During my month-long exile to NJ, I found myself mostly at a loss for things to do. I read a lot of books, did a lot of push-ups and played some basketball, (wow, with the glaring exception of anal rape, this seems a bit like prison) I also did a lot of walking around. I strolled the familiar streets of the charming little hamlet of Metuchen, NJ, sometimes all the way from the gray afternoon deep into the orange night. One particular evening, after finishing a bowl of Matzoh ball soup at Jack Cooper’s Celebrity Deli, I walked behind the A & P supermarket to light a…um, cigarette let’s say, and was instantly whisked away to an interesting incident that occurred right there behind the selfsame A & P way back in the year of twenty-ought-four…
-cue the flashback music-
Late on Christmas eve in 2004 I met a friend of mine at his home to have a couple beers and exchange gifts. I excitedly pulled out a very well-preserved vinyl copy of Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ and handed it to him along with a heartfelt “Merry Christmas”. Needless to say he was pleased.
“I have something for you, too” He said and went upstairs and returned after what seemed like a while.
At his request, I closed my eyes and put out my hands. He placed the gift in my grip and It felt like a very large book. I excitedly tore off the wrapping paper like a child. As I pulled off the first bit of Christmas-y paper from the front, I noticed a naked breast peering back at me. Curious, I thought. I removed the rest of the paper to reveal a stack of about 12 nudie magazines, none of which seemed to be in mint condition, leading me to conclude, to my horror, that these were from his personal collection. “Nudie” is a bit of a misnomer as these particular publications were of the filthiest variety imaginable. Swank, I think was one of them. (the irony of which was not lost on me.) Perhaps a Leg Show as well, but I can’t be sure. (I do recall one of them had a woman on the cover, stuffing a rotary phone receiver in the unlikeliest of places.) I thanked my friend through embarrassed laughter and shoved the whole stack in my backpack. Merry Christmas Indeed.
-fast forward a few days-
I bid my family farewell and got ready to head back to North Carolina, but first I had to pick up my girlfriend-at-the-time from her parents’ place about a half-hour south of M-Town. I got about two minutes away when I remembered I was hauling some dirty cargo. Fuck! I thought, realizing I had to dump that shit somewhere discreet, as it was about 10 AM. I pulled up to the local A & P and drove around back thinking I would toss the stroke-books into the dumpster and the problem would be solved.
How wrong I was…
I jumped out and jettisoned the mags with a satisfying thud. I got back into the car and craned my neck around to back up but there was a black Lincoln Town Car blocking my path. I waited a second, thinking perhaps they didn’t see that I was backing up. I honked the horn. Nothing. So I got out and approached the car. Suddenly, a fat guy in a velour tracksuit, who strongly resembled Jimmy The Greek (though something tells me he wasn’t Greek) got out and started walking toward me, visibly angry.
Oh shit…
“What did you just throw in that dumpster?” He asked me in a classic Jertalian accent
“Some nudie mags my friend gave me” I answered, honestly.
“Well you better fuckin’ get ‘em out” He snarled.
“Why? Do you want them?” I asked still thinking this was some sort of joke.
He didn’t blink.
Nonplussed and terrified, I hoisted myself up to the sliding door of the dumpster, which was about head-level and dangling downward into the disgusting secret world of supermarket trash, I grabbed about 6 of the magazines. While I was inside, I imagined this guy was screwing the silencer on to a pistol and preparing to put one in the back of my head, leaving my corpse on a pile of rotten fruit and the remaining pornography. While I am not the sort of guy who imagines I’ll pass gently into to death’s arms in my sleep at age 110, the idea of going that way was more than a little upsetting. I wanted to puke, shit and cry all at once.
“You get ‘em all? He asked.
I told him I had, even though I hadn’t but there was no fucking way I was going back in there. He gave a long, profanity-laced lecture about how I was infringing upon the domain of Such-and-Such Waste Management and he hoped I had learned my lesson. I assured him that I had and apologized for stepping on anyone’s toes, so-to-speak.
“I thought a dumpster was a dumpster.” I said, managing a pathetic smile as my heart beat like a meth-addled rabbit’s. I gently shrugged my shoulders as if to ask Who Knew?
“A dumpstuh is not a dumpstuh” He informed me, matter-of-factly.
Though not formally dismissed from Professor Icepick’s impromptu installment of Intro to Legal and Illegal Dumping, I slowly backed away toward the car and threw the filthy (literally and figuratively) mags into the hatchback. He finally got into his car and moved it forward to allow me to back up. As I pulled past him, he glanced at my North Carolina license plate and rolled down his window.
“Fuckin’ Redneck” He called out, shaking his head in disgust.
One final indignity for a morning long on shame.
Ultimately, I put the mags into a shirt box from the Gap and lowered the top like a coffin over the lady with the telephone receiver and stuffed them in a trash can at a rest stop along The Garden State Parkway. When I arrived to pick up my girlfriend, about a half-hour later she asked what took me so long.
“I had to take out the trash” was the best I could muster.
and on account of my being curious and her being Canadian, we bundled up and hit the ice. There was a reporter there from The North Raleigh News doing a story on the curling club.
