pt. 181- jokes/horse stables

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 181)

What did the kangaroo say when he took

his friends to an Alabama restaurant, and

asked if they wanted more soup? Now,

normally you'd ask why anyone would

be thinking stuff like that, (the answer

was to be a form of southern dialect word

play on 'more soup y'all?' but spoken as

'Marsupial?', sort of). Well the answer was

because at about about age 12, that's the sort

of thing that was always running through my

head. These little wordplay jokes that seemed

more 'oral', needing to be spoken, than read.

Like 'what was it called when Prince Olaf

got his first boner?' - the answer being a

Beatle song, 'Norwegian Wood.' Fair

warning enough, just so you know. ('Hey,

Gar, you put the warning after the fact').

A lot of it was just messing with time.

I had found many ways to keep my mind,

on one plane, leveled, occupied, so that at

other levels I kept open the running access

needed for other thoughts and multifarious

overlaps. These all went into my 'work' as

it were. Piles and piles of notes and

notebooks. 'Juvenalia' it's all sometimes

called, when an artist or someone has early

production-pieces, and youthful attempts.

The kind of stuff mothers and sisters throw

out when you're not looking, or, at the other

extreme, the kind of stuff that rat-bastard

agents and art dealers make millions off of

once you're dead. It's a crazy-ass world, and

Avenel would never seem to be the place

from which any of this 'grand' stuff would

ever come form. I couldn't ever figure any

of it out, and thus just never got hip to all

that old-home stuff. There'd be ringers

coming into town, early-sixties types in

their cowboy Cadillacs, and they'd ply

into the Hillcrest  or such places, for their

'swing'; nights or 'country-western music'

nights. It was all stuff that was just so

foreign to a joint like Avenel that you'd

wonder, or I did, what the hell was anyone

here up to, pretending to be like that,

taking ten bucks and booze money from

people who thought they were cowpokes.

Cowpokes in Avenel, where the closest

thing to that ever was, maybe, horseshit.

-

Speaking of which, there was a place in

Iselin  -  old Iselin, when Oak Tree Road

was just a slivered-lane and everyone was

regular white people, and the blacks who

were around, back then, were the tenders

of these hoses I'm about to be speaking of.

Iselin was a slimy lane of bars and gas

stations, a thin road leading into the woods

out Edison way. Bars like Jack's, Hank's,

Flip's, and the Pioneer. Places like that.

You could get away with being useless

and drunk there, at the same time. Up the

road there, going out towards Edison,

on the left, into the woods, was a place

called Roosevelt Stables. They  would

have, each week, on Wednesday nights,

into the late night actually, from about

7pm on, an actual horse auction, open

for anyone. Of course, there were few

locals there, except for those who worked

it. The black people I mentioned were the

stable-hands, handlers, etc. There was a

tack-shop, where they sold really nice

saddles and reins and blankets and stirrups,

riding gear, boots, and everything else.

And, of course, then there was a 'snack'

bar'. All these non-Iselin cowboy types

would come in for the night's work, in

their horse-trucks, usually each with 3

or 4 of their tired, old, end-of-the-line

work-horses, or just old horses.  This was

usually the end of the line for them  - either

they got auctioned out to one or another of

the riding stables or kiddie-camps who'd come

in to bid and buy, or they'd go to the glue

factory. Really. The glue factory kept a

tractor-trailer truck there, some 'Adhesives'

company, which used the old horse-bones

rendered and boiled into a glue of some sort,

to truck away the doomed horses. No, not I

nor anyone else ever liked seeing that stuff,

but that's how it went. There were some 

really bad horses brought into to those 

nights. Tired, old, lame, or just going to 

seed already. That was the downside. The 

upside was all else : it was the coolest place 

around. Besides all the noise, and the 

auctioneer's magnificent voicing of all

that auction stuff, the smells, the hay and

straw, the horses were called out for auction,

by number, and then brought out from stalls 

into the main ring, with someone, one of

the black guys, usually, walking them 

around while some guy rattled of personal 

history and statistics, and who it would be

'good' with  -  kids, elders, farm play, whatever.

