7507. BELOW THE WATER LINE (pt. 85)

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 85)

One time a plane crashed over Brooklyn, or rather

two planes collided over Brooklyn, and debris, and

bodies I guess, fell down into the city neighborhoods

below. That was about 1960. January 10, 1961, actually.

And some of the bodies (138 people) and debris fell

into Park Slope, Brooklyn, and the rest (other plane)

fell over and into Staten island. Anyway, the time that

happened my father and I were in Mayfair Pizza on

Rahway Avenue, waiting for a pizza to be made. We

were to take it home. The television in the pizza place,

a small TV screen, perched up high over the doorway

and waiting area, had all the reports, and the reporters

and people screaming and hollering about what they

saw  -  the live shots, and all that. It was pretty scary,

and I only grasped a little of it really  -  my mind had

somehow overlooked all the tragedy stuff and had

gotten transfixed, instead, (I remember it well) on

the physics and physical characteristics of the crash

itself : two planes in motion, opposite directions to

each other, meaning of course one was coming in 

and the other was climbing out  -  two different speeds,

one accelerating and the other back-pressuring to slow

the air speed and approach a descend-for-landing speed.

They collided, each with its own forward momentum  -

some things and people landing in Staten Island, and

the others in Brooklyn  -  a few miles apart, maybe

ten, maybe twelve miles, I'd think, at the most. (I 

know, I know, 'where'd they bury the survivors'  -  

that was an old, schoolboy joke, always making the 

rounds). But the aspects of that collision that captivated

my mind surprised me, inasmuch as they were almost

'technical' matters, precise and perhaps even with a

mathematical-force component. I found myself

surprising myself with that one. Everyone else in the

place was oohing and aahing over the dead, the wrecks,

the tragedy, the unknown, talking about their Uncle

Louey or Aunt Theresa in Brooklyn, or whatever  -  all

the human and emotional component. I'd glided myself

right past that, and found myself as a technocrat, computing

arcs and angles, wondering why nothing fell in the water

between the two places  -  all that stuff. It was a momentary

weird thing that stopped me, as myself, short. I found 

myself scolding that other 'me'. I was thinking like rich people

think : facts, cause and effect, cold logic. This was not

that sort of place -  it was old work-class Woodbridge and

Avenel, where people emoted, screamed and wailed. That

was a major class difference I saw. Why was I crossing it?

-

My friend Denny Montecalvo's family owned that pizza

place  -  formally called 'Montecalvo's Mayfair Pizza. If

memory is intact, it also had a little swim-club thing out 

back, where you could join and use the nice, olympic-type

built-in swimming pool. Very clever, captive pizza 

audience and all that. Inside, everything was weirdly 1950's.

Faux-leather, bright green seats, with rivets and designs

throughout, booths with matching backs, two or three rows

of seating, a bar area, and the pizza-serving area and ovens.

It was quite an operation, and it's still around there  -  without

the pool and the rest. Inside, I don't know. Haven't ever gone

in. Entire name-change and stuff, long time ago. Down the

road, towards Rahway there used to be another pizza place,

by the Maple Tree Tavern, called 'Snooky's' I think. That's 

long gone now too. It's as if a once-wagon-trail has, over time.

been changed over to an efficient and steady highway, with

any and all the weirdnesses just wiped away. I think when 

people worked in places, all around there, they got their 

lunches and stuff and frequented such places. Now -   years

later  -  there's no manufacturing to be found, no lunch crowds,

'no nothing', as they say, except truckers and 

stuff just passing along.

-

Speaking of which, there really was a time when Avenel had a

thrumming 'town-center' - a place of vibrancy, traffic, and

activity. At shift-change, twice a day, there'd be a cop posted

to direct traffic. The whole street would get clogged up; truck

deliveries, the Rahway Avenue entrance for the really large

ones, and the Avenel Street gatehouse for the smaller. There

was a large parking lot, filled with the swoop and swirl of 1950's

and 1960's cars. High School kids with little prospect of college,

or no interest, or better things on their minds, would take jobs 

there. The greasers and the hoods loved working there. It was

their Harvard! This was General Dynamics, previously named

Security Steel. It's all gone now  -  not so long ago obliterated

for some more of the usual yo-yo magnet condos and apartments

and assisted-rent housing which balances all the other high-end

stuff. They expect outsiders to run to it because it sits athwart

the train station. Great opportunity. For someone. It's all gone

now and just a large, leveled field right now with preparations 

starting for footings and curbs and pipes and plumbing. Only 

the lingering ghosts of what I remember still keeps it in place 

for me. It'll never die. It afforded this rat's ass of a place a 

reason for being. It actually added something to the general 

ambiance of where we lived. No one even ever really 'knew' 

what they made.  No one cared either. They made paychecks. 

Paychecks with free parking to boot. If General Dynamics 

didn't take you in, the Avenel kids always had the GM Plant 

out on Rt. One, just a few miles up, in Linden. Thousands 

worked there, and happily too. Just before them, the chemical 

plant at Merck. There were plenty of jobs  -  and bars and 

sandwich places too. Right outside General Dynamics, right 

across from the main entry gate almost  -  perfect for  the 

lunchtimes and the breaks of the workers, was Mike's Subs.

General Dynamics made electronic tracking systems, or 

something, for submarines  -  but 'Mike's' made the subs.

Sandwiches, that is. He'd have a constant stream a line, in

fact  -  a moving, slow squib of people, moving along to 

get their 'No. 1', or 'No 2' or whatever, He never caught up 

to that stupid modern gimmick of 'naming' sandwiches  -  

the 'Avenel', the 'Hiram' or anything stupid like that. It was

just by number. People ate these things voraciously. I think

this Mike guy was just a Woodbridge High visionary who

saw no future anywhere for himself but in slinging salami

and finding the perfect location. He'd gotten it. He must have

made plenty of money when it was all rolling in. Mike was no 
dummy either. He knew how to draw a crowd. He'd hire a lot
 of the nicest looking local high school girls you could find, or
girls who had just recently graduated or were in some local 
college-type schooling. Anything to get the factory workers 
piled up. Pleasant atmosphere and all that.  Besides the

people always in line, he'd get the smokers and coffee guys on

factory break or lunch, out front, eating, smoking, talking. There

was a bar next door  -  the Roxbury, I think it was then  -  and in

there was the more hardened crowd. The after-work boozers.

Different crowd, more sinewy and weathered, maybe battered

and mean and morose too. Shot and a beer punchdrunks. But I

bet they ate Mike's sandwiches too. General Dynamics afforded

Avenel a vibrant center, of whichever nature it may have been. 

Factory towns -  the large ones, like Lowell, Mass, or Paterson, 

NJ, or even Binghamton, NY, when they lose their industrial

base, things go sour. Look at Detroit for the real extreme. 

Disaster looms. Avenel, while it had General Dynamics, was

able to hold onto some quaint mysteriousness of it own lease

on some errant but tangible reality  -  people coming together,

to labor and to make something together -  and get paid for it,

pleasantly, without all that grief and turmoil and labor-strife.

It lasted a good while, and while it lasted it was good.

Soon to be  -  another collision, this one of cultures, 

and that would begin changing everything.