10,247. RUDIMENTS, pt. 154

RUDIMENTS, pt. 154

Making Cars

I can hardly remember Bayonne,

which is the place I was born; like

an Impressionist painting to me now,

it's all sensations, spots of light as

recalled, and images from a weird

angle. I guess that weird angle is the

one kids get, plodding along, first

having learned to walk, when

everything still remains clompy

and jiggy-jagged. (Ever watch a

new kid walk; it's like a rollicking

belly-roll from left to right, over

and again). If you were focusing a

camera, it'd be a disaster, even at

fast shutter-speed. All the light I

remember from there is actually

a dark light, one of shadow and

substance. Mostly a place of

sadness. My section of it anyway.

I was born, as I've said before,

at the base of the Bayonne Bridge

(actually the physical 'birthing'

was in Bayonne Hospital at the

other end of town; but people

never use those references). 'I

was born beneath the Bayonne

Bridge' is the way I always put it, 

and that works good enough for 

me. It was sort of a bleak time,

far bleaker than now anyway. And,

really, if it was a photo, all it would

have gotten was black and white. 

That's exactly the feel it had. A

hard, post-war kind of 'thing' was

in the air; people trying to get back

on their feet, counting pennies, as 

it were, seeing where they could 

take them, where it would go. 

(Surprise! For about 1200 bucks,

with 40 bucks down, it could get

them to a new house, in Avenel!).

Everything around was still old, 

bleak, almost Victorian in its 

brickwork and decoration, if it 

was 'decoration' at all. How does 

one dress up, after all, a funeral 

pyre? Men who'd been wounded 

(I lived in the veteran's projects) 

were still wounded and raw, 

learning how to live with it, the 

splice, the limp, the loss of this 

or that. Everyone smoked. 

The cars were squat, bulbous, 

they had a presence. Back then, 

oddly enough, not everyone had 

one, a car  -  they were still an 

item of envy, to be sought for. 

Televisions were new. All I can 

recall is the warm-up period after 

it was turned on, the receding 

light or whatever it was, upon 

turning 'off.' The screen, for 

those in luck, was perhaps 10 inch, 

and that was large. Even piddly 

laptops today have 15 inch screens 

to start. I remember a pedestal, 

in the center of a room, with a 

TV upon it, like a God, and men 

on folding chairs, near it, noisily 

watching a boxing match, or a 

series of matches. Another time 

I can remember a baseball game, 

being watched by a man, in isolation, 

alone, in that same room  -  an uncle 

perhaps, kin to me but not 'family.' 

More than anything else, that 

oneness of his being alone 

stayed with me. That aloneness 

seemed against all the TV 

was portraying. 

-

Outside it was always grim; boats 

passing, the noise of tugs and the 

smells of water and oils, not art 

material, I'm meaning the odors 

of marsh and tide and the oils 

atop the waters. They were all mixed  

-  somehow the 'future' meant chemicals 

and plastics. Everyone had forgotten

about the 'real.' There was even a 

company, Philips or DuPont or 

Union Carbide, or someone, 

whose advertising motto was 'Better 

Living Thru Chemistry.' Up the

street from us was a Maidenform,

or Playtex  -  one of those  -  underwear

factory  -  bras and girdles. Women's

stuff. For a while during the war, I'd

been told, it was requisitioned to hold

German prisoners. Whistles and toots,

the noises of tugs and barges, I can still

hear all of that  - the oil sheen of waters 

lapping rocks. Just as in Sewaren and 

Woodbridge, 'Boynton Beach,' everything

here too had been sold over to corporate 

and government giants  - for industrial

use, and forget the land and water. Still 

more tank farms, oil transports, gases, 

solvents, metals, things leeching into 

the waters. No one cared. All along 

that waterway, in our section, ran 

Uncle Milty's, a dime-shop of an

amusement park loaded with silt  -  

games, rides, more noise (but noise 

of a different, higher, pitch, with 

its own syncopation and rhythm).

People strolled at all hours. 

-

Again, like Boynton Beach  -  

an abandoned and done away 

with resort, in Sewaren/Woodbridge, 

now with no legacy or remnant except 

oil tanks and sludge, Bayonne, where 

I lived, once too had its famed resort, 

with ferry service  and hordes of, in 

this case, 19th century visitors and 

revelers. It was the La Tourette

Mansion, at first, long ago. A large, 

beachfront estate with acres of bucolic 

land around it. There really once was 

a time when, within 6 or 7 miles of New

York City and all those teeming hordes,

you could find peace and countryside

that nearby. Then, by the 1920's, 

Sewaren was the newer bet, at 18-20 

miles off; still with ferry-service and

hotels. Here, at the Bayonne location, 

initially a DuPont family estate, and

then the LaTourette estate, or the other

way around, I forget, these lands too

fell to the crooked lure of lucre. The

waterways and harbors were destroyed, 

and the old waterfront mansion fell

into ruin, or were burned, or just were

scuttled, like on old ship on a fiery

old sea. And that's where I came in  - 

born and raised right there.

