7440. BELOW THE WATER LINE, (pt. 71)

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt.71)

I'll admit to here  -  this chapter  -  probably

being a little something different. I like to mix up

my thoughts, and my presentations, every so often.

That's what helps a good teacher be a good teacher;

the craft of change. Not to be afraid of another setting

out. Just realize, too, that you're getting all this from

a little, snot-assed, Avenel kid with very little to show

for having lived an entire freaking life thinking about

things. You'd think I might have gone to Oxford, the

way I come across sometimes. 

-

First thing I ever saw was that there was something 

going on. Just everywhere, and there always was. One

time, I can remember, some sort of trip somewhere to a

circus. I think it was the meadowlands or someplace out

by there, when they used to have all those pig-farms and

slaughterhouses. Really sad place. My father used to drive

me out there on the way to places like Rutherford and

Lyndhurst, where some of my aunts and uncles lived. It 

always  smelled, and all I could ever imagine were all those

happy animals bleating and yelling for their lives. Leave 

it to stupid Man to screw everything up. Screwed up the

naturalness of the land thereabouts by deciding that the

natural fens and marshes and land drainage wasn't needed

and that money could be made there in other fashions, and

then screwed up the lives and beings of countless animals by

deciding that he could fucking eat them. Anyway, this one

time my mother gave me five bucks and a ticket for some 

bus trip that came with entry to a circus. Three-ring jobber.

During the course of the circus, I paid a buck or something to

greet and have a moment with 'the tallest man in the world,'

or the 'biggest' or something. Maybe it was just 'a giant'.  I

forget. He was big, yeah, we shook hands, yeah  -  big, 

powerful hands, and he gave me a ring, way too big for me,

probably just some cheap metal washer-ring or something,

and a signed picture of himself. Whatever, and big deal. I

got home, told the tale, and - wham! - when they read the

guy's name, they started getting all excited or something.

It was some actor or someone they knew, named Jack 

Palance. What did I knew? This guy, I guess, (he must 

have been young too, because he only like recently died a

few or five years or so back. A famous actor), like I said,

'had something going on.' Like everyone else, he was 

working double at doing something, anything, to make 

a mark. Actor. Giant. Everybody's got a gimmick, and

they're mostly always at it. I remember, much later in

his life, this Jack Palance guy was on some awards 

show and the MC was this little whiny Jewish guy - 

Billy Crystal, or some schmuck fake name, and when 

he had to award something to Jack Palance they 

faked a squabble, as entertainment, and Jack Palance 

looked  down at this little Jew guy and said, on live 

TV, in a form of mock disgust  -  'oh, god, I shit 

bigger than you.' That's my giant.

-

My neighborhoods friends and me, we were always 

about. We sort of kept to our own time-line, as much 

as we could. It's simple when you're a kid-boy, or it 

was. Most things revolved around a good, sturdy 

bicycle, and a baseball mitt too  - seemed like once 

was always hanging on my handlebars. If I was at

their house, whoever, or if they, whoever, was at my

house, it was always, 'can Gary eat over?', or 'Can

Billy eat over?'. A few minutes later, you're washing

up hands for  a different kind of supper. It was like

'friend for a day' stuff  -  each day, maybe, someone

different would get the day  -  there'd be other kids, 

but sometimes someone got the day  -  this is six and

seven years old, mind you  - the world is big and 

awesome and liquid and always changing.

-

So, all that time and change that has happened, and 

all those outside people always up to their somethings,

yes, it went all around me, on and forever  -  gimmicks,

stories, mis-representations. Some get lucky, willing to

make the sacrifice of selling themselves down the river.

What always really bugged me were the sneaky rats who

changed their names. All these Hollywood people and

the TV rats, it always turned out they never were who they

said they were. Their names were fake, their life-stories

were mostly made-up crap from, what it turned out to be,

a huge Jewish actually, lie-factory in the sky that everyone

got this fake cloud in to eat their fluff from. Totally accepted, 

rococo nonsense. I found it always pretty disgusting. To

this day. The prime attribute of a good person is in being

true to yourself. Being what you were born to be. Believe

me, everyone would have been better off if Marion Morrison

and Norma Jean Mortenson had just stayed who they were.

And besides, face it, it's a bad lesson for a kid to know that

  -  along in life  -  he or she could fake it in that manner.

