RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,260
(hanging out, while learning)
The thing about Inman Avenue,
the street I lived on, was that it
did end with Rt. One. That artery
of movement - cars always
running by, while I sat. At first
I wasn't even sure where it went,
in either direction. But I soon
learned the ways: NYC in one
direction north, and in the other
some vague thing called 'Shore
Points.' Soon enough, I got
familiar with that direction.
My father had a penchant for
taking 'young son' to the salt
water fishing spots all along those
'shore points.' Nearly every good
Saturday, for a while, he'd pile
me into the 1953 Ford Wagon
he had, and we'd putter off to
some guy's dock where small
boats were rented, like 6 bucks
for the day. My father would
bring along a 10 hp outboard
motor he had and we'd clamp
it onto the rear of some rowboat
type rental and be gone. Hours
spent thusly - motoring out
along the roiling waters, past
other, larger of course, boats,
and fishing or crabbing for way
too many hours. I grew tired
of that routine, but it went on,
and it started early too, like
6am, so we'd be home by 4
with either 6 or 7 bluefish
or fluke or flounder, say,
and/or some 80 crabs. I
used to think 'having the
blues' had something to do
with fishing, until I learned
music.
-
I guess if I disliked the ocean,
I loved the river - the river here
being Route One with its steady
stream of traffic. North. I never
cared twice about the southbound
cars, but I'd take my bicycle often
and ride to the end of the street, by
the trailer court and the junkyards,
just to stand there or sit on a rock
or a stump, and watch the flow.
Of cars and trucks wending steadily
on their way to, as I soon learned,
places I felt much more attuned
to - the two airports, the truck
depots, the highway stops, the
skyway and then the Holland
Tunnel. All approachable in
minutes - 20 easy miles off by
car. No, it's not like that now,
but traffic has changed and much
of the old roadway paths are gone.
But back then the traveling was
still easy, and no big-box stores
nor any of the other junk that
today throws at us littered the
way. Old Route One went straight
on with few hindrances : Linden
Airport and the GM Plant, in the
postwar switchover back to
producing autos and not tanks
and things for the war. Every
local loser in the world had a
good chance of getting a job there.
Right past it was the Gordon's
Gin Distillery, and then some
Instant Coffee place - the odors
were sometimes cool, and just
right too, as I supposed always
that booze and coffee went hand
in hand. There was a cookie factory
too, back behind it all. The Gypsy
graveyard, and the Jewish ones.
A few churches, and then the big
airport, Newark. There was a
large curve in the speed-highway
there, and - on our trips back to
Bayonne to visit remnant family
members - he'd always take it at
about 100 mph, it seemed. One
time, at the 'Welcome to Newark,
the Science City. Hugh Addonizio,
Mayor', sign he finally got snagged
and written up by some surly cop.
Surely, he was surly, Shirley. That
was one of my word-games to self.
-
When you're a kid, there's not like
any 'proclamation' that tells you
what to like, or dislike. It's more
about family and parents and the
rest, steering you or telling you
already what you like or dislike.
I never got to be part of that, sort
of always remaining aloof. All
the things that others liked and by
which they were kept happy. were
things I hated. Nonetheless, I had
to soldier on, and did so in my way.
'Kid television' was no help - all
that silly shoot-'em-up cowboy stuff,
Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, clowns
and puppets, some school-teacher
type lady with a bell, who was always
droning on about something. And
I sort of hated cartoons too, which
everyone else liked - they seemed
one-dimensional and without much
essence, plus the subject matter
always seemed ridiculous to me.
Cats coming out of faucets; dogs
always shown sleepy; Farmer Brown
and his people; other characters who
were always hiding behind trees!
All I ever noticed was trees being
destroyed and torn down, and the
busy drones of development undoing
all of the golden world being otherwise
presented as Edenic. Never figured out
why that went - how adults could
destroy the same world they seemed
to idealize.
-
I was a mess, I figured...and they'd
made me that way - commerce, trade.
money, work. All that stuff was a newer
form of encumbrance and slavery, and
all these people just fell into it. I was
pretty perplexed as a kid, and never
really comfortable. The respite that
getting smeared by a locomotive gave
to me, I realized two years later, wasn't
really so bad. I tried just hanging out,
listening to the adults and pretending
I understood, or nodding assent. It
was all a search, mostly for invisibility.
I was already tired of all their crap,
and spent my muse-time in fantasy
worlds of my own.
-
The junkyards too were all along
Route One. As you travelled, you
could see the north-flow of junk,
lands being filled and soiled with
oils and fluids of wrecked and dead
cars, junkyards and back-lots filled
with them. Many of them are still
there, visible quite nicely, some,
from the rail-rides and the train
tracks. There's this one street along
the east back-sides of Elizabeth and
Newark, that's nothing but junkyards,
one after the other; except maybe now
they call them 'Auto Salvage' yards
and they're all organized and sorted
out, and run with computers too. It
used to be they'd just send you out
back, into the jumbled heaps of crap,
and let you find the compatible vehicle
for what you needed and have you
take it off. Then they had helpers too,
and these greasy old guys who just
about knew where every car part or
screw and bolt and mirror that you
were seeking could be found, and
exactly to location too! I always
wanted to work in a junkyard, like
that, and grow old and greasy and
grizzled knowing all that stuff, but
I could never get started, from the
one at Leesville on out, because they
all wanted me to, in order to be hired,
have my own rolling-card set of
tools and all the rest to bring in. I
never had any money for that stuff,
so I was always locked out of that
career move. Later on I became
friends with a cool guy named
Fred Fox, and his father, on the
edge of the highway in Rahway
(it's all gone now, and them too
too, since they re-routed the
highway and built new overpasses
and a municipal incinerator). His
garage and shop was pretty
much a compact equivalent of
the best of the junkyards I'd ever
seen. Sometimes I'd just hang
out there, a'learnin!
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