On April 5th of this year I received an email from one of my employers. This email stated that – effectively immediately – I was being let go. Budget cuts, the employer explained. And just like that, 90% of my income was gone. Worse yet, I had nothing in the coffers. For months, I had been skating on cobwebs. I had been dodging final notices; sweeping out mist from the sepulcher. I was cashed out, maxed out, pursuing offers for a stimulus. When my father became aware of this situation, he issued me a loan.

I am 43 now, and I have become a different person than my father. My father is a provider, and I am a rogue. Throughout my adolescence, my father and I argued. We argued so frequently that I eventually relocated, first to Wildwood, and then State College, and then Sea Isle, and then Orlando, and then Philadelphia, and, eventually, New York. My parents, on the other hand, have remained in the same house for the better part of five decades. My parents are retired. They enjoy stability. They spend their summers along the Chesapeake. They lease a slip. They own a boat.

I am intimidated by my father, and it is for this reason that I had initially neglected to inform him about his inclusion via Moving On. During June of 2013, my father made it clear that he did not appreciate the way my fledgling series had been portraying him. Since then my father and I have made amends, and it is in preserving said amends that I spoke to my father a little over a week ago. I wanted to explain to my father why I had intended on mentioning him during the sendoff of my series, and I wanted to apologize to my father for not having conferred with him before.

It is a tricky business, being so transparent about one’s affairs. In December of 2015, by way of example, I was selling Christmas trees on 39th and 2nd, and I met a woman who would bring me fruit and coffee, and who would chat with me toward the end of every shift. The more I got to know this woman, the more I began to consider when – or even if – I should tell her about my website. On January 1st, I sent this woman a URL to ifearbrooklyn.com. “I think it’s great that you write about your past,” this woman responded, “and I hope the writing helps to heal hurts and demons. I am at a point where I am not capable of handling your history, but I wish you every success in your work and in your life.”

Oh, well. The trials of commitment. In the end, the meat outweighs the bone.

I have been asked how I plan to proceed now that the writing phase of Moving On is over. I could reedit the first three seasons, which are lacking, but my inclination is to let the series function as a real-time dossier of my progression as a writer. This is a rough sell in that commercial publishing is an industry, and a lot of its proxies evaluate a book’s worth based on mathematics. Once, I emailed a book proposal to an agent who, in turn, refused to consider my query unless I resubmitted it in a format known as “the hook, the book, and the cook.” I would never entrust Moving On to a careerist like that. Then again, what careerist would want it? Moving On has only generated *42,000 hits as of this post.

But enough. The hour is late, and the brief period for 1990s nostalgia has come and gone. I need to rest up. I need to catch up. I need to pay off debts and spend time with old friends. I’d like to join a scene and I’d like to solve a mystery. I’d like to write a movie script, and I’d like to be interviewed for a podcast. I’d like to visit Italy. I’d like to move to Venice Beach, and, once there, I’d like to own a dog. But more than anything else, I would like for my writing to sustain me. And I would like for my writing – and this series – to endure.

Onward. Upward. We still have mountains left to scale.

I’ll See Ya at The Summit.

Bob Hill

(*Editor’s Note: As of May 1st, 2020, Moving On has generated approximately 150,000 hits.) 

Day 1,825

(Moving On is a regular feature on IFB.)

©Copyright Bob Hill

These are the 10 most popular installments of Moving On to date:

1. A Murder on Park Boulevard
2. Every Road Leads Back to Wildwood
3. In The Cold, Cold Night
4. The Year of Losing Dangerously
5. Prologue: Confessions of a Teenage Cliff Diver
6. On Four Years of Not Having Sex
7. A Tale of Being Young & Dumb & Black In America
8. Manslaughter
9. The Night They Drove Old Dallas Down
10. They Came Early, They Stayed Late

(Moving On is a regular feature on IFB.)

