Moto Sex On The Beach...

At the height of last summer, I found myself inhaling clams on the half-shell, between swigs of Baccardi and Coke, at the bar of the Aztec, which in my opinion is one of the great modern dives of the Jersey Shore. In the early ’60’s, Seaside Heights, NJ, was nothing less than a kind of Riviera for the families of cops and firemen from Jersey City. My folks always rented a little house here for two weeks, about six blocks from the beach. The houses were tight and unair-conditioned, but so was most of Jersey City and this place had the advantage of an ocean and a beach. It also had a boardwalk with rides, which to an eight-year-old was the equivalent of Disneyland or a world’s fair.

But meaning no disrespect to the folks of this community, Seaside Heights has matured into the painted whore of the Jersey Shore. My writing skills put me in a similar editorial category. (Not that you could find whores in Seaside Heights, which I think would be an added attraction.) The Aztec is an open-air bar fronting the amusement pier and squats on the boarded runway, perfect for viewing some of the skimpiest bathing suits to barely cover a squirrel. I had gotten there early in the day, around 11:45am, when it was still possible to find a nearby parking spot for my K75 and a barstool overlooking the action for myself.

More than anything else, I wanted a glass of tomato juice (flavored with horseradish, clam broth, worcestershire sauce, and a strong hint of Moscow), but the famous Jersey Shore heat had already turned the inside of my helmet into an oven, and I demanded a Tom Collins instead. And I wanted a huge shrimp cocktail right alongside it too.

“A pound of peel and eat?” asked the bartender, pouring the gin, and speaking around a toothpick.

Peel and eat shrimp are typically the little runty ones, that while good, are usually hot and not what I had in mind.

“No... I want ten “jumbos” or even “colossals” if you have them,” I said, “in a shrimp cocktail as big as my ass.”

I knew I was pissing in the wind looking for colossal shrimp in a joint like this. I doubted I’d find them anywhere in blue collar Seaside. A colossal shrimp is to what you will find in a chain restaurant or a joint as to what the Hindenburg Zeppelin is to my cigar.

“No colossals,” said the bartender, who was turning out to be the warm conversationalist I’d anticipated.

The Tom Collins was a regulation shot of Gordon’s gin (less a hair at the rim), industrial strength sour mix, and club soda over ice. It was the kind of collins I would have expected in Rahway, the New Jersey State Penitentiary. But mixing a Tom Collins is about art, and there are damn few artists tending bar in Seaside Heights at 11:45am, on a Saturday. Certainly none at the Aztec. This is why I drink simple Baccardi and Coke in the summer... Only a moron can fuck it up, though it is possible. I once had a bartender, who looked like he was 11-years-old, pour me a spiced rum and vanilla Coke. This was like drinking “flit.” And he was pissed when I made him take it back. (Make sure you write in to me if you remember what “flit” was. A free copy of my book to the first reader who mentions it in the comments.)

The shrimp cocktail was perfect. Each jumbo shrimp had been steamed to perfection and iced to the temperature of Hagen Daz. Firm, sweet, and offering but momentary resistance to the teeth, these were the flavor of the shore. And the red cocktail sauce wasn’t bad either. I added a few drops of Tobasco sauce to kick things up.

“Another collins,” asked the bartender. (He may have been training to become a game show host, but was using up his conversational abilities quickly.)

“Baccardi and Coke,” I said. “A double.”

Asking for a double these days can be dicey. In Chester County, Pennsylvania, where Amish separatists are working their way into power, a number of bars will no longer pour a double. But on this day, the Constitution was fully respected in the Aztec.

I was halfway through the shrimp when a young guy, about 23, put his hand on the stool to my left. “Anyone sitting here?” he asked.

“Not until now,” I replied, hiding my disappointment that it would be him.

