RUDIMENTS, pt. 424
(home town blues?)
I always liked to write about
art. As far as writing goes, it's
about the most inconsequential
form of it that can be done. It's
neither actually Art or Writing.
In Avenel, there used to be a
small office used by a dentist,
Dr. Chrobat. I guess, in my
era, he did just about everyone's
teeth. His appointments and
office secretary, and dental
assistant, come to think of it,
was a neighbor of ours, on
Inman Avenue, Joan Ferrara
- (names here are changed).
She was a small, (quite small),
yappy lady who seemed to
always be talking, almost never
shut up. That was OK, it was
just her manner. For a while
she'd walk back and forth to
work, and then one day she
got a brand-new pink 1959
Ford Galaxie. (I never knew,
as a kid, why it was 'Galaxie,'
and not 'Galaxy.' That sort of
stuff always baffled me). Like
Art, and the writing about it,
the entire scene of the neighbor
lady and the local dentist at the
end of the block, and her pink
car, and his weird little office;
kids, the glass-brick front -
(which I absolutely hated; you
couldn't see out, you couldn't
see in. The idea was 'at least
you get the light.' What were
adults thinking!) was all like
Art to me, or at least I made
it into my own little living
life-vignette, and so, here
I am, writing about it (?).
-
They were a cool family; two
boys. Both older than me, and
I won't get into that except to
say Anthony was a bit nuts,
and Tim, the older, was a bit
staid - he ended up working
on Wall Street, which was my
first commanding look into
that other world. I knew, of
course, nothing about it, but
he'd come home with 'tips' for
his father's investing. I guess
it was a sort of insider trading,
yet at the same no one seemed
too concerned over that and,
even then, at age 9, I could
sense that the system was
corrupt. One very cool thing
was that, a few years later,
the dental lady, Rose, and
the husband, Joe, divorced.
I guess it was, as they say,
'acrimonious.' The odd thing
was, he and the boys all
stayed there, and she
disappeared forever, even
from the dentist job. They'd
had a built-in swimming
pool in their yard (pretty
high-toned for those days
on Inman Ave) and this
Joe guy, the husband - get
this now - he had all her
stuff, the big metal items,
etc., washer, dryer, stove,
and the rest, metal, wood,
and whatever, taken out of
the house (though I can't
remember what 'crew' did
this, or would do that) and
dumped into the emptied
pool area and then filled
all in with dirt, and then
it grew just like regular
grass and stuff later on, as
a regular back-yard. It used
to make me wonder, how
she just disappeared, (I
assume she relocated
herself somewhere) but
I used to worry too that
she was in the emptied-
out pool, along with her
washer, dryer and
stove. Whooey!
-
Anyway, I myself disappeared
not too long after, so what do
I know. The younger of the
boys, Anthony was truly a pip.
He was bold and loud. He'd tend
to hang around the rear area of
our house, on nights when he'd
find out we were eating something
he'd like (like, eggplant parmigiana
sandwiches; nothing special at all
to me, hated 'em - but to him they
were gold. Another of his favorite
dishes was some crud they called
'chicken cacciatorie.' It was some
lousy concoction of chicken pieces
in red sauce), and my parents
would invite him in to eat with
us. Yeah, it was weird. He'd
have a way of asking my mother
what she was cooking that night,
about 4 o'clock, beforehand.
He was pretty smooth like that.
Everyone fell for his ways;
there's a word somewhere for
what he was, 'smarmy,' I think
it is. 'Excessively ingratiating,
or insincerely earnest,' is what
the dictionary says. That's about
right, though it's still a weird
word. So, he'd come over to eat
with us - just occasionally, don't
get me wrong. Older than me
by maybe 2 or 3 years, he was
just on that 'verge' of being like
a 'family member' though he
wasn't. My father took to him;
loud, strong, brash, and playfully
Italian too. Those were all big
pluses in my father's book.
(It didn't have many pages).
For my mother, she just felt
motherly towards him, and
it was fine. As long as he
ate her food, that made her
happy. The whole scene
was a bit weird for me,
(and I here better preface
this, forewarning you that
it's about to get gross -
true life, yes, but gross).
So, I'll say it once, here
and be done with it : for
the kids on the block in
my circle, Anthony taught
us about 'sex' or worse.
I have no idea how other
kids got to these points,
but, with the junkyard,
empty box trucks, and
sitting there as a captive
audience, we deftly learned
a few things. A spurting
good time, let's say. (OK,
advisory over). I suppose
everyone has someone
from their own youth who
lives on yet in infamy.
Old Tim was ours.
-
I'm not about to belabor any of
these points, because I spent
most of my younger days in
a willful state of suspense. I
was always waiting for something
more horrible than the present
to befall me, so that all kept me
pretty quiet. You get creamed
by a train when you're 8, and
the rest of the years which
directly follow are mostly
spent still processing that
information - even if you
and others may pretend
that's not the case. I walked
around with Doom UNDER
my umbrella, never even
realizing it was supposed
to be on the outside of that
umbrella. Always somehow
waiting for the other shoe to
drop; that was me. In looking
back on the location of these
earlier days, I can't say much
(though I always end up doing
so) - and as if I were writing
about as art, it would merely
end up as a lame review of
some living tableaux somewhere.
Hell, everyone's got one of
those, and I bet the pieces are
interchangeable and that the
names are probably the same
too. Like some really bad
creche out front of St. Andrew's,
you end up wondering why the
cow has that weird expression,
why Joseph looks so ugly, why
why Mary's expression is more
quizzical than anything else,
and why the goat seems bored
to death. Art for Art's sake?
I don't think so...
and why the goat seems bored
to death. Art for Art's sake?
I don't think so...
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