SUMMER JOB WITH AN ANGRY FRIEND
When we moved to Bay 28th street in Brooklyn as I began High School I finally made permanent friends. Among the new buddies was Bob Osterberg.
I want to introduce Bob by imagining a scene.
In the scene Osterberg is sitting on a park bench with his back to the lake. A stranger is sitting across from him enjoying the scenery. The stranger is probably looking at some ducks swimming along in the water.
Osterberg: Hey you, what are you staring at? I'm not looking for trouble.
Stranger: What makes you think I'm staring feller?
Osterberg: OK, then get the hell out of here and we won't have any trouble.
Stranger: Look, you're an interesting looking guy alright, but I certainly wasn't looking at you, so let's drop it please. If you really want to know I'm admiring the lake behind you. (Pause) Why are you so agitated?
Yes, that would be typical of my friend Bob Osterberg
He and I met soon after my mother and I moved to the neighborhood. I had no friends. In fact I had never had pals anywhere because until then we moved to a new apartment yearly.
It was a 15 block walk along Benson Avenue to Lafayette High School. Osterberg lived in an apartment house along the route. Actually another boy, Mully was his nickname, catalyzed our introduction. Though Mully and I didn't know each other, we lived a few doors apart and trod the same daily path to school, often starting out at the same time. I noticed that each morning Mully would pause before Bob's apartment house and whistle three times summoning him so they could continue together.
One morning Mully stopped me just as we turned the corner from our starting points. He suggested we walk together. I was overjoyed. Finally a friend. When he stopped to whistle and Bob came down to join us it became two friends. And, as it turned out, both were also freshmen. Soon I became the whistler. I could blast out three tones without fingers in my mouth. Mully couldn't.
Bob, I soon learned, was the leader of a small quartet of youngsters, now, with my insertion a quintet. He was awarded that role by dint of his godly looks and force of personality. A broad shouldered six footer, prominent nose, slightly receding chin, long wavy blond head of hair. He swaggered.
We became fast friends over the next four years. But it was a strange relationship. Perhaps we were alter egos. Bob was very aggressive. Boxing, for example was one of his favorite pastimes, not in an organized way but amongst the five of us. He bought two pairs of gloves and organized matches in Mully's driveway. He was vain though, a personality trait which protected us all because of his insistence that there be no hitting in the face when boxing.
Soon it became clear that he lost his temper too easily and sometimes needed to be restrained. For some reason I became the peace-maker. He, on the other hand, felt that I was easily cowed by physical threats and more than once attacked someone he thought was about to harm me. This combination worked well. I had a bodyguard I could control.
Bob and I both went into the Army just after graduating from high school and when the war ended we continued a chaotic relationship. My constraining role was put to the test more than once when we resumed working together at summer jobs And later I was drawn into some of his taxing marital situations well after we were both pursuing different careers.
Our tempestuous and sometimes droll working experiences began when I located a summer job for us at Tischler's, a small farm hotel in Catskill, New York, during our high school sophomore year. They needed a kitchen helper and a waiter. It had about 50 guests - and the owners also maintained a dairy farm. Mr. Tischler operated the farm; his wife the kitchen and guest service. When we arrived Mrs. Tischler, after looking over Bob and me, pronounced: "You," pointing to Bob, "are the waiter, and you," finger wagging in my direction "will take care of the dishes and the pots and pans." God, those blue eyes and wavy blond hair!
We worked seemingly from dawn to dusk. No dishwashing machine in 1942. I scrubbed pots, scraped and washed dishes, from one meal to the next. The table waiting job couldn't have been easy either. Both of us became scrawnier. We shared Bob's tips.
The work routine was interrupted only three times. The first was when a well-spoken fellow about a year or so older than Bob and me asked for a job in the kitchen. He, his name was Hal, turned out to be a whiz at preparing vegetables for Mrs. Tischler. I was impressed with his skill and his polite demeanor. The second interruption was the State Police coming to Tischler's door looking for an escapee from the nearby "reform school." They found Hal hiding in the milk shed to which he had scooted when he heard them. I realized for the first time that surface perceptions can be misleading.
The third interruption occurred on a morning of the fourth week of our servitude. Mr. Tischler stormed into the kitchen lugging a dented tall tin milk can just as Bob entered to pick up a tray of breakfasts bound for the dining room. Tischler opened the can and ladled some milk out of it, trumpeting angrily as we -- Mrs. Tischler, Bob, the kitchen helper and I -- looked on, "That goddamned cow tore its teat on the fence. Look at this. There's blood in the goddamned milk." He then ran outside, picking up as he went a spare wooden chair parked near the door. We followed him out as he rushed toward a cow, raised the chair and broke it over the cow's back. Swearing, swearing, swearing.
I was alarmed and inwardly intimidated by the aggressive behavior. Bob was infuriated. Outraged. Fortunately not violent. Slamming down his tray he announced. "We quit." I did not usually succumb to the dictates of Bob's temper and may even have been less indignant than he about cruel treatment of an animal. But I was certainly ready to go. We left that afternoon, taking a Hudson River Dayliner back to the city. I was so exhausted that, sitting on a bench with my head resting on the vessel's throbbing railing, I fell into a sound sleep.
In later years I heard cries for help after Bob Osterberg's sometimes amusing but at other time's painful behavior, and tried to help.
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