-

One other thing that always bugged me :

I had to find all this out myself, later in 

life, digging and ferreting out information.

Why no one was aware, or couldn't just tell

me to my face the information of my days,

and theirs, is and was beyond me. And

how they could just roll over and let

'government' step in and take all these things 

over, and make these decisions for them. 

I don't understand other people too well.

Land of the free? Home of the brave?

10,246. THE RUGS ARE JUST SANE SERAPES

THE RUGS ARE JUST 

SANE SERAPES

(to confusion)

So, there's a moment of plain confusion when

the moon comes peeking in the window at me.

What do I do but blink back to see : lethargy 

and it's monstrous brother not-caring. 'I'm not

a moon-person myself; no surprises, it's always 

the same, hanging up there like a gum-drop in

a battlement oasis. What's the sky anyway 

except something we can't hold?'

-

Now I'm through with blood-letting, and crying

out in a screaming anger too. I'm through with

kissing  - though I'd surely like kissing you. I

may re-varnish this table, but only if I get the

urge; it's really quite OK the way it is. 

-

There was a cafe girl once who used to serve

me coffee; oh a bundle of my joy she was. Then

she killed herself, in some other place, and I

don't now why it was  -  because she was sorry

or blue. I guess. They held her a wake on Baldtop 

Mountain, and we all threw her ashes into the 

wind, which blew them all back on us.

10,245. I'LL PICK YOU UP AT THE SHOW & TELL

I'LL PICK YOU UP 

AT THE SHOW & TELL

I guess it's not exactly thievery

if you only take a fork and spoon.

And yes,  I saw you put them in 

your purse. But I liked the way you

did it  -  and for it, who's the worse?

These places can cover those sorts 

of things. Business-losses, seasonal

 theft. Of course, part of that is why 

a beer here is nine-ninety-five. But,

I suppose, if you got the ball you

might as well run with it.

10,244. RUDIMENTS, pt. 153

RUDIMENTS, pt. 153

Making Cars

Life is a crunch, a smash of nerves,

an alliance of sensations we each

need to learn to read. I sort of

made the assumption early on

that there wasn't really much you

can do about anything. Being

born into a lower station than

most, into a household filled with

the conflicts of ethnicity and all

the awarenesses that brought forth,

I just walked along, mostly in a

form of shock, only sometimes

worrying about what was to come

next. It was a little vexing. The

place of this 'Avenel' was nothing

with any class or allegiance to

improvement. For those here, and

for those like my parents, who

started out here, and ended here,

it was a Paradise of achievement.

Yes, really; hard to believe. My

father never found a person to get

along with. It was a constant, and

embroiled, battle over who was

no good, who was a Polack, or a

Jew, or a black person  -  he had

a word he used, supposedly it was

Italian for eggplant (?) meaning

the color  -  I haven't a clue. The

way it was pronounced was like

'moolenyann.' I'm sure, linguistically,

my father didn't have half a clue in

Hell what he was attempting to say.

Eggplant? Deep purple? If someone

didn't reciprocate a hello, or a nod

and a smile he'd go on proclaiming

how that person was prejudiced, biased,

angry. He had fights, arguments, and

a long list of grievances; hating the

few fancy guys on our street with

commuting, office jobs. He used to

seethe seeing them walk down the

street from their train, well-dressed

and dapper. One of them, in fact,

always word a top-hat/fedora. That

alone drove him nuts. In Summer,

the evenings were always the same,

mostly anyway  -  he'd sit on the

stoop, hose down the lawn, have

two or three beers (somewhere in

here, dear reader, let's fit in a few

moments for the grumbling about

the passing, commuter guys), and

then, eventually and often, out

would come the box of Shop-Rite

Ice Cream. He loved that stuff, and

it always had to be what he called,

or they labelled, 'Neapolitan,' which

apparently is three vertical in-line

rows; vanilla, chocolate, and

strawberry. By their terms. I have

since myself tasted better versions

of these flavors in more quality

ice creams, and the Shop Rite

flavors were pure gimcrackery.

