Wednesday, January 17, 2018

10,416. RUDIMENTS, pt. 198

RUDIMENTS, pt. 198
(Making Cars)
Pratfalls, tricks and gimmicks;
that's about all I ever saw. Nothing
matching good sense ever came
my way. One time, my friend and
I were playing around on the flat
roof of the shed my father had built
in the yard  -  one of the first things
he did. It was, maybe, 5 feet high
at the rear, which was higher than
the front, for some reason. It was
cool for little kids, but for an adult,
I don't know what my father was
thinking. Anyway, Aleck fell off
the roof. No big deal, clonked
his head, but who could tell with
that character. Misgivings and
foibles. At the rear, outside, behind
the shed, that area my father had
piled with scrap lumber. He was 
a great collector of used boards. 
They were noisy, as you walked 
upon them, because they'd flap 
around and slap onto each other, 
and make that noise. It was fun 
though, I admit, getting onto it 
all  -  different cuts of lumber, 
the occasional nail or screw. 
Inside the shed were garden 
things, the lawnmower, rakes, 
and an interesting 'maul' or 
sledgehammer  -  long handled 
and pretty heavy at the end. 
My sister and I kept our 
bicycles in there too, and
in the Winter we'd measure 
snowfall against the doors, 
or the opening of the doors  
-  two in the front, opening out. 
Later on, I painted a strike zone 
on them and used to endlessly 
blast 'Spaldeen' fastballs against 
it and have these imaginary 
counts and ball games going 
in my head too; but other than 
that it was fairly useless  -  
green painted doors, and a 
hasp-latch with a lock. Years 
later he tore it down and built 
a higher and more traditional 
one, at the very rear of the yard. 
Same kind of thing, but about 
10 or 12 feet high, with shelves 
and all built into the walls. I 
always did miss the old one 
though, and it often came back 
to me when I'd catch myself 
seeing other things that reminded 
me of it  - those funky, grey asbestos 
shingles that he had covered it with 
were really gross and crummy, and 
when I got to Pennsylvania, years 
later, I saw it as some sort of cheesy 
siding that many of the houses had 
taken up. There was also a 
fake-brick-look red version of 
the same; might have been even 
worse looking. In Pennsylvania's 
highlands, if you wanted to know 
where poverty lived, you had two 
quick choices : trailers in the woods, 
and/or houses with asbestos siding. 
Usually ramshackle, 70 years old 
then, sometimes slanting, and 
sometimes with sections of really 
weak or rotted wood too.
-
At this little shed my father first 
built, he'd also built a doghouse  -  
a good-sized doghouse. I don't cry 
much, or get teary too much either, 
but when I think back now over 
that doghouse, I could wail. I don't 
know how different things were 
or could have been in 1955 but 
we had a succession of two dogs 
that I remember  -  'Jet', who was 
jet-black; and 'Rinny', who had 
been named after Rin-Tin-Tn, 
some TV dog or something. 
Anyway, these poor dogs had 
one life  -  and that one life 
revolved around, or was 
circumscribed by,  the 
doghouse and the 6 or 8 
foot chained connected to 
their collar, which circle was 
the only run and exercise 
they ever got. The grass 
and the ground was worn 
out from their pacing in place 
and that circumference was 
their whole world. I can't 
ever recall either of them 
inside the house, or even 
being taken for walks. I don't 
remember who fed them; I 
guess my parents did; cared 
for them; helped them; or 
doted on them. I can remember, 
maybe about 1957, when a 
dog food named 'Gravy Train' 
came out, feeding them that  
-  you'd pour water, (I forget, 
hot or cold) over the dry food 
and it would make its own 
gravy, dog-version, from some 
coating which had been put 
on the dry food. The dogs 
liked it, but it wasn't their 
regular fare. I remember 
the dogs well, but never 
remember tending to them.
-
It's all enough to drive me
crazy now  -  that had to be a
typical American torture for the
poor dogs, 1950's Avenel version
anyway. I could beat myself over
it, and I don't remember what
happened to either of those dogs.
Not the one or the other. The time
that had elapsed for me, in the
hospital and all that, maybe that
would cover the time period for
one of them, but not both. My
personality has always been a
broth of this bubbling sadness
that splashes over one thing or
another  -  and this dog and shed
episode surely tops the list. I
could go on, because I've other 
dog dog episodes too, on my 
farm-days recollections, but I 
won't. Let me just say that I 
sometimes fear for my life 
just thinking about my 
karmic infractions, unwittingly 
or not, in reference to dogs. 
If I have to repay any of that, 
I'll be in a deep fix when I 
hit the wild blue yonder. 
No Gravy Train for me.

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