-

It's taken me many years, dog years, in fact, to validate

myself, to make Life out of my fairly otherwise miserable 

life. It was always a struggle, and a few times I almost just 

died, by whatever means. I had a hundred opportunites of

intent, but I was always just too chicken. To shoot, to jump,

to OD, to drink that stuff or stand (again) in front of that train.

So, here I am, bleeding a satisfaction; well, of some sort.

I have realized that I've never been more alive, that my

stupid, frumkin, Avenel existence did drive something into

to me to remember. Even though I've always followed the 

dictate of Marcus Aurelius who said 'Live life as if you 

were already dead.' Or I thought. Maybe it was from the 

'Memoirs of Hadrian', I don't remember. Maybe 'The 

Consolations of Philosophy', by Boethius. Now when I 

look for it all I see is it cited as an ancient 'Samurai' 

saying. Perhaps I got it from Yukio Mishima back in 

1967  -  all that library scribbling. I don't know, but 

however wrongly attributed it's been bringing me magic 

of late. I look at people and I can actually see their 

self-excitement. It's very difficult for me to proclaim, 

but when I see someone I can sense their humanity, 

their satisfaction at being alive  -  even if, in the midst 

of all their other problems, it seeps woefully, to them. 

I can sense that girl's happiness and self-satisfaction 

with her nails, and her shoes, that day  -  her finesse 

about her toilette, her happiness at possessing grace 

and beauty. Or that man, with his stance and bearing, 

the shine of his well-done hair, his perfect business 

mien. Acumen. A Strength. None of those mean 

anything to me, but from each of those I feel it 

surging. It possesses a certain 'quiet', internal. It's 

Dignity, for sure  -  the same sort of holy dignity 

with which a dog licks its paws or cleans itself with 

its own tongue; or a cat does its own solid hygiene. 

Self-possessed, solid, sound. A complete Human 

possession of all matters. Last night's sex, this 

morning's shower, the application of eye makeup, 

 the selection of coat and hat, the wearing of that 

pencil and that lapel pocket. In point of fact, it's 

pretty much the only thing that allows me to forgive 

them for their stupid lives. I think, through all the 

ages, that's what people have meant by Grace and 

by Goodness; perhaps even by their quaint term 

'God.' It's simply the knowledge of that self-possession. 

And I realize now that I have no place else to go. It's 

a possession of Self by being 'outside of self'.

And, yet, knowing that, it's all been pissed away today. 

People live as if there was no living at all  -  minute by 

minute interactions with nothing, nothing higher 

than the dirt they walk on  -  endless blabber, the 

scoff and babble of stupid conversation, the twaddle 

of an ass. I know I openly cringe when I get near it  -  

I can hardly go anywhere at all. People make me puke; 

a curious subterfuge of convincing themselves of their 

own rightness and then reinforcing it by thinking 

everyone else wants to hear about it. Have you ridden 

a train lately?  Every poor-man's stop, every Elizabeth 

to New Brunswick to Newark, brings a new load of 

sick wanderers onto the train. Just when you think 

you're settled in for a decent ride, quiet car or  not, 

some fat-assed, lard-mouthed blubberface comes 

bumping and grinding in with his or her malfeasant 

telephone and begins the shit all over again. I want 

to grab a pair of pliers and go squeeze their tit or 

dick until they at least agree to shut the fuck up and 

text, if they have to do anything at all. I know I don't 

want to hear their lame-ass, underprivileged, 

new-fucking-sneakers voice. Sure, I'm a bigot, go 

ahead call me that. see if I care. I'm stating my 

position and my personal rights at an intellectual 

level far different from anyone who objects, that's all. 

Go learn some social manners and then come back 

and bother me. So  -  I wonder  -  is that what 'Avenel' 

made me? Sure as hell not; Avenel instead made them. 

Today's sorry-assed no-goods, whom I'm supposed 

to support. Yeah, right.

It was never my intention to go scooting away, 

running or leaving things. It just came to be that, 

as I seemed to 'grow', Avenel seemed to diminish. 

