Best Grace is the Saving Grace

In fact all of the events of the summer just unveiled were paled in comparison to the first Sunday in August.

Indeed, the significant, the most significant event that still remains somewhat shrouded, and has mystically guided my life ever since took place during an hour, which was occupied by only me and Mother Nature.

Although Bruce was assigned the task of babysitting every night, he often waited for my mother and father to leave in the band’s bus to go to the hotel. He would then run over to see his friend Artie. There, they would smoke and drink beer and talk. And even when my father was off, my folks did not have the ability to sit' at home like most of families. They were musicians, entertainers and they enjoyed the right of passage, that is, to do what they will. They deviated their schedule every single night throughout my childhood. Needless to say my brother Bruce had been hurt on both ends in that they abandoned him to our grandparents and then abandoned both of us in place.

So it would be a rare night when I was home with a parent or brother. Even though I was four I was a lonely four.

I no longer cried myself to sleep as I learned it was a waste of energy and time. Nobody ever responded and part of my fear was that if someone had they would turn it into a ditty anyway. I just stayed awake, frightened and lonely and wishing I were in another place. My dreamscapes, when they arrived, and even to this day, were always an alluring and comforting place to be. Even my nightmares seemed more compelling than the loneliness of the nights on Lonely Lake.

During early evening of the last Saturday night of the summer, plans were made amongst and between everyone at the camp. Each of the two-dozen cabins, which housed the musicians and entertainers were a buzz with preparations for parties and card games that would signify the end of the gig, the end of the summer.

My mother and father made plans with Billy and Margaret Butterfield. They were going to meet Yank Dawson and his wife, who was playing and dancing down the street and the six of them were going to go over to Eddie Kane’s place where most of the good times could be found. They knew they would run into a whole host of others and they also knew that the sun would be up by the time they got home. The plans were impeccably formed by groups of people who at other times and in other places were able to go from town to town, play three nights, drive eighteen hours straight, play three more doubles and then drive another eighteen hours straight only to play three more nights. These hardened children, these entertainers of the thirties and forties who looked the other way when troubles came into their lives, were going to steel at least a partial night for themselves.

But Bruce also went out on that Saturday night and only got back to the cabin a half hour before my parents. It was way past five in the morning and Bruce was asleep having had many beers and a few shots of Dewars scotch.

I slept through the whole night dreaming of this and that and though I didn’t know what this and that was I dreamed it anyway. I was awakened not by my brother coming home but by my father.

 “Do you want a night cap, turtle?” my father asked of my mother, “we can sit outside. The sun is just coming up.”

“Why not,” my mother replied, quite drunk already, but not willing to give in to her body, which urged her to be horizontal. No, if there was the possibility for one more laugh, one more joke, my mother wanted to investigate the possibility. She always would drink until she passed out. That was the way some musician’s wives dealt with life, with the absence of the husband most of the time and when he was off they would go out anyway. My mother was damned into the life and while she could have lived like her spinster sisters, a sober life, in balance I think she made the right choice, notwithstanding the misery. Some miseries are easier than others.

My father mixed the drinks, looked over at his two sons who were sleeping, smiled with contentment and garnished his own drink with some salt and pepper.

“Do you want salt and pepper in you’re Bloody Mary?” he inquired.

“Please Herm, you know I do,” she said with a strange voice intended to mock her husband.

“Ah shit,” my father uttered in a whisper under his breath.

My mother had already found her way to the better wooden beach chair, one of two assigned to each and every cabin at the beginning of the summer. Somehow our cabin was the only cabin that had managed to maintain the same two beach chairs. Indeed, the other cabins had either none or in at least one case, the Cravens, twelve wooden beach chairs were strewn about in small clusters of tree, four and five in front of their cabin. Nobody in the entire camp felt any sense of ownership these were communal people that was all for one and one for all. That ideal reached to many aspects of the relationships with each other as well.

My father went outside and took the lesser of the two beach chairs. He sat down and passed my mother her drink.

