RUDIMENTS, pt. 569
(shut up and learn)
You hear a hundred things a
minute when you're young.
Later on you hear less and
less. 'The Past is a foreign
country', - 'History is a
nightmare from which I'm
trying to awake', or escape,
or whatever it is. What does
it possibly mean, any of it?
-
I sometimes sat around and
tried to figure what American
life was all about. It was the
only life I knew, and I stayed
with it based on my experiencing
it; even if other places were
different, for my purposes it
little mattered. Ball point pens
for instance, always amazed me
and I was always quite thankful
for them - except maybe when
by heat-accumulation, they
flamed out in my pocket in
that headlong rush of ink-glut
so well known. Once that ink
moves away from the tip,
there's no getting it back.
-
It often seemed that all the
things which others praised about
being here, or living here, were
the very things I found most
senseless. Because of that, I
remained aloof from judging.
maybe that's what made me so
safe and inquisitive - I never
knew what it was but it kept
me in good stead. Looking
back now, I think a lot of it was
a sort of role-play emptiness,
something in the way of putting
across a manner of blank, so
that others could then fill in
whatever image or idea-designs
they saw in that blank and just
make that out to be me. I seemed
to have a knack for having a
way of people liking me. As
a kid, I mean - before that
adult onset of harshness and
fixity. Some people constantly
talked, to make themselves
heard - I was always silent,
to have more power.
-
When you're young, a lot of
things get thrown at you - all
that civic and happiness stuff.
Boy Scouts. Little League.
Church clubs. And of course
the ever-present hard-press of
schooling, whatever it's really
supposed to be. Like the cash
and money system, I don't
think, if you really dig, that
there's anything there at all.
Any independent thinking
that you may do about it gets
shut down by age 6 anyway,
and from then on you're cooked.
You're taught that there's one
way of looking at things and
that's that. I always thought
differently - I can recall way
back in 1st or 2nd grade, inside
School 5, all the kids lined
up at that wall by the office
of the Principal and staff,
for the rest-rooms there
somewhere (long time ago,
hard to remember), we were
at the water-fountain at the
opposite, facing wall, and there
was hardly any water-pressure.
Just a dribble, and Mr. Sigatura,
the janitor guy back then, and
in response to some adult's
question about the lack of
water pressure (I guess one
of the teacher's asked), he
replied 'Yeah, Blue Monday,
wash day, everyone's at home
doing laundry.' Meaning that
there was a large demand and
draw for water that day, so the
overall water pressure was down.
Maybe that was true, maybe not;
but as a little kid it stuck with
me that daily life at some level
could just be worked out as
a practical device, with an
excuse for each occurrence
and a bland acceptance too
of whatever goes on. I was
only 6, and it already seemed
all so mundane.
-
Two big milestones for me,
as a kid, were that I knew two
kids, in each case, responsible
for the only real excitement.
That's how wholly boring most
of the local stuff was; occasional
accidents and tragedies excepted.
My friend who had been a real
Madison Avenue terror (a local
street, not New York), one year
went down to Florida with his
family, a vacation somewhere,
and had this horrible accident,
falling off a pool water-slide or
something, down to the concrete
below and smashing his head.
He came back much later, blind.
And all his terror was gone too;
he was just a sad, nice, newly
blinded kid, having lost all that
fury that he seemed to always
have before. Anyway, that was
an example of tragedy, for me.
The other two things which I
first mentioned, were fires. One
was at the end of my street, a
place called Monarch Cabinets,
right next to Abbe Lumber, at
the curve in the road. I was in
fourth grade that year, and that
blaze went on well into the night.
I knew what had initiated the
blaze, and who, but it was top
secret info, never settled. (No,
it wasn't me; sleuths). It had
not really been malicious; they
were playing with matches,
lighting stuff out back by the
boxcar siding, and the sawdust
pile at the rear of the loading
dock doors (wood), and the
sawdust, probably infused too
with shellacs and varnishes or
whatever, took up, and they
got scared and just ran off,
letting it accelerate, I guess.
We were there, a few hours
later, as was most of Inman
Ave. that night, and - what
else - we were cheering the
fire on, really boisterous and
enjoying the varnish blazes,
and the snap and crackle of the
spreading fires destroying
the structure. Some lady
behind us finally, I guess,
couldn't take it any more,
just blurted out at us to shut
up, and she said, 'You boys
wouldn't be cheering so hard
if this fire meant your father
would no longer have a job.'
Uh oh; she really let us have
it. Turned out her husband
worked there, they lived in
Perth Amboy, it probably
would mean his job, and
they'd come back to watch
the place burn. Nice going,
fellas. The other fire was
another friend, in a fit of
pique over something, lit
a fire in the corner-edging
of one of the portables that
used to be out back of the
school - wooden classroom
structures, nothing portable
about them at all. Anyway,
he too ran, hoping school
wouldn't open the next day,
but nothing much really ever
happened except to that one,
small, exterior corner of the
portables. However it occurred
that little blaze was reported
swiftly and the fire guys put
it out. Those 'portables' stayed
there for some 15 years, I'm
guessing, maybe more. I hated
them - ugly as sin, barracks
like in look and cheapness,
one whole side (the fire side)
with no windows at all. They
were two sixth grades, I think,
and a fifth grade, stretched in a
row, with like a cloakroom-room
or ante-area between each, and
a connection to the rest of the
older School 4. Real crummy
stuff, with that horrible gray
asbestos shingling on the
outside. Whoever thought
all that up had aesthetics up
their butt and obviously gave
no thought to the quality of a
kid's surroundings in relation
to learning and inquisitiveness.
What a dull world. And low
water-pressure too.
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