7917. BELOW THE WATER LINE (pt. 191)

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 191)

I've mentioned before the guy at the

guardhouse at Security Steel; the one

who had told me his name was Ben

Gazzara, and to which my mother

laughed, saying 'that's not his name,

Ben Gazzara is an actor.' I really

didn't know what to make of it, and

didn't really care. My girlfriend and I

went to his place a few times  -  he 

lived in one of those small ground

level rentals that were, how to put it,

at the rear of all those closed up

buildings on the tunnel side of the

underpass. Like where the Hillcrest

was, that raggedy old bar I wrote of.

There were perhaps four of these

on either side of the tracks -  he had

one on the Route One side, not the

Rahway Avenue side, as I remember.

I'd go there and he'd supply me with

religious statues, maybe two or three

feet high, just plaster-white, and I'd

paint the robes and the face and all that,

onto them, for a few bucks each. It was

garbage work, and to tell the truth I don't

think he was ever really happy with my

work. But, no matter. Ben was a single

gent, maybe 50 then. at most. He had a

marvelously quizzical face, dark, tight

hair, and he walked just a little funny  -

something about it, hunched over, sad,

almost sideways at times. He always

seemed to be hunkering down. Some

people are like that. Their posture and

their gait give them away  - you know

something more is up than what you're

seeing. I guess it seemed he always looked

wounded, damaged, in feeling or emotion

I mean, not lame or injured. He was just

one of those guys, the kind you knew

would never get past a job at a gatehouse

for trucks and entry. His job involved, as

each truck arrived or left, reviewing the

paperwork, bills of lading, etc., seeing

that the truck rear was locked, everything

stamped and properly time-marked. Same

went for the incoming things : trucks, bills

of lading, sign-off sheets, packing and

contents, and all that. He'd direct people

who were coming in for meetings or 

reviews or appointments where to go, 

how to get there, where to park. All that. 

Often, with little to do, he'd just walk out 

onto Avenel Street, just outside the gated 

entrance  - which is where I'd see him, 

and where I'd met him, actually, after

him seeing me like a million times

passing to or fro from Dartmouth to 

Inman. He had about the same intensity

as a school-crossing guard in passing.

It finally just became a weird little, 

familiar acquaintanceship. In all weathers. 

He asked a few questions, found out 

about my interest in and quest for 'art', 

etc., and in a very nice manner one day 

came up with this idea of the plaster-statue 

painting, out of the blue. I don't know if he 

molded the statues, in plaster, at home, or 

bought them, nor did I ever know where 

they ended up or what he did with them. 

I never cared. They were always all the

usual same-old crap  -  Virgin Mary, St.

Joseph, St. Christopher, some flaming-head

bust of Jesus, or a Sacred-Heart Jesus; any

of the stuff. Real predictable. I was mid-late

teens by this time, getting plenty of the 

usual adolescent sex with my girlfriend, 

but I always had one eye out in case this 

too-much-of-a-friend old guy started 

something. Predatory. We didn't know 

that word back then, but, like the always

ongoing threat of Catholic priests and

their shenanigans, I remained wary. And,

just as much, this whole 'religious-statue'

routine sounded so bogus. The other 

Security Steel guys made fun of him, I

saw that  -  a bit like a retarded guy or

something on the jobsite. Butt of all jokes.

Loser. The predictable fall-guy. I never

cared, and any of them could have gone

straight to Hell for making fun of him,
it wouldn't have ever mattered to me.
I'd get their wives,
(that was my little joke).

-

Sometimes I just felt that life itself was

so strange, and that it, in its strangeness,

was compounded for me by Avenel. I'd

learn later, of course, that most places are

more alike then different anyway, but in 

1966 and '67, I was still collecting info.

In the seminary, trying to talk to others

who had lived their own young lives in 

their own places, I often tried to imagine 

who among them would understand that

from which I'd come. New homes, all in 

a row? People all mostly alike, intent upon

doing the same things. It wasn't exactly

'Organization Man'  -  a book written for

1956 about a certain level of 'professional'

man. The people I knew were not so much

like that  -  those were the shirt and tie 

strivers. We had more 'service' people, 

the ones who did your jobs. Laborers, 

the ones who made or repaired things;

drivers, haulers; truck warehouse guys. 

Life was very stratified, even in this 

miserable caste-layer. If one of the 

Inman Avenue fathers had come 

across a digger of cemetery ditches, 

you can be sure he'd automatically 

get all superior about that. In like 

fashion, the accountant or the pencil 

and paperwork guy from some insurance

industry office, he'd feel over the top 

better than an Avenel laborer or driver 

or mechanic. That was just the funny way

things were. You had to just shrug it off.

