10,942. RUDIMENTS, pt. 364

RUDIMENTS, pt. 364

(avenel oddballs)

I can't count too high, but

including myself, right off the

bat, I can name three people

who have been destroyed by

Avenel  - turned wacky.

One is far from here, so I

guess that's good. Another

is me, so I guess that's not

that good. And a third is

simply a local pestilence

whom I must tolerate and

deal with : Because of the

goodness of my Nature and

my fealty to my own uncertain

principles of God and Service.

There's a good note that goes

with that, and which always

makes me smile. In the 1970's

as I first began landing, in my

self-imposed exile and flight,

fictionalizing myself as much as

I could to thwart any fingerlings

from New York City finding

me, I began surfacing at Elmira 

- both the small city of it and

the college of it. I've written

of this before, in any of these

5 books here (you really ought

to just buy the set, $400 dollars

won't kill you), and you're probably

to get like 8,000 pages of truly

a one-of-a kind history of our

times. Anyway, Gandy Brody

was there, an old 1950's Beatnik

era New York School painter,

and, because of him and that

connection, there'd often be

cool and surprise guests

among us. Poet Kenneth Koch,

(pronounced as Coke, NOT

Koch with the soft ch). Brody

was just a regular, stand up

guy, replete with all that 1950's

panoply of insouciance and

total 'cool' that went with the

era. He and I  -  and his friends  -

kept an open-door policy going;

free to smash in and mingle

at any time. The thing was, in

Elmira, along the roads coming

into town, along Rt. 17 and

elsewhere, there'd be these signs

about the Elmira 'Sertoma' Club,

their Thursday meetings, where

and when. etc. I never knew what

it was. Sertoma? Sounded to me

like a sleep medicine or something.

Anyway, over time I found out it

was something like the Elks or

Moose Lodges, a local Rotary

Club, business group. All it meant

was 'Service To Mankind,' from

which they had taken Sertoma.

I mentioned it once to Gandy

Brody, and he said those

'service' groups were the

worst manifestation of the

American business ethos that

he knew of. And then he said

that American business people

were like puppies, always

seeking a mother's teat to

suck off of. He said lots of

other things too, and I was

always enraptured to be able

to talk (we'd walk Sunday

mornings dogs, each ours, 

around the campus area). That

sort of thing doesn't happen 

that often and is one of the 

great serendipities of good 

living in a place that harbors 

interesting people. Alas,

in the middle of all this, at 

age 51, one day he just

keeled over and died.

-

My loss. It's like that. I'd

never get the equivalent of 

that here in Avenel. Perhaps

back in the day I could have

walked and talked with Mr.

Metro, the local deli guy,

about cold cuts and ham. He 

used to complain that our

newly-built houses (1954)

when they were constructed

had taken away his best 

deer-hunting land. I suppose, 

with all that prison-farm corn,

deer liked it there a lot. There

was another Avenel eccentric,

pretty weird guy  - he was 

the fellow who manned the 

gate-house at Security Steel,

for all the incoming trucks and

cars  -  bills of lading, packing

slips, appointments, all that stuff.

You sort of couldn't get in there

without passing his muster first. 

I was always walking around,

Avenel Street and the train

station, etc., and over time we

just got to know each other. He

was probably 45 or 50, to my

16/17. He told me his name was

Ben Gazzara. I went back home

and mentioned it to my mother 

and she laughed, 'He's pulling your

leg! Ben Gazzara is an actor.'

That was weird; and then when

I looked up Ben Gazzara, this

turkey actually did look just

like him. Strange. He lived in

the last, brown, abandoned 

storefront building at the 

railroad underground piss-stairs.

They took you to the Rt. One

side of the tracks, by the

country-western bar, The

Hillcrest, that I mentioned

(Hey, cowboys and cowgirls,

there weren't no hill and there

weren't any crest). He was

on the Security Steel side.

(I'm not sure if it was called

General Dynamics then; I 

forget). Anyway, he was their

gatekeeper. I don't know much

else about him; he lived alone.

I went there a few times, with 

my girlfriend too, because he

had started paying me for a

project. Also quite strange.

