New Door Books
Social Media
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Catalog
    • Everything Is Borrowed
    • Hanah's Paradise
    • Mr. Boardwalk
    • The Shame of What We Are
    • The Speed of Clouds
  • Contact
  • All But True

Feeding Cigar Butts to Sea Lions

5/5/2014

0 Comments

 
Once Jason is exposed to Atlantic City, he never wants to be anywhere else. But he still has to go to school back in the Philadelphia suburbs, where his one friend is Skip. As the boys get older, they grow increasingly apart, and Skip gets heavily into drugs. When Jason finally convinces Skip to visit Atlantic City during the summer, the gap between them becomes obvious. In this scene at the far end of the boardwalk, the boys are stoned on weed that Skip brought from home:

We walked around the corner to Captain Starn's, a big seafood restaurant and commercial fishing dock. "What the fuck are they?" asked Skip, pointing at the cement enclosure of sea lions that kids could feed.

"Sea lions."

"They look like my grandmother."

We watched the sea lions wriggling and yowling in their pens. A little girl and her dad fed them fish from a blue bucket that said "Captain Starn's" on it. The sea lions barked and clapped and slurped down the fish.

Captain Starn's looked worn down. It needed fresh paint and the roof sagged. But the sounds were great—squeaky jibs, seagull caws and a salty breeze.

After a while I wasn't feeling stoned anymore. "Want to head back, say hi to my dad and all?" I asked.

Skip scratched his head. "Huh? Yeah, I guess," he said. "Whatever."

We leaned over the metal railing and took a last look at the sea lions. Skip stooped and picked up a cigar butt from the ground, wound up and pitched it into the pool. The sea lions didn't notice. "Why'd you do that?" I asked.

Skip snickered. "Huh? I dunno. I thought they'd eat it."

"But that might make them sick."

"Bullshit." Skip scanned the ground for something else to throw.

I didn't want to argue. How do you reason with a kid who's intent on feeding a cigar butt to a sea lion?
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    About the Author
    Order at Amazon
    Find at IndieBound

    "A heartfelt bildungsroman, a story of a man coming to terms with his complicated youth, and a vivid novel of place" 
    — Joe Samuel Starnes

    "Mr. Boardwalk is easily the best book I have read in years.... Very, very highly recommended." —Sand Pilarski in The Piker Press
    "Mr. Boardwalk is a must read and brings back so many great memories. You’ll love it." —Jerry Blavat, "The Geator with the Heator"

    Archives

    June 2017
    March 2017
    November 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014

    RSS Feed

New Door Books
2115 Wallace Street
Philadelphia, PA 19130
USA
Contact page
Proudly powered by Weebly
✕