pt. 176 - the book of ruth / bayway circle

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 176)

I've read that the Book of Ruth, in the

Bible, is the only book therein that

doesn't mention, doesn't contain the

word 'God.' To be truthful, I've never

checked that out precisely, but it was

always a curious one. In St. Andrew's,

or even in the seminary, as I've here

mentioned previously, the Old Testament

was pretty much ignored  -  it being

considered old-hat set-up for all the

new stuff. It always appeared as

unseemly and wrong to do that; like

ignoring unwisely any of the tradition

by which the rest of your structure is set

up to respond to. None of that ever really

mattered, but it just seemed strange. So

much else of Avenel went by the wayside

when stacking things up against what you

were told. It sort of just left things up in

the air; without definition.

-

I always liked to find out little tidbits and

think about them. It gave my otherwise

awkward life some form. We otherwise

lived a kind of rough and ragged life in

Avenel  -  I've already mentioned the 

crazy games, the banging around, the 

little fights here and there. As kids, we 

never cared for much as far as limitations 

went. No one ever got carted off to the 

hospital or anything like that. I never 

remember broken bones or stitches or

anything (I'd already had my own fill 

of all that). And then, later on, I found 

out that, in the 'medical' world it was 

considered better that kids got banged 

around and roughed up.  It all seemed 

so perfect, so Avenel-right. Here's what

I'm talking of : 'Children are anti-fragile. 

Bone is anti-fragile. If you treat it gently, 

it will get brittle and break. Bone actually 

needs to get banged around to toughen up. 

And so do children.' That was pretty 

innocuous stuff, but it so well summed 

up what was going on, unwittingly. 

Avenel was cutting edge!

-

One of my favorite things used to be the 

Bayway Circle, up past Linden, on Route 

One, entering the area of Elizabeth. My 

father, in doing his basement upholstery 

side-jobs, often had people from up that 

way as customers. I'd often go with

him, drafted, as it were, to lift and haul, 

to pick up or drop off furniture -   the 

usual chairs, couches, etc., using his 

'60 Chevy station wagon, seats down 

in the rear, and the rear flaps left open, 

with some furniture concoction usually 

sticking out and being roped in for the 

ride. It was far-off stuff for me, and 

exotic. Riding up Rt. One was like 

going on a major trek, and then taking 

the Bayway Circle, and using it to get 

halfway around again for whatever that 

other road is heading west, was always 

cool. I used to pretend there was, sticking 

out from my hands, holding it, an 

enormous sword that was just chopping 

everything down, cutting everything 

we passed  -  telephones poles, trees, 

houses  -  into half-height of what it 

was. Very weird now, in retrospect, 

but that's the image I traveled with. If 

I were to get heavy into trying to 

psychoanalyse  that, I'd probably 

just have to stop short, at 'psycho.' 

There was a time after this when I 

used my bicycle, on a Saturday I recall, 

to ride up to the very Bayway Circle 

I'm speaking of here. I made it, barely. 

It was pretty treacherous, in that most 

of the way there wasn't really a place 

for the bicycle on Route One, obviously, 

and the cars and trucks whizzing by 

seemed to just treat me as if I was in 

the way. (And I didn't have my sword 

with me that day). Once I got back home, 

my friend Robert Shipley, upon hearing 

of what I'd done that morning, just shook 

his 2-years-older-than-me head and said, 

'You're brave!' incredulously, as if I'd just 

stuck my head into the mouth of a lion or 

something. Hey, bones are meant to be

broken, or whatever that quote was.

-

I never thought straight. I never did anything 

too straight. My life was just always an oddly

erratic end run around things. I made things 

up often enough so they'd grant me a better 

solution. Like in Chemistry class or something, 

if you totally controlled the experiment, you'd 

then also have total control over the outcome.

And, in addition, you could come off like a

crazed genius of sorts to others by actually

'predicting' the outcome of the experiment 

and being found right! It was all bogus, but it

seemed no one ever detected that. Baffling!

