10,170. RUDIMENTS, pt. 134

RUDIMENTS, pt. 134

Making Cars

I always figured that a person

was going to be wounded by life

along the way, but it was important

that the wounds weren't self-inflicted.

Most are, and it just gets deeper. A

person ends up walking through the

debris, slogging through the aftermath.

That doesn't leave room for any point

of fresh departure or even of restart.

When I was a kid, I'd never faced much

of the idea of 'divorce'  -  nor do I know,

though I guess it was, if all that was

always going on. None of my friends,

that I knew of, had parents who were

feuding or breaking up or separated.

It was just a bunch of 'happy' families;

a few wise-guy, drinker types, but

everyone was still at home. Idyllic.

From my perspective anyway. What

I'm saying is that it appeared that no

in was in the throes of having to grow

up or live the the furies and angers of

feuding parents or any of that. The first

person, a kid-friend of mine, that went

through that was a friend a few doors

down the street  -  5 brothers. 'Dad'

worked at Merck, and side-jobbed

too as the booze clerk at the Two Guys

Liquor Store in Hopelawn. One day,

after years of being tormented by 5

teen boys  -  cars and hot rods all

over the back yard, noise, weird

hours, all of that, she (Mom) took

the youngest boy, about 8 or 9, and

they just walked out, took off,

abandoned the whole scene, and

ran off to California. My friend

Larry (dead now, the next to the

youngest), said there was no contact

after that for thirty years. And then

one day there was. That simple. I

always wondered, at that point, who

was living down what mistake? Was

there even, in those terms, a mistake

at all. The weird things is, between

Mom and Dad initiating this whole

thing, the lives of 5 boys came to

be  -  came to be determined and

worked out. Such a world as we

have to deal with is pretty much

all we get : Mom, dad, boys, cars,

the house, the activities and hobbies

all notwithstanding.

-

It was odd too, along Inman Avenue,

how there seemed to be a constant

presence, in 1957 'American' terms

of 'California' looming. Not to make

too much of it, I should point out

nevertheless that the sorts of families

we had on that street  -  mostly regular,

plodding groups  -  also somehow held

a few, what I'll call here, 'sunshines.'

People (and families) who didn't quite

make that initial grade of east-coast

small-step people  -  those willing for

the darkness and the routine. In the

initial years of my being there,

(Summer '54), there were a few

families who, after maybe a year

and a half or two, uprooted themselves

again. To California. At that time

California was all promise, light and

happiness, and was being touted as the

place where Americans go to 'finish'

that quest again for Eden. A perfect

zone of climate and activity, the

sinewy, shades-drawn beauty and

allure of loves and lusts, new

beginnings and possibilities, and

with nary a God  or a serpent walking

the garden rows seeking you out.

The Bertinis left  -  they lived 3 or

4 houses over from me, and had

some large 1957'ish station wagon,

packed and loaded to the gills with

goods and belongings  -  like some

consumerist-nation Okies setting off  -

and early one Saturday, after some

Friday night send-off party stuff,

the Bertinis were happily waved off

as they drove away, up Inman Ave.

to Route One, entering their new

way of passage across the nation

to seek and find their new Eden.

California.  A little later in time,

the Consortis left. Then the family,

down the end of the street, by the

school, a kid named Emil, and his

family left, in much the same way,

though quieter. And then, Larry's

Mom, in the manner I described,

left too. All California-bound.

The churning mix, the popcorn-

popper of American space, was,

it seemed, always popping things

around and over. Funny part was,

in a few years, the Bertinis were

back, into some other home

somewhere, but back. Eventually

some remnant of the Consorti's too

returned, where the oldest son, a

year or two older than me, later died

on the job, here, from some sort of

industrial poison or something.

Life has fates, I guess, and each

fate is ready, and directed, for its

recipient, like some silent,

Japanese Noh theater play.

