Palisades Park

by Alan Brennert

  Palisades Amusement Park was not just popular—it was hip.

  But the park also continued to feature more traditional attractions like the Hunt Brothers Circus, the Little Miss America and Miss American Teenager pageants, as well as a variety of high-flying aerial acts that included Palisades Park’s own high-diving sensation, the Amazing Antoinette.

  * * *

  “Dawn,” Toni asked her daughter, “where’s your brother? Doesn’t he know we’re leaving?”

  Seven-year-old Dawn looked up from playing with her Barbie doll, blew a long strand of reddish-blonde hair out of her eyes, and said, “I think I saw him take his go-cart out of the garage.”

  Toni sighed. “I told him we were leaving for the park. Wait here.”

  Toni walked out of the two-story white clapboard house she and Jimmy had purchased three years ago. Valley Place was a narrow, sloping street that ran from Undercliff Avenue to the dead-end of Hudson Terrace; reaching the curb she could hear the approaching rattle of metal wheels.

  She looked up the street to see her son, Jeffrey, dark-haired, eight years old, hurtling down the hill on a go-cart he had built himself by hammering an orange crate to a plank, then nailing a pair of old roller skates to the plank—singing the theme to some puppet show he watched on TV:

  “Supercar! Sooopercar!” he cried as he rattled past her, then, just before reaching the fencing at the end of the street, veering to the right and skidding to a stop in front of the last house on the block. Toni worried that one of these days he would collide with a car turning right from Hudson Terrace, or jump the fence onto Route 5; thankfully most of the go-cart races he took part in were held on dead-end streets.

  “Jeff, we’re leaving, put your cart away and get into the car!”

  “Just one more ride down, Mom?”

  “Mommy has a big tank of water to jump into, pal, so get in the car.”

  Jeff pushed the cart past her, muttering, “I never get to have any fun.”

  “We’re going to an amusement park, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, mood swinging to sunny. “Is Dad meeting us?”

  “Yes, at showtime, when he’s on lunch break.”

  It was a short drive up Route 5 to Palisade Avenue and the park, where Toni parked in the employee parking lot on this, the first day of her annual month-long engagement—always the highlight of her year.

  There were changes this season at Palisades, as ever, as the Rosenthals kept up with the beat of the times. Toni loved the rock-and-roll acts that played the free-act stage, even if Jimmy said, “Ah, they can’t compare to Glenn Miller,” and her children were a little too young to enjoy them. There were new rides like the Atomic Boats, the Roto-Jet, and the Wild Mouse.

  There were also changes behind the scenes. Anna Halpin was now Anna Cook, having wed businessman Fred Cook in ’55. Candyland was still here, but the man who once owned it, Chief Borrell, died in disgrace in ’57 after serving a prison term for perjury. And sadly, just a few weeks before, Superintendent Joe McKee passed away; the park’s assistant superintendent for twenty years, Joe Rinaldi, was quickly named to replace him.

  Toni took the kids to the free-act stage where she and Arlan had put up her tank and tower the day before. Already waiting for them there was …

  “Uncle Jack!” Jeff and Dawn ran up to him and he squatted down and wrapped his arms around both of them. His hands, though they still trembled, became much stronger and steadier when he held his niece and nephew, whom he doted on.

  “There you are! I was just about to ride the Roto-Jet without you!”

  “No no, take us with you!” Jeff pleaded.

  “I want to see Noah’s Ark,” Dawn said. This was a new exhibit showcasing a hundred different varieties of animals, many of which, like baby lambs, could be petted.

  “That’s boring,” Jeff said. “I want to see the cow with two heads.” Jeff couldn’t get enough of Arch and Maie McAskill’s Freak Animal Show.

  “We’ll go to as many of ’em as we can before coming back to see your Mom,” Jack promised. “And remember, there’s always tomorrow.”

  “Do we have to?” Jeff complained. “We’ve seen Mom jump a thousand million times, but I’ve only seen the two-headed cow once before!”