Once he heard of my interest

in art and painting (I guess I'd

told him), he began buying

these three-feet high religious

plaster statues, all white and

unpainted  -  of saints and Jesus

and Mary and stuff. I don't 

know why or what he did 

with them, but he offered me

like 7 dollars each if I'd

paint faces and clothing and 

stuff, color-paint, on them.

Eyes, lips, hair and all that

stuff. It was weird and I 

really didn't enjoy it, but 

I did maybe 8 or 10  -  I'd 

pick up the plain white statue, 

and walk the tracks to my 

house, and back in the same 

manner, with the finished,

painted-up product. He paid, 

but was never perfectly happy

with my work  -  not precise

enough for what he'd wanted,

colorations and things not

always to his liking. After

a while I just stopped going.

Never saw him again, after 

I left town  -  but another 

friend has told me the word 

was he fond of doing this 

and took numerous other

Avenel boys into his little

lair there. It was a nice little

place, small, and set up for

one person; kind of a cool way

to live, right there AT the train

station, a nice, flowery yard.

The old abandoned hulk,

and his yard, is still there, all

derelict, and set for demolition

in a month or two. For the 

moment, it's right next to the

handicapped spots for train

parking. Better get there quick

though, because the usual, elected

local-cheerleader bastards are

about to take it all away and

develop the section. Their names

are legion, and they don't like

being called out. (I was asked

to stop. Isn't that cool; the little

tax-moochers can't take it). So,

this Ben guy, liking boys I guess,

he never tried anything like that

with me; was instead just weirdly

pliable, soft and without much

spine, it seemed. You can usually

tell about a guy by the kinds of

things they like  -  all this religion

stuff being one of the telltale traits

of something ain't right. I've got

nothing against religion, and God

knows I've been around the track

with it too, but when what you

accept as religion is nothing more

than a weak-kneed obeisance to

command and dictate, something's

not right. Or, as I used to say,

'Ben there, done that!' (ha ha?).

-

Maybe I'm wrong by just claiming

three people destroyed by Avenel.

It's probably three-hundred and it 

all depends on whichever floating

definition of 'destroyed' you wish

to use. I know a lot of people who

would never tell you they were

destroyed. But they are.

-

I always keep coming back here.

This little place, like a rounded

glacial hole that just keeps on

collecting water, is always a

ready pool of something  -  lately

off course it's just been bad bugs

and mosquitoes breeding, but

for what I demand out of life

(which ain't much at all and I

believe in nothing and mostly

disdain everything), this works.

If I was a sleep-around kind of 

guy (oh drat) there's enough

hot-sheet motels to keep me

going for a year (I'd give out

before then). Sure are plenty of

gas stations to keep fueled at, and

now the latest ones all have little

crap-stores attached too, with

the marginally employable 

locals all swarming around to 

do the bidding. There used to

be a whole slew of what were

called go-go bars, with nice

condom machines in the

restrooms and French-tickler

machines too! They're gone 

now, and what's left are called

'Gentleman's Clubs' which 

means instead of dancing 

girls in g-strings and stuff, 

there's NO alcohol (ha) and 

you pay a fee at the door  (like

20 bucks), so it's considered 

a 'private' club, and the girls 

are all butt-ass totally naked

and without 'inhibitions' let's

say. Now, I don't know about

you, but to me that's a far cry, 

as I see it, from painting

naked statues, and maybe I

missed out. Nor do I see, as

I pass things like the Loop Inn,

etc., how any intensified 

ownership by and with local

gendarmes can possibly have 

any positive effect. Hell, sex

and prostitution is sex and

prostitution, however you 

call it. 'Service to mankind,'

indeed!

-

So, what exactly is going to 

happen to this little place of 

ours? I can tell you  - we're 

going to soon be subjected to 

the endless prattle of gay little, 

double-entendre'd musicals 

and fashion shows and

swivel-hipped dance recitals 

for the fat old locals who 

can somehow get their stinky 

butts off a recliner and pay 

14 bucks for the privilege

of watching, while in their

best Walmart clothing, the

most-high culture they've

ever imagined, while all 

around them everything 

else is getting ripped and 

torn and broken asunder.

