RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,007
('let's leave that for Tolstoy')
I never had anything to hold water
let alone to turn it to wine. All my
dreams were just thoughts; some of
their times were better than others.
Once I'd gotten that Draft stuff out
of my head, I felt a little better, and
then Nixon did some lottery number
thing, and I realized I didn't have to
worry any more, I never even listened
to the numbers. All those puppy-head
young boys running to join before they
got drafted, or however all that went.
I didn't figure for any of it. It's hard
to realize now, and funny too, these
years later, how many SS Chevelles
and Boss 309 Mustangs, GTO's and
the rest, were all put up on blocks
and stored away in Daddy's garage
while the kid did his service. And
the ones, yep, the ones who never
came back live, well, what a sell-off
then there was. Or, in honor of the
dead, the grieving girlfriend got the
car, or the next youngest brother.
Whatever; it all was some mighty
sad stories stored up. Out in
the other places anyway; in the
city proper I never heard much
about Vietnam dead guys. It was
all turmoil, every day, like a
Halloween gone wild. On acid.
Crazed out of minds, nutty, out
of time.
-
It all just went on. There were
black guys by then, in the streets,
madder than Hell about every
little thing. I still couldn't figure
that out, most of it, because the
most radical of them always
wanted to look like businessman.
There'd be guys handing out the
newspaper - Muhammed Speaks,
or any black-revolution breakaway
kill-Whitey stuff, and they'd all
look like Martin Luther King or
Ralph Abernathy. Suits and ties.
Hats. Shined shoes. I wondered
what exactly they were emulating.
Last time I ever saw a 'revolutionary'
that revolutionary was pockmarked
with bullets holes and burned up
too. In mountain jungle fatigues,
holding a rifle, with a belt of
hand grenades. Nothing st all
like these guys, who more resembled
wanting to be black Elks. Funny,
ther was a book about back then
too, entitled 'Black Elk Speaks.'
That was kind'a funny, but it had
nothing to do with that. It was
Native American stuff, about
the cheating and killing and
murdering and stealing the white
man did taking over this continent.
You know, yeah, this one, USA, if
you can remember that place.
-
I always felt like we'd crossed
some bug threshold by that point.
The country was already lost. No
one gave two shits though, as long as
they had their stuff and could keep
buying all the crap they wanted.
The '70s, man they sucked worse
then the end of the 60's, and all
they were were the culminating
logic lines of the 1960's coming
to their endings, with a smidge
of violence added in, for fun.
All these weird ladies started
getting new tits; that was a big
medical sub-practice just getting
underway; birth-control pills,
in that odd little circular dispenser
they were kept in. I never, nor ny
girlfriend either, had any dealings
with that stuff, but friends' girlfriends
would often have them; if they
stayed over or something, they'd
likely have it out on the dresser
or something - it was weird.
Kind of a badge of honor to shoe
you were sexually free and active
too. Big deal. It was word too, in
that, as I remember, the most
unexpectedly milquetoast kinds
of girls would have these. I'd scratch
my head, thinking, she has steady
sex? God-damn and how's that?
Yep, very strange times.
-
There was some sort of family
that made a TV show, week after
week, of their own, miserable,
fucked-over lives, as a family,
in Los Angeles. They were the
'Louds.' Believe that. The Loud
Family, was their name, and the
show used the name too - no one
laughed or even thought it was
funny. The whole country was
dead-dope. They had a fearsomely
nasty gay son, part of the plot
was about his 'coming out.' Some
half-lecherous daughter; the father
was sleeping around; the mother
was cranky and nasty. Cigarette
smoke was everywhere, always.
They had about 12 cars, a big
backyard swimming pool area,
fancy house, food, boring habits,
no philosophy or learning. It was
all glossed over, and I think it
was meant to be an adventure of
some sort, maybe even the first
reality show thing. But it was as
miserable as the decade itself.
I don't know what ever happened
to them, or where they ended up.
I guess the show just quit happening,
or I stopped caring. Can't recall.
There wasn't any form of religion
at all in the show, even as I think
they were Jewish. Or had been.
The whole ting was rotted and
secular as to make you puke.
-
I figured if that's where the
country was at, they could have
it. A few years before that, I
think it was (this is all foreshortened
in memory) that bomb factory on
11th street blew up.A few of those
Viet-radical protester people,
same ones who'd been involved
at 509 with that Levitate the
Pentagon March, in November,
I guess it was 67, maybe 68, hard
to recall. Some rich girl's father
was away and they used his
brownstone on 11th street, in
his absence for making bombs
in the basement, ad something
went amiss and the whole place
was blown to smithereens; a few
people died. One or two of the
girls ran out butt-naked, having
somehow lost their clothes, and
fled, as fugitives - they stayed
away for any number of years, but
were finally caught. Kathy Bowdoin
or something like that, and some
guy too, name forgotten, who was
on the lam for years and years,
another name and life, and they
finally nabbed him too, at the end
of the 1990's maybe it was. I
was glad not to be part of that
stuff anymore too - my days
of worry over war and peace
were over. As I liked saying,
'Let's leave that for Tolstoy.'
-
Most of it was crazy talk. Blowing
up the Con Ed station at the east
end of 13th or whatever it was.
There was a lot of talk on that one;
we even reconoitered the place,
like idiots, to check it all out. Had
coffee and rolls and stuff at a
corner spot there by 11th. And
every morning, before shift, that's
where 10 or so of the Con Ed
guys congregated for their little
breakfasts before work. It was
so weird; I'd have to sit there
shitting myself over which of
those guys was probably going
to die in those explosions we'd
been planning. For what? I got
freaky - these guys had wives
and kids and families. What
the heck were we thinking?
How nutty-deep was all this
going to go? Is this what I wanted
to end up as? Planning destruction
and fire-bombing hearts and minds
as if I was in Pleiku anyway?
-
No, I knew it was time for a pivot.
I just had to figure out the pace
and the timing. Work hard. Go
slow. Pace oneself accordingly.
Maybe I should have told those
draft board guys that...
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