In the Catskills: A Century of Jewish Experience in "The Mountains" (36 page)

“Right now it’s seven ninety-five. Later in the season, I can’t guarantee.”

“You’ll give me six cases.” They were in front of the coffee urn. Mr. Mandheimer saw Al Brodie. “Boy, come with me.”

“Remember what I was saying,” Al said to the hostess. “I’m counting on you, Miss Grier.” He followed the two men.

“What d’you get for oil?” Mr. Mandheimer asked.

The salesman walked quickly to get in front of Mr. Mandheimer. There was an expression on his face that it was important for Mr. Mandheimer to see. “We could give you a cheap oil, sure, and steal it back on the rest of the order. We don’t do business that way. I got a pure soybean oil, it’s right for you.”

“You’ll give me six cases prune juice, three cases apricot nectar, three cases pineapple juice,” Mr. Mandheimer said.

The man made a quick notation on his clipboard. “And the oil?”

They walked through a swinging door that led out of the kitchen past the outside refrigerator and the garbage room. They came to a small graveled area where a station wagon was parked. “Boy, you’ll take the eggs out from the car and put them in the cellar,” Mr. Mandheimer said to Al Brodie. “Be careful you don’t break any.”

“Where you get your eggs?” the salesman asked socially. “Pick them up from a local farmer? That’s a good idea. What do they get for eggs when you deliver them yourself?”

“Prices fluctuate,” Mr. Mandheimer said.

Al Brodie latched his hands into the holders on both sides of the egg crate. He rested the weight on his thighs and carried the first one over to a door leading down a flight of stairs. “Where did you say you wanted these, Mr. Mandheimer?”

Mr. Mandheimer came over, followed by the salesman. There was a light switch on the wall and he snapped it on. “Here, go back, get another case,” he said to Al. “Follow me.”

“Let me help you,” the salesman said. He put his clipboard down on the ledge beside the stairs.

“You want to help, go get a case,” Mr. Mandheimer said.

“You think I won’t?” the salesman said. “When we’re rushed, you think I don’t load the trucks at our warehouse?”

“Something’s got to be done right, you do it yourself,” Mr. Mandheimer said.

They each carried down two cases before the salesman asked, “Did you decide about that oil?”

Mr. Mandheimer looked around the cellar. “This place is a mess. I got to get a man down here to clean it up.”

“I was wondering,” the salesman said. “I didn’t see many outside men—”

“This morning,” Mr. Mandheimer said. “Two of the boys who helped open the house, three weeks they worked good as gold. This morning one’s drunk and the other’s carrying him down the road.”

“Gets worse each year,” the salesman said.

Al brought the last case down to the cellar. “Is there anything else I can do, sir?”

Mr. Mandheimer wiped his hands on his handkerchief. As they started up the steps, he said, “An unusual busboy. In August he wouldn’t be so courteous.”

“Beg pardon, sir?” Al Brodie said.

The salesman picked up his clipboard. “What’ll it be on that oil, now?”

“Don’t rush me,” Mr. Mandheimer said. “I can get the same oil a quarter a can cheaper, why shouldn’t I?”

“You’d be a fool not to,” the salesman said. “I want you to. Why shouldn’t you save a quarter a can? It adds up. Look, Sam, you know me long enough. How long has it been? Ten years?”

“Are you through with me, sir?” Al asked. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and rubbed his back.

“Back hurt, boy?” Mr. Mandheimer asked.

“No, sir. It’s nothing. Glad to have been of help.”

“Look, your back hurts, tell me. The season isn’t even started, more or less I should have a compensation case.”

“You’re covered for that,” the salesman said.

“That don’t mean they can’t increase the premiums.”

“I’m perfectly all right,” Al Brodie said. He made a muscle. “Strong as an ox, see?”

Mr. Mandheimer laughed. “Crazy college kids we get up here,” he said to the salesman.

Al started back into the kitchen.

“Look, Sam, you know me. I don’t believe in high pressure,” the salesman said. “If you’ve got the right product, they’ll come to you. And needless to say …”

Mr. Mandheimer was nodding his head. It was funny he couldn’t remember ever having seen that boy before. And he had a good memory for faces.

It was the third week of July and the hotel was filled to capacity. Mr. Mandheimer had to call the agency for another second cook. The chef claimed the Chinese cook was all right on breakfast, but no help to him for lunch and dinner. It was a rough crowd. They were always calling for specials, and if the Mandheimers wanted everybody to be happy, they’d better get him another second.

The chef was getting four hundred dollars a week. In their winter conference he’d told them he could handle a house of three hundred by himself. He had said he didn’t trust anybody else to cook for him. He didn’t want any griddle man ruining his works of art and he asked a big price, but he assured the Mandheimers he was worth every cent of it.

Now it was the height of the season. You couldn’t get a decent chef for any price, and he was threatening to quit if he didn’t get help. The agency sent over a colored man who wore a tall white chef’s hat and worked at a New York steak house in the winter. He was very flashy on the griddle. When he put the Sunday steaks on to sear, he bathed them in so much grease they let up spouts of flame. He was a fast man with the spatula, turning them over flames and all.

