RUDIMENTS, pt. 550
('cigar-chomping devil hound')
Pools of escort, I already
had. I never really went
anywhere alone, it seemed,
because I had always brought
with me everything I was
aware of, all that I had
learned. Like some fool,
protecting, beneath his
cloak, the jar of treasures
he'd bought, I operated
as if, always, there was
something to be kept
concealed. It was always
easy for me to see this
'concealment' in others :
the person who knows
they've been found out,
or seen, or their canard
exposed. It's in their eyes,
a sort of running terror.
Scientifically, in such terms,
it would be simple: 'Light
travels faster than sound.'
When you see a jet in the
sky, high up enough, the
jet is there (point A), and
you see it, but the sound for
that manifestation is back
'there' (point B), lagging
well behind the jet. That's
because the speed of light
is swifter than the speed of
sound, and the image, what
you see, is outrunning or
advancing what you hear.
It's like that as well with
malfeasant people - their
words, however false and
bad they may be, are
preceded by their 'light',
the image of their being,
which you see as eyes and
face undergoing recognitive
terror. To wit : they know
their own screw-up, even as
they speak it - but before
the words reach you the
image is already given :
Caught in a cinch, knowing
they've been called out.
-
When I was hit by the train
in that train crash in Feb. '58,
well after the fact, for the little
trial that ensued, I was 'coached'
in what to say when on the
'witness' stand. It was all very
weird; some year and a half
later, the Reading Railroad
already bankrupt, monetary
damages of some sort being
sought, etc. It all seemed. to
me, a dazing hopelessness.
To begin with, I was being
coached, as some dumbed-out
9 year old, in what to say about
what I recollected, though the
real problem was I recollected,
frankly, nothing. The only
thing, perhaps was that I
remember the resounding
wail of a train engine, the
blinding crunch of the hit,
and, really, nothing else. My
shock-manifested and mangled
self had blacked all else out.
However, 'Nothing, your honor,'
would not suffice. Thus, any
words spoken were words
put there. My speed of light,
in this case somehow inoperative,
was being supplanted by a far
slower and (disingenuous) speed
of sound. Pantomimed sound,
in fact. (I wonder now how
like local politics is this?).
-
Anyway, nothing came of it.
The simple award, to me in
'trust' until age 21, was $1900.
I guess the legal fees and all
the rest of that mess were
also paid, though I don't know
- I don't even know who paid
all the hospital stuff, nor how
much any of that all came to.
I was so in the dark you'd
think I'd also been blinded.
But, it all stayed in my head.
We had this lawyer guy,
in Newark, some office
building on Broad Street.
Solomon Wolfman was his
outlandish name. I went
there, along with my parents,
any number of times for trial
rehearsals. It was the most
stupid stuff in the world -
he was using conjecture,
based on his experience
and knowledge, of the sorts
of things I'd be asked (me,
a 9-year old, I repeat); how
they'd try to confuse me (?),
not that it was difficult; trick
me into saying the wrong things;
incriminating things? To me
this was all very bad - I
wasn't a master criminal
whose motivation for murder,
rape, and pillage had to be
hermetically dramatized.
However, being in front of
a train at a non-propitious
moment is, in its own way,
I suppose, a crime. The point
is how truth, or reality, even
in this precocious and most
foolish situation, was being
both 'created' and manipulated.
Hello, legal profession. The
most galling aspect of the
entire thing was - and this
drove my father crazy with
anger that day (I well recall),
over all this practice and set-up,
my nerves had settled and I'd
gotten comfortable with this
Wolfman guy - who otherwise,
I could sense, was a really
annoying person, a crack liar,
a manipulator, and problem as
out and out shyster too. (My
uncle, with a service job on
Wall Street, had made this
high-blown legal connection
for us - all the usual, 'crack
hotshot lawyer,' stuff, never
loses! My father took it all).
On the day of the trial, Mr.
Wolfman doesn't even show!
Instead, he sends some 25
year old lawyer-in-training,
new at the profession, reticent,
unassuming, non-brash, in his
place. I immediately detested
the guy, and after my father
had gotten done ripping him
a new butthole anyway, I
think he lost all interest in
the case. His light had
surely preceded his sound?
-
Things I remember? OK,
about all this, the scent
of cigar smoke lingers.
Wolfman sucked on one
constantly, in that unpleasant
movie manner - chomping,
pointing with it, gesturing.
With thick smoke hanging.
He even 'talked' cigar, if
such can be imagined. A
year or so later, I'd have a
piano teacher with that
same habit; a CPA, doing
people's taxes and books,
and giving piano lessons
as well, in his little CPA
garage-shed studio set up
out back - a nice stone
and brick house at the
corner of Lockwood
and Ridgedale. In that
situation, most everything
was covered in a heavy,
yellowish, coating. Even
the piano keys were
yellow, not white. I also
recall leather. Real office
leather - the serious and
old kind, chairs and seats
and bench-seat couch like
things to sit on - thick
wood and dark leather. A
huge desk, one you could
live in, if that was called
for. I guess maybe it was
all 1940's stuff, even 1930's.
Nothing at all like you see
now. In these offices the
word plastic had not been
invented. I remember seeing
this odd-looking contraption,
and asking about it. It was
an Edison Dictaphone, as
I recall it - a boxy thing,
again all nice wood, etc.,
with a cylindrical center,
and a goose neck think with
a black Bakelite ending that
fit the users mouth and lips.
The user (not me) would
speak or read into this tube
think over his or her mouth,
and some sort of ticker-tape
and etching would take place,
and whatever was just voiced
would have been 'recorded'
or turned into a paper-punched
record and a waxen cylinder.
I think that's how it went. A
'Dictation Machine,' I guess
is what it all later turned out
being called. I suppose a lot
of secretaries used to use them,
until outmoded. The machines.
I don't know about the secretaries.
Another funny thing, about 8
or so years later, I remember
finding one of these is the trash
somewhere. With my scant
knowledge and memory of
having seen one, I realized
what it was. I brought it home,
thinking it was worth a bunch,
but it turned it to be nothing,
and I can recall it, about 1966,
out in my yard, weathered, wet,
forgotten, in all sorts of weather;
and then finally just thrown out
once more as trash. Funny, how
technology just runs over itself
and leaves its trash behind. Think
of all the cast-off phones and
computers in mounds allover
in places like China, Egypt,
and Africa. What a world!
-
I don't know whatever happened
to Sol Wolfman; nor to his new
hire sidekick. I can't recreate
where his office was, except
to say Broad Street, Newark.
This was all vivid and definable
to me as memory and experience,
but the logistics and actual gambits
escape me. I was to be put on a
'witness' stand, though I'd really
'witnessed' nothing. That too
baffled me, as a misuse of words,
if nothing else. If something
'happens' to you, can you still
be said to have 'witnessed' it?
I didn't think so; other things
of the instant take over - you
witness nothing. It's others who
do the witnessing. Go pick
on them, you cigar-chomping
devil-hound you.
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