He smiled and put a helmet that must have cost $980 on the floor. You know the type of helmet: red and black graphics preferred by “Garkull, the Killer Lord of Centuri 9.” His bike was a red and black Killabusa 9400, with a back tire as thick as a tree trunk. His riding gear consisted of a sleeveless tee shirt and baggy shorts, with sandals on his feet. He had the physique of an amateur weight-lifter and the nonchalance of an investment banker. (Of the two bikers, guess which one of us was going to get laid 56 times this weekend?)

He ordered a “Sex On The Beach” and it was all I could do to subdue a smirk. But then I thought, “Why not? I’d order that two if I thought I could get it.”

“What are you drinking?” he asked, pleasantly enough.

“Spiced rum and vanilla Coke.”

“I’ll try that next,” he said with a smile. “That your old BMW parked at the curb outside?”

“Yeah... It is. How could you tell?”

“Well, you’re the only guy at a shore bar wearing yak leather crash boots and Kevlar® branded jeans, with a pair of leather gloves in your belt,” he said.

“You called it,” I said, thinking, “Go fuck yourself, kid.”

“My grandfather had a bike like that,” said the kid.

“Did he ride it to Lincoln’s inauguration?”

The kid recognized a joke (even though it wasn’t on FaceBook) and busted out laughing... “I don’t think they had motorcycles back then.”

“Sure they did,” I said. “That was the year BMW introduced fuel injection as standard equipment. Most of the industry followed in 2008.”

The kid was okay, and went on to tell me he was here to “hook up” a woman he’d met at a party the week before. She’d been with her boyfriend of several years then and needed a few days to throw him from a moving car, or so the kid understood.

I didn’t recall that the mating rituals of my early 20’s were as cut and dried as that, but then again, I was a slow bloomer. In fact, I was like one of those plants that blooms once every ten years, before eating the farmer’s cattle.

The kid was in the process of telling me how he is able to make a perfect “stoppie,” with the back wheel four feet in the air — while texting — when the woman showed up. And in truth, if I was 23, I would have thrown her asshole boyfriend out of the car myself. She was a redheaded pheromone whose very shape was defined by a tan. With a smile crafted by a graphic dental artist and eyes that tied a knot in my DNA, she introduced herself as “Dina.” I grinned in acknowledgement as I couldn’t make my mouth utter a sound. He finished the drink, and the two of then went down to the “Killabusa.” Her riding gear appeared to be sunscreen #23 and a bra from Victoria’s Secret. She wrapped around him like an ad for foreplay and the two of them roared off.

There is nothing like seeing how an expert does something to show you how you are not doing it. And yet the kid’s technique lacked something in the way of elegance... Missing was a hint of poetry... Gone was the Bogie and Bacall back and fourth that requires a man to shift gears while sitting at the bar too. Naturally, I’d have liked to have had the benefit of the kid’s perspective, but on my terms... In my words.

Above: Silver screen legend Lauren Bacall. Photo from Wikipedia.

Above: Humphrey Bogart knew how to communicate with women. Photo From Wikipedia.

This whole incident caused me to look back with a sad kind of introspective.

I have very few regrets in my life, but one of them is never really experiencing sex on the beach... Nor on the dunes... And not under the boardwalk. (I also regret not writing for television and the screen at age 25, and I regret not locking my first mother-in-law in a closet with a hive of killer bees.) I have had some really good times at the shore, but never the fantasy I had in mind. Still, I was a kid with a motorcycle once, and had the kind of times that so many people fantasize about. The K75 didn’t look like the type of bike that would get me laid in Seaside Heights. Maybe in Maine, though.

There is nothing like the sensation of the life of a motorcycle, surging into your own, through the handlebars. It is my dream to ride a modified BMW K1200 from Seaside Heights, NJ to Eureka, CA, getting laid on the beaches of both places in the process. (It would be cool if it was with the same woman.) And in making this dream happen, I am going to unleash so many others, with each one attached to a story. I hope that young kid took that woman back to someplace intimate, poured her a spiced rum and vanilla Coke, slipped her panties off — and discovered she was a guy. Every story needs a surprise ending. I wonder what mine will be.

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©Copyright Jack Riepe 2012

The Motorcycle And The Pushcart Girl At The Mall...

