11,122. RUDIMENTS, pt. 425

RUDIMENTS, pt. 425

(avenel by name)

There were times I felt good.

Having everything in order, sort

of, or near to, being on top of

my game. Usually, just when

I'd get to that point, something

would go wrong, something to

foul it all up  -  even if just the

reappearance of some useless

character I thought I'd shaken,

or some other, unforeseen

complication. Much like a

disease that you can catch

just by breathing, their

heaviness would then latch

on to me, and make for

a doleful mess.

-

I've a few friends turn into suicides

on me. And I've had a few just

die, way young, way too early; or

I'd think. Part of it was the kind

of crowd I hung with : I don't

mean the biker stuff. Those people

often were results of their own

failings, and went down for the

count after having willingly

entered the ring. No. I mean the

writerly, art and creative types I

spent my days with : the sorts of

deeply alienated people fighting

demons, writing or painting

themselves down into personal

infamies while singeing themselves

in the flames of oblivion. Long,

twisty country roads. Shaggy and

desolate dead ends. Personal deaths,

not public ones.

-

Sometime around 1963, give or take,

I ran across the book 'Nine Stories,'

by J. D. Salinger. A punch in the

young face that was  -  yes, yes,

everyone else knows 'The Catcher

In the Rye,' and so what and big

deal. That's media-crap stuff; a

regular person, back then, had

no way of avoiding that book  -

the usual teacher and media

entrapment by the same foul

mouths who'd tell you Tom

Sawyer was a better book and

person than Huck Finn. Reason

for that self-serving crap was

that he was easily-corrallable

for the sort of junk they wished

to fill your heads with. A

sentimentalist and a slower,

but by-the-rules, guy. By

contrast, Huck Finn would

have told them to go to Hell.

The book 'Nine Stories,' really

got to me. Irksome but still

tolerable, it held a few lessons

for me about writing; things

were pretty transparent  -  the

little set-ups for each story, and

the closed scenes and dialogues.

The first story, especially, 'A

Perfect Day For Bananafish,' was

specious. It did me little good.

The entire story is a set-up for

nothing, and it ends with the two

last lines : 'He cocked the piece.

Then he went and sat down on

the unoccupied twin bed, looked

at the girl, aimed the pistol, and

fired a bullet through his right

temple.' Probably, right off the

bat, I already know of two people,

dead, brains blown out, to whom

this story meant a great deal. I've

read countless little facile pieces

written over it, purporting to

explain great meanings and

motives to it. More crap. To

these dead guys, it was more

a recipe or a cookbook than

it was a story : two tablespoons

of despair, a pinch of hopelessness,

a little bit of waiting, add the gun,

cocked, barrel to temple, and fire!'

Death is complicated, but suicide

is infantile.

-

When I was growing through

my toughest years, even then,

I admit the thought never crossed

my mind. It held no majesty;

the idea of taking one's own

life seemed simply useless,

a waste. Yukio Mishima, the

'great' Japanese writer guy,

whenever that was, leading

his followers into witnessing

his own ritual disembowelment,

in the form of some ancient,

Asian, ritual, death-rite stuff  -

it just seemed old and pathetic.

My dead friends, by the same

token, may 'perhaps' have been

brave  -  or seen as such  -  for

doing what they did but at the

same time they were each a

man-child, acting out a tantrum.

Home-baked chocolate-chip

cookies, I know for a fact,

would have made one of them

happy for life. They sought only

Mother, and comfort. And the

other was a big, screaming baby.

There was nothing high-minded

or elevated about them really.

-

So when Salinger, with this

book, touching NINE times on

these sorts of vaguely-fringe

characters, out for nothing

except some version of being

spoiled and self-possessed,

came through swinging, it

-  yes  -  piqued my interest,

but annoyed me too, or made

some sort of stronger character

out of me. Hardened in my

righteousness anger by the

very sort of possession he

thought he was writing

against. It was all the

equivalent of baby-talk,

and I'd had enough of that.

There were places, open

and easy to find, right there

in Avenel, where I could

have blown my own brains

out, or hung myself, or slit

my wrists and died  -  only

maybe to be found in a

week by the next asshole

there trying for the same

thing : empty, open boxcars,

sitting for weeks at Monarch

Cabinet Company's siding;

Abbe Lumber's back piles of

old wood and siding; the off-rail

side tracks of the prison and/or

General Dynamics. Those fields

were open wide for death. Hell,

right above the bridge trestle

at the underpass, next to and

alongside the train station,

there were four little and

easily-accessed areas within

the grid work even with the

tracks; I'd go in there and sit,

people would pass beneath me

along the underpass, and never

even look up to realize I was

up above them. Dead.

-

Small town; big city : nowhere

could I find the distinction

to be right, I guess, until I left.

Once I left, I had to start all over,

make up a story-line, an identity.

Everything but a new name  - 

and most of the others did that

too. I didn't wish to go that far;

I wanted to at least keep some

of my identity so that, later,

when I did get the bastards by

the neck, I wanted them to

know who it was about to rip

out their Adam's Apple. You

lose a lot when you lose

your name.

-

At about the same time,

whenever it was, '65, '66,

this Greenwich Village

folksinger fellow and local

ringleader  -  Dave van Ronk  -

came out with an album on

which was this wonderful cut

entitled, 'Zen Koans Gonna

Rise Again.' Now that skinned

me alive, crossed all my 't's

and dotted all my i's. That was

it for me; my direction was set.

Here it is, words anyway, in its

entirety : -- " Zen Koans Gonna Rise Again" --

In the alleys and doorways of old Greenwich Village

You can see the lames walking the streets up and down

From your tenement top you can drop down your garbage

And a Clyde or a cop will fall dead to the ground

You'll see bodies a-burning and faces on fire

Wearing death on their backs like a John wears a coat

For this is Satori, the end of desire

To O.D. in the gutter with a cure in your throat

Some are in slams and some are still scuffling

With nothing to keep but a twenty-cent jones

Jiving and boosting while their chicks are out hustling

While the ache in their veins whispers death to their bones

In the alleys and doorways of old Greenwich Village

You can see the lames walking the streets up and down

From your tenement top you can drop down your garbage

And a Clyde or a cop will fall dead to the ground.

-------

It never had been as if I was falling,

or failing. It was that there just had

never been anything to stand on or

alongside of. I've always been the sort

of person that takes validation from

helping others  -  as stupid and as

troublesome as that sometimes gets  -  

so it was more that these verses,

those little words about destitute and

fallen people, instantly meant something

to me and I had to explore it all, see

it, learn more about it. The entire,

widening chasm was opening out

before me, beckoning, and calling

me forth.