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| Photo by Frank Holubowicz |
"It's N-e-d-j-e-r," declares a tall girl as she and Beat follow the other Roadies and Needers splashing down the Middlebrook, "and I'm Nadia."
"Pleased to meet you, Nadia N-e-d-j-e-r," smiles Beat glancing sideways at the older girl's svelte legs shimmering in the mid-morning sunlight beaming through the crystalline water. "Beatrice R-e-e-d at your service."
"Little ones over tracks," calls Jimmy pointing to a barely discernible dirt path up to the railroad trestle after touching a wooden beam to make sure no trains are coming. "Swimmers under."
__________
April had given way to May in the year of the golden carp, and the child gangs of the west end were turning into teenagers led by a surprising newcomer. The Nedjers were political refugees fleeing Prague after the 1960 communist makeover of constitution, flag, and state symbols of the old Czech Republic. Jimmy had grown up on the bohemian streets of one of eastern Europe's oldest cities and was well positioned to broker the ethnic rivalries of a diminutive New Jersey town. A tall, strong twelve-year-old, he was also capable of the physical negotiations required for traversing Bound Brook's tough neighborhoods.
Even the polluted waterways of the industrial Cold War suburbs hadn't prepared Jimmy for what he was wading towards. The Raritan valley with unregulated development and proximity to New York ports had become the birthplace of the American petrochemical industry. The companies lining the banks with their effluent pools read like a who's who of the worst workplace environmental disasters: Calco's aniline dyes (American Cyanamid); Ruberoid's roofing shingles (GAF); Bakelite's plastics (Union Carbide); Johns Manville's asbestos products. By mid-twentieth century the Raritan ran in various sheens after any significant rain, as occurred each spring and with periodic tropical depressions coming up the coast.
Even the polluted waterways of the industrial Cold War suburbs hadn't prepared Jimmy for what he was wading towards. The Raritan valley with unregulated development and proximity to New York ports had become the birthplace of the American petrochemical industry. The companies lining the banks with their effluent pools read like a who's who of the worst workplace environmental disasters: Calco's aniline dyes (American Cyanamid); Ruberoid's roofing shingles (GAF); Bakelite's plastics (Union Carbide); Johns Manville's asbestos products. By mid-twentieth century the Raritan ran in various sheens after any significant rain, as occurred each spring and with periodic tropical depressions coming up the coast.
__________
"The linden was burning, burning," Jimmy sings as the smaller kids rejoin the splashers lined up across the Middlebrook. "The linden was burning, burning."
"My sweetheart was under it, my sweetheart was under it," joins in Nadia from behind, smiling over at Beat as the creek reaches her waist with the approach of the point.
"Hey!" shout the rest of the Nedjers and the whole family joins the chorus of the Czech folk song as Beat, Keety, and their siblings listen entranced:
"Water flows down from above,
Swift like me,
It turns around,
Around a maple tree.
Water flows down from above,
Swift like me,
It turns around,
Around a maple tree."
With a final splash of twenty arms, Jimmy and Beat catch a flash of gold streaking into the amaranthine Raritan, never again to be seen in the clear waters flowing down from the Watchung hills.
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