You gotta' watch them 

crazy people  -  sometimes

the devil comes in the name

of the Lord.

10,941. WHAT CAN YOU ADD TO MARY McSHANE?

WHAT CAN YOU ADD 

TO MARY McSHANE?

Let's be very quiet and think? The man with

the washing clothes has come in. He's had

three baths already, in a 14-hour day, and

now he's doing laundry. I don't see anything

strange there, no  -  and the day's not  yet

done. I've heard he also pays to have his

larkspur rubbed. But that only proves the

rich are different than you and me. They'd

probably say 'you and I' anyway. Someone

reported a '96 Acura stolen again. That's

a fairly accurate description.

-

One guy I know, he collects cereal boxes;

has probably a hundred. All empty but

otherwise in perfect shape  ;  He keeps the

tops square, and never rips the opening.

I asked him once, 'Would they be more

valuable if they had the contents still in

them?' he couldn't answer for sure, and

said he just didn't know. I wondered what

he did with the stuff he removed.

-

This fellow, he was once married to this

Mary McShane  -  said it was a great time

while it lasted. About 6 years. Then she ran

off with an altimeter mechanic who worked

for Boeing. She hated Washington State, and

eventually just left him there. Now she gives

piano lessons at the YMCA.

10,940. RUDIMENTS, pt. 363

RUDIMENTS, pt. 363

(avenel state school)

I can't remember, but whatever

year it was that was the Spring

and Summer of the Beach Boys

and Sloop John B, that was

I first got any exposure to the

newly built State School  -

which had, at my backyard

and tracks there, taken away

the prison farm which had

always been there. Everyone

in my house was oblivious to

any of this, and never said a

word. I hadn't been around,

being away at seminary school,

and, here being back for a

Summer or something before

I finally left it for good, I

looked up and all that farm

stuff was gone. Man was I

pissed at this world. In my

house there, they must have

seen, at the least, surveyors

and bulldozers and footings

and things being put in, but

no one seemed aware. One day

it was all just there  -  massive

construction stuff, constant

noise everywhere, dust and

trucks and debris. How they

couldn't have seen it coming

was beyond me. I connect all

this with that Beach Boys tune

not because I liked it, but because

it was constant. My surprise was

as I found its connection to Carl

Sandburg, American Chicago

poet  -  someone of course that

the idiot kids and Beach Boy fans

would have had no knowledge of.

He'd collected a bunch of old

and traditional shanty songs, in

1927, called 'The American

Songbag,' and this was one of

the songs. It had been around 

forever, under various names,

John B Sails, etc, and this group

of Californa drug-hens got their

hit from that, calling it Sloop

John B. Whatever, it sort of 

became, for me, the anthem of

farm-wrecking.

-

Once that farmland went, so went

Avenel. After that, redemption

had left the premises and it was

just a soiled heap of truck oil

and gas runoff. 'A venal place;'

I called it. That was a set of sins,

in the Catholic Church. Fools.

Over the centuries they've 

actually lined up 'Sins' by 

ranking. Mortal sins, like

murder and fornication -- (well,

I'm not so sure on fornication

any more, because I hear-tell

a lot of that goes on now and 

no one much seems to care),--

they get you in deep shit and

straight to Hell if you don't go

getting forgiven first, by telling

someone else about them, in 

secret. Then there's what's called

'Venal' sins, like small stuff,

lying, cheating at tests, peeking

at your sister naked, stuff like that.

Like 'close but no cigar' sins, but

in reverse. A prize you don't

WANT to win. How any sane

organization of prelates could

defend any of this was always

more than I could figure out.

That whole construction thing,

by the way, and oddly enough,

took place in much the same 

way as did/is the current

General Dynamics property

of apartments right here at the

end of my street now. One day

they just moved in and started 

ripping. But in this case it was

all pretty obvious because it

wasn't farmland; it was soil,

contaminated and poisoned, 

that the EPA had shut down

years before, even closing

the adjacent park. All of a 

sudden, even with the EPA

soil contamination signs still

up everywhere, they were 

hard at work. Now people 

live there, and kids, and 

everyone else too, play on

the old soil without a care.

