pt. 64 - alex

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 64)

For a goodly number of years, friends came and

went. Things changed around and alliances and

friendships moved  -  some people, it seemed, just

disappeared, while others just did other things. The

little psychology of life is like that, as we grow. At

about age 11, I don't know, I had suddenly a new

friend, someone who just showed up. How it came

to be, I don't know. It was the same season as some

goofy show called 'Car 54, Where Are You?' a really

bad, in retrospect, and stupid show about 2 New York

cops, on their cop-car route, and their business. One guy

dumb as a shaft, and the other so earnest about everything

that he came across as just as dumb if not more -   and all

the supporting characters too were nimble fools running

through dumbness hoops. The stereotypical NY 'wives'

were at home too. Like the Goldbergs, early TV years

before, the show seemed Jewish in its slant and characters,

but they weren't. I don't think. Tooty and Muldoon. Maybe

it was a New York thing. Anyway, this new friend, Alex,

was a schoolbus chum, that's how it started. He got off

one day at 25 Chase Avenue, or on a near corner anyway,

and in order to remember his address clearly  -  I was to be

going there later that day  -  I paired it with Car 54. My

version, in a cop lingo, was 'Car 25, Chase!', as in cop-car

chase. Well it worked. I never forgot the address.

-

Alex had a home life I immediately liked, envied, in fact.

It was quiet, seemed serious and dark. He had his own,

added-on room along the side of the house, narrow and

long, and his parents seemed to respect it as a no-go

area, his own private thinking zone : some books, shelves,

collected stuff. Plus, Alex had these really cool clear plastic

little boxes, with drawers, like five rows of four or something.

They were little  -  good for screws and erasers, maybe

paper-clips, coins, things like that. I'd never seen a thing like

that before  -  it seemed especial and private, secretive and

right. I see them everywhere now, but I've still never bought

one. The house I later moved into had a few of them, actually,

in the basement  -  and they became mine, though I never did

use them either in the so-precious fashion I had envisioned.

I liked Alex's house. He had a quiet little sister. I never

really got to know her, she was quiet to the extent of

being non-communicative, and I let it be. His mother was

a great, seemingly wonderful, chirpy lady  -  full of fun

and wise-cracks. She called her son by his last name. It

was kind of fun. She seemed witty. Their kitchen and

sitting area maintained an uncluttered, strict neatness. I

was used to a bunch of people milling about, leaving

things around, and with always a hum. This was quiet.

Alex's father was this great guy  -  he seemed gently

authoritative, seemed to know his stuff, get it done with

a pointed yet almost arrogant non-aggression. Seems

paradoxical, yes, but that's what I took from it. A more

simple kind of effectiveness than the bombast and flutter

I was used to at home. Our house was small, but this house

was even smaller, and kept small, and kept neat, and quiet,

and serene. I didn't know what it was, but I could detect

something quite different about it. Alex himself seemed to

fit in here nicely. He shared, with me, a certain young-boy's

'intellectual' bent, or pose, maybe it was. We were both

reading books way out of our leagues, spouting profundities

and worldly and adult opinions with outlooks we really

knew little about. It never stopped us  -  Alex was always

getting pounded on by somebody for something -   whether

at the school bus stop, the church or school yard. at the park,

wherever. He had a habit of stirring up the dust by his verbal

pronouncements  -  almost wise-ass sassy  -  but I was always

sure the person at the other end never got a minute's worth

of what Alex was driving at, or what his 'intellectual' approach

of attack was, but instead just got pissed off enough by being

sort of shown-up, that they'd start lividly pounding on him,

always, soon enough. For me, it often came down to a guilt

by association, but I only got into a few scuffles, by

comparison. Alex, on the other hand, seemed always

to be, once again, down on the mat.

-

Halloween, 1961, pretty sure, perhaps it could have been '60,

I don't know, we went out together for trick or treat. The long,

glorious house to house slog went on  -  all the right houses for

the best hand-outs. We walked a lot of blocks and covered

territory. That year I wore a Fidel Castro mask  -  it was a

hard-plastic sweat-inducing mess. I can remember beads of

sweat and moisture on my upper lip from the mask. Alex went

as Winston Churchill, or someone ponderous like that. Anyway,

'round about somewhere  -  one of those houses with the big,

high hedges and places for kids to hide, these two older kids,

middle teens I guess, ambushed us  -  mostly me, with the

Castro mask - (Castro and Cuba was a big-deal issue back

then, with Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs, and the Cuban

Commies and all that crud. Like we knew or cared.) - and

jumped out of the hedges and began beating the crap out of

me -  in a kid's Halloween way anyhow. I went down, Alex

got roughed up. My Castro mask, all that hard plastic and the

fake, molded cigar thing, had been punched in, smashed down.