Of course you can predict the result successfully

if you select craftily, and stack the deck rightly, 

for all the matter along the way. How 

fundamental is all that? It's relatively easy.

All those other people devising formulas,

measuring capacities and times, pondering 

the Periodic Table of the Elements for the 

sake of the rightness. Pshaw! Just do it. 

(Nike owes me money?).

-

'Which brings me back to Ruth. There's no

mention of God in Ruth? Why would that be?
Probably a mistake. Probably an omission.
You could never think it was on purpose, or
serving some other agenda. It's just a proper 
place for the same sort of twist on the simple
name of fate or place or being. Like me, here, 
waiting for a train at the Avenel station.'
-
That's the sort of abstract stuff that twists around
in my mind all day  -  doing the littlest and the 
simplest local tasks. I used to think I was in the
first quarter of my life  -  that was all Avenel.
Then I fled it, for the first half, and then the first
three-quarters, and that had really little to do
with Avenel. Now I find it pleasant, and reachable
to all else  -  that's all I really need now. In
the fourth quarter of my life. Yeah, right,
if I'm gonna live to be a hundred.

pt. 175 - sincerity

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 175)

Once I came to consciousness, sort of, in

Avenel, I had to begin sorting out the things

that were 'mine' and peculiar to me, and the

other things which we all shared. Out by

Premier Die Casting, an odd nowhere

building on Rahway Avenue, next to The

Maple Tree. There was a small bridge and

a pond. It used to be much larger, and a lot

of it was just drained and put underground

when the Die Casting building was erected.

I think the locals called it Sunfish Pond, or

something  - there were fish in it, and you

could fish from the banks, or the little wooden

arch bridge that was there. It was scenic and

seemed far off and away when there. I used

to like just sitting around watching the sky

and things around there. We'd get there

through the back way, over the tracks and

through the prison farm-field - always a nice

walk leading to some fair and unknown type

of Avenel adventure. These were always

sincere things to  me  - they didn't take any

explanations, they were open to everyone, and

bore no more responsibilities than the one of

finding and enjoying a life-to-be-lived. For boys,

it was great stuff. What's to be said about any of

that? How could it have been anything but good?

The Maple Tree itself was just another enigma to

us  -  it seemed a few old guys just entering or

leaving  -  absolutely nothing colorful at all.

Shades of gray, dour and dark, guys in their suds.

There was also another place, up the road just a

little, and across the street. Snuffy's, or Snooky's

or something. Bar, beer, and this one had a pizza

business too, back when pizza itself was pretty

much unheard, not yet a big thing. These were

both workmen's bars, the after-work crowd from

down in the swamps there. I remember, 35 years

later, about 1994 or so, when Woodbridge Mayor

Jim McGreevey said, in his usual goofy way, 'No

one ever goes to the Maple Tree except prison

guards and escaped prisoners.' It was meant as

a joke, by him, but it failed miserably and the

lady who then ran The Maple Tree didn't think

it was so funny. That's what time does to things,

I guess; wears the armor right off the knight. I

sort of asked myself, right then, was he being

sincere about saying that, or just trying to make

a genial, political crack? Turned out, with him,

it didn't really matter.

-

There have always been a few giveaways, to me,

of insincerity. I judge insincerity to be someone

who talks on without knowing what they're talking

about, or using the sorts of bland, vapid generalities

which amount to no more than party-line filler.

Two specific examples are: A. the sort of people

who like to go on about the 'arts community',

support of the arts, etc. Such crap. What exactly

are these 'arts'. After some investigation it usually

(always) amounts to the usual balderdash of

community-sponsored, tax-based group art, put

to use for the showing of horrible stuff by either

high-school art student types, or retirees

splendiferously learning scrap-booking, watercolor

painting, or 'open-mic' poetry readings. Ghastly

stuff, always. 'Communities' are good for this

crud. Problem is, Art has no community; it's

a fairly solitary endeavor  -  and, B. The sort

of people who use 'out there' as a working phrase

for their own cause or sequence. As in, say,

bicyclists who say, 'there are a lot of bicyclists

out there. Watch out for them.' Or, even a

weatherperson who says, 'it's quite cold, and

there's a big storm brewing out there.' Ummm,

please explain, where exactly is this 'out there'?

