Treasures Buried in Dust. Provincetown’s Commercial Street in the…
By: Tighe Flatley
Tags: Creative Nonfiction, Love, Provincetown, Creative Non Fiction, Vacation

Provincetown’s Commercial Street in the summer is one of those rare American roads where cars are outnumbered by pedestrians; people on foot walk more quickly than any four-wheel motor vehicle could ever push through. On that street sits a long, musty enterprise known as Marine Specialties. Here, passers-by can pop in and get odds and ends and knicks and knacks and any old thing to commemorate their vacation.

The building itself is squat, long and painted a cloudy white. It has few windows. It stretches back from the street, until you cannot see the rear of the building through the over-brush. This effect translates inside. Climbing through the displays feels a bit like entering C.S. Lewis’ wardrobe, pushing aside dusty goods before you touch snow and enter Narnia.

To share what Marine Specialties sells is a difficult errand. I suspect it’s easier to try and list what it does not sell: It does not sell food or drink. It does not sell anything of high-end or luxury value.

Everything else, it seems, is on the table. Quite literally.

Racks and shelves and tables are crammed into the space with nearly any product you can think of, no corner or square foot unaccounted for. The displays — direct, humble — do not seem to follow a rhyme or rhythm.

Browse through the aisles (if you can justify them as such), and you can pick up a wig, a collection of sea shells, or a roll of toilet paper with Donald Trump’s face on it. You can get a grass skirt paired with a coconut bra, or cotton panties paired with a non-coconut bra. You can buy a sword from the American Civil War, a new belt, and a flag from any nation on Earth, whether China, Chile or Chad, all in one visit. There is always a bin of old license plates at the front, the rhythmic scratching of Idaho against Iowa adding to the din of the street, as tourists dig to find their home states. You can buy a gun.

Mysteriously, I once saw a pair of first class Delta plane seats up for grabs with their adjoining service trays, complete with salt and pepper shakers. Even more mysteriously, the next summer, they were gone, now sitting in someone’s living room as a centerpiece of conversation.

The whole of the building feels as if it was picked up in Dorothy’s tornado, collecting all sorts of trash from throughout Kansas, before crashing down in Oz and simply opening its doors to the public.

Shopping in the store stresses me out to no end; Brad thrives in it.

“But you love long-sleeve teeshirts,” he will say, picking through a barrel at eye height filled with neon shirts marked for $5. (“Three dollars if you find a hole!” Brad says, throwing shirts damaged with rips, tears and ink stains over his shoulder for purchase.)

One time, Brad and I visited and at check-out, the associate behind the counter said, “Have a good night.” It was two in the afternoon. He caught himself, (“Oh, I work the night shift and forget sometimes,”) but not before the statement suggested that time itself ceases to exist within the walls and small, high windows of Marine Specialties. I am sure, somewhere in there, they sell clocks, but they certainly do not tell the time.

Brad and I have been to Provincetown every summer since we began dating, and the shop remains at the top of his list each time we visit.

“We don’t have anything in neon pink yet!” he says, pulling out of a bag of crewneck sweatshirts the color of bubblegum in size XXL. Perhaps the best purchase we’ve made there was during one September visit, at the start of a five week stay in Ptown. We browsed a selection of Irish wool blankets, each for less than $100, carefully feeling the soft and sturdy fabric between our fingers, and comparing the subtle grey prints with the deep blues. We bought three. I worried about what else was carried on these blankets as we brought them into our house but, as the autumn temperatures crept across the Cape, I soon forgot those concerns as I sat on the patio, draped in Donegal wool.

For the rest of the trip, the blankets sat on each of the three beds in the place we rented. In a house where all the towels and sheets belonged to someone else, these additions were ours, a comforting feeling that we were building ourselves a home in Ptown, however temporary. When the trip came to an end, we folded up the blankets and placed them in the giant plastic Marine Specialties bag, it’s thin plastic handles cutting into our palms as we carried it to the car.

Back home, months later, with the winter wind creeping through the cracks of our windows, I will open the closet to put on something warm. There, I will find an oversized sweatshirt to climb into, in a pink so bright that it shocks the eyes out of the early evening darkness. I will head to the couch, where the pile of Irish wool blankets sit, one of the three waiting to be selected as the chosen to unfurl and settle across my legs.

My Provincetown each summer is headlined with lobster rolls and, usually, more drinks and merriment than my body should absorb. It lasts a brief moment, and stays behind when the trip is done.

Brad’s Provincetown, instead, lives on through his discoveries. He packs them neatly into his suitcase, dust and all, until they are unveiled at home and take up a permanent place in our day-to-day life. There they stay, reminding us of our visit and propelling us toward next year’s summer, when we will make our way down Commercial Street, and the doors of Marine Specialties will creak open and welcome us back to explore.