Everything became a lie; there was no foundation 

there, no clutch, no grab. Walking through town at 

some evening hour, watching the closing of the 

sunlight breaking down the light, tingeing the 

windows and glassways with its own diminished 

light, the entire scene seemed tired and sad and 

small. I realized that it was only other places, the 

large, the dynamic, the strength-of-cities with all 

their heritages and pasts, that made the definitions 

and the shape-forms of the lives we lived. Avenel 

was manipulated  -  it was periphery. It was not to 

be for me. Weirdly enough, now, it's somewhat turned 

about  -  subdivisions and new, large homes are 

bringing people, once again, out to these places and 

draining still again the 'cities' nearby of their better 

inhabitants, as it's put, and leaving repeatedly behind 

the big churn and turmoil that's left in cities, 

Manhattan to be sure, but others too  -  either the 

well-to-do or old-monied, the very top strivers, or 

the reckless low-level dwellers, those who just skirt 

by or are stuck there (Manhattan). Avenel itself has 

started becoming a catch-basin for the people who 

want something; something small, maybe a little yard,

 close to transportation  -  highways, parkways, 

turnpikes, shopping, and the rest. A 'small' 

investment (by contrasts), in a small life. Avenel has 

sort of flat-lined at some 'lower-middle-class' monetary 

stage that's become perfectly acceptable. Manhattan, 

and other places, by contrast, have become keen and 

cutting  -  it's very difficult to find the middle; and it's 

too bad. My own life was always distorted by the 

infraction of the lens which twisted the light  -  

to put it oddly  -  into a fashion of rainbow hues, 

none of which had any way for me to cling to or 

grab at, for they were just that  -  hues, chimeras, 

illusions. Some things were just always outlandish 

to me. I remember reading, when young, about 

the medievalists, or people in the medieval era 

anyway, who in their piety would make it a point 

to follow around a king or a royal or whatever 

nature, the higher the better, whenever one was 

within or passing by their area, their village or 

locale. The idea present then, and pushed as 

religious dictum, was to not miss the opportunity 

of praying in the presence of that Royal, wherever 

it was this person stopped to pray  -  a wayside 

church or cathedral, then for sure, enter in the 

throng with him  -  for any prayers sent to Heaven 

then were for more sure to be answered. The 

feeble thought behind this, of course, was that

God hears better the prayers and supplications 

of Royal stock, whatever it may be. Entire structures 

of religiosity were built around this. It flabbergasted 

me. Just to have to realize the dumb subservience of 

the poor and the meek in these situations  -  fawning 

and following the hem and stride of a Royal just so 

as to be able to pray with them, in their presence, 

even if unknown or unseen, because God better 

hears their prayers. What kind of thinking was this? 

How could people live like this? And then, as I looked 

around myself and saw the local activities, family, 

friends, neighbors, etc., I did realize and have to 

admit that here, in this new situation, it just wasn't 

that far afield from what I just described. The poor 

had transformed themselves, somehow, into this 

newer, envy, class of freshly-arrived people moving 

into Avenel - to their little homes and streets  -  and 

nearby, never far  -  was the church. In my case St. 

Andrew's  -  old building or new. Mothers fawned over 

the local priests, the old ones and the new, young ones. 

Kids flocked, entire families trudged off to Sunday 

Mass. Some sort of automatic accolade of prayer 

and supplication, en masse, and closer to God only

by being closer to his minions  -  in this case the 

priests and ministers who did this stuff (and in  their

'Royal' vestments too). Without fail and without 

question, money was given weekly, approval sought, 

public display played up  -  all so as to be seen being

'closer' to the Lord by being among the minions 

who prayed with His representatives. I guess all 

of this is still going on. Now I see families of Filipinos 

and Hispanics of all stripes dutifully doing their 

Sunday walks to church  -  parking cars, walking 

haphazardly in clothing fit for but a street fair; 

and white families too, all doing the same. The 

French used to say the more things change the 

more they stay the same. I guess that still stands. 

It's nothing ever that I can figure out; the logic of 

any of this escapes me. I don't understand what 

these people seek  -  what ostensible fulfillment 

to them could come from church-going and 

attendance. One can balance rationality against 

faith and find them both sadly blemished; but 

these people don't even take it that far. It's just, 

rather, for them, another version of blind servitude, 

never knowing what they're really doing, but just 

doing it anon.

-

Anyway, what was destiny and who had it? The 

little old Bond Bread man, with his silly Divco 

truck, trudging from house to house and talking 

up all those mothers and kids. Never seeing dads 

at all  -  what did he know, really, of the places he 

serviced? It was a fantastical life, a visitation, and 

his always having to be on, talking and more, was 

probably enough to drive him, or anyone, crazy  -  

 yet, a lot in life is a lot in life; you are where you 

are and you are what you've made. Here all the 

streets were new, and wide and mostly straight. 

