RUDIMENTS, pt. 935
('Mmm-mm, just the way I like them!')
I've tried looking at this
scene, from lots of angles,
and have told some tales a
few times. I do, however,
love the re-visit, and always
think of something new, or
some other way of putting
it. Experiences abound, and
my workman's tool is 'Words.'
-
I slept those first few nights
numbly, and heavily dressed,
on what passed for, I guess,
someone's old couch. My own
trip with the rental moving
truck was yet about 2 weeks
off. I managed to eat by just
making stops around - there
were diners and roadside
things, along the highway
(Route 6 and Route 17, with
20 miles intervening), and, of
course, Elmira. I'd heard early
on about a 'country mile' but
remained unsure of what it
meant, and actually I still
remain so. I think the gist was
that everything in the 'country'
is far away, relatively, by miles,
that the ease of travel makes a
country mile really nothing at
all. OR, it may mean the other
side of this, that everything is
forever. I was never sure. (I
guess I ought to look it up here;
easy, now). In either case, people
flew around up there in their
cars, at top speeds, speeds I'd
consider dangerous. They
thought nothing of it. My
nearest farmer-neighbor guy
had a '66 Ford Galaxie, in red,
and with it he, and his wife
too, if she had it out, drove
at high rates of breakneck
speeds on those oddball country
roads - which I'm sure they
knew 'like the back of'' their
hands. Still, unsettling.
-
Driving fast like that, for the
most ordinary of situations, was
never anything that attracted me.
Especially up there; I liked to
look around, mosey slowly
through places and scenery,
looking at farmhouses and old
out-buildings and barns. The
most interesting stuff, in fact,
was the dead and decayed of
30 years back - there were
still, then, a lot of Depression
era crumbly buildings and old
homes and shacks still cluttering
along the landscapes. Going back
now, that's one of the things I
notice - how all that's lacking,
and gone by rehabilitation. It's
like erasing the goodness out of
the and, removing the memory
status of so many things. It's
no wonder no one realizes
anything these days, The past
is gone! Long live the past!
-
So that first night or two there
was a bit nerve-wracking. I
listened for things, but there
wasn't anything - not even the
odd creaks and settlings you'd
figure to hear. Just a dead, bleak,
tonal silence, and a sun-up too.
I've not yet mentioned Billy.
Billy (or 'Super-Bill,' as I later
called him) was a puppy I'd gotten
at the Rahway Kindness Kennels
the last moment before I left the
day before. He'd ridden the
entire trip (very poorly heated
VW) in the front driver's seat
with me, snuggled under my
coat, at my chest. All fine.
Bill turned out to be a grand
dog to have - a Beagle mix,
maybe; but scampy too. He
seemed phased by nothing,
and just took it all in stride,
the ride, the darkness, the house,
and finding places to snooze.
It was all probably Heaven
for him. The only real thing
was I'd neglected to prepare
for him, and thus had no food,
nor even a water bowl. I stopped
at a roadside market somewhere
and solved all that. Billy was
never a problem. The country
and farm life seemed it was
going to be right up his alley.
-
Anyway, the first few days and
nights were surely baffling to
me and filled with surprises.
One being 'Smell.' Each of the
buildings I went into - the old
barn the barn-siding milk-room,
the lean to area with the old cars
sunk-on, and the old too-shed
and work -barn, they each were
separate and each held their own
aroma of 'Old.' I mean 1920's old;
stubborn and persistent. There was
nothing of the modern day there.
The barn work-area room, with its
uncertain 'machineries' and things
left behind, still had a country-photo
calendar on the wall - June, 1957
it was open to. I guess no one had
the gumption to change it since.
Flipping the months over now
would mean nothing, and I just
decided to enjoy June 1957, even
though it was along decade plus
off. What mattered in such a place?
The barn itself has, somehow over
the years, been half-transformed
from an actual 'barn, to a barn
with an upstairs apartment, instead
of a hayloft. The unfinished walls
and doorways, all in place, needed
spackling, finished and paint, yes,
but it was all there - barracks like
too and with its own, fine, indoor
bathroom, and spacious. (I found
out later that one of Parmenter's
ideas, never realized, was to have
a hunters' cabin rental-gunk setting
underway here, garnering some
by the week payments for lodgings
and food, etc. Sort of a B&B for
hunters; way ahead of its time.
Except, it had never come to
fruition and instead had come to
me! Alas, without heat, it was
bone-chilling cold, for u (Billy
and myself). He immediately
loved it, bounding the stairs as
only a frisky dog can do, and
luxuriating in space on the bare,
open, floor. In that same, large,
bathroom, there was a window
shelf, with a long view out. And,
to my surprise, there was a large
pile of Arizona Highways magazines.
That threw me. I'd more have expected
hunter's stashes of porno mags or
something, but these were odd
scenes of big highways out west,
with all those mesa and high plains
and way-distant vistas, and stories
and info about all sorts of Arizona
things. Very baffling to me.
-
Everything was weird, and just a
bit, it seemed, off. Even some of the
tales i'd get about this Parmenter
guy, or family, and some other
guy too - from the house - named
Drew Kobel, or maybe Kobble. The
way others talked about them, they
were sort of a half-pass between
outlandish and nasty eccentrics, or
just ne'er do well local criminals.
THe fitst night I got there, very first,
my VW was about to give it up; I'd
made one or two repairs along the
five-hour way, and they worked
enough to keep the distributer and
points operative, but just as I
arrived the entire thing went flooey,
lost timing, whatever. I made it
to the Guthrie place, on the corner
up the road some, and bailed - he
was a sort of half-mechanic and
half-guru. I knocked on the door,
explained my plight, and he and his
wife gladly came out, and an hour
later I was all fixed up - him
laughing has ass off at a 'Volkswagen.
Up here?' In the intervening hour,
as we talked and I told them I was
about to take into the old Parmenter
place and settle in - that's when
I heard a lot of the stuff. For the
first time anyway.
-
His wife was real nice, and to me too,
especial. Loved the puppy, gave us
some food and made coffee too.
Later on, from some of the other
people, I heard that story about
her - I've re-told here once or
twice in earlier episodes; but it's
always funny. Lots of the other
church-pride local ladies had
ostracized her - heck, hated her.
Just a week or two before I had
arrived, she'd gone to one of those
local circle church-social things.
Why she went, I didn't know;
the local church-hen prude thing
wasn't her style at all. Anyway,
there was a big tray of pastries and
cruellers and things, and she,
reaching for a crueller, blurts out,
'Ohh! Long and hard, just the
way I like them!' The other
ladies went nutso at the bare
infraction. Good story though.
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