Then the bidding would begin, going one for

five minutes maybe. Not all the horses were

sold. Sometimes it was sad. But, no matter,

the real glory came every so often, like a

miraculous lightning strike from somewhere,

when a hale and healthy, hearty and strong 

horse would come out (often like every 6th 

horse or so) and actually be ridden, vibrantly 

and energetically, in circles or small romps 

and trots, by any of a few of the, truly, most

exciting, vivacious and beautiful girl riders I'd

ever seen. Ever. I don't know where they got

them from, or why they kept them so hidden.

The place would erupt with cheers, hats a'flying,

and these girls, often with silky, long hair,

cowgirls hats tipped back, or off onto the 

back held with the strap, would rip-snort their

way into the bidding-hearts of ever guy there.

Which all was probably the place's intention all

again, to rouse up and awaken this peddling crowd

of horse-buyers into a wicked, cowboy frenzy.

And damn it worked. Some nights we'd not get 

out of their until 1:30 or so. It was quite the scene,

yes, of all that old, Iselin, stuff. Made the grade

for sure for me. Last time I was there was maybe

1970. It's all gone now, built up and given over.

Yet it remains within, a vague, never-to-fade 

dream/memory of a lost place and a lost situation.

Smaller times, encapsulated and held closer than

anything now : when each street held something,

when houses could still be wood and ramshackle,

not vinyl sided and plain-colored, perfectly-kept

and neat as a pin; when some junk around the 

yard wasn't a sin, and the rear didn't have a

deck and a pool and a Weber grill of some

crazy, ridiculous, Home Depot dimension;

when every man was not, by far, the perfect

backyard chef, when one could drink and smoke 

and then talk about it as the kids played around

and rode bicycles through the sprinklers and the

flirty wife 'cheerio'd!' everyone she saw. When

sometimes the stories didn't have morals and 

lessons, let alone endings. The air was yellow

than it ever was now, and the skies grew dark.

-

Have you ever seen how things come and go,

dominant stories, but just for a while, about the

societal things? Diet and fitness, all those old

Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons dumb-ass

workout routines. They come and go, style as

style, and people move on to other things. When

I was about 8, I remember my mother's big deal

was Jack La Lanne. He always seemed like a real

jerk to me, like the Billy Graham of exercise

routines. She mail-ordered once, I'll never forget,

some rubber, blue-colored thing, about three 

feet long with hoops on each end, or loops maybe.

It was for 'resistance fitness' or something aerobic.

One end went over the closed doorknob, and you

pulled or stretched against the taut stretch of the

thing itself while it was looped into your hands.

It was difficult to understand, for me, and I'm not

so sure my other ever did either. The entire 

gimcracky apparatus probably cost the Jack 

LaLanne company a dollar fifty. She sent them 

like 8 or 10 bucks, way back in 1958, when 

dough was dough. I always wondered if the

beatniks, by the way, when they used to talk 

about 'bread' when they meant money, had 

taken that off from the idea of 'dough', which 

is where the 'bread' comes from. So, like I 

said when I began this section, I was always 

working words and jokes too, as a way of 

'remembering' things, as memory aids and 

such. There's a book by Umberto Eco, called

'The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci', which  is 

a story about this  -  not the jokes part, but the

memory stuff. In the middle ages, in China,

before any other forms of memory-aids existed.

This guy would devise fanciful ways by which

he could place and remember and then recreate

everything in-place in the rooms he saw. Mostly

like that anyway  -  and that's about the same was

I see old Avenel, sunlight leaking through my

woven fingers across my peering eyes. (That

would be 'S-L-T-M-W-F-A-M-P-E'  -  each

letter of that sequence then signifying something 

else. Before all of today's useless distractions,

people minds and memories were a lot more 

acute. 'Hey! That's a cute mind you've got there!'

pt. 180 - mulligan's

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 180)

My father used to always tell me, in the

midst of whatever project we were in  -

and it was funny after a time  -  'go get

me a crescent wrench.' It was always a

'crescent wrench' he needed. As a kid,

it sounded like the weirdest, strangest

thing. Besides wondering why, if he

always seemed to need one, he just

didn't start out with one, I figured it

was, obviously, always annoying, or

must be, to have send a ten year old

downstairs to get the crescent wrench.

