7395. BELOW THE WATER LINE (pt. 63)

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 63)

In addition to fun and friendship, there was misery too,

but it was mostly the misery of a certain kind of silence.

Occasional stories of sadness would drive themselves

up  -  the kid next to my Aunt's house, Aldo or Luigi or

one of those Italian names  -  they were always raving 

about him as a gifted classical guitarist  -  he was

diagnosed with a brain tumor, and it became a big,

tragic story. I love classical guitar music now, and 

will sit and work for hours with Villa-Lobos or Joaquin

Rodrigo, or any of those people, playing in the background.

Great stuff. But when I was 10 or so, that was the last

thing I wished to hear or understand and learn of. It

was like another, old language, something the stuffy

old foreigners listened to. The certain smite of sadness

over this kid was always hanging around my aunt's place

that one Summer or whatever it was. 

-

On Inman Avenue  -  by contrast  -  everyone always seemed

hale and hearty. Boastful, brash boys, sallying around at any

time ready for mischief or a fight. Everyone had their own little

crowd, and people were always changing too, I'd guess, but the

mix stayed okay. You kept one eye, as you could, on someone's

sister you were beginning to dig  -  innocent, puerile stuff. The

things of kid dreams. That's all we knew back then, That one

year I mentioned, I think Winter '60-61, it was rock solid cold 

freezing for neatly the entire month of January  -   the street was

a coat of frozen over snow and ice that never went away. All

we ever did that Winter was mob the street  - sleds, ice skates,

snowballs, igloo ice huts we'd build, channels of water as the

run-off and the melt back up into huge puddles. Cars were

askew everywhere, No one could really 'park' in their normal

ways unless a lifetime first was given over to the shoveling and

cutting of ice and snow. Everything stayed in place. It was great.

As a kid, we'd just walk endlessly out  -  back over the tracks

and across great white fields, over past Rahway Avenue, or

down into Woodbridge. We'd be heavily dressed, we'd get 

wet and soaked early on, and just sloshed around like that for

the rest of the long days. I'd guess school was off some too, 

or a lot  -  I don't remember except for the freedom. We'd get

to Woodbridge, and it was all something quite different : a line

of stores, a street of shops, a downtown. People trouncing about

with bags and little boxes. There was a grocery store, an old

A&P right on the main street. There was Christiansen's, which 

was just an old-line retailer, before department stores and stuff

took over  -  it had all the requisite uniforms and gym clothes and

all that we had to eventually buy. Had the market locked up. 

Then it slowly disappeared.

-

Living in Avenel was like living on a trunk-line, some old 

railroad siding off the way a bit, where things were a tad seedy 

and forgotten, on land no one else really wanted  -   too low here,

too marshy there. Up by the highway, it was higher, with one or

two spots of some nice beauty, maybe  -  but the highway had

that already, the big houses were gone, the land had long ago

been given over to houses in rows, roadways, garages and

factories. There was a big RCA facility over on the edge of

town, just before entering Rahway at the RR trestle as it ran

over St. George Ave. There was another huge foils-manufacturing

plant right behind that  -  Dri-Print Foils Co. There was Security

Steel over by us. Merck was nearby. The prison, Philadelphia

Quartz  -  it just went on. The 1920's and those years pretty much 

had defined and altered down whatever Avenel was going to be.

It had been happily dealt away for cash money and deals, with

little regard for 'place', and certainly no respect for beauty or

ecology or its own natural setting. Junkyards and scrap yards,

parking areas and truck lots had been given free reign. Like 

something out of Theodore Dreiser or Emile Zola, the naturalist 

tendencies of industrial-growth and all its cultures had taken

over. It was the start of something big, and a something big in

which people, most certainly, had been invited to take a back

seat to the other things happening. And, like mute monkeys, 

they mostly did. That was our parents, and us. We were all the

end-result of that. Even I sensed, somewhat nervously, that

some day it would all have to blow  -  the pressures were 

building, the dial on that steam gauge was getting dangerously 

close to red. We were probably the last of our sort of upbringings

to live this way.  I was a kid all through this, but already an adult

in my head. I knew it would blow. And, eventually it did  -  a huge

cultural cataclysm ensued in about 10 or 15 years. Politics hit dead

bottom, wars were waged by liars and cheats and thieves. Companies

everywhere  -  yes, from RCA to General Dynamics and Monsanto 

and Merck  -  the goons in our own backyards  -  they made untold 

sums of money off of this. Once again , we were being used.

-

The farmlands and the meadows of my youth were gone. What was

there in their places were black holes of indecision filled with people

all ready to further expand into that nothingness. Heads filled with TV

gossip and stupidity (me included), opinions formed by the stupor and

glamour of the big, dumb magazines, the talking zombie heads on TV,

the endless glitz and shows, the forced manufacture of fake media stars

thrown at people, each with their little, false and public-relations 

department narratives. It was all a plant. From Elvis to the Beatniks, 

from the counter-cultural waifs and eccentrics to Einstein, Bob Dylan 

to Doris Day and Rock Hudson, the shit just flowed.  Masterfully. 

