Inspired a recent LinkedIn post by the talented photographer and writer Mark Krajnak, and my obsession with the Jersey Devil.
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| Day of the Dead display |
It's days like this I wish I'd never been born.
I had stumbled through the screen door of a bar named Murphy's in the middle of the afternoon. It was like the door at Holsten's in the series-ending episode of "The Sopranos." What did I expect? I'm in New Jersey, after all.
But here's the thing: I noticed right away that the bell above the frame didn't ring. The screen door slammed. Mary's dress didn't sway. (Oh yeah, to be even more of a Jersey cliché, I'm a Springsteen fan too). The door snapped shut with an angry thud right behind me.
Figures.
Next thing I knew, I was sitting alone at a counter, telling my tale of woe out loud to no one except the bartender.
"I kinda wanted a clap out," I began, chattering into the void. A cheap paper day calendar at the end of the counter reminded me it was Tuesday, the 23rd.
"Remember when our kids were little, and they would graduate kindergarten to first grade? On their last day of school, all the teachers and parents would line up on either side of the school doors and clap as the kids paraded out, and moved up and on the next thing..."
Earth Day, ironically. But you know what the Spanish say about Tuesdays: "En martes, ni te cases ni te embarques." Translation: "You don't get married or start a journey on a Tuesday." If you're a guy like me, you just wake up, make your bed, kiss your wife goodbye, and go to work.
"Well, today, after 20 years and 10 months, my time at J&J came to an end. I drove to the campus in Titusville, turned in my work computer and my J&J badge, which still had the photo taken on my first day in 2004 underneath my newer badge."
I snorted. "Ha! I let them have the new ID, but I kept that old one, by God."
The bartender, JD, the only other person at Murphy's, was now in the back room.
"Technically I was laid off, back in January. It's been a challenging 18 months. A lot of my team -- my friends and my colleagues around the world -- went through this, too. But I made out better than some. After being laid off, the company offered me a short-term assignment to get me past this 'milestone date' in April... so now I'm at least eligible for my pension."
I heard what sounded like claws on the hardwood floors. It was JD, scuttling back behind the bar, pretending he had heard every word.
I couldn't even make it home from work today. It's usually an hour-long drive, anyway, all the way from Franklin Township. But the damn Pine Barrens are on fire, so the Jersey Turnpike is closed. At the first exit I found, I saw the green neon "Murphy's" sign across the street. My wife and I used to go to a bar by that name in New York City when we were young and in love. This is where I knew I was destined to wait out the fire.
"You know about the Pine Barrens?" It was a stupid question.
"Sure do," said JD. "Lived here all my life. Twelve brothers and sisters. Can you believe it?"
"I believe anything is possible here," I said vacantly, as if I believed it. "Wherever here is."
"Where town," JD said.
"Where town?"
"Yup. Waretown. Close to the fire." He smiled, as if he were proud.
Waretown does indeed boarder the Pine Barrens, more than a million acres of sand-based soil in the center of Jersey. Rain here combines with acid from decaying pine needles and leaches minerals from the sand, forming bog iron that used to be mined in isolated communities. A few are now actual ghost towns.
Then there are the metaphorical ghost towns, like here, in Waretown, along Route 9. When I pulled over to call my wife and tell her, she said she knew I'd be late. I never surprise her anymore. She said the sky back home is bright orange.
JD and I briefly compared notes about the Pine Barrens. We both knew all about our doomed local ecology. Since the soil is acidic, forest litter simply accumulates. Things don't decompose. This prevents new layers of soil that might otherwise nourish new plants. Instead, the only vegetation that thrives here are the pine trees. Which are highly flammable.
And, today, April 23, 2025, everything erupted into flames.
And, Jesus, what a fire. I turned to watch the news reports on the bar's lone TV.
"They're calling it the Jones Road Fire," I called out to JD, who had turned his back to me.
"I know," he said. "Actually started small Sunday night."
"How do you know?"
"They always start small," JD smirked, and showed me his phone. It opened to Snapchat, a chain of text messages in an unidentifiable group chat.
"We caused the fire,'' texted someone with the initials E.H. on April 22, the same day the Cedar Bridge Fire Tower located a column of smoke coming from the area of Jones Road and Bryant Road in Ocean Township.
