Displaced Snippets of Bayonne by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

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appears as if someone may have taken a tentative gentle bite before returning it to its place. You muse that this round-headed pizza may ostensibly still be capable of flesh penetration, but of more significance, it has an uncanny similarity to that archaic gardening tool invented by the Greeks, the use of which necessitated kneeling or bending over, since replaced by the use of a simple hoe. On top of the un-aesthetic nature of the thingy, if you’re as dumb as I was and get it anywhere near your nose it smells like someone had their dirty ass on it.

Archaic Greek gardening tool; public domain.

In all fairness, I’d like to point out that this isn’t always the fault of the pizza. Most of the time it’s been sitting on the table with the other overlooked slices, and they’ve been re-heated five or six times in the last hour.

However, that doesn’t change the fact that you have a bit of a

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problem. The first time I was in this situation my first thought was to try to sneak it into a garbage can when no one was looking. That’s not easy at some parties as it’s difficult to get any privacy, and even if you did someone would likely see it later and yell out; “Hey, what asshole is throwing the pizza in the gobbidge?” and everything would come out, resulting in you being called a party pooper and go uninvited to the next joyous affair. So, in my case I decided to “groove” to the Subhumans and nonchalantly dance my way over to the table which held the other slices and put it back there when no one was looking. I mean people at these parties aren’t counting, and may not even know six from seven slices to begin with. It worked.

A word to the wise is sufficient.

A sense of morality soon overcame me, and I thought it might be incumbent upon me to tell my best friends; “Hey, don’t mess with that bad pizza.” Maybe I should have said something, but ultimately decided that I didn’t want to risk that party pooper charge, and quite frankly came to find it singularly funny when one of them did eat it.

I finally settled into a calm mental position, wherein I thought; “It’s not my job to tell anyone what to do, and if you want to eat hard, crusty-ass pizza go ahead. I’d like to at least recommend watching out for the stiff end; but when you come right down to it I really don’t care.”

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Those still here may still be wondering what this has to do with Bayonne as pizza was not invented there. Well, I don’t know and submit that the questioner may be missing the pizza point.

In addition, pizza may well have been invented in Bayonne. Who can surely say? Maybe the Italians kept the good stuff to themselves for a while before publicly putting it out on 21st Street at a price.

In closing to you modern sophisticates, up until the age of about 18, whenever I wanted some good pizza, I had to archaically haul my ass up to 21st Street. Your improvements are admirable, but “Fuck you and your Domino’s.” Capish?

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#9- More Bayonne as this is what this Book is Purported to be About

I have to mention another illustrious group of people from Bayonne; the Vanilla Fudge. I’d have substituted the 1910

Fruitgum Company as my pal from 19th Street, Louie Gomez was their drummer. But the rest of the group came from lesser places and I don’t even know why Louie bothered with them; but you quickly learn not to ask a lot of questions in Bayonne.

The Fudgies were all from Bayonne or claimed to be. They supposedly lived uptown somewhere, but I didn’t know of them.

Somebody who lived up there told me that they were a bunch of glue-heads. That makes sense as their music sounded that way.

Some sources credit the Fudgies with having been the inventor or a pioneer of psychedelic music. There’s no Bayonne boy worth his gelly water gonna knock a good scam; but the statute of limitations set in a long time ago. See, it’s simple.

Psychedelia is out there and glue is bogged down.

According to Wiki, Vanilla Fudge was managed by Phillip Basile of the Lucchese crime family. They used to be so close mouthed about this stuff, as I knew his daughter Marcy for a while, and she never told me shit.

Anyway back on the glue, VF took prior hit songs, the most memorable perhaps the Supremes “You Keep Me Hanging On,” and slowed them down like a 78RPM record playing at 33RPM, and added

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some slurring voice and heavy drums. At one point Led Zeppelin opened for them and probably picked up a lot of their shit.

I never did glue, but Hudotowicz down the block was fucked up on it more often than the old bats in babushkas went to church.

One time we were hanging on the fire escape in the schoolyard, and somebody brought a forerunner to a boom box and blasted “You Keep Me Hanging On.” You should have seen fucking Hudotowicz. He was back in Eden. He took off his shoes and socks, said he was a hippy, and just started doing a slow sort of dance all over the asphalt and broken glass; fucked up his feet like two weeks worth, but in the moment did not give the slightest of raspberries.

