11,842. RUDIMENTS, pt. 719

RUDIMENTS, pt. 719

(ice machine? it's over here) pt.2

Over at the swamplands,

once more, they've basically

transformed everything and

called it good. A swath of

junk wetlands, created

because of all the drainage

that was dumped into it

because of all the apartments

they built over what used

to be swamp and marshland,

they cavalierly now take it

upon themselves to spray

toxins for chemical-control

of  'Nature' and put out the

little flag sticker saying

'Danger toxic spray', etc.

then call it a 'natural preserve'

named after some drunk

guy from 25 years ago no

one now knows a thing about

except for the mythology

they give him. Ernie Oros?

He's at the old Planko's Bar

in Fords. That's OK, because

fiction is cool and today's

little psychotic dweebs will

fall for anything if you give

them a 'leading' role. Don't

take it from me, go ahead and

ask his nephew. We worked 
together at Barnes & Noble. I've
got all the stories to tell. All
good. Right near there too, where

Dafcik's junkyard kingdom

was, they've since allowed in

about a thousand apartments

or more, a roost ruled by

Russians. Immigrant thugs

who keep throwing me out of

there, right where supposedly

the pathway, marked for

walking and kept nice, is no

longer township land and has

been ceded over to these Russian

security thugs who've now put up 'no 
trespassing, not a public walkway' 
fence signs. Privilege goes to the 

purloined, I suppose. They're big

and mean and ugly, the guys,

but I've noticed they're also

dumb as shit; which Is OK

for Avenel. That's never been

considered a negative and

they usually give you a badge.

Dafcik's was a great old place,

an oil hole and machine shop

fire-pit right in the middle

of same great, old oil woods,

and the father and some sons

running it  -  coolest people

in the world if you got to know

them. The gear-world is much

different from what passes as

the regular world; and that's

where we all should be. In that

gear world, because at least it's

truthful.

-

On the opposite side of that road

from where that particular junk

yard was, we used to dig giant

holes, beneath the fences of the

internment camp, and escape the

people out, as best we could. No

one in there deserved to be

in there  -  actually, to phrase

that better -  the people who

really deserved being in there

were not the ones in there. I

think that puts it better, Zirpolo.

Jacks. Etc. The real subversives

and criminals. I forget how it

went, but those two, in particular,

eventually got bagged and did

their time. Unfortunately, they got

to keep their graft and corruption

money, but gave it all to charity.

The guys we got out of there,

Mr. Metro used to feed, (he'd

throw us a bunch of sandwiches

and some cookies and stuff from

his little store on Avenel Street,

never letting his wife in on it),

and my father would throw

the guys in his upholstery van

and we'd high-tail them up to

127 Newark Ave., in Jersey City,

an office for some guy named
Ron Zampetto or somesuch, I forget 
exactly but it was someplace like just 
after Grove Street and Marin Street

or Ave., from which point some

other guys would eventually

get them to 'Live Free or Die'

New Hampshire. Anything

was better than New Jersey

for them. That's how I got to

know the truck-route to Jersey

City, even better than the old

Skyway. The truck route would

take you, at the cemetery on

your right, right up to Newark

Street. Now it's all South Asians,

crawling everywhere, but back

then it was either Polish white

or nasty Puerto Rican and black.

That was just the way it went

back then; 'Who am I to judge?'

as the Pope recently said. He's

the Pope, for Christ's sake. What

a jerk. He's all about judging.

-

Anyway, see my point was about

how a person has to set their own 

standards of action so as to set

the points wherefrom you would

pivot into personal activism. A

person can dream along and drift

all they want, but there does come

time when action gets called for,

either to answer a betrayal or to

respond to personal growth which

has taken one past the point of origin

that had set the original standards.

I can remember there was a time

 when the 1960's news-magazines

would run a 'kudos' list for all the

in demand people of the moment 

who'd spoken at college graduations.

It was all most always the same

boilerplate prognostication about

taking charge of change, not 

being afraid of who you can be, 

and about corralling the inner 

forces and knowledge 'now'

at your disposal. It was all

horse manure, and they ate it

all up  -  especially now when it's

mostly media stars and stand-out 

fools still reciting the same prattle. 

Rah-rah sis's-boom box. Or

however that goes.

-

I distilled my life into a few basic

preliminaries. Try to have nothing.

Try to reciprocate for nothing, but

give out for everything. Expect

nothing back. Live tightly, pull

everything back in, hold it all close

to the vest, and stay in command.

-

That internment camp I was

mentioning, It's now turned

into an entire Nation. No one

knows or realizes any longer the

level of senile dementia they're 

living under, because it's all done 

so nicely and without apparent limits.

Which is, exactly, the limit. Their

point exactly : 'We've got you, and

you don't even know you've been

gotten. How do you want your

Kool-Aid? Iced, or room temp.?

Freedom of choice, you know.

The most telling aspect of this all

is how it then gets handed down

from the passage of generation to

generation  -  the simple problem,

however, is the basic lack of 

understanding.
(part 3 next).