There’s a few things that came out of New Jersey that are actually good. The Dillinger Escape Plan, Phil Grippaldi (silver olympic weightlifting medalist in 1968, 1972, 1976, and also should’ve been recently released from prison for selling crack), My Chemical Romance, and Meryl Streep. But they have Chris Christie so that cancels out having Meryl Streep. If you find yourself driving through New Jersey then you’ve messed up somewhere in your life. Especially when you find yourself driving in New Jersey traffic as an eight year old and you’ve been in the car for ten hours. Flying was never much of an option for us. My younger brothers and I never cared to behave ourselves and lord knows we wouldn’t have suddenly cared about proper behavior ten thousand feet in the air. We always traveled by car. Mom and dad didn’t want to spend the money but my youngest brother is special needs. His behavior was unstable on the ground let alone sitting behind an air marshal on a Delta flight. Even at eight years old we didn’t like New Jersey. There was always this one gas station that my dad would go to when the van needed filling up. We lived in Staten Island and we weren’t too far away from the bridge to take us into the one place we’d consistently go to in New Jersey. A BP gas station that he’d go to just to cheaply fill up the van. At the time New Jersey was the state with one of the lowest gas taxes so he’d drive just to fill up there and also get a Cuban sandwich from one of the local places. If you want a solid Cuban sandwich you go to a bodega run by a guy that always blasts the same reggaeton, has an uneven cut from the same barber for at least a few years, and has some random animal running around the store. The animal is also the assistant manager. They may barely pass sanitation requirements to serve food but dad still bought it and we haven’t died from some dirty bread. To be fair the “we haven’t died from it” bar is a low bar to try and meet but I’m convinced it’s the only bar that matters.
Cinnamon. Sugar.
It’s distinct. Seasonal for some, especially when you move to the south. We left the confines of the north to the south when mom and dad got tired of the cold in their bones. They said it was because they felt the move south was what needed to happen years ago. I’ll never agree. Cinnamon and sugar is a seasonal thing down here. Eggnog for sure has both and I grew up loving the stuff. Dad, of course. He has the sweet tooth in the family. Mom doesn’t really. She was never big on confectionaries. I was too big on them in college. They’ve given me dental issues but hey I’m here for a good time, not a long time. In New Jersey there’s these big stops that are a mass exodus of people at any given time. Rest stops in the north and the south are the stuff of legends. In the south it’s vending machines and parking spots, usually taken up mostly by tractor trailer drivers that need their rest. Bathrooms. Then you get back to moving. New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, and New York all know what it means to have a rest stop. For Virginia, I consider Wawa not just a rest stop but a national treasure. New Jersey has this trend of naming service areas after people. Clara Barton and Woodrow Wilson. Cinnamon and sugar. It’s distinct. Gas station lines clogged with cars trying to get their fill. And the north, for those that don’t know, have people to pump their gas for you. Which is great in the winter but complete crap when you move south and don’t know how to pump your own gas. That was never the case with us. Growing up I always thought pumping your own gas was what adults do. Growing up means you realize that always paying for gas is what adults do, pumping it is a chore. At least it is when you’re at Valero.
I wish I had a specific story about visiting these places. The stops were meant for us to not die in the car on the way back to Staten Island from visiting family in North Carolina. Memorize the exits. Guess the distance between the exit and the border to the next state. When you’ve traveled in a car all of your formative years you quickly tire of road trips. In some way it’s against the millennial zeitgeist, lacking a love affair with the open road and traveling to far away places. To hell with that. Road trips are the bane of my existence. I’ve had enough time sitting in my car for one lifetime. I don’t like air travel all that much more (I work on planes so I don’t want to be on them anymore than I need to be). I might like trains. Aside from the MTA, which doesn’t strive to be the paradigm for railroad travel, I’ve never been on a train. After traveling on the road all my childhood I don’t want to remember much about it except what my brain won’t let me forget. Traveling home from grandma’s funeral. The sheer silence for half a day. Silence my parents prayed for when we were younger. Silence they got but not on the prayerful terms they requested. Driving through Manhattan because I’m a sucker for the city aesthetic. Yes I’m a child of my generation and I’ll fight for that until my dying breath. Driving to Atlanta with all my stuff when I moved out of their house. And getting hit by that drunk driver my senior year of college. I can’t forget that one.
It’d be cinnamon, sugar, and a bunch of people in line for coffee. We grew up around coffee being the adult drink of choice. Then you become an adult and learn the drink of choice is alcohol. They didn’t want us drinking coffee, fully persuaded of the lie that it would stunt your growth. There’s no proof of that but that belies the greater point of us being here only for a good time and not a long time. Dozens of people in line for milk and sugar to get them to the next place to pay another five dollars for another cup of milk and sugar. We only travel from coffee place to coffee place on the road. Staying at home just makes it a more prolonged excursion from coffee place to coffee place. Cinnamon and sugar weren't holiday moments for us elementary school nomads. It was a “we know why you’re here” capitalist thing. I’m sure my memory is morbidly obese because my memories of places are beholden to the slow death of fast food. When I moved to the south the trips back home grew scant. Sordid. Mom didn’t want to go back to New York when grandma lived. After the funeral all her meaningful reasons to go back left. I can’t say I blame her. Growing up means you understand why some doors, doors like that, may be better off closed.
I was around nine years old when I had cinnamon and sugar uppercut a Mike Tyson-esque punch in my sinus for the last time. Forest Avenue. You southerners knew nothing of Perkins. Right by a Shoprite plaza. Perkins was a place you’d go to eat but they also had their own in-house bakery so your nose would be slapped with the scent of freshly baked breads and rolls. A favorite smell for the person with an obese soul. That location closed earlier this year. If you drove by and easily gained weight, smelling those calories would pack them on you in a cholesterol laden heartbeat. Even at nine years old I knew those scents wouldn’t last forever. I haven’t found a place like that down in NC or GA yet but I’m not really looking. I want New York to stay a place for food. Last week I found that cinnamon and sugar smell again down in Atlanta. Somewhere in Midtown. If I could find the person who made that smell again I’d shake his hand or marry her in a clogged heartbeat. I can’t remember where. From nine years old to twenty-four. Close your eyes. Have that stress-free moment to yourself. Nobody knows you’ll have that moment but yourself.
I found it again. What language shall I use to thank thee, cinnamon and sugar, memories, dear friend?
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