Four friends just out of high school spending their last consequence-free summer at the Jersey Shore in 1969 and how their experiences shaped the rest of their lives. The Jersey Four By Brad Renshaw AuthorHouse Copyright © 2009 Brad Renshaw All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4490-0235-0 Contents CHAPTER 1 THE FOUR.............................................1CHAPTER 2 THE SLEEPER..........................................6CHAPTER 3 THE BEACH, THE BABES, & THE B.S......................17CHAPTER 4 THE FOUR WITH THEIR FOUR.............................42CHAPTER 5 THE JUNE BASH........................................52CHAPTER 6 THE 4TH..............................................61CHAPTER 7 THE MOON WALK........................................74CHAPTER 8 THE REMATCH..........................................80CHAPTER 9 THE CAMPING TRIP.....................................87CHAPTER 10 THE LAST DANCE.......................................112CHAPTER 11 THE LONG GOODBYE.....................................128CHAPTER 12 THE HOMECOMING.......................................133 Chapter One THE FOUR James Tyrone McDonald; 'Doorway', 'Popeye', was the oldest son of former Marine gunnery sergeant J.T. McDonald, veteran of WWII and Korea, an old-fashioned, all American hero. Decorated like a Christmas tree, he even won the C.M.H. (Congressional Medal of Honor), but to everybody in the neighborhood he was just Jimmy's old man; Big Mac (before that goddamn sandwich). When he cut his grass in the summer with his shirt off you could see the scars he got from Guadalcanal, the big one on the right side of his back looked exactly like the state of Florida. The story was he caught some shrapnel saving two of his buddies. He dragged them to safety two hundred yards through enemy fire with a collapsed lung and a bullet hole through his calf. Jimmy had a lot to look up to, not that he couldn't reach it. He was six two as a freshman in high school and when he graduated he was at least six four. Solid muscle, Hollywood looks, the toughest kid to ever come out of north Jersey. Nobody ever messed with Jimmy, not even the ass hole jocks that used to beg him to play football. He spent his spare time in a shit-hole refinery in Newark earning money for the summer. Stubborn as a mule, loyal to the people and things that mattered to him. He got his draft card and was joining the marines, just like his old man, no question about it. Quick tempered, and absolutely irresistible to women. Got more ass than a Beverly Hills proctologist. Knocked out the senior football quarterback and stole his girlfriend two weeks into his freshman year. Jimmy was a force of nature, or a freak of one, you knew it the second you met him, or was unlucky enough to catch the receiving end of one of his hay-makers. Ronald Jerome Lipschitz; 'Twitch', 'Shitlips', swear to God, his name really was Lipschitz. When Jimmy first met him in the third grade after he moved to West Orange he accidentally pronounced his last name 'Shit Lips'. Got tormented like hell, until he became part of the Four. Smartest kid to ever come out of north Jersey, got accepted to every Ivy league school he applied to, full scholastic ride. They say he chose Princeton just so he could be closer to his three best friends. To say Ronnie was gifted would be an under statement, the guys I.Q. was almost off the charts. He was an only child of the first real hippie parents that ever moved into north Jersey. They put something called solar panels on the roof of their house one summer and everybody thought they were crazy. But by that time Ronnie was so tight with Jimmy, Brad, and Sal that nobody dared give them any crap. Taught Brad how to set the pumps back at the gas station he worked at so they got free gas all through high school. Did his homework on the bus on the way to school. Tutored a ton of kids through high school for free (Sal thought he was crazy for not charging them), a natural-born teacher. Five seven, one forty soaking wet, but crazy brave, he'd take on anybody or try anything once. Jimmy said he was Barney Fife with the heart of George Patton. Opinionated, passionate, and cause-driven, voted most likely to succeed, but then bitch about the politics of it. Salvatore DeMucci Bustolione; 'Landscape', 'Sally the Bus', 'Five By', 'Babe', Sally had more nicknames than rolls, the nicest tub o' shit you ever met. Five eight, two fifty, seventeen but looked thirty, started shaving when he was ten. Had a running tab at Smitty's Liquors when he was in Junior High. Sweetest, sweatiest, hairiest, horniest kid you ever saw but couldn't get laid in a whorehouse full of blind hookers. Sal's mother went about three bills, easy, nobody ever saw her outside of her kitchen. She cooked, baked, and sauted her entire life, and talk about good eats, you gained three pounds walking into the place. His old man was connected to some big Italian family in the city, was kind of