I could name a hundred more made-up tales and gimmicks and

names, immediately. On and on  -  and it still does, in the worst way 

possible. But I'm not talking about that now, or yet. The idea then 

was to latch on to something, to any of these; stay distracted, be a 

know-nothing, and let them have their way with the world. Hell, 

in its equivalence it was like our parents giving up a daughter to a 

rapist  -  just to go along, keep the peace. They were all too dumb to 

know any better, and too loyal to their own indecent code of the great 

war and the experiences they'd just completed. Through all this, we, as

kids, just madly went about our scrambling ways; finding what we

could wherever we could find it  -  learning, growing, and getting

ready to source ourselves out in that big romp of 'Freedom' we'd

all been lied to about. I'd learn and read about cultures of Aztecs

and Mayans who'd sacrifice children, select the young girls for

the mountaintops rituals, cut the hearts out of their sons and their

daughters, praise their Gods and watch the rivers of blood flow from

the sacrificial victims of their choosing, their own silent offspring.

We were meant to scoff at this, to see how enlightened and advanced

we, as a culture, by contrast had become. But it was a lie. We were

no different then they had ever been.

7394. THE ELDER STEPSON OF A GREAT OAK

THE ELDER STEPSON 

OF A GREAT OAK

I can re-do everything. This room doesn't need 

these walls. Here, where we'll keep the horses, 

once was the two-car garage. Just once, a Morgan 

and an old deSoto. When I was a kid, this is where

I peered while Uncle Marvin made out with my Mom. 

It was all too weird for me, and I didn't know anything

about that stuff anyway. I thought they were playing

some damn-fool game. Now of course, they're both 

dead, and I know exactly what had been going on.

7393. HOW WE DO IT, TARGA TIME

HOW WE DO IT, TARGA TIME

There is never a moment meant to be

('He promised to never leave me, ever.')

There is only hesitation, and wonderment.

Later, the spoils.

-

I try the hammer and it is not working.  

This old piano had died many deaths in this corner -

faded, its lease on time long ago left the music behind.

We are therefore sitting back to wonder, and stare.

The usual spider walks across the floor, by me, as it

were, in friendliness. Outside the window, the wind

jams the tree into the shingles  -  which make then 

the gliding, percussive noise we've searched for 

these many times. Oh, now if only that piano could 

work, this lingering band would be at once upon its 

feet. 'We are nothing without the four of us, 

thriving to the beat of imagined musics.'

-

Shuffle.

Double-time.

7392. PARAGRAPH OF LIFE

PARAGRAPH OF LIFE

October's twenty-eighth day is ending. My thoughts

try to catch up to the day, and the time, and the place. 

They cannot, because there is only far too much of

everything  -  the movement. the spreading out of time

and circumstance, and the broad-cloth of the history

just passed. There is so much more I want to do, yet,

realizing that I cannot, I don't do it. That such is a

weakness, I cannot face. The hosts of Heaven's time

and place would not hold me back - only if I had, 

once, the opportunity to go knocking, to search, 

to find. The abacus has lost its beads. The lyre is 

silent and sound-free. Yes, then, I should not be 

judged therefore by my loss and  my absence. 

It is not for trying.

-

Just today, they were taking down another building

across the highway from where I stood. In front of the

doorway,a young man was standing for a photograph,

smiling broadly and holding the pink, second, copy of

his demolition permit. Someone snapped the photo, and

the caravan of trucks came up the road. Three huge

flatbeds, each carrying something  -  a 'dozer, or a digger,

a shovel or a dumpster, a crane or a blade. Their new 

day's work was set out for them. A pity, too  -  for the old

brick and wooden doorways looked so appealing in their

tired abandonment of these last few years. Now they too 

are gone. So much is coming down. 

-

I wonder about the men who contract these things. Another

needful conceit? Another true convenience of a shed or a

store? Yet more garbage for this age of junk? I will not wait

to see what takes the place of that which has left. I'm sure to

see it soon enough anyway - a multi-colored jumble of a

happy-faced and wide doorway's subservience to something,

adequately groomed for parking and retrieval. Milk. Eggs.

And Butter. Or  -  Heaven forbid  -  much more. I wither

as I tire and pass. To die would be a lesser burden now.

-

It is hard for me to talk. The words do not flow out as they

once did, or would have; and the meanings of what I wish to

say are now less clear than ever before. The listeners too are

different : dumber, perhaps, but different as well. I once had

my own photo  -  of a lake, and its darting layout. Cottages,

and boats, chimneys, and some walls along the water's edge.

Everything in its place, and everything of wood and brick.

Grand houses and palaces of the Czars, it may as well have

been. It's all over now, everywhere I go.

7391. GREEN GREY STETSON

GREEN GREY STETSON

All the way to  Albuquerque, what was 

the name of that place, and how do these 

people remember? I fresno'd my drip-dry 

diner until it fell apart in the streets. We 

stopped in some tiny little adobe town 

where everything was run by pedals and 

cranks and pulleys. Even the kids ran through 

the streets in an erratic start/stop manner. The

guy who came out of the house to talk, he said

he was twenty-eight; but you swore he looked

twenty-nine or thirty. I had to say, quite simply,

get over it, and stop looking so hard. He wore

camo-shorts, the kind with the big pockets. I

hate that stuff  - and he had a bulge in his pants

even thought they were loose-fitting. I swear it 

was a shoe he was packing. How far from normal

were we, anyway? Then you (you had to) say 

something funny again : 'I think there's a town

named Normal around here somewhere.' No,

that's Illinois, babe, was all I knew  -  turns out,

after looking it up, there's some five places 

called Normal. Is that where I want to be, in 

one of them? Not for me now, this distance,

and the mileage marker. They should

come to me.

