257. HELLO ME!

257. HELLO ME!

I had plenty of tough

times. One of the

toughest always

seemed to be getting

up the courage to

say what I really

felt. That doesn't

sound like much  -

but it actually is,

or was; especially,

for someone brought

up as I had been.

Subservient, taught

to be quiet, not speak

up, have few opinions

and, certainly, not

speak up with them.

I do want to say - I could

understand all that  -

and did. The tier of

society I was raised

at was one of

inconsequential people,

ineffective reciprocators.

It took a long time,

but in a bit I did realize

that remaining quiet

was done at my own

expense  -  because,

by that, people just

assume you're with

them. I wasn't; and I'd

gotten pretty disgusted

over time too. Think

back, to youth, and

what is that you

remember most

vividly? Yes, the

loudmouths, the

opinionated ones,

the bombastic lunkheads

who spoke out of turn

and just said what was

on their minds. I suppose

it just comes down to

having been taught to

remain inconspicuous.

But inconspicuous never

raised a tyger, tyger,

burning bright.

-

My first 'big' city  -

outside of a sixth grade

bus trip to NYC to view

the movie 'Ben Hur,' was
Philadelphia. That NYC
Ben Hur trip, be the way

was a real bust of a movie; 
bombastic and boring

as well, except for that

stupid chariot race,

which we were almost

forced to 'like' as boys.

The rest of it all was a

long, drawn-out costume

shadow-play of really

dumb, squat-little NYC

actor types, or obvious

Jewish voice-over actor

types, dressed in togas

and pretending to be

witty-one-liner Romans.

Olive-leaf crowns,

swords and massive

medals, and huge

leather belts, with

sandals. By today's

standards, so

ridiculously gay as

to be laughable.

We made the best

of it anyway, in

that ornate palace

of a cinema. The

usual points of

view and jokes,

all trotted out.

'Why do they wear

togas?' Answer: 'So

they could fart freely;

get it? To Gas!' Yes,

I was the champ of

all that impish stuff.

Fart freely, indeed.

-

Anyway, in the seminary,

a few times, we'd get

to Philadelphia.

Pretty much for

the same reason  -

about 1964 there had

begun a series of really

cloying 'Catholic'

religious movies, or

what we were told

were, in any case.

'Becket', and 'The

Greatest Story Ever

Told,' crud like that.

Really itemized and

by-the-book 'get your

religion straight,' fact

and figure movies

all dramatized and

made pretty. One of

them even had this

Max Van Sydow

guy, a Swedish actor

or something, portraying

'Christ' with these

beautiful blue eyes.

Everyone swooned.

We'd get dragged to

these, four or five or

five of us at a time,

by whichever 'priest

was going as chaperone

or whatever it was called  -

his favorite boys. If you

knew what that meant, you

were already in trouble.

But getting past all that,

being out   -  and allowed

to walk around  -   to

whatever the theater

was here or there,

(I forget all these

incidental things, and

besides I didn't in any

way 'know' the city),

it represented seeing

some other world

entirely. How a person

was supposed to live

a cloistered existence

like that, as we were,

amidst nothing more

than a bunch of geeky

boys and geeky men,

was beyond me  - but

in Philadelphia, even

for those few times,

I made sure to observe

and note and take it all

in. Making sure to

myself : 'Yes! Another

planet really does exist.'

Even to this day, when

I get to Philadelphia my

old-boy heart soars as I

remember these things.

The city and the approach

to it was constantly

fascinating. Most of that

is long gone now, but

I can still picture the

approach off the Walt

Whitman Bridge, from

whatever town that is

on the Jersey side, and

all those riverside

factories and junkyards

and oil-storage tanks

and refineries. And

then the slow, dark

entry into this tough,

gritty, second-tier

big, American city.

I was lost, and it

was all gold. I don't

remember the people

as much as the places.

-

Most of my life, even

back then, was in my

mind. All that usual

crazy stuff  -  not weird

or perverted, just I think

the usual heroic, adolescent

balloon-thinking. When I

later read Carl Jung,

('Memories, Dreams, and

Reflections'  - grand book),

about all that archetype

stuff, I knew I was off

and running : this was

life-creation of a

psychological proportion,

by subliminal and creative

subversion. I had found

my own key! There were

no limitations, nor any

forbidden aspects any

longer to whatever I

could do  -  choose to

do  -  dream to do!

I'd instantly become

my own self-help book! 

Now I just had to find a 

way to 'speak up' for

myself and this, much 

greater, new-found

situation.

