Final:The Sunny Reflection…The Medicine in Summer Injection…A Cold Beer in the Sand

The High Season.

A time for large umbrellas, w****s in tight clothing, and razor sharp seashells in the pits of your feet.

A time to scoop up some food, roll the windows down and take a Golden backed gas fairy named Emma Sue and point her in the direction where the horrors and ugliness of the polluted summer grip of New Jersey usually suffocate the soul.

I aimed for insanity, and walked into its oceanic front door.

Emma Sue cut the lines of the road and swayed passed her fellow automobiles like a stripper at a dance off. She rocked waves of music, pushing them out through her windows and out into the blazing heat of the tar encrusted Parkway. I recorded some ideas into my phone, munched on a half of sandwich and heel toed my way through the green markers that counted the distance.

I stuck my left hand out the window and swayed it up and down through the cutting winds and was instantly planted back to my childhood and feelings of apprehension and the world unfolding to meet me.

What a self important little s**t I was.

The simple, bent wristed movement and gentle beating of 90 MPH winds against the inside of my palm was comforting and serene and represented life in its immediacy. No matter how fast we think we are going, some parts of us will always be planted right where we started.

A bit of ol’ world genius filtered out through some shlep jackass from the garden state.

The cars that I passed told stories of themselves, beautifully painted in hues of the here and now.

The Dodge Intrepid, dad at the helm playfully flicking into the backseat at his daughter’s hanging legs. Her head flings back in adolescent enjoyment as mom dives over laughing to secure the wheel and their safe trip to a beach front hotel where they can share a big blanketed hug as the sun dives beyond the water.

The local celeb types encased in the sleek, gun metal BMW 3 series. Regardless of what kind of jackasses I think they could be covered in expensive labels and fine tuned speed visions of hot nights and Ed Hardy dreams, today they spit little smoke creations of pink hearts in their wake. The driver turned slightly to his right and dabbed his finger against the passenger’s bronze cheek to get her attention just to whisper through a tender smile “Hey, I love you.”

The passenger grabbed for his hand, gently kissed the back of it and rested her head on his emotions.      

I got the chills, turned up the radio and kicked my lady into top gear.

The 87 Buick Le Sabre Limited, a monument to steel tanks in the prime of the American big body auto movement. Inside sat an older gent with wrap around dark glasses. The lines in his face were Braille short stories for the years gone by.  He sipped at a small black coffee that would probably burn the face off of a normal human being and thumbed at a black and white picture of his wife, circa 1930, adorned in a high waist swimsuit, swim cap and wearing an old school smile that could turn the tides of the ocean and set sailors on their backs.

He pressed the picture to his lips and pecked her, placing the weathered photo inside his heart pocket.

I took the rest of the ride like a ship’s admiral and let Emma Sue do all the leg work. I called my mother and thanked her for telling dad not to fire a loaf in her mouth because it’s days like this that I don’t envy a f*****g thing and am breathing in bits of the surrounding universe.

“Oh god, Ethan,” she laughed disgustedly, “What is wrong with my boy.”

“Love you, mama.”

“I love you too, you weirdo.”

There are certain points in life when you realize you are just a powerless mass amidst the floating rocks of bullshit and bad waters and white noise and fucktards and s**t liars and good luckers and bad people doing bad impressions of good ones and good ones doing bad impressions of bad ones and tireless work days and short weekends and laugh till you cries and cries until tragedy becomes funny and greed heads and kind hookers and weddings you weren’t invited too and new romances and sharp heartbreaks and sour food and sweet times and music that transcribes your life and books that don’t and, well, A partridge in a mother f*****g pear tree. BUT WITHIN those raging waves in all of that nonsense we realize that it is because of that static we have become so dynamic.

I was alive amidst the hot sun, fake blondes, wolf packs, and homebodies in gas station cologne.

I was alive amidst the Hunters and the Prey.

This day was sand covered and hectic.

I hit the boardwalk with a giant blanket, mini speakers, an armful of lined paper and a mind of poetry waiting to spit bars of description of the world around me.

"Step on up outshoot your friends and win a prize, all we need is one more racer folks just one more racer..."

