Act 1 Scene 1 - The Girls Come to Town

Act 1 Scene 1 

The Girls Come to Town 

The girls couldn’t get to the Jersey Shore fast enough.

They felt like they were flying high above the Delaware river over the Walt Whitman bridge into New Jersey, the red ball of sun rising over the eastern horizon ahead of them, their brown wavy hair blowing in the wind, one bare foot sticking out of the passenger side window, and with her toes shifting the side view mirror to reflect her and then on to Susan Davis, smiling behind the wheel of her dark blue 1966 Chevy convertible, black top down.

In the passenger seat “Liz” – Elizabeth Perry unfolds a bright red scarf and lets if fly in the breeze. The girls, both 19, had just finished a semester at Monticello Junior College in Godfrey, Illinois, Liz looking forward to going back for her second year at Monticello while Davis was planning to attend Ithaca College in New York. 

They were due in Durum, South Carolina on Saturday to attend the graduation from Duke of Davis’ brother, and it being Tuesday morning they were going to spend the next few days on the beach and boardwalk at Ocean City, New Jersey – “America’s Greatest Family Resort.”

When it came to a fork in the road, as Yogie Berra would say, they took it, veering away from the Black Horse Pike and onto the Atlantic City Expressway toll road, Susan beeping the car horn twice as they both began singing, “Expressway to your heart,” a then popular song often heard on the radio.

After a round of loud laughs and giggles and a moment of silence Davis turned the radio on to hear static, so she tuned the dial until she got a clear station: “Michel Schurman – with your WOND news at the Jersey Shore,” who then gave them a well received weather report – “clear, sunny and mild.”

A few minutes later they passed the Hap Farley Service Plaza without stopping, and then a few miles before Atlantic City they took the Garden State Parkway South across Patcong Creek, bay waters that glistened in the rising sun, and past mile marker 32 – 32 miles from Cape May, on the opposite side of the four lane, woods and tree lined Parkway – the spot where they would meet their tragic fate in a few days time.

Getting off at the Somers Point – Ocean City Exit they head down MacArthur Boulevard, they hedge around the Crossroads Circle – if it was a clock - coming in at six o’clock and passing the diner, Your Father’s Mustache at three, and the Circle Liquor Store at two and going out at noon, shooting over the causeway bridge above Rainbow Channel, the top of which gives them a clear view of the vast Great Egg Bay. They inhale the first scent of salt air and squint at the rising sun that silhouettes the outline of the Ocean City skyline, their next destination.

Over the second causeway draw bridge they ride through town, past the gas stations, drive-ins and diners, catching the lights past the Chatterbox, Post Office, Watsons and the Bus Station and pull to the curb in front of a row of houses just before the chain link fence of the empty parking lot.

While Susan raised the black canvas top and locked the car, Liz pumps a few nickels into the parking meter and they head up to the wooden boards, their heals clicking and soft, flower print dresses flurrying in the wind, concealing their bathing suits underneath.

Heading past a row of glass telephone booths on one side and movie posters on the other they pass under the theater marquee before stopping to look up and down the nearly deserted boardwalk, only a few bicycles, strollers and a lone fast walker.

First hearing and then glancing over to the lone hippie playing guitar on Shriver’s Pavilion, they twerel and dance across the boards to his off beat tune, descend the steps to the right of the Pavilion, kick off their shoes and feel the cool sand seep through their toes. Then they run across the beach, past the deserted white Lifeguard stand with red lettering that reads: 9^th Street, they pull their dresses up to their knees and wade into the gently breaking surf.

Looking around to take things into perspective, they are in the cool shade as the sun slowly rises above the Music Pier to the north side. The long, flat ocean horizon is lined with three distinct boats – a sailboat under sail, an anchored and bobbing fishing boat with lines outstanding and Russian fishing freighter far at sea. A lone fisherman cast his surf pole at the end of the rock jetty, and all seems well in the world.

Smiling at each other without saying a word they walk back to the boardwalk where they find most of the stores are closed, so holding their shoes in their hands they walk daintily back across the boards, past the row of phone booths and back down the street to their car.

While Susan puts another nickel in the meter, Liz glanced at the hand painted wood sign next to a mailbox that read: Syben Guest House - Rooms for Rent – 712 Ninth Street. It was one of four, old cedar sided rooming houses that lined the south side of the street between the boardwalk parking lot and the bus station. Watson’s restaurant on the corner and the post office anchored the small but quaint neighborhood at the end of the line.

The door at 712 opened and out comes an older lady in an apron with a broom in hand who begins to sweep the steps before looking up, noticing and smiling at the two girls on the sidewalk.

It wasn’t long before her husband Walter Syben was carrying two suitcases of luggage into the front door of Syben Guest House, where Mrs. Syben was having the girls sign the guest book: Susan Davis – Camp Hill, Pa. - Elizabeth Perry – Excelsior – Minnesota.

“You girls can park your car in the driveway next to the house and get it off the meter,” said Walter Syben, carrying the luggage up the stairs to a second floor bedroom, “and you have a room with a view.”

A part time Pennsylvania farmer, Walter Syben had purchased the main street rooming house in 1965 for less than $20,000 and enjoyed working the summer tourist season at the shore before returning to his farm for the winter, in his view the best of two worlds.

Leaving their suitcases unopened on the twin beds, the girls took two keys, as Mrs. Syben explained, one for the front door and the other to their room. They would’t each need a set they explained, because they would be constantly together. Then they moved the car into the driveway, locked it, and headed for the boardwalk. There they would each take a phone booth, call home collect to let their parents know they arrived save and sound.

Then, as they say, they would “hit the beach, the boards and the bars,” in that order. 

Next up: Act 1 Scene 2 – Prom Night – The Morning After