In the 1980’s New Jersey, the quest to be present when Bruce Springsteen magically appeared in some aging Jersey Shore bar was a crusade of mythic proportions. (more…)
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Searching for Bruce Springsteen
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007Across the Borderline, Edgewise - Prologue
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007SWEET SIXTEEN
Those last few seconds just before midnight had become the scariest part of a birthday for Reggie Hawkins. (more…)
Across the Borderline Edgewise Chapter 1
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007PART ONE
1
CASTLE POINT, N. J.
Although he was starving, Richie Cavelli pulled his hand back from the bowl of peanuts on the bar, hearing his mother’s voice in his head say, “Don’t touch that; there are other people’s germs all over that bowl.” Chemicals, germs and exterminating sprays were the three things Rose dreaded the most, and she warned her sons about them the way other moms told their children not to accept candy from strangers.
Acknowledging a rare, simultaneous appearance of the pestilent trio, Richie detected a trace of insecticide that had escaped through the trap door in the floor where a tiny, browbeaten Vietnamese man artfully balanced a case of Genesee Cream Ale on his head until the burly bartender was good and ready to take it.
“Got a bug problem, huh?” Richie asked the bartender.
“Whadda ya mean by that?” the Black Irishman asked.
“Never-mind.”
“Yeah, never-mind is right. Whadda you, a Smart Guy? Shouldn’t you be in school?” he asked, flipping a filthy towel from his left shoulder to his right as a sign of disapproval.
“On a field trip,” Richie answered, cryptically.
He was at Finnegan’s Wake Pub on New York City’s West 46th Street. In the center of that block was the home of an internationally renowned, flamenco dancing troupe. Richie’s fourth year, high school Spanish class was taking in an afternoon performance; the highlight of a cultural field trip.
Richie had slipped away shortly after the lights had gone down. Everyone knew how strict his Spanish teacher, Mr. Vello, was but Richie would hear from colleges in several days and an acceptance letter from any of the out-of-state schools would make real his decision to abandon Reggie. He needed to be sure he was doing the right thing.
He glanced towards a beer promotion display clock and saw that he had stayed too long. He felt like he had squandered precious moments, but his whole methodology was flawed. He thought he could bury his doubts with forty-five minutes of mental effort, but the forces which were about to emerge could not be so easily suppressed.
He tried to reach the front door but was blocked by an altercation between a drunken behemoth and a beggar with a club foot; he side-stepped the beggar and moved through the door. Stepping into the sunlight - the rays temporarily blinding him - he heard the familiar whispers, mimicking his mother’s voice, warning him: "Watch out! Watch out!" If Vello caught him coming out, he would have Richie expelled.
Richie scanned the area, did not see Vello, and felt relieved. Across the street, he spotted Reggie and the rest of the class walking slowly toward the bus. Reggie sauntered about ten steps behind the others, wearing a short, blue print dress, which had a ruffled effect around the chest and fit snugly around her waist and hips. Her hair was pinned up on top of her head, but several strands fell forward and shielded her eyes.
A speeding cab blasted its Titanic-like horn just as Richie was about to step off the curb. He jumped backwards, barely averting getting struck. He immediately looked for Reggie and saw her shaking her head in disbelief. Embarrassed, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
The beggar with the club foot got in Richie’s face, blocking his view of Reggie.
“A penny to eat. A goddamn penny to eat!” the old man angrily demanded.
“Here,” Richie said, handing him a dollar.
“Bless you, bless you, my son,” the man said before moving on.
Just as he saw Reggie bust out with laughter and turn her back, Richie felt a strong hand clutch his shoulder from behind.
“Ohhh, shit…” he said, turning around.
As Richie’s eyes dropped to meet the penetrating stare of the 5’1” Vello, he realized that he should have paid closer attention to the whispers.
"Ricardo, I am highly disappointed in you," quipped Vello sternly.
"But I wasn’t drinking, sir," Richie replied, already on the defensive. "I just went in there to get some cigarettes."
Vello leaned his face in close to Richie’s and sniffed for the smell of alcohol. Shaking his head with contempt, he continued.
"Ricardo, you realize that it is my duty to call this incident to the attention of Mr. Capalupo. It saddens my heart to think that some disciplinary action might be taken against you so close to graduation, but I would not be remaining faithful to the vows I took when I became an educator if I allowed this flagrant violation to pass without some retribution. It just wouldn’t be fair to you, me, or the rest of my students."
Vello paused. He was as accomplished at cultivating guilt in his students as he was at teaching them. Finally, he stated the lines that Richie knew he was building to from the start: "I am very distressed that my one of my very best students is the one who has betrayed me. I am truly heartbroken."
With that comment, the scolding was complete.
“Please have your father meet Mr. Capalupo at 8:30 sharp tomorrow morning.”
The bus ride from Manhattan’s West 46th Street across the river to Richie’s high school in Castle Point, an industrial port city in New Jersey, was just long enough for him to reflect upon what a big mistake he had made. There he sat, the class valedictorian (Central High School’s principal had informed him of his selection earlier that day), two months shy of graduation and facing possible expulsion.
While the deck seemed stacked against him, he calmed himself by thinking about the one thing he knew was in his favor: his father’s friendship with the Vice Principal, Mr. Capalupo. Capalupo and Richie’s dad, Sal, had grown up together in the Italian corner of Castle Point’s "Iron-Bound" section and had been drinking wine since the age of seven. Although in his official role, Capalupo might have to make an example of Richie, Richie didn’t think Capalupo personally objected to a seventeen-year-old drinking a couple of beers. With neighborhood bars on most Castle Point street corners, many of the taverns were gathering places for adults and teenagers alike. Richie also took solace in the well-known fact that Capalupo disliked Vello.
