7821. BELOW THE WATER LINE (pt. 166)

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 166)

Years later, as I lived in Elmira, I lived down

the hill and only a bit away from the grave-site

of Mark Twain. Talk about resounding forces

and memories from the past. Many times I'd

just sit there, sort of stumped and stunned

together, and just think. How many revolutions

of some cosmic globe had it taken to bring me

to that moment, that conjunction of both place

and time? For me to be there, many years

after the fact, and to be sitting atop the spot

wherein his mortal remains were  -  as well

as all his energies and the mass of his words  -

well, for me, that was massive and a cosmic

force-pull, a bold transfusion, each time, from

the distant space-ship the energies of which I

could source. And I'd still think back to those

other places, all of them, that I'd come through.

Thinking that  -  and then the stop of time to

start anew, and my theory of the moment

of adult-explanation  -  I'd understand the

fallacy. What if it occurred? I would have

to live the remainder of my life without any

memories of my own past? What a bad idea.

I knew that those things are always with us,

they flavor and color all that we do.

-

In Avenel, I'd never have conceived Elmira; and

in Elmira it was difficult to conceive of Avenel.

One place was rock, the other was muck. High

ground versus low ground. I'd grown, as a kid,

to be just what I was; nothing more. There used

to be a cave, over in the back of Roosevelt Park;

a real cave, on you could walk into. It was in

that far corner where the free water always

flowed out from the fissure in the rocks  - wild

and unclaimed spring water -   people would

line up with containers and take it with them.

The cave is long gone  -  covered over with

countless condominiums and even a

county-school for diseased kids or something

right there. A billion weird little yellow

schoolbuses, twice a day, all lined up. Even

the buses can't get near the place unless

Security first dispatches them in to pick

up their kids  -  wheelchairs and attendants.

Everybody worried about everything. I tell

you, it's a weird world. The spring is still

there, and its waters and its stream, but there

are posted signs now saying not to drink,

health danger, at your own risk, and all that.

It glows reddish-purple all night, in the dark

(OK, just kidding on that one); but people

still come anyway, not in any numbers like

before, and they fill up their jugs. Everything's

plastic now, the jugs, and probably the people 

too. They worry and fret about those kids, 

but no one gives two shits about what's

been done to the land right there. Like it 

was some expendable crap they can just 

someday replace. Yeah, good luck. I hate 

County Government, and it really should 

be abolished. It's just another layer of 

pandering so that fat-cats can live

off tax-salaries and do nothing except 

pretend they care about things while they 

build golf-courses and destroy parks.  

This is all the run-off from what Avenel 

has to contend with, my own memories 

notwithstanding. Nature all but gone, 

except for the fake places the County has 

kept up. Like this park  -  wasting away 

bit by bit with nothing but more new stuff

everyday  -  stuff that has nothing to do 

with the natural things the park is supposed 

to represent. Franklin Roosevelt's crippled 

ghost would roll over in its wheelchair if it 

knew what was occurring in its name. 

Buildings and paving mostly.  There's no 

one to answer to  -  it's all entrenched 

freeholder stuff; bogus elections brought

to you by cliques of insiders. The trouble

with it all, and the reason so much of our

local world is ruined, is just that layering,

one atop the other. 'You want a job? Sure, 

we'll get you one, even if we need to make 

one up for you. Just don't get caught 

sleeping on it. Stay the course, your benefits 

and pension set in, you're set for life and it's 

not even 'work.' Shouldn't even be called 

that.' It goes in such a manner. Poor old 

Avenel, gets suckered and sold down the 

river. If 'time' stopped, you see, like

I'd had doing in my mind,  it, all those 

memories would have been erased, nothing 

still there from being a kid, and I'd have 

recalled nothing of what I just talked about. 

Some adult would have just stopped 

everything, told me the 'way' things were, 

cleansed my own mind of all the past, and set 

me running again. That's how they'd love 

it to work. Glad I was wrong. Instead of

being called 'Freeholders', they need to 

have to run for 'County Freeloader' positions 

while they wreck things. That goes for the 

towns and boros too. They're all useless 

shits making problems which then only they  

can solve. Of course; that's job security.

Come walk with me someday, 

I'll show you a few.

-

I grew up with absolutely nothing but 

my mind in place. No fancy names, no 

fancy drinks or dining. And I'm still like 

that, mainly because it's the corner I 

painted myself into. But I'm glad for it. 

Because I wouldn't want any part of their

creepy world. Too many erroneous 

definitions. I only wish that Mark Twain 

was buried in Avenel. My own kid-hood, 

with all my really unassuming kid-friends, 

Mark Twain would have grasped that, and 

understood it all. Each one of those stories

and adventures of his telling, they all came

out of the same stuff I'm telling. We had our

little shopkeepers and people in place; except

instead of the smithy and the farm-guy and

blacksmith, we had tire guys and junkyards;

down around the great old bend in the 

Rahway River, we had all those blacks 

and their Masonic Lodge. Instead of horses

and riverboats and barges, we had trucks 

and trains. In certain  terminology, it was 

all the same. I worked from my memory-band

for a really long time, after heavy observation,

all those years, which loaded it up good. The

Rahway River is another good instance of local

governance  -  in those earlier days, business

right on the river were MacLac Shellac, and

there was a place nearby too where they made

what was called 3-in-1 Oil. These places were

built RIGHT ON the river. It didn't take a kid

genius to realize why. They dumped in the river!

It was their own, personal drain! None of those

county guys or Rahway people were caring 

enough to interfere. The river tanked, and 

Everything died. Now they have something

called Rahway River Watch  -  an environmental

and watchdog group. They claim to have done

things  -  but not really. They've planted some 

trees and made a river walkway  -  right along

the trash incinerator that's been built on that

very same land on the riverside. The marina's

long gone. A garbage-plant with a zillion trucks

in and out of it all day. With drainage pipes, 

right into the river. My dog and I, which I'd

sometimes like to call 'Mark Twain', some nice

days we walk right there and just watch. I

guess I'm the Rahway Riverwatch too.

-

Well, that's my cleansed memory for this chapter.