Of course, they glow electric-

green at night, but no one

notices.

-

I lost all grounding in Avenel

after that -  the State School

went up in all these little satellite

pods, each sheltered encampment

housing a different sort of seriously

deformed and retarded person  -  

all, from little kids to old adults.

It was the scariest, weirdest

place ever. My wife, when I 

first met her, as a late-teen, 

actually, was volunteering 

there a few hours a week. 

These were creatures who'd 

been given up by their parents 

and had become wards of 

the State, being sheltered 

and cared for. It was pretty 

horrible. Along the rear

fence, at the tracks at my 

house, there was a satellite 

pod of severe cases of young

adult people, like 20's or so.

I swear, my heart used to break.

These people were broken, and

I think their hearts ached for

company, love, and comfort.

These were males, by the way.

I never saw any females. They'd

be, in the evenings, out back,

clinging to the fence, wailing at

the heavens  -  strange, keening

sounds, up and down the scale,

while looking skyward. She 

and I sometimes went out 

the fence. They'd want to see

us; they'd put fingers and hands

through the fence, to touch, and

they'd stop their noises for those

moments and start a hum or a

low groan. Dying for humanity,

it seemed like. I almost cried,

each time, and I'd curse the 

Creator too. My girlfriend 

would feed them, as her 

volunteer work. I never saw 

any of that. She had a special

case, one John Balby, in whom

she took special moment and 

care. She'd feed him with a large

spoon, ladling the slop into his

mouth. He would be constantly

humming and rocking back and 

forth. She'd worked it how how

both to properly feed him and

have the noise and the rocking 

stop too. I guess he's dead now,

because apparently few of them 

made it out of their 40's.

-

I'm not making a big stink

specifically over the State 

School. On the whole, none 

of that had much to do with 

my life and, frankly, I couldn't 

give a care about it. I was never 

any sort of missionary about 

others  -  once any of those

super-sorry situations arise,

the problem is yours and those

who own you. I never figured

the State as a baby-sitter. But,

whatever; what got me more,

for a poor place like Avenel,

was the mission-creep of

this kind of stuff. Once the

powers-in-place get you figured

for being a dump, even though

they still take everything they

can from you, they begin to 

place all sots of nasty things

right where you live. You can

bet Scotch Plains or Westfield,

or even Colonia, isn't ever

going to have a settlement 

of severely retarded deficients

placed in their backyards.

We had the prison, after it was

just a boys' reformatory; then it

was a Maximum Security prison;

Then we had a Lifers Unit; (I

used to do their printing. 

Lock-Box R. I used to tell

them, 'Your printing's done. 

Come pick it up!'); then we 

got two add-ons of depraved 

Sexual Offenders units  -  

high-risk dick-maniacs who,

if they got loose, would go

right back to rape and pillage 

and murder anything that moves.

('Avenel; where men are men

and sheep are nervous.' Saw

that on a postcard once. OK,

kidding). And then we got

55 acres of some four hundred

of these State School people.

Some kind of, as I said, 

downward creep. How can

you make anything sensitive

out of a place like this? Now 

we're getting some Twinkie Arts 

Council stuff that, beside being 

redundant (ever hear of the 

Barron Arts Center?) is a tax-

drain, a money fountain for a

few fluffernutters coming in

to run it, and  -  I'd swear  -

a criminal enterprise to boot.

There's not a piece of clean

money in this town, and it 

makes me sick. I hope at

least they can keep the

prison open to house the

30 recalcitrants from here

who are prison-bound in

my estimation. And I hope,

when that happens, they put 

them in with the Lifers who

haven't had a good piece of

sheep in many a year. Now that's

a blimey musical to stage!
Avenel follies to the rescue!