I used to figure, after he died, he was

with Saint Peter or someone, asking for

a crescent wrench, first off. Does one have

hands in heaven? Or even, maybe, there's

no need for wrenches, nothing ever breaks

or needs repair? No matter though, he'd

want one anyway. I had heard, of course,

of crescent rolls, the fertile crescent, the

crescent moon  -  and even, in 6th grade  -

been shown that Muslim flag thing with

the Crescent Moon as part of the national

identity, somewhere. Mr. Ziccardi always

used to be sure to tell us it was pronounced

'Muuuslim', not 'Ma-slim'. That always stuck.

Anyway, the crescent wrench thing was a

problematical connection to Dad. He never,

in the early days anyway, had socket wrench

sets, or any of those cool and easy-to-buy

things now available everywhere for cheap

 -  from Sears to Harbor Freight to SK and

the rest. It was always more just haphazard,

catch-all sorts of tools. Vice-Grips perhaps.

Crescent wrenches for sure. My father was

never too communicative about what it was

he was doing. Prying on something or

breaking frozen nuts and bolts. He was also

big on Lock-Ez. I always liked that stuff.

He'd apply it to some old rusted crap, and

two days later it would come loose with

some pressure. He never, ever, had any sort

of air tools or power tools or impact stuff.

That was out of the question - expense, and

the need for a compressor. Any of that stuff,

he never went near. Nowadays, it seems people

have everything, way over the top. Generators

for the house power, back-up systems, etc.

Not like the old days  -  Jeez, I can remember

nearly going ape-crazy with elation when I

first saw Steve Chohorsky's Dad's automatic

garage-door opener at work. It was a very

cool, rather slow and methodical, noisy,

chain and pulley type set-up, powered by

an electric motor. But it was just so cool.

My father, in the ordinary run of everyday

living, called everyone 'Mac' or 'Chief'. it

was also funny. He'd pull into a gas station,

and say 'Fill it up, Chief.' Actually, a fill-up

was rare. He had a penchant, weird again,

to buy gas in one dollar increments. He'd more

likely say 'a buck's worth, Mac.' I grant you,

yes, gasoline then was nineteen point nine

cents a gallon (my first memories) and later

twenty-nine nine, etc. but that's all he mostly

ever bought. A buck a day. Big Plymouths

and Fords too. Back then, probably 10 or 12

miles per gallon was good stuff. We'd go to

a limber yard, same thing, 'Mac' or 'Chief',

unless he knew the guy, then it was instant

first-name basis. I told, in an early chapter,

how he used to break everyone's name down,

my friends and such, into the most-familiar

versions, instantly, even if the kid never used

it. I'd introduce, and, immediately, the diminutive

form :  Jim became Jimmie, Bob became Bobby,

Anthony became Tony. Instantly I always

thought probably that's how I got named Gary,

because it already had that ending, and sounded

familiar.

-

As you're growing up, based anyway on my own

experience, a Father is always just sort of on the

fringes of things. Or it was for me, my situation.

One remove. Not really lovey-dovey close stuff.

I don't know about others, but there were never

any hugs and embraces in the father/son deal;

in fact, it was usually a disaster anyway. A few

times, maybe once or twice, I remember things -

and that's probably why I remember them, because

they were so rare. It progressed by starting with a

distance and growing to a void. Huge and impassable.

Like that old Wagon Train stuff on TV, the caravan

somehow got wrecked on the side of some dirt

path. Things all broke and spilled out on the trail,

crazed Injuns hootin' and hollerin' and us there,

on the ground, with arrows in our foreheads and

the wagons flipped over. Lordy, I never really

tried either, so some of that blame is mine.

