Down the Shore

Copyright © 2018 Anita Fontana

Down the Shore

I grew up on the Jersey Shore in the tiny town of Elberon, with salt water in my veins and sand in my pores. There are dozens of photos of me in diapers, lying on a blanket, drowning in an enormous straw hat, laughing with my mom, dad and grandparents.

From the time I was a baby, my family spent summers at our beach house in Princess Bay, with a rope swing tied to a tree, and a screened-in porch where my sister and I lolled away the evening hours playing cards, board games or just gossiping.

My love of the sea runs deep and, even though it has been more than three decades since I have dipped my toes in the Atlantic, I can still see the waves rolling in, hissing up onto the scorching sand, forming pools left by the ebbing tide, the air smelling of salty wind, suntan lotion, and cigarette smoke.

The water in my slice of the Atlantic was cold, even on the hottest summer day. When I was a little kid, my mother would drag me out of the water kicking, screaming, and shivering, all the while insisting, “bbbut … I’m … nnnot … cccold,” the words bumping out of my blue lips. Swathed in an oversized beach towel, my mother anxiously rubbing my limbs, I was forbidden to go back in the water until long after my lips had returned to their original color and my shivering had stopped.

When I was around 8 or 9 we moved to Long Branch with its mile-long stretch of dark, grainy sand and the boardwalk along Ocean Avenue. It was there that I was introduced to the majestic beauty of the jetties; glistening, 30-ton black boulders where my mom occasionally took me and forced me to take the top of my swimsuit down.

“But I don’t want to take my top down,” I would protest.

“I want you to get sun on your chest; it’s good for you.”

“NO, I don’t want to! Everyone will see.” I whined, stomping my foot.

“Do as I tell you. No one can see. Besides, you don’t have anything to look at.”

Mortified and defeated, I gingerly untied the strings from around my neck, slowly pulling the top of my suit down. Even though we were away from the crowds, occasionally someone would walk by presenting the possibility of them seeing me lying there, feeling like a fool, my undeveloped chest exposed to the world. After a few minutes, I turned onto my stomach where, momentarily forgetting my humiliation, I watched tiny crabs gather at the base of the rocks, wiggling and climbing over each other, until I was allowed to go back into the water.

Looking back, by taking me to a deserted jetty down the beach, she probably was trying to protect my privacy. But the memory of my humiliation has never allowed me to forgive her.

When I was around ten, my mother’s health began to deteriorate and, by the time I was twelve, she had been moved into a hospital, spending the last two years of her life forcing my dad, Bill, to serially fire an assortment of private nurses for a variety of reasons. Her last nurse was a short, buxom redhead named Muriel who made my mother laugh with her beer-soaked humor. Unbeknownst to me, Bill had formed a friendship with this woman that grew into a romance. When my mom passed away, they dated for a respectable two years and married.

I liked her immediately. She was a good deal younger than Bill, she joked around with me, acted as a go-between when he was getting on my case, and loved me like a cool aunt. Unlike Bill, who knew nothing about raising a teenage girl, she took me shopping for clothes and bought me my first bra, dried my tears over a heartbreaking teacher’s crush, and helped me with my homework. I grew to depend on her to fill the hole my mom’s death had left.

My mother would get tipsy on a half a glass of wine on New Year’s Eve. In contrast, Muriel enjoyed her alcohol. In the beginning, I didn’t take much notice since I never saw her drunk. Then slowly, bottles began collecting on the kitchen counter, the fridge always fully stocked with beer. Because Muriel was a nurse, Bill began deferring to her medical knowledge whenever I was sick. Her prescriptions were always the same: Menstrual cramps—Hot Toddy. Head cold, sore throat, bad case of the flu—Hot Toddy.

She worked the 7:00 – 3:30 shift and, in the early days, she would be there when I got home from school. But a few months into the marriage, she began hanging out at her favorite bar after work and the days that she was home became fewer; even then, she usually came back in time for supper. When Bill started joining her at the bar and missing dinner, they began living inside their alcohol.

 I learned quickly to fend for myself. Eventually the evening meal together became a rare event relegated to holidays or when my sister was home from college. Their nights and weekends were spent at the bar drinking for hours, eventually rolling in around midnight, usually fighting.

By senior year, I was 5’5”, 105 lbs., bespectacled, and barely able to fill a size 32AA bra. Being a tall, skinny, flat-chested, opinionated teen didn’t exactly have the boys falling at my feet. I had had my first boyfriend in Junior High but no one again until I was around nineteen.

