Wintertime at the Jersey Shore, 1982

Wallace Stroby aka, Wild East, Asbury Park, 1982 

There's a series of photos from Asbury Park on the New Yorker web site here. 'Evocative' doesn't seem to do the 1979 series justice.  My shot of Wally, a Long Branch native,  was taken on the coldest day I've ever experienced...and I lived in Chicago for 19 years.  It was so cold, the OM-1 power winder, a cheap hair dresser's version of a motor drive, froze up.  It's also why there's no one in the background.

Kings of Midnight

Wallace Stroby on the uptown 1 train

Man in black, Wallace Stroby has a new one coming out in April. "Kings of Midnight" sees a return of Crissa Stone looking to make, "one last big score" while a former mobster may have a line on long missing cash from the 1978 Lufthansa heist. Crime noir and crime history collide in Stroby's sparse and well researched writing. A great writer. A lousy roommate.

How Not to Drink too Much at a Party

"The way I figure it, the law of averages is on our side..."
Playboy, 1965

Sometime between 8PM and that point when you hear a voice in your head tell you it's time to go... there is everything else. It can be a sober, hail fellow well met, gallant exit with thanks directed to the right people. Or, a slightly buzzed exit with gratitude displayed to the hosts and a little too much hand shaking and kissing on the way out. Not that that's a bad thing...

New Years eve night (1986) and I was on a California king size bed - in Atlantic City Long Branch - with three sorority sisters - watching TV. We were all leaning up against a massive butt ugly headboard when a sorority sister suggested we all have sex.

The night started with beers at the Stoned Stone Pony. Somewhere along the way it turned to gin martinis. Beaver Brown (WS: I don't think that was a Beaver Brown night though, you're conflating that with New Year's 1983) sang about bourbon and a retro order for Whiskey Sours was made (WS: The other option that night was to see Buddy Guy and Junior Wells at the Deckhouse in Asbury Park, which in retrospect we should have done instead). Wally mentioned his girlfriend was having a party for her sorority sisters at her parent's Atlantic City Long Branch condo.

We arrived at the girlfriend's-parent's-condo filled with sorority sisters. I had been ignoring the "GO HOME " voice in my head for at least an hour but this opportunity was too much to pass up. A thick scent of cigarette smoke and hairspray filled a room covered in white shag and pale blue everything else -- a perfect frame for 20 drunk sorority sisters.

Champagne was poured and I made my way to the sliding glass doors of a balcony overlooking the black ocean. I slid the door open and drank cold air like water. My nose hairs froze and sweat quickly iced. Revived, I walked back in and found the parent's bedroom. The TV was on and I sat at the foot of the bed.

Rule 1) Avoid mixing drinks you say? Wrong. Avoid moving around? Good for you. When you get to the party find a place to sit down and stay there. Don't go anywhere unless you need to refill or defill. Moving around, dancing, push up contests...these all get the alcohol soaring through the bloodstream. The less movement the better.

Rule 2) Avoid drinking anything fast. Beer. Soda and anything. Tonic and anything. Champagne. Wine. All bad. Drink hard liquor straight. Cognac, Single Malt Scotch, Bourbon... No ice. Trust me, it'll slow you down and all the wrong sort of women will be impressed.

Rule 3) Arrive late and leave early. This was Trad Dad's advice to me many years ago. Not that I ever took it, and I doubt you'll take mine, but there it is. The strategy is everyone will remember the party didn't get going until you arrived and it went to shit about the time you left.

Rule 4) Do not lie down. Not until you're ready to stay there.

Rule 5) Eat. A lot. Greasy food works well. Popcorn does not. Keep it dense. Beef, chicken wings, fried anything...Eat as much as you can. Someone passes a tray of food around...eat it.

The bed comforter was soft and a shade between Tiffany and Infantry blue. It was marshmallow-ey and calming. I leaned back and laughed at the TV. A girl joined me. Then another and another. A cute brunette with nice hands asked the question and I answered by throwing up on the Tiffany-Infantry marshmallows.

