| Tales from the Boardwalk | ||
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We
visited many boardwalks: Coney Island, Sandy Hook, Asbury Park,
Atlantic City, The Wildwoods. As soon as we saw our first one I
banned Kay from singing the song out loud - yes, that song, you
know which one I mean - because I knew I'd never be able to get
it out of my head.
Every pleasure can be found on the boardwalk: gigantic casinos and bizarre funfair rides; water parks; huge buckets of curly fries, funnel cake, saltwater taffy and the omnipresent lemonade; t-shirts with kitten decals, underwear that reads "Tommy's Bitch"; hermit crabs with painted shells, stinking iguanas, plastic snowstorms. Nothing is denied, everything is bright, all lit up with a million electric lightbulbs to the sound of coins falling in slots and electronic jingles for the winners. At Coney Island we saw a woman wearing the clothes of an orthodox believer. She had her top pulled up and had tucked it under her breasts. Her big white belly stuck out like a moon on a sunny day. By the amusement park there's a mural for 'The Warriors,' one of my favourite gang films of all time. I repeat "Warriors - come out to play-hee-ay" a few times, just for the fun of it. Kay and I marvel at the way that monuments are built in America. 'The Warriors' depicts Coney Island as a dirty old, fucked up, out of season wasteland, the backdrop to a gang war between hundreds of good-for-nothing layabouts. In America this doesn't seem to matter, what matters is that Coney Island gets a big namecheck in an obscure cult film. On the road to Asbury Park we were surprised to see huge extravagant mansions lining the way. "I thought Bruce Springsteen Land was all about the blue collar," I mumbled to Kay, "I'm confused. Could he have been faking it all along?" By the time we got to Asbury Park proper, I realised that he'd been faking nothing. This seaside resort epitomises the expression "run down to the ground." We parked up near to a crane whose wrecking ball was demolishing the last sorry signs of an ancient amusement park. Beautiful copper-embellished concert halls and exhibition halls were scheduled to go next, no doubt to be replaced by scores of ugly new holiday flats. The Stone Pony's still there though. For now. If your feets gets tireds there're always better ways to get around a boardwalk than by boring old walking. Two dollars buys you a trip on the Boardwalk Sightseer in Wildwood, a little motorised train that nips your backside as it zips past, making you leap out of the way with shock. Transport is more of an old fashioned affair at Atlantic City. For five bucks you can get a man to push you and your family around in a wicker rolling chair. Don't worry about your pusher's sore feet, or the heat they have to work in, or the racial divide between white patrons and black pushers. Just ride to the next casino, baby. Boardwalk fun can be a twisted, horrible, violent kind of fun. Topsy the elephant was never far from my mind. At Wildwood a sign goaded holidaymakers to Wack the Iraq, it had obviously been erected by people who cared more for a stupid rhyme than for grammatical accuracy, but still, there it was. Outside sat sorry-looking mannequins of Osama and Saddam. Inside the people that worked the stall all wore t-shirts decorated with patriotic flags and slogans. Kay and I suppressed the urge to scream and bawl and vomit and explode with rage, and we just took a photograph and walked on. And then, after a couple of hundred miles in ninety-degree heat, the whole of America started to look to me like one long boardwalk. Atlantic City Historical Museum |
 
 
 
   
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