Wildwood story #1

I was in Wildwood, NJ one summer not long after high school, working at a crappy job as a short order cook on the boardwalk. The initial excitement of the season opening had long since worn off. I’d gotten off work early one afternoon and I didn’t want to go back to my tiny hot room. I decided to walk about a mile down the boardwalk to where my friends worked and hang out by one of the amusement piers until they got off work. They wouldn’t be getting off work for a couple of hours so, I wasn’t in a hurry.
I would’ve just sat down with my sketchbook and drawn for a couple of hours but I had no sketchbook with me. It was all the way across town in my room. There was a bit of trash lying here and there along the boardwalk. That would do, so I picked up anything that had blank spots and would hold ink. When I had a bunch of them, I’d sit down on a bench and draw on them. Just silly cartoons and goofy drawings made with a magic marker. When I’d drawn on all the paper I had, I’d gather them up and wade back into the sea of humanity shuffling down the boardwalk, dropping the drawings as I went and picking up new pieces to draw on. Then I’d sit down on another bench and draw more pictures, sometimes letting the wind take them. I put my initials on some of the better drawings. Then I’d wade back into the crowd and repeat the process until I reached the bench across the boardwalk from where my friends worked. I still had some time to kill so, I sat there drawing on pieces of trash laying right next to the bench. I didn’t even have to get up. I’d draw something and then toss the paper back on the ground. By now I’d drawn a lot of these things; I don’t know how many, 50 or 60, maybe more. I was about tapped out, so I was sitting back on my bench watching the crowd. (a great catalog of faces, but you have to draw fast).
I noticed a couple of girls making their way down the boardwalk. I heard one of them say, “Here’s another one!” The other one said, “Look, two more!” The next thing I know, they’re sitting on the bench with me and they both had their hands full of my trash drawings. They were excited. You would’ve thought they found gold nuggets. One of them said, “We found these laying on the boardwalk for, like, miles! Look at these things, they’re great!” We all had a good laugh going through their collection, which was maybe half of what I’d drawn. I said, “Want another one?” as I picked up a scrap of paper and began to draw on it. Their jaws dropped into their laps. A couple of hours ago I was tired and lonely. Now I’m sitting with two beautiful women treating me like a rock star. They couldn’t believe I was throwing these drawings away. I was thinking, it was worth it from where I’m sitting. It paid off big-time. I spent the rest of the summer with these gals.