RUDIMENTS, pt. 234
Making Cars
You know how I started to
describe Blackwood, just
previous. Well, when I signed
up for this religious stuff it was
with the intentions of finishing
my training and going off to
Africa as a missionary in some
far-off corner of Tanganyika.
Hopefully never to be heard
from again by a sinful world
I'd learned to disdain. Within
no more than a year, that little
dream of mine was dissolved.
The Soviets had come in, set
up a governing coalition or
something to run the country,
and threw out all western
missionaries and influences.
Which in this case meant the
Salvatorian Brothers, and my
future too. I kind of lost heart.
No more Africa for me. I stayed
with the entire schema for a few
years, but all I could see ahead
of me, within the 'Diocese of
Trenton,' were regular church
postings, blue-haired ladies,
and bingo halls. Not for me,
thanks. There was no dynamic
there. So, I hung it out for some
more time, spread my interests
around, unsure of where I'd be
headed, and suddenly got interested
in a lot of other ideas and concepts.
Not at all welcome to Padre and
Brother Whomever - the ruling
powers over me, of time and ruling.
-
It's doubly difficult, when in that
situation, to set out for one's future.
A scary concept. I could never get
over the fact that so much was
expected, so early, of kids - of
boys anyway - about where
they'd be headed and what they'd
choose to do. How onerous can
something be? All things rise up
in conflict against assumptions.
What limits of control were there,
when everything actually WAS just
assumption and not much more?
I was never really that good with
others, although I was supposed to
be. I worked on that, tried to improve,
but it never much came through
until much later, surprisingly, in
the guise of a Biker - leadership
of others, somehow, and however
that came about. I'd go to hearings
and meetings, and all that, to testify
or talk - to men (and women)
already in positions of elected power
- state senators, assembly-people,
judges, even the DC crowd once
or twice, and find out these people
really wanted to hear from me, listen
to what I had to say, and come away
impressed with the caliber of my
words and outlook. I was always
'impressing' people, which was never
really worth more than a bucket of
spit and I never new why they even
bothered telling me. Whatever else
it was or was not, it bolstered at
the least a certain sense of self I'd
sought. But that didn't work either,
for I'd end up saying to myself,
'listen to yourself, hear what you just
said.' It was disheartening how one
ends up splicing and cutting corners
to mostly come to agreeable opinions
more to suit those you're with. Suit
the suits, as it were. Again, really,
all I could say was 'No, thanks.' And
I'd go get drunk again with my hillbilly
riding buddies, until some mischief
called us home. At least things made
more reprobate sense. For a while.
-
Looking back now, I see how,
within 25 or 39 years, from 1962
on, anyway, all I'd done for myself
was create an impassable wall, an
unbridgeable gulf, a separation
point between one sort of life and
another. That's a long period of
time, and it involved, for me, a
few different lifetimes, but it's
all time you never get back.
Whatever the illusions you
worked with, if they're wrong
you're nowhere, and if they're
gone you don't get the time back.
And now I'm here - a miserable,
sketch-filled slough of despair,
a train of the lost, a saddened
bushel of sorrows and regrets.
All it seems I ever end up doing
is pissing on people, good people,
people I care about, or pissing them
off. Off or on, what's the feeble
difference in it? Being a constant
peacemaker sucks, but being an
ass is far worse, and boring too.
Maybe sometimes now I do
look and wish I'd gotten lost
in Africa somewhere, cooked
by Mau Maus and eaten, flayed
alive by some distant pygmie
relative of a Cro-Magnon Man.
That would better be what I
had coming due. And I've also
always thought that there was no
greater sin than misunderstanding
life, misinterpreting things, just
plain getting it wrong. Whether
wrong or right even exists, I did
not ever find out, but the persistent
feeling remains that, somehow,
I've gotten it all wrong.
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