Just as the bus reached the entrance to the tunnel which connected Castle Point and Manhattan, the smell of Johnson’s Baby Lotion surrounded him.
"You’re busted now," Reggie whispered in a husky voice. "I tried to warn you, but you were dodging cabs."
He looked into her eyes which were fixed on his own. Her skin appeared slightly tan all year ‘round: the positive result of an Irish mother and a half-Russian, half-Italian father, she often stated. She had clear skin and straight, white teeth, which often made Richie feel self-conscious about his crooked bottom teeth and the occasional emergence of a zit minefield on his face.
"Don’t worry, Reg. My dad will bail me out. He and Capalupo go way back."
"Well, let’s hope so, Mr. Valedictorian. Personally, I think I should initiate a motion within the student body to have you removed on the basis of shitty character."
Richie smiled but she could tell he was worried.
She fondled the ten, oversized safety pins on the right arm of Richie’s wrestling warm-up top. Each pin represented one pinned opponent from that year.
"I think your dad’ll be cool about this, but what about your mom, Nexy?”
"Nexy" was the name of a noncarbonated, chocolate drink bottled in a one hundred-year-old factory in Castle Point. Reggie and Richie’s best friend, Billy Cooley, suspected that Richie was Nexy’s number one consumer.
"I don’t want to freak you out or anything but this could really screw you up with some of those snooty colleges you applied to, and your mom is really serious about that stuff. I mean, she’s been pushing you forever to go away to school." She saw an opportunity to possibly unearth some sacred ground.
"Oh sure," Richie acknowledged, "but she’ll be cool too."
"Oh yeah? As cool as the night you drove me home in your dad’s car and you ran out of gas?”
"I couldn’t help it, Reg. The gas gauge doesn’t work. All you can do is estimate what’s left in the tank."
"Yeah, well, that didn’t stop her from blaming me. I didn’t see you for two weeks.”
"It was just because it was three in the morning, Reg. That’s why she got so excited.”
"Uh-huh,” she said, with disbelief. "Well, you took a big chance for a few beers. I’ll bet they were Old Milwaukee Big Boys, too. You could’ve at least had two Heinekens and gone out in style."
“I barely finished one. I just went in there because I couldn’t think straight with all the vicious guitar strumming and heel stomping going on.”
“Yeah, pretty Spanish guitar and fluid dancing are like fingernails on a blackboard to you. You’d rather listen over and over to a guy from Freehold sing howling songs about Nebraska,” she retorted, making him laugh a little.
“Shit. I hope I didn’t fuck up.”
"You didn’t, Nexy. I’m just busting your chops."
"No, I know," he said, turning away from her.
"You are going to tell your mother, aren’t you?" she blurted out, testing her theory that he hid certain things, including the nature of his relationship with Reggie.
"Of course I’m gonna tell her, Reg. She won’t be elated about this but she won’t freak out either. I don’t know what else to tell ya," he said, raising his voice.
He hoped that he sounded convincing. His mother was the only thing he had ever lied to Reggie about. Rose would go berserk if she found out he had jeopardized his chances of being accepted at an Ivy League college. She had pushed him to be the first person in either hers or Sal’s family to make it to college. More than that, it was going to be a top college that would take Richie away from the smoke stacks of Castle Point, and ensure he could stay away. She had repeatedly warned him about protecting his academic record by paying attention to little things, like not letting his grades drop during his senior year or not getting on an influential faculty member’s bad side. At that moment, he didn’t think it was an exaggeration to conclude that things might never be the same between him and his mother if he got expelled.
He knew that if he didn’t say anything else, Reggie would drop the subject. Although they had dated for more than two years, she’d never been inside his house or invited to any of his "family" birthday parties. Despite her suspicions about why she had been excluded, she always exhibited the perfect balance between prying and backing off.
"I’m gonna go talk to Kelli," she said, and then added, "It’ll be okay, Nexy. What’s the big deal? You’re almost legal. Besides, it’s not the first time one of us has been in a bar.” She kissed him on the cheek. He watched her move five seats forward, and yank on the back of Kelli Green’s hair.
"Ouch!" Kelli cried out.
"Gotcha!" Reggie exclaimed, with genuine joy.
Richie thought about his mother. He hoped that Vello had enough sense not to call her.
Fifteen minutes later, the school bus pulled into Central High School’s parking lot and Reggie’s lightly freckled face broke his concentration once again. "Your dad’s here early today. Tell him I said ‘hi’ okay?" she said in a sweet voice. "I’m gonna see you at D’Angelo’s tonight, right?" she continued. “We haven’t had any time to talk lately."
"What’d ya say?" Richie asked. He was so preoccupied looking out the window trying to locate his father that he hadn’t heard her. He feared his dad was going to stick his head inside the bus and shout "Richie, Richie" repeatedly, as he often did when the wrestling team bus pulled into the parking lot later than scheduled. That was his father’s way but it embarrassed Richie sometimes.
"I said," Reggie repeated, waving her hand in front of his face, "call me tonight or come find me at D’Angelo’s so I know what your parents said about Vello, and so we can talk about some other things. You know. Upcoming events?" She hopped off the bus and caught up with some of the other girls. She waved to Mr. Cavelli as she ran by his car.
Richie followed Reggie with his eyes until he spotted his dad’s blue-green, ‘65 Chevy pumping out black exhaust in the center of the lot. He thought it was peculiar that his father’s car exhaled black smoke all the time, whether it was cold (like on a winter’s morning), or warm (like on a spring evening).
