Displaced Snippets of Bayonne by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

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Cover of “Swiss Family Robinson;” public domain.

Cover of the 1922 edition of “The Velveteen Rabbit;” public domain.

Mom’s biggest problem came in those days when there was no way for her to contact Dad. So she’d sit in the house and stew, checking every so often to see if the Alky had left of his own volition. Most eventually did.

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#4- Watering Louie’s Customers

I always had a fondness for water. I used to fill up the sink and play with my sailboats all the time. Pre-school age I tried to share my love of water by pouring it on people’s heads.

I guess that I did not yet know that John the Baptist has never gotten the credit he deserves. Besides, being about two feet tall not many opportunities presented themselves.

But, we lived on the second floor and one window was directly above the entry/exit of Louie’s Barber Shop. Mom liked Louie as much as she did everyone else; not at all. I figured that if Louie caught me and complained, Mom would be on my side, and I turned out to be more right than your garden variety behavior research PhD.

As Louie’s entrance/exit was indented a bit, the sound of it opening gave me a heads up on when the next customer would leave. I didn’t pour on those entering, as they were more likely to mention something, while those leaving would probably just keep going. And I didn’t pour a lot; just enough to get their attention.

I was laughing for an hour. Most men wore hats, and they’d sense the drip-drip-drip. They’d stop and look up to find the source. I’d back away to get a side view, hopefully un-noticed.

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Then something went wrong. Louie followed one customer out.

I had already poured when Louie looked up and yelled; “You stop that. I’ll tell your mother.”

Mom heard him yell, came to the window and yelled back;

“Don’t you dare yell at my son.” She shut the window, no doubt seeing what had been going on, and in a typical conversational tone and volume, told me not to do that anymore. I think she was laughing as she walked away.

I was getting the idea that you can get away with some things if you pick your spots and recognize where the power lies.

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#5- Writing- A Memoir Covering the Years from 2018 to 2018

Writers talking about the writing process, as it relates to their self-growth.

Bllllloooghharttfarfel, without a throat finger.

................... Okay; politely suffered that. My turn.

I sympathize with the many talented indies who bemoan various reasons for not being able to reach a wider market; one of them might actually have some validity. I really do. I understand their excitement at having their story accepted by the middle aged, bald headed loser at

DillapidatedDogVomitPress.com. I really do. It periodically re-warms my heart.

On the other hand, I can't help but wonder why the particular indie whining that particular day didn't do a modicum of research prior to devoting his well-being and personal view of himself to an industry which grants as much chance for providing a living wage as one might have of twice getting hit by lightning on a clear, sunny day, while indoors; instead of taking that not-yet-antiquated actuarial job.

“It’s my art. It’s a calling. It’s life itself. It’s human progression.” they condescendingly respond to the Luddite.

Whatever. Not my problem. I don’t know or care of art,

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callings, life, or progression. I took that bean counting job and have me some money .......... unless something bad happens.

I suspect that the writers have an undisclosed inordinate need to feel "smart," using words not in plebian vocabulary, while unknowingly espousing thoughts which were played out by 1979. Then there are the “cool” phrasing ones who get their sci-fi efforts rejected by on-line zines which don’t even pay.

So how am I any different? Dare you ask? If you’ve been paying any attention the answer should be inferred, if not obvious by now. For one thing, I didn't start doing this charity work until I was retired from a legitimate paying job. Yes, you've heard of them. It's that easy stuff you do to get a regular paycheck; the most difficult aspect being the development of a high tolerance for boredom. Don't make light of that. All jobs lower than the top five are designed to be pathetically easy, and the only ones who mess up are those who freak over the boredom, the meaning of their lives, the need for an alarm clock, and a resentment for being sequestered all day in a room full of jerks, thinking it not a catchy disease.

