The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz (8 page)

I still think about Mandy sometimes, and I remember the shivers that used to shoot down my spine when I looked at her. I know that everybody looks back at their first love with rose-colored glasses. But on some days, it still seems unreal, like something that I just imagined but never really experienced. Sex has never been so innocent for me since. It’s odd to think that there was a time when one girl might’ve been enough to make me happy, when all I wanted was to sit on the cold floor of a dark and abandoned school and count the pretend stars on the ceiling tiles.

My very first performance as the talking Statue of Liberty.

chapter 2

CATSKILLS-A-GO-GO

Ken was giggling
so loudly he was about to blow our cover.

“Oh my God,” he sniggered. “I can’t believe we’re actually doing this.”

“Will you shut up? They’re going to hear us.”

Ken and I were hiding behind the desk in his office, peering over it like hunters on the prowl for a cartoon rabbit. We’d been waiting there for almost ten minutes, and there was still no sign of our dates.

“Why are they taking so long?” Ken muttered. “The suspense is killing me.”

“They’ll be here,” I assured him. “Just be patient.”

The dates we were awaiting so eagerly were hardly our girlfriends. They were a pair of Borscht Bunnies whom we’d bedded the night before. “Borscht Bunnies” or “Bungalow Bunnies” were terms coined in the Catskills, meaning, “married women who love boinking younger guys.”

Allow me to explain.

Every summer, rich couples from Manhattan would drive up to the Catskills for the weekend, wining and dining at the best resorts that money could buy. On Monday, the husbands would return to the city (and, one could only assume, to their mistresses) while their wives stayed behind. They were lonely, armed with their husband’s credit cards, and ready to play. By “play” I mean, of course, have as much sex as possible with as many hot young boys as possible, which usually meant the resort’s staff of easily seduced waiters and busboys.

Well, as luck would have it, on this particular summer in 1975, I just so happened to be a maître d’ at one of the poshest resorts in the Catskills: Gasthalter’s Paramount Hotel. The moment I spotted these two Borscht Bunnies in the Paramount dining room, flirting and drinking wine, I knew it was going to be a good night.

I called my friend Ken, and we met up with the ladies for a few drinks after my shift. Several cocktails later, we invited them back to our room at the Flagler Hotel. There was just one thing we forgot to mention to them. It wasn’t actually the Flagler Hotel anymore. The Flagler had gone out of business years ago. It was now the Crystal Run School for the Mentally Challenged.

A small technicality, really.

Ken and I both worked at Crystal Run. Ken was the in-house psychologist, and I was teaching part time while I finished my master’s degree in special education at Queens College.
*
During the week, I taught Academics of Daily Living to children with learning and emotional disabilities. No, really. I showed them the proper way to brush their teeth. I took them to the local fire station and taught them about fighting fires. I took them on field trips to the bank and gave them each a quarter to open an account. I was actually pretty good at my job. There was a time when I believed it might be what I was destined to do with my life.

Ken and I lived in the staff quarters on the top floor, which had many of the same furnishings from when it had been the Flagler Hotel. There were elegant rooms, an Olympic-size swimming pool, the works. So anyone visiting might reasonably think that it
was
a hotel.

At three
A
.
M
., the building was completely empty, so we had the entire grounds to ourselves. We took a dip in the pool before splitting off into pairs and retiring back to our respective rooms. Though my Borscht Bunny couldn’t have been more than forty-five, I’d never been with an older woman before, so it was a novelty to me. It was like having my own personal Mrs. Robinson. And she clearly had some built-up sexual frustration, because she fucked like a caged lion. I was in the prime of my sexual prowess and no slouch in the sack, but this lady literally screwed the living crap out of me.

The next morning, I woke up early and dragged Ken out of bed. By the time the girls opened their bloodshot eyes, we were already dressed and heading for the door. Though Ken assumed that I was just planning a quick getaway, I had something far more devious in mind.

“We want to treat you ladies to breakfast,” I announced.

“Really?” they said. “That’s so sweet.”

“We’re just going to run downstairs to get a table,” I said with a wink. “This hotel has a great restaurant.”

I could feel Ken staring at me. I shot him a look, and he knew in an instant what I was plotting.

“Oh, yeah, right,” he said, picking up my lead. “It’s right on the ground floor. Really good food. And I think there’s a convention in town.”

“That’s right,” I said, somehow managing to hold a straight face.

“A doctor’s convention or something.”

Ken’s face was tightening, and I knew he was about to break. I jabbed him in the ribs.

“Okay, see you there?” Ken said, fighting back the tears of laughter.

We ran downstairs as fast as we could, dived behind the desk in Ken’s office, and waited for the fireworks.

Ken glanced at his watch and frowned. “We’re running out of time,” he said. “Breakfast is almost over, and the children will be heading back to class.”

I put a finger on his lips and pointed toward the stairs. “Here they come,” I whispered.

Our two Borscht Bunnies, still wearing the same clothes from the night before, were making their grand entrance. Their makeup was smeared, they looked a little haggard from a long night of partying and fucking, but otherwise, they were none the worse for wear. We ducked behind the desk and listened as they called out our names, their high heels clicking as they wandered around the lobby. And then we heard them slowly walk toward the dining room.

They probably expected to find a buffet waiting for them, or at least a friendly crowd of doctors, sipping mimosas while making idle chitchat.

Instead, they were about to meet our students.

