Gravity Hill

I promised the occasional story, so here’s one.

Gravity Hill

There were worse places to be a teenager than New Jersey.

Teenagers, like vampires, are creatures of the night, sharing the same pallor, inward focus, and questionable fashion sense. Unlike the vampires of old, who lived their undead nights under dark, occasionally moonlit skies, your average New Jersey 18-year-old reveled in the neon glow of street lights and store fronts. Both, however, had to be true to their natures, which meant constantly being on the prowl to quench an insatiable thirst.

While vampires were focused on one objective, human blood, the Garden State teenager was much more democratic, attracted to anything that triggered the release of dopamine. The bigger the blast, the better.

There was a time when New Jersey was the dopamine release center of the world. A world of muscle cars, hook-ups, rumbles (or more likely, pantomimes of conflict), the call of the boardwalk, and the immutable presence of the unexplained. All of these were the provenance of New Jersey and the birthright of every resident teen.

Each night, when the pizzerias closed, GTOs, Mustangs, and Camaros were loaded up – beer stacked high in the back seat – for a midnight run to the shore, searching to find the mythology of the evening. Often, it was Gravity Hill.

Gravity Hill was impossible. It was proof that rules didn’t matter, laws were transient, and defiance wasn’t a choice, but an expectation. Explanations of its mystical powers were infinite and insufficient. It was everything we wanted the world to be.

Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, the world changed. We changed, marked more by a continuous series of small decisions than by any big passage of time. Eventually, the neon was less alluring, the magic not as important, and the night became something that happened “out there.”

All of these thoughts were going through my head as I drove down Route 35 for the first time in decades. I was no longer teenager, vampire, or other unholy being. I was something common, blended, and universal. I was here on business.

I had quite a bit of time before I could check-in at my hotel, so I spent it trying to find familiar landmarks that once dotted the road of my adolescence. The diner we would frequent, arriving at 2 a.m., leaving at 5 a.m. The pool hall, where we lost more money than we would ever win. The factory with the giant Dixie Cup displayed outside, signaling that Gravity Hill was just around the corner.

All of those places were gone, leaving something starkly unfamiliar. Eventually, I broke through my melancholy and found a side road where I could safely turn around. It was a rental car, so I couldn’t risk getting even a scratch.

I stopped at the end of the road, checking to make sure no one was in the vicinity, then attempted to shift the transmission into reverse, but could only get as far as neutral. This was a new model, one of those cars that was too technical for my liking, the kind that didn’t respond without engaging an app or speaking instructions out loud. I tried to get the vehicle to give control back to its flawed human driver, but I was still stuck in neutral. Frustrated, dispirited, and feeling stupid, I managed to open the door and I got out.

The car rolled uphill.