The Jew's Wife & Other Stories by Thomas J. Hubschman Read Free Book Online

Father. Those drivers don’t stop unless you
practically throw yourself under their wheels.”
       “ I will. And
thanks. Where are you headed now?”
       “ Back to Mount
Holly. Ma will have supper ready.”
        Father Walther
wasn’t sure exactly where Mount Holly was, but it seemed to him it
was not far from where the young man had picked him up. If so, the
boy had driven clear across the state.
        “ God bless you,
son.”
       
        His
first order of business was to find a place to spend the night. In
the morning he would get a bus to Point Pleasant, or he could head
south toward Atlantic City and Cape May. One thing he would not do
again was hitchhike, so he had to plan his next move
carefully.
        He
hadn’t been in Toms River since those adolescent summers he had
spent at a nearby summer community, but he remembered there was a
diner not far from the bus stop where the young man had let him
off. He used its rest room to wash up and change his shirt. Then he
ordered soup and soft-boiled eggs for his mending stomach. The
waitress brought him a second cup of coffee unasked.
       “ Anything else,
honey?”
       “ No thanks,” he
said. Then, “Yes. Are you familiar with a development called Fords
Pointe?”
        The
woman glanced down at his black serge pants and dark valise. Her
neighborly smile weakened. She set some dinnerware in front of a
customer who had just walked in, then nodded toward the cashier.
“Better ask Mr. Coleman.”
        He
presented his bill to a heavy-set man behind the register. He rang
up the bill and carefully counted out the change. Then he said,
“Two blocks to your left”—he pointed south—“Benny’s Car
Service.”
        The
priest thanked him, then turned back to the waitress, but she was
engaged in conversation with the new customer. He was a block away
from the luncheonette before he realized he had forgotten to leave
her a tip.
        He had
no special reason to visit Fords Pointe. He just thought it might
be nice to pass by the Willets’ old bungalow before checking into a
motel. It would be a kind of sentimental journey. Besides, the more
he thought about it, the less he felt like sitting on a hot beach.
For him the Jersey Shore meant this short stretch of land between
Lakewood and Forked River. It included the narrow peninsula across
the bay and a patch of woodland to the west. He and Frank used to
water-ski in the bay, crossed it in the Willets’ fourteen-foot
inboard to visit the boardwalk at Seaside, and ventured into the
mosquito-ridden Pine Barrens to explore abandoned
houses.
        He
recognized very little of the stretch of US 9 south of Toms River.
Twenty years ago there was just a boat store and motel court. That
was before the rise of fast-food chains and the rest of plastic
America. But when the cab turned down the only paved road giving
entry and exit to the Pointe, he saw the same year-round houses
among the pines bordering the road, permanent residents who
resented the annual influx of summer people. Old, heavily screened
dwellings, the heavy mesh that still enclosed them was testimony to
the abiding imminence of the mosquito. When the cab reached the
Pointe, a series of man-made lagoons laid out perpendicular to the
bay, he told the driver to make the second left.
        The
bungalows were cheap functional affairs, little more than concrete
slabs with room dividers and a roof. Some owners added porches,
grass (which did not fare well), and TV antennas to pick up
Philadelphia stations. But most, like the Willets, were content to
put all their efforts into their bulkheads and boat landings. A
good bulkhead kept in proper repair—a never-ending battle against
erosion—insured the preservation of the real estate and made
possible a secure landing. Boats, after all, were the reason for
buying into a place like Fords Pointe. Everyone fished—all the men,
at least; he could not recall seeing a woman on any