11,653. RUDIMENTS, pt. 642

RUDIMENTS, pt. 642

('can you even imagine?')

How often are we followed by

our pasts? The easy answer would

be 'always' - but perhaps that's not

true. Any number of people will

be found to say they've chucked

it all, moved somewhere, and

started anew, forgetting their

entire previous existence. At the

same time, a million people, at

any moment, remain trapped in 

their pasts. For good or bad. I'd

say, for myself, I'm trapped in

my past, solidly and forever,

but I feel it to be for the good,

as a miner is trapped in a seam

rich in ore, to be chipped at and

mined for all it's worth. So be it.

-

I never came right up to the point

of stealing cars, though others around 

me did. There were times I felt myself

getting to close to the disengagement

necessary to begin doing hard crimes

like that, and I lost interest. My primary

focus  -  as I've made clear here  - was

always in staying with my own work,

and anything that veered me off that

path (and things did, or tried) I'd

quickly recognize, and, fortunately,

do my zig back into my own lane.

And stay there, driving at my pace.

The last thing I'd ever expected

was to end up in the straits I was

in. This Andy Bonamo guy, my
of-the-moment supporter and
local bankroller, at one level

seemed to be a straight-edged

business-of-petty-drugs type, and

at the other end of the spectrum

a wholesale purveyor of criminal

steps. I always wondered about 

him; probably with some validity

too, seeing as how the entire mess

ended up. Can you say 'crash-land,'

boys and girls?
-
The weirdest thing was, back in the
day of easy-access, no alarm, cars,
was, once you 'stole' a street car,
through hot wiring, pushing in the
vent window (this stuff was all as
easy as pie back then), in the
middle of a crowded and vast
city, where were you going to go
wit your 'stolen' vehicle? The
only ways in or out were tunnels
and bridges, for one thing, easy
to be spied at if the word got out;
vehicle make, color, and all that.
Or, you'd just be stuck in some
hideous traffic, awaiting arrest. The
only real answer was a chop-shop,
local, quick, concealable, and easy.
-

From my little old perspective of

Avenel, forgetting all the other stuff

of seminary and hospital and all, the

family angle too, most 'of what I saw

came down to a refutation of that

little grade-school ethos that had 

been so naively plugged into my,

and all my buddies' and pals', heads

while growing up. The little flower

pot that School 4&5 ended up being

sure began growing some crazy 

blooms ten years on. I realized that,

other than the ABC's, there was

little validity to any of the simplified

versions of prattle we'd been exposed

to. If you look at the place now, as

indicative of 'Avenel' and 'Woodbridge'

education, it's all as apparent as a snake

crossing the road. The older of the two

school was three-floors, in the more 

rugged 1910 era of schools that was

place until that 1950's low, red-brick

and glass style of industrial schooling

replaced it. That too (that mid-American 

century style of school construction was 

up later by ridiculous additional touches,

like 'color' panels, inset, to supposedly

liven up the paucity of the red-brick

exterior. Even today, if you take a

look at Woodbridge High School

itself, you can only scratch your head 

and thing 'what sort of thoughts about

people and individuals did they really

have in the 1950's?' The place looks 

like the Sunshine Biscuit Factory

used to look out on Jernee Mill Road.

A bunker for soulless rejects; and

that was probably just the teachers!

In Avenel, Schools 4 and 5 were,

incredibly, juxtaposed right up 

against each other, and no one 

said a word! When I was in the

Biker World, later on, there was

a current 1980's/90's phrase often

used  -  about traffic jams, jumbles,

and mash-ups. I never liked the

phrase, didn't like the sound or the

image either, but it was 'cluster-fuck.'

As in, 'I don't like the looks of this,

it's turning into a cluster-fuck.' Well,

that was the general comportment of

Schools 4&5 butting into each

other, and we kids weren't even 

supposed to sense that there was

something amiss in the outpouring

of adult stupidity we'd be being

exposed to. Parents and adults

gave more thought to where

they'd be parking their cars than

to what sort of a bunghole 

environment they'd be dumping

their kids in for 7 hours or 

whatever it was a day, into. What

sort of respect did they expect

us to come away with?

-

Once I got to NYC and began

hanging with all these like

nitwits, and hearing their stories 

and tales of runaway woe, I

knew it wasn't just me. It wasn't

just Avennel and Woodbridge,

It was the entire God-awful

metropolitan area nation. Every 

kid I met was running from 

some version the same shared

nightmare, the jumbled, suburban

cluster-fuck of living, from which

we'd all fallen like some bad

sea-salt from a sticky wad of

damped-up salt in a shaker.

Doing crime seemed better

than doing (that) time. Being

a kid had been turned into a 

horror show to force one's way

out of, like a chrysalis being

torched by some blow-torch

idiot landscaper with a fire-blaster

clearing weeds with intent to kill. 

It just never stopped.

-

I knew the language pretty well;

at least in the sense of knowing

what I wished to say, in the

writing of it if not the saying.

I didn't speak much, because I 

was always inferior and felt 

nervous, and I think that's always

stayed with me, unfortunately to

the point now, in later life, where

it's simply transformed into 

paranoia and all the contortions 

that brings. Every so often, whether

in the Studio School or at some

weird loft scene or some gallery

scrimmage, I'd run across some

or a few ultimately smooth,

perfectly composed and in 

control, monied New Yorker types

and be stunned  -  by what I saw,

hell, by what I smelled. The 

girls were always spotless and

beautiful; the males, of whatever

intensity of maleness they may 

have possessed (I quickly found

out, yes, that there are and always

have been myriad levels of maleness,

approved and not, running the gay 

gamut from boys to men and girls

again. See Frank O'Hara and his

set for a fine example of that

scene), were usually faultless

as well. Sort of a 'deck shoes 

on an attic fan' type scene. Gay 

men were their own, gypsy-like,

early society, which of course,

by about 1969, blew all open

anyway.

-

I often had to just sit back and

ask myself what I was supposed

to be doing? My essential question

was most often how had I gotten

to that point? Jim Tomberg was like

my own Jackson Pollock  -  drinking,

pushing, snorting in your face and

fierce with the drink and dick. Any

of it was fair game. And I didn't wish 

to be Lee Krasner  -  even though

from what I'd learned of her she was

one equally fierce SOB, though with

a loyal and tender spot for him, to

push back at Pollock as much as

she got. I'd say, 'Jim, when does

this shit stop? What are you doing

now?' And I'd turn around and he

wouldn't even be there. He'd be

playing at being David Smith,

and all I'd see would be his hulk

behind a welder's mask and a crazy

blue flame with sparks flying. A

brazen, luck-filled drunk, welding

away like a madman. Can you

even imagine that scene?