That kind of earlier plastic didn't return to its shape much.

Behind it, of course, was my own real, and pretty pliable,

face. The cheap-ass assailants took off  -  dumb jerks didn't

even steal my Castro candy. I forget what we did for the rest

of the night, went home detailing our anguish, or just continued

on. I forget. That was my young-boy's introduction to politics,

or at least to the fake mask of politics  -  where opinions don't

much bend, and the snap-back from a bad showing just ain't

that snap-backy.

-

Alex was funny. He'd know before hand, what his Auntie Lee

had brought him for Christmas -  he'd say, 'I know, an umbrella

an almanac' (for the upcoming year). It never failed. He did

always get that, while I knew him anyway. Before the Internet,

and when we were kids, kind of, an almanac was a real resource.

An eccentric resource, but one nonetheless. There were maybe

three or four differently published ones -  The NY Times

Almanac, another one called something America Almanac, I

forget. They were thick, smelled like neat ink, on thin paper,

and had all that bizarre stuff listed, for pages, the most, the

best, the largest, the first. It had world maps, the year (news)

in review, breakdowns by month, deaths, happenings, weather,

disasters, tragedies, news  -  legal, courts, government, address

and names; a million things. It was a paper-reference for, well,

for what I never really did understand. But he got one every year.

Just goes to show the things you notice.

-

A few times, in Alex's father's 1957 Chevy, they'd take us down

the Jersey Shore somewhere  -  Seaside Heights or something  -  

to swim. Not amusements stuff, just a swim day in the ocean 

waves. It was fun. The only thing I disliked, only because it was 

uncomfortable, was that  -  when we got there  -  in the parking 

lot, they'd cover the windows with towels and we'd each, one by 

one, change into, and then later out of, our bathing suits. It was

just something I'd never done before, and seemed weird. In my

house, we'd just ride home with our sandy wet suits, and when

we'd arrive there they'd already be under our regular clothes. Back

in those days, the car seats weren't upholstered fabrics as they

are now -  they were just some utilitarian plastic seating, and

impervious to water.

-

Mostly, people didn't mingle too much with other kids' families,

I mean like uncles and aunts and stuff -  if you knew someone 

was getting a visit, you just stayed away. For the day. At least

my friends did. We wouldn't much know anyone else's uncle

or aunt as would they know ours. People were still old-fashioned,

and entitled, as it were, to space. Parents and adults were always 

a lot more stern, serious, worried and dour. Not like now, when  -  

with credit and wages and bank cards and all that, most people

live pretty rich, have what they want, care less about things, and

are just most generally more happy and easy and outgoing. Take

cars, for instance  -  now, when ever the dumbest bozo wants or 

needs a car, all he or she has to do is sign their name to some sort

of presentment about themselves  -  even if they're the stupid

ice-cream man or something  -  and that signature will get them 

credit, and a car loan too. That's the way America is now -  a

splendid expansion that takes in everyone. Most everyone's in

some form of debt, but easily and happily so. And living nicely

for it. It wasn't always like that. In the 1950's people and their

finances were still pretty shaky  -  there were lots of broken down

and marginal cars around, used and running on way past their

prime  - because people just didn't have that sort of free-dough

to throw around. Mostly, uncles and aunts were as unhappy and

unsure of things as the rest of people were  -  so then, really,

who'd want to meet them anyway? 

pt. 63 - ice

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 63)

In addition to fun and friendship, there was misery too,

but it was mostly the misery of a certain kind of silence.

Occasional stories of sadness would drive themselves

up  -  the kid next to my Aunt's house, Aldo or Luigi or

one of those Italian names  -  they were always raving 

about him as a gifted classical guitarist  -  he was

diagnosed with a brain tumor, and it became a big,

tragic story. I love classical guitar music now, and 

will sit and work for hours with Villa-Lobos or Joaquin

Rodrigo, or any of those people, playing in the background.

Great stuff. But when I was 10 or so, that was the last

thing I wished to hear or understand and learn of. It

was like another, old language, something the stuffy

old foreigners listened to. The certain smite of sadness

over this kid was always hanging around my aunt's place

that one Summer or whatever it was. 

