Belford Stories: Belford Stories, #1

By Armand Rosamilia

October 1987...

A small fishing village on the New Jersey coast is ready for the high school football game and an oncoming snowstorm

Willie Davidson... his mother left town when her husband died, leaving her son to fend for himself with winter approaching...

Frankie and Gary Paul... two cousins sharing a public works truck and looking for trouble...

April Schwartz... a lost teenage girl trying to prove how adult she is...

Billy Hunter... the police officer with a chip on his shoulder...

George Smith... an aspiring musician who just wants to play music and hang with his friends...

Jimmy Petrucci... a family man with a wandering eye that could get him in hot water...

Garrett Simms... the star quarterback for the North team, trying to keep his focus on the game...

These and more Belford residents are waiting for you!

The first book in the Belford Stories Series!

Contemporary fiction novel. If you enjoyed Flagler Beach Fiction Series from the author you'll enjoy this book!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rymfire Books
• Release date: Apr 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9798201714192

Book preview

Belford Stories

Armand Rosamilia

Chapter One

Friday October 9th 1987

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Willie Davidson was a cricker and lived near the Belford docks. If you didn’t know what a cricker was you weren’t one of ‘em, his daddy would always say before spitting a plug of sickly brown tobacco over the side of the boat.

City slickers will try an’ take this land God has given us. The bay is ours by divine right, see? These fish and shrimp jump into our nets and taste our bait ‘cause they know... they know where they rightfully belong, the elder William Davidson would say after a long day of fishing and a longer night of drinking.

The old man was nothing but a memory now, his ashes rightfully scattered on the bay and swallowed by every sea creature within fifty miles, absorbed into their bodies before being caught and served with a side of coleslaw up at Keyport Fishery and beyond.

The thought of anyone eating a morsel of his old man made Willie smile, a rare event these last few months.

Weather is turning. Rick Steelman, who everyone called Steel, said in nearly a whisper.

Steel was a dramatic guy. Everything he did was in case someone important was watching. His dream was to make it big in Hollywood via New York City but so far he’d talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk.

Willie’s dad had summed up his son’s best friend a few months before he’d died: ‘the boy ain’t got a lick of sense in his skinny body. He ain’t no fisherman and the worst part is he don’t wanna be. He wanna be an actor. Somethin’ queer about the boy, if ya ask me.’

His dad was wrong on one count and it was the lick of sense part. Steel was the smartest guy Willie knew. They’d gone through Bayview Elementary and then Bayshore Middle and finally Middletown North for high school. Steel had graduated with honors. He actually liked school. The men had played on the football team together, chased cheerleaders and drank a few beers side by side. Willie thought having a dream and trying to get to it, even if you failed, was still better than sleepwalking through a miserable life.

When you going to Los Angeles? Willie asked.

Steel shrugged. I need to get my hands on some cash. I figure ten grand should get me to Manhattan for auditions and shit.

How will you get auditions?

By paying people to let me audition, dude. That’s how it all works. Money talks, you know? I just need to figure out a way to get some, Steel said and finished his last beer. He stood and went to throw the can in the bay but stopped when he saw the look Willie gave him.

You could get a job, Willie said.

So could you.

I’m doing fine right now, Willie lied.

Since his dad’s death in the Long Branch Pier fire in June his life had gone from boring to horrible in a single night.

His mom, never happy with her alcoholic husband or the unsteady money coming in from his occupation had immediately sold his Tammy for peanuts to another captain and pocketed the money. It left Willie and four others without a job. Mom left a week ago without a word and Willie knew her dreams of living in Florida with Aunt Kelly and sticking her feet in hot sand over the winter was a reality. The house had been paid for two years ago thanks to a sweet run from his dad and the fact he could adjust to any catch needed on the ocean and the bays.

Now it was all gone. Willie knew sooner than later his mom would sell the house for more peanuts and live her last miserable years as if nothing had changed.

I’ll see ya around, Steel said. I’m going over to see the Schwartz chick down East End. Want me to see if she’s got an easy friend?

Willie shook his head and couldn’t help but smile. Tell her if she wants a real man to come over to my place. It’s empty.