So, you wrote a decent or indecent book and so far got eight bucks for it. Boo fucking hoo. I suppose that now you can count on all your cyber “friends” to lay on the constant false praises, while you further nuance your degree of dissatisfaction, disdain for commerciality, and show your false

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humility. What moron could possibly want to have the income of James Patterson? Not you.

Might have some news for ya. No one cares, ace. Your writing sucks; you’re an ugly nerd; and you can shove your gender issues right up your ballpoint. Now, properly thank me for being the only person who doesn’t lie to you.

Forget "Stoner." The poseur got exactly what he wanted and deserved. The book was actually intended as a satire on assholes. Writing is a cost free hobby designed for codgers who are most comfortable sitting. Problems always ensue when one defies Mother Nature.

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#6- Dad Teaches Me Some of the Important Stuff- The Card Gambling Games

Gambling games like poker and blackjack are actually quite easy to learn. Dad showed me, beginning sometime about the age of three, when I had attained the mental capacity of a dog which knows how to cross the street. Many people learn them and then proceed to lose their drawers. How can I say? They’re a bit deceptively simple, but not quite overtly moronic when the betting part kicks in. But, that’s the subject for another book.

Dad also taught me pinochle sometime before I entered kindergarten. It’s much more difficult than the previously mentioned gambling games, but a lot easier than Bridge.

I think Dad taught me as it can be used as a gambling game, usually with an alteration or two, and because it’s also a bit of a polack tradition.

But an unexpected event took place. Know-it-all-TV-exploding Uncle Chesty got married in his mid-thirties to a Jewish woman from New York named Ida. At the time I thought that meant Manhattan, but now I’m not sure. Maybe it was Queens. I don’t know.

Ida was a very nice woman, but I don’t think she had much experience in socializing with uneducated polacks. I always thought that she was doing her best to fit in vocally, but

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frankly it never really worked all that well. It didn’t bother me or Dad, but after every visit, and even sometimes during it, Mom would be in a fury saying that Ida was “putting on airs” or being condescending; apparently a rare, fine-tuned balance her disappointed expectation.

And it wasn’t that Mom was any more anti-Jewish than her hatred for our two Jewish landlords who used some WWII inspired, but still existing legislation to cheap up on the heat. There were a few Jews in our neighborhood whom I’d eventually go to school with, and I never told her about Arnold J. Friedman, yet to come. As a matter of fact half the residents of our apartment building were Jewish survivors of Hitler’s death camps; some of whom would only come out after dark, and hold each other as they walked slowly up and down one well-lit block, maybe rightfully afraid to turn the dark corner.

During our visits we’d play pinochle. Dad and I would partner against Ida and Chesty. He wasn’t loud about it, but I could tell that Dad got annoyed the first time we played. I don’t recall the details, but in deference to my age, Ida and Chesty played stupidly. Dad informed them; “You don’t have to do that. He knows how to play the game.”

And I did. Dad and I continued to beat them every game, every visit. I don’t think that they ever won one. Re-thinking that now, I can’t help but wonder if their initial stupid play

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was not for my benefit; but theirs. It might have been polite to let them “purposely” lose, as it must be quite embarrassing to legitimately try, and then lose to a five year old.

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#7- Life Aspirations

When the first or second grade teachers wanted to have a goof off day by asking the class what they wanted to be when they grew up, Jeremiah and I were the only ones to say cowboy, and as a result of that became rootin’ tootin’ partners for a while. Never one to step on a dream, at that time I didn’t tell Jerry that there were no black cowboys. I’m also glad that I didn’t as there sure were. My incorrect perception probably came to be because the Hollywood directors didn’t start to put blacks in cowboy movies until after some people made a stink more than a decade later.

For my end, I can’t recall exactly when I learned that there were very few want ads for cowboys in Bayonne, but I sadly did have to make adjustments at some point .......... likely planned for some yet-to-be-determined future date.

This wasn’t any sort of priority, and time passed until I neared college age and had to pick a major and minor. You’ll have to understand that back in antiquity the urban colleges offered no cowboy majors or even minors.