-

On Inman Avenue  -  by contrast  -  everyone always seemed

hale and hearty. Boastful, brash boys, sallying around at any

time ready for mischief or a fight. Everyone had their own little

crowd, and people were always changing too, I'd guess, but the

mix stayed okay. You kept one eye, as you could, on someone's

sister you were beginning to dig  -  innocent, puerile stuff. The

things of kid dreams. That's all we knew back then, That one

year I mentioned, I think Winter '60-61, it was rock solid cold 

freezing for neatly the entire month of January  -   the street was

a coat of frozen over snow and ice that never went away. All

we ever did that Winter was mob the street  - sleds, ice skates,

snowballs, igloo ice huts we'd build, channels of water as the

run-off and the melt back up into huge puddles. Cars were

askew everywhere, No one could really 'park' in their normal

ways unless a lifetime first was given over to the shoveling and

cutting of ice and snow. Everything stayed in place. It was great.

As a kid, we'd just walk endlessly out  -  back over the tracks

and across great white fields, over past Rahway Avenue, or

down into Woodbridge. We'd be heavily dressed, we'd get 

wet and soaked early on, and just sloshed around like that for

the rest of the long days. I'd guess school was off some too, 

or a lot  -  I don't remember except for the freedom. We'd get

to Woodbridge, and it was all something quite different : a line

of stores, a street of shops, a downtown. People trouncing about

with bags and little boxes. There was a grocery store, an old

A&P right on the main street. There was Christiansen's, which 

was just an old-line retailer, before department stores and stuff

took over  -  it had all the requisite uniforms and gym clothes and

all that we had to eventually buy. Had the market locked up. 

Then it slowly disappeared.

-

Living in Avenel was like living on a trunk-line, some old 

railroad siding off the way a bit, where things were a tad seedy 

and forgotten, on land no one else really wanted  -   too low here,

too marshy there. Up by the highway, it was higher, with one or

two spots of some nice beauty, maybe  -  but the highway had

that already, the big houses were gone, the land had long ago

been given over to houses in rows, roadways, garages and

factories. There was a big RCA facility over on the edge of

town, just before entering Rahway at the RR trestle as it ran

over St. George Ave. There was another huge foils-manufacturing

plant right behind that  -  Dri-Print Foils Co. There was Security

Steel over by us. Merck was nearby. The prison, Philadelphia

Quartz  -  it just went on. The 1920's and those years pretty much 

had defined and altered down whatever Avenel was going to be.

It had been happily dealt away for cash money and deals, with

little regard for 'place', and certainly no respect for beauty or

ecology or its own natural setting. Junkyards and scrap yards,

parking areas and truck lots had been given free reign. Like 

something out of Theodore Dreiser or Emile Zola, the naturalist 

tendencies of industrial-growth and all its cultures had taken

over. It was the start of something big, and a something big in

which people, most certainly, had been invited to take a back

seat to the other things happening. And, like mute monkeys, 

they mostly did. That was our parents, and us. We were all the

end-result of that. Even I sensed, somewhat nervously, that

some day it would all have to blow  -  the pressures were 

building, the dial on that steam gauge was getting dangerously 

close to red. We were probably the last of our sort of upbringings

to live this way.  I was a kid all through this, but already an adult

in my head. I knew it would blow. And, eventually it did  -  a huge

cultural cataclysm ensued in about 10 or 15 years. Politics hit dead

bottom, wars were waged by liars and cheats and thieves. Companies

everywhere  -  yes, from RCA to General Dynamics and Monsanto 

and Merck  -  the goons in our own backyards  -  they made untold 

sums of money off of this. Once again , we were being used.

-

The farmlands and the meadows of my youth were gone. What was

there in their places were black holes of indecision filled with people

all ready to further expand into that nothingness. Heads filled with TV

gossip and stupidity (me included), opinions formed by the stupor and

glamour of the big, dumb magazines, the talking zombie heads on TV,

the endless glitz and shows, the forced manufacture of fake media stars

thrown at people, each with their little, false and public-relations 

department narratives. It was all a plant. From Elvis to the Beatniks, 

from the counter-cultural waifs and eccentrics to Einstein, Bob Dylan 

to Doris Day and Rock Hudson, the shit just flowed.  Masterfully. 