Dick, Steel said. He hesitated walking away, staring at Willie.

Willie looked back to the bay. Good luck banging her. I’m sure you’ll tell me all about it next time I see ya.

Steel laughed and walked quickly back to his bike, giving Willie the finger over his shoulder like he always did.

Steel was gay. Willie knew it and Steel suspected his best friend knew it. In a small town you didn’t talk about shit like that, though. You played the game and hoped someday you’d get enough money to get out of Belford and New Jersey and see the world. At least see the other side of the continent.

Not that any of it mattered to Willie, which was the funny part. Steel was the best friend he’d ever had. No one even came close. Steel was the only person Willie would take a bullet for if it ever came down to it.

As if it would out here in no man’s land, Willie thought sourly. He stood and dusted off his blue jeans. He was cold and the thin Iron Maiden t-shirt wasn’t helping. It was faded and torn but it was also an old friend, one Willie wouldn’t discard for anything or anyone.

High school and football seemed centuries ago instead of less than five years. Willie wondered if North was at home tonight for some October football and who they were playing. Maybe he’d call Steel when he got home and see if he wanted to take the long, cold walk across Belford and Middletown and go find some trouble.

Even though the house was in sight from where Willie stood he couldn’t bring himself to go to that lonely shack. The electricity was going to be shut off for non-payment. Even if Willie had the money or the inclination to pay it and keep it on through the winter, everything was in his mom’s name. The last person he wanted to talk to was her. He decided if he ever heard from the bitch again he’d make sure to call her Phyllis instead of mom.

Willie had no car, no prospects and no real food to eat. All he had was the bay and the falling sun right now. He smiled, as if he needed anything else to get him through the day.

Chapter Two

The Marina Diner was crowded, even for an early Friday night crowd. The old folks looking to eat their four o’clock dinner before retiring before the sun went down were in full force, as well as the punk kids who took up half the dining room and ordered bagels with cream cheese and waters and killed time before their night began.

June Schwartz shivered despite the sweater she had wrapped around her shoulders and the heat from the kitchen, hitting her in the face every time the kitchen doors swung open. As busy as they were today, she was never far from another heat blast.

At sixty years old she was considered experienced and wise, but she just felt like a bag of bones dragged through the days. It was getting cold and she could feel it in her weak knees and the wheeze in her chest was more prominent at night when she slept fitfully. Old age was not a friendly companion.

A nod of her head to Gladys behind the counter was all she needed to place her order: a glass of Coke with no ice and a cheeseburger, hold everything but the cheese. She never bothered with fries anymore since she couldn’t stomach the grease and the nausea by the time she walked home.

The two drunken guys sitting next to her nodded, sipping coffee and trying to sober up before they got back to Public Works and clocked out after a hard day of drinking and wasting more energy not working than actually working.

June turned away. She had no respect for these clowns. They wasted her taxpayer money and treated Belford like the ugly stepchild of Middletown Township. You went to Lincroft to work and satisfy the wealthier citizens. You came to Belford to hide from your duties.

When her soda was put on the counter June ran her fingers up and down the side, tracing lines in the condensation. She felt tired and knew today she should’ve stayed home, but once her daughter got home from school or wherever else she spent her day, June needed an immediate break.

June took a sip, the cold hitting her sensitive gums and shooting a pain up and down her body like she’d been mule-kicked. She put the glass down with shaking hands and sighed.

It had been a mistake having April so late in life. Once Harold passed the girl became even more unbearable, as if having a dad old enough to be her grandfather had kept her in check.

The drugs and the drinking and promiscuity had started at fifteen. She was nineteen and repeating her senior year, running with the devil each night and ignoring June’s protests.

Harold’s mother had been Mae. When he’d married June he’d sworn, if they ever had a daughter, she would be named either April or July. At the time June had thought it funny, especially after twenty years of marriage without a single pregnancy scare. In her late thirties, after a dry spell of months without sex, Harold had gotten a few beers in him at the firehouse and come home happy and horny.

April had been the result.

