RUDIMENTS, pt. 434
(avenel on the hudson - boulevard)
'Such a surprising import.'
That was what the church
sexton, Bill Leahy, said to
me once, in reference to
Volkswagens when they
first began showing up in
America, about 1961. He
was usually there, early
mornings, back in those
days when I would do that
daily 'altar boy' stint of the
7am mass. I'd guess it was
Summer, '61, right before
the seminary days in that
Fall, but I don't know; it's
all a jumble. What I do
know is that Bill Leahy,
from over on Hudson
Boulevard said those
words. It was back in
the time when most
American cars, except
for those early forays into
compacts (Falcons, Corvairs,
Valiants, Comets, etc.)
were still 40 feet long and
weighed 10 billion pounds.
The arrivals of the new,
Euro-imports was just
beginning, and was
startling, and seen as
a threat too. Opel Kadett,
Renault Dauphin, Skoda,
BMW, Vauxhall, Peugeot,
and others. Weird names,
and it was all topped off
by the magnificent, and
suddenly everywhere,
arrival of the German VW.
Surprisingly, basically a
Nazi car, developed by
Ferdinand Porsche, and
presented to the Germanics
and their Autobahn roadways
as the promise of an ideal
vehicle to come. Built in
much the same way as
Eisenhower here built the
later interstate highway
system, both the Autobahn AND
the Volkswagen were military
in origin, and created as an
efficient means of equipping
the country with connected
and continuous, high-speed
roadways in case of any
arising instant-defense
needs. 'Happy Motoring'
and 'See the USA In Your
Chevrolet' were each just
-talk ad campaigns to bilk,
once again, the kept-in-place
'public' supposedly always
being so well-served. In these
cases, a huge boondoggle,
and anything but what was
claimed. Perversion, in fact,
of the 'Military-Industrial'
complex which Eisenhower,
in his final address on leaving
office, had the audacious gall
to 'warn' us about. This country's
always been lies.
-
Bill Leahy would, as his response
to all this, regale me with tales
of these new, small, dangerous,
cars being unsafe, blown off of
bridges in high winds, totalled
constantly, killing all occupants,
etc. It was, kind of, America's
mass-media response to yet
another something going on
that no one understood. Like
the Cuban Revolution - which
we never got straight - no one
knew what was up. (In Cuba,
instead of backing the rightful,
early insurgents fighting for
their own people's rights and
resources, we sided with the
crooked hoodlum and vice
interests of the business,
crime syndicates, gambling
and vice interests. Go figure
that one out). America, my
country 'tis of thee?
-
By like 1962, most of Avenel
was gripped in a totalitarian
silence of Kennedyesque doom
which had merely been fortified
by the media, and which then
was permanently ensconced as
National Ethos once the actual
Kennedy assassination took
place. The way it then stood,
Sal Giancana notwithstanding,
the crime and corruption-at-
large syndicates had him
taken out so they'd be able to
proceed with their varied
malfeasances, having Johnson
along for his Vietnam helicopter
sleigh-ride. The result was any
number of 57,000 things : like
maybe more Arlington Cemetery,
Maya Lin, and your missing
Uncle Jeff or Eddie. There
was nothing out of Avenel,
not even a blood-curdling
scream of revulsion or horror.
Just the same horrid old men
staring out of Tom's Barber
Shop, gurgling over the world
as they saw it, deemed at large
to be in danger....of something,
somewhere, whatever.
-
My father used to tell me how
humiliated he'd be, in front of
all those geezers sitting around
waiting for haircuts, when I'd
pass by, walking, and they,
not always making the
connection, started talking
about that 'long-haired commie
fag bastard' walking along 'their'
Avenel Street. Had I been armed
back then, I wouldn't have thought
twice about turning the whole
bunch of them into perforated
mannequins. All I'd ever say
to dear old Dad was, 'Ever
think of changing barbers?'
-
What else was to be expected
of an ingrown town of overripe
heavy-hitters none to smart in
the lightbulb factory area? I
walked along in silence, down
the steps, through the pee-hole
and urine-soaked rail tunnel
walkway that went under the
tracks and which brought you
to the far-east side of town,
down to Rahway Ave. Avenel
had, oddly enough at least three
sides, which is weird since you'd
normally think of two, in a little
spot like this. But it was so
much a nowhere, and truncated
by Route One AND the railroad,
that a person could probably
indiscriminately break it into
three or four sections - either
side of the tracks, and then
again, either side of Route One.
And that would only be the
east/west designations. The
same could be done north/south
in relation to Avenel Street
itself, sorry wasteland that
being. One edge was Rahway
and the ghetto people and the
junkyards, and the other was
the slop-mess that dragged
out towards Leahy's Hudson
Boulevard, which wasn't even
rightly paved until about '66.
-
It was as if the whole place
had fallen from Mars, and
my spirit was dying to say,
'Such a surprising import.'
No comments:
Post a Comment