"Shoot the star win a prize, shoot the star win a prize."

I waited patiently to pay for my day beach pass behind a disheveled mother vacationing from the Midwest as she attempted to balance a beach bag, two towels, a lunch case and a series of other odds and ends while her tween brute of a son tapped away at a small gaming mechanism that stopped him from helping or even being counted with the rest of the population enjoying the clear sky and reality-bit graphic screen that was painted by nature.

“Hold on…it’s here somewhere,” she grumbled, bags and towels spilling from beneath her arms as she opened every side pocket to find her wallet. 

I licked the back of my hand and slapped the little b*****d on the back of his neck. As he yelped and turned I snatched the handheld system from his claws, tossed it lightly and kicked the f*****g thing over the boardwalk, passed the tram car that carted people up and down the miles long boardwalk, and into the giant crucifix of the boardwalk chapel. The purple piece of creativity melting trash splintered at its edges and shattered against the center of the cross, sending pieces of the Mario Brothers and their fucked world of plumber’s bullshit into the air then falling like electronic confetti. 

“Help your mother, you twat,” I spat, pointing at her bag and towel collection.

The kid stared at me in a horrified manner then started to collect the missing pieces of their afternoon picnic. The mother paid and looked back at me, winked, and held her son’s hand who, stared into the open air with a brand new view and a hungry eye.   

“Mom, what’s that,” he said, pointing upward into the atmosphere.

“This,” she began, extending her hand towards the horizon.  “This is the called ‘the future.’”

F*****g-A lady. 

I settled down in a space between 3 college cuties laying face down with their bikini tops off displaying a hefty amount of side t*****s on my right and the open grace of sand, seagulls and desolation on my left. I slid the cold cooler filled to the brim with ice chunks and Whiskey under my feet and a lounge chair under my a*s and took out a pencil and paper.

I dropped a handful of ice cubes into a glass and topped it off with the finest of gasoline whiskey.  I tapped the eraser end of my pencil against the pad and replayed Santo and Johnny.

“I love that song,” one of the co-eds said looking over from her place on the blanket, shooting me a long lipped smile. “Can you turn it up?”

I dug my toes into the sand and exhaled, kissing warm, mysterious Mother Summer on her infinite lips and reclined my seat into the lazy position. I scribbled on a piece of paper: 

‘Pause this moment you b******s, it just don’t get no better’

I balled it up and threw it into the air. A wind flicked hand caught it and carried the paper away to parts unknown.

“You bet your a*s I can, my dear.”

And the Ugly world, for now, was perfect.

Reviews

[Poetic Beauty]

I have read this many times over. I don't even have to read it again to remember the story. I love the ending. Smacking the little s**t head for not helping his mom. Love that part the most well maybe not he most but it def. stands out in the mind. Kids and no respect these days. Shakes head. You writing always has the truth that is hard to swallow and doesn't cloud or veil the reality of the grotesque facts in life. It is loud and proud screaming in your face writing. You know already that I like your writing but I thought I would review this piece for it deserves it and well because I haven't given you a proper review on it. I had only read it two or three times. Now whens the new s**t come out?

[roarke]

Take two...
the close to your "The Ugly Papers" a book fitting the young lions, the channeling of a young Jack Keroac on the road. I don't know how you manage to absorb all around you and fit it onto a page, digital or otherwise. When something sizzles to the point you have to wear welding gloves and tongs to handle it, you know you're reading something. This, sizzles.

btw I'm still waiting for you to sign my copy of your book.....

[roarke]

could you S L O W down a bit, I'm scribbling notes as fast as I can..... f***er.....

tryin' to sand bag us here eh? Just for writing something so cool, (I pretended I was young again, b*st*rd) I'm gonna steal Emma Sue's wheels in the parking lot.

It's a good thing yer on the other side of the continent from me, if we were any closer it's be like mixing a tsunami with six nuclear reactors...hahahaahahaha

Your hiatus didn't hurt ya none.... I'm gonna hafta hurt you a bit, just a few swings with a led pipe bat and some punches to the face with rolls of quarters in each fist.... you know, just playful stuff.

If the next one is as good as this, you're in deep sh*t my friend.