He threw his Adidas® gym bag filled with books into the back seat. Moving into the driver’s seat, Richie listened to Sal sigh as he slid over to the passenger’s side.
Sal preferred that Richie drive home from school every day, partly to give Richie some highway driving experience and partly to give himself a few moments to relax. Richie’s high school was located only a few miles from the Cavellis’ house but because chemical factories, industrial storage lots and oil refinery tanks lay in between, the only practical route between the two was via the crumbling elevated highway.
As the Chevy slowly picked up speed climbing the entrance ramp, Richie thought about his high school, crammed so close to a highway overpass and near the banks of a polluted river. He wondered what a traveler barreling down Route 9 thought as she caught sight of the ugly brick building surrounded by chain-link fences. He wondered if it was even identifiable as a school or if the building was mistaken for a sewage plant. He speculated that suburban kids passing through Castle Point on their way to New York City would appreciate their high schools more after getting a look at Central. "Well, at least our school isn’t down the block from an Exxon refinery," they might say.
As Richie pushed the Chevy to fifty-five miles per hour, his father launched into one of his many anecdotes about Castle Point’s faded greatness. Richie tried to be attentive when Sal talked about the ferry boats, the Catholic Feast Day celebrations, and the powerhouse sports teams at Central, but with SAT’s, proms, and college applications on his mind, he couldn’t afford to be interested in what happened in Castle Point twenty-five years before. Besides, the Castle Point that Sal described was totally alien to the one Richie knew.
"You know, Rich, it doesn’t look like it now, but at one time that river was home to the busiest port in the country," Sal began, looking out over the river.
The highway guardrails partially obstructed Sal’s view, so he kept tilting his head, trying to get a better look.
"Houston, dad. I think it’s Houston,” Richie offered, halfheartedly, not listening closely but attempting to participate in the conversation anyway. He was trying to remember what Reggie had said. Was she gonna call him or was he supposed to call her?
"Oh no, not Phil Houston, Rich," Sal corrected him. "You can’t blame one man for this city’s downfall - the deterioration was inevitable regardless of his fiscal policies."
"What?" Richie asked. "I’m not talking about the old mayor, dad. I mean, I think Houston is the busiest port in the country."
"Oh, sure," Sal said, still staring out over the river. "Houston is the busiest port. It’s ‘The Gateway To The Southwest’."
Richie felt bad that he wasn’t paying attention, so he decided to bring up politics. As a young man, Sal had worked on a few campaigns for the local ward bosses in Castle Point, spreading street money to get people to the polls. Sal always had some eye opening insight into a corrupt local politician or knew the inside story about some event in Washington, D.C. that hadn’t been widely reported in the media.
"Well, speaking of politics, dad, what’s your latest thoughts about Reagan? He’s been in for a few years now."
"He’s not for the working man, Rich, I’ll tell ya that much. He’s giving Big Business free reign."
"That doesn’t sound good for us."
"Nope," Sal said, shaking his head. "He was governor of California, you know, and he left it in a shambles."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yes sir."
"How’d he get elected then?"
"’Cause of the hostages," Sal added. "If they had gotten out before the election, Carter would’ve won."
Richie nodded his head in agreement.
Sal looked over at Richie, noticing his ripped jeans. Richie was dressed in a familiar outfit - torn Levi’s, black T-shirt, wrestling top and white, hi-top Chuck Taylor sneakers with purple laces.
"Why don’t you buy a new pair of jeans? Those are ripped. I’ll give you the money.”
"That’s all right, dad. This is the style now.”
"I also have some white shoelaces at home that I picked up ‘3 pair for a buck’ at Woolworth’s. I’ll get them for you."
"That’s okay, dad. I like the colored ones."
"Well, I’m only telling ya because the girls aren’t gonna go for a guy who dresses like a bum. In the old days, everyone wore a suit. Even the poor people. All the time too; not just on Sunday or special occasions. You couldn’t go out unless you were impeccably dressed," Sal said definitively, as if there had been a law against being out in public without a suit on. "The wealthiest men in the neighborhood always wore three piece suits and had gold watches in their vest pockets, on a long chain."
"Oh yeah? Where’d everybody go all dressed up?”
"Are you kidding? There were so many places in Castle Point back then. There were plenty of fancy bars, for one thing. Both in Castle Point and down the Shore. We wore tuxedos or zoot suits, and went to hear Sinatra or Mario Lanza play with a fifteen piece band. And every time you bought a beer, you got a shot of whiskey for free. Sometimes, out of the blue, the bartender would ring a bell and shots were on the house for the next hour.”
"C’mon dad. That can’t be right. The bars would go outta business in a week."
"Free shots - every time the bartender rang the bell. That’s just how it was. You can ask anyone from Eighth Street," Sal said, sticking to his guns. "Your mother would get a Pink Lady in a crystal cocktail glass and afterwards drink coffee, which they poured from a silver pot with a long spout," Sal added, motioning with his fingers to show how long the spout was.
"That sounds pretty good,” Richie agreed, "but there aren’t any places like that any more."
"Yeah, well, you know, there were dances on Saturday night, too. They were in the ballrooms of the plush hotels. Couples from the neighborhood would ride together with whoever had the fanciest car at the time. Tony Roma always had a Cadillac so we went with him. Actually, that’s where your mother and I met. And afterwards, there were the Italian pastry shops. They were the best. You could pick out any pastry for a nickel.”
"What? C’mon, dad. A nickel?”
