The Awl

Jersey Mayhem: When You Read in the Paper about Someone You Remember from High School

Dave Bry — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:30:07 +0000

Fall of 1985, my freshman year at Red Bank Regional high school, there was a kid whose locker was down the hall from mine who came to school dressed in ill-fitting clothes that had holes in them. His name was Damion. I didn't know him, but I sat behind his friend John in history class. Damion was very short and very skinny and his hair was often messed up. Other kids teased him. One day news went around the school that he had squared off to fight another kid, this guy Jeff, who was much bigger than him, and that Damion had pulled out a knife and made Jeff back down. I didn't quite believe it. It sounded like something out of a movie.

I saw Jeff and asked him if it was true and he said it was. "He pulled a fucking knife on me," said Jeff. "What was I going to do?"

The next day in history class, I asked John about it. "Oh, yeah," John said, "That's Damion. He's crazy." I think I then questioned the intelligence of bringing a knife to high school. "No, Damion's smart," John said. "People think he's stupid, but he's really smart. He is crazy, though. He doesn't give a fuck."

The next year, Damion started coming to school in nice clothes and fresh haircuts. He'd grown taller, too, and would often be talking to girls. By the time we were juniors, he was wearing very expensive-looking suits and jewelry and brand-new sneakers with the tags still on them every day.

Everyone knew what was going on. A girl in my homeroom who had grown up near Damion told me that he was making $30,000 every weekend. I didn't quite believe it, I don't think. But then, I didn't really understand how much money that was anyway at that point. She told me that every weekend he'd get two hotel rooms. One where he'd keep his stash, one where'd he'd sleep. And that he'd rent a new Mercedes or BMW to drive around in. "He'd better stop before he turns 18," she said. "The cops are just waiting for him."

I don't remember Damion being at graduation. And I hadn't heard news of him until last week, when he was sentenced to 20 years in prison-eight before being eligible for parole-for first-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute and second-degree money laundering. He was arrested last year when police found more than $1 million worth of cocaine and heroin, and four guns, including an AR-15 assault rifle, after searching his two Asbury Park apartments.

His lawyer told a reporter from the Asbury Park Press that Damion is not going to sell any more drugs after he gets out prison. "He doesn't want to live this lifestyle anymore," the lawyer said.

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Jersey Mayhem: Man Uses Domestic Animal To Commit Domestic Abuse

Dave Bry — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:00:09 +0000

"Hoboken police were dispatched to the 300 block of Marshall Dr., and a 20-year-old Jersey City woman was crying and told police that her boyfriend punched her a few times and hit her with a 'feline cat,' reports said. She said she had pain to her lower back and the back of her head, reports said."
-Wow. I've been surprised at the lack of mayhem in the Garden State lately. I was thinking maybe the rest of state's residents had thrown in the towel 'til Snooki moved to Hollywood for good. But yesterday, in Jersey City, a man was arrested for attacking a woman with a cat. The Jersey Journal report ends with this, "Police did not know the whereabouts or the condition of the cat. The victim did not immediately respond to inquiries about the cat."

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Dear Woman Who Lived Up On The Hill Near The Lighthouse

Dave Bry — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:00:32 +0000

Dear woman who lived up on the hill near the lighthouse,

Sorry for stealing the head of that Greek statue from your lawn.

You might not even have noticed it was missing. There was lots of stuff on your lawn. That's what brought us there that night, actually, to your street, the name of which I forget, if I ever knew it, in Highlands, New Jersey. There's a "Witches Lane" up around there somewhere, according to Google Maps, but that would be too perfect for this story, so that's probably not it. Anyway, yes, we-me and a car full of similarly intoxicated teenagers-we came to see your lawn, so different as it was from most lawns in our area. You'd made it into a display, a found-art project, a sculpture garden of carefully arranged junk. Old toys, mostly. Dolls, teddy bears, fire-trucks, action figures, all sorts of things, all weathered and sun-bleached, set on couches and pedestals. Legend had it that you'd had a child who had died years back, a son, and that every year on his birthday you added another toy to the collection. This could not have been completely accurate, because there must have been more than seventy pieces there-it looked like the cover of Sgt. Pepper's-and I don't think your house was even that old. But I don't know, maybe you added numerous items every year. Whatever the case, it looked creepy. And that story made it creepier. It was dark and secluded and so a fun place to park and smoke pot and stare at the all the unblinking dolls eyes til we got the heebie-jeebies and sped away.

