Tink and I were out to dinner Wednesday at the Lagosta Lounge in the rebuilt Asbury Park. We parked the car in a white lined space # 62 in the municipal lot across the street, and walked fifty-five feet to the front door. A longer walk would be scary, even for a retired MPI from Nam.
The streets are clean but the area reeks of musty buildings waiting for renovation, like the Casino down the boardwalk. Your mind tells you, moments ago broken glass bottles, loose trash, and old newspapers grew on this ground. It was a trash farm, gentrified with condo-builder's money, meant to entice people there, like bait for a Marlin.
The stench is gone, but the air is too clean, no odor at all. You can’t even smell cooking food. It feels as if one of those old street sweepers with the water spray and the front-end rotating bristle-brushes has pushed by, removed all human trace evidence, and the heat of the day has sterilized the dry street.
The same feeling one gets walking through the park outside Rats, the restaurant in South Jersey. As if the Metropolitan Museum of Art was constructed on unprocessed landfill. Artificial goodness created for your enjoyment, but masking the raw nature that is underneath or in the past. All plastic, artificial, a cigarette lighter could make it look like a napalmed forest. I don’t like to think back to those days, especially when Tink is on my arm. Like Disney World, but Walt admits his world is fake, at Rats ... Wind in the Hollow my ass.
Asbury Park, post-napalm New Jersey.
We had a reservation so it only took them a half hour to seat us at a table by a low wall that separated it from the bar. When I made a face, the host told me it was an hour for the next table.
Tink drew young hitters like moths to a flame. Each one thought that they could run off her father and come away with a prize. They leaned over the wall with Apricot Mojitos whispering words.
Tink has fun showing her ring and talking loudly about how I shot one of Zambone’s men and Dar stabbed another. The hitters usually turn white and slink back over the wall, like a home run hit over the fence.
Do real men drink Mojitos? They did have Young’s special double chocolate Stout. If you get the chance, exchange your Mojitos for it. You’ll be better off.
Dinner was delicious, but not better than five or six other places on the shore, where you can talk and be heard during dinner. When did food start taking precedent over the company and conversation? Tink knows the buzz and had to see what it was about. I humor her.
The idea that this is a romantic place to take a date is similar to the concept that a meat locker is spacious and a butcher shop delicate or a Stones Concert is a place to propose marriage, while Mick’s askin’ “do you want to see my pants fall down?”
I am not into the bar scene, and since Tink started working in my office, she isn’t either. Now she has my ring, so ….
We came, we saw and we left deaf but sated.
As we were having cappuccinos at the Baker Boy’s in the Grand Arcade at Convention Hall, Dr. Elsa Neinstine walked by with a boyfriend. Since Myron left for college, the pediatrician has dropped weight. I know how hard that can be. With the new figure, apparently, came a boyfriend. He’s a cardiologist on staff at Jersey Shore hospital. He’s a heart-throb – sorry about that. As a victim of a cardiac arrest, I should know better than to tease that organ.
Neither of them will be diagnosed with anorexia in the near future, but Elsa’s changed figure demanded a compliment, because of the effort she must have made. Losing weight is not only a physical effort. It is a psychological commitment. She has obviously made both with significant results.
She thanked me and noticed Tink’s work as my in-house BWC (Board of Weight Control) agent. I’m down to a 32-inch waist from a 40. Promenading Bubs on the boards at Spring Lake and Lake Como/Belmar along with morning sit-ups have had their effect on my waistline. It’s taken two years, but I am fifteen pounds over the weight that I was in Nam. There aren’t too many overweight Military Police Investigators – Marines in particular.
They dropped in for dessert, and we enlarged our table to four. The people strolling by were the entertainment. However, between my old practice and her present one, not to mention his practice at Jersey Shore Hospital, the parade of people quite frequently stopped, gaped at us, and smiled with recognition.
Do the people view the animals at the zoo, or are the animals viewing the people that come to visit? Where is Descartes when you need him?
Several times people came over and introduced themselves as if we were rock stars and they wanted our autograph. I guess physicians still have a special place in some people’s hearts.
One of the interlopers interjected himself into our conversation, pulling up a chair and sitting down. He was about to order, when Elsa asked, “Since you’ll finish last, you pay the check.”
He obviously wasn’t the parent of one of her patients. He gave her boyfriend a look and said, “With what he charges for simple procedures like a cath, he can afford to pay for me.”
I stood up and suggested that he wasn’t welcome at our table. He looked at me and said, “Who are you anyway?”
“Dr. Madison Muttnick, ret. MPI - U.S. Navy, and former accused murderer of two hospital administrators. Are you packin’? My Colts nearby.”
He blushed jumped up and walked off without another word.
I asked Elsa’s boyfriend, “Guess you lost a patient?”
“No. Can’t get rid of that one. He is in collection and when he presents to the ER with angina, they always call me. Usually it’s after midnight because he hits the bars. Adultery is documented as the most stressful sex. I come in because it is life or death.
He never follows up in the office, because he won’t pay.”
“Maybe he can’t?” Tink asked. “I mean treating pro bono is a physician’s obligation to the community. A payback? Mutt gave back twenty percent with clinics and such.”
“It is and I do. But know what he does for a living?”
There was silence although Elsa flashed an impish smile, as she knew the answer, but wasn’t raining on her boyfriend’s parade.
“He’s the CEO of one of the hotels in Atlantic City. $2 million a year with bonus. He claims no insurance and rides the system free. Hope he doesn’t come back.”
We went on to talk about more congenial subjects.
Myron, Elsa’s son is paralyzed from the waist down. How's that congenial?
He is a sophomore in an elite program at a College in New York. The really great part is that all the buildings are wheelchair accessible. Subterranean tunnels through out the campus allow Myron to get to any class no matter what the weather. It is truly an optimal situation. The pre-law history major has made Dean’s List every semester so far. That's congenial.
If Pam’s caseload keeps growing at this rate, she might need an intern over next summer. She could do worse, since Myron rivals Tink for researching on the Internet, and Tink is the best. I told Elsa I would put in a word with my daughter tomorrow. She has Janet as her secretary and whatever else, but who knows what next summer will bring.
Baker Boys’ Red Velvet Cupcakes … you only live once.
à the Mad Mutt.
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