"One nickel. That’s all. And if they were outta something you wanted, they’d make it for you: on the spot. I used’ta have them make authentic Neapolitan cannoli for me. A huge cannoli for a nickel. LaPagio’s, it was called. The family was from Naples, like us. This goes back twenty or twenty-five years now. It was where the One Hour Martinizing is now.”
"Well, there certainly aren’t any places like that any more, dad."
"Oh, I bet there are. You gotta get out a little more, Rich."
"Trust me, dad. A nickel nowadays gets you half a March of Dimes gumball from a rusted dispenser."
Sal grew quiet. He was no longer looking at the river. He was now seeing the people and events of Castle Point’s past that were just a blur to Richie, as the shaking Chevy struggled to make it past seventy.
"So what’s happening at home?" Richie offered, knowing that his dad called his mother every day.
Since his question was left unanswered, Richie suspected that something might be wrong again. No audible reply was his father’s way of telling him that his mother "wasn’t feeling well." He was going to press for details but decided to let his father ride in peace.
The Cavelli family had recently moved from their house of eleven years into a new home. Although Sal was just four years shy of paying off the fifteen year mortgage, he acquiesced to purchasing the new one in the way he gave in to many of his wife’s recent requests - with outward acceptance but some inner resentment.
Rose had pleaded, demanded - even begged - for a new house; one further away from the chemical factories that bordered their old neighborhood. She wanted to move out of Castle Point altogether and into the suburbs, but knew they couldn’t afford such a step up, so she settled for one of the first new cluster homes to be built in Castle Point in many years.
Richie examined his father’s physical appearance. Sal’s black hair had turned partially gray and his shoulders had curved inward - as if the weight of the new thirty year mortgage was too much to carry.
"Dad," Richie began, breaking the silence, "I have a small problem. Can you see Capalupo?" he asked, cringing at the thought that he was adding another concern to his father’s growing list.
"When?"
"Tomorrow at 8:30," Richie meekly stated. “It’s really no big deal. My Spanish teacher…”
Changing moods sharply, Sal grumbled: "This better be important. I won’t get paid for the hours I miss at work, you know."
As their house came into sight, Sal grew angrier.
"I told Tony to bring in the garbage cans when he came home from school today. What the hell is wrong with that kid?" he asked, raising his voice.
Richie wasn’t sure why Tony, his twelve-year-old brother, hadn’t taken the garbage cans in. Tony was a well-behaved kid and very mature for his age. It was unusual for him to neglect one of his father’s requests. Richie also thought it was peculiar that Pudge, his seven-year-old brother, wasn’t outside playing.
After parking the car, Richie put the garbage cans away and slowly made his way to the front door. His father had already gone inside.
The Cavelli’s new house - a split-level colonial with a brown brick front and living room bay window - looked much nicer than their old World War II era, two-family row house. Unfortunately, Richie could not say the same about the new house’s front lawn. Brown dirt patches had sprouted, in a checkerboard pattern, from within what had originally been a healthy, green lawn.
Just to the left of where Richie stood on the front porch, on one of those scattered brown squares, stood two plaster religious statues; one of the Virgin Mary and the other of an adult Jesus Christ. Rose was an ardent Roman Catholic, and Richie could remember a few years before when his mother painted the statues at the first sign of chipping and carefully positioned them side by side on granite pedestals. Now faded and peeling, the statues touched each other at a skewed angle, as if the Virgin Mary and her sacred Son were giving each other headbutts.
An image of Reggie in her stylish dress from earlier that day flooded Richie’s frontal lobe; a memory fighting to stay alive. Seeing her in such feminine attire made him realize how easily she made the transition from athlete to aspiring fashion model. Just the afternoon before, he had witnessed Reggie the jock demonstrating the strength that made her Captain of the Central Gymnastics Team. He had been feeling down and kinda lost all day and went to find her after school. Central had a sandbox-sized gym, bounded by a wooden stage at one end and a cinder block wall at the other. He had found her working out on a punching bag left over from when local Golden Glove boxers trained at the school. She hadn’t noticed him approaching because she was concentrating on kicking the bag.
"Hey Reg, hi," he had said, getting her attention, and wrapping his arms around the bag.
She had her hair tied in one thick braid that fell down the back of her head; her signature athletic tape was wrapped around her wrists and ankles.
"Eighteen, nineteen, twenty!" she had said, kicking the bag three times with her right leg. The thumping action pushed Richie back a little further each time. "Hey there," she had added. She circled around until she was in front of him. "One advantage of this crummy ol’ gym," she had said, tilting her head towards the bag. "Central girls have the strongest thighs in the state. Here, feel," she had said, putting her leg out. He had felt different muscles tighten as she flexed them.
"Isn’t that great?" she had asked, looking at the muscles herself.
"I didn’t interrupt, did I? I could’ve waited until you finished."
"Oh, no. That’s okay. What’s up?”
“Oh, nothing. Just thought I’d see what you were up to,” Richie said, his mood improving.
She had smiled widely, noticing his facial expression turn, frankly, from sad to happy. “How nice! I need to work on the apparatus some now but let’s do something after I’m done."
"On the har-rap-aratus?” Richie had joked, mimicking Central’s octogenarian athletic director who referred to every piece of gymnastics equipment - no matter what it was - as the "har-rap-aratus."
She had laughed at his impersonation and he instantly felt better. For the next fifteen minutes, he had silently watched her flip and twist on the uneven bars, and when she had finished, everything was fine.
"Hey, Buttface. Are ya comin’ inside or are ya gonna stare at the drain gutters all night?"
Looking at one of the upstairs windows, Richie no longer saw Reggie but a grinning Tony, poking his head out of his bedroom window.