10,939. AT THE CAVERN HIGH HAT

AT THE CAVERN 

HIGH HAT

'Ain't nothing light about a 

keg of beer.' The big guy said

that, and I laughed. It was funny

to me. Even if maybe it wasn't

light beer. I'd don't think he made

the connection. Anyway, the place

looked shiny in the half-light; I'd

never seen it like that before. It's

usually an unholy mess, of noise,

girls jiggling, bands, live music,

beer chatter, loud voices, and a

damned jukebox too. All in a

darkness of seduction and play

and drunkeness mixed. He was

unloading a truck. I said, 'Why

don't you use a dolly?' And

another guy piped up, 'They're

ain't no dollies here until later.'

10,938. NOW THERE'S NOTHING LIKE THIS

NOW THERE'S 

NOTHING LIKE THIS

I've been a stagehand, and I guess a

cowhand too  -  farming and all that.

I've never been a chowhound though.

If it all get's too confusing, yes, I too

agree. All these things and categories,

one, two three. Everybody always

wants to know something. Too

specific for me.

10,937. RUDIMENTS, pt. 362

RUDIMENTS, pt. 362

(avenel's first-hand treatment)

All along my times of

both growing up and

local schooling, in the

early grades, I felt that

no one ever really leveled

with me. They talked all

good with that wonderful

America stuff, great country,

amber waves of grain and

all that, but at the same time,

and underway then, was the

dismantling and subverting

of that entire scheme. The

part and the manner of my

living in Avenel was fairly

indicative of that : Normal

1950's stuff with the usual

unseen but always expected

regularity. Now, 50 plus some

years later, everything has

been proved wrong. No one

ever told us that a water crisis

would ensue (because of way

too many people, and extreme

and wasteful overuse). That

was always something that

was just expected to be taken

for granted. Wherever you

went, there'd be water on

demand for pennies. Not so

fast, Sylvester! It's a real

problem, with monthly water

bills in places like Napa, and

Malibu and Palm Springs,

California now averaging three,

four, and five hundred dollars

a month, respectively. So I ask

you, how wrong were teachers

and parents to just ignore all

that and move us along oblivious

to any costs sustained by the

natural world. And it's now

only just beginning. I'm sure

the day is coming, but in our

present day one cannot just

mix up a batch of water. But,

at the same time, we have the

water-intensive luxury, in

supermarkets and the like, of

choices of some 69 different

brands of toilet paper, each with

their own densities of paper,

and softness, and 'absorbabilty.

Excuse me, what? All we ever

got in Avenel were rows of

dumb-ass bubble-top 16-foot

round swimming pools filled

with probably-toxic water. Up

and down the blocks, one after

the other, and it's all still like

that mostly except now the

money's gotten better and

the pools are fancier and

often in-ground too. What do

people think of themselves  -

all day larding around their

basket-fulls of valuable water

wasted for a chlorinated

de-bacteriaization so they

can fester in it? I swear, they

worry more about the waxy

finish on their SUV's than they

do any about the future of the

Earth and it resources.

-

What I want to know is how

we could NOT have been made

aware of the reality of things?

What sort of myopics were

running the Avenel follies,

even back then? Didn't schooling

owe us something, or was it

all just a nose-picking,

baby-sitting waste of time?

Another usual adult scam to

eventually fire up the flames

of war and send kids off to die

for made-up notions? Hell, yeah,

I had my notions and answers,

and no one was going to tell me

different. One thing I learned,

later, living on the farms that I

did, was that you can't skin your

animal if the head's still on it.

You've got to sever that connection

and make SURE that thing is

good and dead before you rip

it open and gut it and splash

out its insides all over, and

clean it and cook it. So's

then you can eat it and later

wipe it off your butt too with

one of those water-heavied,

super-soft, useful toilet-tissues

you get at any endless selection

in Shop-Rite. For that's

glory, amber waves of grain,

and pass me another beer.

-

When I got to New York City,

in whichever ways my feet could

carry me, I let them. I had an

entire and new realm to discover,

one which I'd only dreamed and

imagined for years of looking

up the highway from Hiram's.

Hiram's was the trailer court at

the end of my street, and past

it daily went thousands of cars

and trucks headed intently north.

