RUDIMENTS, pt. 397
(the ante room of hell)
Once I got hit by the train,
that entire experience, I was
asked very little about it. No
one ever asked me to re-tell
what happened, nor what I
remembered of the event.
Which was just as well,
because I really didn't
remember much at all.
The entire thing was kind
of mysterious to me, and I
often wondered if I hadn't
just dreamed the whole
scenario. Maybe so, maybe
not : Blood existed, I'd
shed it, some of my bones
had been broken, and I
mended. I had the paperwork
and some photos of the
aftermath. I knew the spot,
and (still) pass(ed) it often.
So, some irrefutable proof
did exist, I guess. I had the
casts, and I had the crutches.
Case closed.
-
I never told anybody about it,
meaning I never initiated any
talk of it - the seminary guys
never knew, or I never said
anyway. Once the draft board
guys hauled me in, I brought
the old wrecked me up, but
they didn't care, even with
some doctor's note my mother
had fetched and sent. They
said, 'You look fine to us, that
was then, this is now.' Actually,
the one dumb bastard had said,
(I can quote him) : 'We're not
really interested in something
that happened 10 or 11 years
ago.' I felt like referencing
1954, Dienbienphu, to him,
and saying I wasn't interested,
either, in something that had
happened 14 years previously.
That stupid-shit Sergeant
Nuclear Bomb was a real
lunkhead. I should have
taken him out.
-
Authority never has a sense
of humor. I found that out.
That crew of military derelicts
was a good example of it. I'd
been running into that sort of
thing way too long - all those
seminary priests and brothers,
I don't know that anything was
ever funny to them. There was
this one guy, Brother Matthias,
a Norwegian or German guy,
big and blond, probably at
that time, on his first teaching
assignment, about age 28. He
had this thing about driving it
into our heads that the world
was a closed and fixed system
of entity, something already
formed and formulated, and
then closed off, by God. The
essential point was that we
were trapped and in the midst
of entropy, not expansion. He'd
always want us to be sure we
realized that we'd never think
or do anything 'new.' It was all
already, and long before, shut
down. So I wrote a piece in
which I stated, 'Brother Matthias,
he used to deny us, he'd say
'You'll never think anything
new.'' Needless to say, he had
no sense of humor. When
somehow word got back to
him, my craft as a writer was
shown to be unappreciated,
and thank you please. As it
went, Calpurnia had her ways,
and whew, Matthias had his.
Why bother to live?
-
I forget his last name, but a
lot of these guys had pretty
cool ones. We had a Father
Carlton Brick. We had a
Father Edward Alleyn. We
had an Aexander Korff.
All intriguing names; plus
a few I used to know and
find suddenly that I can't
remember. Psychological
blackmail? Who knows?
-
Once the turmoil of the
1960's later years set in,
any number of these guys
left their priestly calling
anyway - one whose
name I can't recall, dead
now a few years, married,
had kids, ran for the school
board and all that in his
new town up by Syracuse.
He was the one who'd
whupped me with those
oversize hip-belt prayer
bead strap-things that all
wore. (You're supposed
to pray, not prey, with
them, I think). No matter,
but it bugged me to watch
suddenly all their famed
certainty about everything
just fade away as if it
never existed, and as
they rolled over into
a plain old secular life
- wives, pools, barbecues,
girlfriends and debts. Until
that moment, these guys
were next to God in their
spieling to us; and then,
nothing. There wasn't
any theology involved,
nor even any real splitting
of hairs. Just a changeover
and the past be damned.
Wreckage left behind or
not. It was more like the
Emperor Has No Clothes
or the Sorceror's Folly, or
the car mechanic, slamming
down the hood, saying, 'You
know what? I really haven't
a clue about this engine.'
And just strolling off.
-
The fact of the matter was,
even in my years of growing
up, that I never much cared
about anything. In Avenel,
and even before that, a
little kid leaving Bayonne,
I'd hang to some memories
and build my own system
of belief around them. If
they were in some way
connected to the beliefs
of the rest of the world,
fine. As soon as I ever
began caring about
something, some fool
would slip the rug out
from under it all and
I'd be flat on my ass.
-
Once I got to New York
City, the first few people
I met were madmen. And
I mean what I say - killers,
criminals, and touched
cannons. It was as if I'd
landed in the dark underworld
of the psyche - a guy from
Colorado hiding out from
having killed his wife - he
said anyway. He was a
hulking Mexican-half-Indian
guy, and pretty much did
resemble each foul deed he'd
talk about. Then there was
Andy Bonamo, drug-dealer
par excellence, making a
small fortune weekly touching
other people's lives and not
for the better. I'd never heard
about people like this, and I
wasn't prepared, didn't have
the language right, possessed
not the gumption needed.
Outclassed was me. One
guy I remember telling me,
'If you have all these things
around you, just take them
in, but don't let any of it
bother you.' A form of
street philosophy at its
best or at its worst, I could
never tell. I sat still. I bided
time. (Like relaxing in the
anteroom of Hell).
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