Sunday, November 5, 2017

10,139. RUDIMENTS, PT. 126

RUDIMENTS, pt. 126
Making Cars
So, when you're ten years old 
you make a papier-mache rendering 
of the Fertile Crescent, showing 
Mesopotamia and all of that, and 
that's then what they tell you is the
Cradle of Civilization and where all
of your world started. Your kid-body
is screaming out, within you, 'No, no, 
that ain't so at all. I know better than 
that...' but they squash you. And, kiddo,
it's all over from that point on. They 
make cereal boxes and Cracker Jack 
boxes with better stuff that that inside 
them. It's around then that the only real 
alternative left to you is to begin 
figuring a way out. Believe me, most
people don't make it. I know I didn't.
Lock, stock, and barrel I stayed with
the whole bundle of crap. When I was
at St. George Press, throughout the 
1980's, there was this local, retired
guy who'd always come around. He
lived but a few blocks away and had,
in his garage, a little operation of
sign-engraving and plaques and 
things. We'd use his services for 
door nameplates, desk signs, lobby 
directory slides, and all that. It was 
all fine, but he always then just 
hung around, talking endlessly,
taking a chair, and just remaining. 
It was tolerable, though a little 
annoying, except for the fact that 
he was so deadly-stock earnest about 
every little thing. It got very tiresome. 
One of your ears would always wind
up just wanting to run off. I never
kept a part of me open for people 
who insisted the world was but one 
way. This fellow was a Jehovah's 
Witness too. Not that he ever really 
pressed that point, thankfully, but it 
made a difference and was always 
there. In fact, if I had walked into 
any of the three or four local towns
around that had a Jehovah's Witness 
Hall and, in the hall, mentioned his 
name, most anyone would have 
known him. His singular point of 
fame, (I was told), was that in WWII 
he refused to serve, using his pacifist, 
Witness stance, and did the requisite 
jail time for that offense (or honor). 
That had given to him a great deal 
of fame and glory, or at least 
renown, within these local NJ area 
towns, and other Jehovah's Witnesses 
revered him by name for that battle 
and stance he took. So...I guess it 
was all worthy, and worth something. 
His obstinate and adamant viewpoints, 
however, on things  -  worldly, 
ordinary things  -  grated. I probably 
should give a few examples  -  this 
isn't dogma or religious stuff I'm 
talking about  -  just ordinary 
cultural and social things. TV, 
dance, clothing, highways, 
congestion, schools, etc., but 
nothing useful comes to mind. 
Over time, and what makes this 
all interesting, he also took a 
job as an on-call limo driver. 
He'd come around then, between 
or during driving jobs, with his 
agency's livery car, in his 'formal' 
looking driver attire (back in those 
days they did that stuff), and sit 
around, twenty minutes or so, but 
with an entirely different attitude. 
It was very strange  -  he accepted 
everything, things that normally 
would have driven him crazy. And 
then he'd simply and calmly relate 
the story or stories. It was amazing 
to see the nonchalance replace the 
adamant stance. This one time, for 
instance, he came in telling about 
his previous Saturday night's 
driving job  -  a wealthier than 
usual young couple had rented 
the vehicle time, four or five hours, 
to be driven down to the beachfront 
at Sea Bright, NJ. No big deal; he 
got the assignment. He gets down 
there, and they ask him to park, 
pointing out the spot they wanted. 
Then they ask him to remain in 
the car, roll up the privacy window, 
just sit there and pay attention to 
nothing. He does do. For the next 
twenty minutes or so, he said, 
they made wild, passionate, crazed 
love over his rear seats and passenger 
compartment. When it was over, 
they straightened up from their 
disarray, tapped the window, and 
told him to drive them, a long way, 
no shortcuts, home. That was it.
-
That's just a tale, a re-telling of what
happened, unvarnished by me. Perhaps 
you can get a feel for how it surprised
me. I could never understand if, perhaps,
his adamant ethos (this is what I figured 
for the reason) told him that his job was
his job, period, and that he had to do
that which it demanded of him, no 
matter what, and that the good and
proper performance of him doing his
job was more important than the rest.
That, I suppose, is defensible, in its 
way. It is, however, much the same as
Hannah Arendt's old post WWII theory
of the 'Banality of Evil,' which posited
that the killing of all those Jews and
Gypsies and gays, etc., was not a form
of conscious evil but just more a matter
of perfectly normal, ordinary and task
oriented people going about their jobs,
completing assigned tasks, using no
value judgments, and questioning
nothing. The efficiency of doing the
task overshadows what the task is.
No big deal, I guess, in this small
context, yet it did always surprise
me that he'd roll over like that,
inhibiting his objection (if that's 
what it was) to what was occurring.
-
Charlie (his name) eventually, sold
his house and with his wife left the
area  -  they moved to some seniors
community in Jobstown, NJ. (I always
enjoyed the name), down south in
the Jersey Pinelands. He was about 
70 at that point, so he'd be about 105 
now. I imagine his driving days 
are over. 


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