11,846. RUDIMENTS, pt. 720

RUDIMENTS, pt. 720

(a finger into the.....wind?) pt. 3

So, I never knew my real

mother and father  -  that's

how it felt anyway. My

mother would call me a

name which I never at first

even had a clue about: It

began as...'So who are you?

Ish Kabbible?' and then

just fell out to simply Ish

Kabbible. It was a young

kid gag, and I just went

with it. She also said, a

lot, with some incredulous

voice she put on : 'I like

me, who do you like?' -

which was her signal to

me that I was getting too

big for my britches. As it

turns out, there was an Ish

Kabbible, oddly enough, a

kind of funny guy, gag man,

clumsy lout. He had a career

of that. I didn't often know

where she sourced her material

from. As a kid, she was in some

sort of rickets and rheumatic

fever kids' camp for Summers,

in a place called Hibernia, NJ.

maybe it was part Vaudeville

Circuit too. Funny, isn't is,

how, as a kid, you learn things,

hear things, etc., and they all

stick, without any meaning.

Once you reach the point

where you can maybe apply

the meaning, they've become

things you can't recall.

-

What you can't recall, you

make up. How's that? And 

that brings me to this: I have 

something more to give you.

My collection of gold goblets 

filled with words is  -  I'm 

sorry to say  -  coming your

way. Down in the swamps

there, where Mrs. Gasperi 

and her son lived (she was

a local substitute teacher,

often around), there were also

a few remnants of Indian

families  -  American Indians,

not the South Asians of

today's Gujurat influx, nor

the Paki's of Panundrustam

either. These were a few

leftovers, living quietly and

silently, in a few squalid sort

of old homes out in the wooded

areas of the fens and swamps.

My friend learned to drive

in those areas, with his father

(and me along once or twice)

in their '57 Chevy. It was kind

of the place of choice to teach

your kid to drive, even though

there's no difference between

a dent there and a dent anywhere

else  -  like from hitting a tree

or a tree stump. This particular

Chevy was a base model, three

speed on the column, lots of

bucking and jumping, at first.

I guess he did eventually catch

on. I can't remember, except

I can't recall any crashes either.

The car was never crashed, nor

did anything ever drip from the

oil pan, so I guess it all went

OK. problem was, I'm not real

sure if my friend ever really got

'road-worthy' from just that one

bit of training. But, in any case,

like Indians on a reservation,

those local natives never much

budged. One or two of them

were paper-route stops, out in 

the fens, for the Star-Ledger 

(a Newark paper back then, 

not really local at all. My own

father used to say, 'Why would I

read that? I don't live in Newark.

He read the local junk paper, in

its few variations over time as

the Perth Amboy Evening News,

the Perth Amboy News-Tribune,

then simply The News-Tribune,

the the Home-News Tribune, and

lastly, the Home News. Funniest

part was, on Sundays my father

would suddenly become a global

citizen of the world or something,

and buy the Sunday Daily News.

Big reaching-out that must have

been, for him). Those far-flung

few houses, with the Indians, we

called the 'Way-Outs.' No name,

just the Way-Outs, because they

were a farther trip afield than

the rest. Never words spoken,

just the knock on the door, and,

every few weeks, the needed

payment to keep it going. I

never saw any of the Indian

kids in school, and I don't

know what the deal was. Paul

Gasperi, on the other hand, was

always around, and seemed 

sheltered.

-

I'm not aware that any of them

knew about the concentration 

camp, or the prison for Reds.

The word hardly even made it

up to Inman Avenue. I think

a lot of it was government 

concealment. My father for a 

while, about 1957 or '58, was 

a VP and an active member of 

the local First-Aid Squad, on

Avenel Street. He'd tell of the

calls sometimes  -  like the

stabbings and beating over at

Rahway Prison, just past the 

tracks, calls to which they 

answered because even though 

the name said Rahway, it was 

really Avenel, and, after some 

years of squabble, in the 

McGreevey era, they just

changed the whole mess to 

'East Jersey State Prison,' and

of course, even though it was

'official' with signs and all,

that name never stuck and it's

still called Rahway Prison by

real people. Maybe just not by

the river-rats in the two town

halls  -  who have nothing better

to do except go to the bank, and

squabble over such things, as 

all around the area of the prison

they turn the lands to further shit.

