In Music, We Return to the Source of Our Love
On “Thunder Road” with Mary Jane
South Jersey was full of losers, but I was the one, pulling out to win
I couldn’t believe it. Was this actually happening?
I was finally driving with a girl — this woman called Mary Jane, an Irish lass with luscious red hair and a smile that would charm John Wayne, too, from The Quiet Man.
She wasn’t a Jersey Girl. But that was okay. I just changed the words and sang, “I’m in love with a P.A. girl.”
I was crazy about her! After we met at a dance in Philly, I like to believe I told everyone, “I found the woman I’m gonna marry.” For the first time in my life, I felt, a woman was, like, really crazy about me, too.
Was this actually happening?
I kept repeating, “I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul.” But did she know how truly mad I was?
It was our first “long date.” In Ridley Park, PA, I picked her up in my piss-of-shit Honda Civic — a car with no viable form of heat. But that was okay — until the drive back. For that, I always had blankets in the back. I sold my black Nissan 200SX to finance my rambles through Europe.
The soundtrack to the Jersey Shore was, of course, Bruce Springsteen — who Mary Jane also liked a lot.
I had visions of Mary Jane sitting “barefoot on the hood of my Honda Civic drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain.”
In fact, it was her “cassette tape” — Greetings from Asbury Park — that we played first. Unfortunately, I have the horrible habit of singing songs to “impress” the poor listener with my musical prowess and memory. She didn’t know, then, that I’m so anti-authority that I really stand up when told to sit down. I’m not too into the “man.”
When I croon and “telegraph” Bruce, I actually feel that Mary Jane and I are in those albums. Not sure that is healthy. After all, we’re different. And Bruce is Bruce. And Walter is Odd. Those emotions, though, and that passion — youthful passion, is real. The connections are real.
And listening now to Born to Run while writing this, twice actually, at two and fifty, recovering from a COVID booster, I go back to 1994 with Mary Jane and our first drive to the Jersey Shore, heading to Rt. 9.
And it’s hard, now, to keep the tears back. Not sure what those tears are about, but maybe I’ll find out by the end of this story.
I always tried emulating, poorly, in real life — Ernest Hemingway in Paris and Lord Byron in Italy. Bruce was one of those working-class Jersey heroes full of angst and romance that resonated with me. He was a musician and a lyricist. I was a writer and a grad student in English. Bruce was Central Jersey. I was Mr. South Jersey.
Mary Jane and I crossed the Delaware River and passed through a town on Rt. 322 we would eventually live for fifteen years with our daughters. It’s Mullica Hill. Oh, if I knew then what was coming.
The music and the talk continued as I hit the gas on Rt. 55 South towards Cape May. Did that piss-of-shit ever inch over 62 miles per hour?
I’m not sure why we picked that Jersey shore town. It’s the furthest away, but she had never been there. I knew Cape May well. My dad also had his boat there for a season or two at Utrecht’s marina by that lobster place, and I would use his boat as a hermit’s retreat.
As soon as Rt. 55 ended, we hit the two-lane highway, the old Rt. 47. We stopped at a “mom and pop” store. For some reason, I lied and said I liked “patronizing private places rather than corporate stores — like Wawas or Sheetz.” That was a complete lie. What an ass. And she believed me? What was I trying to prove?
A working-class hero? An anti-corporate renegade? Was I ‘greensplaining’ then?
Bypass 347 through Belleplain State Forest is a pleasure to drive (when there is no traffic.) This was late spring. Maybe late April. Early May. We met on April 2nd, 1994.
By now we switched to Born to Run on CD. “Two tramps like us”! continued in my “suicide machine.” I knew the lyrics much better here — on this album, and that just made it worse for Mary Jane, I believe.
Did I want to die with Mary Jane on the street that night in an ever-lasting kiss? No — not die — but die to my old ways of living, and living alone. And I swore I wanted to love her with all the “madness in my soul.”
Some idiotic New Jersey politician (you mean only one) wanted “Born to Run” as the state song of New Jersey. Really? “It’s a death trap. It’s a suicide wrap. We got to get out of here while we’re young.”
Wow! That will get people to move to Jersey!
In his great autobiography, Springsteen admits the irony of wanting to get out of Jersey when he was young and restless, and now he lives ten minutes away or so from Freehold. It was like me, too, wandering around Europe, not wanting to return, and now I’m teaching at my old high school.
New Jersey has an odd hold on people. I don’t know what it is.
When “She’s the One” came on, I knew Mary Jane was the one. Is it wrong or psychotic to tweezer yourself into songs? Maybe that’s part of the magic of music, eh? When Adele sings, I think every girl before Mary Jane feels like Adele about me. Maybe even Alanis Morissette.
No, that is psychotic, mates!
“The screen door slams, Mary’s dress sways. Like a vision, she dances across the porch as the radio plays ”
There is magic in the night. Maybe we’re not that young more. Gee, isn’t that right? Is that the source of the tears?
In the past twenty-seven years, those two lanes have taken us anywhere and everywhere on so many road trips in the United States, in Canada, and in Europe. Soon, two more — Madeline and Nancy — would be climbing aboard not a Pink Cadillac, but our Mazda MPV Minivan. So many fun times!
And we’re out now, out to find the Promised Land. But I know where that land is, really. “Jungleland?” Maybe, but no — right here with Mary Jane, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. At least for a while.
With retirement coming for me and Mary Jane launching a new career, and with future possible books deals for this scribbler, who knows where the roads will take us.
And you know what? Like any person of depth, she still has those “killer graces and her secret places that no boy can fill.” Can I get an amen?
Needless to say, that day in Cape May was amazing.
We remained on the beach late at night on the dunes at Sunset Beach. No one was around. I asked her to dance. She said there was no music. So I snapped my finger and the moon appeared. I clapped and clapped again, and the moon grew brighter. I had such power! And I sang — wonderfully, just like that Belfast Cowboy — Van Morrison’s “Moondance.”
By the way, Mary Jane still insists Bruce sings on “Thunder Road,” “Mary’s dressed, waves.” Why? Because she acknowledges him. Wow! I love that! I would love a wave! Hey Bruce, she improved your magic!
It was cold heading back. I had to work at six in the morning. Two hours of sleep is plenty for someone five and twenty. On the way back across the state line, we sang:
Except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair Well the night’s busting open These two lanes will take us anywhere We got one last chance to make it real To trade in these wings on some wheels Climb in back, heaven’s waiting down on the tracks.
How little did we know that heaven was indeed waiting? Thanks, Bruce! You are The Boss. And thanks, Mary Jane, for taking a chance on me. Cue ABBA. No STOP!
