11,167. RUDIMENTS, pt. 444

RUDIMENTS, pt. 444

(avenel - massing at the border)

'Many things are going wrong,

from this open-hearted throng.'

I wrote that to myself a long

time ago, and sometimes it

still comes back to me as

a soft echo, something like

the sound of a fine car starting,

just as, to me, the words are

just again to be beginning

to flow. Code words? Some

personal micro-fiche of my

own researchings? I never

did know, nor do I now.

-

It's raining again, and that

doesn't bother me at all. I well

remember Hurricane Donna

during Sept. 12 and 13, 1960.

It sticks in my mind as a

storm around the same time

as the approach of my own

birthday, 11th birthday, which

I considered the onset of some

'new' segment of my life (yes,

I was weird like that). I'd never

witnessed such force and fury,

though there had also been, in

1955, a fierce hurricane named

Diana, even a bit harsher, but

I only thought I remembered

it. In any case, for both events,

the sensations were quite real

and observed. In the fogs of

memory, for Diana, but still

vivid for Donna (1960). I can

remember the fierce winds,

as they ripped and twisted

everything, and the waving

sheets of long and steady

harsh rain, washing down

over all things. It was a

sight to behold, and it sort

of introduced me to the real,

outside, world as a place  -

one fraught with peril, apt

to suddenly run over at any

time. Yet, people accepted it

all, as it came, and remained

settled and passive. Unlike

most of today's hemming and

hawing and passively female

weather-males pounding the

drums of peril, it's much the

same as ever before  -  a

storm comes, you deal with

it. I think they all confuse the

idea of 'historic' storm with

'histrionics.' Yes, they're ALL

that stupid. Back in Avenel,

in that early storm, I kept my

eyes out most for flying trailers,

with or without people attached,

which trailers were quite apt

to be ejected, or eject themselves,

from the nearby Hiram's Trailer

park  -  even with the big-goon

wrestlers who lived in there

holding them down. What cared

they for a pussy-assed storm? I

can hear them now. My friend

Gary Anthony lived in there

for a while, early on : a cool

southern boy in a house with no

father  - one of the first I'd seen

of that, except I can't remember

a mother either  -  though there

must have been one. He was my

first ever accented southern pal

and I dug it all. It was cool stuff.

Back then, that trailer park

hugged the highway like it was

getting lifeblood from it  -  and

it was. Any number of 'performing'

wrestler guys came and went as

they'd be on the circuit, from

Madison Square Garden to

Philadelphia and Trenton and

whichever unholy circus tent

would have them. This was the

old slap-dash sort of wrestling,

apt to cause broken necks but

who cared? There were no rules,

there wasn't even a use of

language, seeing as how

'Wrestling' had a language

of its own  -  half grunt, half

outrage. A very fluid tongue.

Wrestling, back in those early

TV days of black and white

dramatics, was considered as

the welfare-ghetto of TV land.

Everyone involved was in

some form of half-rage, about

conditions, or challenges, or

the 'fouls' inflicted upon them

and not caught by the Ref. 
(Nowadays everyone's like 
that anyway. It's the rule of
the land now). Things these

guys claimed 'they' would never

be so low as to do, (as they

stood there with the other guy's

gonads hanging out of their

bloodied and bruised mouth),
they claimed had just been 
done to them. The cheering

fans were just as bad, if

not worse. Rabid idolators.

They were their own storms 

-  each was a self contained

Hurricane Whatever, who

would willingly travel for

miles and more to see yet

another mat-centered

squeeze play and root with

screams for their choice

of maniac. For a while I

had a seminary friend, from

Park Avenue, who, along with

his father, was a true-blue

wrestling fan, and would do

all these requisite things. It

surprised me to no end, so

different was it from my own

expectation of his seemingly

so-reserved and proper situation.

These wrestling-circuit guys

would blow into the trailer

court, from bout to bout and

city to city, usually driving some

gigantic and foul auto down on

its springs, even if new. They'd

bounce off the highway and into

the little wooded grove of the

trailer court (it was at the end of

my block, and extended itself

sloppily into the wooded area

there; cars a'kimbo, a few old

car paths, big trees and all. It

was all later built upon; houses

and truck depots). Often they

had a babe of some sort with

them  -  blond bombshell, bimbo,

gypsy, runaway, or some other

guy's wife. Bouts and babes, 

or babes and beer. Whatever.

-

None of those hurricanes or

storms ever blew the trailer park

away; I never even saw anything

tipped or flipped or moved. It

seemed as solid as anything else;

strange place. Morose, dark, deep.

It kind of 'resided' in the woods,

a woods of its own making. Once

1962 or '63 came, and I was out

of there and on my way with other

things, I never set foot in that

trailer court again  -  in fact had

forgotten all about it. Then, 

sometime about 1986, at St.

George Press, some young guy

got hired in, and he lived there.

Quite happily, too. His name was

Darryl Kravitz, and, as a firm,

outgoing 'born-again' Christian,

which is the wording those guys

used to use, he took it upon

himself, and from his trailer

court perch, to try bringing a

little 'Jesus' patter in to St. 

George Press. We never got 

on too well, but we never

clashed either, mainly because

I just blew him off or played

nice because I really didn't

care. He surprised me because 

he didn't seem as the trailer 

park type at all  -  he had this

squeaky-clean 'perfect' thing

always going on. I tolerated

what he put out; soon enough

he and his wife left anyway.

Moved to Virginia or somewhere.

The one thing he did, and I 

found this annoying too, and 

a bit without any sense, was 

supply me with a steady stream 

of cassettes, for free, of these 

Christian music groups he'd

know of. That's OK in and 

of itself, but what failed here, 

big time, was the way he'd go

about ginning up each one. 

This was no 'Jesus and the 

Bumblebees' stuff; each one 

was regular rock and roll,

hard-rock, core versions. He'd 

say, 'You'll like these guys, they

sound just like the Stones. Or

KISS. Or Van Halen or Rod

Stewart, or whatever. I never

understood that, nor any need

for it : Sound-alike music, yes,

but about Heaven and Light

and Redemption and Salvation

instead. Jesus stuff, with a rock

wallop. It never worked.

-

It always seemed, especially

after those first really big storms,

that most of Avenel didn't have

to be tied down, that  -  like the

trailer court itself  -  there was

a certain inherent gravity held

within its own fury and that

kept everything heavied and

ripped-in-place. Nothing was

ever really battered or thrown

about. The place was like that 

- an odd wedge of space sort

of stuck in an even odder wedge

of time and made up with the

sorts of people seen on the

Twilight Zone : with their doubts

and paltry self-realizations and

habitual denouncements and false

renunciations; dolls that talked,

kids who accused; family things

that kept popping back up to

the surface. Everyone stayed

steadfast, right through it all.

Except me. It all scared me

shitless. All of it, just very

much too weird.

-

The weirdest thing, perhaps?

That friend, the wrestling fan

guy, the one who ended up at the

seminary with me  -  he had an

altar set up in his house, back

bedroom stuff; all the proper

and needed accoutrements,

mimicking the whole of St.

Andrews, including little, round

flattened hunks of Bond Bread,

and he'd go through the daily 

paces of 'having a Mass'  -  I

kid you not, and no BS. This

was real, and I know, because

I attended this 'church of the

Immaculate Storm,' more

than once or twice.