People always say having a child in a loveless or abusive marriage will either put the couple back on the right track or break them. June had been broken, irreparable damage to her psyche.

I hate my daughter, she thought and picked at the burger bun. There had been no emotion from the start, holding the bloody girl in her arms in the hospital. Postpartum depression had set in and after nearly twenty years it was still a blanket over June’s body. She just didn’t care enough about her daughter or anyone else for that matter. June didn’t cry at her husband’s funeral. She looked sad, of course, but she couldn’t even bother shedding crocodile tears to make everyone happy.

She finished her meal in silence, left the cash on the counter with a ten percent tip, and got up to leave. June ignored the stares from the locals. They always watched her come and go.

While Harold had been friendly and outgoing to the citizens of Belford, even becoming an honorary firefighter and spending more and more days in the barbershop on Main Street instead of home when he retired, June could care less about people and interaction. She wanted to stay home and watch television and read a good book.

June was sure the commoners of this backwater town had been poisoned from her husband’s lies about what a horrible wife she was. Harold had been everyone’s friend and on the rare occasions he drank his tongue would wag like a dog. Everyone knew their business, what little there actually was.

By the time she exited the diner no one was talking inside.

She took her time going down the steps, hugging the rail as she moved one foot down at a time. The parking lot was filling with cars but she preferred to walk. One day she’d sell Harold’s pickup truck and buy some more books with it.

April still didn’t have her license and didn’t seem to care. As long as there were horny boys offering her a ride to get a favor in the backseat, what did her daughter care?

June wished she’d brought a coat or jacket with her. The slow, long walk from 3rd Street had been pleasant but now angry clouds were rolling in, pushed around by the bay breeze. If the rain began she’d be soaked by the time she got home.

Railroad Avenue to East Road always seemed to take the longest, even though it wasn’t as many steps. It was the getting momentum and keeping the old body moving that took some time. June turned onto East Road and was out of breath. She decided to stop by the tree near the pond and rest for a few minutes.

During the winter the brats from Belford would strap on ice skates and create such a cacophony she’d be seconds from calling the police, not that they’d do much of anything. June had it on good authority half of the little monsters on the pond were cop kids.

The walk to the tree hurt her knees, and when she finally stopped and put a liver-spotted hand on the cool bark she sighed. The clouds had taunted the old woman but in the end they moved on, looking for younger prey. The sky was once again blue and beautiful, and June looked to the sky and smiled.

This was the part of her life she needed to find every now and again. If she was half her age she’d slump down to the ground, back against the tree, and rub her hands in the fresh dirt. She remembered a time, many years ago, when she’d learned to ice skate on this very pond.

The water rippled in the unseen breeze and June closed her eyes, remembering her childhood and all the dreams she’d had as a young woman.

None of it had come true.

She snapped her weak eyes open and tried to focus on the pond. She wanted to see, one last time, what she’d been dreaming as a child. She wondered how she’d derailed so badly. Where had her life gone? The only footprint in this world would be a whore for a daughter and a stack of grandkids she’d grow to hate soon enough.

June closed her eyes again because the tears were blinding her vision.

Chapter Three

Tank Eastwood needed a shot of whiskey and a beer chaser, but he was running way behind on his mail route and wouldn’t get back to the tiny post office on Route 36 until near dark. He knew his boss, Gina, was going to think something was up.

She’d crowd him on the back dock, trying to get a whiff of alcohol on his breath.

Gina had been an alcoholic back in the day but turned into a hypocrite once she’d cleaned up her act. She always tried to have a meaningful conversation with Tank but all he could think of was the old, fun Gina who used to sit in the Depot Inn with everyone else after a shift and pound a few with the rest of the guys.

He heard a dog barking up ahead and started walking slower. He had an irrational fear of dogs, which was the butt end of many a joke over the years. Tank didn’t think it was funny, because he has the phobia. He forgot the scientific name for it but knew it was long. Maybe if he remembered he’d dust off the encyclopedia from the shelf when he got home and look it up again.

More than likely, though, he’d head straight for the liquor cabinet and pour himself a shot or three. Tank no longer went to the Depot or the Village or up to one of the bars