  “If the public were as blasé about my act as you two are,” Toni said, smiling, “I’d be out of a job. Try not to yawn when I make the dive.” She gave them each a kiss. “Thanks for taking them, Jack.”

  “What are uncles for?” he said with a grin, and led the kids away.

  Toni and Arlan checked her equipment, the weather and wind speed, then Toni used one of the performer rooms at the sideshow (now known as “Hell’s Belles and the Palace of Wonder”) to slip into her swimsuit.

  A little before one P.M., Jimmy arrived to wish her luck as a crowd gathered at the free-act stage. Eddie and Lehua—celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary this month—arrived hand in hand shortly after. Minette Dobson, on lunch break from her concession, slid onto a bench. Then, at the last minute, a willowy blonde in a red Jackie Kennedy dress slipped in, sat down beside Minette, and began chatting with her.

  “Your mom’s here,” Jimmy said.

  “She was invited,” Toni said, “but I kind of hoped she’d have a gig of her own in Atlantic City.”

  “I thought you two put all that behind you.”

  Toni frowned. “More like we put it aside. For the kids’ sake.”

  At that, the voice of Bob Paulson announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Palisades Park is proud to welcome back its prodigal daughter, Toni Stopka. Here now the death-defying gymnastic diving of—the Amazing Antoinette!”

  Jimmy kissed Toni for luck and she ascended the ladder.

  In the audience, Adele told Minette, “I really am in awe of what she does. The timing, the precision, the skill it requires.…”

  “Have you told her that?”

  “Yes. But I’m not sure she believes me.”

  Minette hesitated a moment, then asked, “Adele, if you had it to do over … would you still have left them?”

  “You mean, do I regret leaving my children?” Adele said hotly. “Of course I do! But Minette, I’m fifty-one years old. My best years in the business may be behind me, but what I would also have regretted is to have reached this age … and never to have tried.”

  Toni launched herself off the platform and into a cutaway double somersault, piked—one of the most difficult dives for any high diver—before plunging safely into the water.

  She emerged from the tank to the cheers and applause of the crowd—all but Jeffrey and Dawn, otherwise occupied consuming clouds of cotton candy bigger than their heads. Jack always bought them too much food.

  Once Toni had changed into dry clothes, the whole family drove down the street for a celebratory lunch at Eddie’s Polynesia on the Palisades.

  Eddie’s was no longer just a bar, but a full-service restaurant; after three years in the black he expanded the kitchen and dining room to accommodate up to a hundred customers nightly. At the same time he added a new, six-foot tiki at the front entrance, which was now bracketed by two flaming torches fed by a small gas pipe. As Eddie was fond of saying, you could see the place a mile away and think, “What the hell is that?”

  Since Hawai‘i had become the fiftieth state—and the advent of jet travel had brought the islands closer to the mainland—business at Eddie’s had nearly doubled. He and Lehua had added three waitresses and two more cooks to the staff. Eddie still liked working the bar, though he now employed another bartender to take up the slack. Eddie asked Toni and Jimmy, “So what can I get for the Amazing Antoinette and the Red Guinea?”

  Jimmy laughed. “Red wine for the Red Guinea—Merlot if you got it.”

  “We got everything. Toni?”

  “Banana daiquiri.”

  “Coming right up.”

  They sat down at a table where Jack, off the clock from his job as the restaurant bookkeeper, was entertaining Jeffre
y and Dawn. Jack’s hands still trembled enough that he couldn’t draw, but he’d discovered that he could work an adding machine and a typewriter just fine—and had even started using the latter to write stories about his experiences in Korea, which his VA psychiatrist had recommended as a way of coming to terms with them.

  Adele entered the restaurant, as always a little amazed by it. She had never suspected that Eddie had anything like this place in him—he was more of a showman than she had ever credited him. Despite what she told Minette, part of her couldn’t help wondering what might have happened had she given in to that last plea of his to put together an act and go on the road together. Where might they be today?

  “Aloha, Adele,” Eddie greeted her.

  She smiled. “Aloha, Eddie.”

  “What’ll you have?”

  “Gin and tonic.”

