9724. RUDIMENTS, pt. 9

RUDIMENTS, pt. 9
Making Cars

In my own little way, I think I was

a fairly normal kid, Avenel version,

anyway. Never had much; whatever

I did get I had to make sense of on

my own. My breeding was pretty poor,

no special 'knowledge' of anything

was in my house  -  poor study habits,

lack of intellectual industry. The most

basic level of things kept us going:

entertainment, TV, school. I did all

I could to answer to myself, and anything

deeper than Choco-Crisp or Fruit Loops

I had to dig into on my own, an in my

own ways  -  [Actually, a weird note

on that one cereal name. It always

confused me. All by Kellogs, there

were 'Cocoa Krispies,' 'Choco Krispis,'

and 'Coco Pops.' Hard to figure.]  -

And I did. I always reasoned that if,

say, a regular 'rich' kid with good habits

and proper upbringing and all that, started

out at like number '25', for his course of

life, I began at about 'minus 18.' That

was a lot to make up. I never got there;

just went crazy instead. Art and education

crazy, but it was all in my own way.

There's a name for that, and it's

nothing that has any great reputation

either. Someone called me it once.

'Autodidact,' I think it was. Nothing to

do with cars, maybe more with didacticism.

Anyway, I thought it was a little nervy, for

someone to say that, but it rolled right off

me. It's true enough, I suppose, but it bugs

me to think that part of being well-off

enough to do all that endless right-schooling

and crap is to assume you're better than

others because of it and then to compound

that assumption by truly thinking that it all

makes a difference anyway. It doesn't. When

you're a crud, you're a crud. The rest is all

smoke and mirrors, and who wants to piss

away good money on that. For prestige?

For station? For not knowing how to turn

a screw on a fire-hose later on? (The other

thing was, actually, I had gone on to

'schooling', in various levels too; they were

just too stupid to realize it because all they

cared for were allegiances and initials).

-

One good thing that came from all that,

as I saw it anyway, was that I could see

bullshit coming a mile away. Part of

being in my station of life was always

that I could yell back at this stuff and

no one would really mind : 'Oh, that's

just how 'they' are'  -  meaning my kind

of Avenel-level creep. Or I supposed

anyway. Rich people, with all their

proper this and that stuff, they can never

do such things. For the sake of propriety,

dining after the regatta and all that, they

have to stay proper and never blurt out

any real opinions or things. Everything's

by the invisible book, to get things done,

make connections, make the money, advance

the family  -  even if it means like selling off

your sister to the latest son of the Whitney-

Burnside-Evans mob. Funny how it was

that later in life I ended up for 8 or 9 years

in good old Princeton NJ, where the rich

even sweat rich sweat. A totally different

enclave of a world, and if I had to tell

you about it, you'd never believe me. But

I will, sometime. A lot of those people,

anyway, come from 'other' places to get

there. But they never let on, you just have

to watch, carefully, and it all comes out.

-

One thing that really got my gourd was the

sort of 'assumptions' that were made. That

worked both ways, actually, because for

the time I was in Princeton a lot of the

people just assumed I was 'one of them.'

Pretty funny how one can sometimes pass,

or almost. All it takes is a nice sweater,

maybe, and good leather shoes. Something

like John Howard Griffin, in his book,

'Black Like Me.' Let's use a for instance : the

phrase 'Final Arrangements.' Whenever I'd

see that in a funeral ad, my red-alert would go

off. The funeral-industry, from way back, is

one of the nastiest and most lobbied industries

there is. 'Final Arrangements?' Final for who?

Certainly not for the dead person, he's already

dead. What they call 'arrangements' is just

really a 'deal, whereby you give them, say,

six thousand dollars, and they give you their

hole in the ground and the rest  -  all of which

you have no choice over because their

lobbying groups have long ago made it certain

that you cannot be laid out at home, can't even

die there most of the time, and certainly cannot

be buried in your yard. It's all been government-

mandated, pushed along by their lobbying groups,

that this huge scam gets to work you over. 'Final'

Arrangements' for what it's worth should be

called final 'deal.'  You don't 'arrange' that stuff,

you just live with it. Or die with it anyway. No

one ever called it out, for what it is  -  extortion.

Yet when people go to historic hamlets and houses

and all, and see the little tiny graveyards on the

grounds they ooh and aah and get all sweet and

bothered about the wonderful old days.

-

Without really saying it, when a funeral guy

starts babbling on about all this, with his

stupid starched-shirt degree in Funerology,

what he's subliminally saying is that you've

been suckered your entire life and now, for the

sake of the captive stiff we have in a box in our

cooler, your 'final arrangement' for that person

is to get suckered one last (more) time, for their

(?) benefit. How can that be?

-

Another one was 'Last Rites.' That was a 

Catholic conceit anyway; I don't know about 

other religions. It's also called, for whatever

bizarre reason 'Extreme Unction.' Unction?

What gives. I had last rites performed (yes,

they say that, 'performed') on me, twice. I

was told so anyway  -  at the train accident, 

once at the scene and again a few weeks later 

when the coma episode wasn't going too well. 

Anyway, I know what they mean to say by it

all (it's all a load of crap nonetheless), and it's

probably harmless, but it's so 'churchy' for them

to just assume that you 'go through' these sorts

of church things your entire life, the 'rites'  -  and 

that, here, at the very end, they'll just pop over 

and give you one last set of 'rites, by their own 

determining, to guide you over to the other side. 

Collection basket, please.

-

I've always believed that people should  -  in

order to live rightly and with strength believe

in the total rightness of their cause. Whatever it

is. I guess this is an example of it. 

More on that point later.