7390. ADOBE ABSTRACT IN AUGUST LIGHT

ADOBE ABSTRACT 

IN AUGUST LIGHT

(how to watch a western movie)

I am watching pictures in a land the time has forgotten  -  

the shots rings out, and the gentlemen are running across

the field, into the arches, and they enter the shelter of a

from another time and place. The stubble on their faces

in close-up tells me they have been on the road  for some

period of time. A Mexican is walking along the dirt pathway.

He has a shaft of hay in his mouth, and he sneers, idly 

watching things transpire. He wears a serape in a

range of brilliant colors. A low-brimmed straw hat of

some kind is hanging at his side. Alongside him as

he walks, a dog keeps slow pace; a cur, to be sure,

ans it also stares. It is the color of dust, short-haired

and skinny, yet alert enough, and quite alive. The

fiesta has long passed, but there is still debris and

garbage strewn along the edge of the square  -  where

a short time ago, perhaps, there had been many people.

Stucco walls shield children, huddled around them,

from the sunlight and the gunfire too. The smell of 

cornbread fills the air. No other guns. No senoritas.

Just sound, and the alarm, and the smell of corn

baking, still in the air.

7389. LET ME TELL YOU

LET ME TELL YOU

(the three reallys)

Now let me tell you something, world - 

modern, shit-for-brains world as you are, 

intent upon roping yourself into a dead-end

corner facing itself : What you call ease is

really Death. That for which you strive is

really an immense pyre of fire and mortality,

the likes of which you have never really seen.

'

Some say your storybook endings are always 

pretty. I do not know, and I do not care. In any 

event, whatever they are is a mere mortal's

opinion. I harbor no grudge towards you, or

that  -  just an immense longing for dispersal.

-

May your seeds disperse upon naked and

awful winds, horrid winds burning with

the stench of fire and death.

7388. SHOULDER MY BURDEN BOZ SCAGGS

SHOULDER MY BURDEN 

BOZ SCAGGS

Bring my arms to rest, for I should not

 be here. The places I left before did not 

compare : left-handed Goddesses

watching, and all those children of 

the small-fire gardens on hand. The 

guidebook says 'Paradise' but I cannot 

get in. Oh rid me of my fallacies then,

for I am sickened, and running down.

7387. I PURPOSELY APPLIED

I PURPOSELY APPLIED

In good measure, all things remain ready :

the caliber, the weight, and the lift. Like the

best of actors, we all know our mark. This

new morning is colder. I arrive early and 

sit down chilled. The old man at the coffee

counter isn't getting any quicker.

-

Stories are always told, of salad days when

things were better. Who remembers now? The

things we forget are forever the bad. Driving

in a Pennsylvania midnight, cold and dark and

alone, over a jet black ridge name Wyoming?

Sure woke me from my drowsy with that sign.

-

Wyalusing Rocks again  -  I look out and there's 

nothing to see. Just a bunch of horny fracking workers

stumbling out of the little Lookout Cafe. Back to the

cabins they're renting nearby. The old guy once told

me those cabins were there for fifty years now, idle, 

leaning, and never used. Just falling apart slowly; and

I remember too. Now, he says, these energy-company

workers get put up in them for $800 each a month,

the energy company pays, and it never fails.

-

'These guys like to drink, and they like the women too.

Whatever can I say, I was young once, and they're all far

from home. Let 'em frolic, I figure  -  long as I get paid too.

Like I tell him, heh, heh, heh, 'you get laid; I get paid.''

7386. THERE'S A TREASURE

THERE'S A TREASURE

My heart  -  so stupid  -  always wants to be

an open book. It gets me nowhere, all the

striving to be. The wind still blows, the rain

comes down. I am happy, but oh in such 

difficult ways. Every so often, it seems,

someone else dies : another coffin to visit, 

another cadaver to glimpse. We bury the

dead with cold hearts but warm feelings.

7385. BELOW THE WATER LINE (pt. 62)

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 62)

It always seemed to me that there was a mystery behind 

everything, something about it all that no one ever told 

you. As a kid, you just feel these things. Or I did. I knew

the world was trying to pull a quick one, right past me.

So, I never said anything, I just watched.  Every so 

often my father would take me to work with him on 

Saturdays, whenever he had to work. Maybe 10 times 

in all, and I can't remember the age or the duration.

He used to, then, work on one of those side streets 

right off of McCarter Highway in Newark. I used

to always love that area  -  it's all gone now, and

they've stupidly replaced all those beautiful dark red

brick industrial buildings with the usual Government-

assisted negro slum housings  -  stuff that was supposed

to uplift the creeps they'd move into it, but who just

end up wrecking it all the same, just like the dumps 

they just were moved out of. The people who do this

all use big words and sound all forthright and sincere

about wanting to help the poor and all that rot, but 

even at ten I knew it was all crap. The 'secret' of this 

one is, as usual, money. Insider graft, corruption, job

padding with school unions and construction unions 

and all that dirty money stuff. Whoever they think 

they're kidding  - I've got to tell them  -  know all 

about it. Pipsqueak local politicians can never fool 

anyone. Their cheap suits always give them away.

