White trash? My ass!!!

The culture of the trailer park is akin to the live aboard crowd in that it is comprised primarily of divorced and separated men. The marina people are decidedly white-collar, middle class, tech guys and insurance agents intermixed with a handful of groovy types preparing for ocean voyages and long stays in ex-pat exotica. Trailer parks tend to be blue collar and passport free; the only parts of the world any of these guys has seen came as a low paid emissaries of the military-industrial complex.

The first time I stopped at a park to do some used-unit shopping, I found people there were anything but trash; these were folks. While this old white dude was giving me the lowdown on a couple of twenty-six footers his Mexican son-in-law was out barbecuing oysters nearby in the tented space between his plot of pavement and the next. Suddenly an adorable little girl appeared and handed up to me a paper plate upon which rested a prodigious example of a formerly offshore mollusk complete with my own fork, a little salsa on top, and a wee wedge of lime on the side. This is not the way we serve ‘em up in New England and it might be a shame considering the scrumptious culinary achievement this was. Granddad told me to be wary of the on-site super who was trying to put a lean on one of the trailers and aimed to stop any prospective buyer from taking it out of the yard. The longer it took to sell the more in arrears the unit's owner would be to the park on his monthly fees and the more the super could make claim, however dubious, on some poor fellow’s property. It had worked in the past for super-man who everyone seemed a bit afraid of and spoke about in hushed tones. As we chatted the granddaughter reappeared to take back my empty plate. Then mister super wheeled up in a golf cart with an American flag on it like some visiting raj and proceeded to ignore me when I walked up to his rolling throne and introduced myself. By the time he bothered to scowl me up and down after learning of my interest in purchasing a trailer and possibly becoming a resident his attitude turned upwards in arrogance and the main thing keeping me from flipping his super-cart over sideways was the reappearance of the little brown-eyed angel handing me a second plateful of bivalve and a smile. I had not even spoken to her daddy yet.

The cheaper place I eventually moved into is a lot smaller and lower key. The youngish woman next door introduced herself after I’d been there a few days and demanded an inspection of my place just as I was getting ready to drive away on a job. She said she wanted to check on her mother who she maintained was being held hostage inside and simply wanted to see if she needed anything. Very calm and pleasant about the whole thing she was even as I tried to explain the place was empty as we stood outside in the sun that morning getting to know one another. It didn’t seem wise to let her think she could push me around by capitulating to her unscheduled prisoner visitation request being as I was new and all and had to establish protocols and boundaries. In the rapid, free verse, soliloquy of non-sequiturs she worked up to I caught some kind of reference to “sexual” and later the landlord said it was fortunate she never made it inside because she could then proceed with all manner of accusations against me.
Sometimes she jumps out of the shadows at night as I’m heading to the laundry room but otherwise her mother, since liberated, was brought in to dissuade her from causing trouble. Although this morning she threw a cup at Willy from across the yard, which isn’t like her, but maybe Willy made fun of her or something, at least that’s what Dolores says and she’s Willy’s girlfriend. They live together with a cat named Shazam and a restraining order she got against Willy a while back when they were fighting more. When he gets out of line again she just has to wave it in his face and reach for the phone and he vanishes like the exhaust pouring out of his beloved Harley. Willy’s a good guy but one thing you might notice about him right on the quick, if you have an eye for this sort of thing, is Willy has done time. But he sure has taught me all kinds of interesting things like different ways to pick combinations and break into my trailer, hot-wire my car, and undo the steering lock on my motorcycle. These adventures make him uncharacteristically enthusiastic.
Dolores is a sweetheart who runs the yard on a daily basis and is into Neil Diamond and witchcraft. Willy is totally devoted to her and told me he didn’t even want to pet my cat out of loyalty to Shazam except that the Thelonius made him. I believe it too. It’s the same with me and the little kitty next door that’s always purring around, rubbing up against my legs, and jumping up so I have to stroke the top of her head or look like some cold fish. And even though Tom, her owner, swore he’d had her spayed she’s looking awfully pregnant again, the little slut. But what male could possibly resist her? Thelonius can, and in the hissiest possible fashion. But that’s just because I paid the vet to do the unthinkable back when the he still trusted me, the poor little muffin...I mean bastard.


This duet, from Bizet's The Pearl Fishers, includes an intro section most recordings leave out. Listen as two old buddies, both fisherman in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), discuss the thing that drove them apart. Guess what that could have been.