RUDIMENTS 419.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 419

(avenel tour-guide)

There were old buildings, 

things marked with cornerstones 

of 1904, 1912, and 1914. There 

was a grave marker for dead 

and washed up, forgotten,

revolutionary-era British 

soldiers who'd washed up, 

tried to survive, on the sand

and dunes, and whose dead 

and hidden bodies were only 

found later, and rightfully 

buried no matter the cause 

or the side. That particular

marker is still there, in the 

middle of a neglected field. 

These are things we live with, 

and mostly today all that is 

unknown; and no one really 

cares anyway. Too bad. 

What can a person do? It's 

all like living in a ghost town 

where no information is 

passed unless money first 

changes hands  -  someone 

is paid to tell you about it 

all but only in the most 

approved fashion  -  bad 

information and propaganda 

for truth. All those years with

my father, for instance, making

the trips from Avenel to ocean

and inlets, and Sandy Hook too,

in order to fish, crab, or go to

where the 'bluefish' were running,

none of those trips ever brought

me this information; nor was 
I told about it. I had to find it

it all out on my own. Sandy Hook 

was actually 'Fort Hancock.' Yes, 

of course, there were endless 

jokes about 'this man's army' 

and Fort HandCock and all 

that  -  but it couldn't work 

that way now. People never 

did realize (and Mark and his 

wonder-babe (I'll call Oona, 

from Brooklyn by way of Israel),

another circus 'sword' swallower,

I bet) and myself, we discussed 

these points in depth, as I 

introduced all this 'historical' 

perspective of my own on them)  -

that there was a time, really was 

a time, when things were simple; 

when immediate points of view 

demanded a different intensity 

and length, when the actual 

defining description of Life 

and Land was different. 

This spit of sand we were 

on  -  maybe three miles 

long and a mile or so wide, 

I really didn't know  -  was 

once a vital connection to 

the land. People lived and 

died on these sands. The 

local Navesink Indians 

called it home  -  seasonal 

or not, but home. Everything 

was different. The entryway 

to the harbor was vital  -  

ocean, land, roadway, river. 

The geography was local 

and real  -  people once walked 

about, watched the horizon, 

looked for sail-ships and 

harbingers of arrival. Mark

and Oona were distant, almost

bug-eyed in vapor, and the 

other guys with me, they were

suspicious of this interloper, his

car, his 'girlfriend,' (ha) and their

behavior too. Just another one

of the weird outsiders I'd hooked

them up with. But, saddlebags

filled with beer and ice, as they 

were, the fine day moved on. 

It was like talking to a blind 

man  -  a stoned one. Mark 

and the girl were gone for a 

bit, exploring, while we'd 

parked the bikes at the old 

parade grounds and lighthouse

area and just drank beers, 

lounging around on the 

grass, tinkering with the 

bikes, whatever. They came

back, Mark saying they'd been

able to get into a few of the

empty gun emplacements and
look around (large, cavernous, 

beneath ground bunker-caves).

He said of course all they did was 

was fuck a while (this is true, I'm

not kidding) and he said it was 

a few times anyway, even 

if he was usually gay and 

sought out guys. (Again, this

is true, I'm not kidding). 

She was pretty cool, and, 

he stated, she 'enjoyed a 

good slamming' and they'd 

gotten high enough that 

nothing mattered anyway 

and it was all fun  -  she was 

just 'practicing' was how he'd 

put it. Really; it was like

being with William Burroughs

or something. And to Mark 

anyway nothing ever much 

mattered. One time he told 

me how the true sign of a 

'friend' was in how that 

purported 'friend' reacted 

when asked to 'go out back 

and have a smoke' and that's 

how he judged people  -  no 

matter what else the trust-factor 

of a good friendship or any 

friendship meant NOT saying 

no to such a request   -   

however that did pretty 

much seal my fate with him 

as far as that went. Smoking 

pot was never my thing. I 

never did see him much for 

years after that  -  for the 

one time I did finally just 

say a simple 'no' to him was, I

suppose, the one time he 

was standing judgment. Fact 

of the matter was that, after 

a time, I began to just find 

him annoying anyway and 

the less I was around him 

the better it was for me and 

my 'no' was more the result 

of simply not wishing his 

sole and undiluted company 

'out back' for even a minute. 

He, of course, misconstrued 

it all as a refusal to smoke 

with him  -  which was a 

secondary matter to me for 

sure and, screw him anyway. 

What I did miss was his

blazing, dark-featured Israeli 

beauty sidekick Oona or

whatever her name was. 

She I could have smoked 

for sure  -  I was intrigued 

and exhilarated by her 

far-emotive bearing, from 

somewhere else, some 

ancient, strange foreign 

dark land, as smoky and 

distant to me as that 

Latakia tobacco used 

to be  -  a pipe tobacco

blend, that was, from
Turkey or Iran.