"I’m coming," Richie answered.
He opened the front door and heard the whispers teasing him to come in. He peered into the foyer and saw his mother glaring in front of him, looking quite different from the images that figured so prominently in his favorite childhood memories. He often relied on such cherished memories to get through the more trying times of high school. Two that he always returned to involved major religious holidays. One was being dressed up in red and gold wrapping paper as he ripped open present after present on Christmas morning; the other was tearing through cellophane-wrapped baskets, and searching for chocolate bunnies that Rose had secreted throughout the house, on Easter Sunday morning.
Hearing Rose angrily shout out a command to Sal while she burned a hole through Richie’s forehead, those precious Christmas mornings and magical Easter egg hunts suddenly seemed so distant and so vulnerable.
END OF CHAPTER 1
Across the Borderline, Edgewise - Chapter 22
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007JUST ANOTHER STORY
The Carousel ride was coming to an end. The operator, seeing that Reggie wasn’t trying for the golden ring, slowed the ride down considerably.
Reggie pulled out some pink lip gloss from a secret compartment inside the army jacket she had donned near the shoreline. She very deliberately began applying the gloss, using her pinkie finger; mirrors were superfluous. The lip gloss piqued Richie’s interest because it was so understated compared to the fire engine red Reggie wore all through high school. After she finished a generous application, she pouted, uncurling her lower lip. Richie chuckled. With this application, she mirrored Wendy Strummer. Now Reggie too was ready to battle environment trashers and murder burger manufacturers all over the world. She puckered up at Richie, blowing him a kiss.
“You’d better not make yourself look too good, darlin’. They’ll auction you off next.”
“Not me,” Reggie said. “I’m not for sale.”
“I don’t know that you have a choice. Seems like everything ’round here was born to be sold. Look at what’s happened to the Carousel. It may have taken 100 years but sooner or later, they’re gonna get ya,” Richie said, teasing her.
“Not me,” Reggie said, seriously. “I can’t be bought. Besides, they can’t sell me if they can’t catch me,” she taunted, deftly hopping off the Carousel. Without saying a word, she sprinted towards the Carousel House exit and the boardwalk.
“Aren’t you at least gonna stay and cuddle?” the operator yelled after Richie, who was already in hot pursuit.
They reached the boardwalk in seconds. The immediate area was deserted, although down towards the other end of the strip, there were a few individuals milling about. A shirtless young man doused the boardwalk area outside the Starlight Lanes Bowling Alley with some fast-acting chemicals, while on the other side of the fence, an elderly woman blessed the beach with a metal detector, her eyes shaded by a green visor; her precise sweeping movements making her appear robotic. In the vicinity, two gypsy women packed up their belongings and rounded up their children.
Richie caught up with Reggie at a frozen custard and ice cream stand they both remembered from when they were kids. The stand’s overhead, neon sign was lying at their feet at the base of the boarded-up storefront. Choosing from thirty-five different flavors of homemade custard and ice cream and drinking freshly squeezed orangeade (with pulp floating on top) through a candy cane-colored, paper straw were special treats every kid who visited Sea Breeze with their parents anticipated with joy.
Richie looked at the sign slumped down on the ground and thought of mint chocolate chip ice cream in an oversized waffle cone. “Remember when we were kids…” he began.
“Just another story,” Reggie said, interrupting him. “C’mon,” she said, sprinting up the boardwalk a few yards.
As they jogged, they observed the state of the boardwalk. Neither one could understand how it had gotten so bad, so fast. When they were kids, this boardwalk had been crowded with families on vacation, eating cotton candy and caramel apples, Taylor ham sandwiches, creamy fudge and salt water taffy. They had personally played harmless games of chance, like the ten cent betting wheels or the fishing pond, and had won worthless but coveted prizes such as key chains shaped like New Jersey, colorful combs the length of a ruler and the width of a wallet, or plastic back-scratchers, shaped like monkeys’ paws.
All of that had changed. Now, there was a biker bar by the forsaken tea cups ride. Young men with beepers stood guard outside the lone remaining arcade. The “Merchant of Venice” boat ride, which had taken would-be Venetians on a half-hour tour through man-made canals (that weaved in and out underneath the boardwalk and out to the piers over the ocean), was dry; replica gondolas were stacked on top of each other like poker chips waiting to be tossed onto the table during the next boardwalk redevelopment project bluff. Most, if not all, of the food stands were closed although the circle-shaped Howard Johnson’s restaurant at the far end of the boardwalk, the only one Richie had ever seen without the traditional orange roof, looked as if it might be open for business. Only a few of the kiddie rides remained, and if they functioned the way the young men who operated them looked, no parent would let their child on them anyway. The attractions for grown-ups had fared no better. For instance, it appeared to Richie that the “Leap of Faith” rollercoaster required precisely that from anyone who was brave enough to climb on board.
Eventually, at the end of what was considered to be Sea Breeze proper, where the smaller borough of Sea Breeze By-the-Sea began, they reached The Sand Dunes–the last of the old hotels built around the time of the 1939 World’s Fair. It was in this hotel’s elegant restaurant, The Rainbow Room, that their parents, and countless couples on their honeymoons from all over New York, New Jersey and New England, saw Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Xavier Cugar, Mario Lanza, and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons perform every summer. With those days long gone, The Sand Dunes was completely dark except for one faintly lit room on the top floor. As overcast clouds darkened the afternoon sky, the room began to glow.
“Look,” Richie said, pointing to the lighted room and the shadow he thought he saw, barely moving inside.
“What?” Reggie asked, preoccupied with her own thoughts.
