RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,055
(a fugitive from loss)
In brief, I'm long-winded.
I wonder how that sounds
here in the middle of all this.
Sounds is probably not the
right word. Reads.
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When I was a kid, out behind
my house, across the tracks
and next to the prison farm,
there was, and still is, a
company named Philadelphia,
Quartz, which currently calls
itself PQ Corp. Kind of silly,
as it now sounds like the
mother ship for Dairy Queen.
Nor did it have anything to
do with Philadelphia, that
we ever knew. I had a real
annoying years later whose
father, I learned, worked there.
That was perhaps the only
living human I ever knew of
ut of that place - never saw
a day's worth of activity.
-
Anyway, if we crossed the
tracks, at that sort of
blind-crossing right there -
limited sightline for anything
oncoming - we'd be at a
small wooded area at the
Quartz place fencing. Most
of the time, because the
crossing there was blind,
we'd cross much earlier,
over behind my house at
the long straightaway and
just walk along the fringe
of tracks, rocks, and weedy
grasses parallel to the prison
farm. No one ever knew what
they actually 'made' there, at
Philadelphia Quartz, but we'd
been told they made big spray,
which in any other parlance
would be weed-killer and poison
too. Never did find that out.
They had this big, tall, steam
powerhouse that blew off huge
batches of pressure two or three
times a day, I guess as it built
up. That happened at the same
times each day, like maybe 10am,
1pm and maybe 4 or 5pm. I
don't recall it going all night,
but maybe it did. In the open
daylight it was a great, loud
15 or 20 second swoosh of
hot steamy air, all white and
billowy; a real overwhelming
and forceful sound, yet one,
curiously enough, that you
could over time start to
just overlook as it became
part of the background to
everything. In the 1990's, at
some point, that entire building
was taken down - no more
steam rush, no more building.
I lost track of anything after
that; what's all their currently
is a mystery. In any case, we
got through the fence each time
and we'd come across a large
pond of bright cobalt-blue
water. It was pretty amazing
in that the color was strong
and vivid, not really a 'color'
of water at all. Chemical?
Cobalt? Whatever makes that
bright and vivid blue? No
matter. Yes, your thinking
is correct. After some certain
amounts of time and reflection,
we boys did certainly go in.
There were three or four of us;
curiously two are already dead,
but whatever. No skin was
burned off, no toes fell off,
and we apparently walked away
unscathed enough. Dare I say,
however, 'security' was quite
lax? It was, in fact, lax everywhere
and about many things.
-
I guess, in retrospect, what makes
it all sweet is the 'humanness' of
it all. Maybe it was all pretty
dumb, even dangerous, but boys
don't, or didn't, much think like
that. We were out for the adventure
and the wild-dare. Swimming in
blue water was cool! In the same
fashion, apparently, as today's
electronic-bedroom kids get
their jollies killing and smashing
online all day with games and
charnel-house e-adventures, we
got off on the chump-change of
scraped knees, twisted ankles,
and really dumb stories to later
tell. To me, that idea of 'humanness'
remains readily apparent in the
outer world of the recent past,
even if no one recognizes it these
days. It's the same spirit-force
which makes people travel to
the moon and the planets and all.
Have you ever seen some newly
built architectural project, a large
section of new apartments or
homes, or whatever? All that can
be done to keep people walking
within lanes and along only the
approved walkways can not
withstand those shortcut paths
you see, the ones across to
places, along and over the grass,
past the old, neglected wooded
area. Such is the 'Human' mark
on the controlled landways.
Whenever I see those worn-down
sidepaths and shortcuts, I always
smile, knowing the indomitable
human spirit somewhere still
exists.
-
'You can't stop a shortcut.' I guess
that would be a decent motto to
get this across. Remember, I said
'in brief, I'm long-winded.' This
would be the opposite of that;
being succint, short and direct.
To the point. It would also work
for the underwear-model guy who
talks too much. 'In briefs, I'm
long-winded.' When we were
kids, doing all this stuff, I recall
we never shut-up; except I can't
for the life of me remember
what in the heck we had to be
always going on about. Home-life?
Experiences? School? That
doesn't seem right. I figure maybe
we talked a little about cars, and
prisoners, there anyway. I do recall
we'd sneak smokes, cigarettes from
whoever's supply we could grab a
few. Mothers, aunts, neighbors,
fathers. Cigarettes were everywhere
back then; I don't know what we
thought we were doing, but hanging
out irh a cigarette was cool. They
had oddly rich aromas, even before
smoking them. If you held one
or two up to your nose and breathed
in, it was a fairly startling aroma.
I used to think about all those
tobacco farms and plantations
and slaves and labor and whippings
and beatings and all, and it all did
seem to be sourced right out of
that stupid cigarette aroma. Civil
War, indeed! That's all another
part of culture all gone now.
-
I guess I'm like a fugitive from
that kind of loss; the fog, the ghosts,
those weird figments of things that
rise up from ashes and smoke; the
phoenix-like stuff that all History
and Memory is probably made up
of anyway. It was all wholesale,
cheap, recollection, and probably
mostly all wrong too. But who cared?
It was a short-cut, through the ordered
babble of everything else facing us,
one of those strange, humn paths that
cut across things and got us, even
more directly, to where we were
going. Or thought, back then, we
were going anyways.
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