This was in 1987, I think. Junior year of high school. My friend James and I had spent the early part of the evening at the Front Street Trattoria in Red Bank. There was no bar in the restaurant; it didn't have a liquor license. But we had worked there washing dishes the summer before, and the waitstaff let us drink with our dinner if we brought our own beer. We felt very grown up. We didn't act that way, though; pyramids of empties on the table-the privilege didn't last very long.

Everything was going great that night, though. We were chuffed and loaded when our friends Jen and Jen came to pick us up. There may have been another Jen in the car, too. (You're aware, I'm sure, of the popularity of the name Jen among girls born in the early 1970s.) And maybe another person, too. I don't remember too well. But there were a lot of us squeezed into the back seat when we set off without any particular destination.

We ended up at your house, of course, idling in front of your yard, passing a bowl around and trying to spook each other out. It was probably eleven o'clock or so when, in a burst of bad decision making obviously fueled by some insecure need to prove myself fearless and free-spirited, I opened the door, dashed out, grabbed the nearest artifact I could put my hands on, scrambled back in and shouted "Go!" Everyone was laughing and screaming as we peeled out. I felt heroic. Or anti-heroic. I felt just the way I wanted to feel.

Once we'd driven down the hill and got on the main road, street lights gave me a look at what was on my lap. It was the head of a Greek statue. A male head. That gray, plaster-cement stuff. I remember the smooth, hollow eyes and the molded curls in the hair. Like the head of an adventurer who'd met Medusa's gaze. The car got quieter, and whoever was driving, Jen I think, let it be known that she was not so happy to have stolen property in the car. Someone else started talking about how the thing was probably cursed. Suddenly, it didn't feel so good to be holding this head. Stoned as I was, I didn't like the idea of a curse. What if it blinked, or started talking? What if I woke up later that night, and it was propped next to my pillow? What if blood started to drip from the eyes? So as we drove over the bridge into Seabright, I rolled down the window, and leaned out as far as I could and heaved the thing over the side. Thank God there wasn't some late-night crabber down there, rowing himself to Bahr's Landing by flashlight-this apology would be addressed to someone else, and it would likely have been written from a very different place.

But this is an apology to you. I don't have a good excuse. I was an idiot kid who too often did idiot kid things. I really hope the story wasn't true, and that you were just an eccentric artist like the guy who built the big junk sculpture in the community garden on 6th Street and Ave. B. Eddie Boros was his name, he died a few years ago. I lived in a building adjacent to the garden when I first moved to the city. I would look out at the sculpture and think of your yard and feel a twinge of guilt. If the story was true, if you had lost a child, however many years before, and if (please have this not be the case) you noticed the missing statue head and that brought you even the slightest bit of further sadness, well, something like this whimsical little anecdote doesn't even begin to cover how really very, very sorry I am.

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Jersey Mayhem: Possible Gang Or Just Stupid Teenagers On Vandalizing Spree In Boonton Area

Dave Bry — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:30:01 +0000

It is unclear whether or not a rash of public vandalism in northern New Jersey is "gang-related," according to authorities. For the third time in less than a month, spray-painted graffiti was discovered in Boonton Township Monday morning: yet another display of swastikas, anti-police slogans and male genitalia, scrawled, perhaps frustratedly, in blue. "They keep drawing these swastikas and they keep drawing a picture of a fish with swastikas in it," said officer Tom Cacciabeve, of the Boonton Township police department. "The word VOODOO keeps appearing also.''

Complicating the investigation, similar markings were found nearby, and in the neighboring town of Boonton, in pink. (Though no depictions of female genitalia were reported.) The potentially mixed-gender vandals seem to hate a variety of car-makers, as a Honda was spray-painted with swastikas, a Chevy pick-up truck was lit on fire (Jesus!) and a Ford was tagged with the only-slightly-clever derogatory acronym, "Fix Or Repair Daily." While the swastikas will not necessarily count as an act of anti-semitism, it seems pretty clear that police are in fact dealing with a gang problem here. The symbology is unmistakable. Apparently, Boonton and Boonton Township have been claimed as the turf of the of the notorious Rollin' Nazi Fish Voodoo Cock-n-Balls Crew.

