11,806. RUDIMENTS, pt. 704

RUDIMENTS, pt. 704
(take the good and the bad, together)
I'd guess to say, we were all kids.

one and the same, pummelled

and confused. Not by anything

particular or violent, just more

an irksome foreboding that

things around us were about to

begin moving. It may have

'seemed' solid  -  that old bear

of a world  -  but it wasn't so

much that at all. We had fathers

who'd sit around yet and go over

oddball memories or wartime,

there were at least three guys

on my block with wounds and

scars from shrapnel and such,

and we'd see them, swim trunks

and shorts for Summer. Nothing

much was ever 'made' of it all,

just the storied crap that kids

do  -  'see that rippled skin and

scar on Mr. Orlando's leg? There's

a live bullet in there, but they never

took it out because they were

afraid it would go off.' Senseless,

goofball stories, about nothing.

That was a world, and now it's

all gone, and so are all those

guys, and the wives too. The 

last one or two I can think of, 

maybe still hanging on, are 

barely there; in homes somewhere,

being catered to, until Death. 

When it all comes down to 

endings, it gets pretty simple.

-

Most of the kids  -  I end up just 

wondering where they all went.

Like the song 'Ophelia,' by The

Band. That rubber finger grows,

and I wonder where you are, the

old town ain't the same without

you being around, Ophelia, where

have you gone? Something of 

that Nature. If wishes were candles, 

I'd have this whole freaked-up 

half-assed town on fire. Add to

the paste; the grass is in clover.

-

As much as I hate missing things,

I hate having them too. That's

another of the central quandaries

of my life. Would I actually 'want'

all this old matter back again? Hell,

no. Not for the Now and not for the

Ever. What's over and done is just

that. Every old bog and swamp

here in Avenel and Woodbridge

is now sluiced and piped and 

hidden away  -  there's not a 

waterway anywhere worth its

salt (or its mercury or chromium

or oil either). Unless its shunted

aside and gathered in a new

dump-pond of apartment and

warehouse runoff and they go 

calling it Nature and Preserve

while the trucks and the big

whiz-bangs all go rolling by

and 3,000 South Asians and

Mexicans work the pristine and

remotely-processed warehouses

speaking not a word of this place's

language or sharing any of its 

history or ethos. Then they throw

up some toxic-meadow import

species trees and call it 'Ernie 

Oros Preserve.' And they then

manufactured a narrative to go

with it  -  Ernie Oros Nature's

Superman, on the placard. I

knew Ernie Oros, and so did

Planko's Tavern  -  all through 

those St. George Press years, he

hung around. When he could 
stand. I'll quit that now, OK.

-

One thing for sure I learned 

was that all of this life is a 

manufactured lie. The regular 

story books will tell you it can't

be done  -  the physics books 

would maybe say 'possible.' 

But  -  and here it is  - it CAN 

be done. Self-generated, rolling

energy can become continuous

and does not have to stop. It may 

not add to itself, may not 'increase,'

but with a modicum of tending,

it can be continuous. My proof is

myself and Frank Stroehlein.

We used to set out, on bicycles,

maybe 10 years old, maybe 11,

from 116 Inman Avenue, on 

out little experiment. We'd start

out, on the bikes, with maybe 10

or 12, at most, pumps of the

pedals, to get things rolling.

That was it. We'd found that, 

if done right and without any

real, undue, obstructions, after

those initial few pedals, with

whatever travel-speed we'd

gotten up, by coasting, and 

with, all the time, a gentle 

and constant 'weaving' of 

the handlebars, we could 

make it to Avenel Park, all

the way, without any further 

pedaling. I don't know the

distance, maybe it's a mile or

a tad more? But whatever. We'd

devised, experimented and then

proved a premise. Outside of

logic, straight thought, or

schooling, we'd  -  by going

around the bend of strictness  -

flirted and succeeded with 'idea'

and function. Plain and simple.

-

That was just the way it went,

some form of f'd up Avenel

prologue to the rest of Life.

My sadness these days still

blunts it all  -  Frankie's dead,

died as an electrician somewhere,

Jim Yacullo's dead  -  he was 

another kid pal who did this 

with us. It's just me ('he thinks

to himself') left to run this 

waterwheel? (Well, we used

to ride it past Al Zinze's house!

He was a Science guy...Perpetual

Motion Machine, was it, we'd

kind of discovered?). Not really.

