Coney Island, Baby

OCTOBER 25, 2009

It was a sunny day, and we were already in the car so we decided to hit up Coney Island for a (final?) peek into the gaping maw of its faded glory before the Coney Island Development Corporation's strategic plan for rezoning and revitalization kicks into high gear, steamrolling the funk into a sanitized recreation and entertainment mecca. It’s hard to imagine that whatever gets built, rebuilt, or refurbished will come anywhere close to having the same entertainment value that the crusty layers of good old American folk art provide, but I guess we’ll see.

Nearly everything was either closed or torn down, but there were still a few holdouts, and it was warm enough to want to grab a couple of ice cream cones from one of them.

“This tastes funny,” said Deborah. “Taste.”

I took a lick and had to agree. “Yeah, tangy. Try mine.”

“Umm…yours is good.”

“Have as much as you want.”

“No, I’ll eat mine. I’m starving.”

At brunch earlier in the day, Deborah sent back her eggs Benedict. “This isn’t hollandaise sauce,” she said to the waitress.

“It’s our special hollandaise sauce,” the waitress replied.

The sauce was over eggs and tomato slices — no bacon of any kind, no English muffin or toast or anything like that. I mean, you could maybe make an argument for calling it Eggs Blackstone — maybe — but with nothing more than eggs, tomatoes, and a watery red sauce, it certainly wasn’t Eggs Benedict. And there was nothing on the menu to indicate that it was the restaurant’s own cheap-ass interpretation of the classic dish, either. When the waitress first brought the plate out, the first thing Deborah asked about was the lack of an English muffin. “This doesn’t come with bread or anything?”

“No, but I can get you some if you want.”

“Yes, please.”

The waitress returned a few minutes later with a basket of dinner rolls. “Here you go.”

Deborah tried to eat it, but after only two bites felt like a chump.

The waitress was understanding and asked Deborah if she wanted anything else.

“No, thanks.”

I took a knife to my rather plain breakfast burrito and gave half to Deborah. “That’s too much,” she said. “You don’t have to give me so much.”

“I’m not going to eat it all,” I said. “Honestly, I don’t like it.”

Anyway, back to Coney Island.

We took our cones and walked toward a bench to sit and watch the waves. An old woman stopped us before we sat down and asked us for a dollar.

“Sorry," I said. "We just spent our last dollar on rancid ice cream.”

After we sat down, I thought I sensed the woman still hovering nearby. I looked over my shoulder, but she was gone. “Where’d she go?” I said.

“Who?”

“That old lady. How’d she walk away so fast? She just disappeared.”

Deborah was preoccupied with wiping the chocolate off her scarf, which had been blown into her ice cream by the strong wind.

“Weird,” I said, handing Deborah my napkin. “I guess she must’ve been an angel — sent by god to test us,”

“Definitely,” said Deborah. “Scratch those two off the list.”

“Oh well.”

“I’ll tell you who we should’ve given a dollar to,” said Deborah. “Those guys we saw rockin’ out back there.”

“Did they have a hat or something? I didn’t even notice.”

We could still hear them from a couple of blocks away — a six-piece rock band playing Rolling Stones songs on the boardwalk. We stood with a small crowd and watched them for a few minutes before getting our ice creams. Deborah took a movie with her little camera, but it didn’t come out very well. I was busy taking a few still photos when she called to me from across the crowd: “Jamie.”

I walked over. “What’s up?”

“How much should I take?”

“You’re still taping?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s plenty.”

Yeah, I know, I know, “Taping.” Whatever. Then we got in our horseless carriage and rode home.