-

My father's workplace was a furniture re-upholstery 

shop named 'Co-Op', as in Co-operative venture. Again

with the bullshit  -  whoever they thought they were 

fooling knew all about it. In this case, my father. There

was nothing 'cooperative' about it. He'd work all day on

two or three chairs. Piecework. Period. He'd get about

12 bucks a chair. It was, otherwise, like he didn't exist.

The two fat Jewish guys behind the big desks, they had 

all this figured out, with their cigars and ledgers and stuff.

The idea was, they did all the selling and settling, so people

like my father  -  basically the for-hire slave-staff  -  wound

up doing all the work, getting credited only for that which

they produced. If these two heaps of gold sold a living-room

set refinishing for say 700 bucks, they'd throw my father two

chairs, maybe a sofa instead, and credit him only for the 

slave-time he put in. All around him, and having nothing to

do with him, they'd buy the material, the fabric and supplies,

and take the mark-up themselves  -  which was built all into 

the 700 bucks quoted. Extra tufting, pillows, everything, 

they charged for. My (as it turned out) very 'cooperative' 

father got his twelve bucks. Period. And then they probably 

charged for bringing a kid too. I would just hang around 

for 8 or 10 hours  -  bouncing a ball endlessly off the large

wall-side of the building outside  -  I chalked a strike zone,

so I could play-pitch too. It passed time. I'd walk around,

looking at all that red-brick factory stuff  -  totally taken with

it. Square, red-brick chimneys, loading docks, rounded bays,

rows of skylights, cobbled streets, a few horses and stuff still

in use, water and baskets, everything. Plus, just above our 

heads, the railroad ran. I felt like I was in faraway land, all

dark and red brick and smokey. My 'London period' I later

called it. I still love it there, NJ Railroad Avenue, as it's

called  -  just off of downtown Newark  - but there's so 

little of anything left now I just want to cry. There's this 

one large, red-brick building now that they've just left to

turn into a real shit-hole, all graffiti'd up by the pigs who

live there. Each time I went home after one of those days,

I'd look at Avenel and just want to scamper away. Quickly.

-

The guys my father worked with there weren't too much

like him. They were calmer and more distant, seemingly

tired, resigned, or maybe just scared. Old guys, like war

veterans who still wore hats and formal shoes. A few 

Panchitos were there too  -  Spanish guys, or Puerto Rican, 

whatever. They too were all over Newark back then. They 

were wise-ass, with always something to say. I never knew 

how to take them. But I knew I didn't really like them. One

time I opened a drawer in one of the work-station areas 

where all the chairs and cushions and things were, and I saw

it was filled to the brim with magazines  -  Spanish naked

lady magazines. The Panchito guy who saw me just leered, 

and made one of those gross laugh-noises I hated. And then

he put his finger to his mouth  -  I guess meaning to not tell

anyone what I'd just seen. Yeah, right. All I wanted to do was

go blab about his fat, dark, hairy naked lady magazines.

-

One time my father got into a huge fight during work time, 

with one of the creepy white guys. The guy soon enough

came after my father with scissors, 'shears' as they were 

called. Bad move. My ex-sparring partner muscle dad

beat the guy to a pulp. There were like teeth embedded

in the ceiling, and some teeth probably went home with

the furniture too. Cops came, all that. Everything was cool,

just a workplace argument, nobody dead. The next day the

guy's wife calls up at my house and starts railing at my mother

how they were going to sue us for everything we had, that my

father was a raving, criminal lunatic, that they'd have him

put away  -  all that stuff. My mother broke down. She was

shattered  -  didn't know where to turn nor what was to 

happen. They argued a long time, whatever. Nothing ever 

did happen, I guess, unless my father buried the creep in

the Meadowlands or something. That was the end of his

time at 'Co-op.' After that he got a job as the 'Manager' of

the Frame Department at Simmons Furniture, in Union;

Stuyvesant Ave., somewhere. That was pretty funny, my

father as a 'Manager'. The place was big. I'd go there too,

but I never liked it  -  a huge warehouse factory. Stacks of

lumber piled along the walls  - cutters making frames and

bases for chairs and stuff, beds, frames. People driving

around on carts. And my father  -  trying to walk around

with a freaking clipboard and act official. Bad fit. I hated

the place, mostly too because of its bathroom. It was just

a big room with a large communal trough in the center, with

the drain in the floor and some piped water trickling down

from plumbing above. It was gross. Everyone just stood 

around peeing. Like onto the floor, except it wasn't. 

Whoever dreamed that up must have thought the workers 

were cows. I never figured if there were actual 'toilet rooms'

around, though I figured there were  -  mainly because of the

way these guys ate huge lunches. Somebody would have to

go soon enough. I never stayed around to find out. And

the other thing was, that I always hated, once again my 

father was always introducing me to all these guys  -  what

was I to do? It was awkward  -  'yeah, nice to meet you, I'm

the little kid who probably anyway shouldn't even be here,

but hello  -  and anyway, how do you guys stand all that 

pissing together stuff into a drain on the floor?