I could name a hundred more made-up tales and gimmicks and

names, immediately. On and on  -  and it still does, in the worst way 

possible. But I'm not talking about that now, or yet. The idea then 

was to latch on to something, to any of these; stay distracted, be a 

know-nothing, and let them have their way with the world. Hell, 

in its equivalence it was like our parents giving up a daughter to a 

rapist  -  just to go along, keep the peace. They were all too dumb to 

know any better, and too loyal to their own indecent code of the great 

war and the experiences they'd just completed. Through all this, we, as

kids, just madly went about our scrambling ways; finding what we

could wherever we could find it  -  learning, growing, and getting

ready to source ourselves out in that big romp of 'Freedom' we'd

all been lied to about. I'd learn and read about cultures of Aztecs

and Mayans who'd sacrifice children, select the young girls for

the mountaintops rituals, cut the hearts out of their sons and their

daughters, praise their Gods and watch the rivers of blood flow from

the sacrificial victims of their choosing, their own silent offspring.

We were meant to scoff at this, to see how enlightened and advanced

we, as a culture, by contrast had become. But it was a lie. We were

no different then they had ever been.

pt. 62 - newark and dad's work

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 62)

It always seemed to me that there was a mystery behind 

everything, something about it all that no one ever told 

you. As a kid, you just feel these things. Or I did. I knew

the world was trying to pull a quick one, right past me.

So, I never said anything, I just watched.  Every so 

often my father would take me to work with him on 

Saturdays, whenever he had to work. Maybe 10 times 

in all, and I can't remember the age or the duration.

He used to, then, work on one of those side streets 

right off of McCarter Highway in Newark. I used

to always love that area  -  it's all gone now, and

they've stupidly replaced all those beautiful dark red

brick industrial buildings with the usual Government-

assisted negro slum housings  -  stuff that was supposed

to uplift the creeps they'd move into it, but who just

end up wrecking it all the same, just like the dumps 

they just were moved out of. The people who do this

all use big words and sound all forthright and sincere

about wanting to help the poor and all that rot, but 

even at ten I knew it was all crap. The 'secret' of this 

one is, as usual, money. Insider graft, corruption, job

padding with school unions and construction unions 

and all that dirty money stuff. Whoever they think 

they're kidding  - I've got to tell them  -  know all 

about it. Pipsqueak local politicians can never fool 

anyone. Their cheap suits always give them away.

-

My father's workplace was a furniture re-upholstery 

shop named 'Co-Op', as in Co-operative venture. Again

with the bullshit  -  whoever they thought they were 

fooling knew all about it. In this case, my father. There

was nothing 'cooperative' about it. He'd work all day on

two or three chairs. Piecework. Period. He'd get about

12 bucks a chair. It was, otherwise, like he didn't exist.

The two fat Jewish guys behind the big desks, they had 

all this figured out, with their cigars and ledgers and stuff.

The idea was, they did all the selling and settling, so people

like my father  -  basically the for-hire slave-staff  -  wound

up doing all the work, getting credited only for that which

they produced. If these two heaps of gold sold a living-room

set refinishing for say 700 bucks, they'd throw my father two

chairs, maybe a sofa instead, and credit him only for the 

slave-time he put in. All around him, and having nothing to

do with him, they'd buy the material, the fabric and supplies,

and take the mark-up themselves  -  which was built all into 

the 700 bucks quoted. Extra tufting, pillows, everything, 

they charged for. My (as it turned out) very 'cooperative' 

father got his twelve bucks. Period. And then they probably 

charged for bringing a kid too. I would just hang around 

for 8 or 10 hours  -  bouncing a ball endlessly off the large

wall-side of the building outside  -  I chalked a strike zone,

so I could play-pitch too. It passed time. I'd walk around,

looking at all that red-brick factory stuff  -  totally taken with

it. Square, red-brick chimneys, loading docks, rounded bays,

rows of skylights, cobbled streets, a few horses and stuff still

in use, water and baskets, everything. Plus, just above our 

heads, the railroad ran. I felt like I was in faraway land, all

dark and red brick and smokey. My 'London period' I later

called it. I still love it there, NJ Railroad Avenue, as it's

called  -  just off of downtown Newark  - but there's so 

little of anything left now I just want to cry. There's this 

one large, red-brick building now that they've just left to

turn into a real shit-hole, all graffiti'd up by the pigs who

live there. Each time I went home after one of those days,

I'd look at Avenel and just want to scamper away. Quickly.

