RUDIMENTS, pt. 725
('ain't got time for the pain') pt. 2
One time about 1980,
I took my parents, by car,
to a Yankee game. My
mother was always a big
fan, surprisingly. I don't
think my father cared
either way, but the story
here gets to be, soon
enough, about his
characteristic intensity.
As an aside, at my mother's
funeral, 2004 or whatever
it was, I was asked to
eulogize her, and, among
other comments, I related
her affection for the Yankees.
And then I (cleverly?) added,
alas, she plays for the Angels
now. (The Angels are, or were,
another baseball team). It
went over real well; people
thought it was cool. She
had a favorite player too, I
forget the name, through the
1990's - no, I remember,
Tino Martinez. Anyway, in
the usual bustle, we got to the
stadium crowd, the entry gate
and all. My mother, as was
usual, was made nervous by
the crowd and noise, all the
vociferous sports fans milling
about, talking and the rest. My
father was on his usual high alert,
for any challenge or infraction
to which to react. Well, as luck
would have it, a small fight
breaks out sort of alongside
of where we were - two guys
who had had too much beer,
going at each other over
the size of a baseball, or what
Babe Ruth said to Schmanky
Jones in 1932 when they were
on the same team together. I
have no idea, but my father
took it as a challenge to him,
and dove right into the little
melee - to break it up or add
to it, I never found out. My
mother starts wailing, and the
whole scene breaks down, until
finally security came over and
stopped it all. We managed to
get my father away from the
scene without trouble. I said,
'Dad, you've got to get over this;
not everything that occurs need
be your concern....' etc. Shocking
words, coming from me, since my
entire life has been about sticking
my fork into other people's food,
sort of.
-
One time, later in life, my father
and mother were visiting California.
My father rents a car and decides
he wants to see Mexico. He rents
the car, drags my mother along,
and they do the border crossing
at Tijuana, wherever that wide,
multi-lane crossing is. My father had
rented the car with the stipulation
of no international insurance, no
crossing the border, etc. But, he
didn't care about that; gets to the
border, actually makes the crossing
and then (my mother related the
story to me. My father was still
too angry to talk about it), gets
pulled over - no paperwork for
being there, etc., etc. The Mexican
cop (which cop my mother said
was a nice enough fellow, until
my father got him all flustered),
takes my father, after some
intense argumentation by good
old Dad, out of the car, writes
him up, gives him the fines and
paperwork, etc, and tells him to
follow. To the headquarters of
the Tijuana Border Patrol local
cop-shop. Whatever. By this time,
once again, my mother is wailing,
my father is furious. They get
to the headquarters and he starts
his rant, refuses to pay, etc. My
mother's afraid they're going to
shoot, him or her with him. They
actually lock them up for a few
hours; he cools down, they talk,
he coughs over the American
money, and they heave him out
of Mexico. Back in the US of A
soon enough. He always claimed
it was nothing but a shakedown.
it was nothing but a shakedown.
-
That's a real story. I did not
embellish, nor fabricate, just
in case one of you California
border know-it-alls is already
busy looking up the protocols
and procedures of the border.
Dad's dead, and Mom, as I said,
plays now for the angels, so I
can't much do any follow-up
or verification. Take it or leave
it. Or maybe try it for yourself.
-
So, at most every turn my life
was peculiar, from the start. I
began this section, the previous
chapter, with some notes about
timing, or my being somewhat
'out' of time. It's a serious matter,
but also very mysterious, in
so many ways. One has to begin
to wonder about 'chance' effects
and how that happens. Like the
train wreck - think of it. That's
some pretty spectacular and
almost cosmically precise timing,
or bad timing, whichever, to be
in Mom's car, in a snowstorm,
skidding over railroad tracks
at a crossing with no gates, and
perfectly timing it to meet a train.
I'd have a better 'chance' of things,
for the good, I guess, then, if I were
to simply proclaim, as an 8-year
old, 'Ma, the next box of Cracker
Jacks I get is going to have a
thousand dollar bill in it instead
of some dumb, plastic toy.' Of
course, if I had announced to
my mother that she was about to
run smack into a train, she'd again
have started wailing, and that
would have maybe changed the
entire sequence of time, enough
anyway for the train to pass
without us there. It gives, too,
a whole meaning to the phrase,
'I ain't got time for the pain.'
-
Sometimes, terrible moments
pass in the blink of an eye; other
times, they seem to hang around
forever. I got somehow into a
mesh of both extremes, and
have never gotten out of it.
Timing is only one aspect of
it, for good or bad. There are
a few spectacular moments
in my life I've never been
able to get past, and the
therapy, for me, has been
always to create, keep sailing
right past it all, writing it all
down, as best I can, and never
look it in the eye. I mythologize
every moment until it looks
more true that when it was
true. Part of me still resides,
like that sports guy, in a large,
almost empty, psychic room
with just a few things of merit
but a lot to look at, even if it
is on a tiny screen-of-self.
You know it's always said
that people either see the 'glass'
as half full, or half empty; one
or the other. I see both and, if
you really think about it, in
either case that glass is twice
as big as it needs to be.
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