Welcome to Jersey

I had never been to New Jersey. Not before that Nets game, at least. Aside from The Boss, Jersey in the 1980s didn’t exactly come with a stellar reputation. Even Californians like me knew the “what exit?” punchline … although I felt too far removed to wield such. “Get your own impression of this state, Jim. What fun is it to resort to biases pre-set like FM radio in a rental car?” And so, eyes-wide-open on one winter evening in 1987, I attended a New Jersey Nets-Atlanta Hawks game at The Meadowlands. (“Meadow?” “Meadow?!” All I see is concrete.)

The game was not sold out and my friend and I didn’t have tickets. In the 1980s, I cared too much about the NBA to care if the product were any good. The Nets were a miserable franchise and the attendance reflected such. We opted for “cheapest kind,” which turned out to be $6 seats in, I’m guessing, the upper, upper deck. We proceeded to sit in the section behind the players’ wives. These were not $6 seats.  To this day, I have no idea where the seats we paid for were located.

The Hawks were a far superior team to the Nets and it showed almost immediately. Sometimes NBA mismatches with the inferior team at home can be surprisingly tight. This one seemed over well before the half. While such made for a boorish center stage, the arena itself did not lack for entertainment opportunities, intended or otherwise. Kids started having foot races while taking advantage of the vacant upper deck. Invariably, a fight would break out somewhere, often among participants in the footrace. Perhaps it was an odd biathlon of sorts. Come now, New Jersey, surely this isn’t the impression you wanted to give, is it?

Nothing, however, prepared me for the Nets’ mascot “Duncan.” The latter iteration of Duncan as a Brooklyn Nets mascot would be a svelte-ish “dragon.” This New Jersey Nets mascot was Duncan the giant puff ball, clearly a red-n-blue rip-off of the Phillie Phanatic. Well, in appearance, Duncan was a rip-off … in temperament? Less. My guess is that this Duncan prided himself on being an asshole. This wasn’t my own preconceived notions of Jersey filling in blanks, was it?  No.  It was impossible to disguise the assholishness of the man in disguise. In the first period, Duncan took to asserting his beinghood by deliberately blocking the comparatively small aisle space and then harassing members of the press seated courtside. Ah, what a card. In the second, he confronted a candy vendor. Both baggage-laden fellows seemed at an impasse. I think the vendor was trying to read the mascot’s face or body language, but anyone who has met a man in a bulky head-to-toe costume knows this is impossible. At this moment, two puffy paws reached into the vendor’s basket, emerged with a cache of about 20 boxes of m&ms, and promptly threw them into the audience. “Hey, look. Dessert!” All part of the fun. Ho ho. Wow, that vendor is PISSED. That wasn’t part of the act? This just got funnier.

OK, so you got a seven-foot tall, google-eyed, aisle-blocking, size 92 jersey blue puffball being a menace around the stadium. Every stadium has a local flavor, I suppose. Nothing in my life, however, had prepared me for what came next. Nothing. While making the rounds, Duncan encountered a small boy and started messin’ with him. The eight-to-ten-year-old seemed up for some fun, so when Duncan mussed up the kid’s hair and pushed him around a bit, the kid simply returned the favor. All in fun, right? At some point in this exchange, however, the kid’s attitude turned. He felt the giant obese mass of fur and basketball jersey had been a bit too rough. He started hitting Duncan. This seemed a futile and useless gesture; Duncan’s sheer volume was roughly six-to-eight times the size of the child and the man inside was clearly insulated from abuse with layers of fluff, rubber, air, clothing, and who knows? Packing peanuts? Bubble wrap? Creamy nougat? The kid was fighting a mountain with a billy club.

All the same, Duncan didn’t take well to the enhanced confrontation. In retaliation, he stripped the kid of a jacket, tossed it in a dumpster lining the corridors between circus floor and inner-arena labyrinth and took off walking in the other direction.  At this point, I was riveted. I hadn’t seen drama this good since I dressed up as a San Diego Chicken. Wait. That’s a story for another time.

The kid dives into the dumpster. He emerges victorious. For those worried, arena dumpsters are generally much, much cleaner than alley dumpsters. I can’t verify this particular case, of course, but arena dumpsters generally contain less food, less smell, no rodents, and more cardboard. As self-inflicted idiocy goes, it could be a lot worse. But I digress. The kid puts on his jacket and leaps from the dumpster. He targets Duncan strolling courtside away from him maybe fifty feet away. The kid’s path is unimpeded.

You know that scene in the original Alien in which there are two blips on the screen and the faster blip is the Alien and the immobile or slow-moving blip is a sitting duck? This is exactly what I was seeing in front of me. The kid tears with superhuman speed towards the mobile red, white & blue land mass. Duncan is facing the other direction … and has no idea the kid is approaching; he’s just seeing what he can screw with next. The kid closes … blip … blip … blip … NO! When the boy gets to the base of the space exactly behind Duncan’s back, he does a jump step and then leaps with all kiditude at the behemoth. Cocking his right arm back, he releases it at the top of his arc, connecting solidly with the back of Duncan’s head. Immediately two things happened: 1) One of Duncan’s big google eyes dislodged completely from it’s Velcro socket and landed somewhere in the third row. 2) I started laughing my mutherfucking ass off. It was the funniest thing I’d seen all year. Perhaps in several years.

Duncan slithered away at that point, not to reappear again for the evening. I, too, retreated from the arena, albeit later, not having ever returned to The Meadowlands.  I cannot say what happened to the kid, but I guarantee, he got his revenge.

I’m not sure my first impression of New Jersey was a fair one, but it is easily the most memorable first impression I’ve ever had of any new state, city, country, or continent. Bless you, New Jersey. Bless you.