RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,262
(if you don't do those things, that won't happen....)
Bars and taverns. Manhattan and
Brooklyn. Like Queens and New
Jersey, it all gets confusing : the
distant outlying places little
matter. The heart of the taste is
in the middle of the meat.
-
'They want to go somewhere,
yes, but what is it that's after
them to drive them on so?'
'They are after themselves,
it's a destiny that propels.'
-
There have always been things
I didn't know. At the other end
of Inman Avenue was a place
called Abbe Lumber. What in
the world was 'Abbe?' It seemed
like a fairly new yard, as lumber
yards go, and with all of the new
homes just plopped down along
those new streets right there -
Inman Ave, Clark Place, Monica
Court, and Madison Ave too -
it seemed set to be soon very
flush with customers, buyers
of new wood for their new
needs, and even the usual
hardware store stuff of
screwdrivers, lawn-mowers
and garden tools. There
really may have been some
substance to the idea of 'being
in the right place at the right
time.' But, nonetheless, the
idea irked - about that name.
'Abbe?' Not Abbey, not Abe's.
The guy(s) were Jewish (I
wasn't aware of that stuff
then), so maybe 'Abies?' if
the guy was named Abe. Or
maybe two guys, Aaron
and Bob, merged their names
into a neologistic 'A-B?' I
never found out. That lumber
yard prospered over the years,
and went through two or three
facelifts, losing its bunker-like
original front to a much more
customer-friendly glass and
showcase-windows face, and
displaying wares too : rakes,
mowers, shovels and electric
tools, and paint.
-
For a while, unfortunately,
I'd have problems there, as
I passed. A hoot or a holler.
There'd be signs in the window,
posted and changed every so
often, like: 'Long hair is for
girls. Which are you?' or the
other usual crap, referring to
the Vietnam War stuff, like
'America, Love It or Leave It,'
or the 'Support out troops' kind
of crap you still now and then
see. I used to want to give them
shit back, about how I never
saw black people entering or
leaving. But their superior-act
of suburban hostility just
bothered me to the extent of
ignoring them instead.
-
It was the same across the street,
sometimes even worse. You
need first to understand my place:
Avenel Street, at this location, at
Schools 4&5 and the underpass
and the train station and the little
wall were teen-aged and punk
hot-rodders hung out, was in all
essentials a garbage-bag of the
unsightly (it's worse now). Plain
as imitation silk. Shoddy, run-down,
enfeebled, lost, and lonely, as only
forlorn places can be. No street
life, little activity, an rundown
old storefronts, mostly vacated.
There was this dump, next to
Murray and Martha's Candy
Store, that was called Tom's Barber
Shop. All the usual, 20x30 feet,
maybe, space for two or three
barber chairs and a rack of barber
tools and liquids at each, with
chairs facing a large mirror. That
was all normal, but the place
always had, seemingly, these
VFW types of old geezers sitting
there, awaiting their haircuts -
which actually meant getting a
weekly trim back from their
one-thirty-second of an inch
length to the one-sixty-fourth
inch length at the back, which
they were used to. Along with
nose and ear hair trims. They'd
sit there, just waiting for any one
of my 'type' to make the mistake
of walking by, and the chortling
would begin. Like old hens, they'd
rattle on with all the usual cliches.
Women complaining about their
girdles (this was, after all 1966),
could have been no worse. Catcalls
and pitfalls. I often thought of just
returning with a shotgun, but thought
better of it. Why prove their case?
And even more importantly, why
put them out of their misery?
Let 'em suffer.
-
There was a sort of country/western
bar back there too, off to the side,
after the dentist and some little
woods. In addition, along the
walk to the piss-flavored and
underground stairway that
crossed you from the southbound
to the northbound side of the train
station (not a station really, just a
rat-hut platform), you'd pass four
or five dead storefronts that had
closed up when the dig for the
'underpass' had removed them
from streetside; completely isolated
by that alteration, on both sides
those small businesses withered
and died. No one cared, because
Avenel people weren't the type
to care about that stuff like that.
In fact, few anywhere cared about
anything. It was the American way;
oddly enough, that same 'American
way' that the lumberyard guys
and the ear-hair geezers thought
should be defended to the death
by people like me.
-
All in all, at the end of the day
what it left me with was a big pile
of nothing. A spiritual black-hole,
to be sure. That was, in fact, a good
description generally of the entire
scenario of 'Avenel' and 'Woodbridge.'
I could never quite figure it out: a
place of nothing at all that yet kept
itself pruned and readied as a more
philosophical-thought (though
reactionary in all ways) headquarters
of rightness and comity. Maybe it
was all a mistake and 'comity' was
just' comedy' instead.
-
Mr. Ziccardi, proud of his front,
left-back, tooth, and his drumming
skills. Mr. Roloff, a'strut with his
boy-swagger. The local Dentist,
Dr. Chrobat, a seeming mystery-man
but of whom everyone knew. In
from NYC, daily? Like Roloff?
Christopher Street guys at work in
the tiny town? A lot of oddball
characters lolled about, teaching
the kids at school - The 'Miss'
instead of 'Mrs.' thing predominated
too. Miss Stein. Miss Artym. The
good thing about school is that
it's numbered and factored, so
you can keep track of how it's
passing. Grade One, Grade Five,
Grade Ten, etc. It's foul and it's
gruesome, but at least the numbers
let you know that it's moving along.
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