RUDIMENTS, pt. 82
Making Cars
They didn't really have what are called
'juvenile delinquents' in Pennsylvania.
They just had people who got locked
up. Then they'd come back out, go live
with their families again, or maybe even
get a cross-bow-trailer and live a long,
dreary, and solitary, life off in the woods
or at some crossing where the dirt lanes
met. Recidivism was in their blood, so
everything would just happen over and
over. There were no such operations, that
I knew of, such as counselors coming to
the home, or sessions with a shrink, or any
of that. It was pretty odd, mainly because
all that hands-off stuff, good as it was, it
merely left to all these worst-case guys the
chance to live fully armed : rifles, pistols,
you name it. Guns a'plenty. In my own youth,
to be a juvenile delinquent, as it was driven
home to me so often, was about the worst
thing a local boy could do. Avenel had a few.
Heck, I knew a few - guys who would torch
the portables because they didn't like school.
Those little fires never did much real damage,
but we'd see the burned-areas on Monday
morning on the portables' outside corner walls
and they'd be snickering about their cool deed. In
addition, I did know of two trailer-park girls
who were pregnant at age 15. What we never
knew was 'by whom' - so of course there
were a million 'ownership' stories for that
deed. Inman Avenue and area was like that.
There was a kid who made a practice once
or twice of being sure everyone knew that
he'd hung a cat from the underpass. Yeah
by the neck. I never saw it, no dead, hanging,
cats for me, but he always bragged on.
Sadistic guy, probably went to Vietnam and
had a good old time, but I never knew. You
get what you get when you pack it all in that
early. The point was, those kinds of Avenel
kids, and those Pennsylvania types I made
mention of, were probably pretty much the
same, except we - living 'civilized' I guess,
always had 'reform school' or the juvenile
delinquent rap hanging over our heads. I
was kept in stir by that fear, a lot. The
worst thing I ever did, or, hey, the worst
think I ever did that you're gonn'a ever know
about from me, was when we collected about
50 Christmas trees one year, after Christmas
time was over, piled them up high in the old
woods at the end of Inman Ave, in a cleared
out circle area we used for hanging out, etc.,
and lit them up after they'd dried out some.
You'd have thought the world was ending,
and we'd never figured for that kind of blaze.
That fire took up in about 10 seconds and I'd
bet it was visible in Linden and Elizabeth too.
100 feet of furious red-devil flames, crackling
and blazing. We were freaked - and that word
usage didn't even exist yet, then. Hello, juvenile
delinquent! We all figured we were doomed.
-
In Pennsylvania, none of that really mattered.
They had the nut-house in Clarks Summit,
and maybe you went to that if you were really
crackers, but that was only after arrest, chains,
and trial. Of sorts. The cool thing was (I always
watched this with one eye), all you had to do,
out there, to be left alone, was be really bad.
The more vile, and the more of a nasty,
bastardized, cantankerous reputation you
built for yourself, the less anybody ever
would deal with you. Complete and happy
was the isolation of the horrible. Figuring
they wanted it that way too. No one went
near them. The one experience I had with
all this - which turned out funny and
interesting too, (and a great way, it turned
out, to gain some placement and reputation
of my own, for a sort of fearless recklessness
that apparently everyone ended up liking),
was the one year I got a local job driving
a school bus, twice a day, to pick up about
45 or so kids - all ages and sorts - along
these hilly, twisty backroads. It wasn't so
much a farm-route, those were easy, flat
and open land. Mostly paved too. This
was more the 'undesirables' route. Hovels.
Shacks. Weirded out trailers. Kids. I was
told beforehand that it was a treacherous,
undesirable route, and to be careful to the
utmost. A few of these homes were ancient,
family spots, on craggy hillside turns, with
rock outcroppings and a leaping pond
down below. I was told the weather would
be my worst enemy, and my second worst
enemy would be a few of the fathers along
the way, who'd mostly be hostile to me
representing organized schooling coming
each day to take their kids away; as they
saw it. Most of them were OK, and for
the most part the kids, if they didn't want
to come down to a 'centralized' bus pick-up,
allowed me, and it was permitted, to drive
as I could right to their houses and get them.
Or wait. Or beep. Whatever. I did all I could,
and got to be nodding OK with a few of
the hardest cases. There was one guy -
and I'd been warned of him, a madman
and a gun-toting one too - named Jennings,
Jim Jennings. He had a crazy-ass five-foot
killer wife too, named Natalie I think it
was - would pull the head off a puppy just
for fun. They were both really mean, ugly
people and the point was 'keep off their
property, wait for the kids at the bottom
of the hill, and it ain't even worth beeping.'
Then they threw in, as a clincher, 'don't go,
he'll shoot.' That was a real uplift moment,
for sure. So, anyway, a few times I waited,
really annoying - other kids in the bus being
jerks, impatient, etc. Finally one day the kids
came on, from Jennings' place, and I said,
just like that - 'Listen, starting tomorrow
I'm going up your hill, and you're coming
out, when I tap the horn. I can't wait here
like this no more. And you tell your parents
that too, and tell them I mean it.' The kids
just nodded it off.
-
The next morning I did exactly that, and there
was old man Jennings (probably 50 then) just
standing there. There was a big sort of circular
turnaround dirt drive, with a large old oak tree
right in the center of it. It seemed to be just
enough for a tight, circular turnaround without
any backing up, to get down. For which I was
glad. He looked like a cuss, but not so fearsome,
even though I was probably shaking. And I
saw no gun, but I didn't see little old Natalie
either. I opened the bus doors and said 'I'm
here to get your kids.' He said, 'What you
mean coming up here like this? You supposed
to be waitin' down there for them, like ever.'
I gulped and just said, 'Can't. And the 'ever'
is why.' I don't know if he got that or not. He
said, 'I'm surprised at you for taking this up
on your own, but since you're here, you know
it ain't easy getting out of here with a bus like
that.' I said, 'I'll manage.' And I looked out,
and there were his kids, coming forth. After
that, the comings and goings got easy, and we
did actually become friends. He and his wife
came down to our house once or twice, and
one time we even had a real meal, fixed up
by my wife. The two ladies hit it off like
gold, going over things, doing the dishes,
and all. Jim and I sat around, just talking
and honking about stuff for an hour. It was
all good. Another time, I traded him a junk
car in my yard for a .22 caliber Ivers &
Johnson pistol. Probably the one that he
was supposed to be shooting at me.
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