-

In New York City today I saw something that

rang all sorts of bells for me. Right away, the

smoke of my mind cleared and I saw this image.

I don't mean to say it was anything substantial,

but damn almighty of it didn't come pouring

out of me. It was a moment, to be sure : I'd sat

on a bench, in a new spot I'd never seen before

-  a new little park sort of thing, adjacent to

two coffee places, and a cafe sit-down too.

It was across the site of the old St. Vincent's

Hospital, of old Greenwich Village fame; where

Irish poet Dylan Thomas died...and many other

notables too, not to put him on any pedestal or

anything. The hospital closed up about 6 years

ago, and condo-conversion and rebuilding is

almost complete. The park thing is part of that.

In the park, a guy was eating breakfast (a take-

out container of fruits and such), sharing things

with his kid, a little boy. The kid was maybe 2, 

or closer to 2 than to 3, years old, for sure. The

guy was about 30. As they left, they went towards

a set of concrete-block steps that led up to a

little lawn the kid wanted to be on. The father

went up first, and the kid, struggling and nearly

stumbling, was unable to get his little foot/leg

up the height of the concrete block. The father

came back down to take the kid's outstretched

hand. Instantly, as an electric current running

through me, I felt the rumor within of that exact

circumstance  -  I remembered precisely the

clumsy feel, how large even the smallest things

seem, to a kid, and  -  more tellingly  - I recalled

the help of 'Dad'. Doing that very same thing.

It all may have been some weird, proverbial

and interior stuff to me, but I re-lived something

vital right then  -  recharging me, striking me,

throwing me off a cliff. I couldn't think for a

moment. Have you ever had such a blur?

-

A lot of the things of Avenel remain true to

form, not much changed. At the end of my

block, Inman Avenue, out towards the trailer

park, where the street broke down into woods,

on the one side that's still woods was the

Mulligan family. I don't know the incidentals,

and they were younger than me some, but

maybe there there were three or four kids. I

remember, more than the kids, the two

parents. Real nice people, friends with my

own parents  -  which was surprising because

my father sort of kept an attitude up always

about Irish folk. The father, Jim,  was big, ruddy,

and bear-like. The mother was just pleasant

and always nice. He was, Mr. Mulligan, the

most like my father, I could say, morseo than

anyone else on the block -   maybe that's what

brought them together. Hands-on types, ripping

into things always, stuff around the yard, car

parts, wagons and other oddball things. There

was no church connection in any way that I

ever saw. They lived right at the edge of those

woods, and I always thought how it was such

a good to have bought the last house on the

block, with the woods, since it was like

getting the creek and the woods for yourself

too. Except, across the street, for John and

Joanne Wolchanski, it didn't work out so

well because after the first six or seven

years of our real glory as kids there, the

woods on their side, (same deal as the

Mulligans, except they kept the woods),

with its possums and pond and trails and

secrets, got wiped away in a near-instant one

Summer, maybe 1959, about. The next thing

we knew, there were about 20 houses in place.

But, on the Mulligan's side, things languished.

The woods are still there, all prickly and nasty

and unkempt, but still there  -  holding every

little thing I can remember about them. The

Mulligan house, sad to say, is derelict and nearly

falling in now on itself. I don't know the deal.

I remember, for years, he had a do-it-yourself

project going that seemed to take over ten years.

Some sort of really rough, plywood, front porch

extension with windows and siding and things,

but a real ugly and slow mess for years. I

remember my father's constant laughter about

'Jimmy's porch project', as if it was never to

get done because it was getting done by a fool.

Also, I remember too, my mother used to make

a supper dish she called Mulligan Stew. We got

it at least once a month  -  just a bunch of stuff

in like a thick soup. I always thought it had

something to do with the Mulligans down at the

end of the block. Confused me for a long time;

then I found out it was like slang for some

catch-all stew of junky off-cuts and leftovers,

all seasoned and simmered together, by Irish

poor people. It was, essentially, just another

slander. Same with Scotch Tape. It was a 

brand name, yes, but I learned later that it

too was a slander  -  about how Scottish people

were 'cheap', and always fixing things, trying to

make them last, keep on. The idea with 'Scotch' 

Tape was about how cheap people, following the

Scots custom, would stick things together, with 

tape, to make then last, to squeeze them to stay.

