Princeton

I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon in Princeton, NJ and its environs. Having spent decades taking the piss out of my Jersey-born friends, based on both cultural tradition and the fact that anyone who has driven up the NJ Turnpike knows that it is not only a horrendous P in the A, but it also smells of paper mills and is polluted by the various toxic industries that continue to produce thneeds and other profitable eccentricities.

That, however, is not the case within the township of Princeton. A community of starched collars, khaki shorts and docksiders, of professorial whiskers and giggling coeds, of bourgeois decadence and intellectual intensity, I wandered the streets and arched alleyways for hours.

I also visited the old Canal and learned how it was dug by hand by Irish immigrant workers and at its peak carried more cargo than any other canal in existence. Canals seem to have been a bubble all of their own. An investor bought this one for a price based on total tonnage during its peak year which it never achieved again.

But the true highlight of the night was the opportunity to hear about the tragic life of a local man. Grabbing some grub at Triumph Brewery on the "happening" Nassau Street after speaking with Matty about the farcical state of our media and the rotten financial realities which have weakened our very ability to sustain the society which so many of our ancestors spilled blood for - the home of the free and the brave no more. Still lamenting our transition from a society by the people and for the people into a mechanical, interest perpetuating, consumption driven conglomerate of obedient automatons, I wandered down the long entryway and into the rowdy brew-pub. Seating myself heavily on an available corner stool, my spirits lifted significantly when a simple smiling beauty glided up to me to take my order. With a knowing glint in her eye, she filled a fresh pint and took my order.

Her eyes darted quickly over my shoulder as I felt a hand on my back and the slurred words of another patron. This turned out to be Nick. Nick knew the names of all the cute bartendresses and they knew his. Nick was drunk and irritated because a group of guys had made fun of him and changed the channel from the Bulls game to the hockey playoffs. She consoled him, and he cooed under her caring eye. Carolina, he said, they were mean to me. I know, she said, I know. Don't let them bother you. Do you want another beer? OK. Thank you... Hey, why are you leaving for Barcelona? I'm studying abroad. When? In June, you know that.

This caught my interest, so I cut in, oh, you're moving to Barcelona? I'm going there this summer too. She left to fill his beer.

Turning to Nick, I introduced myself.

She liked you, he said. Do you know her? Why was she looking at you like that?

Taken aback, I laughed, no, no, I just heard her say Barcelona.

She's beautiful, he said.

Yep. I said.

Nick was not only drunk but somewhat developmentally challenged, and despite wanting to be very social, he would get stuck on certain topics and preoccupations - most often relating to Caroline. He was unable to make direct eye contact. He jumped from topic to topic when nervous and always wanted to know where she was. At one point, he said to me in confidence, I have sad stories. Another nervous twitch and searching the bar for Caroline, he downed his beer.

My curiosity peaked, I offered to buy him a beer and asked him to tell me about his life. He perked up, sullenly. Really? you want to know? Of course, i love to hear about people's lives, and you seem like an interesting guy. Are you making fun of me? No. No. I'm just sitting here next to you and you said you have tragic stories and I'm by myself and thought you might want to share. You'll buy me a beer? Sure.

As it turns out, he grew up the son of a wealthy man. Attended Rutgers and went to law school but dropped out as he found it too challenging, but he convinced his father to buy him a beautiful car. Then, his father and mother died. They left him a small fortune. He went to Atlantic city. He lost it all, but not before becoming a man about town with comped everything and playing the high roller tables with Charles Barkley.

At a low moment, the would not let him back on the elevator to his room, and when he went to another casino, they told him to settle up his debts with the first. Having nothing left, he slinked home to his extended family. He tried to work and live a simple life but it was a struggle, and then lost his uncle who left him another fortune. Which he swiftly lost in the same manner.

He has been reduced to taking a train to Princeton to flirt with a girl half his age, getting drunk and being made fun of for his difficulties and then trying to find his way home. He told me a story of being arrested off a park bench and then driven home by the local cops.

I met some other people too, birthday parties, a beautiful Italian grad student on her way to start walking culinary tours of Cinque Terre and the patron of the place whose bushy beard was too stereotypical to be real.

At the end of the night, I saw nick, stumbling down the street to the train station, asking direction from every passing pedestrian, only to forget and ask again. As he wandered into the distance, approaching every gathering along the way, I wondered if he would make it.

I found out, on my way home an hour later, that the train had closed hours ago and that the station was a mile away. He must have known. Like a man speaking of a friend who might jump the bridge, he knew what lay ahead. As he told me, he would probably be sleeping on a bench somewhere before the greasy wheels rode down the rusted rails and took him home along the muddy canal and into the foggy morning, leaving him somewhere out of sight and mind. A soft shadow lingers on our minds, a fading voice from a foggy memory - stifled by his own tragedy, he may never emerge from beneath the eaves of his own experience. We will never see each other again, but we saw each other for a moment, shared a drink and then moved on. I wish him well.

On the way home, the moon shone on open fields and resisted my searching lens, but I was there, and the moment, inescapable, will exist forever.