Free Summer Accommodations: A Novel by Sidney Hart Page A

Can I trust you to do that? Because if I can’t trust you, Jack, I’ll be terribly disappointed.”
    â€œI swear.” I almost promised to cross my heart.
    â€œOnce, at Harvard, when I was trying to impress a TA, that’s a graduate student who is teaching a class for a professor, I told her my name was Packard Studebaker because I didn’t want her to look me up in the student directory and find out I was only a sophomore. The name just fell out of my mouth, and she just fell into my arms. With the right name in the right place you can reach for the things you dream about from the shelter and safety of a new identity. Jack will be like your suit of armor.”
    â€œPeople will laugh. Sammy and Ron and the others will be merciless, they’ll ride me day and night, they’ll …”
    â€œForget them. Just let it roll off your back. What do you care what they say. Are they the rest of your life, or is Jack Armstrong, the All-American boy, the rest of your summer?”
    â€œI could never do that …” It was such a recklessly bold and exhilarating proposition I began to laugh, as if intoxicated, silly, giddy laughter.
    â€œYou can and you must. Listen to me. This could be a critical crossroads, Melvin,—your moment of truth. You can live the life you want to live, or you can be a spectator to it, a resentful, unhappy spectator. Take a risk, take a chance, take the name Jack.” His tone was fierce.
    â€œHow will I explain it to everyone?”
    â€œIt’s your middle name and you’ve decided to use it. You don’t like Melvin or Mel and so from now on it’s Jack. Say it. Say ‘Jack.’” He was staring up at me with an intensity that informed me I had no choice but to do as he said.
    â€œJack. JACK! Jack, Jack, Jack. I am Jack White, pleased to meet you. My name is Jack White, what’s yours? Hi, I’m Jack.”
    â€œKeep saying it until you believe it. You have to feel you are Jack, feel it inside you. Say ‘Jack’.”
    It was becoming frightening to me. It was beginning to seem more important to Harlan that I be Jack than it was to me.
    â€œCut it out, Harlan, I’m Jack, okay? Let’s not get carried away with this. I promise, from now on I’m going to be known as Jack White.”
    â€œOkay. I was just trying to help you out, don’t get so tense.”
    Perhaps a more experienced and less credulous person would have become suspicious of Harlan at that point. It had been so easy for him to solve my problem by breaking through the conventions framing ordinary existence, such an effortless rupture of propriety, that I was both thrilled and appalled. But to have balked would have seemed hopelessly middle class, the single most searing epithet amongst my brilliant high school friends, and accepting his advice did feel thrilling and liberating, over the edge.
    Later, walking to dinner, I told Ron what I had decided to do with my name.
    â€œJack? You really like that? Jack?”
    â€œWell, like Harlan says, it is a simple, square jawed All-American name, as in Jack Armstrong, All-American …”
    â€œThe only All-American you know is Ivan Goldman, the All-American basketball player from the Bronx. Jesus Mel, I thought you were sharper than that. I told you Harlan isn’t somebody you should trust.”
    â€œBut Jack is a great name, the hero of most nursery rhymes, a name that has deep, safe associations in our minds, Jack and Jill, Jack and the Beanstalk …”
    â€œJackass, Jack off, Jack shit, Jack the Ripper. Jack.” He was sneering as the name came out of his mouth. “And while we’re at it, Mr. Whatsinaname, where did White come from, Weiss? Weissberg? Weissman? You know it was never just plain old Mr. White.” I knew he was right, but that was information hard won and I was not about to give it away to him just for the asking.
    â€œYou won’t guess, so