Tuesday, June 19, 2018

10,909. RUDIMENTS, pt. 351

RUDIMENTS, pt. 351
Making Cars
I can't apparently exchange one
dream for one particular, or make
a wish come true. My towering
infrastructure won't allow that.
It's taken me layers of years to
become what I am, and these
stories I re-tell here, I hope, are
helpful. In actuality, I think a
bit more 'abstractedly' than this
form of writing (daily) has the
parameters for, but I keep on.
I leapfrog and jump forests. I
ride the wild animals on my
land; yes, they all know me.
-
One hundred times one hundred
couldn't bring me to this point
again. In the 1990's I used to
frequent Trenton, sometimes. By
the old Harley place, behind it,
there was an alley  -  the sort of
old 1920's alleys you see from
when cars were just coming out
and were a new things and no
one knew exactly what to do
with them. It used to be, when
all the grander houses faced
streets, that they'd have all this
supply and service stuff  -  coal,
horses, wagons, even the ice-houses
and cooking sheds sometimes,
running along the back. In service
alleys. Eventually, as all that
horse and wagon stuff began
being given up and no longer
used, these same alleys became
sheds and garages for cars. A
person couldn't rightly bring a
car inside the house. No one was
sure if they belonged out front
either. What too do? Were they
declasse? A symbol of something
other than achievement and
wealth? Should they be hidden?
Weren't they dirty and scratchy and
noisy? A regular gentility fracas
was underway. Trenton still had
lots of those alleys  -  filled with
junk and dead old cars and cast-off
items, but every so often there'd
be a stretch of really nice rear
entries and yards. New York
City still has a few  -  MacDougal
Alley, Washington Mews, Sniffen
Court, Patchin Place even. Along
with a few others, they remain now,
revered and quite wealthy- (Problem
growing: the old Village ones are
now mostly being bought and
padlocked for their own closed use
by the ever-voracious piglet called
NYU. No regard for anything but
the growth and snagging of things
that the 'educational' dollar brings.
Not quite 'education' and longer,
mind you, but things). In Trenton,
these blind alleys and service lanes
got taken over, over time, by the
stretch and paving of households
claiming their rears. If the house
was kept up and taxes paid, etc.,
the lands were eventually ceded
back to the connecting property
owners. Only if up-it-date ('no
rears given if in arrears,' as it
was). They did the same in
Metuchen, where I lived then.
Of course, people just flubbed
them up, absorbed them, and
everyone forget they ever were
there. That's called the 'present'
day. Which, God forbid, is horrid.
-
If I ever were to write a mystery
novel, a whodunit, or something
like that, I'd already have all the
incidentals lined up for me. I used
to dream of this stuff when I was
young, walking streets around
Manhattan, thinking of all those
old tales of intrigue, those weird,
crazy stories of things like Caleb
Carr wrote about in 'The Alienist.'
Before there were really things
like police forces and forensic
detectives, crime-solvers and all.
Right here, in my own stupid
town, all of this was just staring
me right in the face : crime, theft,
corruption, death, murder, intrigue.
And it all got just skimmed over
and no one noticed a thing. Like
Trenton, what we get from it all
is 'Now,'  -  the present day.
-
Gunter Grass wrote a book about
Hitler's time in power; called 'Dog
Years.' We no longer need things
like that, because occurrences such
as Hitler's were are just now part
of everyday life. Now they just
get into your head. Instead of freight
trains filled with people, they have
malls. We have it here, all around us.
They no longer have to gas or kill
people. Now they just gut their brains. 
For the book I'm taking about, here's
how it would work, here is how
I'd have it portrayed. Going back a
bit in time, a local Mayor, gay as a
clam, of whom everyone knows the
story, the cops cover for, his own
personal driver being in the know
of trysts, meeting places, etc. (We
all used to talk, with Hazel, of the
common knowledge of all of this
in the Maple Tree  -  speaking of
Avenel civic centers. She knew the
entire, sordid, deal). This Mayor
becomes Governor, continuing his
shenanigans with his Israeli
agent boy friend, whom he takes
to Princeton with him, installing
him in  a condo, connected by a
wooded path, to the rear of
Drumthwacket, the Governor's
Mansion. It all gets found out, the
appointed job, the secret monies,
the payoffs. His cover too is a 
false marriage to a local Perth 
Amboy girl. He is forced to resign,
uses his 'Gayness' as the crutch to
vault himself out. Thus wriggling
out of lots of trouble. The Israeli guy
gets paid off again, and disappears
forever, out of story, out of country,
back to Israel, and is never heard
from again. In his place in the
old hometown, the replacement
Mayor, an old man, in occasional
ill health, is suddenly seen as 'in
the way.' Those who already know
too much want him gone.  They have
their own plans for the town and 
making its money for their own pockets.
He 'dies.' (Yes, Hmmm). In his place,
begin the interim appointments of
the mayoral people. First in line
is a local crony-pol, State Senator
who jumps in. Knows where the
cards are, covers it; He's still
around  -  the office right in town. 
gets his punch-check for governor
pension, and is gone. Next,
after him, one or two or three
local gold-brick, dumb-shit
councilpeople who also
want the upgrade. They're
each Mayor for a while.
Appointments all, with no
electioneering. (Too much
shit to hit the light of day).
This inter-regnum also allows
time for the cover-ups and the
needed signatures and OK's to 
carry this plot along. Don't
think any of this is too crazy;
for this is the true intrigue of
politics, the stuff you never hear.
This is all 12 years ago now,
remember, the same amount of
time as Hitler's total, when it
had to be 'total.' Then, the
sub-plot, engineered and
put into place by the person
aware of all the budgetary
matters and shenanigans from
his years as the town's accounting
bookmaster; same person
who's been manipulating and
selling out the town's interest.
He lets all these other people
have their moment-play, and 
after enticing them all off, gets
appointed himself to the very
position. Brings in cronies, 
right down to the blond girlfriend
appointed without qualifications
to a high-level position, and family
members, and the veteran criminal
Business manager. He sanctifies the
previous dead Mayor, naming
parks and streets and dog runs
after him, sprints off with the
town plans, gets signatures
needed, and continues appointing
supporters. All successfully covered;
the town itself, about to go under
the knife, is his for the keeping.
12 years is nothing for plans such as
these. A different time-line indeed.
It's all been sold out to corporations
coming in to re-do it all, a massive
re-make. Fortunes to be made. 
He wants to be Mayor for life
while the old, dead, Mayor tells 
no tales and no one's got the
scent anyway. The stupid people 
sleep. Coming soon  to a theater 
near you  -  suckers.
-
So, New York, as I was just
saying to my agent  -  I could be
a very good writer of screenplays
after the books are written too. This
all would make a fine film. We could
call it 'Avenel : A Venal Place.'
-
Now comes the Twilight Zone part,
as I add my Coda. In Elmira College,
early-mid 70's Rod Serling came to 
speak. It was end-of-term, a nice,
lively talk, Q&A. In the middle of
all this, he managed to blow his
daughter's cover, false name, etc.,
who'd been attending the college 
kind of un-noticed. No real big-deal.
I'm holding a box of cookies one day,
clear, crinkly tray-type-thing, with an 
assortment of cookies, one of which I
pick out and turn over. On it is written,
'Ann Serling.' Surprising me. I look
up to the knock at the door, and in
walks Ann Serling herself. I explain
what just occurred : she is happy over
it, exalted, over-joyed. We laugh.
I knew immediately I'd like her a lot.










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