Shore Stories

“New Jersey’s 127-mile stretch of coastline, running from Sandy Hook to Cape May Point, provides the inspiration for this solid collection of short stories, photographs, essays and poems. Writer and editor Youmans (Down the Jersey Shore) rallies such well-known Garden State loves as John McPhee, Robert Kotlowitz, Robert Pinsky, Stephen Dunn and Gay Talese, as well as less celebrated regional writers like John Mahoney and Sandy Gingras. Satisfying entries include John Bailey Lloyd’s turn-of-the-century ghost story, ‘A Strange Incident At Bond’s Hotel’...” —Publishers Weekly

“It is hard to imagine a reader who will not find something to delight in, and that pleasure will not be restricted to those familiar with the Jersey Shore.”
—The Trenton Times

“This book is a capsule of our lives on the Shore over the years of our now-fading century ... Savor this handsome volume of new and old prose and poetry that treats the Jersey Shore from Sandy Hook to Cape May.”
— The Star-Ledger

''A compelling, evocative collection of short stories, essays and poems.... What comes across loud and clear from each selection is the unmistakable ring of authenticity.'' — Asbury Park Press

“A wonderfully evocative assortment of fiction, essays, poems and photographs... Shore Stories is a good book for reading at the beach. It’s an even better book to take home with you, along with the sand on the car floor and the seashells in your pocket, as a wonderful reminder of a wondrous place — the shore”
— The Beachcomber, Long Beach Island

''... Everything in this collection is exceptional... highly evocative and beautiful writing.'' — Wings

“New Jersey’s 127-mile stretch of coastline, running from Sandy Hook to Cape May Point, provides the inspiration for this solid collection of short stories, photographs, essays and poems.” — Publishers Weekly

Introduction, by Rich Youmans.

When I was growing up in Philadelphia, summers were not complete without a trip to the Jersey Shore. At least once every season, my parents would pack me and two or three suitcases into our '62 Chevy and go cruising over the Delaware. Once in New Jersey, we'd travel along busy Route 73 for a while until, like cedar water finding its level, we'd wander down onto the backroads of the Pine Barrens. For several hours, we'd pass little more than pine, weathered farmstands, and the occasional campy monstrosity (like a 20-foot spaceman before the entrance to an amusement park). Finally, when the air turned cooler and took on the tang of salt, we knew we'd arrived. As we crossed the bridge into Ocean City, the water of Great Egg Harbor popping with sun below us, the sky seemed to grow larger and brighter, and summer officially began. We were Down the Shore.

It's a phrase that has nothing to do with directional accuracy and everything to do with place ;and promise. When I was ten, Down the Shore meant sandcastles on the beach, rides and miniature golf on the boardwalk, and wave upon wave on which to ride, until my parents had to force me back to our rented apartment. When I was eighteen, Down the Shore meant clubs and girls: the fever of youth. By the time I was 23, the Shore had become my home, but the lures that attract so many visitors ;the beaches, the boardwalks, the cool sea breezes, seemed no less wondrous for their familiarity.
Fifteen years later, I no longer live along the shore, but those three words, Down the Shore, still conjure scenes and sensations that remain as vivid as the day they occurred. Of course, my experience is by no means unique. It is shared by the countless numbers who migrate each summer to that 127-mile stretch of coastline from Sandy Hook to Cape May Point, as well as by the many who have decided to make a piece of that stretch their home. For all of them, the Jersey Shore is an idea, a way of life, a region that moves to the rhythm of the waves. It is not Utopia ;just ask anyone who has seen an ecosystem disrupted by explosive over development, or have had their lives upended by a tropical storm or hurricane. But take a walk along the beach and, more times than not, the problems of daily life disappear over the dunes, replaced by the endless sweep of sunlight, sea, and horizon. This is life along the Jersey Shore, and it is what this anthology tries to capture.

The stories, poems, essays, and photographs in this book are a diverse lot. Some give a child's-eye view of the shore: the awe in crossing a bridge or standing on a deck, high above water. Some present that period when teenagers first cross into the responsibilities of adulthood, while others show adults facing those responsibilities and accepting them. There are works that focus on the natural environment, and works that take their cue from historical events. William Wharton's novel Pride, for example, was inspired by an actual event that occured in October 1938, when a lion named Tuffy; part of a motorcycle act on the Wildwood boardwalk ;escaped from its cage and killed a man. And the series of stories and poems about Atlantic City (the largest section of the book) cover much of the 20th century, from the days of rum-running to the current era of legalized gambling. There's even a good old-fashioned ghost story, with plenty of local color and history.
Yet, as different as their styles and subject matter may be, all of these works share the spirit, the romance, of life by the sea. I and all the writers, poets, and photographers represented on these pages would like you now to experience that spirit for yourself. So relax, sit back, and enjoy the trip.