-

When my father got that manager job, my Uncle Joe  -  who

worked Wall Street printing businesses and had a more formal

appreciation of business ways and such, brought my father a

book (no pictures either), entitled (very dryly), 'Human 

Relations In Supervision.' It was all intellectual, about how

to best manage others, listen to their gripes, work around them,

make it 'appear' as if steps were being taken, all that crud. He

expected, I guess, my father  -  his little brohter  -  to actually

read this book. My father quite nearly threw it at him. That 

book stayed around a real long time, and I remember it well, 

even the very look of it. I was probably ever the only one 

who opened it, even if only for five minutes now and then.

7384. I DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION

I DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION

Taking bribes. Conning money from milkmen.

It all works together down here : Chinese

undertakers and ladies who tell fortunes. The

trucks line up at the bakery dock. I am dazed, 

and just walking around in a fog. Forget the

moment's occasion, lift the world from my

shoulders instead. Window curtains are 

dancing like a geisha-girl's fair cloak, 

and my eyes seem attracted to 

anything bright. 

7383. BELOW THE WATER LINE, pt. 61

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 61)

All that time I spent in the hospital, after getting hit

by the train, that was some momentous stuff. Until

I awoke from my coma, then it was pretty boring.

All right, I'm making a joke with that. I do remember

so slowly coming back to life, or consciousness, or 

whatever this here is. It seemed to take forever, and 

was as if I was being dragged back through something

that was like a honey or molasses, but instead was made

of light but with the dragging viscosity which sort of

personified reluctance to get dragged back. And the

little me that was me, this Gary character individual,

he had little to do with it. But that was me, and yet it

wasn't me either  -  the one getting pulled or drawn back. 

I recall the sensations being of like having feet planted

somewhere else, but with a form around me shaping 

another place to which I was to have to go, to put an

allegiance. I wanted to, but didn't want to either. There

was just light, and no real 'commanding' presence anywhere.

It was pretty free-flowing, it seemed, and almost anarchic

in what I could have made from it  -  intentions and ideas

all seemed to quickly become manifest, like I was creating

(my own?) worlds at will. I kind of came back an adult, in

ways, knowing already the 'importance' of the momentous

things I could 'produce' by intent and concentration. I always

figured that was the archetype thing, the basis of the 'Creation'

myth and all those early societies. When all your body 

knows is that it just recently learned how to make fire,

there's really yet not that much interest in spearing the

great metaphysical 'fish' out there around you. When you're

still scared of the woods, you don't go studying, quite yet,

the darkness the woods produce. Everything takes a long 

time, in Reality  -  all of society included. But a lot of the

myths, I knew right off, are initiated out of this initial and

internal 'struggle' I was going through in here being 're-born',

or at least 're-placed' on this Earth fiery stupid globe of being.

I didn't really want to come back, but, whatever. 

-

As soon as I got out of the hospital  -  which took a really 

long time too  -  I arrived back home to Inman Avenue, on

crutches and a little twisted up and still under doctors' great

care. I don't know what people made of me, what all my 

friends had thought or done while I was away. No one ever 

mentioned any specifics or questions about specifics to me.

It was like all kept mute or mum about. Maybe everyone was

perplexed or scared. I don't know, 'cept I knew that I wasn't.

Really, I didn't even care. My mouth was wired shut, had 

been for months. Broken jaw stuff made it necessary to seal

my mouth from movement  -  I ate, for months, only baby food

sucked through, from a tablespoon, my wired-shut (like braces

that sealed your mouth closed) teeth. That was a long time, and 

the day those braces things finally came off I remember pretty 

well. The doctor or dentist or whatever he was, gave me a big 

pile of gum to chew on, and said to just keep chewing  - to

bring my jaw and mouth-muscle stuff back to working order.

It was OK. He also said I'd probably have a lot of problems

in my late teens with back teeth and stuff, but that never really

happened, that I know of anyway. Once I got back to the house,

I was pretty freaked out, as I walked in, when I saw that my 

Uncle Joe and my Father had, in my absence, and as a welcome

home present, set up this big fish tank, with filter and all that

stuff, atop the television set or whatever  -  in it were angel fish,

brightly-colored other fish, sucker fish, little snake-like fish, all

sorts of things, in this grand, bubbly water scene. It was really

cool, and I liked it. Over time, now, I can't recall another 

damned thing about it -  which is weird. I don't know who

took care of it, where it went, or how and when all those

fish died. It's just a curious black-hole in my recovery

memory. Hmm. Something fishy there!

-

Once I really got started, I was very fast on crutches - it

became a sidewalk sport of sorts. I can remember an 

almost-running pace, on them, with that slapping sound 

they'd make on pavement. I can't recall how I finally and

over time got rid of the, but I did. My mother, I remember,

as I finally returned to School 5,  put me in these really 

hideous white buck shoes, a'la Pat Boone, a singer, who'd

made some of that stupid wardrobe stuff quite popular. It

made me more self conscious than being on crutches  -  those

dumb white-buck shoes that hardly even touched the ground.

I must have looked like some ridiculous poster-child for poor

child-maintenance or something. But, I can't remember, 

and before I knew it everything was back in place, and  -  I 

guess  - I was walking and things like a normal kid. Just 

can't remember. In the same way, I cannot remember 

the crunching, numbing action of the train hitting us either.

