The Streets

by Tom Sheridan

  Franco ran the track back as he ran the petrol tracks. Had to take another listen to the lyrical teachings of this new-school cat, Kanye. What was T tryin to tell him with the tune? Was Franco hearing the words to the song all wrong? Was T saying that everything Franco isn’t…is what makes him…great?

  Franco beat feet into Fords. Ran along New Brunswick Ave’s one-story brick stores all telling the same story. Of a tough little town no one could hold down. Bustling with business from The Made Man Barber Shop fulla dudes with fresh mops to Ruben’s Auto Body to The Flower Shop run by Dotty. Franco then ran past Dotty’s biggest customer. A cemetery full of cement flower stations. Just one of the gazillion graveyards that could be found all over the old town. Three hundred fifty years of fallen fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers. Scattered about town in plain sight. The poop of a nest the newly hatched generation would just have to endure. Despite the scatalogy of the analogy, Franco actually breathed a sigh of relief. The masses who had widowed Woodbridge were all definitely too dead to be let down by The Brawler. He had half a mind to wave to the graves. Nice to see yous!

  Franco trucked along Route 1 as trucks roared past. He on Woodbridge Township’s Fords borough side. Edison Township on the other. Named after the Wizard of Menlo Park himself. As Franco hauled past Menlo Mall, he tried to remember that thing Edison said. He didn’t fail a million times? He found a million ways not to make a light bulb? Was that it? And what the fuck did that mean? Goddamn it why didn’t Franco pay more attention to Mr. Ertz in his Earth Science class? Oh that’s right. Cuz him and Joey were too busy cracking up. Calling it Ertz Science. Jesus Christ. Why couldn’t Edison build a goddamn time machine for Franco? Now that would be useful. Franco was sure to stay on the Woodbridge Township side of the road. Fuck Edison.

  But as Franco beat feet out of Fords, his feelings flipped. He had a light bulb moment. Maybe none of his life had been a failure. Maybe it was all a prelude to him turning on his own light the following night. Finally illuminating exactly the life he set out to live.

  As Franco’s mind was in fifth gear, his feet hit the fifth borough of his township run. Sucking wind as he entered Iselin. His gills enflamed as he turned on Gill Lane. The road laid on a land once full of teepees was now full of Indian joints all over again. Only Columbus would’ve been correct in his ethnic assessment this time around. Franco pushed through Merrill Park as the track was a-changin. To “The Times They Are a-Changin.” Franco’s ankle straight killin. As he listened to Dylan. “Get him, Franco,” said an old Indian man wearing a sari. Franco shrugged—a prepaid sorry. A couple of high fives he barely mustered. For two Guindians eating pretzels n mustard. It took all he had to pick up a cricket ball batted his way. He handed it over to a pursuant little squirt. In a Yankees t-shirt. The name on the back put some juice in Franco’s meter. The kid repped Jeter.

  Franco continued past the three generations of family picnicking at the park. Continued on his own. To “Like a Rolling Stone.” Like the fallen hero in the song, Franco, too, had nothing to lose. Maybe that would give him comfort in defeat. He chugged down Chain O’ Hills Road in his nine-year-old Nikes. Nikes he vowed to wear until he wore The Belt. Nine-year-old Nikes he feared would see ninety. Nine-year-old Nikes he’d be buried in. As he groveled past yet another graveyard, he had half a mind to hop the fence and get right to it.

  But another Bob kept the fire lit. “Get Up, Stand Up.” Franco listened to the commands from Marley as he followed a Harley. Through winding roads that ranged from centuries-old single lanes to overhauled highways. Past a mishmash of houses that varied in size, style, and century built. Across yet another traffic bottleneck of a township that wasn’t properly planned. Rather, sprawling in ways and directions as variable as the times it had been through. An unpredictable, divergent town that was either a cancer cell. Or. A diamond in the rough.

  Franco was five of nine boroughs done and hearing The Wood’s most famousest son. Halfway there. Hearin “Livin’ On a Prayer.” Franco cruised into Colonia. Sure, it was the crown jewel of the township with its lush woods and single lanes that snaked past acre lots older than America. Past colossal colonials built in better days. Past the country club that served as a reunion hall for those outtie in their Audis. “FRANCOOO!” yelled a thirtysomething doing fortysomething in a car worth fiftysomething. Franco threw a neutral nod to the pilot of the A6. Unsure if he was fuckin with The Brawler still crawlin in Asics. Franco couldn’t trust Colonia either. Even there, the picturesque gave way to the grotesque. Aging all-brick apartments. Drags of drab strip malls. Shut-down shops. They were all over Woodbridge, weren’t they? Caldor. Woolworth. Rickel’s. Burned-out stores as old as Don Rickles.