  “Done. Take a seat and I’ll have your drink in a jiff.”

  She went to the table, kissed and greeted Toni, then Jack, then Toni’s husband and the kids. “Hi, Grandma!” they each said. They were beautiful children, as beautiful as Jack and Toni had been at their age.

  She sat down next to Dawn, and realized when she looked up she was directly opposite Lehua. “Aloha, Lehua, how’ve you been?”

  “Fine, Adele, and yourself?”

  “Still pulling rabbits out of my hat,” she said, which always made everyone laugh and took the place of potentially awkward conversation.

  Within a few minutes Eddie brought a tray of drinks to the table, took a seat beside Lehua, and proposed a toast: “To another day in which my death-defying daughter remembered to fill the tank with water.”

  Everyone laughed and drank to it.

  Lunch was a delicious buffet of Hawaiian kālua spareribs, Mandarin duck, Tahitian lime fish, pineapple rice, and for dessert, Hawaiian haupia (coconut) pudding, the recipe for which Eddie had obtained from Lehua’s mother on their last trip to O‘ahu to visit her family.

  Seeing Eddie married to Lehua, Adele felt caught in a thorny tangle of emotions. She was glad he was happy—she had treated him badly, no two ways about it, despite what he had done to her by enlisting—she only wished that her last boyfriend hadn’t recently skipped town, as she once had, with a showgirl. Not that she had been all that crazy about him, but it would have been nice to have someone sitting beside her right now.

  As soon as she reasonably could, Adele found a reason to leave for Atlantic City. Dawn asked, “You’re still coming to my birthday party next month, aren’t you, Grandma?”

  “Of course.”

  “Will you show us some tricks?”

  “Try and stop me,” Adele said, kissing her and Jeffrey, then exiting.

  Toni was silently relieved to see her go.

  “Mom, can we stop at Pitkof’s for the new comic books?” Jeff asked.

  Toni smiled. “Absolutely.”

  Pitkof’s Candy Store was still at 310 Palisade Avenue, still selling candy, ice-cream sodas, toys, cards and magazines, and above all, comic books. Jeffrey and Dawn ran for the spinner rack as Toni and Jack had twenty years before; Dawn was interested only in titles like Casper, Baby Huey, and L’il Dot, while Jeff snapped up the new issues of Justice League of America and The Fantastic Four. Flipping through the JLA, he spotted a familiar half-page ad featuring Superman himself, inviting the reader to

  Be my guest at

  Palisades Amusement Park, New Jersey. This coupon entitles you to FREE admission plus 2 FREE RIDES … acts And Parking!

  Jeff was always thrilled when he saw these ads, which elevated Palisades from just their local amusement park to a place where Superman might hang out on his days off as Clark Kent.

  Jack Pitkof was in his late sixties now, his hair as gray as the service jacket he still wore, patient as ever with the kids who thronged his store. His eight-year-old niece Miriam, whose job it was to open the packs of comics and put them on the racks, often read the comics aloud with Jeffrey.

  Toni marveled at how little the store had changed: the yellowed greeting cards on display could have dated from the 1940s, and here and there, on a back shelf, was an old toy that time seemed to have passed by. She slid onto a stool at the soda fountain and ordered a chocolate soda.

  “So, Jack, how’s Rachel?” Toni asked, referring to Pitkof’s wife.

  “Good, good. Miriam has a cold or else she’d be here today.”

  “And how are Kamal and his family doing?” Although he seldom mentioned it, the elderly Jewish shopkeeper, living his faith, had taken an immigrant Egyptian family under his wing, renting them a small apartment which, at first, they couldn’t afford to pay for—an issue Jack never pressed.

  “Ah,” he said, “very well. Kamal is going to open an insurance office next door, he’s got enough saved now for the rent.”

  “They owe you a lot,” Toni said.

  He shook his head. “They owe me nothing. I know how hard it is, to come with nothing to a new country. All I did was give them a little push.”

  Toni looked at him and thought: To receive hate and to give back kindness—that was not “nothing.”

