Goodwin Brothers- Part 2-The Beach, Breasts and Montauk

I know many of you (Keats) were excited by the title of this post. After making it through the night, all of us waking up a little groggy but interested in getting going, we realized that NY City in the morning looks a lot different at 6am then it does in all of the hustle and bustle of the night. We couldn't find where we had parked our car?! It was in one of those outside mini lots where they stack them on top of others and manage to fit 60 of them in a space big enough for 20, but for some reason every corner now looked the same to us. We of course found it but not before Tom asked a fine gentleman living on one of the corners where it might be. The sauced individual replied, "How do I know where your freakin' car is??", he was so surprised that he took pity on Tom and didn't even ask for any dough! And believe me, Tom wanted to give him money. He always got a big laugh out of giving a Canadian Loonie or Toonie to some unsuspecting US citizen, this case a bum, who would inevitably not be able to use it. 
   Now back in the car, we ventured out to Montauk to visit one of our customers. With not much mention of my navigator, people must be wondering what Dave actually did this trip, but he was there, the calm solid type who kept Tom and I on an even keel so to speak. He directed us out of the concrete jungle and on to one of the many highways leading out of the city. This one lead us to the richest area of Long Island. It was a couple of hours in and the cups of coffee I had sipped on now needed to flow another way. Of course we were in 'Richville' now, with quaint little shops and Beamers all around us, it was going to be difficult to just stop and jump out for a whiz. Tom was barking from the back, "Come on, go for it man. Whip it out right here!". I didn't. We finally found a small coffee shop and I couldn't hold it any longer. I jumped out and went into the shop, looking for the bathroom they didn't seem to have. Someone pointed me outside, another shouted, "Wanna coffee?". I was frantic!  It's one of the worst feelings ever and can be related to many life situations I'm sure. You can't hold it any longer, you think you are now going to be able to go and are forced to hold it in once again. The mental and physical pain searing through your body, but you somehow manage to contain it and when you do finally find a spot to release, because your body has held it in sooo long, nothing comes out for about 5 seconds. This is after you've spent a minute just trying to get it out of your pants, dancing around the room with a leg bouncing and fumbling for your zipper, and if you happened to be wearing your stylish 501 buttonfly's, well forget it, you pissed your pants. Those are 5 long seconds of nothing.....then, "ahhhhhhhhhh"...
   We finally reached our destination. First stop, the bar! This was back in the day when Tom was a beer man. He has since quit and been sober now for almost 6 months! Although i give him kudos for stopping drinking because cutting off any addiction, whether it be beer or video games, is not an easy task, there are definitely days i miss the 'old Tom'. He asks too many questions now and his day revolves around renovations and poking around his beauty salon, yes i said beauty salon. After meeting up with the customer and having a few beers, we were lead to our beachfront cottage. A beautiful spot, literally right on the beach. We set up camp and ventured down to take a peek. It is a huge beach in Montauk, stretches for miles and the water was warm that day. We could not understand why no one was swimming though. We ran back up to the cottage and grabbed our trunks and towels and headed back for the water. Once in, we realized quickly why nobody was actually in it swimming. It had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with undertow and waves. Five minutes in and Tom got spun upside down and slammed to the sandy bottom, flipped back up and sucked under again before he got his bearings and made it to shore. We were laughing but he had an actual wound on his shoulder, bleeding and looking like he was bit by a small shark. He wasn't, it was just from the sand but it clearly showed the power of the waves. Three months later, Tom would still be picking grains of sand out of his left ear, cursing the beach and usually mumbling a few choice swear words at the same time.
   That night we hit one of the local bars and started to put back the beer. Now this is somewhat of a high class area and as the night progressed and we became the idiots that usually come from intoxication, Tom once again became the center of attention. Dave and I could see that Tom was getting the 'stare' on. The one that only focuses on one thing and one thing only, breasts. Yes, Tom is definitely a breast man. Every woman in the place no longer had a head now, they were only measured by what was occuring on their chest. It was hard to even trick him, mesmerized, he just floated around the bar making the 'stare' his opening line. Eventually he looked at one too many and a girl we had met earlier in the evening (Dory), who just happened to be sporting exactly what Tom was looking for, told Dave and I that we might want to get Tom out of there before it became a problem. We did and sliding back to our cottage that night would prove to be the best move of that day........next week, 'D'Escousse, hair gel and the Underwear Incident'
  

Goodwin Brothers- Part 1

The picture you see above was taken in New York in July of 2003. It was really my first impression of the 'Big Apple', which quickly changed, as my cohorts Dave, Tom and I would soon find out as we embarked on a four day trip of the city and Long Island.
That night we stayed near Times Square, trying to soak up as much of the city in a night as we possibly could. I told the boys that a sure sign of a tourist was when you had your head staring up all the time, so to keep them down a bit to blend in. Of course Tom questioned my suggestion with a ,"..what the f&*% does that mean?? Why do i have to keep my head down? You're GOIN' DOWN!!.." and then he grabbed me around the neck and squeezed with one of his patented 'hand to tendon' grips. I quickly told him that it was sign of a tourist because they were awestruck by the tall buildings and kept looking up. I think he understood, but it was a sign of things to come.
  Jumping back a bit, when we first arrived it was actually in Newark and we had to rent a car to travel around in. Tom jumped in the back seat and Dave decided he would do a fine job of navigating, right along with the girl from 'NeverLost'. The first left we had to take, she was yapping something and Dave yelled, "hang a left here!!" and i proceeded to cut across two lanes of traffic through a red light! Of course the car that i directly cut off was a New Jersey Po Po. I went up the ramp, parked and waited for him (the usual for a proper Canadian). He whipped around and caught us quickly, sauntered out of his car just far enough so that i had to wrench my neck around, and asked for my license. Me of course, smiling and thinking that i could use a joke to break the ice, was cut off before i could speak as he blurted out, "I DON"T FEEL LIKE DYIN' ON A SATURDAY MORNING!", and threw my license on the floor of the car by my feet, "Have fun in NY boys.",  and left us stunned and later laughing. I didn't feel like dying on a Saturday morning either or any morning for that matter.
   Some might wonder about the title of this post, 'Goodwin Brothers' was a name given to Tom and I from one our customers. Tom's last name is Goodwin (of the Cape Island variety) and this guy just decided to lump us together as we sometimes would share sales responsibilities. He was somewhat of a hotheaded customer that would go off if his order wasn't just right and then come a calling for the 'Goodwin Brothers'. So, I became an honorary brother of Tom's whether I liked it or not and it has stuck to this day.
  Back in our hotel room that night (which all three of us shared to save $) after spending the evening with some lesbians at a bar who Tom thought he could pick up while sucking back quite a few wobbly pops, we laughed about that and the fact that at one of the cross walks in the Square we bumped into a guy that I knew that had happened to work for a summer at the plant in Bedford. He was now a model if you could believe it and had a posse of women in tow. A guy who slung lobster crates around a dirty cold plant was now a New York fashion model and in a city of millions, and we bump into him!! Both, I guess, equally surprising. We passed out and were later awoken by a banging on our hotel room door. Of course being small town guys, Tom gets up and stammers, "i'll get the door..", just as I kind of come to and realize what he's about to do, i yell, "DON'T OPEN THE DOOR!!". We peer through the peep hole and see this huge man looking like he wants to tear us a new one. Tom's like, "What, i can take him...come on he aint nuffin", as i steered him back into his cot he takes a small swipe at me showing me what he'll do and I lay back down wondering what might have been......to be continued...
...Part 2; The Beach, Breasts and Montauk