Now the way they have it, if you

have one of those weird kids, 

instead of putting him or her

in that State School (closed up),

you can get a Government-sponsored

subsidized apartment for you and

your ward and have a nice view

of cellblock 29! Right across

the street! Well, Hell, that

oughta' do it for you and

the kid.

-

That whole area's a mess now.

Kind of unconscionable, but they

don't know the difference. A

politician's just a rat in people

clothing  -  taking people's money,

spreading it around to everywhere

else in the usual unofficial scam

practice of buying votes, which 

is all it all is when you come right

down to it. In my Biker days, I

used to deal with Frank Pallone.

He's a really deadbeat political cog

who would occasionally pander

even to motorcycle people in their

quest to get helmet laws repealed

(NJ failed. Pennsylvania was

successful  -  go into Pennsylvania

someday and watch all the cool

bikers with no helmet. Like we had

here, until 1967 when the safety

homos started making everything

mandatory, as if a person couldn't

think for their own self). Whenever

we had a 'BikePac' donation for him,

he'd show up greedily and have a

few of us meet him at the Metuchen

Post Office, where he could be

visible 'meeting' with his constituents,

(but not too visible, with us), and

answering people's questions, in a 

general 'meet and greet' format, with

us there and soon so forgotten.

That stuff is all part of any

politician's scam  - even the local,

low-life ones who claim they're not

'politicians,' but who jam your finger

for you, into your own butt, and

then tell you, "Go ahead! It smells 

so good!' Yep, that's how they have

things now. Even the McCarthy era

internment camp in the old swamps

was and is a fuzzy notion that I

sometimes think I dreamed, but 

the old record books attest to the

passage off bodies, forms, and

souls all through there. Like the

buffaloes I mentioned a few

chapters back, at the old buffalo

farm that the seminary used to be  - 

it's hard to believe, but it was there.

-

Did you know that buffalo (bison)

never walk their distances  -  and

they do long distances  -  in a straight

line? They can't. The way their eyes

protrude, off, out from their head, 

they see actually less 'straight ahead'

than really more like two different 

views of left and right. So they walk

with the head cocked a bit, one eye

trying to see ahead, the other raked

at sort of a rear/left or rear/right

angle, and they compensate for that

by walking someways leftward, and 

then some ways rightward, all the

while watching from predators, 

hunters, men who'd kill them (they

went down by the thousands, for

years, right up until the stupid

white man had them just about

wiped out). "From where their

eyes are situated in their head, 

they cannot see directly in front, 

but neither can they look backward

on account of their immense, shaggy

shoulder." (George Catlin). So, 

their path is never  straight. Yet, 

it was always considered the best 

path; 'If you want to get anywhere, 

find a buffalo path, and take it.'

One thing that amazed me too, 

was that all my learning had taught

me that most of America's early

wagon paths and then roads, and

then highways, had mostly

originated as early Indian paths.

That always made sense to me, 

and I left it at that. Then I found 

out  -  those Indian trails? They'd

all first been buffalo trails, which

the Indians watched and traversed

very carefully. Lastly, this all sort

of has to do with local politics, if 

you figure eyes that can't focus,

and eyes that look left, and right,

to find 'direction', like that swanky

politician's gay finger in the wind.

Speaking of which wind, the buffalo

walked  - at ALL times  -  into the 

wind. They didn't check the wind 

first and then go they the wind 

was going. A buffalo  -  singly or

in a herd  -   walked INTO the 

wind  -  so it could smell the 

danger, smell the hunter, smell 

the white man, and, smell water, 

which they could smell miles 

away. And as that wind shifted,

they shifted with it, even if it

brought them right back to where

they'd been, more or less. The

pathways of the bison were

odd, for sure.
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last of pts. 1, 2, and 3