“I don’t want that,” she snarled and pushed the drink back so some of it spilled out over my father’s hand and wrist. He tried to pull away but was not fast or adroit enough to keep the red liquid from splattering onto his tuxedo shirtsleeve and jacket. He put both drinks down hastily and pulled at his cufflinks to get them off. But they resisted. Not having the wherewithal for that he just bolted toward the sink by the door and quickly turned the water over the entire distressed area.

“Why don’t you go to bed Ethel, it’s late. Scratch will be up soon. You don’t want him to see you like this. Go ahead honey,” he said, not with love but with the patience of a man who even though he was still young, had spent hundred’s of nights smiling while drunk people danced by the bandstand and puked or drooled or insulted the musicians who were giving them life. And my mother was no exception.

“Shut' up,” she said, “I’ll go bed when I want to.” A minute later she got up and walked into the cabin. My father just sat there sipping the drink and watched the sun come up.

My mother found her way to a sing le bed and flopped over into it, dress, stockings, and all. Even the red lipstick and eye makeup didn’t make it to the bathroom drain.

My father already placed his weary body in the better wooden chair, and propped the back of the chair. He focused on the new morning. The feeling he got was “bluesy” yet there was no blue; the sky was gray with red and purple ribbons.

The water glistened spectacularly. Even though there was little or no wind, highlights of white silver jumped from the water. In a melancholic moment he thought of waking my already sleeping mother. He quickly moved on from that idea though. His drink tasted real good, cold and wet to the lips, and tasty to the tongue.

He reclined.

My father slipped into a soft sleep and dreamed.

He saw a face in his dreams and the face was recognizable to him in the dream but later upon remembering the dream and the face within the dream, he realized that was no one he ever knew from the waking state. It was a dream friend who just stared at him, seeming to give information but not moving his lips or making any sounds. Moments passed in the dream and the person, who was neither a man nor a woman, and could have been both, stood, turned to left and began to glide away, holding a black satin flute and a gold violin case, one under each arm. Drifting away the androgynous stranger turned back and looked at the dreaming saxophone player.

“Daddy, daddy...” I called. That startled my father out of his sleep. “Daddy, hi daddy,” I said against as he began to focus.

“Ah, Scratch, Scratch, hi sweetheart,” my father said with a genuine warmth and happiness to have my presence. We both yawned deeply and at the same time. In fact the yawns were in such perfect synchronicity we both saw the humor and giggled out of the yawn.

“What are you doing up this early, my little man?” inquired my father.

“A funny dream. Woke me up,” I responded.

“What about?” asked my father.

“Can’t remember, Daddy,” I told him.

“Do you want to come back to bed with me?” encouraged my father.

“Yeah,” I said.

My father, holding me in his arms, went into the cabin and laid down on my cot with me. He was facing up and I was rested on his chest facing down. My father looked at me in the shaded cabin half-light and wondered what would become of his younger son. I, on the other hand had much more mundane thoughts. I inspected the stubble on my father’s neck and wondered when I would be able to shave.

My father fell asleep quickly but I couldn’t get back to sleep. I got up.

First I played just outside the cabin. There were no other children to play with. I didn’t know how to tell time but I did know it was very early for any of the other children to be out, not that I had any friends anyway. The sun was almost full but it was still a dawning sun, small and weak, orange, yellow, and beautiful. The dark, although not as intense, was still around. There were morning noises coming from the woods. From the inside of the cabin I could hear my father snoring.

I then walked over to the children’s play area, which was in the white sand by the edge of the lake. I got on a swing, which the musician’s wives would push me. I tried to make the swing go. As hard as I tried I couldn’t.

I climbed up the slide and slid down. I then climbed up the ladder against and slid down on mo pod this time. I went very fast and went face first into the sand pit. Spitting out the grit and wiping my tongue clean I saw climbing bars a few feet over. It didn’t take me very long to get bored with the bars.

Going from one piece of playground apparatus to the other, I finally lost interest; all the swing s and thing s demanded the presence of another to make that fun. And no one else was there.

Then I caught a glimpse of the water and walked toward it. The lake, calm and attractive with the dawn sun glistening off its surface, allured me and I waded in up to my ankles. Feeling the wet sand at my feet I began to imagine all sorts of wonders of what snakes might be there so I quickly retreated back to the shore.

