14


The Summer of Highs and Lows

TOWARD the end of the spring semester, I began to prepare myself for the likelihood that I would have no choice but to work in my father's shoe store during the summer. Although the pay there would not be great, it would certainly be better than what I made the previous summer. Also, it was getting difficult saying "no" to my father over and over again.

So I was surprised when my father actually found me a great summer job.

"I think I've got some good news for you, kiddo," he said to me over the telephone in early April, during one of our weekly Sunday evening conversations. "There's this guy I know, Tim Phillips, who has been coming into the store now for years. Well, yesterday he was in the store to buy some black loafers, size 10 1/2. Anyway, I just happened to mention to him that you would be looking for a job this summer when you came home, and it turns out that he is a vice-president at a company called Helmsley-Spear. They're a real estate management company and one of the largest properties they manage is the Empire State Building. He said that they employ a lot of people there, especially in the observation tower. However, most of these people it seems take their vacations in the summer, so they need to hire college students as replacements. He told me that, as a favor for all the great service I've given him over the years, he would be pleased to get you a job there this summer if you would like. And that's not even the best part. I almost jumped right out of my shoes when he told me the salary. Ten dollars an hour! Can you believe it? Ten dollars an hour, and you won't even have to break a sweat!"

"That's unbelievable!" I said. "Ten dollars an hour? How can it be for real? There must be some kind of catch."

"No catch at all. He said the reason the hourly rate is so high is because it's a union job, and everybody gets the same rate. It's like I've always told you, son, the unions are one of the things that make this country great."

"That's wonderful, Dad. So when will I start?"

"I don't know exactly, but I guess sometime in mid-May. You need to give them a call when you get home. Not bad, eh? So your old man isn't so bad after all, is he?"

A few weeks after I came home for the summer, I walked into the Empire State Building for my first day of work. Not only did I not know what to expect, I did not even know where to go.

"Excuse me," I said to the guard sitting at the front desk, "I'm suppose to start working here today in the observation tower. Could you tell me where I should go?"

"Sure," he replied. "Downstairs in the dressing room you'll find Peter Gonzales. He's one of the floor managers. His office is in the locker room, right by the entrance. He'll get you directed to the right place. So, what you need to do is follow that escalator over there downstairs, then make two lefts and a right. You can't miss it."

It took me a few minutes to find the dressing room, as I must have taken a wrong turn. As I walked inside, I saw a man sitting in the open office.

"Excuse me, are you Peter Gonzales?" I asked him. "My name is Jake Stein and I'm going to be working in the observation tower."

"Well, I'm not directly responsible for the observation tower," he said to me as he handed me two uniforms. "So, what you need to do after you get dressed is to walk around the corner to the observation tower ticket office. There you'll find one of the observation tower managers. I don't know who is on duty today, but you'll be able to recognize them by their brown jackets. Everyone else wears a blue jacket. He'll tell you where you should be and what you should be doing. Oh, and Jake, those shoes you are wearing won't due--everyone must wear black dress shoes."

After I finished dressing, I walked to the ticket office and found the observation tower manager talking to one of the cashiers.

"Hi," I said to him. "Are you the observation tower manager? I'm suppose to be starting today. My name is Jake Stein."

"Oh, yes, we've been expecting you. Hi, my name is Paul Roberts. It's nice to meet you. Let me show you to your post for the week."

He led me out of the ticket office about twenty-five feet back toward the dressing room and stopped.

"This is going to be your post this week," he said to me, with a tone of voice that suggested that he thought he was doing something important. "As people leave the ticket office, they sometimes get a little confused on where to go. So, if they ask you, you should direct them upstairs and tell them to follow the signs to the set of elevator banks that are used exclusively to take people up to the tower. Also, some people may want to use the bathroom, so you can also direct them there as well. It's just down this corridor on the left. But only if they have a ticket! It's not a public bathroom and we don't want any junkies or other scumbags doing who knows what there."

"Is that all?" I asked.

"What do you mean, is that all? What, this isn't enough for you?"

By Friday morning, I was terribly bored.

