The blue neon "Redemption" sign dangles over the cashier's counter at the back of the arcade, behind the machine that sucks up your hard-won tickets and spits out a receipt you will ultimately trade in for a cheap plastic water gun or rubber ball.
It surprises me. As we parade up to the counter to redeem the $14.85 earned through an hour of game-playing and quarter-wasting, I look up and all of a sudden...BAM! There is this crazy blue sign. The synchronicity is funny in a humorless sort of way - really more sad than anything. Still, the sign is there and I can't help but think it's meant for me, the many thousands of other Wildwood visitors be damned.
I don't like the tackiness of the boardwalk or the tourist-trap shops. I can't stand throngs of people pushing you every which way as you trudge across the boards, occasionally tripping over a nail that needs to be pounded back in, carrying a 40-lb bag of beach goodies that will probably not get used. I especially don't like the humidity of the salt air, how it makes your skin sticky and your hair frizzy. The only thing I like about going to the boardwalk is the promise that eventually, I will get to go on the beach. I don't go in the ocean any deeper than my ankles because I can't see the bottom and I know there's a killer jellyfish waiting for me somewhere under there. But I like the wet sand and the white-capped waves that go haywire when a storm is coming.
A storm is coming today, only I don't know that it's going to be both weather- and marriage-related.
Everyone knows I hate the boardwalk, but I go anyway because Syd and Alex enjoy the rides and the bizarrely entrancing foods like Chipstix and pistachio fudge. But I make no secret of my distaste for the whole scene, which makes me feel worse because at some level, I know I am not-so-secretly trying to ruin their day together.
Things get worse when the two of them trudge off to Mariner's Landing, leaving me in a shop where I am searching for a non-tacky headband to pull the sweaty hair back from my forehead. I think he's waiting outside when really he and his kid have gone off to ride the rides, thinking nothing of my impending panic at having to search the entire boardwalk for them. I am angry and I get progressively angrier with each circuit around the pier. No Alex, no Syd. They don't care that I'm carrying around a bag full of flip-flops and beach towels.
I finally take a break on a bench in the center of the pier, under a pergola that barely spares me from the sun. I can see the bathroom, I have water, I have crackers, and best yet, I have the keys to the truck and all the money. I think things are fine.
But after five minutes, I get angry again and start another circuit around the pier.
Of course, we eventually find each other but I can't hold my anger back and ream Alex out for giving me a mild anxiety attack. When all is said and done, I've wasted a precious 20 minutes of the time we have with Syd cursing at my husband in the middle of the boardwalk. I stop mid-yell, think for a second, and apologize for flying off the handle. In the hopes that I can redeem myself a bit, I follow them down the boardwalk like a sulking puppy, still carrying the beach bag.
Bobby Dee's Casino is on a corner, the address a simple 3600 Boardwalk painted in small letters on the side. Alex and Syd are happy again and ready to spend some cash on a few games that will pay out nothing but cheap orange tickets and maybe a few brass-colored tokens. But if they're happy, then I'm happy because I am still trying to work out how I'm going to save the remainder of the day. I am repentant for my outburst and repentance for me usually takes the form of silence.
In the end, when Syd is ready for her mini-shopping spree, I see the sign and stop dead. It makes me think of the word redemption and what it means in the context of a boardwalk arcade.
What does it all mean?!
Does it mean anything?
To be continued...
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