We checked into the Flamingo Hotel, and I thought that if Jewel and I had to be in the hospitality profession, I wished we could have had a hotel like the Flamingo. It was all spanking new with three flamingos in front of the wide veranda. And it was within walking distance of the Boardwalk, being only two miles away. The clerk behind the desk had a nice uniform, which got me thinking that maybe Jewel and I should have been wearing uniforms all these years. He asked if we wanted one room or two.
“One,” said Luca.
“Two,” said I.
“Adjoining?” the clerk asked.
“On different floors,” I answered.
And so we settled into our respective honeymoon suites, me on the first floor, Luca on the second. It was, after all, the only decent thing for two people who were already planning their divorce to do.
My first view of the ocean took my breath away. I’d never been to the sea before, and the only bodies of water I had ever seen were the creek that ran not far from the Hospitality Inn, and the black waters of the old quarry. So I just stood leaning against the railing of the wooden promenade and stared and stared out to sea. All that water stretching God knew how far around the world. I sighed real deep, thinking how vast it was, when Luca said something to spoil the mood entirely, which was his way. “You should see the Bay of Naples,” he said, and if we hadn’t been on our honeymoon, I’d have cuffed him then and there. As it was, I just turned away from the view he’d spoiled and started down the boardwalk. He hurried after me and we didn’t talk for some time. But I was too happy at being on a trip to stay mad, and soon we were talking again.
There are so many games of chance on the promenade in Wildwood that if you spent the whole day counting them, you’d never count them all. And the prizes. Wonderful prizes. Stuffed animals of every shape and size. Cigarettes if you liked to smoke. Goldfish. Beer glasses. And I wanted to win one of everything.
We played the wheel one time, the one where you put your money on a number and if the arrow stops on it, you win. But I didn’t like that game so much. What control had you over where that wheel stopped? None at all. Now if I’d been able to stop that spinning arrow or at least slow it down to better my chances, it would have been a different story. But I didn’t trust fate that had never been kind to me and so we moved on.
They had a game that was like basketball, only the rim of the basket was narrower than a real basket and they put it up higher and the basket had more bounce than a real one, all of which made it harder to get the ball in the basket. We watched for a while, but we didn’t see anybody walk away with a prize. Luca tried, but he missed by a mile. He said it wasn’t his game. And so my second chance to win a prize was lost.
Finally we entered an arcade that had all kinds of games to challenge the mind and the body. There was a game where you rolled a hard ball down a narrow alley to four circular holes. If the ball dropped into the largest circle, it was worth ten points, the next largest twenty points, the next largest, thirty, and the smallest, fifty. At this game, you didn’t win a prize right off. Instead, you called the boy over and he gave you tickets that were worth one point. We accumulated a lot of points that night. From that game, we went to play another where you rolled small rubber balls into holes that made a section of board light up. It was like playing poker except with balls. But this, too, was a game of luck and not skill, and I had no more faith in luck than I did in fate. Then we found a game Luca was good at: shooting at paper ducks and we won a lot of points.
By the time they were ready to close, we had twenty-three points in all. We surveyed the prizes: a small dismembered foot that Luca took a shine to; punks to keep the mosquitoes away; eyeglasses without lenses in a variety of colors; rubber spiders; oversized cigars; and a soapy solution to blow bubbles.
We settled upon the eyeglasses without lenses in red for me, and the blow bubble solution for Luca, which I let him get only after he insisted that it was his honeymoon too. We took our prizes out of the arcade, me wearing my eyeglasses and him blowing bubbles down the promenade, just like any other newly married couple out for a summer’s night walk in Wildwood.
We walked a long way that night, passed kids out own age, but I didn’t see much else we might have had in common with them, passed drunken convention men, prostitutes looking for work, old people resting on pavilion benches, and babies being pushed in buggies. We ate candy and ice cream and didn’t throw up. Maybe it was my eyeglasses, or the ice cream, or the salty air, but whatever it was, I was in high spirits that night, and happier than I’d been in a long time. That is, until a conversation I overheard brought the truth shockingly home and ruined my sham of a honeymoon.
We had stopped to sit on a bench under the
