RUDIMENTS, pt. 171
Making Cars
In a roundabout setting as mine
was, it was fairly easy to call
anyplace 'home.' I was sleeping
on a board, with blankets, in the
basement room of the Studio School;
I'd rigged that up myself, using the
space within an open, large, and
unused, fireplace. It fit the board
nicely, and made a neat little trap.
When I was last at home I had
plans (but was forbidden to
undertake them) of bringing in
a load of sand, from somewhere,
and covering the floor with it,
maybe two inches. It was small
room, perhaps 10x12 feet, and
then I was going to suspend a
hammock as a bed, from two
corners of adjacent walls. I
don't know where I got the
dumb idea from, maybe I'd
read it. This was sure before
Jimmy Buffet days, and for
me long before, as well, the
Florida Keys. There was some
sort of foolish adolescent idea
of escape going on, I guess. That
sort of chill-stuff is nothing like
me at all. So, I never got that
'sand'-wish at home, and by the
time of the Studio School it
had morphed into sleeping in a
fireplace alcove. Kind of cooler
anyway. I laugh now, thinking
about myself lazing in a hammock.
-
By another contrast (I wonder how
many 'contrasts' there can be in
writing? Is it just two; first you
present one side, and then you
present, by contrast, the other?),
my earlier days in the seminary, as
a younger boy, were regiments and
almost disturbingly formal. We
had, I think, the first year, bunk
beds. In a row, assigned. Lights
out at one specific time for
everyone. It was like that each
year, but by the second year we
were (no longer called 'freshmen')
in another, larger building, with
each of us getting a single, metal,
military or hospital-ward type
bed, the kind you see in barracks.
They too were assigned (of course)
and in a row. A much larger room
situation, much longer, maybe
30 boys to a room, whereas the
first-year bunk thing was perhaps
8, maybe 10. We were supposed to
sustain ourselves, act like it was
out living space. We were responsible
for our own bedding, making beds,
all that crud. Something about any
of that, the housekeeping stuff, just
never felt right to me. All that was an
entire other way of living - kind
of catty and crude. Actually, it
wasn't much fun. Some kids had
already 'matured' - if you know
what I mean - and others hadn't.
Some had to shave and had
whiskers, others didn't. It was a
very indeterminate year or so
for sexuality, and they had us
making beds? There was a lot
going on. Boys can be awful boys,
in the English re-school way. All
those effete little brats, and fey
baby boys. I remember one kid
Jim, who became the talk of the
town, as it were. Why? Crazily
enough because he insisted on
'shaving dry,' (just water and soap)
without creams and all that crap.
It was such an offensive move that
the talk never stopped. I wasn't
shaving yet, so I didn't know what
was up with that deal.
-
Well, the seminary...you had to be
there. Picture Tom Sawyer and
Huck Finn, perhaps, together on a
long Mississippi riverboat cruise,
enforced quarters, the riverboat
captain being a domineering putz
and the deck hands nothing but
trouble. Anything can happen,
and usually does. At every turn
there was a new alliance, or clique
or figurative set-to about something.
Hard to figure it out. I stayed away
from it as much as I could. Going
strange, going alone, headed for the
farm. Thank goodness we had farm
work. I'd daily 'slop the pigs,' which
meant wheelbarrows full of food
shavings, peels, and leftovers taken
out to the pig-slop trays out on the
back grounds. The pigs were totally
cool, gigantic oinkers. You could smell
that large pig yard as you approached
it a thousand feet off.
-
And then, by third year, not knowing
what else to do, I got involved in the
'dramatics' department. That changed
everything for me - getting involved
performing, putting on plays, working
on staging and all that. It was all different,
and by that time anyway I was looking
for a way out (and was soon enough
to get it).
-
As I look back over my past, those first
years along Inman Avenue don't seem
to have held any clues or foreshadowings
about what I'd become. I was just a normal
kid, I'm told. One of my aunts said how
happy and pleasant and sunny I always
was. Until. Once the train wreck got me,
I sort of became a constantly 'reflecting'
kid, on and on about this or that. And then,
after leaving the seminary, (and she agreed)
my blackness just became a cloud that I
walked with. Not a mean blackness. I
wasn't rough, or tough, or coarse; just
some sort of 'brooding' which took over.
I guess today thy have names for it and
probably they even have medication and
'cures' - as they'd call them But for me
curing that syndrome was the same as
killing the carrier. Me. All I was and
all I cared to become was to be the one
who answered to all that. It was a singular,
separate voice from anything else. It
had first made contact with me in my
coma. And then, as I slowly awoke,
being slowly drawn back into this
infested life, it stayed with me and it
promised me a covering gauze, a shield,
if I'd just tend to it. And from that point
on I did. Being drawn back here took
a long time, and it was painful. And I'm
not quite sure it was even right.
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