-

The guys my father worked with there weren't too much

like him. They were calmer and more distant, seemingly

tired, resigned, or maybe just scared. Old guys, like war

veterans who still wore hats and formal shoes. A few 

Panchitos were there too  -  Spanish guys, or Puerto Rican, 

whatever. They too were all over Newark back then. They 

were wise-ass, with always something to say. I never knew 

how to take them. But I knew I didn't really like them. One

time I opened a drawer in one of the work-station areas 

where all the chairs and cushions and things were, and I saw

it was filled to the brim with magazines  -  Spanish naked

lady magazines. The Panchito guy who saw me just leered, 

and made one of those gross laugh-noises I hated. And then

he put his finger to his mouth  -  I guess meaning to not tell

anyone what I'd just seen. Yeah, right. All I wanted to do was

go blab about his fat, dark, hairy naked lady magazines.

-

One time my father got into a huge fight during work time, 

with one of the creepy white guys. The guy soon enough

came after my father with scissors, 'shears' as they were 

called. Bad move. My ex-sparring partner muscle dad

beat the guy to a pulp. There were like teeth embedded

in the ceiling, and some teeth probably went home with

the furniture too. Cops came, all that. Everything was cool,

just a workplace argument, nobody dead. The next day the

guy's wife calls up at my house and starts railing at my mother

how they were going to sue us for everything we had, that my

father was a raving, criminal lunatic, that they'd have him

put away  -  all that stuff. My mother broke down. She was

shattered  -  didn't know where to turn nor what was to 

happen. They argued a long time, whatever. Nothing ever 

did happen, I guess, unless my father buried the creep in

the Meadowlands or something. That was the end of his

time at 'Co-op.' After that he got a job as the 'Manager' of

the Frame Department at Simmons Furniture, in Union;

Stuyvesant Ave., somewhere. That was pretty funny, my

father as a 'Manager'. The place was big. I'd go there too,

but I never liked it  -  a huge warehouse factory. Stacks of

lumber piled along the walls  - cutters making frames and

bases for chairs and stuff, beds, frames. People driving

around on carts. And my father  -  trying to walk around

with a freaking clipboard and act official. Bad fit. I hated

the place, mostly too because of its bathroom. It was just

a big room with a large communal trough in the center, with

the drain in the floor and some piped water trickling down

from plumbing above. It was gross. Everyone just stood 

around peeing. Like onto the floor, except it wasn't. 

Whoever dreamed that up must have thought the workers 

were cows. I never figured if there were actual 'toilet rooms'

around, though I figured there were  -  mainly because of the

way these guys ate huge lunches. Somebody would have to

go soon enough. I never stayed around to find out. And

the other thing was, that I always hated, once again my 

father was always introducing me to all these guys  -  what

was I to do? It was awkward  -  'yeah, nice to meet you, I'm

the little kid who probably anyway shouldn't even be here,

but hello  -  and anyway, how do you guys stand all that 

pissing together stuff into a drain on the floor?

-

When my father got that manager job, my Uncle Joe  -  who

worked Wall Street printing businesses and had a more formal

appreciation of business ways and such, brought my father a

book (no pictures either), entitled (very dryly), 'Human 

Relations In Supervision.' It was all intellectual, about how

to best manage others, listen to their gripes, work around them,

make it 'appear' as if steps were being taken, all that crud. He

expected, I guess, my father  -  his little brohter  -  to actually

read this book. My father quite nearly threw it at him. That 

book stayed around a real long time, and I remember it well, 

even the very look of it. I was probably ever the only one 

who opened it, even if only for five minutes now and then.

pt. 61 - hospital stuff

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 61)

All that time I spent in the hospital, after getting hit

by the train, that was some momentous stuff. Until

I awoke from my coma, then it was pretty boring.

All right, I'm making a joke with that. I do remember

so slowly coming back to life, or consciousness, or 

whatever this here is. It seemed to take forever, and 

was as if I was being dragged back through something

that was like a honey or molasses, but instead was made

of light but with the dragging viscosity which sort of

personified reluctance to get dragged back. And the

little me that was me, this Gary character individual,

he had little to do with it. But that was me, and yet it

wasn't me either  -  the one getting pulled or drawn back. 

I recall the sensations being of like having feet planted

somewhere else, but with a form around me shaping 

another place to which I was to have to go, to put an

allegiance. I wanted to, but didn't want to either. There

was just light, and no real 'commanding' presence anywhere.

