pt. 45 - the sermon

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 45)

My father was a big couch guy  -  being an

upholsterer, he was always talking furniture,

well, a lot anyway. I heard curious terms all my life,

 'sectionals', 'love seats', 'convertibles'  -  any and

all of that furniture lingo. I never really caught on,

but I knew that  - wherever I went  -  friends' houses

or whatever, relatives, and the rest, I glanced over

their furniture. It became a second-nature sort of

thing, and I never knew why, never even knew what

I was looking for. Or cared. Like seeing what sort

of car people drove. It just meant nothing, but it did

mean something. I mean, what 10 year old cares to

go around with a headful of crap about furniture  -  

I learned all this stuff about it from my father :

the kind of 'cheap' stuff they made in the Carolinas

and sold up here off trucks at the side of the road.

Inexpensive, lousy wood, poorly made. My father

hated certain fabrics too  -  'No good, it wears out

quickly, has no stay, nothing but an oil/water mix.'

He meant synthetics, etc., I think. Some of his

customers , they'd pick from these really cool

fabric sampler books  -  large loose-leaf-ring like

hoops, but BIG, that would have a hundred or more

flippable pages, each with a fabric sample and notes 

and explanation  -  least expensive to most expensive.

But none really cheap  -  these Westfield and Scotch

Plains, West Orange,  people and such, they never 

scrimped. Wanted only the best fabric quality -  

often they had heirloom pieces of furniture, stuff

from Grandpa and such, which had been in the

family for generations, getting maybe the third or 

fourth reupholster. He'd always drag me along, or

me and one of my friends, to pick up or deliver a

couch or some chairs, footstools, whatever. We'd at

least get to see some cool other places, large homes,

stairways, grand entrances, etc. But not always either :

some were apartments with twisty, narrow stairways

and all that. We'd then sit around while these old

lady types ooh'd and aah'd over their newly covered

furniture piece. Throw us some cookies or candy,

something to drink, maybe a dollar as well. My father

would do the deal, get the money or the check, make

all the concomitant small-talk, introduce me, or us  - 

I'd have to act like I cared, smile and say nice things.

Or, if we were picking up a piece, instead, I'd wait

while she inspected a billion samples, talked color 

and fabric, bored out of my skull, or our skull, and

then lug the junk out. Only a few times was it 

worthwhile  -  I'll let you in on a secret  -  sometimes

they'd have really interesting daughters around. I 

always liked that  -  I always enjoyed seeing how

girls went, the things they wore, how they acted. It

was visits of that sort which were my favorite -  girls

my age, but better and mostly older  -  when they'd

achieved some awareness of self or something. I 

could just tell  -  nothing crazy romantic or sexy, I

just really liked seeing the 'hows' of other places and

homes and people. Mostly anyway  -  mothers usually

bored me, and the old ladies drove me nuts. Their

places were always too warm, smelled of staleness

or something from long ago, and were usually pretty

horrible too  -  neat and poorly-fashioned, I thought.

But, I did what I had to until, later, as I got older, I just

really hated it, and I'd start making excuses for not

going. Sometimes it worked, but not always. I used to

love the Bayway Circle  -  usually on the way to some

place above Elizabeth or Newark, my father liked

Route One  -  and the circle always fascinated me.

It was, like, the cars in Avenel, on Route One, where I 

saw them, it was just a straightaway  -  not the Green

Street Circle, when that was there, but just a straight

strip right up through Rahway and Linden and Elizabeth.

Then you got to the Bayway Circle (my father always

drove like a madman, speed, closeness, etc), there'd be

cars flying every which way. Close calls, Curses, Horns

blaring. A real trip for a lifer like me. Furniture-hauling

kid that I was. On the edge of my seat that I was too.

-

Then I'd get back to Avenel. Ho Hum. Humdrum. The

pink Spaldeen against the curb  -  curb-ball. Flipping the 

baseball cards against the wall, seeing who got closest,

how the cards stood up, losing some cards, winning 

others back. Playing stick-ball with an old broom-handle

bat in the courtyard at school 4, on which wall we'd

painted strike zones  -  two, far enough apart so that,

if needed, two games could go on at once. Someone

would inevitably hit a homer, over the school fence

and right onto the library roof right there. We'd 

managed to have established footholds on the library

wall and sub-roof which easily got us climbing to the

roof very quickly. Back down. Start again. A few local

girls would come by, sit on the 'portable' steps by Mr.

Roloff's and Mr. Raisley's room, and watch us. All of a

sudden, showoffs. 'Look at me, I'm Whitey Ford!'

Look at me, I'm Ted Kluzewsky. Mickey Mantle.

Roger Maris  -  'who ya' like, sweetheart?...'

-

School 4 & 5, the schoolyards, they sufficed for a lot

of things. Parents would send us to church on Sundays  -  

we'd never get there. Instead, the inner courtyard enclave 

of the same portables, but the other side, where the rooms

for Mr. Ziccardi and Miss Stein were, they were pretty much

hidden  -  we'd hide out, smoke cigarettes, goof around. It 

was a grand racket  -  we were all kids in the kingdom of

the snake. No one ever told, and we were all in it together.

Boys anyway  -  I don't know what girls did; I guess they

all just stayed with the program, 'cause I never saw any of

them cheating the game the way we ever did. We'd time the

church crap too, chew on some gum, go home at the right

time, and pretend it was all good. No one ever said, 'Now,

Gary, what was today's sermon about?'. Gulp.

-

'Well, Ma, it was about loyalty and honesty, and how kids

should always stick together, in whatever they're doing, 

because God and Jesus and Mary too, they're always 

watching and writing it all down, and like how whatever

you're doing -  sometimes even if it seems bad  -  it's not,

because if you do it all with the love of God in your

heart then you'll be OK and everything will be forgiven.

Except, like, if you're robbing a bank or committing a

murder, it doesn't work for that  -  even if you do that

stuff while thinking of God, well you're sunk no matter,

Ma  - which is how it should be, you know, because then

it would be too easy to get away with, like, anything if

all you had to do was say you were 'thinking' of God, or

Jesus, or I guess even Mary, while you were doing it.

Y'know? Well that was what the sermon was about.'