RUDIMENTS, pt. 685
(the roar, yes, was deafening)
As I first got to Elmira, I knew
no one, obviously, except those
few with whom I worked. They
were each their own strange cases.
At every turn, people were saying
things and making reference to
items from a way of life I thought
was long over and gone. You
know how it is when you think
you've advanced past something,
and all of a sudden it's right there
again. I was back in that same
morass of people making TV
references, old movie-star names,
(Xavier Cougat? 'Who dat?').
There was some lady there who
kept telling me I looked exactly
like someone (name forgotten, of
the movie guy she'd say; for now
anyway). Things like that kind of
annoyed me, for I hadn't traveled
250 miles, and then foolishly left
the confines of my old farmhouse
hideaway (more compromise on my
part) to fall right back into the
same sort of slop I'd grown up
amidst. Who the heck were there
people anyway, and that had they
been doing - or not doing -
the past 10 years while the world
had been in upheaval from all
that crap? I'd sit there sometimes
stunned, just thinking to myself
about writing a story with this
as the main feature - a guy
somewhere, and along his way,
unwittingly thinking he's escaping
from some horrid present he's
detested, getting himself together,
and then waking to realize he's
somehow stepped back into a trap
of the same and worse clinches as
before. Oh, it was a screamable
degradation. The people were
either dull, or crazy. And even
the occasional outsider who blew
in was no better : we had a guy
from the Bronx, weirdest new
input in the world. Every day he'd
go on and on about how sore his
'dick' was because of having it
up all night with his equally crazy
(and sore?) girlfriend. Where in the
world did they make these people?
Bronx, or Elmira - all crazies.
These people were all different,
in a different way too. They had,
living in the 'country,' as it were,
but in Elmira, lost all that hands-on
touch of the land and agriculture
and Nature and - by the alienation -
had simply turned into regular people
in a small-town, poorly urban, tiny
burg. It was all weird. They had
city habits, in the way people get
when the are living amidst all the
retail and commercial stuff, a store
at every corner, business streets
with apartments above, city parks,
walkways, meters, theaters, all
that stuff. Nothing like country
living, but maybe 4 minutes away!
No wonder there was a mix-up
of values and activities. I myself
felt as if I'd been chucked into a
washing machine, or a dryer, caught
spinning, whirling, with strange
noises all around me, buttons and
zippers clanking, timer bells and
beepers going off. I almost no
longer knew what was going on.
At first anyway. I mostly bicycled
everywhere. The city streets,
outlying, were lined with massive
old homes from the 1890 era,
gigantic wedding-cake home
designs; porches, extra buildings
out back, wide turnarounds and
driveways and garages, all sorts
of weird things - and where, a
hundred years ago ONE family
lived, there'd be now five mailboxes
and five electric meters and doorbells,
a misery-inducing swarm of poor,
loud kids and people, parents who
mostly looked like Ozark mountain
cast-offs, often with crooked gaits,
bad limbs, cigarette hacks, enormous
women, rail-thin men, kids with
buzz-cuts and filthy tee shirts.
Everything was topsy-turvy and
in my face. We had one of those
guys, in fact, working in Whitehall
Printing - he was our packing
and wrapping guy, and occasionally
did deliveries too. There wasn't
a tooth in his mouth, he weighed
about a hundred pounds, was
maybe 40, had about 6 kids, a
car down on its springs and so
far out of alignment it looked
to be going sideways even
when it was driving straight.
Which I - of course - took
as a magnificent metaphor for
everyone there. Every life
I'd see looked like that.
-
The best part of Elmira as -
in and of itself - to me,
was, once again, all the
Civil War stuff. The war
itself had never touched
Elmira, not by a long shot,
but it had its regiments and
volunteers and all that, and
two graveyards in which
every one of those young
dead gents was buried, named
and identified with marker and
monument, battles, dates, and
death, along with family and
name. Plus, of course, it having
been the 'Andersonville' of the
North, Elmira had its prison
encampment and rows and its
rows of dead Confederate dead
prisoner soldiers. It was quite
stunning and brought it all home
to see. It was very tangible;
man o' man, quite. You never
see the dead or sense their wars
and battles until they're seen
that way, in all their rotten
privilege. I used to wonder,
in such a war situation as that
had been, how long it was,
how many years, while men,
one by one, still came stumbling
home, by surprise or not, to be
found out as still alive, wounded
and maimed as it may have been,
or not. Unrecognizable, but a
neighbor nonetheless. 'Hi. I used
to be Jared Vorhees. Can you recall?'
-
Life has corridors and lanes, with
all the collected echoes of what's
behind - if, that is, Time is a straight
line at all. I rather doubt it; more
again like that washer/dryer reference,
all sorts of things, going circular, and
all still in action. I know, to me, at
that place in time, if even that was
real, it was all splashing up at me
at once - the War, the graves, stories,
people, weird guys from the Bronx,
quaint ladies standing next to things.
The roar, yes, was deafening.
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