Drunken Sailors!

Recently I have been very busy working on my novel, and have found little to write about my adorable little barrier island. This is rare, as I do have a lot to say about the lushy people that live here.

We're all drunks, hell AC is next door. This is clear when entering the grocery store where half of the customers are visibly hungover!

Atlantic City is fueled by 24 hour bars, keeping the city liquored up enough to forget that in the casinos no one wins but the casinos. We (the people of Brigantine) live here all year round; can’t we resist the temptation to constantly drink?!

It’s common to hear of neighbors that never approach the casinos, and never gamble. However it is very common to hear stories in Wawa, and on the bus about what alcoholics we all are. There is much evidence to prove that Brigantine is the most alcoholic island on the east coast.

Taking cabs in Brigantine is the preferred mode of transportation for all of those that aren't friends of "Bill". It is very common hearing of people that leave their cars parked in casinos or in safe lots for an entire weekend. Taking cabs across the bridge is the safest way in or out of Brigantine. It's cheaper than a DUI or a drunk and disorderly.

In November 2007 I walked home from Harrah’s when I got to the middle of the bridge two police cars pulled up asking me what I was doing. I’d like to think that they were afraid that I was trying to commit suicide, but what actually happened was there had been a hit and run where the car was abandoned, and they thought I was the culprit.

As you can guess I am a frequenter of this taxi service, for two reasons:
One: I just got a DUI in Atlantic city.
Two: I drink a TON, and the bus just isn't an option a lot.

(a side note)

Both of my jobs involve drinking, and it is very hard for me to just go home and have a beer, instead of going out to "wind down". I need my moment at a bar; by the time that moment's over I'm so tired that walking to the bus terminal, or taking the Jitney, then the 501 home just isn't ok.

So between 2am and 5am the stories you hear in the Brigantine cabs are so wild, that they would curl the toes of those people who live and work on normal schedules.

Since they all mostly know what I do for a living there's one driver that fucks with me a little more than I like. He likes to talk about my jobs, and always looks at me as if he were hungry. When I drink I have very loose lips. I talk, and I'll talk to most anyone after a certain number of Coronas. So as sorry as I am to say it, I would say something to this ass hole bout the way he looks at me, but he knows a little too much for me to play with fire.

Getting back on topic, these cab drivers always say what is said in the cab stays in the cab, but that line is BULLSHIT! These guys will tell you everything that went on in the night, about every drunken idiot, and about every little piece of gossip that surrounds the island.

The cattiness of all these people makes sense in many ways as it’s a tiny island, and outside of the antics of Atlantic City, Brigantine is BORING.

Either way, it is clear Brigantine is filled with a lot of drunken sailors, and a lot more drunks.

Fisherboys---part 2.

They laid there huffing and coughing, two of them were cigarette smokers, so they were hacking up seawater and green phlegm. The dark and empty beach with the cool night air seemed to eerily echo the hacking noise they projected very loudly into the darkness as if it were eating every noise made.

They could barely see the white of their boat being beaten by the waves as the water rose with the tide. It was the man with the broken arm first who propped himself up on the sand, and looked around cradling his crooked arm with his normal one.

“I’m not sure where we are, but we’ve got to get help.” He said with a heavy sigh, clearly in pain.

“How? The boat rental place won’t notice we’re missing for almost another 30 hours! Our wives will just think we’re drunk, and not calling.”

“Fuck, he’s right, you’re the only one not hurt, and you’ll have to walk to get help.”

“What? I have no idea where I am, do you?” Where would I go?” The uninjured man asked.

“Well before I hit, I think I saw Atlantic City’s lights, and possibly Brigantine. In the distance, I feel like we’re further north than that though. Brigantine has almost two miles of uninhabited beach, but so does LBI.” He sighed with defeat, “You’re going to have to walk north, and we are probably on the tip of LBI.” After he spoke both men stared at him and there was a pause.

“I don’t even know which way north is?” the uninjured man said, his voice filled with annoyed anger.

“You don’t know which way is North?” He screamed so loud, it took a good 5 seconds to clear the air, and when it was done they all stood there quiet staring at one another, until the man with the broken ankle pointed in the direction of North, and the un injured man walked off up the beach.

He couldn’t say it seemed obvious to him which way was what, as he’d never been to Atlantic City before. He’d grown up in a generic Midwest town where the most boating ever done was on a river or in a lake. The ocean existed, but his only time experiencing it was in an area of waves and beach that was cordoned off by two orange flags.

Just as the injured man walked away still soaking wet, it was only 4 steps before the black surroundings enveloped the back of his wet white tee-shirt. Then just one minute of silence and it was as if he was never there, the two injured men became frightened by the darkness, and they both fidgeted in the sand a little looking around to see if there was anything to be seen.

