This Is The Coastal Town, That They Forgot To Close Down…

August 22, 2007 by Michael  Send to a Friend

a very long New Jersey weekend tangent AND an obituary of sorts.

So for the first time since Mike and I started this whisky drinking
club with a scooter fetish we have a quorum of members headed to a scooter
rally: Ride On Weekender in Asbury Park, NJ, sponsored by the
SoleRunners Lambretta Club. Usually Mike and I head to the ones on the East
Coast, but now there are 9 of us in three vehicles: a white cargo van with
three scooters, an SUV and a purple former cop car Impala. The rally
is being thrown by a couple of my really good friends, the NJ Jackasses,
AKA Steve and Anthony. I first met these guys a few years ago at a
Baltimore rally and they’ve been down to DC a few times so it’s long past
the time when we should make the trek up to their home turf.

We finally get on the road around 3pm, only an hour past the time I
insisted we leave (2 pm). Scooter time is like black people time, but
times like a million. It’s cool though because I’m not driving, I’m just
going to drink the entire way up there and pester Mike.

Traffic on the BW Parkway sucks, and then traffic in Baltimore sucks,
then we get stuck in the Harbor tunnel and then stuck on the Delaware
Bridge and, well I need not tell anyone what a suckfest the interstate
system on the East Coast is.

Somewhere along the line I have to pee. One shouldn’t drink in a van on
a road trip in a caravan where stopping means everyone having to stop.
So I grab a Gatorade bottle and an empty beer can and climb over
scooters in the back and try to find a place to kneel down so I can get my very large penis out and pee.
The human body, or mine at least, will produce exactly 32 ounces of
pee-pee at one go.

We eventually arrive at Asbury Park but NJ roads are so incredibly
stupid that we can’t find where we need to be. What’s with the no U turns?
Turn right to go left? Retards. Add to this the fact that it is
storming worse than I’ve seen in years with humongous (now an official word)
lightening strikes hitting the ocean and the ground repeatedly and the
fact that Mike refuses to stop driving (which I want to do until the
storm passes so I can drink), even though he can’t see, instead telling
me to help him look for where we’re going (I have no idea), and you
might just begin to understand my frustration.

Finally I yell out the window “Stop Fucking Raining!”

It does. Seriously. It literally Stops. Fucking. Raining. Right. Then.
I look at Mike and smile. He responds with a “Fuck You Poseidon.” I am
smug. Right in front of us is the hotel where the other guys have already been waiting. We pull in.
We’re approached by our friends. The hotel is a gay bar. Seriously. It is the gay bar for Asbury Park. Parties
all night long, Madonna blaring from the room, Leather Boys, Bears,
Twinks, and so on.

Joke’s on us, courtesy of Anthony and Steve who told us this was the
hotel where the party was so we made reservations. There are no othe
rooms available anyway, not that we’re afraid of catching the Gay or even
mind, so the joke’s really on them since we don’t care. We eventually
settle in to shower and change from the 8 hour road trip to head to the
rally junction which is one of the few buildings in Asbury Park still
standing from its heyday. It’s a bowling alley that has punk shows in
the middle of the lanes - and you can still bowl around the stage. My
kind of place.

We decide to leave the scooters in the van because of the weather (and
the fact the Bowling Alley is just four blocks away) and walk on over
there.

Unfortunately we’re on such a wave of exhaustion (and drinkingness)
that there’s not much to do but sit around, see friends we haven’t seen
for months, and drink more. There’s the Philly guys, Baltimore crew,
Scott (I don’t do drugs but god did I used to) B., his fiancé L (who want
to crash in Mike’s room with us) and a host of others.

The rest of Friday is kind of just drinking and stuff, so I’ll cut it
short here.

Saturday we wake after about 2 hours sleep. Mike and I are hungry so we
head to the IHOP. The other guys wake later and decide to pester us
for the keys to the van so they can ride. Should have woken up sooner,
shouldn’t you?
We get back, unload their scooters, and go to the Bowling Alley to
drink. Some people ride, some people drink. I head to the Boardwalk for a
stroll.

