11,087. RUDIMENTS, pt. 414

RUDIMENTS, pt. 414

(inman avenue at home)

Relating this initial arrival

and moving-in stuff puts

me on a run-track. I wonder

how many kids, and what

difference it makes, if any,

how many have just lived

where they were born and

that was that? For me, and

my near-age sister I guess

too, not knowing if she ever

sensed these things, the

move we made was a great

divide, crossing from one

sort of life-being to another.

Maybe it happens to lots, but

it's the sort of thing that has

always had great effect on me;

quirky as I am about noticing

and feeling things. I had been

born, and existed early-on, in

a supple, small-urban situation

that I'd just begun accommodating

and taking on the traits of. It

was nothing really at all, the

'urb' of Bayonne is really just

run-down, way past its prime,

hacking and crowded. Nowhere

you'd really want to be, but, to

even my 4-year old self, hanging

their on the waterfront edge of

the Kill Van Kull (the NY Harbor

waterway) with all that barge and

tug and ship traffic, ferries and,

a half-mile across the water, the

dastardly backside of Staten

Island too  -  boat repair yards,

tug terminals, and  -  above it

all and right over my head  - 

the graceful arc of the Bayonne

Bridge, it was all really quite

spectacular. One could never 

make this up; it was a smoky 

Gershwin back-tune to the 

darker business of life. 

Remember, everything

great and glorious always 

has an ass-end, a rear-side 

much less glorious and, 

more often than not, seldom

seen. Remember too, from

Bayonne, looking out into 

the harbor, what you saw 

was the backside of the

Statue of Liberty. I guess

someone has to. I was 

all eyes and ears too, 

and ready to accept. Poof!

Then it was gone and I

one day just ended up in a 

trenched out corner of 

nowhere, chopped and 

damaged land all around 

me, sickening groups of 

new box-houses soon 

filling  up with weird 

nomads each ready to 

end their nomadic ways.

Hello Avenel. Goodbye 

Bayonne?

-

Sometimes you need to ask

yourself, 'what have I earned?'

It always seemed to me that all

I ever earned was silence and

distance. Not a problem though,

because that was fine with me.

In Camp Cowaw I'd run a fine,

laid-out, hard-top mile a day for

6 days straight and earned a

'Running' Merit Badge. That

was such a bland, conceptual

name for it that I was almost

ashamed to show it. What sort

of term is 'Running' for an

achievement? Like getting one

that said 'Breathing' or 'Eating'

or  -  worse of all  -  'Being.'

Pretty stupid, but then again if

they'd had a merit badge for

'Stupidity,' I'd have probably

gotten that too. I guess life is

like that  -  it runs steady, here

and there hits a high point,

blows out a little, and then,

eventually, you're just out of

breath (literally) and the race

or long run is over.

-

Along Inman Avenue, two

more things stand out, for right

now anyway  - I'm sure more

will hit me. The first one was

this guy named I. Mike Cohen.

He was an insurance agent, for

Metropolitan or something, and

early on, say 1957, he must have

been assigned these newly 

developed homes and streets.

I'm guessing, maybe 200 homes,

and the requisite people and

family numbers  - each one a

policy of some sort  -  life 

insurance, whatever  -  just 

waiting to happen. Probably a

mental goldmine, if not a real 

one. And there probably were 

others too, never seen by me.

This door-to-door canvassing

eventually, for I. Mike Cohen,

(which I always thought was 

the coolest, yet strangest, 

sort of name in the world. It

was almost factually strong,

and direct, I guess for Isadore

or Isaac or something), turned

into door-to-door collecting.

Remember, these were young

parents, new homes, etc., so I

guess perhaps the idea of checks

or automatic payments and things

hadn't gotten established. He'd

walk the streets with this thick,

softly black-leather-covered

account book, and go to each

of his account houses, mine

included, for picking up his

cash payments. Just as if he

was a paper-boy, he'd knock 

for his monthly nine dollars,

or whatever it may have been,

and leave behind a little payment

receipt stub. He kind of looked

like an undertaker or something  -

seriously dressed, black suit,

leather shows, tie, etc, very

dour and somber about it all.

I was surprised, years later too,

when I found out he was still

around, yes, and these policies

were still in effect and being

paid on. The eventual deaths

of both my parents finally did

get some payback  -  my widowed

mother first, and then after she

died, some sort of check too,

not much, divided by the five 

of us. I don't know whatever

the end-up of it all was for

I. Mike Cohen.

-

The other thing was, as I 

mentioned in the previous

chapter, about gazing at 

the stars from my yard, 

using the few large trees 

as referents for celestial 

placements, how I used to

stand there in some sort

of 1956 kid wonder, two 

years on in a rugged new 

location, and staring up at 

the stars and  wondering 

about them : Were they

fiery cauldrons? Were they

flinging themselves through 

the heavens, right then, as 

I gazed? What was fixed? 

What was in motion? How 

were we falling  through space 

and not knowing it because 

everything else was falling 

with us? Were we settled

and in place? Were we not?

My own questions were 

endless, counted on a 

hundred hands and fingers,

if I'd had them. What was

going on and what was I 

mixed up in? How'd I get 

it all here, and why? And 

then, one day, another sort

of thought hit me  -  about

all those old and ancient men
  - cave-guys, cave-people? 

How  far back was all that? 

How did  anyone know, and 

how could  anyone be sure? 

And anyway, what did it 

have to do with me? There

I was, looking up, and

completely solo, into a 

dead, black night sky. I 

thought to myself what 

forces those guys could

have ever seen that would

have propelled them into 

the reveries of their own 

by which cultures and 

stories grew. The three

fiercest things, I figured,

they ever saw, in the normal

run of things anyway, were 

fire, wind and rain, and water. 

In each case the most extreme 

form of each. That's what 

they had to figure out 'Life' 

by? Maybe the occasional 

sabre-toothed tiger that

stole their baby and had a

snack of it? What the heck 

did any of that have to do 

with anything? There was

nothing internal? Greater than

any of that? Heck, nothing

ETERNAL? What were they

trying to sell me? For sure, 

what did it have to do with 

I. Mike Cohen traipsing 

the street for a few dollars 

to collect on the promise

of some future pay-out at

the time of death? Huh? 

Come again? Arthur Kill? 

Kill Van Kull? Inman Ave? 

What the Hell?