RUDIMENTS, pt. 537
(color me amazed)
The first back kid I ever
knew was Donald Brown.
I guess it was 1961, the
one year was the new
Iselin Junior High; I
left from there, at that
time, for seminary school,
deciding I couldn't hack it
in a joint like that. How
strange is it now, that it was
that late in my game before
I knew one. I think it was
very strange : they lived in
a hole in the ground. (I
write that for effect). It
wasn't really a hole in the
ground - no, of course not -
but there used to be this spot,
in Iselin, by the car wash
and along Route One, that
was a deep depression in the
ground - it went way down.
There were a few houses
down there, where black
people lived. He was among
them. Also the power company
had some stuff down there, and
later there was a pallet company
too. As I recall, it was Lordi
Pallet Co. Just trucks and stacks
of wooden pallets, coming and
going. That's the only little
enclave that I ever knew of
where they lived. It was always
interesting to me how people
put in singular situations
always end up living well
within their confines. It's very
paradoxical, and never right,
especially in light of the sort
of 'northern' cultural instincts
that people here were always
bragging about. I thought it
was racist, like 'they can live
anywhere, as long as it's down
down in that ravine.' The most
dumb-assed thing now is
the ravine is built upon and
down in that hole are condos
and apartments, with mostly
south- asians in it now, and
it's called 'Woodbridge Hills.'
Just look down, you can see
it. Someday if you'd like to
talk with me about the stupidity
and audacity of real estate
people and developers, we'll
sit. Go figure that one out.
-
Iselin Junior was way too
zoo-like for me, right from the
start. There was little sense to any
of it - going to school is one thing
but metal-shop and wood-shop
presented to people in the fair
idea of exploring career options....
please. One too many magazine
racks made from flat metal and
creased on a metal-brace, or a
shoe-shine storage box made
out of pine. I'll pass. It was
all very unsettling - to be
honest, just the fact that the
8th and 9th grade girls' sweaters
were starting to have bumps in
them freaked me out. I'd never
seen a store that sold them, so I
knew something had to be up.
The thing, the school I mean,
not the sweaters, looked like
some weird, alien spacecraft
form that had landed; all stupidly
decked out with the most pathetic
look architecture, as if made form
repellant lines. Each 'grade level
had its own 'wing' - which
meant really nothing more than
a bricked corridor jutting linearly
into some field that used to be
woods. Centering it all off was
the most boring entryway you
could imagine, BUT the icing
on this monstrous cake of goo
was the rounded/domed George
Jetson-like gymnasium which
doubled as part-time cafeteria.
It was faced in some horrid
yellowish and orange colors and
had a fiberglass and plastic
colored translucent front beneath
the arch'd area, which was supposed
to bring happiness and joy in
by allowing some sort of 'natural'
light. I never knew what these
teachers and school-people
might have been smoking, but
boy it must have been privileged
and good. To accept that melange
of madness as anything, it had
better have been good.
-
There were other black kids,
later on, in dribs and drabs,
but I have to admit that 1960
Woodbridge was lily-white
and apparently meant to stay
that way. No one ever talked
about race much, except for
the tales we'd get out of places
like Newark or Plainfield. Over
in Clark, many years later (year
2000), in Barnes & Noble, the
premise was that Clark was a
white town and we as 'bookstore'
types should know that and act
accordingly. That was a big
secret to me, what they were
trying to say, until I caught on.
What it meant was that black
faces browsing the aisles were
to be watched, because they were
probably up to no good. Can
you believe that shit! A friend
of mine there, a wonderful black
girl, working with me, and of
my age, was probably wealthier,
far better educated (this I knew),
wiser, smarter, and more dignified
that most anyone else there. To
have to operate with that premise
in mind - 'thieves' stalking the
aisles because of their color? -
was beyond the pale for me
NOT a pun, but could be).
-
It never dawned on anyone, I
guess, that someone could be
there to PURCHASE a James
Baldwin title, a Claude Brown
title, or the Autobiography of
Malcolm X, for that matter.
Ignorant white bastards, if you
ask me, were just as plentiful
and more. And their white-ass
bad-ends of nothingness were
never discussed. 'Here, Honky.
Take this copy of Manchild In
the Promised Land, The Fire
Next Time, Giovanni's Room,
and Malcolm's biography home
with you, but please pay for
them first if you have the
God-Damned white money
for them all.'
-
So, yeah man, Society presses on
advances, and moves along. No
thanks to teachers or adults; who
get stuck in their myopic ways
and usually stall by age 28 at
whatever mental age they last
were when they learned about
sex. It's just that kind of world.
We're all kindred spirits to the
ghosts of the junkheaps. I never
quite understood adults, when I
wasn't one. No hard feelings,
it was just the way it was. The
far simpler world never seemed
far simpler than anything else, I
guess because no one really knew
what was to be coming. Now
they're all dead, unless they're a
hundred years old, and that entire
raft of people took their check-out
keys, cards, and information with
them. Passwords and codes too -
we're left with some sort of an
echo by which we make, or
construct, a past. Whether it's
right or not (mostly not),
everyone buys into it.
-
My wife today came up with a
great idea. We were yet again
passing the local abortion mill
and, it being right down from
the local church (St. James),
AND their local, crazy Knights
of Columbus Hall, there are, every
day and all the open-hours time,
people there picketing - in the
most ludicrous, frontal ways :
Pictures of a foetus, Bible verses,
signs, large crosses; it's all vigil
like and quiet. I can only imagine
what goes through the head of
the poor girls on their way in for
the abortion, let alone on their
ways out, bereft of child. Regret,
sorrow, anger, who knows, but
these Catholic knuckleheads don't
help. Probably if males had to
undergo that sort of thing it would
be stopped in a week. My wife's
idea was that they go about it
all wrong - too direct, too much
frontal assault, an almost meanness.
Kathy's idea was that they'd have far
better success saving babies and
stopping abortions if they took
another tack - one of playing
on people's pride, etc, of making
them want to say, 'Oh, yeah! Not
my kid! I'll show you!' Kathy's
idea is that they should just say,
instead, on the signs, 'Go ahead,
kill your baby. The miserable
little brat would never have
amounted to anything anyway,
sniveling moron probably, and
the father's probably a lout. The
world's better off if you vacuum
that brat out, yeah!' She thinks
maternal pride would turn that
whole scene right around and
have that kid, just to prove
the others wrong. Color me
Amazed!
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