RUDIMENTS, pt. 185
Making Cars
'I'll be okay, but I don't know why.'
After I recovered from the train
wreck that had sidelined me, that
was one of my lines for when
well-meaning people (or at least
I hoped) who asked me how I was.
Really, what else can a person say.
The only thing I found to deal with
the entire episode was a slack sort
of graveyard humor. 'You have no
idea what it was like, I went through
all this and when I got 'there' it turned
out they didn't want me and I was
sent back - all that time in the
dark, crawling back though that
coma-hole, what a waste.' Soon
enough though, I was right back
to it and wreaking civic ruination
everywhere. While I was away all
that time, my father and my uncle
had rigged up some pretty grand
home-aquarium thing for me - of
angel-fish and other fancy specimens.
The day I walked back in through
the front door, I walked right into
a living room of about 12 people
or so, waiting to greet me and
welcome me back in, and this
aquarium deal. Which I'd not been
told about and had no clue of. It
was startling. Mostly because it was
so unlike my family - caring for
fish? That took special care and
attention, and nothing of the usual
antic energy that was commonly
piercing through the house. It was
an uncommon stillness each time I
looked at it, and it remained strange,
for a long time. I try to think back
now, and can't remember it being
taken away, but in any later memories
it's simply not around. I have no clue
what happened to it, or with it, and
by whom. Maybe the fish just all
eventually died, (bad omen?) and
only I remained (again) to tell of it?
-
The thing was, nothing was ever the
same. I returned to a different world,
in some manner I could never pin. I
guess I was like 9 or 10, but even that
no longer mattered. Anything I was
facing, from that point on, was my
own singularity - no other comments
or advisements seemed to work. In
that respect, I guess - of utility - I
had been wrecked for life. It seemed
that most of the other kids had their
sights set on becoming something,
something useful, career-wise, even
if their aspirations were odd - contractors,
pilots, electricians. A real working-class
stew. The natural stuff, for each, did
eventually come out - the ones talented
with mechanical ability became that.
Two guys, maybe three if I add a later
one, became minor-league baseball
prospects, Braves and Yankees. They
flamed out, but, still. There was a
Cuban or Puerto Rican or something
something guy, in Perth Amboy, he did
make it to the Pittsburgh Pirates, and
pitched, I think. I forget. DeLeon was
the last name, as I remember. He came
home later and had a lounge/bar in
Perth Amboy for a few years. I don't
know past that. But, anyway, who'd
want to do that? The quintessence of
a good life is, I suppose, reaching prime
talent and staying with it. Maybe they
did - or felt they did. I don't know. I
was never in that position. I aways
just felt a failure, and no one ever
helped out on that count.
-
I always felt, too, that if you did
something, it should be ONE thing,
basically, and for life. Of course, on
the surface my own life makes a lie
of that, but to me, beneath it all, all
those changes I did, flipping places
and careers, all amounted to one thing -
getting away. I was always trying to
stay one step ahead of completion,
for I knew that in completion, I think,
was a kind of doom, or death. My friend
Mary Kay, she used to say there was
nothing she could do past seven years,
and that at about the seventh year
she always changed paths. And she
did. (She's the girl who kept the
sex-calorie chart over her bed, which
I hoped was only a joke. Doing that
stuff for more than seven years would
have killed her. I've heard of working
out, but Jeez!). She covered numerous
geographic areas and state, and jobs.
Last I knew, Arizona had her; something
about accounting duties for a company
that installed pools. So, I was influenced
a bit by her thinking, perhaps. But the
idea was sound.
-
Once I got back home and entered the
swing of things again, it was fourth
grade. The teacher was some older lady,
from Pennsylvania, kind of a country type.
Right across the street from School Four -
the large, older school where fourth and
fifth grades were - was, at that time, a
shoemaker, as they were called. She
called it a cobbler-shop. All the time,
not just once. It was weird. 'Cobbler'
this and that. I got all mixed up, and
later learned it's more Boston than
Pennsylvania anyway. So, I don't
know. The funny thing was, as I
sat in those two schools over the
years, (Schools Four and Five),
I'd gaze out across Avenel Street
and watch the changing array of
small, stupid businesses that came
and went. It's all a dump and a wreck
now - either vacancies or fly-by-night
tax guys or delivery-van guys in
cheesy storefronts - but there was
a time when a series of regular little
businesses were in pace. Besides that
Mrs. Kuzmiak dry-goods and notions
store. She stayed in place long after
her husband had died. Next to her
was, over time, a donut shop, a florist,
and a cleaners. 'Avenel Cascade
Cleaners.' The bakery wasn't a real
bakery, in that it didn't have ovens of
its own and the daily baked goods,
breads and donuts were delivered in
from some other bakery. I'd often
see the delivery, not paying to much
attention to the 2nd-grade lessons,
in School 5. Mrs. Schur. Creepy lady.
The donut shop or bakery, name
forgotten, was just a couple of local
ladies, two or three, running a clean
pastry re-sale operation. It lasted
maybe a year. Back then, I'd guess,
they got jelly donuts for 7 cents,
and sold them for 12 cents. I still
remember all their weird, odd-number
pricings. There was also an original
meat-market guy who expanded twice,
a little larger, old-style butcher counter
and grocer. And then, about 1957 or
'58, when all that big-time stuff
began happening, he and his partner
too caught the bug and opened one
of them 'new-fangled' supermarkets:
brand new building, way bigger, frozen
stuff, carts, automatic doors, everything.
Shop-Rite hits Avenel Street. It was
very weird, immediately. The difference
was pronounced. No one needed a fruit
or vegetable man anymore, because this
Shop-Rite had all that, in one place. It
had a parking lot, and you'd see all the
locals now driving in, even if it was
from three blocks off, proud as peacocks
for their new, modern store, its fixtures
and conveniences, and local high-schoolers
and such who worked there. It changed
a few times over the years, but the first
format of it had doors and frontage on
Avenel Street, and large glass windows
fronting the street. Now it all looks
like a miserable wartime bunker, all
closed up with high, peephole windows
as a lousy-looking 'professional' building.
But until about 1960 or so, you'd see
all the cash-register and check-out
activity right there from the street. It
was amazing to see that beehive of
activity and realize it was right there,
in Avenel. There hadn't been anything
like it. Now that same Shop-Rite is
mega-sized, and part of a large plaza,
about a mile or so away. Same area,
just a different part of town.
-
I watched all this stuff carefully;
never much liking any of it, but also
never much caring. There were not,
certainly, my people. Right across
from Shop-Rite too they had torn
down the cool old church that had
been there, and replaced it with some
tall-form steroid version of what had
been - sort of same thing, just all
muscled-up and extended and made
out of crummy red, industrial-church
brick. The old church, and its more
minor size, had kept really neat
flagstone walkways and rough-hewn
stone sections. It was a shame to lose
it. As long as it was there though, I
really don't remember its church-use
days, or only very vaguely. There was
never very much else on this part of
Avenel Street that kept us busy. The
library was right there, next to the
church, and that became for me a
nice, small refuge. I still remember
that real well, and my times inside it.
We used to play endless hours of
stick-ball, baseball, and football too,
on the school grounds, and then go
over to Murray and Martha's for
a soda, or whatever candy they had,
which was like every candy bar that
ever existed. That too was all that
7 cents stuff. And the NY Daily
News was a nickel!
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