On the other hand, all my best friends were pretty, had already developed curvaceous figures early, and always came into our friendship with a well-established, devoted boyfriend on their arm.

In high school, I would acquire a new best friend at the beginning of each year. These friendships would last through the summer when, like the end of Daylight Saving Time signifies the weakening of the sun, our friendship would fade to a point where, at the beginning of the next school year we had simply moved on from one another; no fighting, no name calling, simply an unspoken, mutual agreement that it was time to see other people.

The best of my best friends was Linda; sweet, loyal, the prettiest girl in our grade; one of those extraordinarily voluptuous high schoolers whose bodies gave them no choice but to go out with older boys. Consequently, when we hung out together, the boyfriend usually tagged along.

Since I had failed my driver’s test at sixteen and subsequent tests thereafter, I wasn’t able to drive myself or anyone else to the beach. So, Linda and her boyfriend would pick me up in the late morning and, along with hundreds of other teens, we lived at the Long Branch Beach, about a mile-long stretch of sand, waves, jetties and the boardwalk along Ocean Avenue, until supper time. Monday through Friday the moms in town donned their one-piece bathing suits, put their hair in rollers, and deposited their kids on the beach for the day. Dads, on the other hand, who commuted to their jobs in Manhattan, only showed up on weekends.

The Summer between Junior and Senior year, after several unsuccessful trips to Newberry’s, the only and woefully understocked department store in town, I finally found the perfect two-piece bathing suit with padded cups. Later, in the privacy of my room, I strutted and posed in front of the mirror, admiring my new, albeit artificially enhanced, womanly shape.

That night, I was awakened at 2:30 in the morning by Muriel bursting through my bedroom door, switching on the overhead light, crying “Help! Help me! He’s trying to kill me!”

She climbed into bed with me, crying, shaking, and pleading, “Please help me, he’s a monster. He treats me like crap and then he expects me to have sex with him. How am I supposed to do that?” slurring her words and sobbing into my face, her stagnant beer breath turning my stomach.

Having survived several near-death experiences at his hand, I wasn’t completely convinced that I could protect myself, let alone her.

We lay clutching each other shaking, waiting for him to come up the stairs.

“Where are you? Where the hell are you?”

I heard him go into their bedroom across the hall then his footsteps in the hallway pounded their way toward my room. When he appeared in the doorway, the look on his face was a mixture of amusement and confusion. Not the reaction I was expecting. He stood looking at us for a moment then laughingly said, “What the hell are you doing? Get up and get into the bedroom.”

“No, I’m not going near you. You’re going to hurt me. You said you’d kill me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you know how I get sometimes. Get up and come with me. Let her sleep.”

It took more coaxing by me and him to finally calm her down enough where she could stagger toward their room. I got up quickly and, as I was closing my door, I heard a slap, a cry, and the slam of their bedroom door. I turned off the light and tried to go back to sleep. I didn’t hear anything more that night.

It was the sixties, the era of the Supremes, the Shirelles, the Ronettes and Bobby Darin. We danced to fast songs like “Rockin’ Robin,” “Splish Splash,” and “Dancin’ in the Street” and swooned over slow songs like “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “I Only Have Eyes for You” and “Teen Angel.” A time when the only music we heard was on the HiFi, the juke box, or a portable transistor radio. Along with towels, blankets, and suntan oil, every teenager in town packed a transistor radio into their beach bag. Mine was black with a gold grill and a little bar that pulled out to create a stand. These handy portables of every size, shape and color dotted the beach blankets, all tuned to the one radio station broadcasting the Top 40 out of Manhattan and flooding the beach with surround sound before it was even a germ of an idea.

Every couple of hours, stepping over beach blankets and avoiding side winding children, we headed to the boardwalk where we ate pounds of hot dogs and French Fries, drank gallons of soda, and got miles of salt water taffy stuck in our teeth.

Because every radio was tuned to the same rock and roll station, the music and commercials could be heard everywhere. Even the vendors on the boardwalk were smart enough to tune their radios to that mandatory station.

No matter where we were—in the water, on our blanket, or the boardwalk—when a fast song came on the radio, every teenager and some of the little kids, as if controlled by an invisible puppeteer, jumped up and danced. I swear I could feel the ground moving beneath my feet as we pounded the sand or the boards with our mad gyrations. My summers were spent living inside an Annette Funicello – Frankie Avalon movie.