Forgot deodorant. Since I have to go get and apply it and since it’s
too late to do anything about it now (I’m not stinking, I’m sticking) I continue to walk about Asbury Park.

Now I like this place, or rather I like what this place was. It began
its heyday in the late 1890s and was a vacation spot for New Yorkers who
would train to the shore. In the 1920s a Casino and amusement park and
other amenities were built. Men and women bathing in cold waters
wearing woolen stripes? That’s Asbury Park.

Later years saw roads being built, fewer trains to the shore, the
creation of suburbs and the decline and fall of Asbury Park. Some areas have
been recently renovated (in a cheap modern style) and many of the old
Victorian-era homes still are around and are being rejuvenated, to the
result that there’s a mixture of cheap looking beach condo and hotels,
and amazing old architecture (even if it’s falling down). Growing up
here you’d be more into heroin than meth since meth would make you want
to do something, and there’s nothing, really, to do. The yuppies who
come down to the cheap imposing condos have established that you can’t
even ride a bicycle on the boardwalk.

I ask this constantly, but what in the fuck is wrong with people?

Head back to hotel. Now those who know me know I rarely, if ever, carry
a stupid cell phone with me. I hate the damned things. Mine is nothing
more than a portable answering machine that I never port anywhere.
But since I’m out of town and the dog’s at home and my dad usually calls
on the weekends I decide to get it out of the bag and turn it on and
check messages.

Mistake 1. Always stick with the status quo if it has worked for you
in the past.

I check messages. Most are from the Jackasses drunk dialing at 5 in the
morning. Then there’s one from Mary:

“Trent killed himself yesterday.”

Sick joke. I call back and a friend answers. Yes, it’s true. No one
knows the details but the police came to her house last night and told
her. She had to identify the body.

One of my good friends of, what? 4, 5 years? Is dead. I’d just been out
drinking with him the weekend prior. He was coming to my party this
coming weekend. His DJ night (Crap) coincided with my birthday so it was
going to be a marriage of the two. Short engagement.

Strangely though I don’t feel anything. I have to kind of force myself
to kick one of the chairs on the balcony and curse loudly for the
benefit of the person on the other line because it is expected that when
people hear bad news they react suddenly and usually in some sort of
violent manner.

Mary is unable to talk and I’m in Jersey and to go back would mean
interrupting the plans of 8 other people.

I tell Mike as he’s asking what the matter is. Being a good friend he
immediately asks if we should pack and go. Of course not, I insist. It
sure wouldn’t bring him back now would it?

So I do go shower. I do go change. I go back to the boardwalk and walk
up and down it for about 3 hours. I can’t say that I’m upset, or that
I’m really feeling anything. It’s more that I was in a car for 8 hours,
then I was drinking for 8 more hours, then I only had two hours sleep,
and I’ve been up drinking for another 6 hours.

I amble back over to the Bowling Alley for the BBQ and eat a few
hotdogs and drink some beer. Then back to the hotel to drink more beer. We
make plans to go to dinner and the 11 of us (DC+Baltimore) go to an
Italian restaurant, flirt with the aged raisin waitress, drink a lot more,
then head back to the Bowling Alley for Saturday’s festivities.

Everything is going great. We’re drinking, we’re in another city
mini-vacationing, I’m playing a variation of MurderBall-ing with Lenny from
NJ who has some kind of debilitating leg wasting disease so he can’t
walk, but he can drive and ride a scooter. Of course to ride a scooter you
have to put him on it and be there to take him off. He has his normal
wheelchair, but also has two specially built derby wheelchairs (I
didn’t miss ANYTHING at the MoCo Fair, BYTers) so we’re crashing the hell
out of them on the alley’s lanes in front of whatever band is playing at
the moment. Lenny has style and grace and skill. I just have the fact
that it doesn’t bother me his legs don’t work so I’ll smash just as
hard as if they did and we end up in piles on the floor a few times.
Then the wheel of one of these things finally breaks off so that’s done.