We took roads instead called

Stasis Street, and Status Quo

Avenue. All dead-ends.

-

The breadman came by one day,

I forget his name now and all

that, except that he called everyone

'Goombah', whatever that was;

I suppose the equivalent to my

father's calling everyone 'Chief'

or 'Bud.' Anyway, my mother 

had a stray cat, early on, this was

maybe 1956, that she'd taken in,

and it had some horrible open

growth, wound thing on its

rear thigh, one side or the other.

All it ever did was stay curled

up on the top step of our cellar

stairway, wound side up, 

festering. It made me sad and

afraid each time I saw it  -  of

the consequences, the idea of it

suffering, and even of its death,

One day my mother showed it

to this Goombah guy. On his

next visit in, a few days later,

he took it away, the cat, saying

it was 'cancer' and needed to be

treated. So they said. He drove

away with the sorrowful thing in
a cardboard box. And that was

the last I ever heard of that cat,

the episode, and/or any cure.

I still grieve.

-

The good and the bad always

does get all mixed up together.

Only a really person can tell the

difference. I was never one of them.

11,805. RAHWAY IN THE MORNING

RAHWAY IN 

THE MORNING

Am I bummed out? No, not by

any measure to be measured; just

more a feeling of grief. I'm so

tired of what I see. Here too, even

here too, the real estate shysters

have taken their ground and are

tearing everything up. If I see

another foul black person with

nothing, against some white

privileged fawn of Reggie

O'Brown's Famed Dining Hall,

I may take up arms and fight for

the needy. The Fire Chief here was

some drunken Irish piece of crap who

pissed his pants when he got pulled 

over and, when asked to recite the

alphabet backwards while standing

on one fireman's foot, replied, 'Which

planet?' They fired him, they say, but

really just bumped him up another

notch. The undertaker's now a new

Councilman, and the Mayor's a Baptist

Helltown preacher. Here comes that 

train again. All the fat, black nightmen

come crawling back from their jobs -

mostly cleaning and orderly gigs, and

the new white pretzels are getting on

to go their their fancy jobs north, in the

city. The guys are thinking of food,

and the girls are thinking of their

sex, the night before, and whether

they left out enough food for the cat.

11,804. THADDEUS HAD TO TAKE IT OUT

THADDEUS HAD 

TO TAKE IT OUT

Nothing fits right any more; I've shrunk

and stretched, somehow, at the precise

same time. I brought him a king-sized

sheet. He had to take it out. (You'll notice

how I put that : I don't know what I'm

even talking about. But Thaddeus had

to take it out).

11,803. CENTRAL POSSIBLITY COMPANY.

CENTRAL POSSIBILITY 

COMPANY

Yes, yes, I worked there for 40 plus

years, my entire career. We made

everything, whatever you'd wish,

and there were no limits. Atom 

bomb to man on the moon. You 

name it, and we made it, soon.

Peanut butter nuggets, to eat on 

the run; gasoline flavored water, 

carnival gum. We manufactured 

patterned women's hosiery for

a large number of years  -  maps 

of the ocean, plasticene stairs.

Yep. I made it my life; though

that career's over now. I'm now

working on a Heaven, the why

...and the how.

11,802. RUDIMENTS, pt. 703

RUDIMENTS, pt. 703

(both infamy and renown)

I'd guess to say we had all the

usual  -  breadman, milkman,

vegetable truck guy, scissors

and saw sharpeners, who also

made keys. There was an entire 

assortment of trucks  -  the kind

of arrivals and service you could

set your watch by. Two, or even

three, different sorts of ice cream

and ices trucks. The bread man

and the milk man ended up each

knowing most everybody; the

others were just passing vendors.

There was also an insurance guy

who  -  it seemed  -  once a month

managed to walk the block, with 

his odd, little, black leather-bound

accounts book, (I know this only

because we were one of the usual

stops). His name was 'I. Mike 

Cohen,'and I truly used to think

that was a fantastic name, in the

way it sort of introduced itself.

I never knew the ins and outs

of insurance, but he'd collect his

3 bucks or so (it was a paltry sum)

monthly, for what and for how

many decades, I never found out.

He was a small, sour, dour, Jewish

guy  -  might as well have been

selling caskets or funerals for any

of the joy it seemed to bring him.