“Nothing. I thought I saw someone up there,” Richie said, still pointing towards the top floor of the hotel.
“I doubt it,” Reggie said. “I think everyone has cleared out of this place.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Richie said, still looking towards the top floor, but afraid of what he might see. “Maybe we should too.”
“Agreed,” Reggie said, stealing a quick glance towards the top floor of The Sand Dunes.
Richie looked at Reggie and considered the changes in her appearance; gone was the high school girl. A striking young woman had emerged with a longer and leaner look. He considered her in light of their immediate surroundings and hypothesized that she was representative of a new breed of Kewpie Doll, unlike the traditional ones won on boardwalk concession stands. They weren’t freely handed over just for swinging a mallet and ringing a bell. These life-size Kewpie Dolls could not be so easily acquired because they were top-of-the-line; uncommonly strong; vulnerable–as all women are–but totally righteous, at all cost. After years of being surrendered as prizes, they refused to be exchanged for arcade tokens or brainless feats of valor. In fact, they had emerged to demand payment in-kind for all those years they spent languishing on amusement park concession stand shelves and inside pawn shop glass booths.
“What?” Reggie asked, noticing his fixed gaze.
“Nothing,” he said. “Let’s get outta here.”
Holding hands, they exited the boardwalk, making use of a nearby ramp. They proceeded around the back of a defunct souvenir shop to make their way back to the train station.
Turning the corner, they encountered a tiny Hispanic man, with slicked-back hair, urinating up against the shop’s back wall. Plastered all over the structure above him, along with similar types of poster-ads, were huge poster-ads of Tiranna. Six feet-tall and three feet-wide, they touted the release of a collection of her hit songs. Tiranna looked glamorous, with beautifully styled hair and intricate make-up. She wore a body-hugging, black mini-dress that accentuated every curve. She was bent forward and her mouth was wide open. She looked positively elated. Her body exuded confidence. The poster-ad’s teaser read: “THERE’S NO COMPARISON TO THIS CHILD’S BODY…OF WORK.”
As the Hispanic man craned his neck upward and moved in closer to the wall, he splattered urine on himself. He didn’t seem to mind. Swaying enthusiastically as he relieved himself, perhaps consciously imitating one of Tiranna’s dance moves, he crooned, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, oh-whoa-oo, sweet child of mine.”
They hurried by the man, who didn’t notice them passing behind. They walked up the street about one hundred yards, reaching a spot below some overgrown trees where the boardwalk was just about completely out of sight.
“Look,” Reggie said, pointing to a darkened Carousel House. “I guess the old man wasn’t kidding.”
“No. I didn’t think he was,” Richie said, surveying the shoreline.
“Everything looks so dark and deserted,” Reggie offered.
“Everything but that,” Richie said, pointing towards the room on the top floor of The Sand Dunes, where they both clearly saw a shadow moving about.
From where he was now standing, it occurred to Richie that the shadow had a pretty good view of every part of the boardwalk.
“What happened to this place?” Richie asked.
“C’mon. Let’s get moving,” Reggie stated, turning her back to The Sand Dunes. She took a few steps forward. Turning around and seeing that Richie was still entranced by the seaside sights before him, she grabbed him by his good shoulder and spun him around.
With some urgency, she wrapped her lips around his, effectively surrounding his cherished childhood memories in pink lip gloss and, at the count of three, exploded them into a million pieces.
END OF CHAPTER 22 OF ACROSS THE BORDERLINE, EDGEWISE
THE BRIDGE AND TUNNEL CROWD
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007In the chic nightclub world of Manhattan, many people were ashamed to admit they were a card-carrying member of the so-called "Bridge and Tunnel Crowd" — the unfortunate orphans who lived in New Jersey, Staten Island and the outer boroughs, but who worked and played in Manhattan. During the 1980’s, I was proud to be included in that group, even at the moment of truth when my commuter identity was revealed. Like perfecting an art form, we’d cut it as close as we dared and then hurriedly bolt Limelight or Odeon. Looming behind us, but often taken for granted, The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center anchored Lower Manhattan. Usually, I snagged a cab to Penn Station at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue to catch the last New Jersey Transit train of the night. Despite scoffs from the privileged as I exited the club, I relished my role in the order of things. With many obstacles ahead, only the composed and wily survived Bridge & Tunnel Darwinism.
If I missed the 1:35 a.m. NJ Transit Trenton Local, a little known back-up was The Night Owl Amtrak train which originated from Boston, passed through New York City, and, amazingly, made a 3:45 a.m. stop at Metropark Station in Iselin, NJ. If I could out-maneuver The Blarney Stone Beggar, who cried out for "A Goddamn penny to eat!" and blocked the 8th Avenue entrance to Penn Station, I could hop on the Amtrak and make it to within 2 miles of my house.
Among other amenities NJ Transit lacked, the Amtrak coaches had a bar and cafe car that served a delicious microwaved cheeseburger. The succulent meat was accentuated by gobs of American cheese that crystallized into pellets on the cardboard carrying tray, creating a special after-burger treat. I would stumble back to my seat, both hands gripping the tray, hoping not to get tossed out an open car door onto unused rails that segregated Elizabeth, NJ. Oblivious that stunned mourners had lined these same tracks to watch the Robert F. Kennedy funeral train pass by 20 years before, my fellow riders hunched over their trays and, with the help of a "7 and 7" or Miller Lite, washed the cheeseburgers away.
