12,805. RUDIMENTS, pt.1,052

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,052
(up the junction)

Back in the 70's or whenever it was,

I was endlessly hanging around,

always trying to find a different

way to get to the same old endings,

or much the same anyway. There

were a lot of times I was really way

off, and unsure of myself. Things

I think about now bear little relation

to then. Hard to say, but my friends

of those years are dead. Period.

Maybe one or two girls I remember

are still out there somewhere. Tucson

way, El Paso. They all gravitated to

odd places. And they were odd people

too  -  the Tucson girl was from Elmira,

had grown up there, and lived there

when I met her. Corning, Bentley

Creek; different nowhere places. Then

she ended up in Tucson, and that was

it, like for forever. There was a time too

when she'd taken up with some fireman

guy up in Syracuse. We moved her with

a big truck and all that, and turned out

the guy had 2 young boys from a previous

marriage. That 'being Mom' stuff didn't

work for her at all, and she was back to

Elmira in about 5 months. Same old

move, just a reverse. It was OK. Once

or twice, years after that, she drove

cross-country, to Metuchen, and stayed

with us. Pretty cool. Pretty surprising

too. She's the one, I've related this

before, who always played 'Burn Down

the Mission,' by Elton John, on, I think,

the album 'Tumbleweed Junction. She

said it reminded her of me. She had

a sex-calorie chart too, framed, large,

above her bed. I've told that story too.

Interesting way to lose weight.

-

Then there was some girl from El Paso.

Now that name, I forget, except she

was half Mexican and half British, and

had the looks of a Mexican girl but

had a last name quite British, though

I forget. Like Manuela Schreiber-Cox;

something like that. It sounded rich

and proper, but she wasn't. Anyway

it was stuff like that I always enjoyed,

or ended up enjoying  -  the paradoxical

juxtapositions. The whimsical natures.

It was so easy to just be dour; especially

up in Elmira, where most everyone

was poor. It's funny about being poor.

No one ever asks about it. No one flat

out says, 'Are you poor?' Especially

when everyone's in pretty much the

same boat. I don't know how rich

people do it, around candle-lit

dinners and all, comparing their

investments and financial notes,

but poor people sure don't get

involved in that, except maybe

in the negative sense. 'I don't have

a pool, and I never did get approved

for that new car. How about you?'

And the other person, eating from

a bag of Fritos, says, 'No, Neither

do it, and I was refused credit for

the billiard table and the outside

deck.' They just can't go around

concerning themselves about that.

I learned, mostly from Elmira and

Pennsylvania days, that poverty

isn't that bad, if everyone's in the

same boat, pretty much. People

start sharing potatoes and re-using

each other's clothing. Pretty weird.

At tht level of existence, life turns

into necessity  -  so that if you're

living in  a distressed, rural area,

way out nowhere, the support

networks are different. The banks

are always at the ready, throwing

some sufficient, necessary cash

at you; arranging your terms and

setting up your household. So you

or your kids don't die and can stay

fed and in school, and sensible and

at least partly sane. That's the

difference too, even in politics  - 

you get those representatives and

such, from distressed areas, and

they play it all one way. It's only

the tyrannical bigwigs from

expensive places, like the cities

or joints like Cos Cob or Short

Hills or Main Line Philadelphia,

who play it all differently; not

understanding poverty at all,

they misread the entire map;

looking out for themselves,

mainly, and that's it. Go ask

the people of middletown and

Rumson, say, about Frank Pallone.

The guy's a twisty geek, but they

love him  -  and they get the

dough and the nice streets. Places

here, like Woodbridge and Avenel,

we get wanked on  -  layers of dead

meat, poor people thrown in like

fleas, substandard projects and

bussed-in poor people from other

dead places now too wrecked to

even be fixed. It's a wheel of time,

turning, Soon enough, that up-wheel

here will start the down-wheel slide,

as all these new people ruin their

new places and start demanding new

places again  -  all over again. Same

rotten deal begins again, but in

some place new. Thirty years from

now the whole of Woodbridge

will look like old Bunn's Lane

did. And a tax headache besides.

-

I threw my own caution to the

winds a long time ago. In NYC,

some of my best compatriots

were marginal characters. They

were criminals too. I've got a

couple of stories about guys

being stalked, going from rooftop

to rooftop, with a pistol and a

bag full of whatever. Some got

killed, some 'jumped.' Things

didn't always work out. I've written

a lot of tales in these 'Rudiments,'

and 'Leaving It All Again,' and

'Below the Water Line' episodes,

and it's all true. I can't expect any

one reader to take it all in, so

sometimes I repeat and tell the

same tale a little differently, but

the lessons are the same. I leave

everything on the table and no

moralization. Things I leave

alone, mainly, are the weird ones,

like that 'Negotiator for Extra

Terrestrials' one, Rarleighbourne

Fischbein. And lots of the girl

stories too, I left out, because

they're just no longer politically

correct or acceptable, and I get

tired of the same drab complainers.

Not worth it now.

-

When I lived in Pennsylvania, my

father, whenever he'd be up visiting,

always got up in arms to make sure

to tell me to NOT lay a hand on

the neighboring farmer's (Warren)

daughter, with whom/for whom I 

often worked. She was about 15 maybe

and, yeah, I admit, really well

done, nicely matured, and enticing 

too. He was always afraid I'd be

dumb enough to take her up in 

the hayloft one day and have my

smirking way with her. I'm not

sure if he viewed her as the

enticer or me, but he always got

into a nervous wreck over it; fearing 

I'd be shot or something. I'd say,

'Dad, stop it. What do you think

I am?' He never fully answered

that, but I often, in turn, wondered,

'Why's that always on his mind?'

-

See how I've left that now, just

a 'little' open-ended for you?

That's kind of a writerly trick to

snare your interest. Note now how

I'm not saying anything, really,

but letting all those dark clouds

and faint suspicions lurk and

fester. All this, over a girl who'd

never even seen an ocean. Ever.

I'd rather have shown her that.

-

Back in the beginning here, I

made mention of 'Burn Down

the Mission.' Two other songs,

from those days, stick in my

had too. Kind of just defining a

time that's hazy and otherwise

probably quite dull. One was a

song by a group named 'Squeeze.'

It was titled 'Up the Junction,'

and it always fascinated me. Just

a wonderful tune, in my head, 

back then. And another, a little

weirder, was by a guy named

Kinky Friedman. He called

himself 'The Jewish Cowboy.'

He had a song entitled 'Ariel.'

Whether is was Shakespeare's

Tempest from which it came, 

or not, I never knew. But I

always dug that song too.