-

The even funnier thing was how

this newly built street, this stringy

expanse of homes, was in itself

supposed to have been that Eden,

that new break, that paradise, for

all of those people coming here 

from Bayonne, Jersey City, 

Elizabeth and even Brooklyn 

and Queens. At this time, much 

of this was the southernmost 

expanse of most new development 

in these parts. After this area, 

everything around just started

dwindling to sandy patches of

bay, and the beginnings, eventually, 

of the Jersey shore  -  bungalows,

surf huts, small villages like

waterside encampments. The 

massive building and zone-over 

hadn't yet started, nor was most 

of it even yet fully planned and

thought of. Roadside amenities,

too, were not yet established. Who'd

ever heard, for goodness sake, of

Hardee's and Seven-Eleven.

-

My father was always a sand and 

beach buff  -  fishing, boating,

driving to the shore. That mostly

consumed his out-of-home weekends, 

when he wasn't at home anyway,

building things or working on the 

house (sheds, extensions, doing the
open attic over into living spaces). Of

course, in those early days, the 'number 1

son' (me) had to accompany this Robinson 
Crusoe (mixed reference there, I know
it's Charlie Chan), on all this beach-

mongering stuff, even though I

mostly, over time, hated it once it

became routine. I did at first enjoy

heartily the travel and seeing things;

my father's unending supply of cheap

station-wagons, through the 1950's,

took us on all sorts of jaunts. Just my

father and me  -  Jersey shore towns 

and hamlets, renting boats for little 

fishing-trips. It had to be salt-water,

for him nothing else existed. Forget

mountains and mountain lakes and 

streams. For sissies. Fresh water was 

fake water, and fisherman sloshing in

the streams with their rubber leggings 

and fly-fishing materiel might as well 

have just been gay. Real men did 'salt

water.' The ocean was where they

were tested and proved. He had a 

small 8 or 1o hp boat motor we'd

hang on the back of most anything 

he could rent for the day. Which

mostly meant rowboats, a mere 

twitch on the surface of the ocean's 

twenty-foot  swells. Too many times 

we were dragged back by the Coast

Guard with a warning and a scolding,

'pitiful fools,' for being way too far

out and past endurance for the likes 

of a stupid motorized rowboat. To 

my young mind, 'How was your day?'

could have been answered, some days,

with 'lousy'. Or better yet, a simple,

'Lost at sea.' I guess I did it for Dad.

-

Somewhere along the way down, 

Monmouth Beach, Hazlet, or something,

if you made a left and went straight out 

to the dunes and the water, there was a 

place called 'Spy House,' an old colonial 

seafront home, facing the bay, isolated 

and discreetly tucked in, to which 

everything from, pirates and privateers, 

Revolutionary War sailors and soldiers,

escapees, criminals, bootleggers, and ghosts,

had eventually sought refuge. The tales

and the lore abounded, the supposed

sightings and evidences, the broken

posts and hang-man's nooses, were

everywhere. (It's still there now, this

current-day blowhard of a place, ruined 

and neutered, with county history people 

there to spin their lurid tales for you,

and go home. Taking your dollars too,

if you give them. Their tales are mostly

made-up, and are about as authentic

as a fake leg. We'd stop there often

enough  -  there was some very eerie,

haunting old lady who lived in the place.

as real as could be, and had probably

not been out since 1776. Her recountings 

of things made your hair stand on end.

-

Out past, beyond that, was the meat 

of my father's journeys past the point. 

There was a real, bona-fide, 'Monmouth 

Fisherman's Cooperative'. Exact name now 

forgotten. Maybe 'Raritan Bay' instead of 

Monmouth. These were 4am fishermen, who'd

 be out in their trawlers and fishing boats in 

the dark, and back to shore by 8 or 9, tending 

their catches in any of the five or six huge-size 

old buildings that housed their fish trays 

and sales counters and cleaning sinks.

They'd combine their catches (it was, after

all, a 'cooperative'), and price and sell their 

catches, as well as ice-pack and truck them to 

restaurants and fish-stores and the like.

My father reveled in all this activity, as, I

admit, did I. Grappling hooks, huge knives

and cleavers, water baths, dead and cut-up

fish everywhere, fish-blood and innards.

Men in oozing aprons, with their tools, and 

cigarettes too, dangling. Tracks idling,

men yelling. Water sprays, pooled run-off and

fouled debris. The boats these guys used were

their own  -  wooden craft and almost

home-made things afloat, with posts and

extenders, hooks and pulleys everywhere.

A regular Popeye-ville. Perfect. It too is still

there, though a pale ghost of its former self.