liquor-closet, a camel, storing it in his tin-lined gut.

  It is worth listening if trainers munch together. You never take anything at face value out here, but these guys know their own stock and have the kind of information that can give an edge maybe one race a week. Who but the trainer knows a two-year-old maiden starter?

  Sometimes you get the same edge browsing on the backstretch, where anyone can ask a question and everyone will have an answer. You don’t need to be a turf-writer to say, How’s Two Ton Tony going this week, or why was Bamboozle held out last Wednesday? You will always get an opinion down there and none valid without the signature of our founder.

  You can also see with your own eyes. You will see a horse with bad mange, or a case of the runs (in which case he won’t) and sometimes the word will leak out that a stable is getting ready to plunge on some concealed goods. That can be money in the bank, though if you know how to look you can see it between the numbers on the tote board.

  About one year ago at Belmont Park I was going in pretty big on a horse named Charming Filly. I figure if they make a late change from a bug boy to Ted Atkinson it’s because they need that much more to move up in the winner’s circle. Then they parade past my office and we all detect in Charming Filly a strange gait—a limp to be accurate. Was this horse rank? It goes both ways (you always have the paddock slouch who gets up at the gate) but this time I lost my confidence, held onto my hundred bucks, and watched the race as a spectator. Good thing. The horse broke late, fell back early, and faded deeper into the sunset at every point of call.