The chef didn’t like that.

He seared the steaks himself. He did all the cooking for the children as well as the main dining room, and the day he caught the colored cook pouring asparagus into a pot instead of spreading it in a pan, he told him to stand around and watch until he got the feel of it.

The colored cook stood around and watched, kidded with the chambermaids, and collected a hundred and fifty dollars a week, which was a cheap price, at that, for an experienced second.

Calvin told Mrs. Mandheimer she was throwing her gelt away, but Mrs. Mandheimer was too busy showing rooms and checking people in to hear him. Calvin was smoking a pure Havana cigar Mrs. Leiderkopf had given him. Mrs. Mandheimer told him to stop smoking cigars in the lobby and trying to look like a big shot.

Al Brodie deposited a hundred and seventy dollars in the safe at the end of the second week of July. He hadn’t received anything from the Erlangs. They would tip later in a lump sum. The Gersons and Miss Mantell had each come through with five and three.

On the third Saturday night in July, Audrey Grier asked the chef for chicken livers. She had a table of old people who had been coming to the hotel for years, and they couldn’t eat spicy appetizers. They had to have chicken livers.

The chef was turning his roast chickens at the time. He was down on the floor in front of the oven and he didn’t stand up when he asked, “What’s spicy about my gefilte fish?”

“I think it’s perfect,” Audrey said, “but what am I going to do with them?”

“That’s your problem,” the chef said and there were no chicken livers that night.

On Sunday, Audrey Grier made a note on the blackboard near the stove. She printed the word
Specials
, and next to it wrote,
four orders of chicken livers
.

Mr. Mandheimer was dishing out French fried potatoes when Audrey came in for the chicken livers. The chef had them in a small pan on the warming shelf and he gave them to her.

They were hot and she burned her fingers putting them on serving dishes, but she was happy.

Before she left the chef said, “Go ahead, make money. You run the specials and I break my back.” He was sweaty and tired, and there wasn’t a soul in the kitchen who would have argued with him.

Mr. Mandheimer had been with the electrician all morning, tracking down a short circuit in one of the cottages. He had a date with a produce man for right after lunch, and he had been up until three o’clock the night before, answering inquiries for the first two weeks of August, while his wife put their grandchild to sleep. He put six big French frieds on a plate and said nothing.

The steaks were going out smoothly. The colored second with the big hat was fast, and the Chinese cook kept up with him. The chef was pulling them out of the oven, calling “Rare, medium, and well done,” and blessing the days they served steak. It was a popular dish, after all, and gave him a breather from worrying about whether or not he would run out of the alternate choices on the menu. (He’d had veal cutlets, hamburgers, and breast of beef on Thursday, and the pain was still fresh. There’d been a rush on the breast of beef. He’d run out, and ten angry guests had stomped to the main desk to know why.)

Each of the waiters had been around twice when Al Brodie came back with a steak in his hand. It was the filet of the rib, cut two inches thick and then sliced in half. Each portion weighed as close to fourteen ounces as the chef’s eye could judge. This one looked a little smaller than the rest. It had been hacked into by an angry fork and was coming back.

Al had ten more mains to pick up. He put this one on the counter as quietly as possible and told the colored second he wanted an exchange.

The second was slicing and dishing out. He tried to exchange it but the chef saw.

“What’s the matter with that steak?” He left the oven doors open, broke the rhythmical flow of steaks from the ovens to the dining room, and picked up the piece of meat.

Mr. Mandheimer was working with the Chinese second, and he told him to keep dishing out on his station before the steaks got cold.

“It looks good to me,” Al said, “but it is a little small.”

“You get steak like this at home?” the chef asked. He held the piece of meat up in front of Al’s face. The blood dripped down his arm.

“It looks delicious,” Al said. “I’ll be glad to eat it right now.”

“You goddamn wise guy,” the chef yelled. “You take this steak back and make ’em eat it.”

Al tried to be reasonable. “I can’t do that.” He looked toward Mr. Mandheimer. “They want another piece of steak. What am I supposed to do?”

“What are you talking to him for? I’m the boss in here,” the chef said.

“You’re right, goddamn it,” Al said. “I’ll ram it down their filthy throats.” He reached for the steak and the chef handed it to him.

Al plunked it down on a plate and put on his own French frieds and vegetables. “They’ll eat it and like it, the dirty bastards.”

The chef went back to the oven. “How do you like that, boss,” he said to Mr. Mandheimer. “He thinks he gives them a big steak, he gets a big tip. Costs you a dollar a pound, and he wants a quarter tip.”

Mr. Mandheimer nodded and went back to the French frieds.

Al Brodie picked up eleven mains in addition to the one with the small steak. Audrey had come in for a side order of French frieds and had seen the whole thing. It was her rule that the boys were only supposed to take out ten mains at a time but she let it go.