He even had a black 1955 Ford,

which was pretty new then, but 

he only parked remotely, way 

down by the school, and walked

his route through the houses. As

I think back now, I don't know

how I knew this, but I guess if I

wasn't in school it must have

been Summer  -  yet, again, I

too remember him in a heavy,

black, cloth coat. Mystery?

-

I guess those sorts of jobs were

mercifully helpful to a lot of

these guys  -  basically unskilled.

Buy a truck, have it equipped,

and drive slowly around all day,

hoping people enough need your

services to get you your services

as needed. It was also kind of

bizarre how cheap things were.

A loaf of bread for like 18 cents,

gas at 19 cents (with that extra

9 thrown it to make it actually

more like 20. Whoever cared

about '19.99 cents a gallon'?

My father used to blow into to

gas stations and say 'Give me a

buck's worth, Chief.' He called

most every stranger in his service

Chief, or Bud. That was always

funny to me. We'd go fishing, to

rent a boat and stuff, and it was

always 'Cap'n Al's' boat rentals

or whatever, but he never said

Captain. It was still Bud. Or

Chief. Some things were 

always bizarre. 

-

I think sometimes when you're

a kid you just let the 'bizarre' go,

because you can't really yet tell

the difference or understand the

twisty little sidebars that make it

so. It's only later, older, when you

can finally gumption-up to say,

'What the heck is that?' It's a

reasonable assumption, I'd think,

that if you can drive, fight in

a war, or undertake basic sexual

maturity, you should also then 

have the right to call things out.

Or, as my friend Aleck used to

humorously say, 'Call a spade

a spade, except in Harlem.'

(Goodness yes, a person used to

be able to josh around like that,

poke fun at fools, make inanities

that had some actual sense too,

without starting riots or strikes

by college-level kinderbrats).

-

We never had a bookmobile, not on

Inman Avenue anyway. I always thought

that, like both the ice cream guy, and

the bread guy, it would have been

cool to have a book truck come by.

Not the Bookmobile library stuff,

but I mean one you could buy from.

Cheaply. Like an Amazon book-truck.

Elmira, later on, had a Bookmobile

that trolled around the city. It was

weird, because they also had a really

respectable library, and the College

too was right off downtown, a simple

walk and always part of the town's

business and flavor. The Bookmobile,

quite bizarre actually, was dark green

and basically looked like a huge

torpedo, (have I not  already said 

'United States of Dildo' in a

previous chapter? Why, yes, of

course I did)... Lets just say this

weinermobile was filled with books

and had flexi-shelves that flipped

out on the sides, and they got

loaded with books to at the stops. 

A library on wheels; but for what

I never really knew. Anyway,

the Avenel I knew never had that.

-

There was, at first, a screwy little

stone hut next to school 4 that was

the Library. Officially. Not much

larger than two closets stitched

together, it was in any case, quite

attractive, homey, and welcoming.

That was three structures ago on

the same spot. They just kept

re-building to larger and crummier

facilities each time. The last one

was so bad, in its resemblance to

any small-sized piece of junk

school building that it was soon

superseded by the 'Main' Library,

which system by then had taken

over all these little operations

that acted as satellite little libraries.

Now they're all part of the one

system, all the same, and, goodness,

all tacky enough in their ways.

Sewaren has a standout, singular,

lone library, pretty much nearly

exactly resembling the structure

that Avenel had. Except it's very

seldom open. Through the 1960's

actually it was a Christian Science

Reading Room. How it ever ended

up as an independent library now

is beyond me.

-

I have a friend, or acquaintance 

anyway, who lives across from 

it now it what remnants are left

of a huge, old rambling, yellow

mansion that has been in his family

for many years  -  farm to nothing.

His uncle was a very famous

movie actor, who, visiting from

California when he would come

to NYC to do voiceovers and

commercials and plays and 

things, would stay there. This

friend of mine, Bruce, used to

as a late-teen, be his uncle''s

'driver' during these visits 

(mid/late 1960's), and he said

he'd get to NYC on those work

trips, meeting lots of the famed

and the renowned. (I always tell

him to watch out, because often

the 'renowned' later become the

'renounced'). No matter. He 

remembers surprisingly little of

Sewaren days, but he remembers 

the Reading Room, and tells me

too that it was his grandfather and

then father who granted what was 

then the library some free space 

for their operation in one of their

streetside farm buildings (still

there but unused and derelict).

