RUDIMENTS, pt. 777
(no telling for taste)
The barn I had was unused
for some time when I got there.
On the wall of the little work
office hung an old calendar
from 1958. That was pretty
startling to me. It was some
bucolic cow-scene. It was, to
be exact, 14 years out of date.
So much for that. There were
also one or two of the lamest
pin-up girl sort of photos
you'd ever wish to see. I
never changed anything, and
just left everything in place,
and as it was. Suited me just
fine. Upstairs in this barn, what
normally would have gone as
a hayloft, whoever it was had
nearly finished, but never did
a large and spacious 4-room
apartment. Walls and doorways
and all, and a bathroom. The
bathroom worked, and was
all hooked up. I asked about
all this later, and was told this
Parmenter guy had plans for
this to all be a hunting-seasonal,
rental, crash-pad, for visiting
huntsmen. I guess it never
really got rolling. I suppose
it could have worked - but
it may have had a spacious
bathroom, yet, without any
stove or kitchen amenities I
wasn't sure what was being
expected or who the big cook
was supposed to be, feeding
these guys. If it was the 'lady'
of the house, and if meals came
with the rental, that all would
have been a tall order. I wished
I could have seen it in operation.
As it was, I never did a thing
with it, except use it to lounge
around in (one or two nasty
pieces of old furniture), gaze
out the windows at the expanse,
and just let it all be. That was
part of my problem, the lack
of initiative that 'poverty' causes.
I was way out there, with no means
of really doing anything, except
finding ways to work. Lumber
and all the fixings for finishing
any of this up called for liquid
funds. I had none, and if I had,
the resultant construction and
finishing product would probably
have been less than desirable.
I wasn't real sharp on the
construction and finishing ends
of things. That was part of my
problem - I was always so darn
cerebral that I never got into the
down and dirty aspects to do
much anything about them. I
sometimes thought of myself
as one of those guys, or cartoon
characters, who live in a small
room, staying there until it's too
messy and cramped, and - instead
of instituting a clean-up - just
leaves everything behind and
goes and finds another room to
start a new mess in. Maybe not
really, but that's how I thought.
-
I've never been able to be
comfortable with myself, even
out there with a new, blank, slate -
no one knowing anything of or
about me, and me being able to
kind of just say whatever crap I
wanted. It still didn't work,
because I was me, irrefutably so.
I had nothing, and had no new
coat to wear. I took refuge, then,
in a combination of hiding and
doing nothing.
-
That one guy, Jim Watkins, who'd
recently come out of the crazy-house
in Montrose or wherever it was up
there, he became a devilish side-kick
for a while, but only a while. I sensed
danger, and I smelled alcohol too, and
then one day it all came true as he
snapped and wrecked a room and
punched me around, heaving a living
room chair on me too. Bad scene. But
at least that ended that. His wife, I'd
see around, at about 342 pounds back
then, she was living around in some
big old house, a few rooms of it
anyway - but he was, after that,
just gone and out of my picture.
They had one little kid between them
and she had that too, and a Valiant,
about a 1970, she drove around in.
Quiet as a mouse, tiptoeing. But, as
big as she was, there was always
noise too. Soon enough, all that
jut drifted away, thankfully.
-
People got talked about up there
for most anything. Quirks, bad
habits, sexual predilections, ways
of working or talking or walking.
You had to be careful, for once
something got on you, it stuck.
I don't know how they ever
referred to me, but why would I,
unless they were to tell me.
And I didn't care anyway. I think
back on lot of this now and just
get amused. There were no 'big'
stores, as we think of them. That's
pretty amazing, to be able to say
I lived in a place where the
idea of dumb-ass strip-mall kinds
of drive-in stores didn't exist.
There wasn't any of that McDonald's
or Burger King crap around; the
only 'drive-in' they had was
some lame-ass ice-cream place
called 'The Tasty-Freeze.' On
Route 14, just out of Troy. I
may have gone in there once,
but it scared the heck out of me.
I wasn't sure what it was, but
they all treated it like the Ritz and
I saw it as a dumpy Carvel or
Dairy Queen. De Gustibus, or
'No telling for taste' or whatever
all that smarty-pants talk is.
There was a place further up the
road, in a small nowhere called
Gillette (they pronounced it as
'Jillit' - not the razor-people
way). My father, whenever he
had the family visiting, would
go there - it was a glorified
roadside stand, but it was a
building - not quite a diner,
and not a restaurant either -
anyway, they had a serving
window there, on the gravel
side of the lot, where they'd
sell, out the window, some
amazing amount of hot dogs
and fries, like 12 each or
something crazy, for TWO
dollars. My father would often
get in the station wagon, be gone
for a half-hour, and the return
with piping hot, crazy food for
like 10 people. It was amazing.
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