Just because something is 'called'

what you're told it is, that doesn't

make it so  -  the strawberry was

hideous, and the vanilla was simply

white. I always have detested

chocolate anything, including candy,

so I don't know about that, but I

hear-tell there's some real quality

chocolate  -  and chocolate ice cream - 

out there. This wasn't it. They should 

have just it called colored and flavored 

'guar gum.' (That's a food chemical 

used for stablization).

-

What this is leading me too is a very

broad point. I was brought up in

Avenel, as I keep telling you, and

from that so many of the concepts

of my life seem to have developed.

I've met others, been to the cities,

seen how they operate, done good

and done bad, got in some fixes,

and fixed some 'gots' too. But

never far from me has been that

original intent of what I learned

in the place I was raised. The

early years, I'm talking; up

through maybe 10, 11. Then

everything else took over

and I went my other ways,

but before that, as the child,

the humbled mastery of

listening to and abiding by

what others tell you, is foremost.

That's just how kids grow up.

It all comes down to words.

With each word, you take the

concept it brings, or the concept

you're told goes with it, and

by all that, incredibly, you build

a world, an actual  paper-palace

that you truly think exists, while

you know nothing about it. In

sixth grade the big thing became

'projects'  -  these make-do

applications of 'knowledge'

as we were told. One time

we had to make this huge

'papier-mache' thing of the

Mesopotamian area, and the

'Fertile Crescent' (all I ever

thought of that dumb phrase

had to do with the girl next to

me's private parts. Tough being

a sixth-grader). We got this

large piece of plywood, had

it on the floor in the space

between classrooms in the

'portables'  -  (which were but

extended, temporary shacks that 

were used as classrooms and were

about as temporary as pregnancy,

and about as portable as lead) 

-  and worked on it there, where

it stayed for about a month.

Over time we built mountains and

hills, rivers, a whole topography

of 'Mesopotamia', from where,

Mr. Ziccardi inelegantly told us,

all civilization had spring, all

our concepts and ideas, Gods

and demons too. We had pink

colorations, and blue, green

deltas, tan hills and mountains,

everything we could figure up

went into there  -  and came out

as a pure state of meaninglessness

to me. Mesopotamia? What a

meaningless punk-tribe of losers.

This guy was trying to pull rank

on us and ascribe the complete

nature of our present lives and

beings on this place from which

biblical history grew. Once again,

it was all w-o-r-d-s. His words,

and I wasn't buying. I'd go outside,

walking home, just to see the

daytime or evening sky above

me, and I'd already know that

my own star-dust had more in

common with up there than any

of that scrap-metal crap he was

giving us. This entire street I

was walking : pink cars and

blue cars, green lawns and

black driveways, people

coming and going, family

afternoons, barbecues and

pools, TV antennas and

vacations, it ALL had more

in common with my current

day fix that did any paste

 and clay survivalist civilization

worshiping cows and bulls,

and Gods too.  Anyway, I

always thought what they

were pushing was a new

religion of 'Self' that I was

supposed to get converted

to  -  like everyone else. That

meant immediate dismissal

and concern for any of this

rot about places and people

5,000 years ago. Or 2,000.

Or 14,000. No one ever even

knew what they were talking

about in numbers, let alone

concepts. The big three, to

me, Ziccardi and Roloff and

Raisley,  those three teachers

had everything screwed up.

There was a lot wrong, everywhere.

And they were false idols, just

as in their Mesopotamia there

were the same.

-

I somehow managed to keep my

father in check  -  or at least from

going off the deep end in that period,

(he did, later, anyway, go, but that

was 40 years off) just by playing the

dutiful son. It was OK. His rancor

about things mellowed, for a time,

and then by his late-life, came raging

back all over again no matter. My

ow life just moved along, I got to

thinking though  -  thinking how

so much of everything is both

misunderstood and incorrect. St.

Jude, I somehow was able to learn,

was the 'Patron Saint of Hopeless

Cases.'

-

(It's funny  -  when you write yourself

into a corner you realize the task ahead

of you is, with some sort of ease and

grace, you hope, to write yourself right

back out of it, without leaving too much

of a hole or a trail. Here's goes): You think 

you know about atoms and space and

Mesopotamia huh. (I owe it all to School

4&5?). You don't know anything at all,

about any of it. It's purely words and 

concept. Remember, maybe as a kid,

when Grandpa died? Or Great Grandpa,

or someone? What were you told?