Excerpt:
“The Finished Sound”
by Sandy Gingras

Edgar lives in an apartment on Long Beach Island overlooking Mr. Cee’s Putt-Putt Golf. Mr. Cee never oils his moving obstacles so they all squeak and groan. It makes me crazy when I go over there — especially that yellow clown that keeps putting his foot down and raising it.
When Edgar first moved in, he was annoyed by the whir of the little windmill, the raucous bells when somebody won a free game, all the people bending and putting, bending and putting, as if there was nothing better to do. But now he’s grown to love the sound of golf balls falling into holes. “It’s a nice finished sound,” he tells me. We’re in my bayside apartment, and I know what he’s getting at.
I close my eyes and sigh. I’m thirty-five — too old for this. I can’t say, “I don’t know. I can’t figure things out. I’m not ready yet,” anymore. Edgar wants me to move in with him. More than that, he’s ready to cash in his E bond and buy me a ring.
I go in the bedroom and fake sleep. I listen to his steps approaching, the splashing noises in the bathroom, the slide of his clothes, the click of the light. He gets into the bed carefully and lies still in his own indentation. I think of a boy making an angel in the snow and forgetting to make the wings. My body leans toward his.
The next day at work at the newspaper, I have to keep taking breaks. I’m the news editor, and it’s gotten so that I wish every story was just a paragraph, or even just one sentence. I can’t stand all the stuff about he said, she said, all the nuance and complexity that got me into this business in the first place. Now I cross it all out. “Get to the point,” I keep telling the reporters. Today there are red slashes all over the stories I’ve been reading; there’s almost nothing left of them. I know I can’t go on this way.
I call two of my married friends. I ask them how they decided to get married. Both of the stories involve wine. I write down on my “To Do” list: Wine — Red?
When I meet him for dinner, he says, “What’s up?” I know what he’s asking. He’s given me a week to decide, and it’s been four days. “You’re stalling,” he says. “You must know what you want?”
This restaurant is full of air plants that need no soil or pots. They’re hanging on strings over our heads like puppets with no feet. They sway and rustle slightly with every air draft. I bat at one and send it whirling around in a circle. “Remember tether ball?” I ask him. He shakes his head.
Throughout the rest of the meal, I study him hard. I pretend I don’t know him. I ask myself if I would want to meet him. I angle my head and squint like artists do to see contrasts. My eyes gravitate to certain parts of his body. It’s as if there were magnets embedded in his cheek bones, his neck, his forearms. I know I’m not seeing the whole picture, even squinting. If there’s one thing I can’t trust it’s my eyesight, next is my taste in men, next is my intuition. I wonder if I rely on my senses too much. I think maybe I should do those exercises that the eye doctor told me to do: focus on something close and then something far away. Then I realize I do that all the time; I can’t stop doing that.
After dinner, he comes over to my place and, while we’re watching TV, the screen goes blank. He fiddles with the wires behind it while I say, “No. Not yet. Nope,” for what seems like hours.
He says, “I’ll make a new connection for you.”
I hesitate, thinking of his neat garage with shiny tools hanging on their own pegs, glass mayonnaise jars with sized bolts and screws, labels on each one. Edgar believes that living is an assembly problem. I mean, he really believes that. He thinks that if he gets the parts and follows the directions carefully, something solid will be built. I don’t know anymore if this is wisdom or unbearable innocence, so I say, “I’ll just wait.”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“Time sometimes works on mechanical things.”
“You need a new part,” he argues.
“Maybe it’ll work later,” I say.
“What do you have against logic anyway?” he says.
I remember my relatives telling me, “You’ll know if he’s the right one.” They never said anything about the possibility of bad reception, of knowledge flying by me as invisibly as electricity while I wait on my couch for a clear picture.
On my lunch break at work, I make the list of pros and cons that all my friends have been advocating. I list all the things I like about him: “That blue and white flannel shirt; the gray in his mustache; the way he says ‘I got you’ when he holds me; the way he rubs his dog’s throat....” Then I write the things I don’t like: “How many wrenches he has; those geometric sheets; the persistent way he cooks dinner (i.e. the way he keeps patting things with a spatula).” These lists make my shoulders bunch up. I total them up, but that doesn’t seem to be enough. I wonder if I should subtract or divide. I do both. I come up with 17 and 2.4.