-

People take up ways of communicating  -  mostly by

saying things which communicate very little. It's a

sort of news-talk vapidity. I guess a lot of times

people just shy away from being direct, and end up

using shield-words instead. I had a Rahway Inn pal

for ten years or so who was the complete opposite

of what I'm saying. This guy was direct, full-frontal

in your face, verbally. No mincing words in any

way. If you wanted to know where you yourself

stood on something, or how your yourself came

across to others, all you had to do was go over to

him and present yourself. He'd tell you directly,

just as he saw it, and you'd not even have to ask.

By the time he was done with you, you'd either have

withered under the assault, or become stronger for it.

He was only part-time Avenel, but he represented

for all. Bob (his real name, but that's all I'm giving),

used to bury money in his yard - real wads of cash,

in cigar boxes and other forms of containers. When

he wanted some, he dug some up. It was usually damp

and clammy, and it was always funny. One time I

remember he bought a motorcycle, cash, from B&D,

and paid for it all at the counter with damp, clammy

cash. They took his money, yes, of course, but the

place went nuts and it became instant legend, that

transaction.

-

Another odd thing that used to scare me of as a kid,

about the real world anyway  -  places like Premier Die

Casting, Emerson Quiet-Kool, and General Dynamics,

thy used to have, into the 1970's anyway, signboards

out front listing job opportunities, the help-wanted,

'Positions Available', as they put it. I'd see those and

start thinking what a dreary world awaited me. That

was another Avenel thing  -  it just was not really

engrained in me that all the workaday dreariness

could probably be avoided by deepening an education,

through college, and even beyond. Turned out, there

were people, entering their thirties, who'd successfully

found ways, through academics and endless studies for

doctorates and the rest, who could still be 'in school',

to avoid that work-world drudgery. Academically

programmed living, of course, was just as dreary and

mundane, but at least, I guess in the Avenel sense, it

didn't involve heavy lifting or grease. I'm not sure if

I'm clear on this, if it's getting across to you. My own

way out of that dreariness dilemma, having seen it

early and reacted to it early, was to beat a path to the

doorway, period. I knew I wanted none of that,

although after time even I fell back onto it. Money

and family, you know. But, it was clear to me too.

There was never any talk in my household, at home,

of getting ahead through education; no one ever

spoke of college or any of that. It just had to

happen by itself, in its own, overdue ways, to

me  -  I found my own means of, in the meantime,

learning, and they were far better than any of the

college-crap others were going though. That I

saw; and I wasn't much interested anyway in

the sort of 'clean' work that would bring.

I never delineated my own days by titles

or attainments. Couldn't anyway.

-

Avenel, I'd have to say, never really prepared

me for anything. It churned me out, like so

many others, with an inkling of this or that,

an idea about things. But that was all. The

past was another land, and the way it was given

to us was by allegory or story  -  never really making

any real sense. Lenni Lenape, and Raritan Indians,

living on the banks of our nearby rivers, The Rahway

River, the Raritan and its branches, little clumps of

natives here, in the swampy lowlands. We had to

imagine, in our ways, what we could, and to do so we

became our own Indians, our own little tribes. That

was half the fun, and the reality too. How to figure what

any of it was; beyond me. But it was real, and it was

sincere as all get out too.

pt. 174 - monte cassino / avenel

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 174)

I've told you the story of the man from

Missouri  -  the movie guy at the Woodbridge

Theater, with all the free Doctor Zhivago tickets.

