RUDMENTS, pt. 1,113
(to leer and lust forever)
I admit to having had plenty
of other things to do than work
in some stupid old bakery, but
there was a period of time where,
yes, I was trying to learn about
where I'd fit in. I sold magazines,
door to door, for a while, not
just 'magazines,' but rather
subscription packets of 3 or 4
magazines at a time, in some
sort of clumped-interest group,
to housewives who'd answer
the 4pm doorbell along the
lonely streets of Elizabeth,
Linden and Perth Amboy, NJ.
I was supposed to engage the
ladies in conversation, find
out their interest, whether
gardening or cooking or
fashion, etc., and find out,
as well, if their husbands
liked sports. From that info
I was supposed to quick-think
a grouping of, say Redbook,
Good Housekeeping, Sports
Illustrated, and Reader's Digest.
For like 14 bucks or something,
they'd get their subscriptions,
and we'd get some 3 bucks or
so for the deal. It was a lousy
racket, what with cooking, kids,
poverty and, lest I forget, brutal
husband, not home, more on their
minds than magazines and shelling
out money they didn't really have.
Some housewives talked. The ladies
were usually in fear of him, and
often used that as the excuse to
say no. We were supposed to
see that coming, and somehow
fight it off with charm. I mostly
hated the lousy cooking smells
in those apartment halls and
lobbies, or, in private homes,
the kids and crap always
floating around. The ladies
were often fine, and fun
sometimes. Nothing ever
happened, but I could tell that
sometimes, maybe, a 16-year
old boy would have been a
new delight for them. That
little light went on.
-
Places such as Elizabeth were
horrid. I never figured out what
sort of 'identity' as a small city
that place had tried to achieve,
but apparently it was none, or
it had failed so miserably as to
never have been mentioned
again. At this time, most of the
white-flight had already occurred.
Most of my house-hits ended up
being Spanish, or Puerto Rican,
or Cuban. It was pretty limited.
The Jews had dwindled, though
one or two craggly synagogues
were still left. Italians and Poles
were dwindled to nothing - many
of them, in fact, having moved
ten miles or so down Rt. One
to Avenel and Woodbridge! Nay,
even to Inman Ave itself! There
might have been movement along
that corridor, but it wasn't much
of a 'move' actually, neither by
distance or economics. Same crud,
different day. Elizabeth was totally
without a theme, and certainly
without any prevailing sense of
architecture, presence, wisdom,
or knowledge either. Man, the
dregs of central Jersey ruled!
That may have been the real
beginning of something, because
now the same theft and corruption
that ran downward from Hugh
Addonizio's Newark (jailtime),
to the same stream of operations
from Bollwegs or whatever the
name was, to Zirpolo and McCormac
and Vas, ran right down the same
sewer lines. They learn this stuff
in school, these sorts.
-
You could tell, just by the air, that
so much was wrong. That people
were hurting, but no one cared;
that people were being allowed in,
the immigrants and laborers, just
to push and shove the failing
industrial product of that entire
wharfside of New Jersey, but just
as numbers and digits, not people.
No one cared for any of them;
instead, the usual icy pols would
take and steal, maneuver and
finagle, so they'd walk off shining
and the heaps of the beleaguered
would be left behind to squirm
until - as in Elizabethport (at the
far-eastern section at the waterfront)
would, by 1980, become a sick,
drug-infested disease hole slum
later destroyed and razed and
now used (go see it for yourself),
as a conduit, like Avenel, for the
crooked flow of housing and
'development' monies that
advance nothing as much as
disrespect, dishonor, lies and
cheating. And these political scums
still go to church, with their families
and little kiddies, and still profess
to their upstanding sense of right.
-
When I was in the Biker world,
down in 'the Port,' as it was
called, the outlaw biker bar of
that day was a place called 'Ajax.'
Maybe it was Ajax's, or meant to
be, but it was just called to as
Ajax. Tough-ass place too, and
the club guys who hung there,
big-time Jersey swooners, could
just as soon peel your skin back,
rape your wife, and leave both
in the gutter when done. One
had to be extremely careful
about comportment in that
crowd. Been there. Done that.
(As it used to be said). I'd
sometimes be in Ajax and think
back to those old magazine selling
days, imagining any one of the
guys in there as the squirming
neighborhood kids I'd see when
they were 5 or 6 and I was selling
magazines to their mamas, and
checking them, and her too, with
leer and lust (two buddies of
mine). Their was a brutal sense
of 'justice' in that world, bad as
it may have been; bit I often did
conclude that any number of the
political types around - and their
wives - should have faced that.
They'd learn real quick.
-
The world, yes, is now so changed
that no one would ever think of
sending some creepy teen boys
along the street knocking on doors,
engaging horny housewives, and
trying to peddle them 'magazines'
named Swindle. They'd probably
now all come to the door with
their phone, totally pre-occupied,
and with anything of their interests
already downloaded and on screen.
So much for me, and my two
buddies, Leer and Lust.
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