The closest thing was when cowboy Kirk Douglas broke out of jail, got his horse, and with no small difficulty went over the mountain only to be demolished by Archie Bunker’s toilet bowl truck on the highway; the toilet bowls winding up all over it.

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Okay, it got mixed reviews for being a little too arty and reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp, but I don’t care because I liked it. Attempting to get back on the plebian notion of topic, I mean you couldn’t even get much “Gun Studies” back then unless you went down South, and I never could take hot and humid at the same time.

Mom sent me to take some sort of test which would determine what one was best suited for. I must have gotten 100 on it as it asked questions like “Do you prefer to be outside or in?” and

“Do you prefer a strict schedule?” No brainers, you know; maybe indicative of some value judgement made by someone else. But whatever, in truth you couldn’t be wrong.

Maybe two weeks later the test results were mailed to us and it said; “No particular interest in anything.” I was hoping they’d be a bit more helpful and mom was out and out pissed.

At first I thought that she was pissed at me, but somehow it came out in conversation that that was not the case at all, as she fully understood that feeling. Apparently unaware of management consulting SOP, she was pissed that she paid some expert $40 to tell her what she already knew.

But things always have an uncanny way of working out. When she considered my like disinterest for a while she concluded that I was suited for accounting. It is the perfect job for

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anyone who doesn’t care. I took it and it proved to be the basis for a middling, commercial banking career. God bless America.

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#8- Bad Pizza

When I was little, mom used to take me with her when she did her shopping on Broadway. She’d usually get me a charlotte reuse at the place on 21st Street. But, the charlotte reuse place closed up and in a few weeks Bayonne’s first pizza place opened there. I had some trepidation at first about this new thing. But, I guess out of hunger one day I decided to try a slice. Man, it was the greatest thing I’d ever eaten, and it became a regular thing.

Okay, I realize that some of you jaded young sophisticates are sitting there thinking; “Who cares about this culturally deprived fossil’s big deal with pizza? All you have to do is call Domino’s and in ten minutes a pie will be delivered to your door. And what does pizza have to do with Bayonne anyway?”

I’d like to assure the jaded sophisticates that I think I understand their point of view; and would like to tell them;

“Fuck you. If you don’t like it you can get your big nose out of my book and go write your own. I don’t give a fuck about your crummy two bucks, and I don’t even give one of those wet raspberries about you. Kiss my ass in Amazon’s window ....... “

Please excuse me. It’s morning and the meds may not have kicked in yet. What I was trying to lead up to is the universal belief that there is no such thing as bad pizza. That is just

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plain wrong. No equivocations. No if’s, and’s or but’s. Wrong.

Wrong. Period. Fuggetaboudit. End of sentence. Case closed.

Admittedly it took me some time to figure this out; but after having come to a conclusion which now seems obvious, I’d have to respectfully say that anyone who believes that myth must not have eaten a whole lot of pizza.

Perhaps the story of my discovery day will illustrate this.

I was at a party, and like every party, the attendees were all being merry and jovial; you know all that stuff you fake and the blessed one day find an acquired taste for. You can’t say anything negative without being called a party pooper. So you kind of stand there and say stuff like; “Hey bro,” “Lookin’

good,” “How’s it hangin’”, “Wild,” (That’s best used at parties with a jazz theme.) and pretend that the Subhumans’ blasting top 1,000,000 hit “Slave to My Dick” is the greatest thing anyone ever heard. The grinning hostess approaches you with a gift of a slice of pizza. You’re not particularly hungry, but not wanting to be a downer, you take the slice and thank her. She doesn’t wait around and goes away offering slices to some other people.

The first thing you notice of your pizza is that the thing doesn’t bend and shows signs of terminal crusting. It’s in your hand with all of the elasticity of a horticultural tool and you think about wanting to keep the rest of your front teeth. Its shape is consistent with that same tool, and its rounded head

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