RUDIMENTS, pt. 419
Making Cars
There were old buildings,
things marked with cornerstones
of 1904, 1912, and 1914. There
was a grave marker for dead
and washed up, forgotten,
revolutionary-era British
soldiers who'd washed up,
tried to survive, on the sand
and dunes, and whose dead
and hidden bodies were only
found later, and rightfully
buried no matter the cause
or the side. That particular
marker is still there, in the
middle of a neglected field.
These are things we live with,
and mostly today all that is
unknown; and no one really
cares anyway. Too bad.
What can a person do? It's
all like living in a ghost town
where no information is
passed unless money first
changes hands - someone
is paid to tell you about it
all but only in the most
approved fashion - bad
information and propaganda
for truth. All those years with
my father, for instance, making
the trips from Avenel to ocean
and inlets, and Sandy Hook too,
in order to fish, crab, or go to
where the 'bluefish' were running,
none of those trips ever brought
me this information; nor was
I told about it. I had to find it
I told about it. I had to find it
it all out on my own. Sandy Hook
was actually 'Fort Hancock.' Yes,
of course, there were endless
jokes about 'this man's army'
and Fort HandCock and all
that - but it couldn't work
that way now. People never
did realize (and Mark and his
wonder-babe (I'll call Oona,
from Brooklyn by way of Israel),
another circus 'sword' swallower,
I bet) and myself, we discussed
these points in depth, as I
introduced all this 'historical'
perspective of my own on them) -
that there was a time, really was
a time, when things were simple;
when immediate points of view
demanded a different intensity
and length, when the actual
defining description of Life
and Land was different.
This spit of sand we were
on - maybe three miles
long and a mile or so wide,
I really didn't know - was
once a vital connection to
the land. People lived and
died on these sands. The
local Navesink Indians
called it home - seasonal
or not, but home. Everything
was different. The entryway
to the harbor was vital -
ocean, land, roadway, river.
The geography was local
and real - people once walked
about, watched the horizon,
looked for sail-ships and
harbingers of arrival. Mark
and Oona were distant, almost
bug-eyed in vapor, and the
other guys with me, they were
suspicious of this interloper, his
car, his 'girlfriend,' (ha) and their
behavior too. Just another one
of the weird outsiders I'd hooked
them up with. But, saddlebags
filled with beer and ice, as they
were, the fine day moved on.
It was like talking to a blind
man - a stoned one. Mark
and the girl were gone for a
bit, exploring, while we'd
parked the bikes at the old
parade grounds and lighthouse
area and just drank beers,
lounging around on the
grass, tinkering with the
bikes, whatever. They came
back, Mark saying they'd been
able to get into a few of the
empty gun emplacements and
look around (large, cavernous,
look around (large, cavernous,
beneath ground bunker-caves).
He said of course all they did was
was fuck a while (this is true, I'm
not kidding) and he said it was
a few times anyway, even
if he was usually gay and
sought out guys. (Again, this
is true, I'm not kidding).
She was pretty cool, and,
he stated, she 'enjoyed a
good slamming' and they'd
gotten high enough that
nothing mattered anyway
and it was all fun - she was
just 'practicing' was how he'd
put it. Really; it was like
being with William Burroughs
or something. And to Mark
anyway nothing ever much
mattered. One time he told
me how the true sign of a
'friend' was in how that
purported 'friend' reacted
when asked to 'go out back
and have a smoke' and that's
how he judged people - no
matter what else the trust-factor
of a good friendship or any
friendship meant NOT saying
no to such a request -
however that did pretty
much seal my fate with him
as far as that went. Smoking
pot was never my thing. I
never did see him much for
years after that - for the
one time I did finally just
say a simple 'no' to him was, I
suppose, the one time he
was standing judgment. Fact
of the matter was that, after
a time, I began to just find
him annoying anyway and
the less I was around him
the better it was for me and
my 'no' was more the result
of simply not wishing his
sole and undiluted company
'out back' for even a minute.
He, of course, misconstrued
it all as a refusal to smoke
with him - which was a
secondary matter to me for
sure and, screw him anyway.
What I did miss was his
blazing, dark-featured Israeli
beauty sidekick Oona or
whatever her name was.
She I could have smoked
for sure - I was intrigued
and exhilarated by her
far-emotive bearing, from
somewhere else, some
ancient, strange foreign
dark land, as smoky and
distant to me as that
Latakia tobacco used
to be - a pipe tobacco
blend, that was, from
Turkey or Iran.
Turkey or Iran.