The newscaster added context, as if she were reading over my shoulder: "The fire quickly escalated into what has been described as one of the largest wildfires in Ocean County and New Jersey in the past 20 years."
"You better hope they don't figure out it was you assholes,'' someone had texted in response to E.H.
E.H. replied that they weren't positive it was them, due to some rain the next day, "but there is a good possibility,'' adding an attachment of two photos of burning wood pallets on E.H.'s phone dated April 21. One was timestamped at 9:10 p.m. and the other at 10:15 p.m.
"Jesus, it was a bonfire," I said.
"Kids," JD shrugged.
"How do you know? How did you get this message? What group is this?"
"I don't know. People send me stuff all the time. I just stand back and wonder myself sometimes."
The newscaster added more details. "The arrested teenagers," she reported, "were telling investigators there were Mexicans in the woods that night, trying to cast blame for the fire on unknown agents who spoke in Spanish."
"What?"
"Oh, that's something I hear the local high school girls chant in the woods behind the dumpster out back," he replied. "I have no idea what it means. Hell, I only know one other word in Spanish."
Just then I looked down at the floor and saw what I thought were two snakes intertwined.
I let out a frightened cry.
"Hey, hey, hey," JD said, patting me on the shoulder.
"I..." I pointed to the floor. Two electrical cords were lying unplugged next to a guitar amp with the "Monster" logo on top.
"Snakes...," I stammered, then regained my composure.
Damn, get ahold of yourself, I thought. What I said aloud was: "When did the music stop?"
"The folk singers? They left about an hour ago."
"Lilith & Andras, right?"
"Yeah, they need a new name."
Lilith played the violin and Andras played guitar and sang. Sure thing. I remembered them now. A few songs when the sun was setting: B-sides of Dylan tunes, a deep cut that Lilith said was by John Prine, although I had never heard it before. Andras sang a haunting version of "St. Augustine at Night" by Dawes, and he apologized for the length of the song when he finished.
That must have been hours ago. I'd lost track of time. It seemed I had been there so long I thought I had always been the only one at the bar. My brain was fogged.
But surely, I remembered Lilith. How could I forget? She had red hair. JD had offered to let the duo take the night off, but she said, "We need the practice. Besides, a gig's a gig."
"What time is it anyway?" I asked.
"Last call," JD said. "Here, try this. On the house."
He handed me a mixed drink.
"What's this?"
"Well, it's not mulled wine."
I looked at him quizzically.
"Hey, look mister," JD said with a smile and a wink, "We serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk fast."
"I get it. 'It's a Wonderful Life,'" I replied
"Actually, it's a Murphy's special: applejack, triple sec, cranberry juice."
I took a mouthful. It had plenty of kick, but it was bittersweet.
"I don't think I'm in any condition to drink anymore. I should call my wife." I looked around. "Hey, where's my phone?"
"I didn't see you with a phone."
"I had a phone. Jesus, what do you really put in these drinks anyway? I need to call my wife."
I looked up at JD. Everything in the otherwise empty barroom was diffused in orange, a certain orange, the remnant of the dying light of the setting sun. The color of changing firelight. JD himself was partially obscured by a thin layer of smoke, which created an elongated shadow of his face when he turned toward me, as if he had the absurd guise of a horse or kangaroo. Not only that, but the stop-motion shadows of his swinging arms made him appear to have wings.
JD looked straight into my eyes and said, "You don't have a wife."
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| Chandelier sculpture by Ricky Boscarino |
"What? That's crazy!" I lunged at JD and almost toppled over my barstool.
"Hey, hey! Easy there, mister."
"I have a wife!" I protested. "I'll call her. She'll come get me. Where's my phone?"
"You don't have a phone."
"I..." I patted my pockets. I couldn't locate my phone. I couldn't even locate my old J&J ID badge. "What the hell?"
JD shrugged. "It's like you've never been born."
"What?!?" I cried, and this time I did tumble off my stool to the floor.
JD came to my rescue. He knelt down and helped me, picking me up from behind and underneath my shoulders, as if I were a rag doll.
"Hey, that's OK," he said, after sitting me back down and making sure I didn't hurt myself. "I know you're good for the tab. Relax. Here, use my phone."
I looked stupidly at JD's phone and tried to make a joke.