They heard nothing other than the crashing of the waves on the beach, and they realized they were two injured men, alone. The man with the broken arm contemplated screaming out some more common sense instructions just to have him come back, but the thought faded.

“We should move away from the wet sand, I’m freezing” the man with a crooked ankle said as he put his hands in the sand and pushed himself up to a standing position. He put his hand out to help up his friend with one good arm and one good leg, but he couldn’t pull his gaze away from the barely visible boat slowly being over taken by the ocean.

He looked up at the outstretched hand and said, “this is very bad”, not taking the hand the friend bent down and tried to pull the man up by he elbow, and he yelped in pain. Even in the dark, it was hard not to notice the swelling and crooked arm below his elbow.

After a small struggle to gain some stability with his one good arm over the other man’s shoulder, they hobbled slowly up the inclining beach towards some trees and brush.

“We should get out of the wind, it’s very cold.” The man said laying the other man down in some brush. He made some noises indicating the true pain he was in.

“I don’t think you understand what trouble we’re really in.” He said in a low tone, almost as if he didn’t want the standing man to hear.

“What?”

In a now low panicked tone he said, “we are in a lot of trouble”, and the other man stared out into the darkness, and laughed a little.

“It’s not that bad, this is New Jersey! We’re not lost, we’re just hurt. He’ll be back in no time with a rescue helicopter, and the coast guard. It’s not as if we were stuck on a deserted island.”

“Brad’s dead, we have no fresh water, I am the only one who knows where we are, but I can’t walk or move, we owe the boat rental place a large 40 foot boat, and some navigation equipment we didn’t use.” Ignoring the other man’s comments as if he were talking to himself, “we’re fucked”.

He felt a lump in his throat like he wanted to cry, but as he stared at the remains of their fishing trip away from their wives, and had never felt so thirsty in his life. He scooted himself in the soft dry sand, and cradled his arm laying his head back. He looked up into the blackness, and began to shiver. It was a cool summer night, there was a little wind, he shouldn’t have been shivering, but his body was going into shock.

The uninjured man was very frustrated for being yelled at and as he thought over how much money they would have to fork over for the demolished boat, he stomped through the soft, un-trodden sand. He did this for so long that the muscles in his thighs began to hurt, and as he realized this, he also realized that he was now almost completely dry, warm, and sort of sweating.

****He’d been walking for almost an hour in the soft wet sand, he hadn’t taken care in the beginning of the walk, when the two men made him so angry he didn’t notice, he wouldn’t be so tired if he was walking on the hard sand.****

He looked around; he’d been walking for almost an hour. All he knew is that he was tired, sore, salty, and whatever adrenaline rush he’d received from his brush with death was long gone.

“Fuck….” He said quietly to himself and stopped dead in his tracks. Staring to his left, he could see dark looking brush at the top of the beach. Still foggy, he could not be to sure what he was really looking at. The longer he stared at it, the more it slightly changed shape. It wasn’t occurring to him that it may be the wind making the shrubbery sway.

He was not the sort of man to be scared of the dark. He was also not the type to stare into the blackness and hallucinate indefinable shapes that frightened him. Afraid of the unknown, he looked forward and kept walking along the edge of the wave breaking point just to stay further from the brush.

The man with the broken arm lay in the sand on his good side cradling his other arm shivering so badly he woke up the man next to him with his chattering teeth alone. He sat up right and stared at the violently shaking man, and grabbed the shoulder of his broken arm.

He moaned loudly as if he were in great pain and stirred.

“Are you ok?”

“I caaaaannnn’tttttt ggggeeeetttt wwwarmmmmmmm,” he said, and tensed up a little tighter into his fetal position. The man looked a little closer at the side of his face and saw he was pale and almost blue.

He knew the man was cold, but he was afraid of what to do. He shouldn’t move an injured man for fear of further spinal injury. Should he be spooning him to make him warm again, or give him his damp clothes, would that help? If he didn’t do anything, this man might die, but there was also a chance that he could do something wrong to him.

His fear of possible internal bleeding or spinal injury for possible paralization Well, at least that was what he remembered from his short stint in swimming lessons in a large pool.

He laid with his eyes closed for a long time just thinking about inching closer to the violently shaking man. However, the more his brain told him to do it, the faster he fell asleep. He passed into a deep dark nightmarish sleep, periodically rolling over barely waking to wipe the sand away from his dry mouth.

When he woke up less than 4 hours later, the pale orange and gray sky hardly shed enough light to see clearly down the beach to the water. His headache was overwhelming and while he wallowed in his hung over thirst, and pain, he temporarily forgot about he friend just a foot from him, still in the fetal position.

“Get up” he said in a scratchy hung-over voice, he reached out again grabbing the broken arm, and quickly pulled back remembering the pain it had caused him before. The man didn’t move or make a sound. He crawled over, and the man’s face was blue, and his mouth was opened slightly.

His purple lips said it all, Al was dead.

To be continued: