I’m New Jersey, man. I didn’t say I’m in New Jersey. I am negotiating the terms of exile. I remain New Jersey. I can show you my blood work.
I am more. I am Central New Jersey. I am the asteroid belt between planets. I am live and active cultures. I am the miles where the turnpike cuts out and you forget which way you’re bound. I am adjacent to no city. I am the roadside tomato on whom mayonnaise would be blasphemy. I am the zinnia larger than your head. I am Olive Gardens and Goodwills. I wear sweatpants proclaiming my seat “Sweet.” A new tattoo spontaneously appears every time I am underestimated. No one thinks of Central New Jersey. It still holds up the slacks.
I’m New Jersey, man. I am the state associated with arguments over the proper nomenclature for breakfast meat. I am smaller than most and shaped like a backwards “S,” so there is no mistaking me for super. I am large enough for three seminaries and The Sopranos. I am the stowaway sand that heckles your suitcase for ten years and the basilica you did not expect between bodegas. I am the punchline and the place you send your grandparents when they need their lives saved. I don’t brag about my laureates. I don’t forget them.
I am no man. I am the survivor of a man who called me “dude” and “man” for two senate terms. I asked him to stop. He was not New Jersey. He jiggled my jughandles and tried to pluck the fourth leaf from my clover. I called him “lady” and “girlfriend.” He did not appreciate my points. He drove twenty miles to avoid traffic circles. He will not become New Jersey. He was not half a cat. I dropped a porkroll trail to lead him to The Keystone and locked the deadbolt.
I’m New Jersey, man. I am subject to no one but Queen Latifah. I have no boss but Bruce. I am the Jersey Girl of whom he sang. I am capable of considerable volume. I have portable guys to sing “ooh yeah” and “oh lawdy” when I disagree with anyone. I remember chapter and verse. I have seen tunnels called Manunka Chunk. I have followed Route 31 to the place where it yields to mystery. I have watched Rite-Aids resurrect with new names. I have lived underground in an apartment attached to a post office. I have administered antacids to cats from Trenton tenements. I have waved at old men banging bongos on the Delaware. They have all waved back.
I am every neighbor you have loved. I am the last state to enforce a law that you accept help at the gas station.
I may pay my mortgage and zip my PA postal code up to my chin. New Jersey still lets me run naked for free. In a state smeared with its own smallness, there is a universal right to remain great. We voted to abolish the You Must Be This Tall sign. I moonlight as a backup singer for other strays. I spot God from my car and try to get a photo, but everyone moves fast on our cloverleafs.
Angela Townsend graduated from Princeton Seminary and Vassar College. She is a three time Best of the Net nominee and the 2024 winner of West Trade Review’s 704 Prize for Flash Fiction. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Cutbank, Pleiades, SmokeLong, and Terrain, among others. She lives just outside Philadelphia but belongs forever to New Jersey.
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