11,009. RUDIMENTS, pt. 387

RUDIMENTS, pt. 387

(woodbridge lock-up)

We used to cross Route One,

Kenny Lackowitz and I, across

the Cloverleaf Cemetery, to

get to Iselin Jr. High. It was

a bit of a walk, but we never

cared. That was, and still is,

one of the crummiest cemeteries

around here. Flat stones, level

with the ground, nothing sticking

up. It thereby loses all the flavor

of a heritage graveyard, seemingly

connected to nothing, memorializing

nothing and just a bared, grassy

expanse along a sad highway. I

always felt it was akin to putting

a baseball card down on the flat

ground to memorialize Uncle Jed.

Not even worth it. Anyway, it

would bring us out to about

ten thousand little square homes,

rowed and streeted, like they

did then in those 'new' places

about which everyone was

supposed to get so excited.

One million wartime soldiers

their new families, looking

for ground. Maybe in the

Free-Soiler days, it used to

be 'Thirty-acres and a mule'

to anyone who could hack

it across the plains and

prairies and stake a claim,

but after WWII it was, for

sure, much less than that. In

all directions, Linden to the

Amboys, these little rows of

new square houses had popped

up, and were quickly occupied.

No getting around that; most

every kid I ever knew was in

one of those and had just landed

from somewhere else, urban

North Jersey, or more. It was

all good stuff for the men with

the bread-truck routes, and the

milkmen, and the rest. And it

just kept growing  - in 15 years

it was over and the new 'promised'

land had moved well south, to

the Jackson and Toms River

areas where everything new

was then opening up  -  including

the really big highways, Parkway,

Turnpike, I95, etc. Funny how

that all goes too  -  the original

wartime-era settlers and their

kids (my group), if they're

not already dead, have

leap-frogged again into the

still deeper reaches of the old

Pine Barrens, where there are

now countless 'communities'

for the aged. Or they've just

moved out to Florida and other

places. Funny world. You get

stuck, you stay stuck. Somewhere.

Thirty fakers and a fool.

-

Kenny and I didn't know much.

We were just out of 6th grade, and

the stupid school had evening

basketball games, and Kenny was

sweet on some little chicken he

wanted to see, so they'd meet at

the basketball games. Maybe once

or twice every two weeks anyway.

I went along as guide and walk-

chauffeur. I hated basketball. I

hated those gyms they played in,

that resounding noise, the squeal

of turning sneakers, in place, on

the court, and all those silly guys

in their 'basketball' shorts lobbing

balls everywhere. Bleachers and

buzzers. Yikes! enough for two

headaches. I'd sit there while Kenny

huddled with his Lassie. And

we'd walk home again, by 8:30.

Two dumb kids and never a

thought given to danger, highway,

spooks in the cemetery, or darkness.

Kids today are pansy-ass'd wiffle

balls by comparison, getting

Mommie and her SUV to drive

them 12 damned feet to the mall,

and then back, all the while staring

a screens. Mommie too, probably.

-

I never knew how much of that

was, in the end, the necessity of

life. I mean, people have to live,

and they all start having families,

and kids need schools, and room.

That's all true and OK, but Jeez

why here? What was the big

draw for swampland central USA

like this? 25 minutes big-time to

seashore and ocean crap? How

much custard and cotton candy,

surf-waves and bikinis, did a

guy need? Seaside Heights,

for cripes sake, was a veritable

waste hole of crap. Parkway

and Turnpike? Big deal there

too. New York City? Mostly

these people never touched,

it, didn't understand it, and

acted towards it as if it had

the plague. So why bother?

Leaving some urban area of

whatever they hadn't liked, for

her? A lame cubicle of house

ringed with closure. Dead end.

Hell, even half the times the

trains wouldn't stop here.

-

I use to scour and read the

Constitution, and the Bill of

Rights, and the Declaration of

Independence, and the Articles

of Confederation too. The

Federalist Papers too  -  they

were slam-dunk boring, but

a lot of that James Madison

stuff made good sense. Alexander

Hamilton just seemed a ruthless

asshole. Jefferson was way cool.

Nowhere in there, though, did I

find any references about the

sovereign and free peoples of

this New Republic having a

desire to 'work' for the Government,

and live off taxes, the taxes of

others  -  which is a lot of what

all that Revolutionary War

shit-fight had just been about.

Why that's just not called theft

and left be is beyond me. I started

noticing, too, that the nicest and

the best houses around Woodbridge  -

all these Mayor guys and Police

Chiefs, and Commissioners

and town Managers and all that,

they were the ones living high

on the hog. They had the best

houses, buying up land, getting

in on deals, raking it in. Even

old Doc Lozo, the 'Principal' of

Woodbridge High School, he had

a really nice house on that street

right by the high school. (He had a

'Doctorate' of something or other,

thus the honorific. All he was,

really though, was a grandfatherly

old coot, slumming until retirement).

That would have been 1966. These

guys all took care of each other,

with tax dollars. Everyone wanted

in, wanted to work for the town.

-

I always figured a 'public servant'

was just that. It was something you

agreed to, at that lower level, so as

to serve your fellows. Not to make

a million filthy bucks scratching

each others' asses. Before long, the

whole place was turned upside

down, all sorts of shitty places

were built upon, sluice-pipes

and drains and sewers and newly

dry land. Sorta. Until it rained.

And these were the first guys,

every time, and the ones with 

the biggest blowhard mouths, 

at the Elks and Legions and 

VFW's,  and in the civic 

auditoriums of schools 

and churches (I noticed, 

while all around guys were 

grunting off for Vietnam 

and perforation duty, willingly), 

saluting the flag, and going on

an on about American 'privilege,'

and rights and the 'duties' of 

citizenship. Duties my ass. They

obviously didn't know a damned

thing about it, nor the fact that 

they were living as Socialists,

sucking off the common teat of

Government. None of their kids 

went; conditional deferments 

were everywhere, for everything 

from crooked dicks to broken 

and palpitating fingernails, as 

long as your daddy had some 

suck-up, tax-rob civic connections. 

That's where it all stopped, and 

it still does. Biggest houses, all

the tax and sales deals, easiest

freaking jobs in the world.

Felonious pencil pushers and

professional meeting-callers; we
must all know the type. Some of
my friends tell me  not to curse 
here. So I won't,  but there's a big 
one due, and it starts with F and 

ends with U. It's got nothing much 
to do with anything else except the
basic betrayal I feel about having
been brought up and schooled
learning one thing, and then to
realize that for all practical
purposes that gets thrown out the
window as step one when the real
goons take power. Remember that
baseball card and Uncle Jed?
They don't even deserve that.
(Yeah, that's what I said)...
-
Sometimes this whole darn routine
gets me down, even more that usual.
I try to find things, some leveling
construct to keep, at least, myself 
afloat, (Because believe you me. I'm
often, often, at the edge) : "Catastrophism
is itself a risk  -  that is, the pessimistic
tendency to fix on the worst imaginable
outcome, and to panic. Authoritarian
populism has itself fed on the feeling
that everything is going wrong : that
crime and terrorism have run amok,
that immigration is disastrous, and that 
the world has lost its ethical direction
in some terrible way. Meanwhile,
fear and despair play havoc with the
opposition too. In general, people are
more likely to work constructively if
they think problems are solvable, or
that progress has already been made
and can be extended."