There were no dangerous twists or alleys and 

churns where danger or thugs lurked. Everything 

was above-board and there really were no old 

stories. They were custom made, these streets, for 

the straight-line logic which would drive a bread 

delivery man to become a local confessor, one to 

confide in. He probably knew more about the 

happinesses and unhappinesses of all those 

families he served than anyone else around. 

People become what they are, without title. They 

did then anyway. Mike Cohen, this crazy-serious, 

Jewish, dark-suited guy who would walk around 

the blocks with his thick, black, breviary-like payment 

book, filled with little tear-off payment stubs for each 

of the subscribing families  -  he'd walk the local 

streets monthly, quarterly, whatever it was, to pick-up 

the life-insurance policy payments due. To my mother, 

he was sacrosanct, and for whatever reason the need 

to continue paying him was sacrosanct. His actual 

name was 'I. Mike Cohen', a mysterious name, always, 

to me, which turned to be Irving, hidden instead 

by the simple initial. Much like the bread-man  -  

though the complete flip-side, personality-wise  -  

he'd achieved a particular status all of his own 

making  -  no deeds, no documents needed. All

 these people were knee-deep in a weird sort of 

secular parochialism. A religion all its own.

Somewhere a long time ago I ran into a quote 

by the poet Frank O'Hara which always stayed  

with me. I took a comfort in it as I hated my pale 

and suburban life. I sought the attraction, verve 

and vibrancy  -  nay, the intellectual and philosophical 

firecrackers  -  that it portrayed and I took it as my 

own. I wanted to flee, just be gone. The quote went :

 "I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know 

there's a subway handy, or a record store or some 

other sign that people do not totally regret life." 

I loved that quote. As I probably noted previously, 

I'd often walk out to the highway at the end of the 

street  -  Route One  -  and just watch the cars and 

the traffic go by: all those headlights heading north, 

straight into the maw of the Holland Tunnel, 17 miles 

off, give or take. I'd see the cars in the other direction, 

whizzing south. In both cases I'd wonder and watch  -  

who were they, where were they off to, where had they 

 been, what were their lives about, what was going on? 

My questions seemed to all come from my own fact of 

being stalled, in-place, stuck, in servitude to a ratty, f

oul 'tradition', growing stir-crazy and mad-wild about 

release. It was always there, and always unsaid. This 

was pretty much at the same spot where my father 

and I had walked  -  me as a young boy  -  trudging 

through new footsteps through the fierce snowstorm's 

aftermath as he and I too looked out at the highway, 

white and slick and bare of traffic at that moment. 

I knew what Frank O'Hara was getting, for sure, 

even in 1960. Funny thing too  -  because the distance 

down that highway wasn't really any 'visible' distance; 

you couldn't 'see' anything special, just a mile or two 

of roadway and cars patterning by, and the rest was 

imagines. Much like Life itself, I always figured : you 

peer down something, look into somewhere, get your 

ideas and assumptions lined up, masked or unmasked, 

and pretty much all the rest is imagined or surmised, 

based upon the assumptions you make. Had I ever 

assumed that the roadway ahead of me ran, instead, 

directly to Vermont or wherever, then THAT would 

have been the paramount issue, the fruition of my 

desire. As it was, my endings were all endings of 

smoke : a place, a weird masterland of goofballs, 

beatnikism, crazed performers and artists, singers 

and shiners, all doing their things. It was the precise 

 opposite of this 'I. Mike Cohen' thing, which was, 

by comparison, a miserable straitjacket into which 

parents and elders had allowed themselves gleeful 

entwinings. They simply didn't know any better.

-

The way it comes down is that none of it has to 

matter  -  I cannot be the one to get stuck; it's 

against all my preachment. I've always thought 

anyway that I've achieved my own sort of 'State', 

my perfection, in my way. It hasn't been money 

 and fame, starlight and glitz, but even dearer to 

me has it become a way of life itself with some weird 

form of acclamation through others. It all amounts 

to some sort of other kingdom for sure. Not of this 

earth anyway. You can't take it with you, especially 

if you've never had it and it's never been in this 

place with you. That's OK. I review, I review, 

and I think, I draw conclusions and from those 

conclusions build a continuance of all that which 

I want. Not of this world  -  or have I said that already?

There's more to come on all this, but that's next chapter).