It was pretty free-flowing, it seemed, and almost anarchic

in what I could have made from it  -  intentions and ideas

all seemed to quickly become manifest, like I was creating

(my own?) worlds at will. I kind of came back an adult, in

ways, knowing already the 'importance' of the momentous

things I could 'produce' by intent and concentration. I always

figured that was the archetype thing, the basis of the 'Creation'

myth and all those early societies. When all your body 

knows is that it just recently learned how to make fire,

there's really yet not that much interest in spearing the

great metaphysical 'fish' out there around you. When you're

still scared of the woods, you don't go studying, quite yet,

the darkness the woods produce. Everything takes a long 

time, in Reality  -  all of society included. But a lot of the

myths, I knew right off, are initiated out of this initial and

internal 'struggle' I was going through in here being 're-born',

or at least 're-placed' on this Earth fiery stupid globe of being.

I didn't really want to come back, but, whatever. 

-

As soon as I got out of the hospital  -  which took a really 

long time too  -  I arrived back home to Inman Avenue, on

crutches and a little twisted up and still under doctors' great

care. I don't know what people made of me, what all my 

friends had thought or done while I was away. No one ever 

mentioned any specifics or questions about specifics to me.

It was like all kept mute or mum about. Maybe everyone was

perplexed or scared. I don't know, 'cept I knew that I wasn't.

Really, I didn't even care. My mouth was wired shut, had 

been for months. Broken jaw stuff made it necessary to seal

my mouth from movement  -  I ate, for months, only baby food

sucked through, from a tablespoon, my wired-shut (like braces

that sealed your mouth closed) teeth. That was a long time, and 

the day those braces things finally came off I remember pretty 

well. The doctor or dentist or whatever he was, gave me a big 

pile of gum to chew on, and said to just keep chewing  - to

bring my jaw and mouth-muscle stuff back to working order.

It was OK. He also said I'd probably have a lot of problems

in my late teens with back teeth and stuff, but that never really

happened, that I know of anyway. Once I got back to the house,

I was pretty freaked out, as I walked in, when I saw that my 

Uncle Joe and my Father had, in my absence, and as a welcome

home present, set up this big fish tank, with filter and all that

stuff, atop the television set or whatever  -  in it were angel fish,

brightly-colored other fish, sucker fish, little snake-like fish, all

sorts of things, in this grand, bubbly water scene. It was really

cool, and I liked it. Over time, now, I can't recall another 

damned thing about it -  which is weird. I don't know who

took care of it, where it went, or how and when all those

fish died. It's just a curious black-hole in my recovery

memory. Hmm. Something fishy there!

-

Once I really got started, I was very fast on crutches - it

became a sidewalk sport of sorts. I can remember an 

almost-running pace, on them, with that slapping sound 

they'd make on pavement. I can't recall how I finally and

over time got rid of the, but I did. My mother, I remember,

as I finally returned to School 5,  put me in these really 

hideous white buck shoes, a'la Pat Boone, a singer, who'd

made some of that stupid wardrobe stuff quite popular. It

made me more self conscious than being on crutches  -  those

dumb white-buck shoes that hardly even touched the ground.

I must have looked like some ridiculous poster-child for poor

child-maintenance or something. But, I can't remember, 

and before I knew it everything was back in place, and  -  I 

guess  - I was walking and things like a normal kid. Just 

can't remember. In the same way, I cannot remember 

the crunching, numbing action of the train hitting us either.

None of it seems real, or the me to whom it all happened,

maybe, really did die. I know I came back refreshed and 

different, and understanding, or at least aware of, a lot more

things, things in some 'heightened' way. I don't know; can't

ever really say. It was a brutal snowstorm, my mother couldn't

control the car, she was driving me back from Claire Avenue

in Woodbridge, and the tracks right there on Rahway Avenue  -

still there and still in constant freight-train use  -  which had

only blinking lights then, no service arms to come down and

block traffic (not that it would have mattered) were the tracks 

we slid on the ice/snow onto, right in front of the approaching

freight, which really jiggered us up, cut the car in two right down

the middle. Left my mother's section right there, and took my 

section a bunch of feet down the tracks with it, until the train could

stop. And there I was, all smashed and crumpled. I was told they

figured I was dead, until I moaned when they tried extricating me

from beneath the metal dashboard which had twisted around me.