There are four times during year when I can be consumed by the holiday spirit (and one of these occasions isn’t even a real holiday). What these days have in common with each other is that they can be (and should be associated) with great parties. These holidays are New Year’s Eve, The Fourth of July, Halloween, and Christmas. New Year’s Eve is best celebrated in the company of 25 or 30 close friends, who will have a light dinner, heavy drinks, and welcome another 365 days of friendship when the new year is born. (And New Year’s Day will see the Mac-Pac assemble at a local diner for a traditional pork and sauerkraut lunch, and the first ride of the year for many.)

The Fourth of July (Independence Day in the United States) needs no explanation. Hard, fast riding; swimming in a lake or river; shooting skeet; beef and shrimp sizzling on coals; explosive fireworks at night; and red hot romance (when possible) make this the holiday weekend of choice. It is one time during the year when the party can rage for three days. I remember one such weekend at the country retreat of my friend Ricky Matz. We had been up howling at the moon around a campfire until 4am. Less than three hours later, the walking wounded were crashed around a table in a traditional farmhouse kitchen. The aroma of rum, vodka, and Bourbon hung heavy in the air, as six individuals sat with aching heads in their hands. Then “Stitches” pumped the rock classic “Sedated” (by the Ramones) through speakers that were 6 feet tall (in the house), and Bloody Marys were served for breakfast.

Halloween is no slouch either. Sort of the US equivalent of the Feast of the Dead (Mexico), Halloween parties (with costumes) celebrate the harvest and the wardrobe ingenuity of the average person. I used to throw costume parties at my place in the Adirondacks that attracted stage set designers, artists, singers, musicians and other writers. One year, Rowan Mulvey (one of the most unique women I have ever met) organized a secret cadre, and everybody came to the party as me. I remember another year when set designer and stained glass artist Janice Hoffman had gotten into the house to hang unbelievably realistic ghosts in all the room corners. My daughter, then five-years-old, stepped through the front door and screamed like a banshee.

Christmas, however, remains as my best all time holiday — though some years were better than others. First and foremost, this holiday marks the birth of an individual whose brief life of 33 years changed the course of history in every country and on every continent. The trickle-down effect of that birth is sometimes difficult to grasp when standing in long lines at the mall, or after camping out in parking lot to save 50% off some useless junked marked down the day after Thanksgiving, or when realizing that you are likely to spend 8 week’s salary to get your kids and others on your list the latest electronic gimmick.

In many instances for me, Christmas was a trade-off in which the cost of being with family was hours spent driving between distant cities. For years, my former paramour endured a three-hour ride up to north Jersey, and a three-hour ride back, to spend two hours with my family. We always had a great time... But six hours in the car on Christmas Eve gets a bit wearisome. Still I remember some incredible Christmas experiences: cutting down our tree in the woods; Midnight Mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral (New York City); dancing with my former paramour to the holiday orchestra in the lobby of the Metropolitan Museum (New York City); and Christmas parties in the Adirondacks, in which dozens of friends would arrive with ornaments for the tree — some fancy, some homespun; some sensitive and gentle; and others straight out of a New Orleans cathouse. Then there was the first Christmas with my limited-English speaking Russian girlfriend. She met most of my family on Christmas Day, in the emergency room at Saint Claire’s Hospital, where I was being prepped for kidney surgery.

I hav always liked shopping for Christmas presents too.

While there are those who insist on making Christmas shopping a marathon ordeal of ostentatious gift-giving, the real challenge is to find something meaningful, useful, or expressive of the affection and love you have for a person. And this is where originality and forethought pay off big time. I would often start thinking of what would make good Christmas presents for family and friends months before the holiday shopping season started. The thought process also included locating all of these items, knowing precisely where they could be found within a certain store, and how much they cost. And then because I am a professional writer, I would often find myself at the mercy of penurious publishers who would sit on my cash until they could no longer contrive any other reasons not to send it. Sometimes, the money would arrive at 1pm on December 24th.

The last time this happened was three years ago.