One of the problems my father had was

not ever being able to shrug anything off.

He'd take everything to heart; the way that

guy snickered towards him, or the manner

in which he perceived some slight by the

tax guy doing his papers. I never knew 

why he just couldn't get over any of that 

and be done. Everything and every one

in my family seemed to  hit the red 

'emergency overload' emotion button 

way too often. The essence of 'hip',

as I learned later in beatnik school, 

(joke, there was none) was in that

total sense of 'coolness' whereby 

nothing bothered you or hit you 

direct. There was to be always 

another layer of cool between any 

issue or occurrence, and you. As 

in 'Oh my God! the President's 

been shot!'  -  and the cool, hip 

guy would gently say 'That's cool, 

that's cool, everybody gotta' see their 

own things, and some people see 

differently and they act it out. It's OK, 

no problem, it'll work out, stay cool, 

no problem.' Enviable, but maybe 

dumb as all get-out too. I know in my 

own house, and in most parts of Avenel 

too, it was the opposite. Pandemonium. 

Again, as in, 'Oh my God!! The President's 

been shot!! I can't do a thing! 

Oh my God, what next?!'

-

William Whyte had written 'Organization 

Man'  -  and C. Wright Mills had written

'White Collar.' Both were 1950 books 

about the corporate culture. The 

'Organization Man' was the guy who 

would subordinate everything to the 

demands of the corporation. 'White 

Collar' was about the corporate elite, 

and the high-suburban culture of 

'success' that then went with it. They 

were each postwar, 'atomic-age' books, 

reeking, each in their way, of the tremors 

and hang-ups and fears that had come 

out of both the 'War' and the arising new

upper-class of technocrats and working

theorists in thrall to the new corporate 

culture. They were both non-fiction, 

sociology type books that first 'defined' 

the subject they then went on to describe 

and dissect. It was a very biased argument, 

whatever it was, because in each case the 

premise had first been made up by the

writer, and then the book filled in, to

agree with the premise. That's the way 

these things work. Then, five or six years 

later, the second tide hits  -  the 'revisionists', 

who begin taking apart that argument, 

showing its faults and shortcomings, and 

then coming up with something new, of 

their own. Then that sells; and then the 

same thing happens again, and again.

That's how the academic and critical-culture 

industries thrive, grow, and go on. People 

and schools of thought (and universities) 

grow rich on all this, and it's a line of work 

that can't be stopped after a while because

it would, quite simply, put people out of 

work. Not the people being written about  

-  no one ends up caring about them anyway  

-  but the people who do the writing and the

staffs or researchers and polltakers and all

that. THEY are the ones who end up with 

careers and academic position based on their

one or two stupidly and quickly dated ideas.

What a racket! I saw all that right off  -  in

fact I actually delved into each of those two

books mentioned. After twenty minutes of 

each, it was really quite hard to keep my 

head up. The cool thing about C. Wright 

Mills, to me anyway, as I later learned from 

reading, was that he was a real bastard to 

others, and to his students, and that he rode 

a BMW motorcycle each day, from somewhere 

upstate a little, into NYC, in  a suit and tie 

and with a briefcase strapped to the bike, 

while he smoked his pipe, to his teaching 

professorship at Columbia University, or 

NYU, or somewhere. Each time I saw 

him or a photo of him or something, 

it always seemed like the entire world, 

instantly, turned to 1950's black and white.
-
My friend in the seminary, Leo Benjamin, he
came from way up Bangor, Maine. I figured
he'd have no idea of the sort of in-line existence
I'd grown up in. Not that I knew, but I had a
hunch, from the way he talked, that he maybe
lived a farm existence, or some other sort of old
house and old family stuff, on a land that they've
been on since forever. My other friend, Kirk Hallet,
with an 'E.' that was usually used first, for Edward
I guessed. It always sounded so regal.  He lived 
in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania  -  which place I read
up on a little. It was an old place, near to Harrisburg,
and was the northernmost penetration of the Battle of
Gettysburg, in the Civil War. So I figured that too for
being old, and just set up differently. It went like that,
certainly among the wealthier kids there  -  I knew
they'd never get it. My particular status of upbringing
was to be my own, as the story of mine, which went
with it. I was OK with that, but it irked a bit too.
-
That was all the connection I needed to my own sense 
of place; and Being  -   Ben Gazzara, (who may
very well have been an actor), his painted
statues (which started out blank), and me.