…Continued from yesterday.

Finding someone in the Internet age is easy work, provided they have a fixed address, cellphone, or an email account. Couple of minutes on Google, a coherent query, and viola, out pops suggested locations. Maybe not a specific street address, but good enough. Maybe a list of hobbies, a past or current employer, or a blog with a contact form. Well, chalk Bob Simmons down for none of the above. Even the most exclusive country clubs scrimp on email services for caddies, and guys running card games in the basement generally avoid publicity. The hotel he lived at shuttered five years ago. No, the Internet was worthless tool here.

His entire family disowned him; Relatives would be no help.

To find Bob meant going straight to the source–back to Red Bank. Which led to the first, and most basic problem.

Scenes change. In ten years, speculators transformed Red Bank from an up and coming burgh to a slick hub for very wealthy professionals. In some circles, Red Bank is “Little Wall Street”. Brokerage firms line Broad Street, crowding out less upscale merchants. Specialty shops offer kitsch goodies to the sort of clients who don’t carry cash or credit cards, because clerks–and everyone else–knows their names. Rows of Victorian and frame homes, once rundown and in shambles, now are remodeled, and fetch big money. Gone are the days two twenty-somethings could rent a house or apartment on service jobs, and the occasional drug deal.

Yet the more I toured the old haunts, what few remained, the more I realized the gentrification of Red Bank was not the true dilemma. The source ran deeper: I scarcely knew anyone in town. My contacts long moved on to their first or second homes. One went to jail. Another haunted a psychiatric facility for awhile, before he tore off for California.

So I knew no one who could help. Well, almost no one.

I did know Jorge*. Jorge introduced me to Bob in the first place, and our last encounter he stuffed a phone number into my mailbox when I wasn’t looking. Calling Jorge might work. I wasn’t crazy about dealing with Jorge face to face, because while likable, he tried to move in with anyone who talked to him for more than five minutes. Any chance to get off his parent’s couch, was a chance he was willing to take. And he pursued these opportunities without exception. He even pursued opportunities that were never implied.

Once he ventured as far as the Deep South on an invitation for dinner provided he was already in town. A month later, the friend realized Jorge planned to stay indefinitely and kicked him to the curb. Jorge spent another month sleeping in the backseat of a rotting Datsun in view of the front door, before caving and driving back to the mother land. Some might call that sort of man a mooch. All right by Jorge. He was impervious to labels. Or insults, for that matter.

But no one knew Bob better than Jorge. I decided to call and take my chances.

I dialed. A man answered, and not Jorge. This voice was worn from fifty years of Pall Mall’s. After I made it clear that Jorge didn’t owe me money and I wasn’t fishing for a Brokeback moment with his son, Mr. Diaz gave me an address.

Fifteen minutes later, I arrived.

It was an abandoned church.

I knocked on the door. It creaked open slowly.

To be continued…

* Jorge is not his real name.

In the mid ’90s a magazine declared Red Bank, New Jersey the hippest town in the state. Bold as that assessment might sound to those from other counties, it was true at the time. At least for me.

Met The Wife in Red Bank in that period. It was a million to one chance, which I very nearly squandered. Fortunately, I reversed course and secured a date. For political reasons–her very, very large boyfriend–we labeled it a black and white photo discussion over coffee and sandwiches.

Kevin Smith set up a production company on Broad Street, long before he dreamed of Hollywood Hills. There were gourmet coffee shops, restaurants, antiques, and musicians on every corner. Bruce Springsteen shopped in town. Red Bank had a vibe and media blessings; good tidings buzzed all around us. And a poet, Bob Simmons* appeared at odd moments on a bicycle.

He lived in Sea Bright, a summer town on the shore, and rode to Red Bank after work most nights on a rusty Schwinn with a notebook in his back pocket.

By profession, Bob caddied at an exclusive golf course, then gambled the earnings through the winter. When he needed extra cash, he got hit by cars. He was the master of the 5,000 dollar settlement. Several of the cases might have generated big cash awards and landed him on easy street, but Bob didn’t get hit to get rich. He got hit because he rode his bicycle poorly when drunk, and not much better sober. The way he figured it, his needs were humble, and money corrupted a man. Bob hated corruption.

When the settlements paid out, Bob shared the winnings. Free dinners, smokes and whiskey for his crew. He was generous like that, and we all paid him in kind when he was down on his luck. He was loved. I spotted Bob cigarettes and cheeseburgers like the rest of the guys.

He had an awful lot of talent, especially when it came to writing. Every so often, usually after a night on the town, out came that notebook and Bob unleashed some verse. Normally, I don’t care much for poetry, it’s too steeped in meter and meaning for my working class tastes, but Bob had a way with the pen and page.

This year, I’ll be the same age as Bob Simmons back in the glory days, and I decided to find him.

To be continued…

* Bob Simmons is not his real name.