Whatever; all tales are tall tales. Later, when I found out about 

it all, I actually felt more sorry for the poor engineer than for 

myself. He must have been a wreck. He was William Pasterak,

49 years old, from 27 Hamilton Street in Fords. I'd imagine 

he's dead now, poor guy. I wished I'd have spoken to him. The 

fireman of the train was William Gleeson, of Philadelphia. That's

all I know. They both worked for the Reading Railroad.

-

Since I was stone-cold out of it for months after that, I have no 

idea what transpired at all. Everybody told the stories over and 

over, who did what, how my father found out, all that. It became

one of those family tales that get re-told, and change around a

little with each re-telling too. For a period of time, after I awoke,

the kid in the bed next to me  -  tonsils or something  -  was 

John Hoffman, older brother, as I recall, of Michael Hoffman,

a school-chum of mine. I can remember various parents coming

to visit me, in the company of my own parents, and I remember

Myrtle Yacullo, mother of my friend across the street, Jimmy,

coming for a while everyday, and bringing, each day, some 

custard which she home-made  -  it's like a pudding texture 

stuff. I wound up hating it and almost getting nauseous each

time, but could never tell her. It was, ion her eyes, and my

parents' too, a great food and the right consistency to be 

sucked in through mt wired-shit mouth. Yep, just as good

as that creamed-spinach baby food which I loved so much.
-
One funny thing  -  which has always remained with me, was
triggered by the Hoffman kid in the bed next to me. (It was a
large ward, of about 20 or even more, beds; not a private or a
double-room in any sense. Everyone was just thrown together  -
young and not young, in all their varied sorts of ailment and
injury. A strange assortment, like some Civil War battlefield
hospital. 1958 remember). Here, the thing was this John
Hoffman kid had never been a favorite of mine  -  he was very
peculiar, a goody-goody type, all proper and polite, and  -  in
any case  -  had never been anyone I cared to spend time with.
It was a weird feeling, But yet, I had thought, if I've been
somewhere else now, and if I've come back into this life with
another meaning  -  a new Matterhorn of my own, as it were,
to climb  -  why then would these previous thoughts and
knowledge about this Hoffman kid still come to the forefront
as they had. Isn't that the boring old stuff again? I could never
figure that out. I think Life itself is all smoke and mirrors, and
the interpretation of everything is all up to us.
-
I was all trussed up, for months, in traction and casts. My body
had been fairly well scrunched up, all on my right side. I looked
like one of those cartoon characters you see -  arm in a traction
sling, sticking straight out, leg in another, sticking straight out,
head wrapped. All that white gauze stuff. I remember I had a
male nurse, a Philippine guy. First off, the idea of a male nurse
wasn't cool with me; it just didn't seem right. And he wore blue,
not a white nurse thing, with which I felt more comfortable. He
was always hanging around, walking to various beds and doing
things  -  clean-ups, chores, etc. A real drub of a guy. (I don't
know what a drub is, but I'd made that word up for him). The
reason I ended up hating him  -  besides all the horrid bed-pan
stuff  -  which I hated too  -  was because he'd come by to change
my sheets and bedding, which meant he'd have to, just a little,
lift me up off the bed, for a moment. It hurt like the dickens, and
he consistently did it, and knew it hurt too. Jerk. Later on, when
I got mobile enough for a wheelchair, they'd let me roam around,
spin and roll in and out of the ward, and enter hallways and things.
Here's the scoop : the hospital was way over-crowded (old, original
Perth Amboy Hospital). The wards were overflowing, and there
were beds and people in the beds, all along the hallways. No room
at the inn, so to speak. So I'd just roll past all these weird cases
of people and their wounds and injuries. Te thing that always
flabbergasted me, and which I've never really gotten to the bottom
of yet, (and this is true, believe me people) is that there would be
people, I guess with bruised heads or eyes or something, I never
knew, in their beds with slabs of red meat, like a steak or something,
on their faces or wounds. Sounds ridiculous, but it was true. I
could never figure that out. Ever. And, one last thing and then I'll
move on and come back to this later, was that  -  it being a serious
hospital ward scene, kids under 12 or something weren't allowed up.
My sister, Donna, was about 6, and wished to see me, or they wanted
her to come see me, whatever. To do so, my Grandmother, wearing a
long Winter coat, took my sister to the elevator area in the lobby, told
her to stand on my grandmother's own feet, and then my Grandmother
wrapped he big, long Winter coat around them and proceeded up,
elevator and all that. It worked. My sister got to my bedside, walking
by not walking, instead just sort of riding while hidden, on my
Grandmother's shoes. Pretty strange transport, but it worked.