Same with, I often heard, cheesy repairs and

do it yourself stuff...like Mulligan's porch. Things

like that, unfortunately, used to be called 'all

niggered up.' Meaning a cheap, ad hoc project,

something put together haphazardly. Isn't all 

that stuff just so very weird? The vulnerability

of being a kid is that you only learn about all

this stuff much mater on in life.

pt. 179 - bad joke / dark streets

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 179)

Kennedy was killed, President John, I mean,

on Nov. 22, 1963. I was away at the time,

seminary years, and I've related the story

of that, here, already. Pious stuff, ridiculously

and immediately made church and religion

connected, for no real reason at all. Turned

out the guy was a scuz. He got killed in an

open car, in a dramatic fashion, and it was

all custom-made for that 'dawning of a new

age' crap they always force feed us. Stupid

people like dramatic things, and this proved

to be all of that. They watch movies with the

same esteem they give to historical narratives

where something 'cool' or exciting happened,

even if they're often most-entirely wrong or

bone-headed. What was it then, six or seven

years later his brother, Robert, was killed in

an equally dramatic fashion after the night of

the California Primary win, in the kitchen of

some hotel. Down for the count and dead. I

remember my mother being distraught about

that too, in about the same fashion as the

President. I snapped at her, when I heard of

it, 'maybe that'll teach him to keep his mouth

shut.' My mother was aghast, and sort of so was

I, immediately. What the hell was I thinking? I

sensed wrongness at once. My statement made

no sense at all, I didn't know what I was talking

about, and it was as if I blurted that out, at the

distance, just to hurt my mother, or push at her

vulnerabilities, But, boy, instantly was I sorry;

knowing I couldn't take it back. And it's been

there ever since, for me, just hanging around in

the air, some real stupidity on my part. She's so

long gone, and I can never explain to her now

what being an asshole is really about. Sorry Ma.

-

I remember they had a funeral train, later, carrying,

his dead body somewhere. I guess to Massachusetts

or Washington, or someplace. I remember pictures

of people, black and white, lining the rail corridors

along which the somewhat slower than usual train

was running : it was almost eerie, like something

from Lincoln's era or something. Old, wizened

black people, with their hats off, over their hearts,

tearing up or saluting as the train went by. Whites,

veterans, guys back in their uniforms, housewives,

kids, police people, clubs and groups. There was a

silence too. The train just rolled along. And then,

at the eulogy in DC or somewhere, his last brother,

Edward, saying some memorable quote about 'others

ask why, my brother asked, 'why not?' Something like

that. It was a moment, for sure  -  a little weird and

outlandish, but a sort of bundling together of all of

American in like one last group snapshot before the

shit began hitting the fan and all really just fell apart.

I guess you had to be there.

-

The country I grew up in was losing identity, fast.

The little no-place town I grew up in, Avenel itself,

was losing all tact, just becoming as rude and

unforgiving as the rest. I'd come back from New

York City for a day, and be met with nothing but

smirks. All the wise-ass old guys inside Tom's

Barber Shop, there next to Murray and Martha's,

everyday suckers, workshop losers each, sitting

there lined up for their haircuts on an otherwise

glorious Saturday, staring into their personal

nothingnesses, would straighten up as I passed.

The catcalls would begin  -  all the usual asshole

shit  -  'get him in here, Tom, we'll clean him up!',

'Lordy, look at that, I don't know whether to kiss

it or beat it'. It was like being in the deep-darkness

of distant Alabama or something, and being black

besides, in a white neighborhood. I couldn't believe

it. Besides, I think all those guys were horny and

perverted anyway  -  not getting anything at home

from the agitated wives, facing middle age with a

void, running a thin line of homo-eroticism with

each other, probably doubting their own manhood,

not mine, and taking it out on me, evidently  -

based on that last, quoted comment. I'd sometimes

quite consciously walk by there with my girlfriend,

her tight-ass jeans and all, just to freak those wankers

out. God, I loved life.