None of it seems real, or the me to whom it all happened,

maybe, really did die. I know I came back refreshed and 

different, and understanding, or at least aware of, a lot more

things, things in some 'heightened' way. I don't know; can't

ever really say. It was a brutal snowstorm, my mother couldn't

control the car, she was driving me back from Claire Avenue

in Woodbridge, and the tracks right there on Rahway Avenue  -

still there and still in constant freight-train use  -  which had

only blinking lights then, no service arms to come down and

block traffic (not that it would have mattered) were the tracks 

we slid on the ice/snow onto, right in front of the approaching

freight, which really jiggered us up, cut the car in two right down

the middle. Left my mother's section right there, and took my 

section a bunch of feet down the tracks with it, until the train could

stop. And there I was, all smashed and crumpled. I was told they

figured I was dead, until I moaned when they tried extricating me

from beneath the metal dashboard which had twisted around me.

Whatever; all tales are tall tales. Later, when I found out about 

it all, I actually felt more sorry for the poor engineer than for 

myself. He must have been a wreck. He was William Pasterak,

49 years old, from 27 Hamilton Street in Fords. I'd imagine 

he's dead now, poor guy. I wished I'd have spoken to him. The 

fireman of the train was William Gleeson, of Philadelphia. That's

all I know. They both worked for the Reading Railroad.

-

Since I was stone-cold out of it for months after that, I have no 

idea what transpired at all. Everybody told the stories over and 

over, who did what, how my father found out, all that. It became

one of those family tales that get re-told, and change around a

little with each re-telling too. For a period of time, after I awoke,

the kid in the bed next to me  -  tonsils or something  -  was 

John Hoffman, older brother, as I recall, of Michael Hoffman,

a school-chum of mine. I can remember various parents coming

to visit me, in the company of my own parents, and I remember

Myrtle Yacullo, mother of my friend across the street, Jimmy,

coming for a while everyday, and bringing, each day, some 

custard which she home-made  -  it's like a pudding texture 

stuff. I wound up hating it and almost getting nauseous each

time, but could never tell her. It was, in her eyes, and my

parents' too, a great food and the right consistency to be 

sucked in through my wired-shut mouth. Yep, just as good

as that creamed-spinach baby food which I loved so much.
-
One funny thing  -  which has always remained with me, was
triggered by the Hoffman kid in the bed next to me. (It was a
large ward, of about 20 or even more, beds; not a private or a
double-room in any sense. Everyone was just thrown together  -
young and not young, in all their varied sorts of ailment and
injury. A strange assortment, like some Civil War battlefield
hospital. 1958 remember). Here, the thing was this John
Hoffman kid had never been a favorite of mine  -  he was very
peculiar, a goody-goody type, all proper and polite, and  -  in
any case  -  had never been anyone I cared to spend time with.
It was a weird feeling, But yet, I had thought, if I've been
somewhere else now, and if I've come back into this life with
another meaning  -  a new Matterhorn of my own, as it were,
to climb  -  why then would these previous thoughts and
knowledge about this Hoffman kid still come to the forefront
as they had. Isn't that the boring old stuff again? I could never
figure that out. I think Life itself is all smoke and mirrors, and
the interpretation of everything is all up to us.
-
I was all trussed up, for months, in traction and casts. My body
had been fairly well scrunched up, all on my right side. I looked
like one of those cartoon characters you see -  arm in a traction
sling, sticking straight out, leg in another, sticking straight out,
head wrapped. All that white gauze stuff. I remember I had a
male nurse, a Philippine guy. First off, the idea of a male nurse
wasn't cool with me; it just didn't seem right. And he wore blue,
not a white nurse thing, with which I felt more comfortable. He
was always hanging around, walking to various beds and doing
things  -  clean-ups, chores, etc. A real drub of a guy. (I don't
know what a drub is, but I'd made that word up for him). The
reason I ended up hating him  -  besides all the horrid bed-pan
stuff  -  which I hated too  -  was because he'd come by to change
my sheets and bedding, which meant he'd have to, just a little,
lift me up off the bed, for a moment. It hurt like the dickens, and
he consistently did it, and knew it hurt too. Jerk. Later on, when
I got mobile enough for a wheelchair, they'd let me roam around,
spin and roll in and out of the ward, and enter hallways and things.
Here's the scoop : the hospital was way over-crowded (old, original
Perth Amboy Hospital). The wards were overflowing, and there
were beds and people in the beds, all along the hallways. No room
at the inn, so to speak. So I'd just roll past all these weird cases
of people and their wounds and injuries. Te thing that always
flabbergasted me, and which I've never really gotten to the bottom
of yet, (and this is true, believe me people) is that there would be
people, I guess with bruised heads or eyes or something, I never
knew, in their beds with slabs of red meat, like a steak or something,
on their faces or wounds. Sounds ridiculous, but it was true. I
could never figure that out. Ever. And, one last thing and then I'll
move on and come back to this later, was that  -  it being a serious
hospital ward scene, kids under 12 or something weren't allowed up.
My sister, Donna, was about 6, and wished to see me, or they wanted
her to come see me, whatever. To do so, my Grandmother, wearing a
long Winter coat, took my sister to the elevator area in the lobby, told
her to stand on my grandmother's own feet, and then my Grandmother
wrapped he big, long Winter coat around them and proceeded up,
elevator and all that. It worked. My sister got to my bedside, walking
by not walking, instead just sort of riding while hidden, on my
Grandmother's shoes. Pretty strange transport, but it worked.