Junkyards and playlands there

abounded, half the stories of my

youth took place right there, and

now it was over. I tried fitting

the Avenel jigs into the jigsaw

puzzle of my life, as it were,

under construction now, and

very few of them fit in NYC.

In fact, it all went kind of

uselessly away. An old mumble.

I might better have been from

the hollows of some Tennessee

for all it mattered  -  there was

simply no thread and no continuity.

The concerns and attitudes and

outlooks were totally different.

As were the personal politics of

moment. I never once wished

for home, even as I occasioaanlly

thought about it. Back in Avenel,

one of the pesky priests at St.

Andrew's, a half-predatory guy

named Chester Genecki, used to

swoon all the time about how he

loved his posting to Avenel because

it reminded him of a small New

England town. I used to laugh in

his face (and say get your hands

off me) and tell him I thought

he was dreaming. There wasn't

anything at all New Englandy

about this location, not even the

water lappng at the burgling

eddies of the storm sewers

us kids would climb through

underneath Costa's. He stuck

with his silliness however,

and I went away to the

seminary, thinking often

of his illusion and banking

that against much of the

rest of the illusionary nature

of the church stuff I was being

taught. Thinking to myself,

'Yeah, typical, these people

must all be gullible in the

same way.' Genecki (whose

brother was the Mayor of South

River, a nearby to Avenel but

slightly more bucolic and staid

old town, where maybe that

kind of thought made more sense.

was 'projecting?' But isn't that

what religious-church-people do?

Not brave enough to stake out for

God on their own). From Avenel,

most any Friday, or Thursday,

or Saturday night, for that matter,

he had this thing about driving of

few of us 'boys' around, in his '62

Plymouth. Myself and, usually,

one or two others. Obviously he

delighted in the touchy-feely

presence of being with boys,

there was no denying. He'd take

us to one or another ice cream

stand in any of 5 nearby towns.

We'd sit in the car, never got out

or walked or anything, and have

our milkshakes or ice-cream

cones, while he jabbered. Then

we'd get the pinches or the

slight touches. He was freaky.

One time, one of the friends,

Albert Clark, from Avenel Street,

down at the Rahway Ave. end,

like the last house where the

Dunkin' Donuts is now, spilled

a vanilla milkshake all over the

car seat, while twisting and

squirming away from a tickling

or a touch. Old Chester went nuts!

White milk shake goo everywhere.

(That sounds suggestive, but it's

just so in the re-telling).

-

One last thread here, that connects

all this back together : years later,

at St. George Press, I did the 

printing-account for the Diocese

of Metuchen; a constant, weekly

jam of little program books, liturgy

music books for this or that mass

or special celebration. The guy I 

worked with was Michael Alliegro,

an old classmate of mine in the

Seminary. He was from Fords, as 

a kid, when I knew him. He'd 

become Monsignor Alliegro those

thirty years later, and he worked

under Bishop McCarrick. A creepy,

way too happy guy wh had been

appointed as Bishop of the relatively

new 'Diocese' of Metuchen, based

there. I never liked the guy, big-

deal Bishop or not. Michael Alligro

(who is dead now, leukemia) told

me, on the whole, he hated his

position in the church  -  he said

had he known then that it would

have turned, for him, into all this  -

administrative stuff, books and

balances, juggling things  -  he'd

have never gotten involved. Oh

dear me, oh dear Avenel, oh 

Chester Genecki, oh St. Andrews,

Oh Bishop McCarrick. Now I

see what it all meant  :  the 'Bishop'

had finally been hauled off, from

his exiled retirement after being

shunted to Rome, for sexually

abusing, and then paying off,

the boys and their families whom

he'd abused, and keeping it all

hush-hush and quiet. Poor Monsignor

Alliegro, rest his living soul, having

to juggle books and facts and

figures from his Diocese office.

If I only knew, back then, how 

all this was being done, I could 

have helped out. I could have

told him we had a real, swinging,

New England small-town guy

we'd had over there in Avenel. 

Poor Michael, he only wanted to

find God, and all he got

was Mammon.