Having survived Lexington Market it was time to make my way to the always ass-numbing Jersey Turnpike. Smooth sailing other than Mickey and Mallory Knox from North Carolina in the car ahead at the toll booth heading out of Baltimore. Mickey drove shirtless and clearly unshowered, giving the finger to every northbound horn honker who refused to let him into the cash only lane--Mallory beside him, alternately leaning into the shattered windshield and out of the passenger window to take pictures of anything and everything. Including the toll both worker. The old Celica held together with bungee cords. I'm sure neither of them were wearing shoes, but they probably got some slippers at whatever county jail they ended up in.
But $6200 in tolls and four hours later, I made it to Surf Ave.-Brooklyn. My intent was to spend a couple hours at Coney Island then surprise some friends in Greenpoint--but what have we learned about what really happens when WGW wants to do something? Of course when I suggested this I may as well have been swallowing a sword. So instead I sat drinking Kentucky moonshine in New York while my wife and her friend talked about all the people in West Virginia that I don't know. Then the rain set in.
This is how I like my amusement parks. A little ominous--like an eighties child's cartoon with the villain drawn to appeal to the parents. With a staff whose very last priority is you having a good time. I want to give a pretty Middle Eastern boy in an alley $30.00 to park my car--and watch the nausea come over my travel companions as they debate whether or not we'll ever see him again. I want to watch people take wedding photos, then see them berated by knock-off Hello Kitty for not tipping her. I want to drink beer and eat knish at a boardwalk Go Go dance party (and you all know how I feel about Go Go).
I want to know there's still a good kind of wrong place in the world. Where the word freak isn't dirty. Where family friendly clashes with burlesque--cotton candy with dumpster dust. Where I can see the ocean from a cage in the sky.
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