"JD," I began, then made a lame attempt at a Jimmy Stewart impression, "now straighten me out here. Look, I got some bad liquor or something. Listen to me. Now, you're JD, and you're the bartender here at Murphy's, and we're in Waretown, and the Pine Barrens are burning."
"Right, right, right, and right."
"And I have a wife."
"That, I can't say."
"Well, if I had my own phone, I could prove it!"
I held out the phone he had offered, trying to process his odd response about my wife... trying to process the entire evening. Everything was tinged in orange.
"Here," JD said, in a patronizing note. "I'll call you an Uber."
He tried to take his phone back, but I wouldn't let him.
"TouchTunes," I said, pointing to his screen.
"The app? Sure. It controls the juke box."
"More music," I sighed. "That's what I need right now."
"Sure. Whatever you say."
At least the app knew where I was. Precisely. But I couldn't focus on its search bar.
"You got Bruce?" I asked.
"It's Jersey, right?" JD chuckled, finally taking back his phone. "What do you want to hear?"
"'Jungleland.'"
"'Jungleland,' it is..."
It's a song twice as long as "St. Augustine at Night." Soon the opening notes echoed in the empty barroom. It soothed me. Then the piano kicked in, and everything seemed to come into focus again.
Bruce began singing, "The Rangers had a homecoming in Harlem late last night..." Magic Rat rode his sleek machine, and I lost myself in the music: The guitar solo. The bridge. Clarence on the sax, changing the mood.
I wasn't drunk. I was listening to a song I'd heard a million times before.
Until the end. When I heard Bruce sing, "The devils down here don't do nothing at all. They just stand back and let it all be."
"That's not right!" I cried out. "Wait! That's not right!"
Soon Bruce was punctuating my words with his otherworldly howl.
"What happened to the poets?" I said, as the last sounds of the song faded to silence.
"What happened to the poets? The poets down here don't write nothing at all. They just stand back and let it all be."
"Hey, wait, don't get started again," JD said, just standing there, looking at me as if I were crazy.
"I'm not crazy! Didn't you hear the words?"
"Yeah," said JD, "The poets down here don't write nothing at all..."
"No. No. That's not right! I heard him singing about devils."
"Yeah, that's right, mister. Devils. I'm calling you a car. Where do you live, anyway?"
"Franklin Boulevard in Franklin," I answered confidently. "Near New Brunswick."
"Oh, I know Franklin Boulevard," JD said. "DeRussey's Lane."
"What?"
"Franklin Boulevard used to be called DeRussey's Lane. You know, when it was a dirt road that led to an abandoned farm. You know, the site of the Hall-Mills murders."
"The what?"
"Yup, the Hall-Mills murders. It's one of the most famous crimes in your hometown. You really don't know your Jersey history, do you?"
That was the last of my conversation with JD. I just couldn't.
Not only that, but it took a while for someone to come get me. JD didn't let me near his phone again. It was the end of a really bad day.
A few miles from us, the night was ablaze. According to the news reports still echoing behind the bar, the Jones Road Fire had rapidly escalated into one of the state's most significant wildfires in two decades. Fueled by dry conditions and strong winds, the fire consumed more than 15,000 acres across Ocean County, including Barnegat, Lacey, and Waretown townships.
Thick plumes of smoke darkened the skies, casting an eerie haze over the region and depositing ash across several communities. The fire's rapid expansion threatened more than 1,300 structures, necessitating the evacuation of around 5,000 residents. It caused power outages affecting more than 25,000 in the sparsely populated area. Emergency response teams were employing ground crews, bulldozers, and aerial water drops to combat the inferno. Despite their efforts, the fire remained only 10 percent contained while I sat with JD at the bar.
There were no fatalities. Save my sanity.
Soon I would be I heading home. Leaving Waretown... or Hell... for where?
Somewhere haunted in Franklin Township. Without a job. Maybe without a wife.
Sometime after midnight, I heard gravel crunch under the tires of parking car. As I finally turned my back to leave Murphy's, I dared not turn back to face JD.
"Addios," he called out after me.
I merely waved a dismissive goodbye with my left hand and headed toward the screen door with the bell that doesn't ring.
But I heard another noise loud and clear.
At first, I didn't understand the slow, sharp sounds... like crackling flames... from behind me.
But then, I sensed an ever-quickening rhythm, and I knew it was the perfect end to this God-forsaken day.
JD was giving me a clap out.
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| The sky over suburban New Jersey |
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