That was about 15 chapters ago, at least, but I'll 

use it here as my lead-in to an Avenel story about

movies and the movie industry. (The neat and

rhyming cadence of 'I've told you the story of the

man from Missouri', that was in my head all day.

Just really needed to use it. But now I see it

entered my head for a reason). My wife's family,

both sides, was all from up Closter, Cresskill,

Tenafly, Teaneck, area  -  all that Bergen County

stuff. A few miles north, as it is, from the cliffs

of Fort Lee. That's where the beginnings of the

American movie industry began, the silent era.

Now I'm skipping, and I'll return to this later.

Avenel, curiously, came to be in this saga

because my wife's mother's father was an

itinerant laborer, carpenter, electrician.  He 

would travel, following the jobs around as they

arose. The family, five kids, two adults, would

travel around with him, wagon-train style, or like

Oakie's in some run-down conveyance. In the

mid-1920's one of these jobs took him to Avenel

(Demarest On the Hilltop, was the other name),

a faraway place they'd never heard of before,

for the construction job of erecting some 30 

or 40 houses that were going up. So, they 

traveled, relocating to some set-back, small 

hut of a house, we're told, on Remsen or Prospect

Avenue, down the far end, towards Woodbridge, 

out towards Smith Street, Tappen Street, somewhere. 

We took my wife's uncle there once, an old guy, 

to see if he could remember anything (he was like 

12 at the time when they traveled here in the 

1920's, and actually spent a year or so in School 

4), but he couldn't find anything that reminded

him of where that house could have been. He

later moved to a trailer, very happy to be be out 

in the sticks in the Virginia horse-country, and

died about a month later. Sad story, too bad. So, as

it turns out, and much to her surprise as well, my

wife's mother was actually born in Avenel! Shortly

thereafter, getting hurt on the job and then being let

go because he couldn't keep up with the others, due

to the injury, they went back to their Bergen County

town, where she grew up. It was only by some freak

of circumstance that, 25 years later, upon buying a 

house, that house was situated in Avenel, NJ. Her

father, as I said, worked in the movie industry mostly,

building sets and scenes, and electrification stuff.

In fact, in the family, the story goes too that he

was on the crew that put electricity into Lady Liberty.

He illuminated the Statue of Liberty, as one of his

jobs. I guess when it was put up it didn't at first

have lights. Don't know; that's the family story.

On those cliffs of Fort Lee, and this is factual,

not story, the movie industry was cutting its eye

teeth  -  growing into itself. All those early movies,

things like the Perils Of Pauline, and many others,

they were filmed there, right on those cliffs. There

was no Hollywood, until later when the entire

industry upped and left for California  -  like the

Dodgers or the Giants did later, in baseball. Those

little 'Americana' town series books, if you go into

the Fort Lee Library, or the Barnes & Noble over

in Edgewater, they have local 'Fort Lee' books 

that cover this plenty  -  the whole story, photos 

and everything. There's even one called the 'Fort

Lee Movie Industry'. It was an entire craft-village.

Stage sets and sheds, buildings of all sorts for

equipment and animals, props. They'd build wooden

structures, fake townscapes, etc. all for the filming;

even a fake railway for those damsel in distress

'cliffhanger' scenes. (That's where the got that 

name from, those grand cliffs along the Palisades).

They made hundreds of these films, probably

way more than hundreds, and they invested big

time into the work and labor of back-lots, sets,

fake towns, and all the rest. He was also an

extra, hired for the day, in numerous films.

-

So, you see then, there's a connection in even

unseen and mysterious ways to being 'from'

Avenel. I often thought about that  -  how in

the world did my parents, or anyone's ever get

wind of this place? So very interesting. You'd 

have to think, I guess, if you were starting out 

now, what names you'd hear, how far you'd be 

willing to relocate, what would you know? Or 

is it all about expense, only? My own family,

my father and mother, were all just a mishmash

of Bayonne and New York City stuff  -  bad dudes,

criminal stuff, prisons, death. No one ever really

got the story straight enough to tell it, and it's still 

mostly all a mystery to me. Every version shoots

a hole (no pun) in the previous version. I've heard

ten different stories about why I had no Grandfathers,

how they got here, what they did, how they died.