Looking back, I remember seeing them out of the corner of my eye scramble off the bed in film-like slow motion. I could see fear on their faces. I don't remember screaming but Wally told me there was a lot of it. We left quickly. No erudite goodbyes. No hail fellow well met. No exchanging of phone numbers. No that it mattered, but we did obey Rule 3. I never did like that rule.

Update: Corrections and comments noted in RED from Wallace Stroby.

Tomorrow: The Hangover & What Not To Do

Cold Shot To The Heart

I've known Wally Stroby for 30 years. We drank the heart out of a cool August night on a London sidewalk and could barely raise our arms to get a taxi. We've traveled for days on I-95. Me listening to his shitty music. Wally listening to my shitty music. I love him like the brother I never had.

We shared a house one Summer next to the food stamp office on Weeden Street in St. Augustine. Wally worked 'til 11 PM and when he came home he'd sit in the living room with the lights off and watch the roaches come out and eat ashes out of my government ash tray.

In college we called him the man in black. His favorite color often matched his mood. It's no wonder he turned to crime noir. His fourth novel, Cold Shot To The Heart, features Crissa Stone, "...a pro. She never works close to home, never works with the same crew, and never rushes a job."

Crissa's a character I'm not fond of. Stroby's first two novels followed retired NJ state trooper Harry Rane around. Trad Dad's one sentence review of Harry was, "He's always putting his dick in places it doesn't belong." Crissa lacks a dick but she sure does get a lot of her friends killed.

All by a character I did fall in love with. Eddie the Saint. Eddie, just out of jail, pays a visit to Casco who owes Eddie $40,000.

"Casco leaned forward, brought out a red ledger book bound lengthwise with a rubber band. He looked at Eddie, put it atop the safe.
'What's in the back?' Eddie said.
'Where?'
'In the back, on that shelf.'
'I don't see anything.'
'Get down there and take a look.'
'Eddie, I got a bum knee.'
'You're younger than me. You'll be fine.'
'I swear, Eddie...' He knelt, winced. 'I don't see anything.'
'All the way in the back there.'
When Casco leaned forward, his face in the safe, Eddie put a foot between his shoulder blades to hold him there, shot him twice in the back of the head. ...The sound of the shots echoed off the paneling. Brass clinked on the floor."

Eddie's a stone cold psychopath but with a certain style that reminded me of Johnny Harrow from The Heartbreak Lounge. But Cold Shot ain't bad. It's clunky in the beginning, there's a poorly researched rappelling scene and Crissa stores her wine on top of the fridge but at 80 pages the story hit a patch of black ice and slammed me to the ending.

"Nothing behind her now. Nothing but the night ahead. But she had a name, a suitcase full of cash, a car, and a gun. It was a start."

Trad Noir

I have an old friend who writes crime fiction. He also works for a newspaper. And he doesn't know a 7.62mm from a 5.56mm but he's a much better writer than I am. For years Wally has turned me onto some great books and some strange music. I'll save the music for another time but check his blog out here http://www.wallacestrobycom.blogspot.com/.

This book is outta print. Published in 1967, I can just see Trad Dad reading this in the Team House bunker as he sips at his can of Ballantine and flicks the ash off a hot boxed Marlboro.

In addition to being a brilliant writer...Wally or Wild East as he is known in some circles, really knows writers. He's interviewed lots of living ones and knows everything there is to know about a lot of dead ones. You could say it's his passion. He'll send me an interview on tape with a writer and the writer's new book. I call this "Wally Mail."

I thought it made sense to share this recommendation from Wally. It has one of those opening lines that grabs you right in the button fly area of your plain front khakis.

"Parker spent two weeks on the white sand beach at Biloxi, and on a white sandy bitch named Belle, but he was restless, and one day without thinking about it he checked out and sent a forwarding address to Handy McKay and moved on to New Orleans."

I spent four weeks in Biloxi and would have killed for a white sandy bitch but I sure as hell never thought of putting one in a sentence. Not like that one.

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