So there I sit drinking Jameson and suddenly I’m remembering Trent.
Goddamnit not now. Yes now. Fuck. Mike sees I’m kind of zoning and comes
over and whispers “I know what you’re doing. Stop.” I try. I can’t. I
get up and go outside and walk across the street to a now grass lot
that used to be something and sit and have a smoke and just start crying.
I can’t stop. Trent’s dead. And it’s not that I am mad at him or that I
don’t respect his decision. I do respect his decision. It was his
decision, for whatever reason. I don’t even think I want to know why
because that would probably result in my thinking that I wouldn’t do it for
that reason. But my reasons aren’t your reasons and his reasons aren’t
my reasons and none of the reasons we do anything make sense to anyone
else. So I respect his decision, which is why I really haven’t discussed
this with any of his other friends because I expect it wouldn’t go
over well. I do not ever ever want to hear the phrase “It was selfish” (Of
course it was, everything we do has a selfish interest at its core)
nor do I want to hear anything about how he could do this to his friends
or his family or any of that rot.

So if any of you read this don’t ever say that because I’m afraid I’ll
punch you in the mouth more than once.

Instead I’m remembering our good times and mostly I’m thinking we won’t
ever have them again.

So I curse him out a bit and then it’s over. That wave has passed.

I go back to the bar and I’m guessing that Mike has told a few of my
closer friends what has happened and they must have asked him why I
didn’t say anything to which I am sure Mike responded “You don’t know him
very well do you? He wouldn’t want to burden anyone else.” So now they
know and as I’m at the bar ordering yet more whisky one by one they come
up and touch my shoulder, or the girls give me a hug, or they each in
turn acknowledge they know and they’re there and there’s no need to talk
about anything unless I want to.

And I don’t.

Of course by now we’re all wicked drunk. The bar’s closing so we go
back to the hotel where there’s at least more beer and Bushmill’s. And
the entire pool is a party zone filled to the Brim with hard-bodied gay
men (and a few fat Daddies and Bears) gyrating to Madonna. Yes it’s a
cliché but it’s a true one. You could at least play some Erasure or PSB.

We all pile into someone’s room. I think it’s ours. It is ours because
we have the view of the pool and can actually jump in from the 3rd
floor because we’re right above the 9′ mark. (You see where this is going,
don’t you?)

I’m on the ledge and then I’m pulled off. A moment later there’s a
knock at the door. It’s security. I pull on a different shirt. Someone
tells them that no one has been on the balcony and they must have gotten
the wrong room (meanwhile I’m back on the ledge and am holding onto the
bottom of the fourth floor balcony swinging like a monkey just to test
the mettle of everyone’s nerves. If I fell there’s no way I’d hit the
water from this angle - definitely would have to Cannonball over to the
pool). Security leaves. I’m cursed out. I ignore it, we all start
drinking.

Next some dude throws something into the pool. I don’t know who this
guy is but I get blamed for it. It wasn’t me because the dude with the
Yellow shirt did it and I don’t own a yellow shirt because yellow washes
me out and makes me look jaundiced.

Security comes back. Man in the Yellow Shirt has left. We swear again
it wasn’t us that the dude left. This is all true but it’s not doing
anything to get us in their good graces.

So a couple doors down our other friends are on their balcony and we’re
talking to them. I’m back on the ledge about to Cannonball down into a
sea of men when Libby grabs my pants and jerks me down and kicks me
out of my own room. She’s had enough. Mike comes over. I’m trying to
rationalize with them that the balcony is RIGHT above the deep end of the
pool and there is NO sign on the balcony that we CAN’T jump so they
can’t do anything if I do. I mean surely if it was illegal there would be a
sign. This is America. There is a sign for everything you aren’t
allowed to do because no one is any fucking fun any more.

It doesn’t work with him. So we go down to Will’s room where there are
more people, notably our Philly friends.

You can’t see the pool from their balcony but you can climb over a 3′
wide drop 3 floors down to the floor and get on top of the roof of the
bar, which I, of course, do. I could have fallen, yes, yes, I know, but
I didn’t. Shut up. A floor up there’s a balcony of girls wondering
what I’m doing. I’m fucking Fred Astairing on the roof of a bar, what
does it look like? Of course as soon as they see I’m talking to girls
three or four other people come over to the roof. I go back across the
canyon to the room and to the elevator. A couple guys follow me. Right
when we’re in front of the elevator Security is coming up the stairs. Not
just Security but door staff and kitchen staff and probably even some
guys from the garage and landscaping crew. We stare straight at the
elevator and none of them recognize us. They go straight to the room where
we were. We go straight into the elevator and up a flight.