7382. ON BACH'S FUGUE TIMING

ON BACH'S FUGUE TIMING

Little to say but gratuitous babble. I admit to

knowing little about it all. The Henson girl 

comes in from outside  - I've known her now 

for years. She wears it well, every little bit. 

A real charmer. Waving hello, she passes me 

by, and throws me an orange from the top 

of her grocery back. I catch it, 

and cheer myself on.

7381. FRANKINCENSE AND MYRRH

FRANKINCENSE AND MYRRH

I don't mind all the junk piled up : to the

rafters with bicycle parts and motorcycle

chains and headlamp nacelles and broken

down rims and wheels. It's all the same when

the lights are out. If George Washington had

a horse or two, then I can do the same with 

metal and grating. It's not the maintenance I

abhor. It's rather the allegiance to such things

demanded, I hate. I hate that like the plague.

All those Black Death minions riddling the

street with their putrefaction, and the death

wagons coming out under cover the of the

night to cart away another day's gross 

adventure. The canal, and the dike, all that

was filled with bodies. A landfill that slowly

decayed, but not slow enough that you could

build on it. This was a deadly, and useless 

accretion. Even the survivors couldn't play

on these piles of stink. So, anyway, and back

to my point  -  against that, this mess isn't 

anything so bad or damning.

7380. ALL MY METAPHYSICAL FRIENDS

ALL MY 

METAPHYSICAL 

FRIENDS

It's noon again, in the alterior chambers, where they

send around the food cart with the juices. My friends

are here  -  their mouths are all taped up. With masking

tape, though if the guards here knew anything about

anything at all, that would be mystic tape for sure.

7379. I WOKE UP

I WOKE UP

I woke up to a share, a cup of coffee to my

face, a lantern holding forth the light, the

sweetness of a tingle on my fingers. It was

all so confusing, I'd forgotten even the day.

-

Then I remembered I wasn't here. There was 

no place in place. I readjusted the clock 

until it fell off the wall  -  noticing that, 

when time flies, it only flies downward until

it hits the floor. It becomes a rubble, with 

the mainspring still exerting its forward 

pressure. I think that's how we finally get 

to Heaven : by pushing the hands ahead.

7378. BELOW THE WATER LINE, pt. 60

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 60)

One year I can remember, I guess it was perhaps

1959, a Christmas Eve spent, for whatever reason,

going back and forth, up and down the block, my

sister and myself, to the Kaisen household, about

10 or 15 houses up the street, or down, whatever  -

to the direction of Abbe Lumber's end. The idea

was somehow that  -  the bring the real joy of

Yuletime forth, we'd dress as Christmas things

and go spend the evening showing them our

costume changes. Don't ask me, as I really have

no idea of what was going on, nor where either

Kenny or Christine were and why they too weren't

doing this stupid trick with us. Whichever year it

was, I recall it being quite balmy out, as we simply

walked back and forth, a few times anyway as the

long night entered towards its midnight stage.

Another year, by contrast, when I was perhaps

9, I can remember (again, totally bizarre and out of

character for me) coming home  -  it was early dark

and quite cold, probably about the 12th or so of

December, and seeing that my mother had the

inside of the house newly completed with all the

usual Christmas decorations  -  little creche, the

lights, the angels and candles and wreaths and the

tree, as well  -  and I remember commenting to the

effect of 'Wow, how nice. Now all we need is the

Christmas music.' Which crack, of course, brought

on the Christmas music  -  in this case, to my memory,

a constant replaying, perhaps 10,000 times of the

'Little Drummer Boy' 45 my mother had, on the

record player. I guess it had a 'replay' or something,

because that it sure did. Superseding my usual

Officer Joe Bolton and his 'Three Stooges' nightly

presentations and dumb commentary. Officer Joe

Bolton was like some fake NYC policeman, in a

uniform, real or not, and standing in place, twirling

a nightstick, he'd expound about the episode about to

be played, or talk about the episode just shown. Little

insider notes about why Shemp, and not Curly  -  two

replaceable characters on the Stooges. Moe and Larry

always remained the same, but for whatever reason there

was a bit of drama with the Curly character  -  a guy named

Shemp, and another guy named Joe Besser, stepping in,

in varying episodes, as the 'new' Curly. Though Curly was

the best and  -  to my mind  -  irreplaceable, and possessing

the certain quality the Three Stooges needed to actually

be the Three Stooges. See the crap a kid learns.

-

Summer was one thing, but it always passed  -  Winter's were

internalized. We all still did things; we had our Winter ways

and cold-weather places, but it was different, yes, for sure.

A lot more solitary stuff went on. I can remember any number

of us, in that woods where they later built Doreen Drive and

stuff, being back there for endless after-school hours in the

woods at the little ice-crusted pond which was in the center

of the place -   ice skating little circles around for hours. We'd

arranged good-sized logs in some form of semi-circle or close,

around the water edge, and if not skating we'd all just be sitting

around there as whoever else was skating went about their skating.

I guess it got dark around 6pm, and we dispersed for supper and

all, because I can't recall any fires or sources of warmth or light.

