Paterson (Revised Edition) (19 page)

want the same

thing     .     to be amused.

Imagine
me

at her funeral. I sat

way back. Stupid,

perhaps but no more so

than any funeral.

You might think she had

a private ticket.

I think she did; some

people, not many,

make you feel that way.

It’s in them.

Virtue, she would say     .

(her version of it)

is a stout old bird,

unpredictable. And

so I remember her,

adding,

as she did, clumsily,

not being used to

such talk, that —

Nothing does, does

as it used to do

do do! I loved her.

All the professions, all the arts,

idiots, criminals to the greatest

lack and deformity, the stable parts

making up a man’s mind — fly

after him attacking ears and eyes:

small birds following marauding

crows, in ecstasies     .     of fear

and daring

The brain is weak. It fails mastery,

never a fact.

To bring himself in,

hold together wives in one wife and

at the same time scatter it,

the one in all of them     .

Weakness,

weakness dogs him, fulfillment only

a dream or in a dream. No one mind

can do it all, runs smooth

in the effort:
toute dans l
’
effort

The greyhaired President

(of Haiti), his women and children,

at the water’s edge,

sweating, leads off finally, after

delays, huzzahs, songs for pageant reasons

over the blue water     .

in a private plane

with his blonde secretary.

Scattered, the fierceness

of knowledge comes flocking down again—

souvenir of childhood,

the skull of the white stone     .

There was Margaret of the big breasts

and daring eyes who carried

her head, where her small brain rattled,

as the mind might wish,

at the best, to be carried. There was

Lucille, gold hair and blue eyes, very

straight, who

to the amazement of many, married a

saloon keeper and lost her modesty.

There was loving Alma, who wrote a steady

hand, whose mouth never wished for

relief. And the cold Nancy, with small

firm breasts     .

You remember?

.     a high

forehead, she who never smiled more

than was sufficient but whose broad

mouth was icy with pleasure startling

the back and knees! whose words were

few and never wasted. There were

others — half hearted, the over-eager,

the dull, pity for all of them, staring

out of dirty windows, hopeless, indifferent,

come too late and a few, too drunk

with it — or anything — to be awake to

receive it. All these

and more — shining, struggling flies

caught in the meshes of Her hair, of whom

there can be no complaint, fast in

the invisible net — from the back country,

half awakened — all desiring. Not one

to escape, not one     .     a fragrance

of mown hay, facing the rapacious,

the “great”     .

The whereabouts of Peter the Dwarf’s grave was unknown until the end of the last century, when, in 1885, P. Doremus, undertaker, was moving bodies from the cellar of the old church to make room for a new furnace, he disinterred a small coffin and beside it a large box. In the coffin was the headless skeleton of what he took to be a child until he opened the large box and found therein an enormous skull. In referring to the burial records it was learned that Peter the Dwarf had been so buried.

Yellow, for genius, the Jap said. Yellow

is your color. The sun. Everybody looked.

And you, purple, he added, wind over water.

My serpent, my river! genius of the fields,

Kra, my adored one, unspoiled by the mind,

observer of pigeons, rememberer of

cataracts, voluptuary of gulls! Knower

of tides, counter of hours, wanings and

waxings, enumerator of snowflakes, starer

through thin ice, whose corpuscles are

minnows, whose drink, sand     .

Here’s to the baby,

may it thrive!

Here’s to the labia

that rive

to give it place

in a stubborn world.

And here’s to the peak

from which the seed was hurled!

In a deep-set valley between hills, almost hid

by dense foliage lay the little village.

Dominated by the Falls the surrounding country

was a beautiful wilderness where mountain pink

and wood violet throve: a place inhabited only

by straggling trappers and wandering Indians.

A print in colors by Paul Sandby, a well known

water color artist of the eighteenth century,

a rare print in the Public Library

shows the old Falls restudied from a drawing

made by Lieut. Gov. Pownall (excellent work) as he

saw it in the year 1700.

The wigwam and the tomahawk, the Totowa tribe     .

On either side lay the river-farms resting in

the quiet of those colonial days: a hearty old

Dutch stock, with a toughness to stick and

hold fast, although not fast in making improvements.

Clothing homespun. The people raised their own

stock. Rude furniture, sanded floors, rush

bottomed chair, a pewter shelf of Brittania

ware. The wives spun and wove — many things

that might appear disgraceful or distasteful today

The Benson and Doremus estates for years were

the only ones on the north side of the river.

Dear Doc: Since I last wrote I have settled down more, am working on a Labor newspaper (N. J. Labor Herald, AFL) in Newark. The owner is an Assemblyman and so I have a chance to see many of the peripheral intimacies of political life which is in this neighborhood and has always had for me the appeal of the rest of the landscape, and a little more, since it is the landscape alive and busy.

Do you know that the west side of the City Hall, the street, is nicknamed the Bourse, because of the continual political and banking haggle and hassel that goes on there?

Also I have been walking the streets and discovering the bars—especially around the great Mill and River streets. Do you know this part of Paterson? I have seen so many things—negroes, gypsies, an incoherent bartender in a taproom overhanging the river, filled with gas, ready to explode, the window facing the river painted over so that the people can’t see in. I wonder if you have seen River Street most of all, because that is really the heart of what is to be seen.

I keep wanting to write you a long letter about deep things I can show you, and will some day—the look of streets and people, events that have happened here and there.

A.G.

.     .     .     .     .     .