  After Pitkof’s, Toni took the kids back home, by which time Jimmy was home. Toni cooked dinner and was out of the house by six o’clock. Her evening performance—a double somersault, tucked, with a half-twist—went well, the crowd quite vocal in their approval. But as good as it was to be back at Palisades, there was someone important missing from the park, and Toni would make a point to seek him out tomorrow morning.

  * * *

  Five years earlier, Bunty Hill, a fixture at the Palisades pool for twenty-three years, left to take a job as a lifeguard at the Colony Swim Club in Chatham. He worked there for two years, but by ’62 he was largely retired, working only odd jobs, living alone in his apartment on Hoefleys Lane—though still taking his daily swims in the Hudson, and still serving as swim instructor to the gaggles of Fort Lee kids who followed him like geese to the riverfront to learn from the master.

  Toni couldn’t help but worry for her friend—was he really getting by all right? Was he happy?

  Leaving Jeffrey and Dawn in a neighbor’s care, Toni drove down Henry Hudson Drive to Hazard’s Dock—where Bunty, as always during the summer, was showing young students how to swim safely in the Hudson (when he wasn’t sitting on the shore, reading his racing form and sharing his crackers, cheese, and liverwurst with the exhausted pupils). When Bunty looked up and saw Toni he smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling with pleasure. “Hey, kid, where you been? It’s been a while.”

  “I had some gigs in Florida,” she said, sitting down on the dock alongside the kids. “February’s a big month for county fairs in Florida.”

  “And Jimmy takes care of the kids while you’re away? Man, you married a saint.”

  “Well, it helps that I work four months a year and earn a little bit more than he does all year at the bank,” Toni said.

  “Bunty,” one of the kids asked, “my grandpa says people used to spend summers down here, is that true?”

  “Hell, yes. About half a mile south of here”—he pointed, and every head snapped in that direction—“at Carpenters Landing, there’d be hundreds of tents and summer homes—vacationing New Yorkers, mostly…”

  Toni sat back and enjoyed the sun, the salt air, Bunty’s soothing voice as he told his stories of days gone by. And even if his hair had grayed and his face wrinkled some, he was still in remarkably good shape for a sixty-one-year-old man—that triangular swimmer’s body of his looked as sturdy as it had a decade ago, broad shoulders, thin waist, lean muscular legs. Bunty hadn’t stopped time, but here at Hazard’s he seemed to have at least slowed it down.

  Later, after the kids had gone home, Toni asked what he was up to these days.

  “You remember Tommy Meyers—he was a lifeguard at Palisades?” Bunty said. “He just bought a run-down old house in Coytesville and I’m helping him fix it up. He wanted to pay me for it and when I said no, he said, ‘Okay, then, when this
place is finished, you’re coming over every Sunday for dinner with me and my family.’ Well, I’m no fool—I may turn down money, but never food.”

  They both laughed. Then after a moment, Toni worked up the nerve to ask something she had wondered about these past few years:

  “Bunty? Do you ever … regret not getting married? I mean, you obviously love kids—didn’t you ever want any of your own?”

  Bunty thought a moment and said, “Yeah, sure, sometimes I regret it. But I had so many sweethearts at the pool, I just couldn’t bring myself to pick one and hurt the feelings of the rest. And if I had, I’d have had to get a regular job, pay a mortgage—and then I couldn’t come down here and swim the river every day. I’ve got plenty of kids, Toni—all of you are my kids, and I couldn’t ask for better ones. Look how beautiful it is out here today. Look at the friends I have. I’ve got everything a man could want.”

  The smile on his face was genuine—he chose this life, and he loved it. And if he was truly happy, that was all that mattered to Toni.

  * * *

  The highlight of Dawn’s eighth birthday party in August was a performance by “The Magical Adele,” who started out her routine by showing Dawn and her friends a square bag made of felt, turning it inside out to demonstrate that it was empty, then zipping it shut. “You see, this is no ordinary bag,” Adele explained. “It produces eggs, as many as you can eat. Like so.” She unzipped it, reached into the seemingly empty bag, and took out a hard-boiled egg, which she then passed around to the children.