Bruce also tells me about the

only thing he remembers is some

half-super-famous late 60's rock

band that lived in another large 

house a few over. I forget the 

name of the band, and the name 

that house to have in those loud,

druggy, noisy, sloppy, rock and

roll days of infamy. This was all

news to me, hearing of it from 

only years later. Jeez, the

things we miss.

11,801. ARHYTHMIC POWOW

ARHYTHMIC POWOW

Like a doctor says about a patient

who's dead : 'Heart stopped, nothing

going on. These things happen, and

sometimes, alas, irretrievably.' Now

who ever heard of a doctor who talked

like that? Not me, for sure, but I've not

talked to many. At the crash scene the

man was already limping, and then the

lady in gray starting yelling about God's

great tsunami soon to engulf us all. I

asked her for directions, and she only

pointed upward, but past the sky, as

well it seemed to me.

11,800. LIKE LEMON TREE

LIKE LEMON TREE

And. To. Heck. (With the rest

of them). Dreck. Mr. Beck.

-

I will let my words flow out

like juiceless lemonade from

the Plains of Abraham (& Straus).

-

Major storms are still due in.

We can, however, avoid trouble

by just not being around?

11,799. CANTILEVERED RAINBOW

CANTILEVERED RAINBOW

Until I caught the bug, I'd

already had the flu. And 

chicken pox, and measles 

too. The sorts of things

that all kids got, back when

I was young. The big kahuna,

back then, the one you never

wanted, was Polio. Or, in

more technical terms, as I

recall, Polio Myelitis.

11,798. PUT YOU IN THE BARREL

PUT YOU IN THE BARREL

I've put you in the barrel, yes,

but have not yet sealed the top.

For now, I'm still thinking of 

where to send you. But how

can one send a memory?

-

The shadow that crossed the

curtains here, seems stuck in

place : one routine, the same

old thing. Nothing changes;

making me think again of you.

-

And, damn, if that isn't always 

the way. The girl on the side of

the stick-ball court, watching the

game. The girl on the corner, by

Murray's old candy store, smudging

her face, and asking for more.

11,797. HUMMINGBIRD

HUMMINGBIRD

There's nothing like a hummingbird

to eat from a baby's mouth. Ah, how

they stay in one place and flutter.

11,796. RUDIMENTS, pt. 702

RUDIMENTS, pt. 702

(just the real and the definite)

One thing I always noticed about

'Art' was the factor of 'randomness.

It seemed a fair barometer of what

sort of quality I was viewing, most

especially, obviously, when it came

to abstract paintings. There's fairly

well nothing worse that a rank

amateur doing an abstract painting;

talk about kids or monkeys slinging

color. Community paint groups,

sidewalk art sales, and all the

rest really made me swoon. Vases

and flowers and seascapes are

one thing. They can be excused

as pleasant decoration. But an

abstract painting, attempted by

an 'abstracted' amateur, bears no

reference to anything painterly.

I never knew how that idea got

started anyway. It seems to me,

mostly, that first you must slowly

progress through the breakdown

of regular, orderly art  -  at least

for the idea of 'abstract' to have

some sense, if not aesthetic

attraction with theory behind it.

One doesn't see much of that

anymore anyway; abstract art

does seem to have fallen away.

-

That's sort of curious, in light of

the way it arose, developed, and

matured (and then faded). There

was a time, in those immediate

post-Depression and then post-War

years, when Abstract-Expressionism

and all the New York School art

was referred to as 'Existential'; in

outlook, and in approach. I suppose

it was  -  there for sure wasn't 

anything trite or fluffy about it.

A few suicides, deaths and many

breakdowns later it had amassed

enough personnel and accumulated

work so as to be referred to as a

unit. Fixed and steady. Mostly a

male domain, but not totally   -   

actually I always almost preferred

the women of the group. They 

were really cool; strong and

disdainful too. Once upon a

time you could gauge and define

things by it all. Certainly it wasn't

much connected to suburbia.

-

There were one or two TV shows

about Art and the instructional

approaches to painting. Mostly

frothy stuff that ignored any

torment or internal crusading.