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Jersey Mayhem: State Fights To Disarm Gun Collector

Dave Bry — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:40:05 +0000

In a case testing the limits of the second amendment, state authorities in New Jersey are trying to revoke the firearms license held by Rockaway Township resident Steven Hopler. Hopler, 47, was found to be keeping some 16 guns strewn around his house on bookshelves, under seat cushions and in an oven mitt. Many of them were loaded, which prosecutors says presented a danger to public safety. ''Most fair-minded persons viewing the photographs of how the weapons were stored might even shudder," said judge Thomas V. Manahan, who will decide the case on Thursday, "thinking of the propensity for danger.'' Hopler, who happens to be blind, shot himself in the leg two years ago while cleaning one of his guns. As reported by the Asbury Park Press, his attorney Gregg Trautmann argued that, "his client keeps multiple guns in handy locations because he wouldn't be able to run from room to room to find one if an intruder came in or his life was threatened." Seems like that might actually help the prosecution's case. But we'll see.

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Jersey Mayhem: "Braawk! When Are You Going To Clean My Cage? Braawk!"

Dave Bry — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 13:50:08 +0000

This is a sad story about the dangers of keeping firearms in the house and drinking alcohol near pets. Dennis Zeglin, 67, of Rudolph, New Jersey has been sentenced to perform 100 hours of community service as a part of Morris County's pretrial intervention program for first-time offenders after killing his African grey parrot, Mikey with a pellet gun. "Zeglin was intoxicated when he shot Mikey on June 7, 2009 because the parrot distracted him with its squawks as Zeglin watched a NASCAR race on television," the Asbury Park Press reports, citing Zeglin's attorney Richard Fletcher. "Zeglin willingly turned over the pellet gun, a Daisy PowerLine Model 93, to police and immediately started intensive counseling for alcoholism, Fletcher has said. He has said his client was extremely remorseful over the death of the parrot, which had been in the household for two decades."

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Jersey Mayhem: Quiet Shore Municipality Struggles With Force Much Greater Than Itself

Dave Bry — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 10:50:29 +0000

"It really is true, and has been proven-whether it's a show or not-when people misbehave in public, it's the same: The police expeditiously end their bad behavior so all the good people can enjoy their time."
-The problem is (whether Seaside Heights borough administrator John A. Camera will admit it or not) that television networks "expeditiously" pay some people $30,000 an episode to produce bad behavior, so all the other good people can enjoy their time. This Asbury Park Press article provides a good look at how a small town's government handles a cultural phenomenon that is at once a boon and a major pain-in-the-ass.

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Jersey Mayhem: Scrap Metal Thieves Somehow Afford To Pimp Their Ride

Dave Bry — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:50:21 +0000

You know what the police in Howell, New Jersey were thinking July 12th, when they got the APB about $500 worth of scrap metal being stolen from an auto repair shop on Route 9: Bubbles is using again. But lo, further details emerged."Police say they are on the lookout for suspects in a theft of about $500 worth of scrap metal from a Route 9 auto repair business," reports the Asbury Park Press. "They may have been driving a pickup truck with a number of distinct markings and adornments, including a bullhorn hood ornament, said Detective Anthony Romano on Monday." So police in New Jersey are on the lookout for Boss Hogg.

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Jersey Mayhem: High School Music Teacher Caught Pawning Instruments

Dave Bry — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:40:57 +0000

As you would have been reminded by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band had you been listening to the radio 25 years ago, things are tough all over. And as Bruce Springsteen might have reminded John Cafferty, stop ripping me off, you Rhode Island poseur, things are tougher in New Jersey than they are anywhere else. Sad evidence of that today, with word that Toms River High School North music teacher Albert Crosta was arrested Monday after selling $1,300 worth of school-property musical instruments to a second hand shop. Clarinets, a violin, French horn and cymbals, everything.

The news seems particularly crushing considering that, just last January, an Asbury Park Press article entitled "Toms River North's Band Marches On" (opening sentence: "And the band played on...") reported that "The school has never given into some people's theory that rival school, Toms River High School South, eclipses it in spirit."

Come this fall, at the annual game known locally as "The Civil War," when North's cheerleaders do their best to rouse the crowd to a fight song played on a single Casio keyboard (not unlike the one used so prominently in that John Cafferty song, perhaps), well, we'll see whether or not "some people's theory" indeed proves true.

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Jersey Mayhem: 59-Year-Old Arrested Three Times in One Day

Dave Bry — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:10:49 +0000

Dean Winters is going to have to step it up in those new Allstate Insurance ads. Tommy Lee better get a new tattoo. Peter Olczak, of Port Murray, New Jersey is a better personification of "mayhem" than either one of those goody-goodies. Olczak, 59, was arrested three times in 24 hours this past weekend. Twice for disorderly conduct (which is usually just known as "conduct" in New Jersey) and once for criminal trespass. No insurance policy could save you from him.

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