I was never any good at math story problems. The teacher with the string tie had to keep me after school every Wednesday in 5th grade. He would repeat in a patient way, reassigning emphasis to different words: “If JANE goes on train A.... If Jane GOES on train A....” I’d stare down at the yellow desk and let the words choo-choo by. I’d smile regretfully, sure that this would always be a sticking point.
That night, there’s a storm. The moon and tides and wind and rain align overnight, and the island is buried. I wake up and there’s a flood around my house like a liquid lawn stretching out into the bay. The bay swarms over the bulkhead; it swells out of the storm drains. It’s everywhere. The road is gone. My neighbor’s zinnias stick their skinny necks out of the water like desperate umbrellas — red and pink and yellow. My truck’s tires then doors are lapped by waves. The electricity goes quietly out.
Edgar and his dog Sammy are stuck with me in my house. They’re both pacing. I sit on my plaid skirted couch feeling oddly cozy in this flimsy cottage swaying on its pilings in the battering rain. I think that this is what marriage is. Another part of me argues that this is a weather anomaly, but the other part is more sure: This is marriage. Even at low tide, the water barely recedes, and we can’t leave.
Edgar has to put on waders to get the canoe from the garage just so he can put his dog in it and row her to the ocean side, up to the high ground of the dunes so she can get out and pee. He keeps coming back drenched and wild-eyed, carrying things — a large piece of a fish jaw with black teeth, driftwood shaped like a fat nude woman (there’s a hole that goes all the way through her for a belly button)—giving these things to me so I can find a place for them. I line the objects up on the kitchen table like hypothetical wedding gifts.
The wind keeps shoving at the house. “Oh,” I say when the house moves.
“A house on pilings is built to move,” he keeps telling me.
“I know, I know,” I say.
For dinner, we have canned beefaroni and canned asparagus. We light candles and spoon up our mushy food while the water rises under the house. We imagine it rising. It’s too dark to see, but we know that the tide is coming in again.
“You want dessert?” I ask him.
He sticks his finger right through the driftwood woman’s belly and wiggles it at me beckoning.
“What?” I say.
He just keeps on beckoning.
“What?”
He won’t stop until I bend my head down and look through the hole. Then he withdraws his finger and puts his face down and looks at me through the hole. All I see is this big eye winking at me.
“I don’t get it,” I tell his eye.
“I see right through you, baby,” he says.
“Oh yeah?” I say, and pick up the jaw bone and put it in front of my mouth. “Now what do you see?”
He reaches over and snaps one of the teeth off. A big one just comes off in his hands. I can’t believe it. “So what?” I say.
He puts the tooth between his lips, and it looks like a big hole in the middle of his smirk. The he chases me around humming that “dum-dum dum-dum” shark music. Maybe I hate him a little as I throw pillows at him and hurdle over the couch into the dark living room, but I can’t stop laughing either. He spits the tooth out by the time he catches me, but I swear he still tastes like something fierce when he kisses me. I could have told him then that I loved him, that I’d marry him, but I didn’t. Instead, I just listened to the storm, and it sounded like it was rushing right through us.
By the next day, I guess I’m used to being surrounded by water. I don’t even look for glimpses of land anymore. I trust the pilings under the house so absolutely it’s a kind of purity of denial. Now I understand why people get so hooked on faith. Why it makes them want to sing. It’s concentration of energy into something that doesn’t deserve it. It’s crazy. I vow that IF this storm is ever finished, WHEN this storm is finished, I’ll get a piling sunk into my yard and paint it and carve it like a totem. I’ll dance around it and sacrifice things to it. I’ll worship the mad concept of having thin legs to stand on.
I expect the same of him somehow, but Edgar can’t sit still. He’s nervous. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. If he were out there slinging sand bags or battening hatches, he’d be fine. But he’s not. He’s on my couch flipping the pages of New Woman magazine, impatient to get somewhere.
By afternoon, the wind slows and the rain is less sheeting and absolute; the waters seem to have peaked. Now it’s just a matter of waiting. I know that something in both of us is disappointed. We’ll find out later that the eye of the storm didn’t really hit us, that it veered off at the last moment and headed back out to sea. When I hear this, it doesn’t surprise me. In my experience, most things hold themselves back like this, hint at their full potential, then tuck into themselves and wait for next time.
Copyright © 1998 Sandy Gingras. All rights reserved.