There were colored slaves. In 1791 only ten

houses, all farm houses save one, The Godwin

Tavern, the most historic house in Paterson,

on River Street: a swinging sign on a high

post with a full length picture of Washington

painted on it, giving a squeaking sound when

touched by the wind.

Branching trees and ample gardens gave

the village streets a delightful charm and

the narrow old-fashioned brick walls added

a dignity to the shading trees. It was a fair

resort for summer sojourners on their way

to the Falls, the main object of interest.

The sun goes beyond Garret Mountain

as evening descends, the green of its pine

trees, fading under a crimson sky until

all color is lost. In the town candle light

appears. No lighted streets. It is as dark

as Egypt.

There is the story of the cholera epidemic

the well known man who refused to bring his

team into town for fear of infecting them

but stopped beyond the river and carted his

produce in himself by wheelbarrow — to the

old market, in the Dutch style of those days.

Paterson, N. J., Sept. 17—Fred Goodell Jr., twenty-two, was arrested early this morning and charged with the murder of his six-months-old daughter Nancy, for whom police were looking since Tuesday, when Goodell reported her missing.

Continued questioning from last night until 1 a.m. by police headed by Chief James Walker drew the story of the slaying, police said, from the $40-a-week factory worker a few hours after he refused to join his wife, Marie, eighteen, in taking a lie detector test.

At 2 a.m. Goodell led police a few blocks from his house to a spot on Garrett Mountain and showed them a heavy rock under which he had buried Nancy, dressed only in a diaper and placed in a paper shopping bag.

Goodell told the police he had killed the child by twice snapping the wooden tray of a high chair into the baby’s face Monday morning when her crying annoyed him as he was feeding her. Dr. George Surgent, the county physician, said she died of a fractured skull.

There was an old wooden bridge to Manchester, as

Totowa was called in those days, which

Lafayette crossed in 1824, while little

girls strewed flowers in his path. Just

across the river in what is now called the Old

Gun Mill Yard was a nail factory where

they made nails by hand.

I remember going down to the old cotton

mill one morning when the thermometer was

down to 13 degrees below on the old bell

post. In those days there were few steam

whistles. Most of the mills had a bell post

and bell, to ring out the news, “Come to work!”

Stepping out of bed into a snow drift

that had sifted in through the roof; then,

after a porridge breakfast, walk

five miles to work. When I got there I

did pound the anvil for sartin’, to keep

up circulation.

In the early days of Paterson, the breathing

spot of the village was the triangle square

bounded by Park Street (now lower Main St.)

and Bank Street. Not including the Falls it

was the prettiest spot in town. Well shaded

by trees with a common in the center where

the country circus pitched its tents.

On the Park Street side it ran down to

the river. On the Bank Street side it ran

to a roadway leading to the barnyard of

the Goodwin House, the barnyard taking up

part of the north side of the park.

The circus was an antiquated affair, only

a small tent, one ring show. They didn’t

allow circuses to perform in the afternoon

because that would close up the mills. Time

in those days was precious. Only in the

evenings. But they were sure to parade their

horses about the town about the time the

mills stopped work. The upshot of the

matter was, the town turned out to the circus

in the evening. It was lighted

in those days by candles especially

made for the show. They were giants fastened

to boards hung on wires about the tent,

a peculiar contrivance. The giant candles

were placed on the bottom boards, and two

rows of smaller candles one above the other

tapering to a point, forming a very pretty

scene and giving plenty of light.

The candles lasted during the performance

presenting a weird but dazzling spectacle

in contrast with the showy performers —

Many of the old names and some of the

places are not remembered now: McCurdy’s

Pond, Goffle Road, Boudinot Street. The

Town Clock Building. The old-fashioned

Dutch Church that burned down Dec. 14, 1871

as the clock was striking twelve midnight.

Collet, Carrick, Roswell Colt,

Dickerson, Ogden, Pennington     .     .

The part of town called Dublin

settled by the first Irish immigrants. If

you intended residing in the old town you’d

drink of the water of Dublin Spring. The

finest water he ever tasted, said Lafayette.

Just off Gun Mill yard, on the gully

was a long rustic winding stairs leading

to a cliff on the opposite side of the river.

At the top was Fyfield’s tavern — watching

the birds flutter and bathe in the little

pools in the rocks formed by the falling

mist — of the Falls     .     .

Paterson, N. J., January 9, 1850:—The murder last night of two persons living at the Goffle, within two or three miles of this place has thrown our community into a state of intense excitement. The victims are John S. Van Winkle and his wife, an aged couple, and long residents of this county. The atrocious deed was accomplished as there appears no doubt by one John Johnson, a laboring farmer, and who at the time was employed by some of his neighbors in the same capacity. So far as we have been able to gather the particulars, it would seem that Johnson effected an entrance into the house through an upper window, by means of a ladder, and descending to the bedroom of his victims below, accomplished his murderous purpose by first attacking the wife who slept in front, then the husband, and again the wife.

The second attack appears to have immediately deprived the wife of life; the husband is still living but his death is momentarily expected. The chief instrument used appears to have been a knife, though the husband bears one or more marks of a hatchet. The hatchet was found next morning either in bed or on the floor, and the knife on the window sill, where it was left by the murderer in descending to the ground.

A boy only slept in the same dwelling….. The fresh snow, however, enabled his pursuers to find and arrest their man….. His object was doubtless money (which, however, he seemed not to have obtained).