"My God," I thought, "how am I going to get through the summer? At least I only have to make it through the summer. I can't imagine how someone could do this full time, regardless of the hourly rate. There simply must be some trick to it."

After lunch that day, a short, overweight janitor in his mid-thirties walked up to me and introduced himself.

"Hi, my name is Joe Gikowski. I'm the shop steward for the union in this building. Are you new here?"

"Yes, I'm a college student working here for the summer. My name is Jake."

"Oh, that's terrific, Jake. Could I see your union card, please?"

"Union card? I don't have a union card. I'm sorry, but no one told me anything about getting a union card. Do you mean that I have to join the union even if I'm just working here over the summer?"

"Look, Jake, it don't matter if you're just working here during the summer; everybody has to be in the union. Why do you think that you're getting paid such a high hourly rate for doing next to nothing? If it wasn't for the union, my friend, you'd be making minimum wage. That's if you had a job at all. Do you think that there's actually a need for you to be standing here? Of course not! So, what you need to do is go to the local Service Employees International Union office. It's over on the corner of Fifth and Thirty-sixth Street. After you pay the dues, they'll set you up with a temporary union card. I'll check back with you in a week, and I'd better see a card on you."

Joe started to walk away, but suddenly stopped and came back to me.

"Oh, one other thing," he said. "We have had some problems in the past with college students not knowing exactly how to behave on the job. So, I want you to pay close attention to the full-timers here. Pay attention to what they do, and what they don't do. And under no circumstances should you ever work harder than they do. When the managers around here see someone working hard, even a student, sometimes it gets into their heads that maybe all of us should be working that hard. As you can understand, Jake, we don't like that. Only do your job, and nothing more. Do we understand each other?"

"I'm not sure. I think I'm a little confused. Does that mean if there--"

"Exactly," he interrupted. "Don't do it."

"But what if--"

"No, don't even think about it."

"Okay," I grinned, "I think I've got it."

"Great," he said as he shook my hand. "I think we're going to get along just fine. Welcome aboard. And if you have any problems, let me know."

The following week, I finally got a chance to work in the observation tower. My job was to direct people in and out of the elevators. While the view from the tower was certainly impressive, after a few days, the thrill began to wear off and I was bored again. At least there were other employees working with me though, so I was able to pass some of the time with conversation. One afternoon, I was talking with Ed O'Brien, a middle-aged guy who was working the elevators with me.

"Hey, Ed, could I ask you something?" I said. "How do you guys get through the day? This job is so fucking boring. How do you do it?"

"Well," Ed matter-of-factly replied, "let me let you in on a little secret, Jake. You see, me and a lot of the other guys here are usually pretty drunk. If not staggering drunk, I would say at least, very well oiled. You'd be surprised just how quickly the day goes by after a few beers."

"I don't understand," I said as for the first time I noticed that Ed had a bright red nose. "Don't the managers mind that you drink on the job?"

"Jake," Ed whispered to me as he put his hand on my shoulder, "the management doesn't mind at all if, during lunch, we go over to Houlihan's and have a beer along with our hamburger. Well, I don't like hamburgers."

I tested Ed's theory at lunch by having a few beers at a local Irish pub called the Blarney Stone. Later the afternoon, after sending a large group of Japanese tourists down in the elevator, I turned to Ed and smiled.

"Man, you were right. This afternoon has just flown by."

While I worked in the observation tower that week, I also met a few other people. This included Dom, a janitor who had been working in the building for more than thirty years.

At least two or three times every hour Dom would put his broom and dust pan down and smoke a cigarette in the corner. One afternoon, a short, middle-aged woman with a stern expression on her face came storming out of the elevator. When she noticed Dom smoking in the corner, she ran up to him.

"Put that cigarette out, now!" she hollered nastily.

"Fuck you!" he nonchalantly replied after taking a particularly long drag of his cigarette. "Who the fuck do you think you are?"

"I'm Leona Helmsley," she said. "And this is my fucking building! You're finished here, buddy!"

"Go fuck yourself, lady!" Dom calmly replied after taking yet another long drag of his cigarette. "You ain't firing nobody."

"We'll see about that!"