Blah, blah, in whatever Italian tongue you use for 

that. That comes from being punk-poor. Rich people

know all their shit  - five generations back they can

tell you exactly who Arthur Gentian Maybelline

Adams married to beget Adeleaide Swarthout who

married Cremenally Stewart IV, and who  had a

child who ended up as your Grandad. Or whatever.

They have holdings, and bank accounts, and titles

to things, and homes. My family, holding onto

Bayonne like it was their own genteel Boston,

had nothing, and knew less. Kids fostered out,

mother in an asylum, fathers dead, Ossining and

Dennemora, fifteen different versions of Nothing.

That's me. How any of that ended up in a place

called 'Avenel', you tell me then. I'm listening.

-

Some guy I met in  a dog park, and who, over time

I got to know, he told me once, as my appearance

continually deteriorated these last few years, hair,

beard, raggedy clothing, etc. that I looked 'shredded'.

Whatever that meant, he said 'no, no I like it, wish

I could do it.' I'd never heard that expression before,

and didn't know what 'shredded' actually meant to

say. I looked like wheat, perhaps? I told him,

'shredded? Man, you have no idea.' And just the

other day, in a local dumb-ass supermarket, two

kids started laughing at me as I walked by them

in the lame-brain cereal aisle. I knew what they 

were doing, I'd seen them snickering at my 

approach, and as I passed they pretended a

preoccupation reading their freaking cereal

labels, and the they started again as I was past

them. I knew what was up, turned around, walked

back and said in their faces, 'you wish you had

my life, assholes.' They shut right down. Between

them, they may have added up to 30 years old.

-

It's just an Avenel thing, somehow. It courses 

through my blood. And I admit, yeah, I sort of

gave up on everything else  - I never did much,

don't do much know, except paint and write, 

walk around endlessly taking photographs, ride

the train, use up gasoline. I'm a bum, by all 

outward respects. A really creative bum, but

that's it. My belief-structure's long ago been

fried. I found everything to be bullshit, the 

whole entire world built on a lie. And, you 

know, I don't care. Why would I? This Avenel

is a refuge, a hiding-out pen for me. I can tell

you a lot about a lot, every little crevice, if I

wanted. The vagaries of life are what stun me;

like that whole story of my wife's family, somehow

unknowingly starting here, 85 years ago almost,

and then ending up here too. And, to boot, getting

me hooked up, from my wicked and twisted end, 

with their female offspring. How crazy is all of

that? So I could tell this all to you? My wife's

father, he was from up there too. He was a

butcher's assistant, in Closter, NJ, while he was

in high school. He told me they'd use 'everything

on a pig but the oink', for saleable goods. It meant

that all the parts of pigs are turned into meat or food.

Everything but the oink. I always liked that  -  even 

though I never eat the stuff. Told you about that the

other day. But here's where it gets weird again, and 

has the crazy Avenel connection. My wife's father, 

this butcher kid, was shot down in WWII, while on

a bombing run over Monte Cassino. He survived the

crash, was captured, and as a prisoner of war was 

marched, as part of a prisoner-group, in all weathers

and with little food, all across Europe in advance of 

the Soviet Army, rapidly encroaching on the Germans,

who were marching him. Many died along the way.

The historic abbey of Saint Benedict, the monastery

established there in 529, the Benedictines, this guy

was bombing it to smithereens, because it was part

of the Gustav Line, a German defensive line set up

to keep the Allied armies from advancing any further

into Italy and Rome. Absolutely hallowed, ancient,

sacred ground. he was blasting it to shreds. Twenty

years later, I'm hooking up with his daughter, and

we're all in Avenel no less. I swear to tell you,

you can't figure life out.