RUDIMENTS, pt. 467
(train wreck aftermath)
Curious views of the afterlife :
My hazy days on the Jersey
shore, wishing to be anywhere
else at all. I always had trouble
getting that connection. The
ocean meant little to me and
I was never able to pull from
it that 'poetic' sense of awe
and wonder and distance and
power that all those Romantics
through the ages had always
done - writing about it,
swooning, even drowning
in it. Just a large bunch of
swirly green slime to me. As
W. C. Fields had it - about
ocean swimming : Never!
Fish fornicate in it.
-
Nerves of steel were never
my thing. I came out of the
train wreck kind of shattered
anyway, and a large portion
of my personal energy after
that went into piecing some
sort of personality together.
Back in 1958, there wasn't
even the stroke of an idea
about 'counseling' me or any
of that mad psychological
stuff they do to people now.
It was more like, 'Get back
into shape, kid. Pick yourself
up and get it rolling.' Yeah,
thanks. It was all, however,
probably good for me. I
needed nothing from anyone,
and I sensed that I'd soon
be high-flying and right
over their heads anyway.
You have no idea how most
ordinary people disgusted me
Everything was fraught with
the large-loined crapola of
the way people lived. Here
and there, from every
direction, were the dark
shadings of perfidy - the
most stupid of things, over
and over. Done by people
who should have been in
exile anyway. All those
Franks and Janes from
somewhere else. It was
not to be for me. The
day I was released from
hospital care - I do sort of
remember it, in a filmic way,
like a short documentary -
I hobbled around (I was on
crutches for a long time),
and had been warned about
this or that new and possible
defect. None of that much
ever happened, but I listened.
Getting back in a car was
something I had to think
twice about, but there
wasn't much choice. I
settled in. Oddly enough,
was that doing all this,
and I'm not sure why, I felt
displaced. It wasn't 'me'
who was doing all this,
just rather a character
I was watching in a role as
'Me' - which was weird
in that I HAD, after all,
survived and did feel
I owed something back to
whomever I was, but the
stronger part of me was
refusing to re-enter the
fray, preferring instead a
silent distance. Little was
said; my father drove, and
I'm not even sure my mother
was present. I noticed people,
traffic lights, buildings, but
it was all as if underwater
too. The space age and
astronauts and all that had
not yet arrived, but I sensed
already what 're-entry' would
be like when - in a few years -
it would become a commonplace
word around launches and
mission splashdowns. The
whole thing was that alien
to me. There was a buzz and
a chuckle going on, the hospital
lobby, the street corners; mouths
moving, people busy with talk.
Truly, a race that never shut-up.
-
As I returned, everything seemed
different - the old entrails of
Inman Avenue seemed scorched,
the street seemed larger, the turns
larger, the distances longer. I
slowly got out of the car, still
'unsure' if I wished to be doing
this, (that moment, this moment,
time recurring, an overlap of
memory, all my days now boxed
and put away. Wasn't I supposed
to have died?). All I really wanted
was to tunnel - to enter deep
into some other space, some
realm that could take me away
again and keep me from all this.
Life was a twist, and a pain.
Constant. People were watching
me; neighbors. it wasn't fun at
all. I went up the front steps,
and there I entered the regular,
small room we called 'living.'
Odd as that was, the living room
was my re-entry port. That was
curious. Someone had set up
and filled a large fish tank - in
it there were colorful fish, angel
fish, snails on the inside glass,
water-filter bubbles. That was
all new - (my Uncle Joe had
done it up, as a coming home
gift). I couldn't remember much
for a moment, hadn't we begun
as fish, sliming our way out of
the ocean, fins and gills turning
to arms, legs, and lungs, over
time? How weird? Had my uncle
known something all this time
and never let on? Was this a
coded message? My mind
was already running.
-
'The past exudes legend; one
can't make pure clay of time's
mud. There is no life that can
be recaptured wholly; as it was.
Which is to say that all biography
is essentially fiction.' That was
written by Bernard Malamud,
in 1979, in a book entitled,
'Dubin's Lives.' He's one of
those writers I used to read,
actually one of a succession
of rather odd-ball Jewish
American authors who ranged
through the 50's and 60's and
70's. He's mostly forgotten
now, a ripple down some old,
literary, corridor no one much
travels any more. I think it
funny how that, in 1958, all
of the future of Malamud,
and me, I guess, was ahead
of him, and now it's been
done, and he's gone, and
it's all behind everything.
really then, what does
anyone know about anything,
and what in the world was I
living, back then, in this
new guise of me, a resuscitated
creature-kid from some black
lagoon of no resistance? I
offered little resistance to
what was flowing around
me - I was able to tell that
already, but being an obstacle
is a bad strategy and rather
than obstructing or stopping
things, I'd decided to let them
flow around me. My passive
feet in some hot, deep lava.
-
So, there I was, on a shortfall
stick of time, in a roomful of
re-run people, on Inman Avenue
once more, and back again
- as it were - from Death's
throes itself. My challenge
now, I sensed, was to find
meaning amidst the noise
and mayhem of fish-like
people whose mouths were
constantly going - watching
fish, with no ocean to be seen.
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