256. WORDS (sword of damocles)

256. WORDS 

(sword of damocles)

A lot of titles ran by me,

back then, funny clumps

of words that stuck in

my mind. 'Second Hand

Rose'; The Haunting of

Hill House.' Things like

that. I just found myself

with a penchant or words,

no matter the use or the

position. I still find myself

picking up phrases, things

people say, and the words

they use. It's not much a

facility for really doing

anything, but it's fun just

the same. No one ever

teaches you that you

can't use 'useless' things

in everyday life. It just

makes you a loser.

-

'Consolidated Associates

Inc.' That was a sign I

saw, on an out-of-business

storefront office. It

immediately rang in

my head. How stupid

of a company name

could there be? No

wonder they were gone.

Some people, it seems,

just set themselves up for

failure. Words become so

vital at a certain point;

especially, in such a

context, from a 'business

use' standpoint. As a

creative writer, involved

at a complete other level

of words than this bland,

utilitarian use, this would

not normally have concerned

me. But here it did. Because

it encapsulated failure.

What, I wondered, was

this person trying to say?

Was there a message here

that he really thought

someone would take

away from that company

name? It said nothing.

Bland, evasive, as if he

was avoiding trying to

commit. No dynamism.

No thematic. Certainly,

no animated usage or

expectation. I always

ended up thinking that,

for creative writing, for

real work, there should

be an entire other and

different language for

writers to use  -  leave

these bland and

inconsolate, passive

words. to others to

work with. Dreary.

It's no wonder they

went out of business.

Language needs fire,

sparkle, fame, and fury.

-

It's funny that I even

make such mention,

Yet I guess it's quite

in line with my way

of thinking. In 1963,

Jean Paul Sartre's

autobiography was

published; entitled

'The Words,' (in French,

of course, as 'Les Mots').

You'd wonder, I'm

sure, what some dumb

schmuck kid from

Avenel would be

doing reading that,

or even caring. Well,

actually I was in the

seminary and no

longer 'from' Avenel

in that other sense, but

my origins were there.

This was about origins.

It knocked me over.

Yes, even though I

really didn't at that

time know why

or how. Things

change your life; 

you find your stream 

and you paddle your 

boat, If you're lucky. 

There is, at some 

level, a point where

 everyone is alike  -  

of course that's what

 all those society 

scientists like to 

push. All that 'family 

of man, we are one' 

crap. That's the 

easiest, laziest way 

out. Mind-control 

in the guise of 

Goodness. A 

million tattoo'd 

kids with pierced 

noses and tongues 

holding hands while 

they walk into the 

fiery ocean, singing 

songs. It's a nightmare. 

That's from where all 

those Popes and the 

people who stole 

Jesus came from. 

If it's any sort of 

unity, it's a bogus 

unity. The place 

where things really 

count is in the 

un-usurpable 

uniqueness of 

each Life and each

Experience. You've 

got to FIND your

own biography 

and live it; the 

rest be damned. 

That was how I 

felt anyway, 

and lived.

-

I probably ran away 

from home three 

hundred times, each

 time maybe returning 

with a different idea, 

a new rejoinder, or a 

better experience in 

my head.  Once having 

attained NYCity, for 

myself, I was King, 

again for myself. No 

one else needed to 

understand, and 

screw them. I got 

into the Studio School 

pretty much on bullshit  

-  a concocted story-line, 

a mis-appropriated 

education in arts and 

philosophy. I talked it 

big, but I was really 

from nowhere. 

Wounded and still 

bleeding, from 

seminary and from 

high school, combined. 

Tragi-comedians, 

wielding both knives 

and sabers. Now I just 

had to prove it and 

make it work  -  how 

in the world do you 

do that when nothing 

of it was really true? 

Sword of Damocles 

to be sure, hanging 

by a thread and 

right over 

my head. 

255. DOWN WITH THE SHIP

255. DOWN WITH THE SHIP

I could never make myself

care too much about what

I'd left behind. It just never

held me that much, the

whole 'Avenel' thing. I

could hardly ever even

think of it as a place.

Hard to even explain

what it was - I never

knew. How could you

find 'identity' in a place

that was known by it's

paucity? All those silly

little places around, all

they did was go into 

another something 

called 'Woodbridge' 

without first really 

having a place for 

themselves. Port 

Reading, Sewaren, 

Fords, Colonia. Each 

was just a stupid 

nothing, more like a 

design on some real 

estate or business map, 

of places that were 

created after what was 

already there had been 

chopped and destroyed. 

Surplus land, from the

junkheap of time, now

re-purposed for lustful,

returning, soldiers. Just 

because a place has a 

bunch of streets and 

some tick-tack houses 

everywhere, that doesn't 

make it anything. It was 

defined, any one of them,

each of the towns that 

went into the greater

make-up of municipal

'Woodbridge,' by the 

absence of itself. They 

just needed a place - one

central address and location -

for all the corruption and 

pay-offs to get to. Even 

Woodbridge - for all the 

torch-lit parade and heroes 

stuff - was a joke cast 

back upon itself. Jardot's - 

pronounced, by the way 

as Jar-Doe's - was about 

as typical of anything else, 

except maybe the Avenel 

VFW Hall, which was taking,

during those years, about 

10,000 years to get built, 

one cinder-block a year, 

for some reason. (I think

it was the loss-leader for

their 'laundering' of 

construction money). 