A long-time union man with a good record, Dom was probably one of the few people who talked back to Leona Helmsley and actually got away with it.

The following week, I worked the elevator bank on the 80th floor, where tickets were collected for the observation tower. Working alongside me were Al Fernandez and Frank Miller, both of whom were almost permanent fixtures on the 80th floor. Al and Frank, who were both quite open about their homosexuality, had been living together for almost twenty-five years. They even showed me photographs from their wedding ceremony, at which Al was wearing a beautiful, white wedding gown.

"There was a lot of whispering at the ceremony," Frank told me, "regarding whether Al should have been wearing white or not."

The other guys in the building seemed to have a lot of fun talking about Al and Frank. One day, I walked into the dressing room on my lunch break in the middle of a heated debate about them.

"I'm telling you," one guy said, "Al's the pitcher! He's got to be. Look at the way Frank walks all the time, like he's got anal warts or something. It's got to be from taking it up the ass too much."

"You're full of shit," another guy replied. "Everyone knows that Al's the woman. Frank isn't effeminate at all, but Al's a real fag. Besides, who was wearing the dress at their wedding?"

The guys also like teasing Frank. One afternoon, everyone was standing around the time clock a few minutes before 5:00 P.M., waiting to punch out for the day. As Frank wanted to be the first to punch out, he put his card on top of the clock. However, the card kept falling off the clock and onto the floor.

"What's the matter, Frank?" one of the guys asked after Frank's card fell for the third time. "Can't you keep it up? Hey, guys, it looks as though Frank can't keep it up!"

"Why don't you get down on all fours," Frank replied angrily, "and I'll show you how I can fucking keep it up!"

For most of the week that we worked together, Al and I collected tickets while Frank stood down the hall by the elevator bank that led to the first floor. From there, Frank directed the tourists to us so we could collect their tickets, before finally putting them on the elevators to the observation deck on the 86th floor.

While we were working together, Al would often tell me funny stories. One afternoon, while we were waiting for the next elevator-load of tourists to arrive, he turned to me and smiled.

"Hey, Jake," he said, "did you hear about that moron, Pat Chirico? I don't know if you know him, but he's one of the night janitors. Well, a few days ago there was a burglary at Empire State Diamond, and for some reason, the thief must have dropped a bag of diamonds in the staircase. Anyway, Pat found the bag. So what does the idiot do? He turns it in!"

"Did he at least get a reward?" I asked.

"Yeah, he got a reward," Al said as he made a fist with his right hand while quickly sliding his left hand from around his wrist down to his elbow. "No Vaseline!"

Not only did Al have a lot of interesting stories, he also knew a lot of good gay jokes.

"Did you hear the latest one," he said to me one morning while we were walking to our post. "Well, there's these two fags, and one says to the other, 'Hey, let's play hide and seek. If you catch me, I'll give you a blow job.' Well, the other fag replies, 'I don't know; I don't think that I'd be able to find you.' 'Don't worry,' the first fag replies, 'I'll be behind the couch.' Pretty funny, eh?"

By the end of the week, I began to think that Al might have taken a liking toward me. While he was a natural flirt, he seemed to be particularly flirtatious with me, especially when Frank was either on a break or not looking. Early Friday afternoon though, Frank caught him.

"Why are you always flirting with the boy?" Frank whispered angrily after he saw Al touch my arm.

"What do you mean by flirting?" Al innocently replied. "I wasn't flirting with the boy. You know, you've really got to stop with all this nonsense, Frank. Jealousy really doesn't become you."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just remember one thing, Al: what's good for the goose, is good for the gander."

Later that day, I felt I had to tell Al that I was not interested in him, especially as he seemed to be "accidentally" touching me an awful lot.

"I'm sorry, Al," I said to him. "While it doesn't bother me that you're gay, I have to tell you, I'm straight."

"I don't care if you're straight," he replied without any embarrassment whatsoever. "The straighter you are, the easier it is to stick in!"

A few weeks later, Frank D'Angelo, the Assistant Director of Security, asked to see me in his office.

