"Let 'em laugh," Boris fumes.  "It's only five bucks.  So the chicken won.  Guess I should've been X's."

Boris trudges down the boardwalk, past the three-card Monte, the Ferris wheel, the burned-out roller coaster, Shoot The Freak, past the Hell Hole as it sucks the screaming riders to the side.  Soon the crumbling ride will topple, leaving lawsuits, medical reports, and unearthed inspection bribes in its wake.

"Small time," Boris mumbles, but thinking back to when he caught a mouse with three eyes, put him in a box, and charged passersby fifty-cents to look at it.

Trudge turns to saunter as he watches rollerbladers trip over broken slats.  Eight-year-old dirt bikers attempt their first wheelies.  The wind shifts.  A sea breeze moves to a grease breeze.  Fried dough beckons nearby but Boris focuses on sights in the distance.

Well past half way, the boardwalk is no longer shoddy.  No missing slats, not even people getting caught on splinters.  In the pavilion, fifty ancient men all play chess or kibbitz over each others' games: "You didn't move your knight, you're a dead man," and so on.  How a structure with a roof and no walls retains so much cigarette smoke is a mystery.

Past the smoke and chess pieces lie the boardwalk cafes.  The sun hovers red over the ocean.  The night crowd starts to emerge, dressed to the nines, ignoring the sand blowing into their dark suits and dresses.  Boris gazes at the fine cuts and perfectly done makeup.  He wishes he knew more of their language besides "nyet" and "nastrovya."

Boris isn't Russian.  He isn't even Boris.  He lapped up the nickname given to him on the roof.  In a few hours, he'll be back, telling stories gathered from glimpses.

"They got the Mafia look down.  And I swear I saw a Soviet sub somewhere off the beach.  Don't you all want to know what they're smuggling in the sub?"

"I want to ride the Hell Hole."

"I want to see Boris play the chicken again."

"I want to see the freak show guy eat a nail.  Got fifty cents?”

Boris wants to travel from these projects-with-a-view--past the park, past the beach, to another country, no matter how long the walk.

 

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