Dan's Papers - January 30, 2009

At a quarter to eight on Monday, Joe Kozniak walked into the Candy Kitchen for his morning coffee. Sitting at the counter were four of the regulars who always assembled there to talk about the goings on at the beginning of the workday.

It was July 3, 2020. Joe sidled up onto the empty stool between Fred Alcott, the town councilman and Fritz Meyer, the real estate man.

"Good morning," Joe said. The others grunted. On his left, Fritz was messing with his wristpod. He was reading the morning news on DanTube.

"Potatoes are at $4.72 a bag this morning. Up 68 cents. That'll do your heart good."

"Helps a little. Damn drought."

"The usual," Joe said. "Over easy. Coffee to start."

Joe readjusted himself on the stool. He wore denim overalls, a farm hat and high boots, which were still caked with dust from the day before.

"Also, Mrs. Bartlett is tearing down the last of those McMansions on Ocean Road today. They gave her a permit yesterday."

"Is that the one Warren Buffett built all those years ago?"

"No. Bernie Madoff."

"Now there's a name."

"He did somethin'," Fritz said. "I forget what."

"Well the place was fallin' apart since it was abandoned, so it was good riddance."

"So there you are, wait long enough, you get your whole farm back."

"I've got my eye on the gold plated toilet seats in there," Fritz said. "I've got a guy down there going to ask for one of them."

"I kinda miss those folks," said Fred Miller, the town supervisor.

"Oh, Alan Alda who had that house in Mecox."

"Yeah, he was neat. You know he had a sense of humor. He had an indoor pool. And right alongside it a pool table. My dad told me that. He painted his living room."

"J. Lo never had a house out here."

"Remember some of those big fights we had in town hall with those people?"

"What about those helicopter battles. Tons of them coming in every Friday night, making that awful racket. Then fighting with one another about whose house they should go over to rattle the dishes and all."

"Those sure were crazy times before the Wall Street meltdown."

"Remember when your brother was building that Belgian brick driveway in Water Mill for that billionaire? I forget his name. And it was April and some other billionaire wanted HIS driveway finished, and your brother could only do one before Memorial Day? So they'd have to choose."

"Who could forget that? They just bid it through the roof. A $15,000 job, bid up to $115,000 by one of them before the other quit."

"I don't know. But I knew the guy who lost. He had a blond trophy wife and a Lamborghini, a fancy Italian automobile. I can't recall his name. Some guy who bundled derivatives, but he did not have his driveway finished before Memorial."

"Haven't seen one of those Lamborghini things out here in a dog's age."

Joe glanced out the window. Out in front of the Candy Kitchen was his pickup truck with the fertilizer in the back. And a few other old trucks and that was it.

"One thing I don't miss is those traffic jams," Joe said.

"Doin' anything for the Fourth of July?" Fred asked.

"Well, they're having the biggest clam competition at the Trustee's Museum in East Hampton, I think we're going to go there, my wife said. It's around five they pick the winners."

"I'll see you there."

At that moment, Pauline Reysell came into the Candy Kitchen, swinging her big shoulder bag. She was President of the Bridgehampton Chamber of Commerce and a big town booster. Also a pain in the neck, or so this crowd thought. She sat by herself at a table and read her personalized DanTube on her wrist.

"Hope you fellas are coming to the Chamber meeting on Monday," she said across the linoleum, apparently having noticed herself there was such a meeting. "We're talking about a big Miss Hamptons competition for Labor Day Weekend. It's something new. But we think it'll get the tourists out for Labor Day Weekend."

"We'll be there missy," Fritz said, referring to everybody on the stools whether they liked it or not.

Gus came over. Pauline ordered an egg sandwich and tea.

"Any other big doings at the Chamber?" Ed asked. Ed owned the mortuary in town, and was sitting down at the far end of the counter.

"We've started working on the Hampton Classic Dog Show," she said. "Any of you fellas want to volunteer?"

"I'll wait for the announcement," Ed said, waving his wrist with the IPod on it. He'd been a volunteer the year before and went there, but found nothing for himself to do.

The dog show had replaced the Horse Show two years earlier. But it was in the same location and on the same weekend, right before Labor Day up there on Snake Hollow Road. There were prizes in all sorts of divisions - herding, birding, fetching and obedience.

"We're going to offer the Grand Prix prize," said Frank Begley from down at the far end of the counter next to Ed at the far end. "I talked to the wife about it yesterday. $500 of Alpo Dog Food."

"That's going to be fun," said Joe.

"You know who I really miss?" said Fred. "Christie Brinkley. And that other little girl, what's her name."

"Katie Lee Joel. Now that girl could cook."

"Those days are gone, Joe. And they're not coming back."

"It just made me think I ought to get my hair cut," Joe said. "It's sticking out crazy like."

"How did she make you think of that?"

"She was always so well groomed."

"It's just that potato bug spray you use."

"Well, I could get it cut. Then it wouldn't stick out."

Up above the cash register, on a shelf, there was the police sqawk box, and at that moment, it lit up, and there was the image of Hal, the young deskman at the station six miles away hollering away.

"There's a run of bluefish," Hal said in his crackly voice. "Down at Sagg Main. I just got the call from some guy I never heard of. Ernest, he said, from Bay Shore. He said there's millions of them. Jumpin' right out of the surf and onto the beach."

The kid knew everybody in town was watching to him.

Everybody in the Candy Kitchen slid off their stools, and telling Gus that he should just put everything on their tabs, headed out the door.

Joe was the last one out.

"I'm coming too," Gus said from behind the counter. He was taking off his apron. "Gonna lock up for an hour. So just close it good behind you."

"What about Pauline?"

Joe motioned to the table. There was no Pauline.

"Oh she's already heading out the back. She's gonna beat you down there I think."

Joe walked across the sidewalk, opened the passenger door to his truck, pulled out the fishing rod behind the front seat and set it on the passenger seat. Then he ran around the car, got in and roared off toward the Town War Memorial Monument at the crossroads in the center of town. When he got there, he made a right, then a mile down at Sagaponack Road he turned left past all the abandoned mega-mansions there and headed down toward the beach.

Hopefully, he'd have enough for dinner for his wife and kids and even the help, who were right now digging potatoes on the 200 acres behind his farmhouse. It was surprising what those Wall Street guys could do, considering they'd never worked in farm fields before.