"Jake, please take a seat," he said to me as I walked in. "You might not know this, but there are actually two groups of security guards in the building: the Observation Tower group, the group you're in, which has the responsibility for the observation tower; and the Elevator group, which has responsibility for the elevator banks, the freight elevators, and a few other things. Anyway, it looks like we are going to be running a little bit short of people in the Elevator group for the remainder of the summer. So, as we've been very impressed with your work, we were wondering if you would like to transfer into the Elevator group. It's much easier work than in the observation tower, and you will even get paid an extra dollar an hour. Also, there's a lot more opportunity for overtime. I don't know if you know this, but if you work an extra shift or work on a weekend, you get time and a half. And if you work on a holiday, you get double time and a half. There is even a very good chance that you'd be able to work a double shift this July 4th."

"Let me get this straight," I said. "I'd be able to work less and get paid more? What a country! Frank, this is a no-brainer. Of course I would like to be transferred."

As I was leaving his office, I stopped and turned back to him.

"Frank, could you do me a favor though?" I said. "Could you keep it to yourself that you're impressed with my work? I wouldn't want to get into any trouble with the union or with any of the other guys."

"Don't worry, kid," he smiled, "we'll keep this between ourselves."

As dull and boring it was being an observation tower guard, being an elevator guard was far worse. My job was simply to stand by the elevator bank and do absolutely nothing. I got so bored that I even tried to make conversation with some of the tenants while they waited for the elevator.

"This is some building," a guy said to me one morning. "You know, I've been in this building now fourteen years. I own a small import-export company on the 60th floor. The interesting thing is that from one month to the next I have never paid the same rent twice."

"I guess that means it keeps getting lower, eh?" I joked.

I would also often talk to Steve Weiss, a guy who worked the bank of elevators down from me. Steve was probably the closest thing there was to the Clown Prince of the Empire State Building. A middle-aged man of medium height, Steve had such a large stomach that if he had been a woman, most people would have probably suspected that he was pregnant. He was also very hyperactive and would wildly swing his arms whenever he would get excited, especially when he would talk about his supposedly wild sex life.

"Jake, what an incredible evening I had last night," he told me one morning. "Me and Tony took out this chick who works as a receptionist on the 32nd floor. After we got her good and fucked up, we took her back to the building and double-teamed her in one of the freight elevators. Man, let me tell you, they don't make broads like that any more."

What made Steve truly interesting, though, was that he was the only Jewish guy I ever met who was functionally illiterate. In spite of this, Steve was popular in his neighborhood, and lost a city council election by just a few votes.

"You know what really scares me about the future of this country?" a fellow student said to me during lunch one day. "It's that a guy like Steve, who can't even read or write his own fucking name, can come that close to power. Think about it--maybe a Chauncey Gardiner isn't all that outrageous after all."

While I was stationed by the elevator banks, I also often had the responsibility for substituting for Joe Brown during his lunch and other breaks. Joe's job was to drive the small manual elevator that took people from the large observation tower on the 86th floor to the smaller observation tower on the 110th floor. Joe was a special guy and enjoyed an almost legendary status at the Empire State Building. Although he was about 5 feet 10 inches, he could not have weighed much more than 100 pounds. And although he was in his early fifties, he looked at least eighty. This was most likely due to the massive amounts of alcohol he drank during his life. In fact, he spent so much money on alcohol that his son or daughter would come to the building every payday to pick up his check. Alcohol had taken such a toll on Joe's body that we always knew when he was in the bathroom, as he would holler in pain as he urinated.

Every day it was a true joy to watch Joe work, as it would appear as if he were putting on a show for the tourists. He would often sing, dance, and even make jokes as he escorted people in and out of his elevator.

"That guy is incredible," a tourist said to me one afternoon as I gave Joe his break. "They could sell tickets just to watch him do his bit. One thing though, someone should pour a bottle of mouthwash down his throat once in a while. That little elevator of his smells like a fucking brewery."

About a month before the end of summer, I was transferred to the freight elevator area. All freight coming in and out of the building passed through this area, via a group of four manually driven elevators located in the back of the building. On my first day working there, I was introduced to the elevator operators: Herb, Billy, and Carlos. I was then shown how the elevators worked. Each elevator had a switchboard, and when someone called it, a light would flash on the switchboard, notifying us that someone was waiting.