-

About him, on the other 

hand, I just didn't really 

care; he somehow bugged

me, Mark did, and I had 

found a lot of his interests 

and phrasing annoying  -  

never shutting his trap 

and just running on about 

things when fueled with 

alcohol and the rest. The 

sort of character who 

demanded singular, 

one-on-one attention 

with a flippant veneer of

character-quality which 

drove me nuts and it 

became like 'why don't 

you just once shut the 

heck up because I simply 

cannot any longer hear 

you.' And he was all fake 

and stupid anyway  -  all 

caught up in those stupid 

cultural things-of-the-moment'

stuff I hated. TV names, movies. 
As it turned out, it all ran 
down anyway. Then, even, 

eventually, Ruda or Oona or 

whatever she too started 

getting on my nerves  -  

her manners nasty and 

cloying and I don't think 

she ever laughed or didn't 

take things not well  -  dead, 

stark serious like some 

foul black existential huff, 

sucking on cigarettes and 

the rest  -  funny how grace 

and quality can disappear 

so quickly. She was always a
bummer. Here it happened. 

In an instant it was all business 

and serious and dour, a sort-of 

excuse for otherwise doing 

nothing at all except what 

nothing wanted doing. The 

weirdest thing is that they 

(and us), ended up in a 

'beachfront' open-air sports 

bar in a certain hell-hole 

known as Keansburg, NJ 

(which has neither a 

beachfront nor a view, 

but is rather a blank spot 

on a really bad map that 

just looks out on a 

poor-man's waterway 

of the Raritan Bay). The 

low-income people there 

make do with it as their 

beachway. The only wave 

that place ever sees is 

when boats distantly go 

by and people wave, or 

when fat people jump 

into the bay for a swim, 

and I'd bet the fat people 

do a lot more  jumping in 

than the boats do passing by  

-  the place is rank and foul 

and infantile and disgusting, 

yet there they stayed an 

entire afternoon and into 

the late evening, drinking 

and smoking and staying 

high around some gross 

outdoor cabana-type thing 

with big TV screens blaring 

and bunches of knot-faced 

and probably inebriated 

locals from the town staggered 

stupidly along and by and 

in : the bar itself I forget 

the name but it's still there 

and seems as foul as ever  -  

nothing ever changes when 

it comes to these things. 

My biggest gripe was 

how someone would 

'cover' something, say,

like his 'biker weekend' 

in Jersey, by doing it from 

the rank confines of a series 

of sleazeball bars and 

encounters  -  all the while 

being high. No sense to me. 

I don't think either one of 

them has ever returned 

to follow up their coverage. 

Mark has just disappeared 

from my life  -  the article 

came out, it covered the 

things we, as bikers, had 

done with him and Oona 

or Ruda or whoever she 

was, portrayed me and 

us fairly enough, and 

seemed flip and hip 

about the NJ exploits, 

and was featured as first 

page, with an inside 

continuation. But, it

all missed a lot too. He 

never was an insider. I 

guess my time with him 

was over by then  -  the 

Big Apple Circus, in 

those earlier days, was 

out on the old dunes 

and sand-holes at the 

bottom west-side of 

Manhattan  -  yes, hard 

to believe now  -  all that 

area having long ago 

disappeared. In the 70's 

it was a crumbling elevated 

highway, with old buildings 

and trucks stops and 

weigh-stations along the 

way; then in the 80's it 

was all falling apart and 

was dismantled and the 

area suddenly seemed to 

return to nothing : a 

wild-west of vacated old 

buildings, empty, sandy 

areas, and a  long, open 

'beachfront' where no 

one really went. By the 

late 80's it was a sunbathing 

and play-space for the 

locals, gays, yuppies and 

performers. The Hudson 

River went running by. 

Now, forty years on 

again, it's all displaced 

by a long, riverside park 

and a thundering city  -  

Battery Park City  -  

million-dollar condos, 

restaurants, shops, 

schools, clubs and gyms. 

You'd never know it

now, but it was once a 

desolate spot  -  and 

one, in fact, I loved. 

On those dunes the 

Big Apple Circus would 

set up, practice and play.

-

The person I call Mark 

here, is still around, at least

online. He has two other

pseudonyms that I've seen,

and is now billed as an 'Occultist'.

And I do see another of his 'Jersey

tours' posted too from about 2004. 

I'll try and retrieve it. It's better than

our day together. Years have lapsed

now. I'm quiet and in Avenel. He's

an Occultist! Still out of jail, and,

I guess, still alive. I can mostly 

keep my mind and stay civil, 

but there are things which 

set me off just now and then. 

I try to remain far enough off 

from things so as not to be 

packaged emotionally or set 

to explode. Don't get me 

wrong, situations drive 

me crazy, and often, but 

I do not register them too 

much. I try to live at another 

realm, another level of 

'things'  -  which is probably 

the worst word in the 

world but used here 

nonetheless. He and I

were good bomb-throwers 

in our day  -  the early days

of knock-em-dead literary

pugilism. Now, it's all gone.