12,800. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,049

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,049

(old avenel, I guess)

I always had gotten a kick out 

of the word 'sundries,' used in

stores and such. I think it meant

like little woven things, cloth

stuff, handkerchiefs and socks

and junk. Seemed like it anyway.

Nowadays all I'd have to do 

would be to look it up, but

that takes some of the fun 

away. Old Mrs. Kuzmiak,

over by the school, near the 

end of where I lived, she had

a sundries shop. After her

husband died she ran it alone

for many years. When we first

moved there, my mother shopped 

at it now and then, and I went

in too. It wasn't much, in fact for

a boy it was downright boring.

Little glass cases, in narrow rows,

some open and others not. All

these silly little cloth things

were laid in order, priced and

arrayed. Baby bibs, kerchiefs,

gloves and mittens; like I

said, woven stuff, nothing of 

a boy's interest at all. Boys

weave tales. That was the

difference, for me. She had

these weird, yellowish sunshades

over a few small windows, and 

they let in  like an ochre light, 

which in itself was either weird 

or eerie. I couldn't ever tell. She

was already an older lady. Most

of the Moms and women I knew

were still young, mid 20's say.

Al us kids who'd just moved in,

all we ever saw was more kids,

new babies and infants cluttering

things up. I guess all that was 

good for Mrs. Kuzmiak, and her

business, but, really, she was

old-line Avenel and probably 

knew the place from the 1920's.

We all knew nothing of that. What's

a kid supposed to know anyway,

getting plopped into some distant

town from where they were born,

in brand-new little houses. There's

no way a child could learn or

have knowledge of any old past,

and as far as I ever saw Mrs.

Kuzmiak wasn't talking much.

About it, anyway. She never 

talked, it seemed, to kids, though

she talked well enough to the

Moms who came in for stuff,

but it was mostly business.

In fact, outside of her church

connections, she probably 

never ran into them again. 

My mother got to know her

from church  -  Sodality and

all those ladies' groups they had.

But otherwise she was pretty

much a nobody, in real-world

terms, to any of the newcomers.

There was a big turnover going

on, and I'm not sure she got it.

All the homes behind her store,

on Fifth and Park and Madison,

(imagine those mimicy New

York names in a dump like

Avenel?) were older homes,

even if they were just 1920's

bungalows and small-frame

jobs, and they'd been her and

her husband's real clientele for

probably 30 years. Whatever we

represented to her, it couldn't

have been much. She was old,

and soon enough all those new 

highway strip-stores and new

malls and department stores

were wiping her business away 

anyway. Nowadays she'd have

been shoplifted blind anyway,

not that a thief wants socks or

knit-gloves, but all that open

stock, for the taking, would 

have been too much. It would

be a practice run. Six people in

the place was a lot; and it was

long and deep, narrow enough so

that all an accomplice had to do

was keep her busy down one

end, with questions or samples,

anything stupid, and the other

person could rob from the other

end like there was no tomorrow.

Craziest set-up back in those

old days. But, it wasn't like

petty crime played any part

in Avenel. There were plenty

of bigger crimes underway  -  

all anyone had to do was get

themselves elected to be 

involved. The mayonnaise 

dwarfed the sandwich.

-

I mentioned before, 'Sodality.'

That was, I think, some church

ladies group over at St. Andrew's

that my mother got involved with.

As a kid, I never got the name, 

what it meant or anything. And

then, about 1980, when all the Lech 

Walesa and Polish uprising stuff

took place, I used to chuckle

about how it so much resembled 

the name of their rebel worker's 

movement : Solidarity.

-

Mrs. Kuzmiak, as it turned out,

ended up just being a crank. She

once go my mother all riled up

by asking her about me. 'What

happened to Gary?' Meaning

'Why did the little seminary boy

get so lost? Whatever happened

to turn him into what he now 

is?'' My mother took it as a real 

offense,  meaning how and why 

did she lose such control over 

me? I had to hear about it a long 

time, and all thanks to that crusty,

dead-mind of Mrs. Kuzmiak, the

town's local merchant of woven

goods. My mother took it all upon

herself, and went crazy with

embarrassment and grief over

being singled out like that, 

because of me. I said, 'Mom

get over it. What's she know?'

And it was true too. What did

she know? Not much of anything

except the old and the tired.

She didn't even know how,

about 1959, some lecherous,

odd-looking guy used to lurk,

right out in front of her store,

and show all us lunchtime kids

from the school across the street,

playing cards with all sorts of

naked ladies and dirty sex pictures

on the back. The entire deck. 

Undressed babes, sexual

positions. One time he even 

said, to Jim Yacullo and me,

'Look at that! She's got the whole

thing in her mouth!' We had

no clue what in the heck he 

was getting at, never realizing

'that' as a dessert. But this

lecherous guy, time after time,

was drooling over it. I suppose,

today, someone would have

squealed on him and he'd have

been hauled away as a major

sex-pervert. Old Avenel,

I guess.
-
There were, then, at any one
time, so many conflicting layers
of time and memory within Avenel. 
There was some car-club guys, the
Royal-Knights or somesuch gibberish,
who would sit out nightly at the
school-wall, on Avenel Street,
which wall once seemed 4 or 5 feet
high but is now, in reality, perhaps
 2 feet at most. I guess they were
all about the 'James Dean 18'
age. Hair back then was in a
'ducktail' if totally cool; upswept,
slick. There was plenty of that.
A a few pointy-breasted girls too;
they were usually hanging around,
and I'll admit to never really
'noticing' their finer points (that's
a wordplay) until after that older
man dirty-pictures guy got us
noticing the fairer sex. I don't know
if they bought their pointy-bras
at Mrs. Kuzmiak's or not, but I'd
bet she had some dirt on each
one of them. The suave car guys,
momentary idols for about one
Summer, had '56 Fords, and
'58 Chevies (very new then,
actually), and besides that, they'd
have the car-club plaque hanging 
beneath the rear license plate. The 
cars were most often tinkered with 
and lowered too, at the rear, to the
point where the real 'science' was
in getting low enough, just so,
so that the car-club plaque
didn't scrape.
-
Old Avenel Street, with that sundried
sundries store, was sure then
something else indeed.