One particular night, instead of my usual routine, I headed to Hoboken — via a PATH train — to crash with some friends. The PATH trains run through various points between Newark, Hoboken, Jersey City, 33rd Street in Manhattan and the World Trade Center. Called "The Tubes" by old-timers, the PATH trains are to a Jersey Bridge and Tunneller what the subway is to a New Yorker. I never understood "The Tubes" reference until I saw old photographs of the Trade Center’s construction; underground chutes from the Jersey side of the river guiding the trains into the WTC Station some 80 feet below.
I expected to be in Hoboken in 20 minutes; a cakewalk compared to the usual 1 hour 20 minute ride to my house. Leaving the Village, I grabbed a cab and headed for the 33rd St. PATH Station. Part of the night-time scene in Manhattan was locating and going to unmarked places — the hyper-trendy club whose velvet rope and red carpet magically appeared at 11:00 p.m. outside a former immigration office, or the hip tavern whose back entrance was a French country wooden door hidden in the corner of the courtyard of a non-descript West Village apartment building. The entrance to this particular PATH Station was similarly concealed. A stairway in the middle of a pedestrian island a few blocks off Herald Square led to the subterranean station.
I disappeared below ground as cars and people raced by above me. Still dressed for work from 6:30 that morning, I would be conspicuous in my grey pin-striped suit and floppy, yellow polka-dot bow tie. At this early morning hour, I worried that I would be only one of several people down there, and a prime target for a mugging. My concern dissipated, however, as I felt the nervous energy of a crowd float up like steam through a grate. As I got my first look at the Hoboken-bound platform, I was shocked to see a horde of people anxiously peering into the dark empty tunnel. To add to the anxiety of 600 people waiting for a train designed to hold 400, a voice from a hideout announced that due to continuing "equipment problems," this would be the last train out for the night. The pulsating music and crowded dance floor of the club I had just left with "Shake Your Groove Thing" in full swing can certainly raise your heart rate, but the adrenaline rush of jostling for a spot on the last train out takes your body chemistry to a new height.
I quickly took up a position near the end of the line, about four rows deep. No words were spoken; everyone knew what everyone else was thinking as a faint white light appeared in the tunnel.
As the car doors opened and people poured in, I jumped into an opening two rows in front me and let the desperate push of those in the very back carry me into the train. Once inside, the challenge was to get near something to hold; otherwise, the inevitable short stop would send me flying. The fear of being thrown to the ground outweighed the customary concerns of being pick-pocketed. I fortunately made it to a handrail and settled in for the short ride to Hoboken. As the train pulled out, I counted two people with canes and a young woman with a walker among those stranded on the platform.
The mood of my fellow tired and cramped riders was pretty ugly. I would’ve guessed the strongest smell would be body odor but it actually was Nathan’s French Fries being munched on by someone in my car.
I made eye-contact with a drunken behemoth in cover-alls as I allowed him three inches of precious space on the overhead handrail so he wouldn’t lose his balance and crush me.
"Look at us," he shouted above the rumble. "What the hell are we doing here? Is this any way to live? We’re sweating like fuckin’ pigs while the rest of the world’s asleep!"
He’s not exaggerating that much, I thought. We were embarking on a trip that would take us under 500,000 sleeping New Yorkers.
Although I had turned the music off, I still had the headphones of my Walk-Man over my ears. I smiled slightly and nodded.
After getting no verbal response, he pointed at me and addressed the crowd: "Look at this guy! It’s 3:30 in the morning and he’s still in his fuckin’ suit!"
As the train picked up speed, I made an important discovery - we were heading for the World Trade Center; not the normal course for a Hoboken-bound train. Following the Behemoth’s lead, I dangerously yelled out: "This train’s headin’ for World Trade!"
"Bullshit!" The Behemoth immediately responded without the benefit of any factual inquiry.
I was quickly proven correct as we entered Exchange Place Station.
"The cherry in the suit’s right!" The Behemoth yelled, genuinely distressed.
From over the Behemoth’s shoulder I heard a man telling his wife in Spanish that the kid in the suit was right; we were indeed on our way to World Trade, easily doubling our trip travel time.
To the PATH contingent of the Bridge and Tunnel Crowd, the World Trade Center was the gateway to New York. Invariably during my high school and college years, if I heard of someone who worked in the City, I thought of the Trade Center. My classmate’s uncle who was an undercover Port Authority officer; the object of your affection’s noveau-riche father who worked on Wall Street; the hundreds of lawyers toiling away in gigantic skyscrapers named after banks; the unofficial brotherhood of tan trench coat-wearing, pizza slice gobbling, Wall Street Journal reading zombies; all either worked in or passed through the Trade Center every day.
A bastion for the successful, it was a portal of promise for the rest of us also. The PATH carried legions of young people in blue and gray power suits holding a single copy of a hastily crafted resume for that "first job out of college" interview. Even when an interview didn’t go well, you remained optimistic because, grabbing a hot dog from a cart in the plaza by the WTC fountain, you were literally surrounded by 50,000 people with jobs. A college education wasn’t even required. In fact, tales of high school drop-outs who had become "runners" on Wall Street and could buy and sell you and your father were legendary. See that 22 year-old in the blue smock drooling on his NYSE badge while napping on the PATH? How much does he make?
I never worked in the Trade Center, but did work for several years just a few blocks away at One Chase Manhattan Plaza. That meant I passed through WTC to get to the PATH at least twice a day. My 57th Floor office in One Chase would be remarkable in its own right anywhere else, but in the shadows of the 100 plus stories Twin Towers, it wasn’t even worthy of comment. The Twin Towers defined the area. Even my boss - a nationally-revered litigator who lived his life well above the fracas - was intimately familiar with the street scene surrounding World Trade. If you were lucky enough to have been sent out to get him a couple of hot dogs, he directed you to the Hebrew National Cart on Maiden Lane; the apparent victor of an informal sampling of the multitude of street vendors in the area. Others swore by Sabrett, with the colorful umbrella and ice cold Yoo-Hoo.
