I’m typing quietly, with the lights out, so they don’t know I’m in here. Rations are low but must last until tomorrow. Each noise from the outside sends shivers down my spine. I cover my head with a pillow to drown it out, praying it will end.
It is Fake St. Patrick’s Day in Hoboken.
Oh, sure, there are 16 days until the actual St. Patrick’s Day, but don’t tell that to any of the corrupt, money-hungry weasels involved in Fake St. Patrick’s Day. For this is the day of Hoboken’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Why isn’t it held on St. Patrick’s Day? I’ve heard it’s to avoid conflicts with New York City’s and other local parades, who are booking the same marching bands. But it’s awful convenient that fake St. Patrick’s Day is always on a Saturday, allowing a full day of revelry in a city already swimming in alcohol. And guess what, bar owners: On actual St. Patrick’s Day, it all happens again.
Hey, go easy, it’s an Irish town. Well, no, it isn’t. The Italians arrived after World War I and never left. But in fairness, the Irish did rule the roost here prior to that. Shortly after the Germans, that is.
The fact is, Hoboken doesn’t need a reason to celebrate. It’s been described as having the most bars per square mile in these United States. (I’ve also heard that characterization applied to La Crosse, Wisconsin. Can we really trust any statistics gathered by drunks, anyway?) On weekend evenings, the countless taverns along the main drag are teeming with a subset of the justifiably much-maligned Jersey “bridge-and-tunnel” crowd—the subset that is too cheap to pay the toll into Manhattan.
On Fake St. Patrick’s Day, the madness extends beyond Hoboken’s main thoroughfare, to every single establishment with a liquor license within the Mile Square City. And if you have the ability to pour, congratulations, you can obtain a liquor license here. And it’s all day long. Granted, that’s improved slightly—the bars now open at 11 a.m. rather than at 6 a.m. [Update: Beginning in 2010, the opening time switched to 9 a.m.] Nonetheless, the day is still a descent into Frat-Boy Hell. Outside even the most nondescript residential-block watering hole, there is an unruly line of red-faced, green-plastic-hat (or backwards baseball cap, your choice!) and green-T-shirt-over-white-longjohns-top-wearing loud, drunken morons. Oh yes, and the Mardi Gras-style green beads, I can’t forget those. They roam in packs from bar to bar to house party to bar, stopping briefly at every street corner to laugh maniacally, call some “dude” on the cell phone, urinate, and/or vomit. You cannot look out a window at any moment during the day or night without glimpsing a drunken idiot (or 2, or 15) weaving down the street. With the occasional punctuation of a police siren.
I’ve lived here almost 14 years, and it is hands-down my least favorite day in Hoboken all year. Perhaps my least favorite day anywhere. I skip town when I can, and if not—like today—I batten down the hatches, quietly seethe, and wait it out. Like microwave popcorn, eventually the gap increases between each hooting-and-hollering session on the street below. Until there is no more, and it is once again safe.
But that’s hours from now.
Many, many hours.
I could really use a drink.
I know what you are experiencing old boy, that “craving of open spaces” that invariable comes with age. C’mon! Who ya kidding? Time to stop trying to be hip and move to the extreme burbs, get the house, the yard, the big electric blower, the net game set, then you don’t have to worry about such debauchery.
i DO like badminton….
Oh my God, Jack! I’ve never heard fake St Patrick’s Day described so well… So, so funny! I’ve tried to describe this awful hell to friends in the past, and you have nailed it. I’ve always thought the day after fake St Patrick!s Day was the once-a-year opportunity to bring back the stock and pillory – staged by City Hall on a raised platform, displaying all the public urinators and yes, defecators (making up words here). Thanks for the hearty laugh… stay inside. On The Waterfront is on TMC now.