10,062. RUDIMENTS, pt. 106

RUDIMENTS, pt. 106

Making Cars

As it goes, as these story lines

proceed, I like to think of myself

as a man of two coats. But, first,

a little 'theory' writing, on my part.

The writing-voice part of me is

often enough told to cease all this

silly recounting. A dead singer of

my remembrance, one 'Elliot Smith,'

had a song written about that haunted

little house of memory into which

everyone is afraid of entering and

only furtively sneak past. (I'm badly

approximating his words, and, actually

using more of mine than his here. It's

different). They hope not to see, nor

be seen by, the house. It's scary, and

it has expansive rooms which  -  once

you've entered them, constantly grow

larger. (There's also a book, from the

year 2000, a first novel by Mark Z.

Danielewski, which deals in something

of the same vein, an interior-expansive

house wherein the detective-like culprits,

on a search, keep discovering new places,

rooms, and entries. I read it in about 2003,

I guess. It wasn't easy, was a bit annoying,

but I managed). In any case, the idea, once

broached in each of these instances, rang

true to me and rekindled a feeling about

this very world I'd had since childhood. So

this entire long rap of endless words and

sequences answers to me the very fomulaic

reality of myself, entering, and everything

then around me constantly expanding while

I try writing my way out of it all. What

once seemed a sedate and small cottage

has by now engulfed me and become an

expansive estate of 42 rooms, and each

room opens to 42 more. As they say in

early rock n' roll, 'Help me, Rhonda.'

-

So I stand by my stated intention of getting

the job done, whatever it takes, while I've

gone on, and forth, and passed, and return

again, to each wayward subject and reference

to which I'm directed. Inner directed, I

guess. So I guess the idea of the 'two coats'

which I postulated here has to do with the

visible me and, beneath that cloak, the

other me, in another coat completely,

going with and subsumed by, another task

entire. In retrospect then, it's no real

wonder at all why, over the course of

this life, I've gotten nowhere.

-

Upon moving to Inman Avenue, for the

first five or six years at least, the road

was a gravel-covered, drive  -  small,

loose, gray pebbles which threw a cloud

as cars went over them, and eventually,

every 8 months or so, would end up

having been pushed by the travel of

cars over them to either and both of the

left and right side, in a small inch or

two depth which left the roadway itself

bare, exposed, and more and more dusty.

No one ever went slow  -  it being a

direct roadway to Route One, and that

in turn - the speed -  caused a noise factor

as all the little pebbles made a sort of

crinkly noise on the undersides of the

cars. Occasionally one or another of the

local parents would get incensed, and

come outside to holler out at a speeder  -

usually unheard, and always unheeded  -

about going too fast. 'Slow Down!'

The curiosity of this always struck me

as a great lesson in early physics (to my

young mind), that none of those adults

ever caught onto : you can't yell at the

future from a stance in the present

about a situation in the past. (If you

break down the entire speeding car

sequence, you'll get what I mean  -

the speeding car entering, fast (the

past), the adult outside, seeing this

(the present), and then yelling

off to a speeding, escaping car

(the future) which driver would

not hear them anyway and which car

and driver had already left  the scene.

I always found that coaxingly curious).

In any case, each time that clearing

had occurred, the township or whoever

it was, would send a drag-truck out

and they'd truck-rake all the pebbles

back up to the center of the roadway,

where the entire thing would begin

all over. About 1964 (I was not living

there), the entire roadway was paved,

like a regular, broad street, changing

the appearance of it quite drastically).

Note: By such means do 'realities' pass

over into 'memories' in that constantly

expanding palace of, as I mentioned.

-

I never knew what to make of any

of that; it was more as if I was a 

blind painter, using my impression 

of things to form a picture, although 

that picture was bereft of form or 

outline  -  it looking instead like 

something wavy, as seen from

underwater. Like that physics 

thing about the roadway, it was 

all in my guise of wearing that 

'other' coat, the one that people 

would never see. I wondered

how prevalent things like that 

were, for in my case all it led to 

was my never being 'satisfied' 

about anything. And I did notice 

how so many others were always

satisfied, glib, and happy  -  the 

things I could never be. And, in

my turn, I never knew what this

life was expected to turn out like.

For me, or for anyone. The funny

thing was  -  in a new place as this

all was, these houses, and land

around it, the places, etc.  -  it all

really WAS constantly expanding.

As a kid, wherever I'd get to always

would open out to five new things :

a walk though 'this' woods, bringing 

us to, surprisingly, 'that' pond, and

then 'that' old trail, which led to 

'those' tracks, which brought us 

over 'that' little hill to 'that' factory. 

Things, constantly expanding,
an entire world of added items,

which we were never, before that, 

aware of. So, maybe those guys,

Danielewski, and Smith, were in 

their own ways, quite right. For me,

on the other hand, in my 'dual' coats, 

I had plenty of room to roam. I could

be in one place, with the one coat,

while yet exploring the depths and

the possibilities of everything else,

in that 'other' coat. Remarkable.