The best way to cool off was to run into the sea and dive under an oncoming wave which, although they were only about four or five feet high, were exceptionally rough. So rough that this unforgiving horizontal blender would swirl me around, grind me into the sand while I held my breath, briny water assaulting my nostrils and trickling down my throat. When I was finally able to stand up wobbling and spitting, I would find the bottoms of my swimsuit down around my knees. This was such a common occurrence that, throughout the water, screams could be heard from girls new to the experience, frantically covering their private parts with one hand while struggling to pull up their bottoms with the other. I, on the other hand, was so used to these incidents, that I had learned to casually squat down in the water, unceremoniously pull my bottoms up and, exhausted from the pummeling waves, slog out of the ocean, seaweed tangled between my toes and wrapped around my ankles.

When I turned 17, I begged for my own phone in my room and was granted my wish. The Ma Bell guy came and installed the new line, plugged in my brand new cream-colored phone, and handed me my very own phone number on a piece of paper.

That same night, as often happened, they came home fighting. Up in my room all I could hear was yelling, cursing, things being broken, and furniture being moved around. The fight got so loud and scary that I decided, for the first time, to call the police.

I was terrified. I didn’t know what Bill would do if he found out it was me. I quietly closed my door so he wouldn’t hear, tiptoed to my bed, picked up the receiver and dialed zero. The cheerful woman chirped, “Operator, how may I help you?”

“Please send the police. They’re screaming and fighting again and I’m afraid someone’s going to get hurt.”

Calmly, “What is your address dear?”

My hand shaking, my voice trembling, I whispered my address into the receiver.

“Who are you? Are you a neighbor?”

“Yes!” She had given me a way out. She and the police didn’t have to know the call was coming from inside the house and from a relative. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“I hear them all the time.” I said, a little more confidently now. “I’m getting sick and tired of all the noise. They wake me up in the middle of the night.”

“Would you like to leave your name and phone number?”

“NO! Absolutely not. I don’t want them to know.”

“Fine. The police are on their way.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I whispered, silently placing the receiver back into the cradle.

I sat on the edge of the bed swallowing hard, trying to stop shaking. I peeked through the curtains watching for the police car to pull up in front of our house. I saw them arrive and walk toward the front door. When the doorbell rang, the fighting stopped. I calmly walked down the stairs as if everything were normal. By the time I got to the bottom, Bill was standing in the doorway calmly talking to the policemen.

His demeanor was that of a perfectly placid man who had been interrupted from his normal nightly routine. He looked surprised and somewhat embarrassed. I hovered on the bottom step, watching my father’s humiliation knowing that someone had finally called him on his behavior. He was no longer in charge. He was being questioned by someone with more authority than him. He wasn’t the boss of us anymore. It was an unfamiliar and triumphant feeling.

One officer questioned him and he blew the whole thing off, laughing and joking with the guy, saying “You know how women are. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.”

The cops looked around the room and spotted me, which drew Bill’s attention in my direction. It was clear that he didn’t know I had been standing there.

“Can you believe someone called the police?” he laughed in my direction.

I shrugged looking puzzled. He obviously didn’t suspect it was me because he turned toward the cops and asked, “Who called you?”

“A neighbor, sir. They complained about the noise and fighting.”

“A neighbor, huh. Well that’s pretty strange. Which neighbor?”

“I’m sorry sir, I can’t reveal that.” He looked at Muriel whose face was red and puffy from crying and asked, “Are you ok ma’am? Do you want to press charges?”

She shook her head no and sat down burying her face in her hands.

“OK, as long as everyone’s alright, we’ll be on our way. But keep the noise down, ok?”

“OK, officer,” Bill chuckled. “Thanks for stopping by.”

He turned around, looked at Muriel, then me. I met him with a steady gaze, my face revealing no emotion.

It was December and I had decorated the house for Christmas. He grabbed the wreath off the front door, walked over to Muriel and jammed it over her head down to her neck.

“There,” he said. “Wear that for a while.”

“Bill, how could you?” She cried.

He turned and walked toward the kitchen. I climbed the stairs to my room and blasted a Barbara Streisand album.

