11,038. RUDIMENTS pt. 396

RUDIMENTS pt. 396

Making Cars

The seminary stuff, and church

stuff in general, was pretty weird.

Like that whole thing about ladies

having to have their heads covered,

or, well, something on their heads,

to enter church. In each of the years

I was at the seminary, except for

visit days and special events (rare)

I never saw a female present. Not

even a nun. Not one. So that entire

stricture was pretty much out the

window. I couldn't ever figure it

out, on those special days, as I

mentioned, when females were

present. What was the big deal?

Some men still wore hats, and they

had to come off? What the heck

was that about? Medieval levels

of personal rank? Servitude? Who

cared, least of all God? If it was

a Mankind thing, OK, then get

over it. The whole thing seemed

so petty and stupid. The same God

who watches the birds of the air,

fish of the sea, and counted the hairs

on your head, he watched the human

hat situation too? Busy guy.

-

The other thing that really annoyed

me, and it was pretty slimy and

sickening too, was when these

stupid-ass priests and brothers would

take to the pulpit there in the little

chapel thing we had, which was

our 'church' for all the three times

a day stuff we had to do, and go

on about 'Holy Mother the church

was the Bride of Christ...' What

the hell? What were they, freaking

nut-cases all? Shut-in too long in

their cork-lined male confraternity?

I'd learned about allegory, metaphor,

analogy, and like simile too (joke)

but I guess they'd left out 'cockamamie

bullshit.' Made up concepts. Diatribes

of un-needed precision and logic.

And anyway, I found that anytime,

in the Gospels, that they came across

Jesus being a little strange, talking

weird  -  something that, in reality,

didn't fit the picture too well  -

they'd brush it off by saying, 'oh,

well, he was speaking in allegories

and parables,' and then they'd start

bashing his peasantry-audience for

being a bunch of stupid Aramaic

slobs and dumb fisherman who

didn't know any better and who

could only grasp stories and

parables. How were they any

different than the Sunday

morning fools back in Avenel

at St. Andrew's, I wanted to

know? Wasn't that a bit of

dis-respect and condescencion

to all those people you were

supposedly dependent upon for

Sunday-morning's collections

baskets?

-

Back up in that 9th line, at the

beginning of this chapter, I got

a chuckle  -  I wondered if any

of those priests and brothers,

who pretended to know it all

about sex and love and marriage,

had even an inkling of what the

female 'present' even was.

Gift-giving never had it

so good?

-

Everything took some getting

used to. Parts of my mind were

still stuck back in Avenel, right

along Inman Avenue where I

could still remember vividly

the cold, snowy Winter of '61

when the street had been covered

with a mantle of snow that was

pretty much never tended to and

did eventually melt and refreeze,

a few times, into a nice, solid

snow-pack of two or three inches

that remained for at least a week

in the cold. As kids, it became

day after day of solid snow-fun

on an ice and snow covered

street. The slow melting that

did take place began at the

manhole covers and sewer areas,

and ever-so-slowly, over the

course of a few days, spread out.

I can't remember cars at all, except

for the few, noisy, chain-tired cars

that occasionally slapped along.

That was all back when it seemed

that Time would never end, or that

it had was of just getting stuck

in an endless present. And it 

was all so strange as, later on, 

in talking, that that was the same

cold and snowy January that

one Bob Dylan arrived in NYC

with his cartload of fictions and

made-up stuff, or that it was the

same time as all those Maynard 

J. Krebs versions of beatnik

dopplegangers were wildy fading

and the scene was passing to

folkies, and that another scene

entire was a'borning. The times

they were far-ranging. I was 11,

and at the end of my kidhood 

days. All that change crap
was already in the air. People
were convincing each other, or
trying to anyway, that the big
'difference' was coming.
I had to be ready too.

-

I'd never had a scared-space, like

I learned, later on, many others had.

That took some money and privilege;

things I never possessed. Being poor

has its advantages, if you can manage

to step back and look away  -  just

gleaning and lessons and the values.

The rest of life is just mopping up.

Avenel had certainly never provided

me anything like that  -  in all respects

a rather one-dimensional, humdrum

place, made up  -  perhaps  -  of a few

characters amid two-thousand ordinary

stiffs. Growing up, it was all rather

tame, lame, and ordinary. Dreaming

of becoming a spy? They don't hire

out of Avenel. Once I lost it, whatever

it was  -  control, command, awareness  -

over my own life and my own being,

I'd just end up as one of them. And I

knew I'd sworn off, against any and

all, of that. Where I was going, I
was never sure. I knew where I was,
and stupidly I realized that 'where
I was' wasn't where I wanted to 
remain. The whole calculus had
to begin spinning once more,
turning things around and
over, re-negogiating what was
fact, what was real, and
what was false.