Dead. Gone to Heaven. Over. Life's

done. Grandpa's dead and buried. You

were being fed concept : the glimmering

momentary 'belief' in something by 

which to fill out your life. What if,

instead of 'dead' you were told 

'scavali'  - Grandpa had scavali'd

on you. See, from that point on you'd

already know more, based on what 

you'd been told Scavali meant : 

"You see, Johnny, Grandpa got to 

live here a while, with us, and

when he was ready it was time 

for him to Scavali, to his other 

place, to finish out more of his 

work and meaning. Grandpa had a

very important Scavali to finish up, 

as we all do, in our own way, and 

when we're ready to move on, our 

Scavali calls us and takes us back 

and all our pasts and all our futures 

get put in together and we see all

 the concepts and ideas, people 

and places, and things we've done 

and thought, and they become our 

other things and we become them 

and divide and life spreads out 

and we see all our Originators 

and meet all the terms and the 

happiness we've made and brought 

with us, Johnny. And if we didn't then 

we see and become all the darksides 

of things we've done and experienced, 

and Grandpa's Scavali was a real 

good one and now he's working 

hard, into the next and more.' 

-

So, you see, had you been taught 

all that, instead of dunned with a 

heavy, clonking concept of death 

and dread, you'd realize it was all 

just words and the concepts they 

bring forth; Like that papier-mache 

Mesopotamia so many insist upon, 

like that table top, weirdly spinning 

and made up of atoms and swiftly 

rotating charges and the spaces 

between them, which appears to 

us as a rock solid table, like the 

things you believe and speak of. 

Words  -  words to make worlds. 

Better, and better, and, 

eventually, best.

10,243. DEPARTMENT OF WRY

DEPARTMENT OF WRY

You leaky boat. You no good adder.

You windstorm in the desert, you.

-

The marks were on the bridge wall,

in a most inconsiderate way.' If Tom

Sawyer had a sequel,' I said, 'you'd

be it.' No laughter in the world like

forgetting, and honored in the breach.

-

'I went down to the catamaran, just

to see what I could see...' He'd started

singing that tune again : on his own, 

he'd made another one up. 

10,242. THROW SOME

THROW SOME

Hmmm. You say this::

'Throw some light on how 

much dark there is.'

10,241. RUNNING FROM FIRE

RUNNING FROM FIRE

Once the heart gets the beat there's no

turning back  -  the sword, the arrow,

in the stone, are forever. Every precipice

has its bottom crying out : I may fly, yet

I don't know how to land.

-

I saw the smoke at the kingdom's end;

people and cattle, all running from fire.

And, making things worse, the haze

had blanketed the land. 

-

Mary had a little lamb, it's fleece was

white as snow. No more, my friend, no more.

10,240. RUDIMENTS, pt. 152

RUDIMENTS, pt. 152

Making Cars

Because we lived right on the

railroad tracks, 70 feet off anyway,

and because Rahway Prison was in

our backyard across those tracks,

relatives would come over and end

up saying things like 'How can you

live here? Doesn't all this keep you

up?' Fact is, the train noises never

bothered us (me) a bit. I in fact

always rather liked them. In the

same way that I'd go down to the

end of the block just to stare at

Route One and all those cars going

'somewhere,' the train cars represented

escape. Of course, for most of the

people on them they probably didn't

represent that at all  -  dragging back

to daily jobs and routines, slogging

home. Schedules, travel times, etc.

In the early darks, of Winter and the

seasons of low light, I'd see all the

heads rolling by in the lit windows.

It always fascinated me and I never

took the thought past that point. The

same way with the prison  -  I always

figured people were playing mental

games with themselves, reacting to

'prison,' the word, as if they were

some Pavlovian dog. For all I knew

the prison itself could have been

a shoe store; it wouldn't have

changed anything. The thing that

these people were reacting to was

all imagery, the stuff that had

been drummed into their heads

about all this. It wasn't like that

at all. That's what was crummy

about people, a big letdown all

the time. They'd just react instead,

no real thought. What was the

prison to me? After all, as a kid

I never certainly sat around thinking

about 'justice' and right. Those

guys, whoever they were in there,

had gotten themselves mashed up

with something, the system got

them, and it wasn't my problem.

Bank robber, wife-beater, or killer,

all the same to me. Everyone always

thought something like that reflected

on the people who lived nearby to it.

My father never sat around thinking

he was within 1000 feet of the prison

yard  - he was just fondly proud of

having his house, along with the 80

or so other houses nearby in a row.

Sort of like  -  one set of inmates

over there; another set right here.

Make the best of it, and look

what I got!