  The Prince, meanwhile, was the properly planned exurb of Franco’s dreams. Literally of Franco’s dreams. Franco had never seen the mansions of Millburn. The landscaped lawns of Livingston. The unbridled colts of Colts Neck. He’d only heard his lawyer chat about Chatham. Only got a glimpse of Glen Ridge from a Parkway bridge. Only once stopped at a Montclair park on a lark. Until county officers asked what his business was. Told him keep it moving, ’cous. And of course. The crown jewel of Jersey. Princeton. Literally fuckin means Prince Town. Franco imagined The Prince as one of them gothic campus buildings. His fight team the landscapers who kept the grounds prim and proper. The contractors ever-expanding the campus. The hired hands weatherproofing and burglar-proofing The Prince from any and all intrusions. The Prince’s manager was the city planner at large who mapped out a grid of parallel and perpendicular roads with ample width. And underground electricity of course. His sponsors the corporations that inhabited buildings downtown and spread wealth uptown. The campus donors that endowed The Prince with any and all resources. The Prince’s entourage the cops and firefighters that kept him safe at all times. His groupies, his VIP rooms, his penthouses the parks, pools, and golf courses he had all to himself before being chauffeured home to the wives and kids.

  Franco scaled yet another bridge that barely stitched his township together. He tried to garner a glimpse—through wires stitching utility poles together, down more train tracks that seemed to cross at every seam, past the marshland maybe home to Hoffa—of Giants Stadium. While he couldn’t quite make out the arena, the words of the G-Men’s defensive captain came to him clear as a bell. Strahan had said the famous phrase only a month before. After the G-Men pulled off the biggest upset in the world’s biggest game. Against what would’ve been the undefeated, greatest NFL team of all time. Everybody’s got a plan until they get hit in the mouth. Strahan’s requote of words originally spoken by the real deal Brooklyn brawler himself. Words that lit a fire up under the buns of The Bunns Lane Brawler.

  Franco accelerated from the apex of the bridge and caught speed into Avenel. Into stomping grounds with a grit that made the fighter feel more at home. The utility poles as crooked as his past. The lots as little as his own. The Route 1 joints as rundown as himself. But still plugging along. Better yet, the broken hero had some extra juice. Thanks to another track from Bruce. “Thunder Road” as he thundered down the road. But something was wrong as he heard his wedding song. What kind of backwards fucking life did Franco live that entering Avenel made him feel better? The American Dream ran the other way. Into Colonia. Into a colossal colonial. Into the country club. So what the fuck was Franco running? Past potholed roads. Run-down ranches. Mobile homes for the downwardly mobile. The fear gave Franco another gear. He went into overdrive as he did a loop around The Loop. The motel of heart-shaped tubs and sauna showers. For lovers by the hours.

  Franco ran along Rahway Prison. Rahway. Ha. The iconic green-domed fortress of Ocean’s Eleven and He Got Game fame sat entirely on Woodbridge Township property. Worse. One of Franco’s favorite movies, Rounders, did something even more preposterous to the prison’s position. When Mikey McD himself rolls into Woodbridge and picks up Worm at the prison’s gates, what did the movie makers put on the prison’s sign? Some fake-ass name across an im
age of the state of New York! It ain’t enough that New York claimed the Jets and Giants from Jersey. They had to jack the jail, too! As Franco ran around the grounds and onto Rahway Ave, he had another wonder altogether. Why the fuck did he even care if Woodbridge got credit for a fuckin jail? How twisted was that? It was enough to give him the Folsom Prison Blues. Until he remembered. That he had cut ties with The Frog. And any chance of ever hopping into incarceration. Franco found yet another gear as he cashed in on a different Cash song from T. For T. “I Walk the Line.”

