Two Dead Ends (for Dave Mandl)
By Bob Rixon
I lived on a dead end street in Linden
New Jersey for twelve years. The street terminated at an unmarked entrance
to a county park bordering U.S. Route One. A funky bar at that end
of the block rented out a little picnic grove for political & Polish
Club picnics. For several of those years a young woman living in an apartment
across the street wore a bikini in the summer when she walked her dog. A
mildly retarded guy next door recycled my old newspapers - I didn't even
have to tie them up, he rolled a wheelbarrow around for them. Coincidentally,
a decade earlier my garage band had played at a Sweet Sixteen Party on
that obscure street, for a girl who had been kissed by George Harrison
when The Beatles arrived at McGuire Air Force Base.
Last summer, I walked on the "nature" boardwalk
behind the Rahway waste incinerator for the first & probably only
time. Beginning at a busy road, it winds along a tidal section of
Rahway River. The walk isn't made of boards, but of some
ugly plastic imitation that splits in the sun like old linoleum. The first
fifty yards were fine - nice view, chirping birds, neat little benches.
As I walked farther, behind the huge, windowless incinerator,
the pathway ominously began to deteriorate; broken benches; weeds
growing between the cracks, tangled brambles overhanging the fence,
ripping at my arms; overflowing trash cans. The boardwalk ended in a
cul du sac, a nasty, isolated place, desolate, rat-infested,
surrounded by high fences, at a bend in the river just short of
where it becomes navigable for small boats. A large, busy hornets
nest hung beneath a smashed bench. A perfect druggy hangout
- if the cops went back there any drugs could easily be tossed over the
fence & weeds into the river. If one were followed to that place
by a criminal, even in broad daylight, there is no escape, no one within
shouting distance, & one's body could be rotting there for days,
food for rats & seagulls, before being discovered by some horrified
crackhead. The owners of the incinerator were made to provide the "improvements"
as part of their deal with the city & the New Jersey Department of
Environmental Protection.
© Bob Rixon 2003
The wallpaper on this page is a satellite view
of where Great Bay Boulevard stretches across miles of salt
marsh, nearly reaching Long Beach Island, perhaps the best
dead end road in New Jersey.