A few moments later I moved toward a concrete bulkhead a small distance down the beach to the right. Rowboats were tied up there.

The concrete structure went out into the lake fifteen feet or so and then turned to the right and ran straight and disappeared under some branches which came down from a three just on shore. Of what could be seen the concrete created an L-shape out into the lake and that was then filled with sand, to the brim of the concrete, making it a small peninsula.

I walked to the edge of the peninsula; that was fifteen feet off shore.

Looking down between the two rowboats, which were tied up. The darkness of the water intrigued me.

For a few moments I stared into the darkness trying to unveil its mystery. Instead, I caught a glimpse of my own reflection as I leaned out a little and looked downward. Fascinated, but frightened of not knowing why I was seeing what I did, I carefully leaned out even further. It was an entirely new experience.

The reflection I saw in the lake was extremely different from the one I had seen when my mother gave me “spit baths” in the sink of the cabin’s bathroom and the bathroom back in New York City.

Each image was of me, both the bathroom mirror and the lake’s, but this new image of me in the lake was quite curious.

I knew when I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror I had to be careful because of the light bulb right over the mirror. I was equally careful with this peculiar new likeness in the water.

But I wasn’t careful enough as I looked closer at me looking at myself. My first act of vanity was unspeakable.

The morning mountain lake, which was ice cold, sent pain at me, the little fallen man. Before I knew what wetness was all about the rush of the chill made me breathless, and it was only compounded by the simple fact that I did not know how to swim and was breathing nothing but water. Instantly my lungs filled with water. Disoriented and horror stricken I flailed my arms wildly trying to understand this new chaotic experience. I was in the process of drowning and I couldn’t do a thing about it. There was no question at all. Even at that age I understood that I was going to die. A few moments later I would sink or float in timelessness and motionlessness. I was about to meet my maker.

I continued to flail my arms anyway, gyrating and contorting my little body. My innards having already filled with water seemed like they would burst. Utter mayhem set in. I was helpless and the situation was hopeless.

A brilliant white feeling started to envelop me. It replaced the craziness. For a moment I thought I actually enjoyed it like a good dream and I was in another place and all I had to if was to look to my left or right for an angel. Beyond the panic and pain of drowning I forgot about the condition I was in.

But as quick as I was sent into oblivion, I was plucked from it. A woman, some woman, some angel, who had happened along, perhaps heard the muted and muddled cries or had seen the rushing water and mostly submerged hands and responded to the appointment she had with fate. Or perhaps the woman was lying in her cottage bed, peering out the window, wondering about her own worldly problems. Or maybe…

All I knew, all I know is the woman was in and out of my life for no more than two minutes but those two minutes are tattooed on my soul.

She swept me out of the water with great might and put me down facing in the direction of my cabin and said nothing. I thought I heard her speak with her mind because no outward sounds came. Or maybe I was imagining it. What I heard was barely audible. “Go home,” I heard as a whisper of a whisper; it was both that audible and that soft. And I saw her smile even though she was behind me. It was a strengthening smile. When I turned around she was gone.

I went back to the front of the cabin and sat in the better wooden chair. I had not cried in the presence of the woman. But as I sat there rethinking about what had happened the faucets of my eyes opened up and I cried myself to sleep.

Later on in the day, as the lakefront got busier and busier with families, I looked at each and every face. I wanted to see this woman again. Not to thank her but to just see her. If a car drove up, I stopped what I was doing and made sure I could see each person who got out of the car.

I looked again at the musician’s wives to see if she was one of them. No.

For the remaining three days and nights of our summer I looked exhaustively at every woman because for some reason I needed to see her face again. It was the one thing that engrossed me in totality. I stole looks at the faces in town when we went shopping and at the end-of-the-season carnival.

I knew she was near, could feel her presence, but I could not see her; I could not find her.

My father took a job at the Copacabana in New York City so we returned to our apartment in Queens.

Past Thanksgiving I still looked at the women, seeking. After awhile, I stopped looking.

Scratch on the Stoop.