10,935. RUDIMENTS, pt. 361

RUDIMENTS, pt. 361

Making Cars

One time recently I was sick.

That doesn't happen too often to

me, and I had this sort of dream,

wherein I was ten again, or it

seemed (you know how dreams

get). When I woke up, I was all

confused, like in two worlds at

once, and for a while wasn't

right sure where I was and which

of the two was the real one. And

the other funny thing about it was

that I'd been reading (still am,

in fits and starts), this book

entitled 'The Bible According

To Mark Twain,' and that had

gotten all jumbled up in there

too; back when I lived in Elmira,

right there on the Chemung

River, and right near to Mark

Twain's old place, called 'Quarry

Farm'. It was said he wrote his

Huck Finn there, and other things

too. Elmira kind of harbors him

as a native son, even though it

was just a Summer home that

the Langdon's gave to him when

he married Olivia, their daughter.

Long story there too, and I won't

get into it here. Over at the college,

where I also spent a lot of my time,

at the little pond in the center of

campus they placed his octagonal

writing retreat, meant to look

something like a Mississippi

Riverboat wheelhouse. I guess

it did, but what would I know

about that? Could'a been a

pork-curin' shed for all I knew.

No matter, my point here isn't

about that. It was always cool

though to just be able to walk

a bit, up to Woodlawn, and

be right at his grave; the whole

family, in fact. It was a nice

spot, and a decent enough bunch

of dead people too. There's lot

of others there, interesting all

around, but they were the best,

all those Langdons and Clemens,

and it was as if they were never

sure what to be calling themselves.

-

Anyway, I woke up in a daze, and

then tried recreating where I'd been,

which is always impossible. All

I could relate it to was being

me-in-place and just staying

with that. When I was growing up,

Avenel was never the sort of the

place that brought 'happiness.'

Lord knows, I tried. But there

was always just something about

the place that was always too

out-of-place, and changeable. I

never felt tied in to any location,

mainly because there really wasn't

any 'unified' one-place to cite as

a location. Right in the center of

everything was the highway, Rt.

One, which rudely cut everything

in two. You were either on one

side of it or the other. It supposedly

could get you right down to Florida,

in its southerly direction (though

most people would just give up

when it entered Philadelphia proper;

and in the other direction it was

said it could get you right up

to Maine. All I ever mostly

concerned myself with was

that, in about 17 short miles,

if you stayed to the right and

got off Rt. One, you'd be at the

Holland Tunnel, Greenwich

Village, and lower Manhattan,

which, Heaven knows, was all

fine with me. Shortcut to my

heart, for sure. I never knew

anyone who ever took it straight

up, or went to Maine, for that

matter, except my friend Sidney,

whose oddball family had cousins

there or something, in Portland.

It took them like 11 years to drive

there, but each time I got to hear

the story. One version or another.

That was all way too far out of

my personal parameters. I cared

about neither Florida nor Maine,

but maybe the road interested me.

I always figured you can't like

'everything.' You had to pick

one or three, and specialize.

-

So, in Avenel it was all always

kind of bland. Like I said, the

highway cut it through one way,

the underpass made it a shambles

in the other way, and whatever may

once have been as a 'downtown'

locale was just now a group of

boarded up, abandoned and

derelict old buildings. The Post

Office was gone (killing that was

like removing a heart), the train

station was taken down, (that

too was a lost heart). For some

god-awful reason, we were left

with this big barn-like tavern that

was a country-western haunt and

music place. Talk about fake

cowpokes and dizzy dames.

Even if you wanted to like the

place, you couldn't. Avenel even

had a synagogue, for, I guess,

equal-opportunity reasons,

because I only ever came across

two Jewish families  -  (course

I never delved too deeply,

they came to me)  -  the Belfer

family, which ran the candy

store by the school and, over

across the highway, Louis

Schlesinger and his family,

whose Dad ran the small

hardware store there. Louis

is some famous psychologist

in NYC now, and the building

is currently a dog-groomer's

place, after having been

twenty things in thirty years.

You can't even buy a postcard

around here : it's so pathetic

they don't show pictures.

-

So I woke up from this one

somnabulent nightmare  -

just like my life  -  and was

more confused by the confusion

than the reality. Like Roosevelt

said, 'We have nothing to fear

but fear itself,' that was about

where I was at. The 'fearing'

part. I liked to read books;

there weren't hardly any

around here. I never saw a

house with any sort of book

collection, or a grouping of

books or a freaking bookshelf

even. Two houses over, a

neighbor had a nice set of

Encyclopaedia Brittanica

books, the entire alphabet.

She was nice enough, Betty

was, to always let me take

one or two of them for a

few days. I always absorbed

them, and they always got

returned. They were the

coolest people around,

quiet, interesting and all.

Her and my mother were

like afternoon coffee klatch

friends for a long time. Then

it faded. I think because soon

enough everyone had their

own pool, and our yard was

then much less central. There

were other ladies too, but they

mostly ended up just pesky.

I didn't know what it was

about Avenel, but it seemed

knowledge didn't have much

of a currency here. It's worse

now  -  everyone babbling 

and shouting on phones, 

while they do other things,

crew-cut lawns and about

ten trees left in the whole

town. Every little house 

looks like a pastry, baking 

in the hot sun.

-

There never much were ways of

fun here; you couldn't just bait 

a string and try and catch a river

fish. There was pond or two, a

nice one at the Maple Tree, with

some fish, but soon enough it was

slimed and covered over too, and

then built upon  -  a small factory,

some die-casting place. The

prison-farm got taken away;

that for sure was the one, singular

saving grace of the whole town.

Even if people disdained it,

and some did, the prison gave

the place some spine. The 

swamps and the muck down at

Homestead and Blair and all

that, that too was great stuff.

Junkyards, waste lumber, old

trucks broken down in the woods

and just left. People lived down

there who were unearthly. In

old run-down homes  -  Native

America Indians, some Hawaii

people, or Filipino's or

something, a couple of strange

old east-European families.

Open campfires; trash burning.

Wild dogs. It's all long gone now,

buried like a family scandal or

your cousin's rape story at an

Easter family-gathering. Nothing

now but cheap-shit apartments 

and beleaguered immigrants

swatting shifts at any one of

the four or five Amazon 

warehouses in place. Even 

the mud there now is slimy 

and disgraceful. Everyone's 

dead and the stories are gone.
Once memories are ruined, it's
like that dream, or nightmare;
waking up from something you
can surely taste but can't feel.
Down the other end of town,
just the same, there was some
wild lands and a thing they
were at least proud enough
about to call 'Avenel Park.'
That's all gone now too  -  the
reeds and water and paths and
tracks, ponds and trees too.
It's all apartments now, endless
schmuck crap, and they re-named
the park after some Mayor whose
term was supposedly cut short by
death from natural causes, leavng
us the name-slinging maniac
fool we have now, parading as
something only he dreams of.
-
Man, I hate it when even the
dreaming brings on the willies.
The more they debase the place,
the deeper they get playing with
the whole fake 'History' aspect of 
it. It's like the 'Frazee House'
now getting screwed with too
in Fanwood or Rahway, or 
wherever that is. They've torn
it all to shreds for some bogus
rebuild, after it was a small zoo
for thirty years and then vacant for
twenty more. Every time you get
near the place, some geek starts
with the fake-history story of the
colonial lady who refused to bake
bread for the marauding British
troops who'd demanded her cattle
and services. Her 'patriotic' backbone,
standing up to them, drive them off,
and saved the entire area,
(Avenel included) for the
future, which is our now!