Big John was trying to make him stop, but Hudotowicz just said; “Fuck off, man. Mind your own fucking business.” Since MYOFB is commandment numero uno in Bayonne, Big John fucked off and Hudotowicz’s feet got fucked up.

That’s some visceral fucking poetry fo’ yo’ ass.

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#10- Obligatory Sex Propoganda Emanating from Early 1960’s Pubescence and James Bond Movies Things weren’t always quite as exciting on the peninsula as I may have made them sound. Most of the time we male teenagers would be sitting on the tops of the park benches which lined the front of the schoolyard. Many summer afternoons were spent shooting shit and lying about all the good loving you’d been getting. The kids liked hearing these stories and never said that you were full of shit because you’d then tell them that they were too.

Having said that, some of the Bayonne girls were well ahead of the sexual revolution yet to come, just like their mothers.

There were basically five types;

1) The ones who said; “What took you so long to bring it up?

Your name is ...................... ? Oh, yeah. Right. Right.”

2) The ones who said the same thing only when in a committed relationship and called you “Chubby Boy” when she forgot your name.

3) The ones who were still not 100% sure, and went somewhere in-between, often with nicknames which gave a hint of their dispositions. You might well guess that Rosalie; “HJR,” was less popular than Mary; “BJM.”

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4) The ones who thought “going out” meant hanging out with her mother or sometimes even father, and discussing your future economic prospects.

5) The ones who stayed home after school and listened to “Mellow Yellow” while doing all their homework.

I’m going to attempt to be a bit unconventionally daring here. Every other writer I’ve seen says that every girl they ever met had her hand down their pants in about a minute after meeting. I’m going to be honest with you. I was a shy person and in my case I always made them wait at least an hour or two.

“Whoa, whoa. Off that, Sharon. I just might report you in 35

years, if I remember.”

I’m also going to risk being seen as not a literary macho man and tell you that I wasn’t really interested in the number ones; perhaps a forerunner of my later noted general penchant for some sort of exclusivity. I was into somewhere between a 2

and a 3, depending on a number of things too long to mention; and even got a few 4’s; though I would plead naiveté and/or being easily duped in the latter case. To tell you the truth some 5’s would have been okay with me, but they seemed to think that I was horrible for no good reason. A ninth grade student, Nancy, once even cussed me out right in front of everyone at school, and I wasn’t even bothering her.

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The point here, if any, is that Bayonne seemed to have its priorities in order before most, and allowed for diversity; but I really don’t know as everyone lies about this stuff, including me.

Homosexuality? ........ Homosexuality? ........ I’d really rather not go there, but it seems required to make some note of it in 2018. I was aware of two male homosexuals back then and had a suspicion about a third. The two overts consisted of a guy in his thirties who lived uptown and wanted a special friend in return for buying kids alcohol and one my age who seemed un-naturally happy all the time, especially when he was giving pimple-head Diskin a hand the year they were in my gym class. In senior year he was voted most popular, but the authorities had absolutely no sense of humor, and #2 got his straight face in the yearbook. The third suspicion is a story which fits better elsewhere. Female homosexuals did not exist in any male mind. We figured that Joan Crawford just liked to get on top.

In 2018 this little thing has become a big issue; at least on social media. I once called someone there a homo after he had opened the door by using the word “hetero,” and generally advertising his stupidity through a severe misunderstanding of the topic at hand. Within an hour, approximately 100 times, I was called a homophobe, a racist, a Nazi, a nitwit, a troll, and

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something rudely involving my mother that I don’t want to think about.

I’d like to take this opportunity to assure my friends in the gay community as well as the homos I don’t know, that the rest of us don’t care about what you want to do with your woo, maw, nay-nays, bum, or any other derivation invented by the instructive Millennials, with which I am likely to remain unfamiliar. You just like to think that we uncaring heteros do.

Just use your head a second and see it from our side. For every one of you there is one more potential female for us.

Thank you. I’m not even going to argue with those who agree with Elton John, who matter-of-factly said that Jesus was obviously a gay man. You may well be right. I always thought that there was something hidden going on with his penchant to get on his knees and wash guys’ feets. .......... Yeah, all right, every once in a while somebody gets strung up in rural Georgia; but hey, what the hell is anyone doing in rural Georgia in the first place? I mean like, it’s a place for closeted fat faggots who can’t get a girl to put on very-out-of-date white dresses and hats, and try to figure out which lever corresponds to Trump. That’s all. And you know, no one ever has and no one ever will achieve 100%

market share. So, for your own good just grow up and get over it. Okay? When he’s ready, Jesus will provide highly localized floods.

