Billy Lee would often tell me how much he had hated me when we were in high school. There was little harm in this. After the two of us had graduated, we became fast friends. I emulated Billy. He was much cooler – and smarter – than I was. Billy Lee was a gifted artist, and singer, and musician. He had scored the lead in a high school musical I couldn’t even summon the guts to audition for. Billy had been cast as Jesus, whereas I wound up hawking programs at the door.
During June of 1993, Billy Lee and I began working together on Surfside Pier. The two of us were working for Bill Salerno, the perennial right-hand man to Bill Morey, Jr. Bill Morey, Jr. was the eldest child of Bill Morey, Sr. Bill Morey, Sr. and his brother, Will, had been responsible for revolutionizing the Wildwood boardwalk during the early 1970s. As the story goes, Bill and Will were in Fort Lauderdale during 1969 when they came across a super slide that had been set up inside a parking lot. The Moreys thought this was a cool idea, so upon returning to the Wildwoods, Bill and Will secured enough capital to assemble a similar super slide along a wooden pier they had purchased at 25th Street and the boardwalk. Bill and Will named their new attraction the Wipe Out. At the time they were charging the tourists a quarter for every ride.
Bill Morey, Jr. was the owner of Bill’s Concessions, a boardwalk enterprise that included one Dime Pitch, one Ring Toss, one softball-style Milk Can Game, and one traditional, stand-alone caramel corn store (named after Bill Morey, Jr.’s grandmother, Anna). All of these outlets were located either at or near the block-long entrance to Surfside Pier.
Billy Lee and I were associated with the gaming side of that business. The two of us were microphone operators, competing night after night to see who could generate the most revenue in a stand. The idea, at least so far as Billy and I were concerned, was not so much to fleece the public as it was to entertain the masses, accumulating a fair and steady profit along the way. By midsummer Billy and I were working 75 hours a week, and we had grown so fatigued that we’d arrive in the morning wearing the same rumpled clothes that we had clocked out in the night before.
Throughout June, Billy Lee ran Bill, Jr.’s Can Game, while I operated a Ring Toss 20 feet across the way. Several times a shift, the two of us would run competing specials geared toward generating as much revenue as possible in an abbreviated period of time. The goal was to attract and keep a counter full of customers, maintaining an extremely high level of intensity – or “tip” – for as long as one could. This proved challenging at the Ring Toss, a carney favorite so predisposed to luck that the only sure winners were those who had either cheated or enlisted the help of some grifting operator. One popular method of cheating at the Ring Toss involved throwing cracked rings. The rings were more prone to rest flat upon the lip of a bottle. Another common fix depended on throwing one ring on top of the other, thereby allowing the lower ring to ricochet, then stand pat upon a bottle. Any operator with good instincts and a well-trained ear could squash these scams outright. Cracked rings make a distinctly hollow sound whenever they clank off of a sheet of glass in much the same way a pair of stacked rings make a racket whenever they bounce off of a bottle. Most Ring Tosses prohibit the use of cracked or multiple rings, while also disqualifying the frontmost row of bottles (i.e., the row most prone to players leaning over to placing rings).
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Come the final week in July, Billy Lee got called up to run Bill, Jr.’s Dime Pitch – the Mecca of all boardwalk games, frequented by both locals and tourists. Billy’s promotion meant I would, in turn, take over as the emcee of Bill, Jr.’s Can Game. I saw this as an opportunity, a chance to showcase my talents for Bill Morey, Jr. One night in August, I spotted Bill Salerno and Bill Morey, Jr. having a discussion by the Ring Toss. Assuming this could be my moment, I amped the speakers up to 11, then scrambled spry onto the counter. “Whew!” I hollered into the microphone. “Who’s ready to get their game on?”
I took a running leap, eager to jump from one section of the counter to another. Only I measured the distance incorrectly, and, as a result, I wound up skinning my left leg on the way down. I could feel my knee cap splinter. The microphone thundered with a loud boom. Billy Lee appeared above me. He pulled me up and helped me hobble to a bench. Bill Salerno and Bill Morey, Jr. were gone now. I could see them wandering north toward the office. Neither one of them seemed to care.
Day 307
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(Moving On is a regular feature on IFB)