BRONX, NY We are the three prominent men. When we came together in 1997, we had a dream. This dream was to survive the coming Y2K disaster by creating a modern Noah's Ark. But every step along the way, we were thwarted by a supernatural entity, a higher power. Fortunately, the world did not end on January 1, 2000, but it looks as though the world may be ending quite soon for a small, private, cooperatively owned community in the Bronx's Throggs Neck sector.
The land that is now Edgewater Park was originally used by the Siwanoy Indians as a fishing camp. Over the years, the land was owned by many different people, including a chap named Edward Stephenson in 1792. More importantly, George Townsend Adee purchased it in 1851 from the good old Edward LeRoy for 20Gs. Adee built a mansion in 1856 for his six sons and his sixth wife Ellen Louise Henry, who named the estate "Edgewater."
In 1910, the Adee family sold the land to Richard Shaw, who used it as a quaint country farm, where he raised goats and pigs. He invited some homeless people to spend their summers there in exchange for their indentured servitude. He used the name "Park of Edgewater" to make it seem like an awesome deal.
If they did a good job, the serfs could keep a small portion of the crop, and would be entitled to "protection." They were bound to the land, but the most productive tenants had their tents personally upgraded by Mr. Shaw into bungalows, where only these, the cream of the crop, could survive the harsh winters.
Richard Shaw's son Richard II inherited the land. However, the modern liberal that he was, decided to give the land to the peasants and the mansion to the firefighters. He moved across the street, into a smaller mansion. The night he passed away of undisclosed causes, the more ambitious twelve-gaugers ransacked his home and decided that, as peasants, they were more equal than others.
This group in the early 1990s came to be known as the Co-op, who convinced the peasants that it was best if they owned the land on the peasants' behalf. The Co-op decided it would be prudent to charge the peasants "maintenance fees" and place retroactive zoning laws even though the peasants had already owned their homes. These fees are known as "EPCOT."
There were no police in Edgewater, so the firemen did the police's job. While the Co-op met secretly in the local mart's attic, things seemed to be honky-dory for the residents of this peaceful island town, peninsula - almost an island; that's what peninsula means.
There were no skyscrapers. No apartment buildings. No sidewalks. No trespassing. No police control (see above). No security. No garages. No stop signs. No traffic lights. No traffic period. No restaurants. No train stations. No commerciality. No business. No regard for time or season. No "Clean Up After Your Pet" signs, so no one did. No shoes. No water pressure. No portal save for one. All this! No more than a few feet from the water.
Where pets ran amok thoughout the streets, and children paid no mind to property lines, jumping and running from one yard to the next, through an intricate network of alleys and hidden streets in which one would suffer a concussion during winter months. Where dogs and cats alike welcomed outsiders, trotting up and down the empty single-lane streets where cars were stationed against people's fences and yet somehow they were still two-way. Where the homes were cramped together and there was only one store, ironically called by many "The Store," or by those who remembered the old days, "Skippy's."
Here the Long Island Sound was literally in their backyards, where the seawall had been increased a mighty six inches to protect against storm surges after the infamous flood of '92. Here the beaches and the piers used for jumping and fishing were for residents and their guests only, who shared the benefit of chilled dark foamy water often rancid with raw sewage and overrun with jellyfish and snappers. Here killies, blueclaws, spider crabs, piss clams, stink crabs, seagulls, horseshoe crabs, seals, pelicans, ducks, swans, and two-foot water rats were just some of the native aquatic wildlife in the neighborhood. Here pigeons, sparrows, starlings, cardinals, bluejays, crows, bats, and el chupacabra cheeped in their lush squirrel-infested forestry.
Where neighbors were neighborly by default, understanding the nature of the place, and were overall pleasant and hospitable, while new people sniped the cats with dart guns. Where six-hundred seventy-five quaint houses, a deli, a dilapidated playground, and a volunteer firehouse run by drunkards fit onto thirteen acres, and where there were at least three haunted houses, two witches' houses, and a cannibal's house. Where unidentified flying objects, tornadoes, and specters ravaged from time to time the streets with no names.
Those were the good old days. When dirtbag teenagers didn't take showers, they used the labyrinthian alleyways to avoid paying cab fares. Outsiders would only be tolerated by the teenagers and their rifle-wielding Klan if they provided alcoholic beverages as an offering of friendship. Teenagers would pass the late nights urinating in their trousers on the waterfront, but they were generally too intoxicated to change.
Flashforward one year to 1997. Neighborhood youths, guided by alteriority, gathered to convert a local burnt abandoned home into a youth clubhouse. A mysterious power quickly and silently eliminated the utility of the structure, by placing it under full lockdown. Not to be so easily defeated, the youths spent months gathering raw materials to construct their base of operations in the courtyard of another nearby burnt abandonment. Unfortunately the Mysteriority ransacked their wares.
Rumor flew that the Co-op did not approve.