For two weeks every August the ocean ran thick with jelly fish which meant we couldn’t go into the water. Several times a day, low tide would deposit hundreds of the slimy critters on the wet sand to die in the scorching sun. Inevitably, there would be a group of boys who found it amusing to scoop them up and throw them at unsuspecting girls. Amid the music and the crashing of the waves, screeching girls could be heard running across the sand attempting escape from the jelly fish pitchers doggedly trailing behind. It was always a joy to see one of these jerks get stung by a not-yet-completely-dead but determined gelatinous animal. While moaning in pain, those of us watching this spectacle showed no sympathy for the injured and, in fact, laughed and shouted, “It serves you right!”

During those two interminable weeks of the jelly fish invasion, sweltering in the late Summer heat was made only slightly more bearable by hiding under a giant green canvas umbrella loaned out at a concession stand, tended by a bored, brown-limbed teenage boy, a cigarette precariously dangling from the side of his mouth. We were only able to spend at most 10-15 minutes in the sun working on our tans before taking refuge under the only marginally cooler shade of the umbrella. We lay limply staring out at the beckoning water, listening to the gulls filling the sky with their screams and watching them plunge into the sea, emerging with still flopping fish in their bills.

Back then, no one had ever heard of harmful UV rays or sun block. Why would anyone try to block the rays of the sun when the whole purpose of going to the beach was to develop a golden tan as fast as possible? One Summer, a rumor went around that if you rub vinegar on your body before applying suntan oil, your tan would get deeper faster. I can’t vouch for its effectiveness, but I can verify that we all smelled like salad dressing. That fad died that summer.

On weekends, my friend Linda was often with her boyfriend, so Bill would drive me to the beach mid-morning and pick me up around dinnertime. My favorite place to spend my alone time was on a jetty. For a very practical reason, jetties were built with massive black rocks weighing up to 30 tons each to prevent beach erosion. But to me the jetties were an enchanted place to get away from the crowds and be alone with my thoughts; dangerous places, jutting far out into the ocean, where waves crash into and over them. I would walk along the shoreline, navigating my way through the mine field of cigarette butts, seaweed, and shiny black muscle shells that cut my feet, until I found a deserted jetty.

Gingerly tottering out as far as I dared, hazardously sliding on the slippery flat-top boulders, I would find the perfect spot and lay my towel on the polished surface. Lying on the unyielding boulders was uncomfortable but worth the pain. There, nearly 50 ft. out into the water, the sound of the waves was more violent than at the shore; a hollow slapping that formed shallow pools on the lower rocks. As the tide rolled in, the waves sprayed salty water over my body, shocking and cooling my toasting skin. I would sit for hours, watching the blue of sea made up of dozens of different hues where, out in the distant depths, fishing boats rocked and swayed at anchor. As the sun dipped lower at my back and the breeze off the ocean blew in a moist chill, I knew it was time to leave my beloved jetty. Walking along the nearly deserted beach, the sand cool and damp under my feet, I’d head up to the boardwalk where Bill would be waiting to take me home.

Since Bill was Italian, Muriel had decided to learn how to make spaghetti sauce. She would spend hours on a Saturday leaning over her cookbook, refusing my offers of help and muttering to herself while frantically running around the kitchen, gathering ingredients, cutting tomatoes, onions, and garlic. I always suspected that this was an elaborate display to show Bill what a talented chef she was and what an enormous sacrifice she was making for her husband. Blending all the ingredients into a large pot she would simmer it for hours until it was a thick rich sauce. This was done mid-afternoon and the plan was to serve dinner around 6:00 or 6:30 p.m.

Off to the bar they would go, and it was my responsibility to check the flame under the pot and stir the sauce periodically, so it wouldn’t burn. Leaving this task up to a goofy teenager might seem like folly to some. But, being a responsible kid who craved her parents’ acceptance, I dutifully did my job perfectly, checking the clock every 20 minutes to remember to watch over the sauce.

Six o’clock came and went and, when they weren’t home, I called the bar and was told they would be leaving soon. Seven o’clock came and went and they still weren’t home. Called the bar again and was informed they were on their way. When I asked if I should turn the stove off, I was told “Just keep stirring. We’ll be home soon.” By eight o’clock the bartender informed me that they had just left. By then the sauce had reduced to half the amount and the edges of the pot had gotten crusty.

They staggered in, drunk and I heard Muriel head directly for the kitchen. I was in the basement sewing when she started screaming, “Anita, what did you do? My sauce is ruined. Get up here.”

I rushed up the stairs to the kitchen. She was weaving and mumbling “irresponsible kid” while stirring the sauce erratically.

