11,043. RUDIMENTS, pt. 398

RUDIMENTS, pt. 398

(avenel insurrection)

When I did finally end up

in Metuchen, my house was

quite close to the old Metuchen

Coal Yard. Long gone, now

a park, with a large manor

home on the corner (still there)

and the tracks behind  -  which

railtracks did at one time stop

and drop off the coal and supplies

needed. The reason I bring this

up is because, at the border of

Woodbridge and Avenel are the

tracks where I was hit, and it's

also once the site of Avenel Coal

and Oil, manor house, etc. Except

now it's ALL gone, per usual 

Woodbridge jerkiness, and replaced

after long years of a driving range

(for golf) and then (currently)

large, rangy acres of condos and

apts. All the usual hands being 

out. So I am once more both near

to the very tracks that quite nearly

took me out, and also at the site

of a place (Obropta family) with

whom at St. George Press I had

business dealings, until they were 

gone. I don't know anything more

of the family. The older man I

used to deal with is, I'm assuming, 

long dead, and there's still one,

prideful, braggart Obropta still

sitting back somewhere. No 

consequence at all; wrong world.

-

Small world, in any case, how the

ring-zone of my personal life has

homed in on, and returned to, tracks,

trains, coal yards and blowhards too,

I guess. I love it  -  mainly because

I love allowing others to implicate

themselves in their own stupidities.

The way the forlorn world changes,

the very idea of some 1958 weird

idea (golf driving ranges) seems so

senseless now as to be laughable.

There are still driving ranges around,

but the land-value factor has changed

over so much that they're no longer

indispensible  -  because the same

crowd who laps at golf is the crowd,

as well, that is usually deeply immersed

in real estate, business, profit and loss,

etc. In other words, losers attracting

losers, who suddenly 'realize' that

the ground they're standing upon,

hitting their little white balls, is worth

fifty-thousand times the golf-ball

hitting rate multiplied ten-fold, and

why waste a good chance. So we

then get all the ground hoodlums

building condos, paving everything

in site, and building; and then we

get the delinquent cheerleaders

about it all saying how great it is, 

and the old-line local coal-family

guy rooster-crowing about his fine

heritage and privilege in having

brought all these tons of crap to

be. 'What a wonderful place we've

made for you and me.'  Nothing

matters, because none of it's real

and I'll see them all in Hell.

-

When I got started here, it was a

bit of a wordless paradise. Now 

it's not.  And I don't care, because

I'm supposed to leave, move out, 

go away, for not liking it. Which 

makes. I guess, 'Democracy' the

naked dead-end that it really is.

At least the little word-whore 

who says it realizes what she 

says, I hope. ("Vell, Heinz, 

they're killing Jews again 

down the street, I don't like 

that." Heinz says, "Oh, it's nothing, 

If you do not like, move away."

"Vell, Heinz, now they are killing

left-handed people down in the 

school-yard. I don't like that."

Heinz says, "Oh, it's nothing, 

If you do not like, move away."

"Vell Heinz, they are burning

babies and puppies down the

street. I do not like that." Heinz 

says, "Oh, it's nothing, If you do 

not like, move away."...I won't

belabor the point, but I'm

sure you get it. This is all

imposed Authoritarian dictate.

People can be pretty happy

when they're dead-ass stupid.

-

Back about 1959, there was

a kid, name forgotten, no idea,

who lived in a house on that

little curve of a street behind

firehouse, which street turns

out for entry to Route One. He

was a nasty moron, violent and

evil. I remember well, at the

strain station, him telling me 

once that (listen folks, this is

true stuff, I'm not making it up)

that when his cat died, or more

than once, I can't remember, 

he'd freeze the dead cat, in 

a freezer, in a bucket of water,

and take it to the station, above

the underpass. He would take

out the block of ice and throw

it downward, where it would

break into lots of pieces, and so

would the cat  -  because it was 

all frozen up like that, hard with

the water. I had no idea if what

he said was or would be true or

false, but the chilling image of 

that idea, and the viciousness 

of this kid's thinking made me

disgusted. Made me hate what

Avenel replicated in its lousy,

know-nothing state. From all

that I can see, it's still pretty

much like that. And I've been

other places, to make and see 

the comparisons. 

-

It's all about what you want,

I guess, what you can manage,

what you'll tolerate. I'm far

away from all that  -  my

interests are far off, my work

is distant from what anyone

here would understand, my 

thinking is purely insurrectional,

and I share no philosophical or

emotive traits with the goons

and criminals who run the place.

All well and good for me  -  it's a

closet, a book-case, a library,

a painting room, drawing room,

and music/reading room for me.

I'm a rich man. Cats in little

pieces, or not. What's even
more fitting now is how this all
is summed up so well with that
closing bit of 'street philosophy' 
in the preceding chapter, where 
the guy said to me, 'If you have all 
these things around you, just 
take them in, but don't let any 
of it bother you.' Or, as St.
Paul put it, much better, 'I am
in the world, but not of it.'