In 1982, if you go as far west as possible on 125 St, you reach Marginal Street and what I imagine is the “old broken-down river pier” where Sal Paradise/Jack Kerouac watched “the long, long skies over New Jersey” at the end of On the Road. And that’s where I find myself out of breath, pausing on a run, shortly after dark.
A car appears from Somewhere headed for Nowhere, and out come two young men, long scraggly hair, tattooed arms, heading straight toward me, stopping a few yards away.
“Hey there,” one of them says. “We drove up from South Carolina to see what New York looks like, and now we’re trying to get back across the river but looks like we reached the end of the road and don’t have the money to gas up.”
There is nothing menacing about the way he speaks, but I am boxed in.
“Two bucks should do it,” the other guy adds, asking for just enough to get me to reach for my wallet.
“That’s all you need?”
The second guy points to the long skies over New Jersey. “We got a buddy waiting for us in a diner, too chicken to come to the big city.”
I take out my wallet and peel off two bills while keeping my eye on the guys. But I now have two twenties in my hand. I put them back and this time make sure I get singles.
“Here you go, two bucks.”
“Much obliged to you, sir,” the first guy says and walks toward me.
I stiffen as he sticks out his hand for the bills, which he stuffs into his pocket. Out comes his hand again, hovering in front of me. Nothing happens. I shake his hand; he nods and turns around.
They wave as they get into their car, make a U-turn, and head toward the gas station up the hill.
Two guys came across a stranger at the end of the road, and he helped them back onto “all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it.”