RUDIMENTS, pt. 267
Maple Tree, pt. 6
Everywhere you end up isn't
always going to be where you
wanted to go. It's like a hostage
situation sometimes, this life.
Just recently, back in January, I
went to yet another wake, forcing
myself sadly to look upon the
sorely dead face of my friend
Schultz. The same Schultz I've
written of in these Maple Tree
chapters a few times. When you
got him at the right time, he was
magic. If it wasn't the right time,
best beware. I used to tell him,
"Bobby, when you come around
here they ought'a change the name
of this joint to the Maple Treat,
or, then, well, at least warn people
you're on your way, at the door.'
It was the trickle-down theory of
humor - you'd better laugh now,
before the blood is trickling down
from your face and nose. One day,
one long, sickening, lazy afternoon,
it was, at the top end of Rahway,
on Cherry Street, or whatever it's
called up there - there was a
crummy bar, and five or six of
us had somehow ended up there,
wasting away a day testing beers.
There was no one around, the
streets were empty (it's always
like that in Rahway, even now,
with all the new building they
did, of condos and things. You'd
think there'd be two-hundred people
on the street, but you never see a
soul). Anyway, Schultz and a
friend of his, they got into some
sort of drunken disagreement
and decided to take it out to
the street. Literally. We all
walked out with a beer and
just sort of leaned on the building,
while these two just went at it.
A real super serious, fist-in-your-
goddamned-face fight - like
Ali and Frazier, believe you me.
You'd figure something like this
for two or three minutes, maybe
five at best. When I tell you it
was twenty minutes, you must
believe me. In fact, I think we
all went back in to get another
beer, and come back out, and they
were still at it, and IN the street
no less. No teeth flying, no real
blood, just that insane super-sound
of the thuds and slap-noises that
real punches make. Thy more or
less just ran out of breath really.
A half hour, it was over. Not a cop
passed by; no bartender called in
anything. And of course we didn't
do a thing except chuckle. You
don't have to believe me, you can
ask my wife. She was there too.
I don't know how they did it. But
when I looked down at that poor
guy in his last box, I thought of
his last boxing match too, or the
one I'd witnessed. Man, I hate
losing friends, even weird ones.
-
I often used to think about these
guys I'd be with, these fellow bikers
and denizens of the Maple Tree.
It was all sort of like a dark
brotherhood of some mystical
soul, with each of us operating
together in a half-light wherein
we really knew little about each
other's pasts or situations, but
took it all on faith that things
were cool. What were they like
as kids? Was their complete array
of proclivities now jut as apparent
then? Was Schultz a crazy-man
when he was nine? See, you just
never know. I couldn't picture
him - or any of them - downsized
like that. And I figured if they'd had
brothers or sisters, damn, did I take
pity on them growing up with that
sibling. Half the time and more,
I didn't even know if they had kin.
Sometimes you'd learn only later
that X and Y were brothers, or that
Z was a sister. Holy cow! Really?
It was total surprise. Schultz himself
had a pretty weird group of friends
who, when I found out they were all
brothers, flabbergasted me. The
Poultney boys - Wilbur and the rest.
Four or five guys, anyway - all of
a hillbilly sort but all Rahway and
Colonia, and all different, one from
the other. But they were all brothers.
-
Part of the thing was, after a point
I just no longer cared. There were
some days, one or two of those lethargic
Summers, when if we did get to the
Maple Tree, on some lazy Sunday
afternoon say, (it was a usual end-up-
there place, where even if you didn't
know where anyone else was or had
been, you kind of knew eventually
they'd show up. Previous to the
Maple Tree, a place named the
Pioneer Tavern in Iselin had served
the same purpose, but once that
town turned over totally, solidly,
to a new South-Asian immigrant
population we just quit it). The
Maple Tree, over time, replaced
every other place. There were,
across Rahway Avenue, some
homes, and our noise didn't always
sit too well with the people there.
But we sat around anyway, gunning
it or not. We often didn't even go
inside much, except to buy more
beers. It was the kind of big, sloppy
yard you could just sit around in -
parking motorcycles anywhere,
sitting out front, or going around
back and plopping down anywhere.
it was like some deep south place
where the bugs buzzed and the
weevils chewed. Time itself there
sometimes seemed open to backwards
introspection - that, of course, is for
me to say, as a writer. I really don't
think that kind of thinking was at
work for anyone else. I lived a
pretty graced existence right then.
I could think about stuff like that,
sort of withdraw, remain aloof, and
the others would carry themselves
through the things that didn't really
concern me - the sports guys, the
engine guys, the paint guys, the
skirt-chasers. Well, anyway. There
was another time, a busy, smoky,
crowded Saturday, when one of the
club guys - I'd grown used to seeing -
walked in with a totally beautiful
blond girl. I'd seen her a few times
before, and was always struck by
her look; just something about the
face and all. She certainly didn't
seem to fit being with the guy with
whom she was usually trudging
around, but whatever. Her guy, and
her, and me, amounted to nothing
more than a nod, or a 'hi,' and that
was it. This one night, long in, she
came over to me, smiling nicely,
just killing me. She sidled right
up close to me, and said - 'I just
wanted you to know that I think
you've got a masterful command
of the English language. I read
your paper each time it comes.'
Jeez, I was floored. It was like
the Pope had told me he'd just
cleared the way for me for a
straight path to Heaven when
I died.
-
You see, that was the hypocrisy
of my situation by then, the late
nineties. Two different hands
going, and I was trying, stupidly,
to play them both. As if a Biker,
in a massive Biker fight, or a
shoot out, was supposed to
stop the battle and announce,
'Oh, don't hurt him; he's got a
masterful command of the
English language.' It just didn't
work; didn't fit, no longer made
any sense. And it took some
stunning, young, blond with
cherry red lips to point it out to
me; the dichotomy, the divide. It
was all a ridiculous trap, the
sublime to the ridiculous. There
was a range from the most exalted
high thoughts and consideration
by me, to the lowest, most
demeaning level of filth jokes,
beer talk, nasty words and
actions by those around me, and
me sometimes too. A real jam-up.
I began to feel really stuck.
-
One time another girl I knew, just
a tease, a teasing relationship that
went on all the time - she came in
one night with another happy, bubbly,
girl, a friend of hers. The small talk
ensued, I asked what they'd been
up to, she replied, typically, 'Oh,
we've been working on our kegels,
you know, strengthening them.' I
looked puzzled, really. 'She replied,
that's our sex-muscles (that's NOT
how she phrased it), you jerk. You
didn't even know what that was,
did you?' Ha ha. Well, no. This
was the big joke and the big
moment, I guess. While the other
girl is still smiling, this one
goes behind me, the bar-stool
where I was sitting, puts her hands
down the inside-rear of my pants
(this gets embarrassing), and yanks.
I mean yanks big time. My underwear
gets peeled about up to my eyeballs,
and she manages, at the same time,
to rip the elastic waistband off them
and somehow loosens it or something.
The waistband gets pulled back, and
with it she's pulling me off the seat.
That's about all that happened, and
she thankfully ended it, but I had
this dangling piece of underwwear
on me the rest of the night.
-
As I was saying, the sublime to
the ridiculous just kept happening
over and over. I couldn't figure out,
at that point, or the rest of my life :
You couldn't be a philosopher in
a pigsty; or was it, perhaps, that
a pigsty makes a philosopher
of us all?