-
About him, on the other
hand, I just didn't really
care; he somehow bugged
me, Mark did, and I had
found a lot of his interests
and phrasing annoying -
never shutting his trap
and just running on about
things when fueled with
alcohol and the rest. The
sort of character who
demanded singular,
one-on-one attention
with a flippant veneer of
character-quality which
drove me nuts and it
became like 'why don't
you just once shut the
heck up because I simply
cannot any longer hear
you.' And he was all fake
and stupid anyway - all
caught up in those stupid
cultural things-of-the-moment'
stuff I hated. TV names, movies.
As it turned out, it all ran
down anyway. Then, even,
As it turned out, it all ran
down anyway. Then, even,
eventually, Ruda or Oona or
whatever she too started
getting on my nerves -
her manners nasty and
cloying and I don't think
she ever laughed or didn't
take things not well - dead,
stark serious like some
foul black existential huff,
sucking on cigarettes and
the rest - funny how grace
and quality can disappear
so quickly. She was always a
bummer. Here it happened.
bummer. Here it happened.
In an instant it was all business
and serious and dour, a sort-of
excuse for otherwise doing
nothing at all except what
nothing wanted doing. The
weirdest thing is that they
(and us), ended up in a
'beachfront' open-air sports
bar in a certain hell-hole
known as Keansburg, NJ
(which has neither a
beachfront nor a view,
but is rather a blank spot
on a really bad map that
just looks out on a
poor-man's waterway
of the Raritan Bay). The
low-income people there
make do with it as their
beachway. The only wave
that place ever sees is
when boats distantly go
by and people wave, or
when fat people jump
into the bay for a swim,
and I'd bet the fat people
do a lot more jumping in
than the boats do passing by
- the place is rank and foul
and infantile and disgusting,
yet there they stayed an
entire afternoon and into
the late evening, drinking
and smoking and staying
high around some gross
outdoor cabana-type thing
with big TV screens blaring
and bunches of knot-faced
and probably inebriated
locals from the town staggered
stupidly along and by and
in : the bar itself I forget
the name but it's still there
and seems as foul as ever -
nothing ever changes when
it comes to these things.
My biggest gripe was
how someone would
'cover' something, say,
like his 'biker weekend'
in Jersey, by doing it from
the rank confines of a series
of sleazeball bars and
encounters - all the while
being high. No sense to me.
I don't think either one of
them has ever returned
to follow up their coverage.
Mark has just disappeared
from my life - the article
came out, it covered the
things we, as bikers, had
done with him and Oona
or Ruda or whoever she
was, portrayed me and
us fairly enough, and
seemed flip and hip
about the NJ exploits,
and was featured as first
page, with an inside
continuation. But, it
all missed a lot too. He
never was an insider. I
guess my time with him
was over by then - the
Big Apple Circus, in
those earlier days, was
out on the old dunes
and sand-holes at the
bottom west-side of
Manhattan - yes, hard
to believe now - all that
area having long ago
disappeared. In the 70's
it was a crumbling elevated
highway, with old buildings
and trucks stops and
weigh-stations along the
way; then in the 80's it
was all falling apart and
was dismantled and the
area suddenly seemed to
return to nothing : a
wild-west of vacated old
buildings, empty, sandy
areas, and a long, open
'beachfront' where no
one really went. By the
late 80's it was a sunbathing
and play-space for the
locals, gays, yuppies and
performers. The Hudson
River went running by.
Now, forty years on
again, it's all displaced
by a long, riverside park
and a thundering city -
Battery Park City -
million-dollar condos,
restaurants, shops,
schools, clubs and gyms.
You'd never know it
now, but it was once a
desolate spot - and
one, in fact, I loved.
On those dunes the
Big Apple Circus would
set up, practice and play.
-
The person I call Mark
here, is still around, at least
online. He has two other
pseudonyms that I've seen,
and is now billed as an 'Occultist'.
And I do see another of his 'Jersey
tours' posted too from about 2004.
I'll try and retrieve it. It's better than
our day together. Years have lapsed
now. I'm quiet and in Avenel. He's
an Occultist! Still out of jail, and,
I guess, still alive. I can mostly
keep my mind and stay civil,
but there are things which
set me off just now and then.
I try to remain far enough off
from things so as not to be
packaged emotionally or set
to explode. Don't get me
wrong, situations drive
me crazy, and often, but
I do not register them too
much. I try to live at another
realm, another level of
'things' - which is probably
the worst word in the
world but used here
nonetheless. He and I
were good bomb-throwers
in our day - the early days
of knock-em-dead literary
pugilism. Now, it's all gone.
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PART TWO. Part 3, next chapter
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PART TWO. Part 3, next chapter
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