RUDIMENTS, pt. 428
( avenel 'eccentrics?')
A lot of weird things have
gone down, in my lifetime
alone. In the 1960's, home
of napalm and the Vietnam
War, the same chemical
companies that were making
Napalm and other defoliants
and flesh-igniters (Monsanto,
Dow Chemicals, etc.) were
advertising themselves and
their home-based products
under the ridiculous slogan
'Better Living Through
Chemistry.' Yep, and people
fell for that stuff (no pun).
Which, of course, ten years
later, led to things like 'Round-
Up' and other legal defoliants
and weed killers, in addition
to countless chemicals in food
and water, and the resultant
rashes of cancers, tumors,
illnesses, cripplings and
death. And - no - no one
ever connected these dots.
In fact, supermarket sections
and the lawn and garden
sections of numerous
hardware-depot type
stores, devoted aises to
it all. As that old-time guy
once said, 'What's good for
GM is good for America.'
the funeral industry was
booming!
-
They used to spray Inman
Avenue with the vast white
cloud of Mosquito-Killer
like it was a smoke carnival.
We all rode our bicycles behind
it, oblivious to the future. Breath
deep, my young chums, Jesus
loves you and so does your
Mommy and Daddy. On one
side of the street, there'd be the
Good Humor guy, dispensing
his curiously-timed-arrival ice
cream just as the smoke-cloud
Jeep was crawling by and 14
kids on bicycles were riding
and squirming behind it -
which same kids would then
opt for ice cream and lap
that up with the lethal cloud
drifting down. It couldn't
have been any better as a
doom-movie. But I guess
that was suburbia out here
in Swamplandia.
-
We'd get up and walk to
school, a passel of us, from
Inman Avenue, in threes
and fours. It's funny how
that little one-long block
walk seemed like the center
of the world to us all. I'm sure
there are kids in Menlo Park
Terrace, in Fords, or Iselin,
or anywhere, that went
through the same thing
with their own local
elementary school, and
the memory does probably
ring the same. At that point
it's a very small world. Yet,
and more importantly, it
must soon enough grow
larger - past the parochial
concerns of town and street,
which just become deadening.
It's especially important, in
these places like Avenel, etc.,
to ride that growth-crest out.
'Outt'a town, Mr Brown.'
Please.
-
There weren't too many
'characters' in Avenel back
then. What I mean by that
is 'interesting people' or
eccentrics; and there certainly
are not any now. There used
to be, as I recall, one or two
of those old-style crippled kids,
with the metal braces and weird
wobbly walks. I remember them
often hobbling along (shambling?)
Avenel Street, but they too were
not really 'eccentric.' Just more
smiley and happy to meet anyone
along the way. Then there was
another guy for a while - the
word was he was shell-shocked
or blasted into orbit while in
Vietnam and came back a
babbling wreck. I kind of did
remember him from growing up,
distantly. He eventually just
disappeared, but for a while he
too was often just going up
and down Avenel Street in some
form of dazed wipe-out. Anyway,
these sorts of things are real
deadening and they do sort
of demand that a person, for
some period of time, get
away from them in order
to gain some worldly
perspective. I admit, yes,
I returned here for my own
'later' life, but I did it after some
adventuring and close-calls and
troubles too, and I did a lot of
learning and studying along my
way. I came back mostly for the
location - trains and highways,
waterways and access. I sort of
re-centered myself, with NYC
and Philadelphia, and Princeton,
defining my now-triangulated
existence. Otherwise, this place
is a shithole dungheap and only
getting worse - a thematic
black hole, an aimless void,
and an aesthetic and logical
nightmare devoid of thought
or depth. But that's OK too
because basically I'm a hermit.
I make a lot of noise, on here
anyway, about things, just to
rile the candy-assed morons
with their hands on the levers.
Past that, I basically don't care.
-
I like the fury and I like the fire.
That's actually funny, because I
don't like conflict, and I detest
fireworks. Go figure. I had a
friend, way back, I used to call
Joe Midnight. He lived in the
trailer park, down on Rahway
Ave., the supposed 'better' of
the two parks. His habits were
profuse, and they included both
drugs and alcohol. That particular
trailer park had fairly stringent
rules and 'security' (what it was),
way more than the other one at
the end of my block, and I
always wondered how he got
away with half the crap he did.
I also always felt he would have
been a much better fit up at
Hiram's, which was the name
of that other trailer court at Rt.
One and Inman. It was a much
looser place, filled with carnival
guys, con-men, itinerants,
wrestlers on tour, babes and
trick-turner babes too, for
all the motels right there
along the highway. It was a
genial paradise for all that.
Don't get me wrong, I'm
writing here of 55 years
ago, and even Hiram's
has cleaned up its act
now. No matter, the place
would have suited Midnight
Joe much better. Towards
the end of his life (he's
dead now, some time), he'd
become pretty much just a
bar-fly, hanging about, as
a quaint old man. Mostly
at the Maple Tree. I'd talk
to him now and then, oddly
enough usually entering or
within the men's room, or
what passed for that. That's
when he'd get talkative. Do
you know how, at the end
of their life, at old-age days,
men start looking like
women and women start
resembling men, or, to say,
they each lose their
'distinction' and just
instead thicken up or
melt out to both look
pretty much the same.
That's what happened here.
Joe ended up looking more
like a sweet old lady than
anything else. I guess that
maybe makes him the
only 'Avenel eccentric'
I really do recall.
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