RUDIMENTS, pt. 763
(just start talking......)
Only days later, when you
don't even know any longer
what day it is, do you finally
get down to sleep - long
and frightful the midnights
that pass. You can't answer
what is not asked.
-
New York set me free and
tortured me at the same time.
I was as invisible as could be,
yet everywhere I went I was
plainly visible, and people
talked to me. There's a hanging
tree, two of them, in fact, that
I learned of. And the spot where
Nathan Hale was hanged also.
All that miserable 'one life to
give for my country' bullshit.
The guy was already a spectral
ghost the day he was born.
There used to be a little plaque
about all that on the lawn
aside City Hall Park, where
that curious collection of
trees was. And still is, but
back then they were just
trees along the passage,
and people frequented. As
it is now, the plaque is gone
and you can't get near the place
as a normal human being; it's
all off-limits and high security
and cop boxes and check points.
I don't know what they're trying
to prevent, because it's pretty
obvious to me, everywhere in
this country, and not just here,
terrorism has already won. I
don't even know what people
are talking about with all their
homeland security crap. It's
so obvious to me that it's
laughable. Everybody's a
geek. That terror scare thing
ought to be well long over
as a tactic. I used to have an
Ivers and Johnson .22 pistol
in my jacket, that I walked
around with on me all the
time. It was one of the best
things I liked about Winter -
thick coats and all those
pockets and places to put
things. Back then it wasn't
like now, with all those little
fake-man types all apologetic and
by-the-book about everything,
running their little towns and
places like file cabinets under
'R' for repetition, and 'N' for no,
making sure it all stays in order.
That's not, any of it, what was
in the original cards that real
soldiers and initial patriots
fought over. Try leaving home
and running off through the
woods, White Plains and
Brooklyn and Scotch Plains.
None of those town-hall
homeboys would have a clue,
fearful little garden-hosers that
they are. Go bang your head
on a hanging tree, and see what
something really real feels like.
-
To notice; I am afraid. Afraid
I will die in five minutes. After
that point, which passage is all
annulled by silence, no one
recalls you and all this is over
and no one will remember
who you even were. The old
guy in Columbia Crossroads?
Him, with all stories of tarring
roads and hating electrical things.
His wide hands slapping the
hood of a car, just to make a
point? Or old John Harkness,
in his 80's, hanging himself
in his barn because he hated
this miserable world and what
it was doing to him? 'One day
the sun won't rise. Won't you
be surprised.' That's from
1982; Rome's Roads. Back
then even, they still tarred
and feathered people; I saw
it done. It's not pretty, but I
never got the sense of it because
the references are all too old
now. Tar? Feathers? Upon a
human frame? What's the point?
-
'Well by God, if you want to
see something, ask for it after
you first say what it is you
wish to see. If you're going
to tar and then feather a guy,
determine what the image that
is supposed to call up for you
and for others is. Otherwise, all
the effort is lost, and down the
drain, and the poor guy's
body and skin is scarred for
life once that all comes off.
Damn! That's a ghastly way
of punishment.'
-
By the end of 1967, my time
exact right then, there were
some four hundred eighty six
troops in Vietnam - and
that's just troops; it's not
counting the thousands of
secret plants, undercover
mission-people, and top
brass, etc. A good portion
of them - not the white-boy,
gung-ho, 'on a mission for
my penny-loafers and chinos'
type of 'patriotic' pushers -
were poorer, often black,
and caught in the ringer types
who had no others means of
avoiding the debilitation.
For the others, it was all
Christian, God, Freedom
'tally-ho while we kill the
enemy' stuff. Ten thousand
boys died that year; 'on
'our' side. Yep. The streets
were full of the power and
the fury of the equally
distressed and perverted
opposition. Stalemate and
checkmate; no one went
anywhere, and no issue was
ever moved off the vile dead
center of 'conflict and anger.'
With the Tet offensive later,
there was finally some real
movement on push-back, and
that, along with the complete
degradation of the quality of
the American troops, drugs,
sabotage, fragging and the
otherwise complete breakdown
of whatever in the world was
supposed to have been going on,
at least spelled the beginning
of the end. We laugh about it
now ('Good Morning,Vietnam!
Good Riddance Robin Williams!).
-
Not all activity is bad activity;
not all is good. And sometimes
it's neither one nor the other, and
that where the stringy parts begin,
that when it gets tedious to make
distinguishing marks that mean
differences. And basically that's
what life is all about and that's
what those old French guys meant
when they started going on about
'tabula rasa' and all that. I've
heard that called any number
of things, and they all mean to
say the same : clean slate, clear
table, etc. The idea is that each
Human is born with open and
clear channels and that there
is no hindrance from any past
or previous and all doorways
are open to everyone. That was a
crock then, and even more now.
The real world, the one that
recruits people so as to deaden,
beat them down, and eventually
silence them - that's the one
that people now willingly join,
and get happy about it too. It's
a funny world - bootlace and
bootblack, subservience and
interdiction, following orders
and getting things done. I've
always been the opposite of
any of that : I go where the
silence is, and I just
start talking........
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