12,973. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,115

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,115

(being the set-up guy for a magazine swindler)

My main quirk was that I didn't

always comprehend things in the

same manner others did. My

first, peculiar, little job was in

Perth Amboy, as I've said,

selling magazine subscriptions,

or trying to, door to door.

The guy would drop us off 

on some residential street,

mostly either in Perth Amboy 

or Elizabeth  -  we never knew

until he got rolling. He'd pick

us up in his VW, out front at

the Avenel Firehouse, the old

one, smaller, red brick, that

used to be there and it had a

bench out front, by where the

old fire-clanger used to be 

displayed. I'd just gotten the

heave-ho from the seminary,

and, having to finish that

miserable senior year of high

school locally  - which was a

useless and boring-to-hell mess

of nothing, I was ready to do

most anything to keep my new

and weird game rolling. So I

went for this slum-doofus job I

saw advertised in the classifieds 

the back of the old News Tribune,

and answered the ad. It was in

downtown Perth Amboy, some

walk-up office, 2nd or 3rd floor,

right across from that synagogue

I mentioned. The guy's name was

Ed. He didn't care nothing about

me, but determined immediately I

could walk and talk and even do

both at the same time, so that was

good enough for him. Some other

guy I used to know, interestingly

enough, from grade school, Jim, 
a local Avenel  guy, like me, also

got one of the jobs, and we'd both

be there together on that bench, for

the ride, and the evening's work 

(something like 4:o0 to maybe

8:00, four times a week. It was

miserable, but we'd double team 

the streets wherever he let us off.

Ed would hang around the town

and the area, for those hours. I

never knew what he did, but bars

and ladies had something to do 

with it, now and then anyway.

If we got any leads that needed

closing, he'd go to the house and

seal the deal. That never happened

too much, maybe 3 or 4 times a week,

Only. I never figured how he made

any money. He paid us $1.25, the

minimum hourly wage, and used 

gas, a car, and whatever else was 

the expense of running a surefire 

business to nowhere. All these 

ladies, housewives, mostly, that I 

talked to were always busy cooking  

-  mostly Spanish or Puerto Rican 

people, with the smells of all that

cooking permeating the halls and 

lobbies of the apartment houses

and walk-ups. Mostly, as is or was

normal for Amboy and Elizabeth, it

was some large home that had been

broken up for 3 or 4 families to live

in. So each house meant a number

of rings and talks. You had to sell

like 3 or 4 subscriptions at a time,

some dumb, fake 'package' deal

we were told (he made it up). So,

for like 7 bucks a year, times 4,

they would get a group of magazines

monthly. We had to find out their

interests, so as to suggest their

'custom' package of subscriptions.

It was all really stupid, but I did

learn how to talk and finagle, prey

on people's interests, act convincingly

sweet, and all that salesmanship

crap you never learn about except

by doing in a slave-labor context.

If they said they liked gardening

and cooking, say, and their husband

was into cars, and they had a 'pretty'

daughter (lots did, and I often was

more interested in that angle as I

talked), who liked fashion, I'd whip

up a Good Housekeeping, a Home &

Garden, a Road & Track, and a

Glamour, magazine packet for

them. Acting all wise and cool as

I did it. It was such lame crap, and

it was the cold months of the year,

with coats and cold and then sweat

and discomfort in the warm houses

and odiferous surroundings. I was

never real keen on it and by May

I'd quit anyway. I just stopped

showing up. The guy was always

ragging on me, because the ladies

would often fall for my spiel, but

when he went to finalize and get 

the dough, they most often backed 

off and changed their mind. Probably 

because he was half drunk, and for 

all I know lecherous too. That wasn't 

my problem; I'd done my lame-ass 

part and I'd get paid; but it never 

made for good vibes and the entire 

job stunk. I don't know whatever

happened to Jim, the other guy, if

he stayed  on or if he quit too. We 

never talked too much, but he 

hated the ordeal as much as I

did. Actually, he died from drugs

in the 1990's. That much I know,

which would have made him about

45 or 50, I guess.

-

Just for spite, my dream was always

to get some woman who'd say to

me that the only interest she had was

sex, and ask then for a packet of hot

magazines, I guess for her husband, 

asking for Hustler, Oui, Stag, and 

Playboy. You know, for the articles. 

Then she'd throw me down on the 

couch, poor sales-boy that I was,

while the stove was boiling away, 

and have crazy 5-minute sex with 

me. Then I'd go tell the jerk Ed to 

'go finish the deal, she's all ready 

for you.' That's was my dream

deal anyway, leaving out the 

daughter part.

-

Elizabeth was mostly just a larger

version of Perth Amboy, but with

a somehow harder edge. It's still 

like that, except they've both now

turned to rot. Mayoral corruption,

like everywhere else, police and jail

and prison problems, pockets of

poverty and want, even in  the

smallest of neighborhoods, and

only another bunch of crooks and

saddle-polishers stealing all the 

gravy while the places self-destruct

or sell themselves away to highest

bidder national chains and junk-shops

galore. That's what loyal Americans

get now for the faith and fealty in

the system. The same system I got

to glimpse by those five or six months

of selling crap: Poor people in their

meager homes and hovels, and some

fool like me trying to nail them for

25 bucks for some tawdry, stupid

consumer magazines to make them

drool and want more of what they

couldn't get anyway. That's how

the seeds of unrest and discontent

are sown. It was already apparent 
to me that this crazy country, with all
 all its Chevy Impalas and Cadillacs
and the rest, set itself up for a fall,
eventually and at some future time  
(like now?) by building always upon 
its own discontent. It could have
been a nice, happy, place, but the
idea behind the dollar crap was
always to push 'more', 'more', and
and jam junk they really couldn't deal 
with or pay for, down people's throats. 
That never brings happiness; just, later, 
a grueling anger and apprehension. In
Belgium, they built abbeys, and drank
beer, and were never heard from 
again, living nice, internal lives. Here?
Turmoil and endless garbage magazines
to push fantasy wants and pretend at
information and news.
-
Even at that young age,

I should have known; and I did,

actually, but I never quite knew 

what came over me. I got to

see two, gutted, cities, already

floundering in Winter, '67, from

the real insides out : foods, smells,

interiors, how people lived, what

burdens they seemingly carried, how

ever in the world they birthed so

many kids, and all the rest. I saw,

as well, enough really bad interiors

that I could have probably been a

really successful interior decorator

and made tons of money just by 

doing the opposite of every interior

I saw in those many-times-miserable

apartments and rooms.