RUDIMENTS, pt. 385
(god-fires in avenel)
It sometimes seems that half
my life has been a magic show,
and the other half an IOU. Back
in my seminary days, far enough
from home, as it was, to give me
some grief, but now as I see it
so close as to be laughable (80
miles), my days were a combination
of coming to grips with myself
and figuring out whatever it was
that others were trying to tell me.
Imparting deep messages : faith,
longing, belief, understanding. I
had the gist of all that stuff but I
found it really didn't interest me
much at all. All these odd men
were my betters and superiors,
but the idea of single guys like
that all together, I don't know, it
didn't seem to work. And I most
certainly didn't want anyone getting
their 'grip on things' around me.
-
So, basically, I remained pretty
aloof and vacant, but it was all
feigned. My only real 'out' was the
drama department, and the stage
plays and readings and acting we
did. That made sense if nothing
else did. I learned a lot about
language just from that stuff. As
for the rest, 'Sports' didn't work,
because there was always a creep
or two hanging around the showers.
The one guy, John Banko, I should
have known; he was always walking
around with his soap and towel, to
go on about cleanliness and good
health. Enticing, with that sick
voice of his. He's dead now, 50
years on, just another priest
convicted (finally) of messing
with parish boys in that weird
sex/power relationship that they
cultivate. He was in prison about
8 years, when he died there.
-
I ask you, sincerely, how's a kid
to recover from that kind of crap.
I was 11 years old, for goodness
sake, when I began this stuff : a
madness engulfed in a church
bureaucracy, wrapped in a story
about deliverance and eternity,
and underscored with the theme
music to some outlying porno flick
you'd never want to see or hear.
Pretty much, I was ruined before
I was ruined, heck, before I was
even started.
-
That one little stupid church on
Avenel Street started a whole bunch
of crap, for me. There used to be a
phone booth right there, out front,
too, when the old white rectory was
on that corner. It's gone now, and
they've built instead some prison
looking monstrosity wherein now
lives some goofy priest (who seems
only to major in riding-mowing the
grass). I don't need to know anything
more. I used to wish I could go into
that phone booth and come out as
Superman - not so much for others
as for myself. Screw that crusading
for justice and liberty crap for anyone
else, I wanted to super-power my own
world and twist it into some dog-gone
shape that would break the rest of the
world in two. Magic show? IOU?
I don't even know the difference.
-
One of the things about 'Americana'
I could never figure out was 'churches,
and how all that got started. I traced
it all back to Luther and Calvin; OK,
that was easy. But I couldn't then
get it past Calvin and Hobbes. (OK,
that was just a throw-in joke). Those
two guys were just curtain raisers to
the Pilgrim Fathers and their main
way of operating : religious fanaticism.
I was crawling the edge of that, I
knew, with all this 12-year old kid
stuff about God and Church and
certainty. Way out of my league,
and in the middle of a group of
nettlesome predators besides.
You know like three years before
I was pronounced train-dead for
a bit (not brain-dead, fool), but
I moaned some when they pulled
me along, and that changed their
minds. 'Hey, he ain't dead, he's
only sleepng!'That was sort of how
I felt all over again in Blackwood
(the seminary) - hoping someone
would - oh forget it, I can't bring
myself to say 'pull on me' in this
context. Evil bastards. And now I
was prancing around like I knew
all about Salvation and God and
Gospels. What the heck was all
that? These morons never even
covered the Old Testament, not
a whit - everything was 'parable
this, Jesus really meant that; New
Testament is all you need!' Under
the illusion that they were God's
chosen people (oh no, not again!),
The Pigrims set out to prepare for
the end of the world by establishing
a theocratic state in this newly
found wilderness. Of course, they
wiped out the indigenous people
(imps of Satan), and expelled
anyone who thought for his or
her self (Anne Hutchinson, for
instance). I'd gotten afraid, for
a minute, that she lived on
Avenel Street, but that was
another Anne, nearby anyway.
These Pilgrim guys too, they
figured politics (their politics)
as the unconstrained power of
the elect (NOT the elected).
Hell, America was founded by
a nutty religious cult, so why
should we not be stuck with
what we have today : five hundred
leftover mystery churches, way
from the old days, within
thirty miles of anywhere you go.
Little, sad, old American graveyards.
massive and beautiful iron gates.
Bucolic pathways and trees. All
that stuff that it takes fourteen
minutes to undo now, in the
screwed up Municipal names
of graft, corruption, deals, and
payoffs, and the it's called
'improvements' and 'progress,'
of course with God now left out
of the equation because they don't
have the balls even, these gents and
lassies of the foul school, to try
and drag God into their stinking
midst. It's that bad. But, of course,
for votes and stuff, they're right
there on Sundays and holidays,
doing up the due-storm of prayer
and religion for their kiddies and
witless wives. The way see it,
being out of the seminary all
these years, there's no difference
anyway between sexual abuse
and mental abuse of others. And
religion now has that all covered
too. Just ask the closest, blubbering
televangelist you see. They're much
like politicians, as much as can be;
except one has his fly open, and
the other has his hands open.
-
I'd sit in the seminary and just stew,
thinking about home. We had a farm
there, that I worked on, with some
old, ancient Brother somebody -
Cornelius or Sebastian or both, I
forget. But it was nothing like
the prison farm back in Avenel -
which was cool and fun and wide
open. This was all dour and serious,
man, even about cow shit and pig
slop. (I was a nightly pig-slop
feeder). The food leftovers all
got shoved into barrels, dragged
out to the pigsty fields by tractor,
and dumped in the trough. Those
sluggo pigs would come running,
all grunting and slopping, gorging
down this gross food. It was amazing,
but, you know what, I loved it. They
were great animals - smart and
wise, with not a real, normal
'thought' in the world. Not like us,
paltry humans, splitting everything
in twos, arguing over results, and
taking sides. This Brother Cornelius
guy, or Sebastian, I honestly forget,
he was old, like 70 then, short,
very, and white bearded, long,
with yellow stains around the
the mouth, like from food or
mustard or a pipe-smoking
habit. These Brother guys were
all Germans; the entire Salvatorian
Order was Germanic, and in his
early years he'd been an officer
of some sort in the old German
Army. He slapped this new recruit,
named Adolph Hitler. True shit.
He slapped him because this new
soldier (Adolph) was demanding
more straw for his bedding.
Insubordination, and disorder; got
you a slap. Just like there in the
seminary - (I got walloped a few
times for disrupting study periods).
Pretty cool though, for a rat kid
from an Avenel phone booth.
-
I did finally give all that crap up,
as they pushed me out anyway. But
not before I drew my own conclusions.
Having been founded by fanatics, the
United States was the only country in
the west to have 'spawned' its own
extravagant new religions : millenarian
cults out of the two 'Great Awakenings'
that swept the country early on -
religious fervor, revivals, nomadic
wagon-train missions to villages and
towns with crazed charismatic
preachers hawking God, Hellfire,
and Elixirs. The early nineteenth
century brought us a whole basket
of nutcases - Mormonism, Christian
Science, Mary Baker Eddy, speaking
in tongues on the plains and the
prairies, Pentacostalism, and the
rest - even out to Scientology;
everything hinging on the imminent
end of the world. Nice try,
moneychangers.
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