10,276. RUDIMENTS, pt.161

RUDIMENTS, pt. 161

Making Cars

I've always been a little strange

I guess, into adulthood and now

old age. I'm not going to change

anything, so I guess it's best to

just admit it. Like, whenever I

read anything by Don DeLillo,

after, it's always so completely

unsatisfying that I feel like going

up to him, wherever that would be,

and asking for payment back on the

hour and a half, or three, or seven,

hours that I just squandered. It's very

galling. And he's such a darling of the

universe right now, post-modern

writing and all that stuff, that it's

considered incomprehensible why

anyone would say anything negative

about him and/or his work. That's the

way the sanitized world of elite-brass

popularity goes. But the fact is, not a

one of the cocktail-patter class who

anoints his drivel knows what they're

even talking about. It's that 'closed-world'

isolationism that does it. Actually, I

doubt that they even read it. Once you

enter that cloistered schema, nothing

else matters. There's a story entitled,

'The Itch,' maybe a half-hour read. Boy

that one really got me going, I wanted

to demand about 70 bucks back for just

wasting my time. It's the most coldly

insipid piece of drivel. The things in it

are atrocious -  the main guy has a

problem, ongoing, with overall itching,

all over his body; in his office environment

there's another dweeby character named

Joel, who writes 'untitled' poetry during

work time whenever he can, and has

ceased sending it out anywhere for

submission. He's hung up on the word

'Zaum.' It's his word for what he calls

'Transrational' poetry : 'Words and letters

are free, outside reason and tradition.'

'When was it ever the case,' Joel says,

'that language could truly describe reality?'

OK, that's fairly plain and basic, but

in this story it ties in with the itch guy's

divorce and the new woman he's seeing,

'Ana'  -  with the missing other 'n' that

so bedevils him. We have to read all

about that, and why it's not 'Anna.'  But

the key crux here, after the doctors' talks,

and the itch creams, and the office visits

to three different doctors, is that it's this itch

guy (Robert T. Waldron, which name we

don't even learn of until the final sentence),

who says, (and then this becomes subject

in the story too), that when he urinates,

over the bowl, at home, only at home, for

at work he uses the urinal, 'there were

times when he heard what sounded like

words as his urine hit the water in the

bowl.' In the story, he's telling this to

Joel, and they go on discussing it.

('The semblance of a tiny voice saying

a word and then maybe another word,

and he tried to describe the sound....)' (?)

Yes, yes, so by now you must understand

what I mean. (And yes, Joel, OK I get

the point  -  when did 'language,' even

here piss-patter, ever truly describe

reality). Oh, please. The dead-end of

a post-modern fiction of this sort is

almost disgusting. Dare I say?  Does it

not reflect the self-absorbed consciousness,

like a winging boomerang which never

returns to the jerk who's flung it? And

then remains, instead, always flying

somewhere, above our heads? Truly,

this guy owes me some big bucks.

-

I was never like this before : coming

out of Avenel, and then the seminary,

most of my expectations were fairly

normal. Certainly as far as 'reading'

went, they were. I sought the usual

arc of information being included in

a story, tightly woven, some facts

thrown in as digression, recognizable

objects and experiences, things that

spoke for themselves, items the reader

knew  -  a pail, a wagon, the old parlor

chair, the sagging car not often driven

anywhere, the sister with the droopy

eye, the cat, and that fence, always

sagging and near to topple. Those things,

in a writerly way, exist and each carry

emotion. They become recognizable

touch-points, in good writing, so that

when you get them, thrown in, the

correct gong rings, internally. You're

not lost, having to endlessly read about

some jerk's itch, or worse. And who

cares about a one-dimensional 'Ana'

anyway? The excuse for a lot of this

is 'alienation.' It's the peculiar form

of feeling 'lost' and worthless that has

supposed to have so defined 'Man'

over the last seventy-five years. [By

that Man I include Women. Do I yet

need to say that?]. Everything has now

gotten so skewed, (and skewered),

by fault and intention that a person

can't go anywhere, can't say a thing.

There might be a good point of post-

modern fiction there, about a person

who never leaves the 5-foot area he's

ensconced in because he (or she) has

so closed up the world around 'self' that

he's become completely alienated and

torn off from every other fabric-point

of existence.

-

It was a smaller world, for sure, as I 

grew and lived in Avenel. Most things

were just left unsaid. A couple of the

fathers along the street had shrapnel

or other still-active war wounds that

mostly kept them home. That was a

new occurrence for me, seeing that.

It brings a different immediacy to

otherwise normal idea of kids and 

war. I don't think there were any

war-widows or wives no longer 

with living husbands; that I knew 

of anyway. It was just assumed that

everyone was Christian  -  there were

infant-Jesus- centered decorations and

lights, and no one ever seemed to be

reticent about the word Christmas or

manger or wise men or Mary and

Joseph or any of that. It was pretty

crazy. I know that my own father

went at house decorating each year

with zeal  -  manger, lights, candles,

stuff on the house (the lights beck

then were nothing like today's gibberish.

Just large, single colored bulbs in that

distinctive Christmas-light shape). I

remember one year, something 

happened and my father's large yew 

bush or whatever the name was, all

heavy with lights, one on each side

of the house front, torched up. The

large bush on the right, just took fire.

I guess it was a short or something. My

father put it out, disappointed as all get

out in losing that symmetry and display.

A few of the neighbors went really

all out, and there was some oddball 

sort of personal status found in that

outdoing of others with your house

light display. Or so it seemed. I

wanted to tell him, 'Well you won 

hands-down in the flames division,'

But I didn't; he'd have probably

thumped me good.

-

I spent a lot of time, odd as it seems, 

back then too, studying Buddhism. I

guess I was just 17 then, maybe, just

finishing up at home. My parents were

all perplexed over me, and they sent,

at one point, the local priest up to my

room to see if he could talk me through

troubles, or whatever they thought he 

would do. I knew the guy pretty well,

but he was creepy nonetheless. His

brother was the Mayor of South River,

a town nearby, and his family name

was big there. Polish or something.

He liked boys, and I already knew that.

But in this case, nothing of that came up

(no pun), and all he did was try to figure

out what all the things on my wall were

  -  zen sayings, a few Buddha quotes and

all that. It made no sense to him. Bardo

Pond meant nothing, and the Tibetan

Book of the Dead threw him for a loop.

Once we left, I was still what I was. 

Buddhism was about stillness. Zen koans

(pithy sayings) and all that, they carried

the root of the idea of the feeling, and

that was all I cared for. Like the tale of 

the monks who decide that it isn't the

wind or the flag that's waving in the

breeze, only their minds. That was the

poetic and charming side of Buddhism.

The best of things. Contradictions and

paradox being bridged by smiles, and

a wave of the hand. Things exist, but

they are not real. Like : 'You don't have 

to believe, but it's true.'