RUDIMENTS 388.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 388

(a story of nyc to avenel, pt.1)

My father was born at the

west end of 42nd Street, at

a section now all gobbled up

by the Lincoln Tunnel ramps,

roadways, and entryways. Also

generally the area of the Javits

Center. It's all still there, but

his residences and all that are

long gone. If I didn't tell you

there was once something vital

there, you'd never  know it. 

There had been a real community

there; and there was,was until

recently, a large Mercedes Benz

dealership there too. Some

stressful striving for class, in a 

way known only to New Yorkers,

who need a car like they need a

hole in the head. I suppose the

tunnel was needed as well. The

scene amounts to hundreds

of cars waiting in traffic; horns,

impatient people, buses. You'd

never know it by seeing it now,

but it was once a vital, large,

and strong Italian community.

There are cops around, directing

traffic and stuff  -  but back in the

1980's, in spite of the cops, there

would be five or six whores going

car window to car window trying

to make a sale. I used to watch.

Very few ever got a deal going,

though some did  -  how that 

could be with traffic exiting

the city, not entering, it, was

beyond me  -  but I guess there

were quick-dash turn-outs for

the really beggared and horny.

(Did I say beggared when I

meant buggered? I don't know).

The actual church he was part

of too is gone, but near to it,

and still remaining, is some

Croatian Church, Sts. Cyril

and Methodius. After the long

demise of all the Italian stuff,

in 1974 they took it over, but

they kept all the records and

papers and photos of the old

Italian parish that once had been

there. The Croation lady inside

the church office let me in 

once, on a quiet, late, Summer

Saturday afternoon, and she

willingly  -  after I'd explained

the deal  -  opened cabinets

for me to peruse the 100 or

so hand-written record books,

of some 100 years, of baptisms,

weddings, deaths, communions,

all that stuff. Plus I got to look

at numerous photos of the once

thriving old Italian neighborhood

that had been there. Festivals,

parades, processions for money,

etc. I did eventually find birth

and baptismal entries for my

father and his brother, but little 

else. There was, also, no real

emotion involved for me  -  it

all meant nothing : paperwork 

and drudgery, maybe that was 

all. I stayed cool about it all,

simply more or less trying to

situate my father in any of this.

It was difficult, but I'll get to

that. 

-

I have to level with you : 

Italian and church piety, and 

all that simplicity and nativist 

stuff mean nothing to be. I 

hate humility, and I can only 

stress a progressive attitude, 

not one of subservience,

which is all that amounts to.

Peasant numbskull stuff was

never for me. So, be all that 

as  it may, all these wonderful

church people, whether Croats,

Italians, Father Duffy's old Hell's

Kitchen Irish (that parish too was

once right here, in ringing and

competitive fighting wards,

nationality vs, nationality and

saint vs. saint. So, how stupid

was all that?) can have it. They

can have it all. From this location,

and a terrible deed for him  -  a 

life-long scar that he never got

straight with  -  his family of 

siblings was broken up, fostered 

out, and re-organized partially, 

later on, in Bayonne, where 

nothing good happened either. 

They were soon enough

broken up again, one sister

sent to Brooklyn to live with

nuns and get a real 'education,'

while the mother, in Bayonne, 

was institutionalized for the rest

of her days, and my father was

(unfortunately) kept by a family

in a house now gone. (He 

cheerfully drove me to see it 

one day, I guess I was 10 or 

11, and when we arrived

all he saw was the hole in the

ground where it once was. Sad 

scene). Also weird, this foster

family somehow, for the authorities,

had him registered as a female, 

so that, on the days when the 

welfare inspectors and relief

department were coming, he'd 

have to be dressed as a young 

girl for their presence. Bad

news, believe me, and it stayed

with him forever. 

-

His father (who would have 

been my Grandfather, but I 

never saw him and he died 

early on) was  -  from

what I'm told  -  a Mafia 

boss up at e116th street, 

where a lot of this Italian 

community had moved

to, and only saw my father 

there once. Only once. He'd 

sent for him, sent a car, and 

my father was ushered, he 

said, into a large room with 

HIS father, in fancy clothes, 

sitting at the head of a long t

able, with others there to do

his bidding. He touched my

father's head, said some words,

gave a blessing, threw him a

few bucks, and that was that.

In the later 90's, I found his grave.

Way out in the cemetery area of

Queens, in a three person grave.

He's the name at the bottom, 

slightly different spelling, and 

because I did not know the 

other names, and asked about 

it, I was told by my aunt, 

before her death, that that 

was his 'other' family.

Beats me now and 'I could 

care less,' as the saying 

erroneously  goes. It's funny. 

This was all for years my 

own father's heavy burden,

and now in some ways I find

it's mine too, but twisted 

even differently since they're

all dead now. I've got nothing

except apocryphal tales and 

stories about some hoodlum 

match-ups and factions in old

blood-feud NYC. Everyone

died violently. And I should

care? It's like a blood-libel

stuck onto my head, without

any reason, mine OR theirs

(mostly mine), but which I

still find I can't shake. My God,

how do people get so screwed up?

-

Anyway, my father took all this to

Avenel with him. In fact, he landed

there with the crazy-guns already

blazing. I was four. Avenel might 

as well have been called another

name entire, because calling it

Avenel and meaning today's

Avenel, is meaningless. It's a

complete and other place. That's

all another story, and I'm not

going to be the one to start the

telling all over again. To Hell

with the present day (that's

already etched on my gravestone

for future use). Of course, where

he landed so I landed as well.

My dominoes were not in a row,

let's say; everything was a mess

and all I could do for the years of

my ensuing youth was watch

his anger and madness tremble.

Tremble like the leaves on a

poplar tree, in a gentle rain.

Even just the idea of a breeze;

that's all it took for him. Always

flying off about something   -  

an imagined slight, a betrayal,

some words spoken and taken 

wrongly. Fights. Arguments.

It was nutcase-holyland-hell.

And it as home for me.

In Avenel. (At least that

rhymes). In the clear-light

of my own being, I can certainly

see why my spiritual embodiment

tried early-on to get me out and

away. This life sucks. First, at

8 a train wreck; then the enforced

isolation of the seminary; then

free easy and dumb and stupid

too, loose on the streets of late 

1960's NYC. Some assholes

really are made, not born.