RUDIMENTS, pt. 74
Making Cars
My father's been dead a long time now,
but one thing I never finalized with
him was this conception he had about
maggots. It's a totally weird subject and
I can't remember how it was first broached
or what he was thinking about or where he
was headed with it as a subject, or why, for
that matter. I think it had to do with embalming
and preserving the dead. And, of course,
it's the weirdest subject matter for me to
open a new chapter with - (what a grabber!)
- but I thought of it once again today and
figured to give it a stab. I can only hope to
steer straight through it. And also, isn't it
strange to have a legacy with one's father,
unfinished, to boot, that revolves around
death and maggots? Well, that's certainly
my legacy, it's what my father left me with;
which isn't so bad. My father's point was
that maggots, after death, are 'self-generated'
from the body. They are incipient little
creatures, latent within our systems at all
time and as we live, and that, upon death,
no matter what, even in the best of coffins,
the maggots appear soon enough, and begin
consuming the flesh and stuff, off the corpse,
leaving the skeletal bones and sunken remnants.
My opposing view was that he was way off,
the maggots, if they do appear (he said they
ALWAYS appear) come from somewhere else,
and most likely only onto dead bodies left there
on the ground or just buried in soil. I'd say that
embalming and sealed coffins and all that most
certainly remove the chance of maggots. We
basically just agreed that we disagreed - it
was the sort of junk that would get talked about
on a car trip or some longer journey.
-
My father was nuts over my place in the country.
He absolutely loved it and I think, if he could have,
no matter what else, he'd have dropped his life in
and instant and lived there. Even though he'd always
said he disliked, nay, hated, mountains and lakes
and all that and was a 'saltwater and ocean' man
through and through. When, those years later, I did
sell and leave that place he was incredulous that
I could so something as foolish as that - maybe
he was, after all, right; I don't know. I don't know,
still, about the maggots either. In any case, he was
always a bit annoying about the house and property.
Whenever he'd come up, he right away begin acting
like it was his place : drove me crazy. He'd find all
sorts of shortcomings, things I never cared about.
Faults, and stuff needing maintenance. He'd start
right off painting, fixing windows, changing things,
building stuff to add on to this or that. Everything
he made was always too much - clunky, oversized,
with no regard of the decor around it, besides always
being un-needed. Really. On a day to day basis, the
way we lived it there, none of the things he'd find
needed, missing, or in need of being there (thus,
built by him) were that at all. We lived in a much
different fashion - frugal, broke, and fixed in
place. Not for him; his way of style was 'large'
and obtrusive. 2x4's and panel boards. This house
had its own, very nice, features - wainscoting,
for instance, and two inside, glass doors. He'd
bump right up to them with mismatched, ugly
junk he just built (I'd be away, at work, and
would never see any of this stuff until I got home).
soon learned to direct him, if he had to anything
at all, to things to be done outside. But then he'd
infuriate me by cutting and trimming, and not
really staying to the things we'd agreed he'd
be doing. I'd get furious (once you cut something
down, you don't get it back). He hated excess
growth and 'unruly' yards. I lived for that stuff.
Also, we had maybe three 'driveways', which
were just, really, winding car tracks through
the gravel and grass. It used to bug him crazy
that I wouldn't have it all scraped and shoveled
and then paved!
-
It was just two different words, as I saw it.
He was completely missing the point of this
form of living, yet he was just as intent on
almost 'demanding' that I fall into line with
all that crap. It was a sad impasse, in that
I demanded fealty to living one way, and
he to another. I was always glad when they
left, even though I did tolerate and enjoy
their visits too. My father was just funny
about things. I never reached the point
where I could just 'talk real' with him -
like he'd always make a point (for what
reason, I never knew) to tell me to make
sure I never got caught in the hayloft of
Warren's barn (the neighboring farmer guy
I was working chores and things with,
keeping his herd) with his (Warren's),
daughter. He had a pretty swanky 16 or 17
year ol daughter. We got on OK, but it was
never anything like he was thinking, not even
near. It was his idea that, first chance I got,
I'd be screwing her brains out in the hayloft.
No way - first of she was too young for me,
and second-off it wasn't like that at all. Had
I the rapport needed with him I would have
just said, 'Dad, if I did that they'd have me
strung and quartered and my balls would be
hung on the barn wall. Got that?' But I could
never talk or joke or suggest things like that
with him. Wished it had been so - I'd seen
other (wealthier) kids who had family and
father situations that were all abut that informal,
joking familiarity that I missed. It would have
made things so much easier just to have been
able to be sarcastic or a wise-ass back. Instead,
the tension was always fraught, gurgling just
under the far-too-formal relationship. For no
reason, because it added nothing. You grow
up in a scene like that you end up almost
having to pretend you've got no balls and
none of that stuff ever exists.
-
Here's where I take a breath and think to
myself : 'Should I go back to the maggots?'
The subject has always vexed me. Out in
the country I'd see lots of dead things.
In the road or alongside it, or in the woods,
there'd be skunks and gophers, possums and
dogs, deer and fox and whatever. Plenty of
white maggots too, wriggling all around in
dead flesh, eye sockets, all the horrid stuff.
None of that was ever embalmed or prepared
death stuff; just dead animals in their natural
death settings. There was nothing of the pride
of preservation or continuation, and those
maggots infested everything; yes, I granted
that. But I was sure they came from the
ground or the soil or something external,
and were NOT spontaneously generated
from the carcass itself, as he insisted was
the case. With humans too. Tough battle;
never finished, never rectified.
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