Paul Goldfinger ©. c 2015. Asbury Park seen from Founders Park in Ocean Grove.
Scene: Friday night, Labor Day weekend, 2017, on our porch in OG. It’s 10 pm and it is dark out. There is an orange streetlight at our corner, and the moon is 3/4 full. But looking west on Mt. Hermon Way (North End) it’s quite dark.
My son Stephen has been walking his dog Poojah in Firemen’s Park when he stops to converse with a young woman who can’t find her car.
She’s been visiting a friend on Lake Avenue in A. Park.
She crosses the bridge to the Grove and finds Stephen. He invites her onto our porch while they discuss her situation. He calls me down.
Stephen said, “Dad, I don’t know the geography around here; can you help?”
She is in her twenties and she is alone. She is petite and pretty and she is calm and confident. She is lucid and oriented, but she doesn’t share her name.
She: “I can’t find my car (smiling.) I parked it over here on a street named White-something.”
Me: (thinking, she must mean Whitefield, one block away). I can tell her where to go, but we are worried about her in the dark. “Can I drive you around to find your car?”
She: “No thanks, just tell me where to walk. You know, I crossed the bridge from here into Asbury because here the parking is free.”
Me: (thinking–I’m glad she is comfortable enough in our town to trust us.)
“Just go down a block to find Whitefield Avenue”
She: “Thanks so much, guys.”
She begins to walk into the darkness.
We watch her disappear.
MEL CARTER “I Worry About You.”