-

My father was a local First Aid guy

for a while  -  they'd get calls to go

into the prison. He was never worked

up over it : heart attacks, injuries,

stabbings, strokes, fights, all sorts

of things. He'd say what it had been,

how they went about it all, the big

rotunda, the emergency entrances,

etc. I'd think it wasn't any different

from the same way anyone else goes

down, in Beverly Hills or Hollywood.

No stigma there, so what's the big

deal here? Every so often some

rumor would get started about an

escapee roaming, or whatever. I

never saw any truth to any of it,

and, heck, we'd see prisoners every

day, nice days anyway, out on the

farm fields doing their work  -  tractors,

corn harvesters, plows and rakes. A

few guards, guys with rifles, and of

course the ever-present tower guards.

But it was always quiet, and nothing

ever happened. My whole idea of

'theology' as primitive as it was,

got off to a very vivid start there.

As a 6-year old, what else does

a kid do but connect what he

sees, his real 'experience,' with

the concept he's fed. So it was

with God and me. Someone

always on the high wall, always

watching, always at the ready

to smite you with some horrible

fate or punishment for screwing

up. The bullet hand, the trigger-finger

of God the Guard, God the uncrossable,

God the ever-present marksman.

-

How much of that carries over?

What does a kid bring with him

or her self? I grew up essentially

just putting all that behind me,

forgetting about everything else.

Stratification, or even caste, like

the caste-system in old India, kept

 me separate from all that. I might

not ever have been much, half a

poor kid, and the other half dumb,

but it was never the level of the

populace out of which prison-terms

feed, bad crime sprees, lock-downs

and pummelings. That all went

with another land and territory

entire, and later in life as I'd run

across that I'd just stand there and

gape. 'How the hell did I get here?'

Here of course being New York

City, the belly of the beast, in all

its wrong parts. It was like a

cross-handed double-cross mistake.

The flipped coin with only one side.

'Accept this all, my brother, for here

you are'  -  that became my personal

motto. Once I integrated myself into

the drive of all that machinery, it

became almost impossible for me

to go back home. When I did, even 

for a day or two, it was impossible

to accept the feel again. There are

plenty of NY places where you can

get on the train or subway in an area

that's nice and quite congenial, and

20 minutes later step out into some

hell-hole of Harlem or Bed-Stuy 

or something  -  back then anyway  -  

some horrendous, blackened and 

torched, situation of ruined streets 

and near-dead bodies  -  and whenever

that happened to me it never struck

me with the same, lost and horrendous

feeling I'd get back in Avenel. Stepping

off the train in that little squankum 

place, walking again those streets of 

chain-link fences and miserable plots

of nothing, I'd feel the dead-grind of

a certain 'suburbia' that I abhorred.

The driveways and lawns, the lights

and just the manner of the people

I'd see  -  closed and parochial. I'd

shaken all that off myself, at least.

It's funny because, 1967, that was

just about the same time that the 

prison-farm was taken away, the

horrendous government-school-camp

for retards and inmates was put in, 

all those fields were gone, there were 

weirded-out, screeching Mongoloids

at the State School roaming the yards

of their little satellite cottages, clinging

to the fences and staring out.

-

I'd lived there my whole live and this

all just about broke my heart in two. I'd

cross the tracks and go right up to the

fence  -  like you do in a farm or a

barn-yard expanse when all the

animals come running to the fence

to be with you, bleating and staring 

out. Kids would come to the fence.

These were children so severely

retarded or mis-shapen and broken,

that even their own parents couldn't

keep or tolerate, and they'd been

turned over to the State, as wards.

Holding pens, each building, with a

few staff and nurses to, basically,

do as little as was needed, letting 

them be. Some of these kids, I could 

see their eyes and faces, no matter what

they where, just wanted touch and

warmth, and feeling. They certainly

could not verbally communicate, it

was all far past them and became

instead some string of animal noises,

grunts and groans, all leading to some

form of need, a noise for connection, 

or love, Humanity. It just used to 

break me up. The noises, at some

times were constant, and wailing.

Man, that hurt, and it all rattled me.

-

Maybe one needs to be really dumb 

to be insensitive. I realized I wasn't

dumb, and I realized I wasn't 

insensitive either.

10,239. AUTUMN

AUTUMN

I was looking at the moon

tonight, thinking it was full.

But it's not. I looked it up; 

not full yet, for two more

days. Some kind of a Druid

I would make. The carpet on

the woodsy floor was made

of leaves. I smelled deep 

Autumn in every moment.