RUDIMENTS, pt. 135
Making Cars
I had an uncle who made wine,
or some strong version of it called
grappa - more like the mushed
and fermented grape leftover of
a peasant kitchen mash. My father,
in his turn, made what he called
anisette, in the basement where we
lived. I never knew much about it;
it was syrupy, reeked of vanilla, or
something I couldn't place, licorice,
maybe. I used to figure that, if you
touched it with a match, you could
probably light it up, and have some
cool, flaming, happy dessert. It
never made any sense to me, nor
why anyone would want that, and
neither did I ever did get to taste the
grappa my uncle made. He lived
in Fort Lee, right by the George
Washington Bridge, which was
a great draw for me - I'd just
go out and wander, they could
have their drink. The fort was
a real place, once a lookout and
a redoubt for Washington's
retreating army, after being
driven from Brooklyn and across
the heights in those first, horrible
battles of the war. Ragtag soldiers,
peasant armies, no supplies,
disorder and vomit, blood and
death. It was all up there; you
could look right out and see
it all. My mind flamed with that
stuff, and I lived re-fighting that
war each time I visited and wished
I would never have to leave. The
people alive today, they know
little about any of this, especially
the new arrivals - south Asians,
Russians, Chinese and Japanese
too. They're all over the place in
the Fort Lee area now, and they
give no mind whatsoever to a
version of the American past.
Neither do most Americans
anyway. It's sad, and it's real
stupid. People now would rather
just die watching something,
anything, on a screen, TV or
hand-held, while their reality-fist
of a President takes his place in
the very faulty line of all those
before him - the men who've
destroyed this nation; women
too. I can think of a few.
-
On that rocky bluff, you had all
that history - if you dug - and at
the same time, if you just walked
out towards the edge and the
overlook, there was all that
amazing bare and rigid gridwork
of the bridge. Iron and steel and all.
The George Washington Bridge is
bare and barren, just a great, boxy
metal grid, without a lot of the
grace and swoop of other designed
bridges. The 'GWB' was never
finished. That accounts for the
look. The Depression, killed the
project, for expenditures anyway,
and the projected masonry and
stone/bridge finish simply never
was put on. It just stayed raw
steel, and that became, in a little
time, its glorified, trademark look.
It was funny it all got to be
reverse-marketed into a 'symbol'
of man's pure engineering power,
raw and forceful. Except it really
was supposed to have been a more
graceful and finished, monumental-
looking thing, akin to the masonry
and religious look of the Brooklyn
Bridge. In any case, I spent a lot of
my time there, there. The adults and
uncles and aunts sat around, enjoying
their food and drink; I loved my spot
better.
-
Over time, as a youngster, you learn to
begin reading all these little impulses
as they come to you. Being up there,
feelings arose. I sensed I was 'someplace.'
In that sense, it was more about ghosts
and voices, I guess, more than anything
else. I certainly was often reluctant to
trudge back those five or ten blocks
into the town of Fort Lee/Leonia, and
get to that little, blue house.And see
all of them and that again. I didn't
belong to that scene at all, and didn't
understand it. Awkwardness and the
alienation of growing up is one thing,
but this was much different. It was
spiritual, and my spirit star was racing
across my own Heavens, certainly
not theirs. I used to have to think,
'How'd I get in this situation?' I
could have at any time just jumped
off there to my happy death, but, never
having heard much of age brackets,
and still being young, I'd think, 'I
don't want to be the youngest suicide.'
So I just kept waiting, and nothing
on that count ever happened. But I
did wonder how young the youngest
'suicide' ever was?
-
My uncle here was a cool guy, sort of
a wild man. He kept his motorcycle
in the kitchen, and made his wine
in the basement garage. That always
seemed pretty strange to me. No one
ever said anything, although they did,
eventually divorce. Money. Drink.
Personalities. Things don't always
work out. The house was always
empty; very little, or no, furniture,
except the five or six basic things
needed, like a kitchen table, and
a couch. The rest of the place was
kept bare-assed empty. I guess the
bedrooms had dressers and beds,
but I never checked and, as I said,
no one ever mentioned a thing. The
house was so empty, in those other,
larger 'sitting' rooms, that, if you
talked, the big empty rooms echoed.
-
This was the cousin once, who told
me, as a local crazy guy was walking the
shortcut path that angled through the
rear of their yard, that he 'wasn't all
there.' That's all she said, mysteriously,
'See that guy, he's not all there.' I
looked him over as he was passing,
two legs, two arms, and all that. I
was baffled, thinking 'what could
she mean?' Of course, I later learned
of it as a euphemism and all, for
crazy, but I'd never heard it previously,
and - really - just kept wondering
what sort of shadow this guy must
throw. I always thought of their
place as shadows and echoes.
It was funny like that.
-
This uncle, by the way, who had
married my father's sister, he made
his wine (and he also made anisette
as well) in a great big wooden vat -
it was really interesting - wooden
staves, and all grape stained and
things. He knew just what he was
doing, mashing stuff, doing the
aging for fermentation and all.
Or whatever you do for strong red
wine, I don't know. He had nice
bottles and tubes for the clear
anisette, which smelled about
the same as my father's versions.
However, I'd always notice, my
father's cellar operation was nothing
to compare. A crummy sink, a bottle
or two, a stopper, and some sort of
tube. It seemed more like a Dr.
Caligari set-up, making poison
elixir. Maybe that's why I never
drank it. I had another uncle who
use to make horseradish, the real
stuff, with an original horseradish
starter plant that his father had
smuggled into America when he
arrived, in his coat liner. It took,
and over the years grew plenty of
offshoot plants, strong, Polish-variety
stuff. They'd sit around, the men,
sloshing this stuff on crackers,
with something or other they'd
be drinking too. One day, I can
recall, I was probably 6 or 7, they
were sitting around a table in my
father's basement and he (my father)
playing it up, globbed a huge pile
of this onto a cracker and wolfed
it down in one swallow. (He'd
been warned against it). As I
watched, gape-mouthed, he was
down in a second, flat-out, passed
out on the cellar concrete floor.
He later told me it had felt like,
in an instant, the top of his head
had blown off. I guess horseradish
straight from Poland can do that.
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