RUDIMENTS, pt. 390
(avenel : must be
something in the water)
Not to press all the same
points but the next thing my
father did (I was 10 and helped
him do it) was blow out the rear
of the house and extend it with
a large, extended, new room.
That too took about a Summer
and into October. Mainly just
using brawn and hammers.
He trenched the large rectangle
for footings, we poured the
concrete in, with the bolts and
all that sticking up, then base
boards went into the cinder
block wall and the bolts, etc.
By the time we were done
with that, it was a big extended,
wooden floor, to which the studs
and wood and all was added for
the walls, and roof. I was always
busy - sometimes uncles came
over and help for the day, I'd
pitch in, whatever. And then, one
day, we were ready! We destroyed
the interior wall, just blasted it
away. That was the fun part,
until of course the miserable
clean up. But, anyway, there it
was, zen like and silent, never
really spoken of, just done.
-
I used to think - what to take
away from that? What did it all
take? Magic? Determination?
Did he really know all this
stuff? Tearing down walls,
and building walls? If so,
how? It still confuses me -
a multi-directional awareness
of many things is necessary
to get that grasp. Like the
fox and the hedgehog story,
almost. I think I'm more a
hedgehog; very heavy on the
one thing. But maybe not,
because I can be sly like a
fox too. Of course, there's
always the hare and the tortoise
analogy - the hare, darting and
rushing; the tortoise dutifully
staying at it, plodding along.
That would be me. It wins,
I think, or what's the point
of the story? The funny thing
(and I still notice items of
this nature) is how my father
and I never communicated any
of this. We were never that close,
so as to sit down and compare
notes, or for me to just ask,
'How'd you do that? How'd
you know all that shit?' I have
known other families, more the
monied and educated types,
where that sort of talk is
normal, where the son will
say to old Dad, 'So, Dad,
really, what the fuck were
you thinking when you did
that?' The brusque informality,
the coarse ease, was never
there. The monied folks always
seem to have it easier; less
tension. If I had ever 'cursed'
informally like that to my
father, I would have died and
it would have seemed totally
artificial anyway. The air was
always distant and frosty.
(I should talk : With my own
grown son I'm a terrible
example of that. In fact, I
probably represent more
bad things than good in this
whole Fatherhood rap). But,
nothing to be done about it
now - my character is cast.
-
I don't like direct contact
much. I guess I got burned
out on all that long ago. That
all makes me nervous - even
if I do an overly good job of
papering it over. Avenel always
seemed like a direct-contact
place to me - people always
jabbering and talking at you.
I'd been in other places where
it was never like that. There
were parts of NYC where
everyone and everything was
silent, even the dogs. It's not
like that now - young people
have made sure to change all
that noise stuff, and earlier too;
I don't mean just now. Frankly,
I think it has to do with simplicity.
There were sure some complicated
people in New York, and I never
ran into much of the simple kind.
Everyone seemed dense and deep
and troubled; on a quest, in search
of something.
-
I never knew which was good and
which wasn't. Or better or whatever.
Using my father as an example, I
knew that he felt that complicated
people weren't worth spit. Where
that left me was pretty obvious.
'Uh. Dad, where you put in that
exit doorway? I forget.' It's sort
of like 'when the house is on fire,
get out of the house.'
-
One time my father, while sitting
around the table when two of my
friends were over, and just sort of
talking, pretty much amazed me,
in an odd sort of way. I can't put
my finger on why, or what had
happened. It was a certain, very
unique, moment. Firstly, for his
own purposes, he asked me to
name a few people I totally
respected. When your own
father asks you something like
that, it's pretty weird because
of course one's first thought is,
'shouldn't I better include him?'
It was an Avenel moment for
sure, and I choked. I muttered,
'Oh, all the best of them are
dead.' Whatever that was
supposed to mean. Then he
asked if any of us had read
Karl Marx. What? Karl
Marx? Dad? I nearly gagged.
Now, he didn't say he did, but
just asked if we had; if that
makes a difference, I don't
know. As one, we all said a
sort of 'Yeah, parts, here and
there....' We were all speaking
bullshit, by the way. Then he
begins a talk about the Kurds.
This is 1975 maybe, at the
latest. No one outside of the
State Department or me had
ever heard of the Kurds, or
their plight. (I knew a little
about it, but only from reading
deep and tedious news articles
here and there, and stupid-ass
publications like 'Foreign Affairs'
quarterly or the early New Republic,
which covered this stuff). No one
knew much what to say, as we
were each more surprised
than anything. 'What's with
this?' we looked at each other,
'This guy and Marx, and Kurds?'
Goes to show, there's maybe a
surprise coming each time you
flip up a card.
-
But, anyway, total madness set
in, and I had to live with all this
stuff. Very difficult for me to
admit, last thing I really did
for him was bail him out of
jail in Toms River, putting
up my house for that (short
period of time) and driving
him back home, in the dead
of a full-moon night, along the
Garden State Parkway, and
listening to him tell me how
the Russians were on that
moon because we let them,
and how they were watching
our every move, from there.
He meant Soviets, but he didn't
realize that. Yes, Madness wears
a seatbelt too, sometimes. Now
the Soviet Union's gone and
- alas - so is Dad. I forget,
what's the exit for Avenel?
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