11,259. RUDIMENTS, pt. 479

RUDIMENTS, pt. 479

(ted kascinsky, at home)

Well you wake up one day

and you say to yourself,

'Why are you eating the

flesh of other beings?' It was

like that for me anyway  - 

considering the feelings I

harbored, why not just

begin killing your fellow

humans? What's the

difference, since there

isn't any difference. I was

around animals all the

time now. Cows. Horses,

Newly born versions. Goats

Sheep. Deer. And the rest.

I'd sit around farmers' tables

and always have to hear

their sorrow, mostly by

the ladies and kids, of the

bad feelings engendered

by the meat we were eating.

'I'm sorry to be serving Daisy.'

What? It seemed, with the

numerous meat-rendering

plants around (slaughterhouses

and dressing) at the end of a

'useful' life (milk-producing)

the cows  -  and their favorite

cows, and by name  -  Lucy,

Star, Heaven  -  were carted

away and brought back as

freezer meats, perfectly

wrapped and rendered as

meals. It happened all the

time. In fact, we were gifted

one time with two little piglets

brought over to us, and we

raised them into large porkers,

'Charlotte' and another name

I forget now. And, yes, with

great sorrow we sold them,

after raising to proper fatness,

to the rendering house direct,

which paid us and took them

away. I didn't want to know

anything about after that, and

it was the switch-over point

for me on all this meat stuff.

I'd rather shake hands anyway

with one of God's natural

kingdom animals than most

of the fellow humans I get

to meet, no contest. These farmer

people, to them it was of little

cost except a passing sorrow

to eat their kin. They'd go to

church on Sunday to learn and

be told of God's goodness and

the supposed Natural World

and then go on along anyway.

and all its wondered rationality.

Which is probably at least better

in some respect than the morons

round here, who come home after

first being SURE they or their

kids were seen in church, and 

then they set about destroying

they same Natural World. And

point by point, in full view of

their friends and neighbors.

I wonder, why aren't THEY

called terrorists too?

-

Probably if I knew then that

all this bullshit was ahead of me,

in the future, I'd have blown my

brains out right then and there.

The thing that galls me the most,

I guess, is the proficient lack of

any intelligence I see here, 50

years on or so.

-

I probably have 500 stories I

could tell you, but I can't get

to them all. Each one has a 

lesson and a tact of its own;

some, the sensitivities of 

them get pretty raw and 

we're not supposed to be

'offending' people like that.

That's the manner the world

works today  -  those in 

power  can screw or dice 

up whatever they want 

(yeah, that was meant

to be the 'f' word, Fanny 

Fleischman frothing at

the feral fountain), but

we, in turn, can't say a

damned human thing. Out

in Pennsylvania, no one 

was wrapped that tightly. 

And the crazies had guns.

And the guns just loved

going off. Sometimes it

used to make me puke, to

see what I'd see. A wild, 

crazy dog, tied to a running 

clothesline, at least having 

space to run, being shot from

50 yards away by two guys

who had been sent out to

rid the owner of  'that 

god-damned pesky black 

Lab.' Target practice a la

sitting duck. Or the 

distempered cat, dazed

and mortally wobbly 

and confused, being shot

in the snow with a muzzle

at its head. 'Snow's a great

silencer,' the one kid said.

-

That's only a part of it. The

entire, larger picture was just

as freaky, but oh so cool. I 

found it exhilarating to be 

comin' round the mountain 

for free and with no one 

hanging on my neck. Up

on Mt. Pisgah, nearby, but

higher, up there was a guy 

who lived in a cabin, all by

himself, in solitude beholden

to no one. Trip-wire freedom;

you cross it, you go down.

These days, all that same crap

has National Parks Service

junk all over it, markers and

plaques (might as well type

plagues). Have you ever seen

one of those sons'a bitches?

They tramp around all noble

and high minded, with their

mind on one thing : a one

thing comprised of many, 

sort of like the USA 

framework they babble 

about too  -  Order; Process;

Procedure; Only the 'right'

information gets given out;

Cleanliness and Safety. It's

all bullshit and they all only

have one eye  -  the other 

watches their wages and

salaries, pensions and 

investments, and that's all

really what to Holy Hell

they care about. That's how

rotted up this country is.

If they had any truth in 

them, they wouldn't be 

there. When I first started 

seeing this 'sovereign intrusion'

crap coming on, back in the

mid-seventies, I did already

want to be shooting back.

YOU have usurped my land!

-

The cabin guy up there 

killed himself. That was 

the story anyway. More'n

likely it was a murder or a

firefight or a David Koresh

or a Waco, all done up and

made nice of by the US

Government. I no longer was

able to believe a word of what

anyone said. Murder'n likely

the entire bunch of Government

agents is always a bunch of

meat-eating punks.

-

I was always a rebel, from the

start. My sometime friend up

there, Lloyd Perry, he was one

too, but he didn't know it. Lloyd

was a true maniac, a murderer,

and a cut-throat thief too. No 

one ever caught up to him, and

that was good. He had a barn

where he lived; the broad side

of it hugged the road, right at

a curve across from Big Pond,

and he had hanging from it,

the skinned and decayed carcass

of most any animal or large

bird your could think of.

Some people sold their barns 

out and had Red Man Tobacco

signs painted on them. Lloyd's

barn, instead, sort of perversely

advertised for God's own 

kingdom. Though quite dead.

It ain't movin', might as well

eat it. If you ever talked to Lloyd,
you'd think he was an idiot, yet
deep down n the rubble of all
that he talked about there was a
cold, solid sense of things too.
'Mr. Lloyd, what should we avoid,'
I always wanted to say. He just
looked up and would say, I'd
that somnabitch twice!' And
Lloyd had a brother too, older,
and worse than him. 'Oh, Mr.
Lloyd, now that ain't nice.'
I had the lingo down pat.