Saturday, July 28, 2018

11,021. RUDIMENTS, pt. 390

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. forget,
what's the exit for Avenel?

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