-

I always loved the long, dark roadways of my

childhood  -  they were, unlike now, always

under lit, not very much active, lined here and

there with odd, strange houses, and, basically

as I walked along, mine. Kids never get to

'own' much  -  or people think not anyway  - 

but I owned these streets. It was pure and

silent. I could do 10 year old kid, or whatever

age, walkabouts knowing no one was about to

touch me or mess with my meander. There were

train station walls dark and without movement.

These same walls today are lit up like Hollywood,

with stupid murals of war and past crusades, the

Woodbridge High School muttered curse of civic

art-school students given free reign to do...nothing.

Walls in praise of war, with toady's crybaby warriors

close in tow. Man-up, my friends, your modern world

sucks. Everywhere was unkempt leftovers, here and

there a sad and jagged car, broken down cars left at

curbside; turned over wheelbarrows with holes where

the rain had turned into rust. The world used to be just

left alone, given over to its own processes. People

knew and accepted what they were  -  things tire,

they wear out, they age, they die. Not any more,

this dead-eye-dick-world of modernity demands

its newness and light everywhere. Too bad.

-

Darkness has been taken away from us, all. One

by one, any of the senses of religious liberty or of

the inquisitiveness of the natural mind, has been

taken from us. People have dulled themselves into

insensitivity, under the guise of being everywhere

with everything. The zombie ethos has taken over :

a slow, settled drool that covers possibility or wonder.

No one cares much, willing instead to take the dictates

and conclusions forced upon them by others. Even

 the jokes now are lame  -  not wishing to offend a

fellow moron, well past offending. it's too bad. The

old smirk of real living, the fuck-you, can-do attitude

that once kept things moving on, is gone. In order

to get some inkling of it now, anyway, I can only say

go visit the metal-recycling scrapyards over by Leesville.

Riverside, and Fortune, or whatever it is. Those guys can

show you a few things  -  even though they're tough and

mean and surly. Let alone not allowing photos. Those

Slavs can bang you around before dawn. They do things

the way I remember. Throwing instead of placing. Nothing

actually matters except the task at hand, no other flutter

or fluff need apply. That's kind of Avenel-in-your-face,

memory stuff. Like a bum joke about the teacher's

attributes, let's say, or some guffaw about the

fluffer-nutter just seen walking by. But if I began

cracks about that I'd be no better than any of those guys

at Tom's Barber Shop, right? It seems everything today

is sacrosanct and can't be joked with. Like the teacher

with large breasts in school : she says to the kids, 'now

children, I want you each to use the word 'fascinate' in

a sentence when I call on you. First kid - 'I went to the

zoo with my parents, it was fascinating.' She says, 'good

but that's 'fascinating', - wrong word. Next kid - 'I went to

work in the GM plant with my father. I was fascinated.'

Same deal, she says 'Good, but that's 'fascinated', not

'fascinate.' Third kid - 'My teacher got big breasts. Her

sweater got 10 buttons, but she can only fasten eight.'

See; that's punch-'em-out Avenel humor at work.

-

It's sometimes a wonder what went on. I see now that

I really had little guidance, nor did any of my friends,

that I knew of. Fathers mostly talked to fathers, or, if they

talked to kids, it was in organized activities  -  Boy Scouts,

Little League, etc. Everything had to be within the rigors

of organizational input. Nothing free-spirited, wild or

'free-to-roam-and -grow' anarchic. That was one of the

things, in four or five years time, that became the ruling

factor of my introduction to New York City. By its

contrast, it was stunning. First off, it was urban  -  big time 

-  and, of course, it 'worked'  -  or at least it worked at
the time. One I got there, I was off and running.
I'll tell you about it more, in time.