Unlike the trendy bistros of Midtown or the Upper East Side, the food emporium near World Trade was largely embodied in carts, wagons and refurbished trucks. I was most suspicious of "The Great Wall of China" - a converted Mister Softee ice cream truck with a rapidly twirling aluminum spinnaker that appeared to have bored its way through the thin metal roof. With no other visible means of power, I concluded the mobile franchise was serving nuclear baked General Tso’s Chicken.
Coffee and donut carts, half the size of a mail truck, were also plentiful. Unusually large men squeezed in behind trays of baked goods, as piping hot coffee flowed from silver urns large enough to wire a platoon. As if on cue, nearly every morning I heard the snap of a brown paper bag as I passed the donut cart at the base of One Chase and another sugar fix was fulfilled. Even in a city of culinary superlatives, I wasn’t surprised when "Best Donut in Town" scribbled in black magic marker on the side of a pushcart actually meant something.
We pulled into a deserted WTC Station, and, after an inexplicably brief stop, pulled out.
Just as we all had acclimated to the tension and heat, our relative peace and calm was disrupted by two bone-jarring whacks, which could only have been the sound of someone getting punched in the face. Although the train car was already packed to capacity, somehow the passengers nearest the fight pushed the rest of us back even further.
The exhausted adrenaline everyone had felt quickly surged into a "fight or flight" energy but the immutable laws of physics kept it bottled up tightly.
Thwacks quickly became taunts. "C’mon, fucker! You’re nothing!"
A woman cried out: "Somebody please, do something. He’s beating his girlfriend!"
Just as the situation had reached its boiling point, from somewhere deep in the car, I was startled by the authoritative sound of a whistle, blurting out strong, continuous signals. The response was immediate. I got up on my toes and watched the seemingly unmovable crowd part and create an unobstructed path to the fight. I could now see the combatants - two fellow Bridge and Tunnellers, one in a New York Rangers jersey and the other in a New York Islanders jersey, embroiled in their own "Get Home Anyway You Can" experience. That there was a transit cop on the train when we needed one had to give my fellow Bridge and Tunnellers some assurance that all was right with the world.
Moving briskly though the crowd, holding a whistle between his teeth and continuing to sound the charge as he strutted, was not a policeman though but a young Puerto Rican man. I can’t tell you what clothes he had on, but I know he had a shiny silver whistle hooked to a thick silver chain, as wide as a dog choke collar. Part MacGyver and part urban referee, he quickly encountered the hockey enthusiasts, who, by this time, were weak in the legs and holding on to each other’s jerseys. Clearly confused by the whistle blowing, the fighters came to rest as the car pulled into a deserted Exchange Place Station, somewhere beneath the no-man’s lands of Jersey City. As the car doors opened, the young man grabbed each fighter and, spinning around, flung them out of the car and sprawling onto the station platform.
Everyone on the train exploded into applause while The Equalizer bowed and mouthed "Thank you. Thank you very much," to his newest fans. As the train pulled away, I could see the bewildered homers pulling themselves up off the ground. With no more trains coming, their Bridge and Tunnel survival skills would surely be tested; they would even be forced to work together if they hoped to somehow make it home that night.
The spirit on the train instantly became lively; we went from subterranean gloom to raucous double-decker party bus on a sunny St. Patrick’s Day. We pulled into a deserted Hoboken Station ten minutes later.
I climbed a stairway to the street and walked along the abandoned docks and overgrown brush that lined the shoreline. Less than several thousand feet across the river were the Twin Towers. They oriented me whether I traveled through Hoboken on foot, was lost in the maze of Lower Manhattan side streets, gazed out from the roof of a SoHo walk-up, or crossed the Jersey wastelands on the glorified pinball rails known officially as The Pulaski Skyway.
It was well into early morning now. I continued past stalled waterfront re-development projects while just across the river sat not only the Trade Center, but other priceless properties - The Woolworth Building; Trinity Church; and the Statue of Liberty; uncontestable proof that real estate is absolutely arbitrary.
I made my way to the Old Clam Broth House Restaurant and surrounding nightspots on Hoboken’s waterfront. This was Sinatra Country. I no longer felt conspicuous in my suit. I hesitated at the door of one of several establishments that were still open. I was wired and exhausted at the same time. It had been a very long day; should I shuffle the final five blocks to my buddy’s place?
I looked back across the water. I easily traced my steps from SoHo to Midtown to the Trade Center and across the river. On the surface, all was quiet. But I knew better. A beacon at the top of One World Trade blinked a steady message. Lights were still on at "Windows on The World," the incomparable restaurant on the 107th floor of One World Trade where countless Bridge and Tunnellers (and others from all over the world) had gotten engaged or celebrated some other special occasion. I’ve always heard people refer to the "island" of Manhattan; it may be surrounded by water but to me it’s always been very connected to the world beyond. The spirit of the city was too strong for any PATH car or train tunnel to contain, and I knew that if I held it for a moment, I could take it with me wherever I went.
I dusted some tunnel grime off my suit coat, straightened my bow tie, and flung open the door to the tavern. As I approached the smoky haze surrounding the bar, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all if The Behemoth, The Equalizer, or any of the other New Yorkers I had encountered that night, were waiting for me inside.
The End of The Bridge and Tunnel Crowd