©Copyright Bob Hill

It was the sound, and not the fire, that prompted an initial call to 9-1-1. That sound indicated a chain reaction – ba-Boom! followed by a car alarm from up the street. The boardwalk shook. Any hanging plant life rattled. A woman at the Monaco Motel reported hearing an explosion. A series of blinds were being undrawn.

Four minutes later, at 1:49 AM, a hook and ladder responded. There were flames at this point, clearly visible and spreading low across one roof. There was smolder filtering out from an accompanying stock area below. The hook and ladder stopped just short of the Wildwood promenade, the southern pine of which could not accommodate any vehicle of that scope. The source of the fire was inside a T-shirt shop. For the better part of an hour, that shop had
been closed.

A trio of firemen forced their way in through a back-door entrance. Inside, the T-shirt shop was dark and hot and it was full of smoke. The firemen retreated. They shut off nearby gas lines. They evacuated a couple who were living in a studio along that row. Up on the boardwalk, 25 members of a youth ministry group began emerging from a chapel. These members were greeted by a police officer with police tape who was sectioning off the promenade between Baker and Montgomery Avenues. There were tourists now, and they were wearing pajamas. There were wide-eyed drunks, and they were wearing well-pressed clothes. There was an older man who stood craning his neck up toward an Angelo’s Pizza marquee. Angelo’s Pizza was located 40 meters south of where the fire continued to burn.

Down on Baker Avenue, turntable ladders were being extended; 50-ft. hoses were being unfurled. White men with white hair and white shirts were giving orders, while burly men in bulky gear were pointing nozzles up and through the t-shirt shop’s back door.

The Made In The USA T-Shirt Shop was one of three businesses that were all housed within the same building. That building, erected in 1940, lacked the benefit of any steel partitions (later known as firewalls). Worse yet, that building’s owner had been cited – and then re-cited – for more than 15 code violations between July and August of 2000. Among the more egregious violations were failing to maintain any operational alarm system, combined with failing to repair several gaping holes along the ceilings and walls. The Made In The USA T-Shirt Shop, in particular, had been cited for excessive bulk throughout its storage area. Cardboard boxes littered the floors like flaccid pillars. Bundles of stock congested the stairs in haphazard rows.

The fire spread quickly. Flames ascended up and through the t-shirt’s shop’s attic, cascading down into a dollar store which was connected via the south. Along the promenade, embroidered patches read North Wildwood and Erma and West Wildwood and Stone Harbor and Anglesea and Wildwood Crest. A pair of firefighters used an axe to remove a padlock from the t-shirt shop’s front entrance. They rolled a shutter back, then ran a chainsaw through a clearance in the shop’s main floor. The ensuing hole created ample space to spray a hose into the storage area. That area, which had been constructed like a bunker, appeared to be supplying tinder for the fire’s real cause.

Fog was rolling in now, and 11-mile winds continued eddying the coast. Intense heat had weakened the t-shirt shop’s roof to an extent that – just before 3 AM – the northern end of it began to implode. Kilocalories of combustion burst from the Dollar Store into an adjoining gift shop. That shop was separated from the Boardwalk Chapel by a 3-ft. alley made of wood. The strategy became containment. And it remained that way until three hours later, when the fire was officially deemed to be under control.

As of daylight, the remainder of the 4300 Building’s roof had collapsed, decimating all three businesses underneath it. The Boardwalk Chapel had survived thanks to a liquid curtain that had been set up along the alley. There was smoke now, forever billowing, as investigators crept into the t-shirt shop’s storage area, where a Sheriff’s K9 detected the presence of acetone – an accelerant – beneath several piles of debris. Up on street level, officials confirmed that the 4300 Building’s owner had been served with a $9,600 fine for failing to rectify a series of code violations. Officials further confirmed that said fine had been levied less than 24 hours before.

In the hours after midday, investigators acknowledged that the fire might have been an act of arson. Arson, which had become an epidemic throughout the Wildwoods to an extent that of the 16 major boardwalk blazes between 1980 and 2000, nine had been adjudicated as if someone had set them. Nine fires, 100% of which had been consolidated to an 11-block stretch between Montgomery and Pine Avenues. Nine fires, 100% of which had taken place between the final week in August and the third week in December. Nine fires, 100% of which had occurred during a four-month span when the promenade was either shutting down or completely empty.

