“We used to spend the entire summer wasting time on this pier–tough guys everyone of us. Just like Brando. We’d be sitting up on that railing wearing our leather jackets and sparkin’ up our cigs–a bunch of regular bad-asses we were.”
“That Brando was something else.”
“I remember seeing him on the big screen down at the Roxy on Fifth and Main. When he did that scene in “On The Waterfront” about being a contender, I could identify with that–all of us in the Marvels could identify with that.”
“Man, that whole movie did a number on us.”
“Everything we’d do back then we used to think, “how would Brando handle this?” How would he tell someone to get lost; how would he make time with this girl or that; how would he walk past the cops who patrolled this pier when they were tapping those nightsticks on the palms of their hands.”
“We swore we’d never change, every last one of us. We said we’d just keep hanging out here until we got our shot to be contenders–except we wouldn’t miss our chance.”
“Well, I went the distance–just like Brando did in ‘On The Waterfront.’ And where’d that get me? All my friends moved on. Then the pier closed down. And just like Brando, I ended up with a hand full of wishes and a handful of shit. Now, Brando’s dead and I guess, for all practical purposes, I am too.”
Steven “Little Man” Coughlin ran with the Mystic Marvels out on the pier at Braxton Beach during his high school years. Laying claim to the pier from 1961 to 1965, the Marvels finally disbanded when the structure was condemned by city ordinance.
Steven Coughlin will begin collecting social security in two years. He currently lives in an efficiency apartment on Braxton Beach and still walks by the pier almost every day.
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