I know it’s not politically correct, but I think mentally challenged children are adorable. They’re just so innocent and sweet, and so eager to please. They have such a curiosity about life, and it takes so little to make them happy. Every day is a new discovery for them. From the moment I started teaching at Crystal Run, I fell in love with each and every one of them.

Of course, it probably isn’t nearly as cute if you’re a hungover and middle-aged woman, and you’re staying in what you
think
is a high-class hotel in the Catskills.

When we heard the screams, we immediately jumped up from behind the desk and came running. Our dates were standing in the middle of the dining room, surrounded by a growing throng of mentally challenged kids. The moment they walked in, the children had leapt out of their seats and descended on them. They meant no harm, but they recognized that these ladies were new and they wanted more information.

“Hi,” they said, tugging at the women’s sleeves. “Who are you?”

“What’s your name?”

“Are you our new teacher?”

“You’re very pretty. Can I touch your hair?”

The Borscht Bunnies were frozen in their tracks like deer in headlights. Their faces had gone pale, and, judging from the glossy look in their eyes, they were in shock. The children had them cornered and were advancing on them like zombies from
Night of the Living Dead
. They were pulling on their clothes, tugging at their hair, trying to hold their hands. The women had absolutely no idea what was happening, but they were fairly sure they didn’t like it.

We watched them for a few minutes, just relishing in the beautiful awkwardness of it all. And then we swept in and pulled them away, explaining to the kids that these women were our friends and that they had to leave for an important appointment.

We tried to walk them to their cars, but the Bunnies wanted nothing more to do with us. We had to chase them down the street, pleading with them to let us explain.

“What the
fuck
was that all about?” one of the women screamed at me, nearly spitting she was so angry.

“What?” I smiled, feigning ignorance. “It was a convention, just like we said.”

“You said it was a convention of
doctors
!”

“Well…there were
some
doctors there.”

It took a while, but they eventually smiled and got the joke.

I
first started coming up to the Catskills when I was still in high school. I’d spend the summers working as a waiter at any of the high-class hotels, like the Concord and Grossinger’s and Green Acres. As I got older and more experienced, I eventually moved up in rank and seniority. I loved the work, but more important, I loved the money. For a young Jewish kid with a limitless supply of energy, the Catskills was like a gold mine.

But I wasn’t just a miser looking to line his pockets with cash. Some of that money was actually necessary. When I enrolled in Queens College, I needed something besides good looks to pay my tuition. My parents, though not poor by any means, did not have a lot of disposable income, especially after my mom was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and needed expensive surgeries. I didn’t want to be a burden on them, so I found a way to be financially self-sufficient.

You could make a small fortune at Grossinger’s if you learned how to work the guests. It wasn’t enough just to be polite and bring out their meals as quickly as possible. You had to play into their expectations. I learned that from watching the Christian waiters. They’d wear yarmulkes and pretend they were med students, and they’d always get the biggest tips. I, like a fucking idiot, who actually
was
a Jew, didn’t wear a yarmulke. I was a reformed Jew, so it never seemed appropriate. And I was too honest with my customers. They asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and I told them that I was pursuing an acting career. Big mistake.

“Oh dear,” they’d moan in their thick Jewish accents. “That doesn’t seem like a very wise choice. What are you going to do for a living?”

When I figured out that honesty wasn’t getting me any tips, I gave myself a full Jewish makeover. I wore yarmulkes. Hell, if I could’ve gotten away with it, I would’ve worn a full prayer shawl and shtreimel. And when a customer asked me about my career choices, I would always—
always
—claim to be studying medicine.

“I want to be a
dokter
,” I’d say, breaking out the Yiddish. “I want to save people’s lives someday.”

“What a sweet boy,” they’d say, fawning over me like I was their own flesh and blood. “Good for you, son.”

Though I was younger than any of the other waiters, I was always the hardest worker. When the Woodstock Music Festival was announced, all of the waiters wanted to attend, and I volunteered to cover their tables for the day. I made $400 in a single weekend, which was a
fortune
for a kid of sixteen. I wasn’t a big rock fan at the time, but I was at least curious enough about Woodstock to check it out during my break. I jumped on my dirt bike and rode down the mountain into White Lake, Bethel, where Max Yasgur’s farm was. I was there for only maybe a half hour. I saw Grace Slick come out onstage and shout, “Good morning, people!” And then she and Jefferson Airplane started playing “Volunteers.” I listened for a few minutes and then went back to work. Not exactly the quintessential Woodstock experience—there was no LSD or messing around with hippie girls for me—but at least I didn’t skip it entirely.
*

Just because I was such a stubborn workhorse didn’t mean that I avoided fun altogether. Grossinger’s had some incredible discotheques and nightclubs, and I always visited them after my shifts, shaking my butt on the dance floor and flirting with the female guests. It was a dangerous game, because, at least in theory, the hotel’s clubs were off-limits to employees. Remember the movie
Dirty Dancing
? It was exactly like that, although not as highly choreographed. The staff wasn’t allowed to socialize with the guests, and doing so was grounds for dismissal.

But unlike Patrick Swayze’s character, I was a little more cunning.

I had very long hair at the time, which was prohibited in the restaurants because of the possibility that a loose strand of hair might fall into the food. But rather than cut it, I bought a nylon skullcap and short-hair wig, which I wore whenever I was waiting tables. After a while, the staff forgot that I actually had long hair under that wig. When I clocked out at night, I’d just have to take off the wig and,
presto
, I was a completely different person. Nobody recognized me. For all they knew, I was just another rich Jewish kid, out for a good time on his parents’ dime.