Wildwood’s three most recent boardwalk fires – including the one inside the 4300 Building – had occurred within a three-block strain over the course of five years. Two of those fires shared indeterminate origins, rendering it difficult for insurance companies to deny any of the claims. There was a pattern emerging, and it was so exact as to be insulting. As a case in point, consider a boardwalk fire that had ripped through an entire block between Spicer and Spencer Avenues during 1988. That fire, which was ultimately ruled suspicious (yet indeterminate), resulted in $2.5 million worth of damages, while simultaneously causing 13 injuries due to a combination of smoke inhalation and people escaping by way of several second-story windows. Said fire was initially reported at 3:55 AM on August 28^th. The 4300 Building’s fire was initially reported at 1:45 AM on August 29^th.

Fires were a drag, particularly for any unsuspecting storeowners who had slaved throughout the summer in the hopes of turning a profit come September. Three months of work had just gone down the drain. Meanwhile, the odds seemed long against pinning the crime on any suspect. There were no cameras along the promenade at 4300, and it appeared unlikely that any reliable eyewitnesses would step forward. Add to that the fact that raging fires wielded the potential to destroy forensic evidence, and it became reasonable to assume that no errant firebug would be apprehended. The summer would end, and the postseason would move forward, and the owner of the 4300 Building, who lived in Coral Gables, Florida, would have nine months to sell his lot
or build anew.

For more on this incident, check out the U.S. Fire Administration’s 53-page investigative report. 

Day 1,710 

(Moving On is a regular feature on IFB.)

©Copyright Bob Hill

Member, American Authors Guild

On August 8^th I suffer what can best be described as a complete physiological break. Among my peers, I am eager to write this off as a hangover – the ill effects of an 18-hour binge that included one bottle of Black Haus, imbibed against a running backdrop of whiskey and beer. Internally, however, I recognize this as being the culmination of 14 days’ worth of excess. I have been going to the bars without anyone. I have been drinking at the apartment by myself. My fingers tremble as I struggle through an average workday. I have attempted – and failed – to go 24 hours without ingesting a belt.

On that Tuesday, the 8^th, I call out of work. I feel weak, and dehydrated. I have laryngitis. I throw up after eating a bowl of Trix. I keep attempting to ferret together the previous evening’s proceedings. I can picture a barbecue, and then getting thrown out of The Fairview. I can picture myself arguing with a bartender, even though I wasn’t able to talk. And then there was the water park. I was with that girl, and it was 3 AM. We were in the hot tub. We got kicked out by the police.

I call out sick a second time on August 9^th. My mother picks me up. She drives me to my parents’ house in Delaware County. Once there, I take a bath; I get some sleep. Whatever I am experiencing, it extends beyond the routine physical. I want to drink, and yet I am afraid of getting sicker. I want to return to Wildwood, and yet I am afraid of being alone. I feel unhinged, surreptitiously convinced that I have been exposed to something chemical, perhaps even toxic, inside of my apartment. I have a newfound fear of fainting. I think about it all day long.

I return to work on August 12^th. I suffer through the afternoon. During my dinner break I watch an annual procession – The Blessing of the Ocean. Said procession culminates with an abbreviated ceremony along the beach. As we enter the responsorial, I turn and I notice that I have been boxed in by a bevy of tourists. This jars me. Lord, have mercy. I take a knee. Christ, have mercy. I cannot find an available pathway to breathe. Lord, have mercy. 

I remain humbled until the congregation disperses. My lungs feel like a pair of bellows. I walk to Pine Avenue, where I am scheduled to work on a microphone from 8-11. I defer, delegating the responsibility to one of my employees. This is a breach, egregiously so given that the second Saturday in August is traditionally associated with being one the biggest money nights of the season. My refusal to emcee winds up costing The Doughertys a little over $700.