The energy quotient for 

doing anything, in Avenel, 

just wasn't there. And when 

it finally was, it just made 

everything worse. I used to 

think that if Brigitte Bardot 

(big French babe-starlet, 

then) had married that 

Bobby Jardot guy, she 

could have been Brigitte 

Bardot-Jardot, really 

throwing a wrench 

into the works, locally. 

But at least it would 

have cleared up the 

pronunciation for 

people. I mean, really, 

how could you take any 

pride in places and 

supposed 'towns' that 

just weren't really that 

at all? Woodbridge 

had this supposed 

1952 sea captain 

'War Hero,' Henrik 

Carlsen, who refused 

to abandon ship, and 

stayed to the very end, 

finally being rescued, 

with injuries. They 

made him out to be 

a big ticker-tape kind

of returning hero, 

parades and all. He 

died at age 72, later. 

Turned out the entire 

story was bogus and 

a cover-up, and yet 

people still to this 

day believe it and 

take all that local 

honor stuff to heart. 

The ship was an old 

junker, left over from 

WWII and converted 

to cargo-freighter use 

by some Hamburg 

shipping line, which 

is where Carlsen gets 

involved as a merchant 

captain. (You can look 

all this up, one of those 

'local Woodbridge man 

makes good' stories). 

The 'Flying Enterprise,' 

as the cargo ship had 

been re-named, was 

carrying a load of peat 

moss, 12 Volkswagen 

cars, a couple hundred 

typewriters, and a lot 

of other basic, 

commercial freight. 

But, at the same time, 

and secretly (which is 

why Carlsen fought not 

to lose the ship and its 

cargo), sub-contracted to 

the Atomic Energy 

Commission and all 

that CIA and Military 

USA secret stuff, it 

carried a huge load 

of (secretly) zirconium; 

which was necessary for 

atomic use - bombs and 

the rest - and was difficult 

to get, and quite valuable,

and hush-hush too. It was 

important stuff, and he'd 

been well-briefed of the

'importance' of secret 

and safe transit on his, 

essentially outdated and 

substandard, old tub of 

a ship. It really wasn't 

up to the task of the 

payload, but it was 

so bad it was 

inconspicuous too. 

Anyway, the welds 

broke, the ship took 

on water, and went 

down, while Carlsen, 

in deep shit at this 

point, tried everything 

short of magic not to 

lose the load. So, 

paralyzed by fearful 

inaction, he 'stayed' 

with the ship, until 

it was lost. He was 

saved, and the 

cover-story had 

him a hero - for 

trying to save a 

tubful of consumer 

junk, in the course 

of his stupid job. 

That was the reality. 

In Woodbridge, all 

up and down Main 

Street, he somehow 

was converted into 

some patriotic 

super-hero valiantly 

serving to sustain 

the great glory of 

his country. Yeah, 

well, met me at 

Jardot's and we'll 

talk. P.S. Bring 

Brigitte.

-

You can't make this 

stuff up, and at least 

it would have been 

a good yarn, had I 

ever had to defend 

my 'home-town' to 

any NYC native (of 

which there were, 

let's say, a lot). No 

one ever asked, in 

fact, all this 'where 

you from?' stuff ever 

did was perplex them. 

The useless cover story 

in their heads was of 

New Jersey as a 

patented dung-heap 

of open-flame refineries, 

slaughterhouses, murderers,

mobsters, and pig-farms 

in the Meadows, all the 

way down to Elizabeth, 

where the oil-storage-tankers 

took over, until you, maybe, 

got to the Jersey shore, 

where it all started again

until you got to old Atlantic

City. Of course, that 

assumption was all 

wrong too, but what 

the hell did any of them 

care? At some point, it 

seems, it always turns 

out that someone 

somewhere is the 

butt of someone 

else's and somewhere 

else's joke at their 

expense. 'Raise High 

the Roofbeams, Carpenter' 

- as J. D. Salinger put it.

-

New York City, by contrast,

was shoulder deep in history

and legacy and place and charm

and intrigue. A person could be

free, free to learn, and bust out,

and not give a damn about the

usual niceties that racked

everyone else up in all those

outlying stupid-ass places all

over the map. It was like

being in a tuxedo for a month,

eating in it, sleeping in one,

and telling yourself it was cool,

when it wasn't at all. As soon

as I got to NYC, penniless as

I was, that old tuxedo went right

in to the very first trash-can

I saw, and good-bye to all that.

254. THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY

254. THE WRONG 

SIDE OF HISTORY

One thing that was

always interesting to

me -  even if it was

sometimes difficult

as well  -  was to

understand the contrasts

between my own 'lives'

at the present (then) and

before it (then too). I'm

using 1967 as the crossing

line. That was a totally

momentous divide. There

have been others for me

since, yes, but this was

a telling one itself. I had

to sit down some and think.

I'd really have to say that

so much was all gummed

up and just waiting to be

sorted out : look at a life,

it's a huge amalgamation

of events and feelings, but

if it's not sorted and  - so

to speak - catalogued,

none of it's accessible,

and it just gets wasted. It

has to do with my previously

mentioned idea, a few

chapters back, about

establishing 'context' for

things. Without that it's

all nothing but a huge

wad of gum, too large

for the chewing.

-

Realize that, just a

year before, I was

being jammed through

the close of high school,

under the most hideous

group of fingerprints

imaginable, which prints

were all over me. The

churning mill of the

entire operation was

then oriented towards

turning out either

college-bound robots

or the loose ones, who'd

eventually be bound for

Vietnam anyway. The

idea was of the 'war'

having predominance

and a paramount

importance over

all else. After all the

grease and fire of

fighting all that for

a year, seeing myself

instead at liberty on

the streets of New

York was liberating.

All those feckless kids

back in Woodbridge,

even the good ones,

the ones set for Princeton

and Brown  -  there were

a few  -  and the others, they

seemed just, instead, to be

biding time waiting to see

how life disposed of them.

They'd hang around at a

corner place at Grove and

Amboy Ave., back then,

called 'Jardot's.' There was

not much more there than a

soda-fountain, ice cream

and candy store, a few

tables and a long counter.

Not much at all. There was

somewhere around a kid

named Bobby Jardot or

something, whose family

owned the place. Big 

tycoons, in Woodbridge 

terms, owning a corner 

candy-store. All these 

otherwise rancid kids

with nothing else to do 

had somehow made it 

their task to judge or 

gauge their lives by

their presence at Jardot's.

When success begins to

seem inestimable, you

throw long, I guess. Poor

schmucks  -  always able

and ready with the mouth,

but short in the head. At

some point I reviewed all

this. In light of my new

situation, this looked silly.

-

I used to think of God as a

humorist  -  and part of the

humor, I figured, was in us

having been given  -  without

our knowing it or realizing

it  -  unseen means, at every

turn hidden from us, the keys

and the means, of expanding

each and all of our lives,

eternally and outward. But

never knowing it. That was

the joke part; us, working

blindly with a chuckling God

looking on and seeing what

we'll each do with our times

and circumstances. And then,

of course, no matter what the

result  -  even the very worst

ones  -  accepting it all and

bringing us all back in. 'He'
forgives us all, as the religions
put it. Eternity amidst small

moments  -  all we're ever

given to see. I always

figured that was why

the comedy mask and

the tragedy mask were

the very same, with the

only difference being

the upturn or the

downturn of the

facial look. That

was the part left

up to us.

-

This came especially to

light one day along 8th

Street, not too long after

I'd settled in; maybe 

that August. I was 

walking along and all

of a sudden, unexpectedly,

a small clutch of 5 or 6

Woodbridge High School

kids were walking along 

the street, in the same 

direction I was going. 

They caught up to me

and all of a sudden I was 

the all-hail fellow of the 

year, best friend, how ya'

doing and all that. Up until

this time, in school, I had

been the detestable school

foil for all their jaunty fun.

Now I guess I represented

something completely 

different to them  -  the 

breakaway iceberg they

wanted to ride. I said hi,

and fairly left it at that.

-

If you're on the wrong side

if history, can you ever

get to the right side of

the future? That's what 

I thought of as they 

walked away.
-
It was funny, as well, for 
me to think about a place 
like Woodbridge from the 
distance of my newer NYCity 
perch. It suddenly all seemed 
so small and unimportant. 
Gertrude Stein had been 
memorably quoted a million 
times already, saying  -  about 
Oakland, California  -  her famed 
 quip, 'There's no there there.'
The same could have been said
perfectly of Woodbridge too.
The downtown was dwindling to
nothing, old-style haberdashers
and pharmacies dying off, another
on gone, it seemed,  every ten days. 
The societal push of 'strip-malls' 
and 'shopping centers' slowly 
pushing everything away from 
these otherwise valuable and
once secure town centers. With
that went 'America' too. It all
became crooks and deal-makers,
mostly over just these issues
of real-estate, re-zoning, getting
cut in on the deal, pillaging 
heritage, tearing up the old turf, 
and the rest be damned.