As I was waiting for my first call, Herb, a bulky man in his early thirties, pulled me aside for a little chat.

"I want to explain a few things to you, kid," he said. "First of all: take your time. Just because someone calls the elevator, it don't mean that you need to be in such a hurry to answer. If you are responding to everyone quickly, they're all going to expect the same thing from the rest of us. Secondly, and more importantly, very often there will be people moving in and out of the building. Well, there is an unwritten rule here that everyone knows and follows: whenever there's a move, we have to be tipped at least $20 in advance. Now, some fucking assholes think they can get away without paying nothing. But if they don't pay you, you be certain to give them especially slow service. Because if word gets out that people can get decent service here without paying, we'll all be out of a lot of money. And believe me when I tell you this, Jake: if I catch you not following what I've just told you, I'm going to kick your fucking ass. Is that clear?"

"I'm not sure," I gingerly replied. "Isn't what you're doing, kind of like, you know, extortion?"

"Fuck no!" he angrily replied. "It ain't no fucking extortion! It's just the way business is done around here. Do you have any problems with that?"

"No, I have no problems with it whatsoever."

"Good," he said as he shook my hand, "then we'll get along just fine."

He then paused for a moment, before a smile suddenly came across his face.

"Extortion?" he chuckled. "I guess that's one of them big words they learned you at college, eh? Yeah, you're probably going to be a lawyer or something. Just what this fucking world needs--another Jew lawyer!"

While Herb mostly kept to himself during my few weeks in the freight area, I got to know both Billy and Carlos pretty well.

Billy, who was an enormous black guy, was probably one of the nicest guys I met while working in the building. He was also quite funny. One morning, while I was waiting for a call, Billy walked up to me with a magazine in his hand.

"Hey, Jake," he said, "I hear that you're addicted to crack. Is that true?"

"No," I replied, quite surprised by the question.

"Are you sure that you're not addicted to crack, Jake?"

"Yes, Billy. I'm sure that I'm not addicted to crack!"

"Well, I think that you're addicted to crack."

He then opened the pornographic magazine he was holding to the centerfold and showed me a picture of a woman who must have had the largest vagina I had ever seen.

"So," he said, "you're trying to tell me that you're not addicted to crack? Hell, I'm definitely addicted to crack!"

Although I met a lot of interesting people that summer, the most colorful person I met was probably Carlos, a short, thin Puerto Rican guy who always seemed to have poorly groomed facial hair. While not an attractive man at all, he always claimed to have legions of women and seemed to talk only about sex. While the average person might greet you by saying "Hello" or "How are you doing?," Carlos would just as likely greet you by saying something like, "Man, last night I was tonguing this chick's ass."

As we got to know each other, Carlos for some reason took it upon himself to educate me on sexual techniques.

"Hey, Jake, have you ever eaten pussy before?" he asked me one afternoon as soon as I returned from lunch.

"No," I answered.

"Man, I have so much to teach you," he said as he put his arm around me, "and so little time. You know, Jake, most guys really don't know how to eat pussy correctly, so I want to make sure that you do it right. You see, eating pussy is almost an art form. Unfortunately, most guys don't know how to do it right. They use a simple, up-and-down motion over the clitoris like this. . . . And this is completely wrong! Believe me, if you really want to get a chick going, you need to use a circular motion like this. . . . And be very careful to keep the diameter of your circle to no greater than an inch wide. Now I want you to practice this motion, Jake. After I've finished teaching you, you'll be driving those fucking college chicks crazy when you get back to school."

When the summer finally ended, although I did not do or learn anything useful, I had saved more than four times what I had during the previous summer. The night before I went back to school, my mother looked at me and smiled.

"So, Jacob," she said, "now that you have made all that money, have you given any thought on how you are going to spend it?"

"Well," I answered, "while I'm not exactly sure what I'll spend the money on, you can be certain that whatever it is, it'll be light-brown, cold, and have a very nice head."