Tuesday, April 28, 2020

12,773. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,038

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,038
(that bowdlerized version of me)
People often acted to me
as if I was running things
or in charge, and I wasn't
really at all; in fact most of
my problematic life has been
in subservient roles. On the
one hand, something such
as that used to annoy me to
no end, while, on the other
hand, I was glad it was that
way because all that normal
decision-making matter was
never the clay I wanted to be
touching. Like mad brains in
a mad laboratory. I was never
able to get anything running
in consort, and when things
begin getting away from the
supposed leader, you know
it's a bad scene soon to be.
What I had it down to was
that most of life was about
timing  -  some people have
it much better than others. I
always had really crummy
timing. It's always then a
caution that you have to learn
to live with : You come to a
yield intersection, yep, there
hasn't been another car through
there in four minutes, but as
soon as you make that assumption
and figure to slide through the
yield, without really checking,
wham! there's the other car they
warned you about. Your perfect
equation has changed, big time,
and you've got some other guy's
fender now cradled in your
arms. Bad timing, Boberino.
And not just for driving; it
hits its own sequence in a
hundred other ways. Being
in the bank lobby just when it
blew up; running into that
robbery scene at the local
store, just when the damn
guy robbing the place starts
shooting. Ten minutes, either
way, before or after, and you'd
have been home-free. That's
how the cosmic cards are given;
you spec out your location, find
the problem to be dealt with,
but had you slightly altered
your plans, it all could have
been avoided. What is that?
Good or bad timing? The guy
in front of you, the guy, in fact
whom you let in the door, first,
on your way in, right in front
of you buys the 25,000 dollar
scratch off that would have
otherwise been yours! Same
ticket. 'Jersey Bowlerino
Deep Desert Parkway Camel
Scratch-off.' Somunofabitch.
-
All those years I was back and
forth to Princeton, all I ever
saw were mostly fortunate kids.
Whatever their timing was, they
had very little to do with it, but
smugness carries a large briefcase,
and theirs was full. In the town
itself, there were plenty of the
usual street-slug townies dragging
around, mostly black guys with
loose pants and that cool swagger
kind of walk they use, always
pilling a tug or two back up on
the loose pants that seemed
determined to meet their ankles
any minute. Cigarettes and stories.
All these rat-brat privileged kids,
once they crossed Nassau Street,
it was all theirs; any one of those
sluggos parading before them
ought be aware they'd be scoffed
at, snorted to, and poo-poohed
about. Charity and kindness? Not
a way of that at all. The world-gap
there was already established and
no tangerine-colored slacks scholar
was going to make way for Abner
there. One time, walking against a
lights's don't walk sign, a little group
of these college kiddies walked
across my turning path and,
deciding I was infringing my
plebian auto into their sacred space,
regardless of the light (Witherspoon
and Nassau) the one big guy with
the privileged piece of walkabout
pizza decides to pay me back
on his terms  - squishes and rubs
his pizza slice on my rear-side 
window. Now, I didn't really care,
but when I got out and put the
gun to his head, the poor baby
went screaming. OK, I didn't
do any such thing, instead just
drove off and cleaned it later.
But, at that moment I wanted
to force him to have testicle
topping on that slice. His own.
And, again, had I been in charge,
he'd have been in the sewer in 
an instant. The point I'm making
here is how unpleasant it has
always been for me to have to
interact constantly with such
half-wits, and accept things on
their terms because of who they
claim they are. My own guilt is,
I guess, that I too, by accepting 
that claim and NOT bashing 
the bastard, I allowed all this to
become sort of institutionalized;
as did everyone else erecting 
the budding error of the society
we 'toy' with and work within. 
-
When I got that Princeton job,
for about ten minutes I did think 
I was at the top of the world; but
nothing lasted long. That was OK,
and I mostly stayed with it, for as
long as I could. Uncharacteristically,
for me, I had re-arranged my on
priorities in order to get the job,
heck, in order to even interview
for it, yellow-sweater and all. 8
years later, I finally cashed out,
nicely and with some regrets, 
using the amalgamated pastiche 
of age and 'retirement' to do so.
(Second try at it; the first shot
at 'retirement' they asked me to
stay, and I set different hours and
terms for like another year or so.
Coursebooks, freight, sales,
and returns be damned, I finally
did leave at like 65. Old enough
to at least still be young-walking.
What did I miss the most? The
nearby coffee-shop.
-
Had someone asked, by the end
of my established non-tenure
there, what I was in charge of,
I would, perhaps, have been 
able to say, 'parking in the alley.'
That would have been true, too. 
The thing about life is, it's all
equation. Numbers. A sacred wheel
for each of us, constantly turning.
That 'equation' is actually a bit
of what the nitwit 'horoscope'
people, and even 'fortune tellers'
are edging around with all their
stuff, but they never really get it
or bring it to any sort of fruition.
We are on board our own dream
at any time, and the cloudy
atmosphere of that is always
churning and changing the
shapes and forms of what we are
seeing, or imagining we see. 
That's the eerie 'equation' too
which controls our timing. If
one somehow gets off this
even by half a beat, there are
consequences.  For whatever
reason, it seems, I've been off 
it often, and it's had the
consequences too. But, the
thing about life is, were they
the consequences I deserved,
or did I not, just as much,
 make that happen?

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