RUDIMENTS, pt. 706
(bananas)
I was always a crazy guy.
I knew it, but it never
bothered me. You need
proof? I hated forks. I
hated the way things
always rolled off them
and then the way there
was always some adult
ready to tell you 'Peas
aren't the kind of food
you eat with the fork.'
Huh? Say that again?
In fact, besides just plain
disliking eating - as I
still do, the dislike, not
the eat - I hated eating
in public. I would do most
anything not to have people
see me eating, or be around
me when I ate. Grade-school
of course kills that immediately.
Everything they have you
doing is communal, from the
first day, when you have to put
your kindergarten heads down
as one and all rest together.
The freaking Commies could
not have better infiltrated kids'
head back then, in the 1950's.
We were used. Hiding from
atomic bombs by going 'under'
our desks so as to be safe there
from flying glass? What moronic
cretinous teacher ever dreamed
that one up? Maybe they should
just have had us DRINK molten
glass instead, as practice, before
we were dematerialized. No more
as consumers of Fruit Loops. Too
bad; just Fruit Loops as teachers
were left.
-
I can't remember the first time
I met the priests and all from
St. Andrew's Church, but I do
remember it as a small church
right on Avenel Street, with
the nice, white rectory there
too, and large, arching trees.
There was a phone booth, on
the curb out front too. You could
phone in your confession to the
fast-talking Father Egan. (OK,
that last bit's not true). Anyway,
those guys eventually ended
up playing a real lousy part
in my life, screwing it up
pretty well. Oddly enough,
I remember when I got creamed
by that train, all those months
in the hospital, none of them
ever came around. Probably
just as well. I'd already been
given attendant last rites, I
was told, twice. Both times
the magic failed, and I stayed
alive, little sinning bastard
that I was. I guess. I needed
all that? What the heck did
they think I'd been up to?
-
You spend all that time comatose
and when you do finally wake
back up (it takes a long time
and the whole re-entry thing is
pretty fogged up and strange.
Voices. Lights. Things that
resonate and then go fast and
then go slow), nothing's the
same, and you sense that it
can't ever be. I remember
coming back to it and the
first thing I somehow checked
was the language, seeing if I
could still communicate and
that the words were still the
same. That's pretty weird, isn't
it? I sure thought it was, and
it showed to me the oddball
nature of words and how they
go into shaping our very world.
Like, say, 'Moonlight.' What
the heck is that? Why do we
even call it that. The Moon
has no light. It's a premise;
just a reflected off-glow from
some other object, and that
object we, in turn, claim
to call as the 'originator' of
that light. Man that's a lot
of work for just words to
get across - so think how
much of the invisible work
is NOT done by the words -
which are jest 'suggesting' -
but more done by our almost
unlimited power of building
things from the merest
suggestion. Like our whole
world! Every word we use
has tons of suggested baggage
dragging all along behind it.
Like crazy Lego blocks
of construction.
-
Anyway, there were all these
priest guys - old names, some
dead or sick one they kept asking
us to pray for, who used to be
around but was no longer. I guess
he died, because they stopped
asking about him or making
mention. Some priests came and
went; young guys, Pedata, new
priests, ladies swooning over
these nice young men. Give
me a break, as it turned out - if
they were groping the altar boys
they were chasing these newly
married war-wives up and down
Avenel Street and Madison Ave.
It's pretty disgusting how no one
ever owns up to the way things
really go. My neighbor, a girl
named Linda, was a year younger
than me, say 10, and this Pedata
guy, at the church fair that year
(it used to be held on the grass
at the rectory, on Avenel Street),
I remember he spent the entire
time singing sweetly to her,
some stupid 50's song about,
'When I go to sleep I don't go to
sleep, I go and dream deep, about
Linda.' Yeah, really. That was a
song sometime back then, and this
creep was singing this crap to a
10-year old girl. Day after day.
heard the shit with my own ears.
-
I've said before the entire
societal world is a crock. If
that's not a prove-my-point
indicator then I don't know
what is. They soon enough
abandoned that little church
and erected a nasty-looking
hulk of 'modern' church on
the back lot; it's still there.
The only thing churches
seem ever really to provide
for, forget the souls and the
preaching - which is all turned
over to gibberish now anyway -
is ample parking and good tar.
The whole world is a crock.
Have I mentioned that?
-
My Avenel home-life represented
nothing to me. It just was. I mostly
hung around to see what sorts
of things were going to develop.
I kept mum about my real ideas
and intentions. There wasn't too
much that made a whole lot of
sense. I'd sit around eating cereal,
and slicing little banana slices to
put on it; but then I'd start thinking
about the banana peel instead,
wondering why people were
always saying they were going to
'slip' on one, and to 'watch out'
you don't slip on one, etc. They
never seemed slippery to me at all.
I couldn't get that. In fact, more
than a lot of things, they seemed
really primitive, like a throwback
to really early Earth-time, when
foods and things had to grow
protective covers around them,
to prevent what? And that vague
mix of yellow, and the inside turn
to a whitish ore than a yellowish
creamy tone. And the way they
ripened, from a sot of odd but
telling form of green. Together
with that weird shape - really
strange thing, that banana is.
What was the God story on
that one? Linda?
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