According to broadcast media reports, traffic in and around the shopping malls was approaching catastrophic levels. At the mall in King of Prussia (one of the nation’s largest), snarled traffic had spawned mobs of flesh-eating zombies, who were pulling other motorists, paralyzed with fear, loathing, or ennui from their cars. It was a warm day for the season, with temperatures approaching the low 40’s (F). I realized that I possessed the single most efficient vehicle for Christmas shopping ever designed — the motorcycle. Specifically, I possessed a 1995 BMW K75 with enough luggage capacity to carry the gifts I had in mind for everyone.

Some people split lanes when they ride. On that day, I split lanes like Jack The Ripper.

I used the shoulder. When the shoulder petered out, I used the sidewalk. When the sidewalk wasn’t an option, I rode up the grass embankment. I hit five stores in an hour and a half, parking my bike within 20 feet of the front door in each case. At one shop, a custom gallery, the owner met me at the curb with the object already wrapped and bagged, took my credit card inside, and sent me on my way with a receipt in hand. I found myself humming Christmas Carols (“Father Christmas” by the Kinks) as I sliced through stalled traffic with reckless abandon. And yet the day was not without challenge. A mall cop fired 16 warning shots in my direction after I snatched a slice of hot pizza from his hands, and rode my bike through a revolving door to blend in with the crowd.

I had one last stop in this holiday sortie, which entailed walking 200 feet through a mall concourse — when I met her. She was a tinted blonde in a low-cut blouse and jeans that were tighter than the budget to which I was successfully adhering. She was a salesperson, selling hand-creams and cosmetics from a pushcart, and she waved me over like it was a matter of life and death. I hesitated, for about a tenth of a second, and asked, “Yes?”

Noticing I was in riding gear, she wanted to see my hands. I held them up, wondering if she’d realize they were already assuming individual cup-shapes as a kind of reflex action.

“Hands are one of the first things a woman sees on man,” she said to me, taking my right one in both of hers.

“In my case, they are often the first point of contact,” I added in complete agreement.

“Women can tell a lot, not only by the condition of a man’s nails, but by the texture of his palms and fingertips,” she said. And as she was saying this, her own fingertips began to methodically message mine.

“Now you have very strong, decisive, commanding hands,” she said, looking straight into my eyes. “The kind of hands a woman can trust and would welcome in a crisis or in the dark of night.”

“Correct again, Honey...” I thought to myself.

“But riding a motorcycle can stress the skin and cause rough spots, that could give a woman pause to think where these hands may have been...”

She showed me a couple of rough spots which might have been related to a long period of time where I was between wives.

“This cream not only eliminates rough spots but rejuvenates the skin through a warming effect,” she continued. The blonde put a little dab of cream in my palm, and then started rubbing my hand like she was attempting to draw flame. “Do you feel the warmth,” she asked.

And I swear, she no sooner said this then closed my hand into a loose fist, and held it against her rack. This was a woman, about 25-years-old, with a nicely sculpted physique. If she had been a whitetail deer, her rack would have come in around 12 points.

I ended up buying the hand cream, the skin restorer, the neutral men’s nail preserver, and the warming hand message oil. The whole deal cost me about $96.50 just to cop a cheap feel in the mall, on the day before Christmas, in broad daylight. But it was worth it... I had been bested by the ultimate salesperson, who was already stalking another middle-aged dope as I walked away. But the real joy came in watching the expression of my former paramour’s dad as he unwrapped his Christmas gift, and found all of the above. A pragmatic scientist and the kind of gentleman with highly cultivated tastes, he looked at all the hand creams and gratefully asked, “What the hell is this shit?”

“It’ll take the squeak out of any fan belt,” I replied.

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And on the subject of hands, I was sitting next to Peter F. (who rides an MV Agusta Tamborini) at a recent Mac-Pac Holiday dinner, when he held up two digits on his right hand, and confidentially asked, “Do you know why woman love to masturbate with these two fingers?

“No,” I replied. “Why?”

“Because they’re mine,” he replied with a smirk.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011