3. September 10, 2015

On Sep­tem­ber 10, 2015, Cary Dressler finds solace and a moment of relax­ation on Dri­ve-In Rock, a seclud­ed rocky out­crop in Deer­field Park. Draw­ing com­fort from his rou­tine of inhal­ing good-qual­i­ty mar­i­jua­na, Cary spends his evening post-work unwind­ing as he indulges in watch­ing “Raiders of the Lost Ark” from the Mag­ic City Dri­ve-In, albeit with­out sound, a minor incon­ve­nience bypassed by his famil­iar­i­ty with the film. This spot offers an escape not just from the con­fines of his job at Strike Em Out Lanes, but from the con­ven­tion­al cin­e­ma expe­ri­ence, trad­ing Dol­by sounds for the free­dom to smoke and the ambi­ence of the out­door set­ting.

As Cary set­tles into his rou­tine, choos­ing between joints and plan­ning the small plea­sures of his evening, the calm­ness of his iso­la­tion is pierced by an unex­pect­ed voice. The momen­tary para­noia gives way to curios­i­ty, reveal­ing a scene unfold­ing on Red Bank Avenue, a part of the city marked by its dilap­i­da­tion and the encroach­ing wilder­ness of the Thick­ets. Cary wit­ness­es an elder­ly woman in a wheel­chair and a man, pre­sum­ably accom­pa­ny­ing her, strand­ed by a van with a dead bat­tery, their con­ver­sa­tion float­ing up to his van­tage point. While the man’s dead phone halts their chance of imme­di­ate res­cue, Cary’s dis­trac­tion with their predica­ment does­n’t prompt him into action.

This chap­ter encap­su­lates a moment in Cary Dressler’s life, paint­ing a vivid pic­ture of his youth­ful care­less­ness, tinged with a hint of soli­tude he seems to both cher­ish and, momen­tar­i­ly, ques­tion. The jux­ta­po­si­tion of Cary’s laid-back, recre­ation­al pur­suit with the sud­den intru­sion of the real­i­ty faced by the strand­ed pair opens a nar­ra­tive of con­trasts — between youth and age, care­free­ness and respon­si­bil­i­ty, iso­la­tion and the unseen con­nec­tions between strangers in the city. Cary’s deci­sion to remain a dis­tant observ­er, rather than an inter­ven­er, sets a tone of intro­spec­tion and missed oppor­tu­ni­ties that may echo through­out the unfold­ing sto­ry.