“What the hell were you doing? I told you to stir the sauce.”

“I did, I stirred it about every 20 minutes.”

“No, you didn’t. Look at this mess, there’s only half of what I started with. You’re lying.”

“I’m not lying. I stirred it just like you told me to, but you were supposed to be home around six.”

“Don’t tell me what I was supposed to do. You were supposed to be watching it.”

This went on for a while, getting nowhere. I finally stalked off to the basement and didn’t have dinner that night.

Summer nights were often spent six miles south of Long Branch in Asbury Park, the two towns being so close together as to become one in my mind. With the sound of the waves crashing on the beach below the boardwalk, its magic came from a small assortment of rides and concessions that, in the dark with the cool ocean breeze, created a blessed escape from the heat. In my opinion at the time, it was the most breathtaking amusement park on earth. The fact that I had never been to another amusement park was irrelevant.

Driving down Ocean Avenue, the first captivating vision was a round building with a domed roof. Peeking through beveled glass windows was the distorted image of the twinkling lights on the merry-go-round. Mirrors surrounded the inner core reflecting rows of brightly painted wooden horses mounted on posts, some of which moved up and down to simulate galloping, accompanied by looped, lilting circus music.

Beyond that perfect spectacle were the roller coaster, the Tilt a Whirl, and other assorted rides of the day. Farther down the boardwalk, the long, dimly-lit pier, lined with benches occupied by lovers, extended far out into the ocean. At the end of the pier, the blinking lights of the boats on the black water created an eerily dreamy vision. My friends and I wiled away our nights wandering the boardwalk, eating cotton candy, going on the rides, and flirting with boys.

Other nights I slept over at Linda’s house as often as I could, calling boys, hanging up and laughing ‘till we fell off the bed. Call Freddie’s Pizza Parlor, the only one in town, and send 5 large pizzas to the home of some girl we hated. Next, call the taxi company and send a cab over to her house. Then the florist. Order the biggest, most expensive bouquet. Shop keepers were a lot more naive in those days.

The greatest moments were if Linda happened to live across the street or just down the block from the object of our hatred. We would rush to the front window, pushing and shoving each other and watch the taxi pull up to the house, see the front door open and her mom or dad animatedly deny that they had ordered a cab. Squeals of laughter. Then the delivery guy juggling 5 large pizzas. This time the dad furiously shouting and waving his arms. The pizza guy would shout and attempt unsuccessfully to wave his arms. Finally, the delivery of the flowers, watching the poor guy struggling with an enormous, gaudy arrangement—more yelling and arm waving.

The best scenario was if the taxi, the pizzas, and the flowers all arrived at the same time. That was too much to bear. Tears rolling down our cheeks, arms sore from punching each other, and doubled over in pain, we were hoarse from laughing.

After graduation, I went away to school. A few years later Bill passed away from a heart attack and, soon after, Muriel sold our house and moved to Florida.

No more house near the Jersey Shore. No more short drive to the beach. I truly couldn’t go home again. I was on my own for the first time. What was left of my family was my sister living in Newark, and my grandfather and great aunt who lived in Manhattan.

Years later, a friend and I rented a house within walking distance of my summer refuge. We opened the door, threw our bags down and hurriedly changed into our swim suits and beach coverups, slipped into our sandals and packed up our beach bags.

Strolling toward the sea, the old feelings overtook my senses. The music and aromas coming from the boardwalk, still littered with hundreds of bathers, offered up the same shops and amusements. The salt water taffy stands, their sugary perfume tickling my nostrils, still thrived. I felt the familiar crunch of the grainy brown sand under my feet. The sea still awed me, with its shades of blue and turquoise so deep it made me dizzy. The jetties still held on to their gleaming, rugged majesty.

But gone were the transistor radios playing synchronized music. No more teens gyrating in unison to rock and roll tunes. No more aroma of vinegar and oil wafting through the air. Just a vaguely familiar tourist attraction that brought with it fond memories of a life no longer possible. I was a city girl now and trips down the shore took two or three hours on the New Jersey Turnpike in bumper to bumper traffic.

I’ve made peace with the fact that I’ll probably never see that slice of the Atlantic again and I no longer yearn to go back. Now my dream is to visit the other coast, find a quiet beach and, as the pale rays of the afternoon sun streak across the horizon, feel the power and beauty of the Pacific swirling around my legs