I close the stand just after 1 AM. I beat a path to the Hill 16 where I order my first beer in several days. That first beer leads to a second, and then that second beer leads to a third. That third beer leads to me approaching a brown-haired British girl who is waving a $10 bill over her head. “Yoo-hoo,” that brown-haired British girl keeps saying. “Yooooo-hooooo.” She is draping her chest over the bar.

“What are y’drinking?” My voice projects above the music.

“What’s that?” the British girl responds.

“What are y’drink-ing?”

The British girl steps back. She soaks me in. She corrals a friend who is standing next to her along the bar.

“That old guy’s trying to hit on me,” I overhear the British girl explain.

Her friend measures me, and then grimaces. She makes a joke about me being on my own.

I stare onto the dancefloor, and then my eyes breeze up the wall. There, illuminated by a kaleidoscope of colors, reside the shadows – a sea of bobbing heads and string-bean arms. It occurs to me that from a distance those fleeting shadows could belong to anyone, from any time; that those shadows could belong to all the bearded rockers who hung out here when this building housed The Playpen; that those shadows could belong to all the post-war brats who took their business way uptown. It occurs to me that those shadows could belong to all the pleated plaids who yucked it up with Cozy Morley; that those shadows could belong to all the social debs who danced the foxtrot to a four-four sound. It occurs to me that those shadows marked the passage from Benny Goodman into Chubby Checker, from New York Folk into the British Sound. It occurs to me that those shadows kept the pace from Punk & Disco into Mainstream Pop; from Thrash & Grunge into the Underground. It occurs to me that those shadows have remained ambivalent; that they have not changed despite the integration of east-coast Blacks, and then Latinos; of the British and the Irish, the J-1 Spanish and Chinese. It occurs to me that those shadows are both passé and urgent relevance, that they are both the 1990s and the now. The now. So much of what I have known is past. The first building I ever lived in on this island is being converted into a boarding house. The Maple Deli across the street has closed. A lot of the boardwalk games have begun transitioning from giving out stuffed animals into giving out cheap gadgetry. The Dime Pitch has been succeeded by a water-gun game. That game has 16 seats and rising poles. On a busy night that 16-seat behemoth can generate upwards of $1,000 an hour. And yet in reality, it doesn’t even come close. The boardwalk features far too many race games. The boardwalk features far too many swindlers selling sweet songs for a buck. The boardwalk features far too many price hikes. The boardwalk features far too many soft drinks costing 2 – or even $3 – a cup. My place amidst this madness keeps on shifting. I work as a barker in a 14-player water-gun game. I report to an ice cream parlor six days out of every week. That ice cream parlor occupies the exact location where I once worked as a barker in a seven-player water-gun game. I was poor and I was alone then. I was living out of a bag at the age of 18. 1992. Bill Clinton had just secured the Democratic nomination for President. Clinton was campaigning against George H.W. Bush, an incumbent who held a significant lead. 2000. Al Gore has just secured the Democratic nomination for President. Gore is campaigning against George W. Bush, a second-generation legacy who holds an insignificant lead. Eight years. I have gained and lost three waves of friends. I have become sick, nostalgically ill for the past. And it occurs to me that all of this nostalgia, all of this deep longing for being young and for falling in love and for being single and for getting drunk and for getting high and for getting laid and for breaking laws and for being tan, well, it occurs to me that mine is only one of a thousand driftwood stories, embowered by these streets of sand. There are nights – albeit few of them – when I still walk home past Meghan’s father’s house. I tend to do this when I am alone and I am intoxicated. I’ll turn the corner, and I will stare up at that gable in the dark. And I will do this not because I miss Meghan, but because that tiny one-story gable represents a time and a place where everything seemed at its start. I am 26 now, and I am drinking at a bar known as the Hill 16. I am by myself, and I am staring at a shadow in the dark.

Day 1,642

(Moving On is a regular feature on IFB.)

©Copyright Bob Hill

Member, American Authors Guild