All of this was occurring during the final week of September – a bittersweet time of any year throughout the Wildwoods, characterized by less work, thinning crowds, and the sudden, drastic changing of seasons.
That particular September, the town was abuzz with news surrounding the fallout from a seven-alarm fire that had decimated an entire section of the boardwalk. That fire began during the dwindling hours of Labor Day – an act of arson that had claimed half-a-dozen of businesses, including a 50-year old chapel.
Down at the courthouse, Robert Golden – a 48-year old dishwasher who’d been set on fire in an unrelated incident while sleeping on his porch one afternoon in June – had filed suit against the parents of his assailants, asserting they had, “negligently and carelessly permitted their teenagers to go to Wildwood without arranging for competent supervision.” The accused hailed from Delaware County, Pennsylvania – the same South Philly suburb I hailed from.
Mariner’s Landing remained open throughout the weekends, but Surfside Pier had shuttered its doors. Bill Salerno elected to open The Dime Pitch every Saturday and Sunday, insisting there was decent money to be earned. Bill assembled a crew, calling upon me to supervise while he skipped town to attend a destination wedding.
The idea – suggested shortly after we opened on Saturday – was to purchase a quarter-keg and stash it in a freezer behind Anna’s. Only we let the goddamned thing sashay away from us, and by sundown, the entire crew was dipsy-doodled. Around 3 PM, I had been threatened with a lawsuit by the friend of a woman who’d been pelted in the chest with a polyester pick-up truck. Around 4, a pier maintenance man had set a bat loose in the Dime Pitch, where it flapped its desperate wings until I struck it with a broom.
When it came time to close, I had a co-worker pull his car up to the ramp at 25th Street. We loaded the quarter-keg into his trunk and transported it to a house on East 18th Street, where we subsequently planned to bleed it dry.
Meanwhile, I was off to Meghan’s father’s house on East 19th Street, where she was scheduled to call me at 9:45. Meghan was away with her family, but she had lent me a spare set of keys along with her bicycle, thereby allowing me to look after her dogs. And so I arrived and lay in wait on Meghan’s bed, staring blankly at the shade-frame of a window on the wall.
Minutes passed, and the slow-ticking silence lulled me off into a sleep. When I came to, Meghan’s telephone was ringing. I felt around; I located the receiver. Meghan and I spoke at length for the better part of an hour.
The sudden period of sleep had left me groggy, and so I bypassed East 18th Street and headed south toward Magnolia. I was homeward-bound now, coasting free along Surf Avenue. Around 21st Street, I swerved head-on into a street sign. From that point forward, Meghan’s bike kept plowing forward, then veering off toward the curb.
As I neared the intersection at 23rd Street, it was clear a North Wildwood patrol car had fallen in behind me. I made a right. The squad car followed suit – headlight shadows stretching long on either side. I made a break across Atlantic. An unsuspecting motorist blared his horn. Meghan’s sprocket sparked like phosphorous. My torso scraped the ground with searing burns.
Several minutes later I sat planted on the asphalt, listening to a pair of officers crack wise about how I must have “broken the fall with [my] face.”
Meghan’s bike looked like a scrap heap. The left side of my cheek was packed with gauze. There were red and blue flash lights reflecting off the nearby deck of a motel. Yet the only thing that I could think about – the only thing that mattered – was that my girlfriend and employer had seen fit to trust me. No one else who’d known me ever had.
Day 328
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(Moving On is a regular feature on IFB)