But I remember it was close  -  we just all felt close, everything

was closed in around us. That was the thing about our little

group and those woods  -  there were trails, little paths that

went off, depending on the direction of home, people went

their varied ways out. Also, it was always, in there, just as

we'd left it  -  I guess there were no other people coming

around making changes or even visits. It was our place  -

the trees and the shade in the cold of Winter was just as

pleasant to us as were the possums and happiness glades of

Summer. Even now, I still get that 'long-lost' feeling inside

me just writing about it. A lot of our stuff was bicycle based,

but this woods never was  -  no entry for bicycles, no place

for them, and it just never happened. Up on the top end,

towards Route One, there was a small row of some trees

that used to drop these rippled green balls, about the size of

softballs. We later found they were called Ugli fruit  -  a real

odd name, in that they were ugly, but were named Ugli. I

never got to the bottom of that but it always puzzled me why

(here I go again with the God and Nature stuff) these things,

whatever they were, fruit, nut, vegetable, were so useless. I

couldn't understand why a proficient God would make,

 occasionally, such useless things  -  for instance, if these

were edible, and had some value, we'd have been rich! We

could be eating off the fat of the land. That puzzled me; were

we fated to have things not be usable by us; like, even, grass.

If we could have eaten grass, or gotten food out of acorns or

leaves, or anything like that, the whole world would have been

different. Much less need to work. Food everywhere. You'd just

pick what you want and eat. No fighting over ownership or the

possession of, for it was everywhere! That could be Paradise

for sure. What was it that made a jealous God deny all that

from us? Was the 'The Fall' that the Catholic Church lesson

twerps were always blatting about? That's why we were all

so miserable, killing and fighting over borders and food and

stuff? So then, this God made a perfect world and then lost

control of it? What kind of God was that? It's not free-will,

couldn't be because it's all pre-ordained now, and the fault only

happened once and not to us, each, individually. That's free-will,

a one-to-one thing. The other was mob rule. Paying for this

bullshit Adam guy for ever and ever? I never got it, that story,

like sooo many others, made no sense. It was all commercial

poppycock to keep people under control, and paying up, always.

In those woods, at that ice pond, hell, the world was free and easy.

It made sense, and it was right. Who were these people, always

trying to muck it up for us  -  against all evidence, really, and then

demanding that only they had the way out and the right answers.

Having the right answers is easy of you made up the story.

And then anyway, one day it was just all gone.

-

The local newspaper, at the time called The Perth Amboy 

Evening News  -  later just The Evening News, and then later 

again The News Tribune, then the Home News Tribune, and 

later just The Home News. Some junk-bond conglomerate 

kept buying bits and pieces of NJ newspapers until eventually 

they had fairly killed the whole mess. Those papers now are

nothing but pages of junk. When I was in the printing industry, 

years later, one of my accounts and friends was John Burk, 

whose Burk family owned the News Tribune. He wasn't much 

of anything except a low-grade businessman looking to turn the

usual profit  -  not a journalist or newsman in any way. He'd sell

or include anything in that paper if it would get eyes to it, people

to see the ads, so that he could sell more by having big counts

of readership and exposure and thus charge more for big companies

advertising. For a while they had this stupid little 'character'  -  like

a small icon chubby guy holding a newspaper. They called that

character 'Newsie'. And they ran a stupid contest : each day, 

somewhere in the paper, buried in the words and articles and stuff,

would be 'Newsie'. Small. Readers who spied it were supposed to 

call in, give the location, and they'd win something and then be 

entered to win something else. It was a pretty cheesy, almost

shameful, gimmick, I thought. My mother always played it.

There'd be some horrid headline about 41 people slaughtered

in a fiery earthquake somewhere in Africa and eaten by

marauding elephants and then slaughtered by hungry pygmies

with a bus that rolled off the cliff  -  horrible stuff  -  and in the

middle of the continuation page paragraph, there'd be 'Newsie', 

smiling back at you. Jeez, huh.

-

One time, in the printing days, the guy I worked for, Bob Wiegers,

he had us represented at a luncheon thing the News Tribune threw

to show off some new, big million dollar equipment they'd gotten.

There were long-winded explanations about this and that, how it

worked, how fast it produced, all that  -  plus the industrial expert

know-it-all-manufacturer's rep stuff. After about an hour of this,

in the question period, Bob raises his hand and  -  in a businessman's

way but also in a way that came out sounding almost sarcastic, in

reference to making money and getting return on investment and 

all, he says  -  referring to news delivery boys  -  'So you've got 

all this new millions of dollars equipment, and you're telling me 

you're still putting all the responsibility for the success of this in the

hands of 12 -year old delivery paper-route kids on bikes, to make it

work or not?' After a few titters, that went over like a lead balloon.

-

The News Tribune used to run  - exciting for me  -  this 'countdown'

panel each day on the bottom of the front page. It began about mid-

November each year. It wasn't much, but it was always exciting for 

me to see and watch the countdown, with some oddball form

of expectation. There'd be a little Christmas drawing, something

different each day, or the same maybe, I forget, and it would say

'25 shopping days 'til Christmas'...then 24 the next day, then 23 the

 next, and so on. I always thought it would be cool, since all

they cared about was money and sales anyway, if they used, instead

of 'til', meaning 'until', the word 'till' meaning cash-register drawer.