10,475. RUDIMENTS, pt. 206

RUDIMENTS, pt. 206

Making Cars

By the time of this Civil War thing

I had solidified into what into I'd

figured I'd end up being. It was like

being lost-found-lost-found. Again.

I was never able to tell what other 

kids were like or doing because 

from early on everything about 

them was pretty foreign to me.

 I was a not brawler, nor brawny. 

Not much interested in trouble 

or fighting. Chased girls but only

in my dreams, I suppose, but not 

sure why or what the end product 

would get me. All it ever seemed 

I was doing was noticing. Like a 

detective on TV, whoever that 

might have been if of they had 

detective shows then  -  I can't 

remember except for mostly 

westerns, Twilight Zones and 

the rest of the giddy stupid stuff. 

Bat Masterson. Have Gun Will 

Travel. Broken Arrow. Sky King. 

Wagon Train. 77 Sunset Strip, and 

Route 66. It was as if the main 

product of America was an insane 

sort of fantasy  -  not perverse or 

sexual, but just something that 

would get the viewer out of here, 

on to some place else. I guess, if 

you really looked, there was a lot 

of sexuality too in the westerns, 

but I never cared  - the best of all 

that was on Route 66  -  all those 

babes were rich and hot. One thing 

I hated, and I had a few of them, 

were the kids who somehow had 

to always end up telling you, 

blow by blow, the long-winded, 

boring, and inane plot of some 

TV weekly show they'd seen. It 

was crazy, and these guys lived 

for that stuff, episode by episode; 

especially, in the earliest black 

and white ones, those Star Trek 

episodes. If those kids had any 

inkling of dedicating the remainders 

of their lives on that sort of attention 

to detail they'd all be running 

gigantic corporations, or well, 

retired by now, and living with a 

gazillion dollars on some hideaway 

island place or prestigious big 

California spread (like my 

billionaire friend Alex), dining 

with stars and starlets, being asked 

for advice on vast investments 

and world-changing economic 

questions with Saudis, (like my 

billionaire friend Alex, again). 

The other ting I really hated 

were those idiotic family shows  

-  I guess the names are what I 

forget now  -  but I remember 

like June and Ward Cleaver 

(later morphed into Black Power 

killer-advocate Eldridge Cleaver?) 

and Leave It To Beaver. Something 

like Father Knows Best too. 

What a bunch of snuggly 

crap all that was.

-

The only thing that ever 

caught my attention was 

the faraway and the distant 

stuff  -  again like that Civil 

War fixation. That absolutely

no one else ever seemed to share

or care about. I could have been 

talking to the wall. Humanity has 

somehow, in those intervening 100 

years, engulfed itself into an immersion 

of production, products, frivolity, 

pastimes, amusements, travel and 

glitter. From that point, in a way, I 

realized that I'd probably spend the 

remainder of my life  -  the long or 

the short of it  -  in trying to go 

back in time and not ahead. I 

wanted slowness and deliberateness. 

Hands-on experiences of doing 

things, forging them, handling them. 

In fact, years later as I entered the 

world of motorcycles, Biker, clubs, 

gangs, Harley Davidsons and the 

rest, it was because of the intense 

drive I had to go backwards in 

time. These motorcycles were 

agricultural in their basic design  

-  old pushrod engines  -   primitive, 

low rpm, blubbering, torque-filled 

engines. Bottoms-up strength, 

old style, oil-baths, fat tires, 

chains, basic gearing. In addition, 

the rest of that culture, with its 

allegiances and loyalties, blood 

oaths and tribal connections, 

resort-to-power politics. alliances 

with the brutal, secondary places 

only for women and weaklings  -  

all of that was, by nature, 

medieval and coarse. The 

leaders wore their badges 

and ranks, colors and jackets, 

pins and insignias. The most 

violent and brutal, or he who'd 

done the most damage, was 

usually the person in charge  

-  all of that notoriety drove 

one to the top sooner or later. 

They'd be ensconced in clubhouses, 

partitioned between walls and 

offices like inner sanctums with 

guards and two or three levels 

of practitioners of that alliance 

you first had to get through. 

Until it all changed and 

professional nitwits started 

hanging around and pretending 

or trying to 'ride hard' and 

then firemen and cops and 

every other little dumb group 

had their own dumb club going, 

these were the people who 

most made me comfortable 

and most resembled the grizzled 

and the daff-eccentric types 

that I'd see in all those Civil 

War vignettes. Even down to 

the 'Uncle-Daddy' types who 

probably married their sisters. 

Twice. You crossed one of 

these guys, the real ones, not 

the cigar-smoking newcomers, 

and you'd get bent in half. 

The first time. The second 

time, frankly, you be on your 

own sled to Hell. Their justice 

was just as primitive as their 

outlooks.

-

The only connection I cared for 

was the connection that was as 

real as any Civil War death and 

battle scene of carnage. No tools 

past a hammer, nothing electric 

or lit. No knowledge of bacteria 

or toxins, deaths by sepsis on

the field and in the field hospitals

almost equaled actual battlefield 

deaths, and some men were simply 

blown to smithereens and pulverized 

into pieces How can you count the 

dead when you can't count the pieces?

Two or three of the most telling things,

to me, were, first  -  the fact of no

dog tags or identification systems

being in place. It was only some 

two years into the war that the 

'authorities' got it together enough 

to begin listing the dead, cataloguing 

the wounded, hometowns, battalions 

and originations of the dead and 

wounded. Guys fearful of death 

would go into battle with hand-penned 

tags pinned to them, names and towns, 

kin and wives, small mementos or 

photos to be recognized with in the 

hopes of eventually being transported 

home. Second: It was only the Civil 

War that gave impetus to what is 

now called embalming, preservation 

of the dead, and the entire funeral 

industry. Before that it had been 

trench burial, or rotting on the 

field. The dead were collected, 

between battles or during truces,

roped and gathered, and, mostly, 

thrown into burial ditches. What 

came to be embalming was up 

until then only something poorly 

done for medical school and 

practitioners to teach from, 

display and then used for 

learning-examples. Entrepreneurs 

soon took to the hospitals and 

battlefields of the war areas and 

began plying a trade for the 

'preservation, identification, 

and transportation home,' of 

embalmed and preserved corpses. 

Funeral trains, with metal   -

(leak-proof)  -  coffins. With

testimonials of where and how 

the soldier had died, and the penned 

notes from friends and fellow-soldiers 

of his bravery, valor, and peacefulness 

unto death. This all became very 

important for the home crowd. 

Oftentimes parents and kin, or 

(three:) appointed agents, would 

follow clues, to find bodies, disinter 

mass burial sites, as as to come 

back or send back something 

tangible of their son or father 

or brother. It soon became a 

thriving industry or the funereal 

sciences. Icebox burials at home,

parlors filled with  mourners, etc. 

It had become important to have 

'died well, in bravery and good 

repose'  -  and even if the stories 

maybe were sometimes not all 

true (I guess everyone quakes,

everyone fears), the romantic 

notions of the 'Good Death', 

sublime, had taken hold.

-

All that stirred me, and I was

fascinated and as if brought to life.

Finally, something stirring and vital

had been shown to me. Bozo the 

Clown, please, no more.