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I have no idea why this story made the national news, but it did. Well, yeah, so many of those CNN and MSNBC reporters are homos, but you’re not supposed to say that. There was this teenager somewhere who had said that he was gay and then retracted it years later. He said that he originally said it because he wasn’t getting enough attention, but apparently he was now cured of his attention deficit disorder. I can’t help but get a bit cynical about these things. I mean you got this nerd kid nobody bothers with. Then he says that he “came out”

and everybody is suddenly paying attention, just like that grinning, horny, pervert teacher he’s in “Cosmetic Art” class with. And all of another sudden the weirdo School Counsellor is talking to him every day about his “feelings” and all that bullshit. I don’t know. Maybe the story is true as presented; but in 1963 Bayonne it would have smelled just as bad as those fucking oil tanks with a westward wind.

I don’t know if I should do this. It’s just so common. But, since I know that you asked; I’m clairvoyant. The first time I made note of this was a painful though enlightening experience.

Many tears flowed; somewhere. Being Catholic, my parents told me zippo about these things; but when I was 11 or 12 and taking a bath I discovered the secret to the universe; and consequently began to bathe more often than Saturday nights. I was certain that no one else knew of this miraculous thing, and almost

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immediately started to lose interest in baseball, making Dad ask millions of questions to which I either said; “I don’t know,” “I don’t feel like it,” “I just want to take a bath,” and stuff like that I really can’t recall.

To my surprise, apparently some other kids I knew had also found the Holy Grail and were saying some strange things, making me consider the humbling possibility that I was not unique. In fact, some of them obliquely referred to related activities they had engaged in with girls, which at the time, I could not possibly imagine as having been true.

With the help of Ms. Largay’s wide hips and short, tight skirts, especially when she sat on the edge of her teacher’s desk while I had a front row seat; she seeming to want to remain breezy and cool in the well heated room, I thought that I might have seen something not flesh colored all the way up there a few times. I started to recall the mystery of her curvy bottom half when bathing ............ Ah, you know.

I started to piece a theory of sorts together. I was initially skeptical as it just sounded too outrageous. The details can go on some and Boomers just don’t seem to be as well informed as Millennials. Give us a break. We didn’t have Wikipedia.

It didn’t take all that long for my silent theory to find full rejection. I tried to put that theory into practice with

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Amelia. I didn’t know then, but later saw that she was clearly a 2, who didn’t like me all that much. So one day, she must have gotten fed up with my bothering her, and with the whole eighth grade class within earshot, proceeded to make fun of me, mimicking things I’d said to her in private. “Pretty Boy”

Prontnitski was pointing at me and laughing as was everyone else.

It was so humiliating, that a lesser person might have begun an avocation of buying alcohol for kids. But, no; not me.

I sat there calmly and said; “I don’t care. I really want to go down on Barbara, and she’s not here.” I may have also called Prontnitski a faggot, as Dolores always used to show him her cunt, and all he could do was punch her; but I probably didn’t say that in the context of 2018 as words change their meanings over time and most importantly that it would be unpopular with many readers.

There were two eighth grade classes, and Amelia, Pretty Boy, and I were in the smart one, and Barbara was in the dumb one. But, I did consider her quite attractive, maybe because she was an early bloomer and unlike libtard TV commentators, never said anything which was out and out retarded.

People gossip so much it’s usually just atrocious, unless you can get paid for it. But, in this case a freelance loudmouth or two must have inadvertently helped out shy little me, as

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Barbara was made aware that I wanted to eat her. So, sometime in the next few days I was walking home alone from somewhere, and Barbara was by herself leaning against one of those old mailboxes without a hinged entry which the postal people used for something or other, hitting it with something I can’t recall; saying that the vibrations felt so good, as she pushed her mid-range against the bass. I tried it too, and indeed they did.

We were enjoying the good vibrations for a few minutes, when Barbara told shy little me that her mother wasn’t home.

....... I’m still much too shy to continue this; but I’ll tell you that I didn’t know it at the time, but Barbara was a #1 in training. She lived with her mother only, and moms used to frequent the navy base then in town; and I guess that we learn more than we initially suspect from our parents. In a short time I found out that Barbara was not one to discriminate, and I experienced my first heartbreak.

I was absolutely inconsolable until the day when I was standing on line play-fighting with Bork, and Lydia said; “You look good. Don’t act like no fag.” She was half Spanish and half black with curves like Art Nouveau, and .......... I stopped crying for a while; until the whole Capulet-Montague shit replayed.

