There is a place, a precise spot, on the sidewalk in front of Arch’s where a young man who lived on the mountains pulled a switchblade knife against me. We had been kidding, or so I thought, about the Civil War, about the Yanks and the Rebs, and I had made some remark about the South rising again. I do not remember what I said, but it infuriated him. His hand shot into his pocket and out again and I heard the snap of a steel blade locking. He growled, “You son of a bitch,” and he drew back his arm. Ben Benton was there. He grabbed me by the shirt and flung me aside and then he stepped in front of the young man and crossed his arms and, in a blur, slapped his hands at his waist. I heard a fluttering of leather pulled through cloth—it was the sound of a covey of birds rising on frightened wings—and when Ben extended his arms, he was holding his belt with the bear buckle. He twirled it near the man’s face. “You want to die?” he hissed. The man turned pale. He folded the knife and walked away.

Whenever I am at that place, on that precise spot, I see the reenactment of Ben Benton, and I know he is there, not in the coffin marked by the headstone bearing his name.

There are many such places, like stage settings for the theatrics of memory.

In 1955, there was a pay telephone booth outside Arch’s. The first week that I worked as a waiter, with only a few guests, I earned exactly one hundred dollars. I got change from Arch and went to the pay telephone and called home and my father answered the call. “What’s wrong?” he demanded. “Nothing,” I told him. “I’m just celebrating. I made a hundred dollars this week.” There was a pause, a heavy, long-distance pause, and then my father said, “Am I paying for this call, or are you?” I said, “I’m paying for it, Daddy. I wouldn’t charge you for my celebration.” There was another pause, heavier, more distant, and my father said in a blunt voice, “Well, you don’t have a hundred dollars anymore, do you?” And he hung up. It took me a long time to understand, but my father had taught me an important lesson: he had made me angry and determined to prove myself. My father knew I was lonely and homesick. He knew he had to challenge me.

When I am at the place where the pay telephone used to be, I remember my father. And I miss him. He was never in the Catskills, but he, too, is a ghost for me.

So many places, so many little stage settings of memory.

Avrum’s bench. Sitting there with him, listening to him, amazed at what he knew.