  Franco trucked past the prison. Destined for another cage. Then got some extra hops. From “When the Music Stops.” As Em had him feeling froggish, Franco forgot all about the toad. He fuckin blazed down Blair Road. Trucked parallel to trucks on the Turnpike. Along the edge of borough seven. Port Reading. Yeah, there were stretches of brush that would brush him onto the busy road. Yeah, the other side had a sidewalk. Yeah, he had homies over on the Carteruff side. But he was just. He was feeling his town today. Woodbridge. The Wood. The W. Feeling trim as he listened to Slim. As he motored past immobile mobile homes. As he made his way along more where-the-fuck-am-I industrial outskirts. One plant after another. Combining one chemical or another. Mixin up swamps in the swamps of Jersey.

  Franco pushed forward as the ancient township and its Washington memorials and Jefferson Streets gave way to Omar Avenue and the Oros Wildlife Preserve. On a gray day, the preserve looked like it preserved whacked wiseguys. But on this morning, with the sun shimmied up over the forest and shining upon the lake, Franco had half a mind to rent a fuckin canoe. No need to row to the Wu. He could just chill in that nifty lake right in his hometown. Maybe after the fight. Yeah. Definitely. He’d sit out there in a canoe one way or the other. Maybe as a champ who could reclaim his princess. Stand there with Julie at the edge of the canoe like he was fuckin Leo in Titanic. Or as a total loser. As Fredo getting one last look at God’s green earth. Before it all went black.

  Franco revved his engine to a gear he didn’t know he had. He clocked the digital clock on the Turnpike billboard. 8:02. Eight-o-fuckin two! Even before the cracked ankle, he never cracked 8:05. 8:02 mothafucka. Fierce as the Wu mothafucka. Listenin to Em mothafucka. Franco hit a runner’s high on his eighth mile. Pumped by the man from 8 Mile. As the music made him feel uplifted, his mind drifted. Many times, the victor was just the one who wanted it more, wasn’t it? Broadway Joe and the Jets, 18-point underdogs, finding a way to outball Baltimore in Super Bowl III. The Amazin Mets down to their last out, refusing to be eighty-sixed in ’86. The Rangers’ Mark Messier messing up the Canucks for the Cup in ’94—the ex-Oiler able to go to the well once more. Right at Franco’s age no less. The about-to-be-down one game to three underdog Yanks who yanked the Series back—outbraving the Braves in ’96. And those Jersey G-Men. The ones Joey never stopped believin in. Not this year. Not ever. Just last month. Greatest upset of all time.

  And the fight game was a whole other level. Fuck who wants it more. Who needs it more. Who even gets into the fight game to begin with? Dudes with no other options. Dudes that are willing to walk into a cage with a killer. And be the killer.

  But what about The Prince? An exception to the rule. Born with it all. On the outside. On the inside, a giant hole in his soul. Franco knew a lot about that. Knew The Prince had a lot to prove. His baba was a bear of a man who built the Saudi fight game with his bare hands. Not to mention his expansion of their oil empire as the Middle Easterner found mad West Side love. And The Prince’s mother. Twice the medals and degrees. How the fuck could he please? The Prince poured his rage into the cage. A mixed martial artist born with a lethal mix. The brood n brawn of Baba. The sleek frame n strategic brain of Mama. That Kanye cat crept back in Franco’s brain. Those bars. How everything you’re not. Makes you everything you are.

  Franco ran along the dock where he had the nighttime talk with T. His sweats as wet and salty as the sea. The morning light illuminated the empty trash. No sign of Franco getting trashed. The morning light illuminated the projects he put the Wu at. Illuminated Sewaren’s nifty marina full of boats. Flanked by oil tanks. Only in Woodbridge. Franco fired some punches. Threw in some dekes and ducks. Dodged a family of ducks. The shadowboxer smiled as he reminisced on that young and drunk night. When Joey was encouraging him to take his fighting skills and marry them with martial arts training. Three (hundred) sheets to the wind, Franco leaned in all glassy-eyed, all dead serious, and recited the riff currently playing on his CD. About how he should mix Shaolin shadowboxing. With the Wu-Tang sword style. Sure, Young Franco was dropping a joke to crack his and Joey’s drunk asses up. But he also signed up for Muay Thai the next morning.

  Franco crossed himself as he crossed the patch where his pony passed. Then crossed the parking lot of the VFW and soldiered on past a couple soldiers. A long-haired old-timer from Nam and a crew-cut newbie from Fallujah. Vets sharing a smoke and a hallelujah. They made fists in salute to the fighter.