Now while we’re up there trying to charm our way into some strange
girls’ room Mike is having to deal with the Security issue. We never get
into their room (and who would blame them?) But the following is what
happened while I was gone:

Security: “Someone was just on the roof. They have to clear out of the
hotel.”
Mike: “No one was on the roof”.
Security: “You need to come downstairs and talk to the manager then.”
Mike goes down to the manager.
Manager: “Look, we’ve been up to your rooms 3 times. People are on the
ledge of the balcony, someone threw something into the pool, and people
were climbing onto the roof of the bar.”
Mike: “Look I already told you. No one was on the balcony, someone did
throw a bag into the pool but we kicked him out, and no one was on the
roof of the bar. You have the wrong room”…pause…”wait a second. Is
this a black thing?” (Mike is a genuine chocolate American).
Manager: “Uh, no. It is not. We have 25 black people staying in this
hotel…”
Mike: “Wait a second. You know exactly how many black people you have
staying in your hotel? What kind of racist shit is that?”
Manager: “uh…”
Mike: “Exactly. This is some bullshit. Do you know how many white
people are here? What about Asians? Or is it just the black people that you
have an exact account of? Do you know where they all are at every given
moment? You know what? I’m done.”

And he walks off and back to the room.

He comes back up to the room and finds us across the hall in another
room that has no access to a pool or roof, but does have a view of the
ocean. Which means I have another idea:

We’re going swimming.

It’s about 4 in the morning and goddamnit we’re going swimming. Don’t
make me pull out the dead friend card because I will and drag all your
asses with me. I just want some company in case I drown.

So Charles and Anthony (NJ Jackass) come with me. They strip to their
boxers. Not having that affliction where I feel the need to wear shorts
under my pants I strip to my balls.

Oh my god the water is cold. My balls want no part of it so they climb
up into my intestines somewhere.

So the three of us swim for awhile. This is a bad idea as it is pitch
black, and we’re drunk, and the waves are none too friendly due to the
weather.

When we’re sufficiently frozen we go back to the hotel. They dress. I
don’t. I stroll through Asbury Park butt naked. Anthony and Charles make
me dress before I attempt to enter the hotel which I do, fortunately
for me, due to the fact that there are a lot of hotel room doors open
which I am guessing is the sign for “come in if you want the sex.”

I do not want the sex.

Back in some dude’s room there’s some asshole who keeps telling me that
I’m talking too loudly. Then he’s making little pantomime volume
turning down signs every time I open my mouth. Eventually I yell at him
that if he says one more word I am going to throw him off the
motherfucking balcony if he so much as looks at me.

I don’t give him a chance though because now I’m pissed off and just
leave.

I make it to the room where I’m staying and pass out.

The next day we wake, pack bikes and about 30 of us go to the IHOP
again.

Now Mike and I both have this thing where whenever we’re at the IHOP,
no matter what time, and no matter what else we order, we also order a
basket of popcorn shrimp.

Most of us are still drunk. We’re definitely being those obnoxious
people. We definitely don’t care.

The food comes and James (who broke his leg at the last rally in Philly
and now has someone else’s ass bone in his leg (Cadaver Leg or Ass Leg
depending on the company) asks if he can have a shrimp.

I tell him no. Deadpan.

He reaches across the table and grabs one and puts it in his mouth.

“Goddamnit James,” I say. “My friend dies this weekend and you’re
reaching across and taking my shrimp? That was here for Trent. Trent loved
shrimp.”

James stares, openmouthed.

“How does my dead friend taste, James? Is it good? Does Trent taste
good?”

The entire table is silent.

“Fuck man, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know…”
“I’m just kidding.” I smile.

The table erupts. James curses me out with every name he can think of.
I laugh my head off.
We go home.

——-

Requiescat in Pace, Trent. I’ll miss you. Whatever was bothering you
here I hope it can’t touch you there.

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