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Well, that’s a pretentious writerly kind of statement; cutely demonstrating that they know some Shakespeare or “West Side Story.” The truth was that it was just that Lydia had a big brother, and I mean big; damn Hector, who had some discriminatory reservations about inter-racial relationships. I think that Lydia was handling this reasonably well for a while, but succumbed when she found out that Satch had one below his knees and that the improvisation I’d made utilizing my bicycle pump started showing diminishing returns after the first two weeks.

I started crying again, unable to pinpoint the many possible sources of my dismay, and discovered that I had a distinct talent for it.

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#11- Mom and Dad’s Families

My aunt Jean was mom’s oldest sister and mom blamed her early outrageously sluttish behavior as the reason their mother watched her like a hawk. By the time I knew Jean she had settled into a stable relationship and had my cousins Paulie, Joycie, Georgie, and Tommy; the latter my age.

She married Bennett, a sailor. Despite him not having a first name, they found perfection in the understanding that when they were together they were together and when they were apart they were apart. Almost didn’t write that as it seems so simple.

Bennet died or absconded to Tahiti while he was still somewhere in his fifties. But Jean and Joycie were able to get good barmaid jobs at Petruzzio’s Café up on 39th.

Things have a way of working out.

When it was still a no-no, Paulie used to hang around with black people. Though I never saw the events, he was also known to have an occasional alley fight with an overly rude dog.

Outside of that he was ordinary to a fault. Georgie was stocky with the body of a gym man and for some amount of time the pimple bodied constant eruption was considered the toughest kid in Bayonne. I was little at that time and when I informed the big Wap who was picking on me of that, he stopped for a week, until Georgie said that he didn’t give a fuck about me and the

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Wap could do whatever he wanted. This was a distinct and disconcerting personal problem until I took a course titled

“Surreptitious CIA Tactics 101” and the Wap started to find slippery things, like stickball bats, in his path. I mean look, the fuck was about 17 when I was 5, used to take my ball and pretend that he was going to throw it on the school roof, and if he was too stupid to watch where he was walking, as far as I was concerned, the bully had chosen to risk a lifelong gimp. I didn’t make this world.

I didn’t know Dad’s family much at all. I remember that he’d often go visit them on a Saturday afternoon and at first he wanted to take me with him. But mom insisted that he didn’t as she didn’t want me exposed to low class influences. I didn’t understand that as a tyke, but later got some insight as two of dad’s brothers were cops.

I do vaguely recall going to a wedding on Dad’s side of the family. I found it absolutely hilarious. Someone at our table introduced me to one of the primary polack refrains; “Don’t tell me what to do.” He seemed to start out in a serious vein, and later moved into humor. One of the later times he said it resulted in the only time I spit up my soda. It was that good.

He was responding to someone else’s commentary which I didn’t take as instructive until my soda dyed the tablecloth. It’s

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truly amazing how much of people’s conversations are actually giving advice, which no one requested. At the end, the guy who used a plastic bag to gather up all the partially full bottles from each table was kind of funny, but a distant second to the one who repeatedly felt a need to declare his independence.

Jean’s son Tommy was the one I knew best, but that was sporadic. Mom would periodically decide that her sister Jean had slighted her, and would even cross the street to avoid her. In retrospect, I concluded that Mom was more “sensitive” than the most politically correct of Goodreads libtards.

Somewhere around the age of six, I pitched my first no-hitter against Tommy, though giving up about twenty runs through walks. In later years this made some sense, as I was always wilder with lefties. I think this was a vision imperfection which made me aim at righties in order to throw the ball over the plate. Lefties kind of resulted in a target of space.

We’d also play “cowboys and Indians,” me always the cowboy, and “Zorro.” I don’t remember anything of the latter game, except that I had a whip.

During the Viet Nam years, Tommy joined up, and despite hating the first time through, couldn’t resist the bonus offered for a second tour. He might have been swayed as a result of having a job in the pickle factory downtown. He once told me

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that the best thing about the job was that the workers would piss in the pickle barrels.

He had more luck in Viet Nam, as he got assigned to a supply depot. He was off duty when the Westmoreland managed forces mistakenly bombed it. We eventually lost all contact, when he moved to Texas and married a Latino woman. The fact that he died of leukemia, scientifically associated with exposure to agent orange, before age 40, probably had an effect.

I hope his family got a good lawyer.

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