  “Get im, Franco,” said old man Ernest in earnest.

  “Whadaya say now, Wood!” hooted the newbie. Who be. Lookin like Miles. Boobie.

  The fighter sent a salute back as Creedence crooned their creed. About how when the wars come. They’re the ones. Cuz they weren’t no. Fortunate Sons. Franco turned and set his sights on the one and only Woodbridge Ave. A dead shot west. Back to Woodbridge borough. Aka Proper. The sun ablaze at Franco’s back in perfect counterbalance to the cool. The local road illuminated. The town’s inhabitants in their cars carting this way and that. Backing out of driveways set between green grass. Green grass whose spring smell was springing for the first time this morning. Green grass that ran around cozy Cape Cods glowing in the morning sun. Green grass that boasted budding trees. Oaks and maples the main staples. Green grass that gave way to petite parking lots of quaint corner stores. A camp worthy of Mellencamp. Franco breezed past little pink houses. Hearin a little “Pink Houses.”

  As The Bunns Lane Brawler made his way back to Proper, the townsfolk gave him a sendoff proper. A bus driver beeped her horn. A couple contractors wished him luck from their truck. Families waved hands from minivans.

  Franco’s fight team did him one better. Joey, Brazil, Taz, and even Lama, who ran like a llama, were all waiting for him at the final high point. The apex of the bridge back to his home borough.

  Franco trucked up the bridge lined with armed forces flags that forced his arms faster. His feet flew over the final hill. He was far from over the hill. As he headed back. From the FISH PACK. (The acronym every kid from The Wood learns to remember the eight other boroughs. Fords. Iselin. Sewaren. Hopelawn. Port Reading. Avenel. Colonia. Keasbey.)

  “Nigga wait up!” wailed Joey, petty.

  But all Franco heard was Petty. “Learning to Fly” as he flew toward his old high school. His whole crew behind him.

  A police car pulled out. Franco slowed his roll as the sirens rolled. Was some crooked shit he did for The Frog coming back to bite him? Wait—the cop wasn’t stopping him. The cop was escorting him. Toward the hundreds of high school kids waiting with Coach Nelson.

  “You weren’t gonna run without us, were you?” wondered Nelly as he bellied up to Franco, carrying right along.

  “Don’t you got some athletics to direct?” huffed Franco.

  “And what’s lesson one of my athletic program?”

  Franco grinned. “Woodbridge Pride.”

  “Woodbridge Pride, baby.” Nelly slapped his fighter’s back. “Whadaya say now, WOOD!”

  Five hundred high school kids, “WHADAYA SAY NOW, WOOD!”

  Franco and Nelly led the congregation past the tennis courts. A steamroller rolled a fresh pave of them.

  “What’s that about?” floated Franco.

  “You didn’t hear? Richie Sambora’s dumping a ton of money into the school,” noted Nelly.

  “No shit.” Franco picked up the pace. As he looked back to the passing courts, he saw T. “Ay!” Franco’s face lit
up. “Get up here!”

  T breezed past the high schoolers high on freedom and his father’s fledgling fame. He dashed alongside Dad.

  The heavy Rocky bells ringing in Franco’s ears gave way to the song they were sampled into. “Victory.” Featuring who else? The Notorious. Franco pointed to his headphones, gave T a fist bump. “Dope.” He now had hope. Nothing better than those bells. At once ominous and auspicious. Nothing better than those bells save for Big and Puff belting out bars over them. Nothing better than those bells with Big and Puff belting out bars save for it all being on a bomb-ass CD from T.

  Franco ran with all his heart past Pearl Street Park. Past the Cross Keys landmark. Ran right through St. John’s on a lark. Those praying to the Holy Spirit in Mass found it in Franco and followed en masse. And fuck beeping, cars began to park. Passengers spilled out and ran after Franco and the hundreds of high schoolers. The whole town tailed him as he sprinted past Parker’s Printing Press. The landmarked cottage sittin there like it was 1776. Like it was ready to crank out another edition of the colonies’ first newsletter. The New America.

  Franco hit top speed right down the middle of Main Street. In his home borough. The granddaddy of them all. Like he was the Grand Marshall. Of The Granddaddy of Them All.