'Art' wasn't supposed to be about

that  -  leave that heart-rending

and really killer stuff to those

collectively drunk, drugged and

insatiable Art-Hounds. About

the same time, the big craze was

'paint by numbers' -  totally horrid

stuff, hardly even to be relegated

to 'painting' or art.' I never knew

what was up with that genre, but

it was always, and plainly, both

irritating to me and unsatisfying 

too. The premise or the crux of

it seemed to be that any planar 

section of color or shading was

able to be broken up into segments

which then became 'planes; of 

their own, in color. There would

be two or three, say, contiguous

planes of varied browns and tans,

put together in such a way as to

represent the variations of a tree

trunk, or shadows. The same went

pretty much for any other color 

or tone. It looked easy, I guess,

and most often resemble stained

glass in effect  -  same thing happens,

if you look at one. The back lines

of the 'drawing' as well, act in much

the same manner as the leading of

the stained glass window. Basically 

it all came down to color chips.

Perhaps that was the 1950's in

summation : Hula Hoops, color

chips, car fins, pink flamingo lawn 

ornaments (and if you could get

away with it, a black guy on the

lawn as a lamp-jockey).

Who knew?

-

When we moved into Inman Avenue,

we never had any art on the walls.

Only later, ten years or more, my

father bought this almost 3-foot by

2-feet, maybe, really dumb-looking

bucolic, country, barn scene. It

was always out of place, made no

sense, fit no other decor, and just

hung there in a shameful silence

for years. I'd occasionally see the

same piece, or others really close

to it, in both others' houses and in

stores  -  home furnishings and

furniture departments. Large size,

smaller size, whatever. Sometimes 

they even had ripply surfaces to

simulate canvas. It was really

bizarre, tasteless and bad. If you 
can't have the country, you can 
fake possessing it, I guess. But,

it was represented.  'Art' wasn't

anything people went on about or

discussed. Their backyard pools

and barbecues, and the occasional

'guy' thing of rebuilding cars and

maintenance items took precedence.

Art was something false, on the den

wall, where you sat while watching

Ed Sullivan, or  -  in my grandmother's

case, Sophie Tucker.

-

I've mentioned before, in earlier

chapters, about the painting by my

uncle that last also graced the wall

of the rear room  -  Superman, going

over, in the sky, the scene of Niagara

Falls, well-done, in the foreground,

with infant me in his arms. The first

time I saw that pip of a picture, I was

already about 8. They hung it as a

lark (I hope)  -  but talk about an

existential crisis...that scene freaked

me. Not that I much cared or even

dwelt upon it. I was willing to

leave Nietzsche to others.

-

What got me about the world, 

from 116 Inman, was the 'anti' ness

of everything : Peace was never

about 'peace,' yet no one ever said

that  - school, church, or home. 

It was, apparently, quite the opposite.

Peace always ended up being about

War  -  or something fought to uphold

the peace, or bring it. That was sure

confusing. Paradoxical. Everything

seemed the opposite. Where I lived,

I was told it was nice and playful,

pleasant and bucolic. 'Nature' in

play  -  yet, everything that could

possibly be done to destroy 'Nature'

was, in ever way, undertaken  -  woods

and meadows torn down, bug-spray 

and defoliants and toxins, roadways, 

tar, pebbles, and rank water. The

town was going nuts? All the kid

schoolbooks we were learning to

read from, weirdly enough, were

all of children on farms, and about

chickens and farmers, tractors and

cows. The illustrations were all

drawing of country scenes (Dad!),

silos, barns, again. The children

shown were happy; frolicking.

I never saw really anything that 

resembled my walks to and from 

school. Unreality was paving

this airway. Art, certainly, was

only represented by un-art, or

anti-art. Nothing unpleasant, or

nothing untoward. The movie

ladies running around always

had seemingly pointy breasts, but

any ladies I ever saw, proclaimed

as 'Art' even, were draped and

loosely clothed in some oddball

Greco-Roman format of complete

neutrality. (Actually, the closest

I ever sensed to the everyday 

movie ladies were those weird

black-rubber pointed stoppers on

some of the car bumpers). Art?

-

Maybe things had just gotten too

strange, even so strange as to no

longer be translatable. Avenel sort

of resembled  -  to me  -  the 

'time-out' penalty box on some

sports scene. Just off from the

action, at rest, away from things,

while you wait out your bad time.

Everything was to be redefined,

and they were busy doing it. Every

category of thing  -  activity, thought,

game, and the rest, was getting

reworked. The abstract had become

too scary; so everything had to be

rebuilt, re-formulated, and put back

into some plainer and more tedious 

form; one that fit the molds of logic 

and reach. Everything needed 

something to grasp., and there

was to be no more fuzzy logic,

just the real, and the definite.