11,250. RUDIMENTS, pt. 476

RUDIMENTS, pt. 476

(vile habits die hard) 

The funniest thing was,

Jim was gone  -  somehow

he'd driven off, and to

somewhere too  - and the

others had all left together,

girls and guys, in their

separate autos, after, yes,

telling me to where they'd

be going. I can still vividly

remember two things :

the girls progressing out

of the house, to their cars,

holding the two cakes

they'd made, out in

front of them like ritual;

and, at the other end  -

because I did get myself

cleaned up and mended

some (bruises came later),

the foggy, mist-heavy,

tree'd grove they'd all

taken themselves off to,

along the roadside on

the dirt road threading

to Willard Brown's

farmhouse (the guy to

whom I paid the $38.03

monthly, mentioned three

chapters back). It was

a chilled, even cold,

wet and misty night and

they seemed not to care

at all, a number of cars

parked about, and these

people, enjoying each

other's company, eating

cake and drinking

whatever it was that

had been brought along.

It was pretty charming

a scene,  and I was glad

I'd made it there,  just to

see it. The premise was,

I suppose, to rehash all

all that had just occurred,

and they went at it verbally,

with relish, and blow by

blow. Country people

do hang on detail. I stayed

a bit, and left, needing to

straighten up the place and

do some repair too. The

only real problem was

that I'd never made it

to the hospital, having

not told my wife there'd

be no visit that night.

A tactical problem, I

guessed, but one that

I surely could work out.

If I told her that I'd been

to an outdoor, misty-rain

birthday party eating

cake under the trees,

would she believe me?

-

Somewhere in each

of our lives there's a 

'tendency zone.' We 

manage, and live 

through it. For myself, 

mine is that I 'have a 

tendency' to get into

weird situations that 

are never clear-cut; 

in addition they never

seem to have definite

start points, and/or finish

points   -   things remain 

as liquid situations, which 

I do suppose for a 'writer'

is a good situation, allowing

embellishment maybe, a

'plot' turn or twist here 

and there, and some good 

spaces for description and 

musing. Part of the reason 

I got into this racket was 

because it was 'fun.' A 

downright riot of it.

-

So, anyway, what's 'mad' 

and what's 'maddening,' 

or who, in each case just 

as well? I have a friend 

who calls me crazy, mad

I call him the same back,

and at least I know I'm right.

Or write. Which brings up

another point about plays 

and drama. How come a

playwright writes the play

in a manner he or she 

feels is right but he or

she is still called a 

playwright  - like a 

wheelwright, or

whatever wheel-guys 

are called. Not a  playwrite. 

Not a playright either. 

Perplexity over perplexity, 

over  questions and troubles. 

Its a weird math.

-

Anyway, this Jim guy turned

out to be as unsettled as the

Devil's own Hell  -  by the way,

is it the Devil's Hell? Or is

that still God's domain? How's

that work, I wonder?  -  The word

around, I found later, was just

not to touch him. Today they

call someone like that 'toxic,'

(I have one of those too, as a

friend), back then he was just

untouchable, and the farm

people wanted nothing much

to do with him. Toxic people

seem to spread their wealth, but

it's really a wealth no one wants.

Go figure. Jim eventually got a

pick-up truck, and got a job too,

with the same school district

that had me on its rolls. Down

in East Troy they built a large,

brand-new, elementary school.

For the Troy kids and all, not

my country-and-hillside folk.

Back about then it was like the

biggest thing in the world, for it

was a 'Montessori' experimental

school  -  no walls, one huge

classroom area, all the kids

together, everything at once,

with the different teachers, I

guess, addressing their level

kids in whatever groupings

they got. It seemed stupid

to me, same old crap, just

no walls. It was a way-out

stab in the dark try at 'new'

education, and I guess these

nowhere kids were the test-tubes

in that bio-lab. They hired Jim

on as the custodian. Yeah man,

and believe you me.

-

Even though I didn't really

care, that didn't set right with

me, and I remained a little

annoyed, for a long time, over

what I considered basically as

the useless, preferential hiring

for this dangerous guy whom

no one else really wanted

around. So what do they do?

Pack him in an open format

school with a bunch of kids.

Sometimes I just wanted to

say to some of these country

folk, 'Whatever ARE you
thinking?'... Jim Watkins,

even if still around, just

slowly faded from my life

and memory thereof, and

that was probably good

enough, short of me shooting

him, and I really couldn't be

bothered. The whole guns

and shooting thing out there

was a real issue anyway, and

not that far out of the possible.

If it was him or me, it was

going to be him and not me.

-

After he was gone, I did keep

seeing his large wife around a lot;

she was nearby somewhere and

always driving that Valiant

he used to have. I never saw

the kids though. The wife  - to

whom I never really spoke  - 

had some sort of scheduled

job that would bring her past

the same point in the road and

at pretty much the same time

of day, morning and night, so

it was all predictable. When

you read the old dime-store

novels and thrillers and 

mystery junk, those are 

the sorts of habits that 

get people knocked off

or kidnapped in revenge 

plots. Their utter predictability

gives them away. Of course,

she didn't know me, but 

she should have known 

better. Problem was I 

think ole' Jim would 

never have turned over a

dime as ransom money 

for the battered-hulk 

of the likes of her.
-
Nobody ever much cut trees out
in these rural lands  -  so there'd be
a good mix standing : dead trees,
half-dead trees, and beautiful,
large, prospering trees too. All
the small roads and pathways
were lined with trees. Just sort
of accidental. One problem was  -  
and I faced this too  -  the Elm trees
that had all died through the 1950's
from Dutch Elm disease. My own
dirt road was lined with about
12 of them, all dead hulks. I
never minded that, but it wasn't
the nicest of sights either; and 
then one day a crew came and they
began cutting them all. It took
about a week, but they were all
gone and much of the shrubbery
too. That kind of annoyed me,
since without any foreknowledge
someone had come along and
leveled and cleansed my entry 
road so that it was now just bare
and open to the sun. I used to
have dreams that the berm on the
one side, which had been heavily
dense with shrubs and berry bushes,
was a secret passageway that I,
in the dreams, would sort of crawl 
through along some noisy highway
on my left, and it would get me
eventually to some secret land 
that, in the dreams, I could never 
quite reach or get too.
-
Same sort of struggle as life, I guess.