RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,097
(a thought-dream delivered)
As for being, that was
another course entire. In
the Pine Barrens, from what
I noticed, things lasted forever
and 'being' was stretched way
out. A part of it was timelessness,
I guess - like I mentioned before,
nothing ever seemed to happen.
There was this one spot, and I
have photos here somewhere,
where two identical 1953
Plymouths were out in the
sandy roadside, side by side,
just sort of stuffed in, off the
road, at a right angle to the road.
The paint on each had returned
to the elements; little trails of
light rust, in an almost perfect,
faint-rust color, ran along the
sides and old chrome pieces.
Which had not, by the way,
seen a shine since Noah was a
sailor. In each case, the original
paint color was debatable, and
probably could have been argued
all day. Sunlight over the years
had fogged the window glass
to opacity. It was just really odd.
Even the little hood ornament
boats were still in place on each.
-
Some things, over time, just fade
away - usefulness and utility pass
off. That happens most especially
with old cars - it's a unique and
tangible way of marking time or
eras. What kills it all, by removing
it from that mystery area of time,
is when things like that get restored.
Houses too. Places in general. I was
always of the vibe that things ought
be left alone, but any one of these
sorts of cars or houses can be taken
from their reverie and passably
reintroduced into a modern stream
of time, for whatever reason. It just
ruins everything to again see a '53
Plymouth, or any other car, all done
up over again - out of time, proud
of its new geam and paint and
modernized engine or this or that.
I draw a lot of lines, and that's one
of them. No one seems ever to
thing about he demands of time, or
the call for, quite often, things to
just 'stop' in their time, and stay
that way and there. I loved the
Pine Barrens for those reasons.
-
I never saw any black faces in the
Barrens either. I'll have to admit to
that. What I saw was white, and
mostly elderly to. Or at least over
60. If that's old; I'm not even sure.
Old ladies seemed to run a lot of
things - like at Buzby's. Whoever
was running it last I was there was
just an elderly woman, fond of the
life she could tell of and sell by
bits; like accompanying props:
Maps with legends; old photo
and postal cards; mugs, tee-shirts,
and more. In my experience, I've
found that things always run down,
sort of decelerate to a point of
breaking apart from the resistance
they face - like an old space capsule
or something falling back to Earth.
The atmosphere grabs it and all
that rash and strangely violent
slowdown starts ripping it to shreds.
It turns into space debris, and the
next thing you know it's falling in
a hundred pieces over some desert
or little nowhere town somewhere
and the news wires show some
cranky old guy pointing to the
hole in his roof where the space
chunk rained down. The news
guys lap it up, the idiot lone guy
runs on, and the world turns.
Generically, everyone got some
percentage of asshole built in.
-
If you watch some ancient Twilight
Zone or any one of those old black
and white TV early-weird episodal
dramas, they were on to something
but they never quite could fully grasp
what it was. Rod Serling, Sterling
Silliphant (those were always curiously
in-a-row names to me, of two early
TV writers), and the rest, they only
blindly put their hands out to see
what they could grab back from
the eerie air around them. They
usually for the theme, but miffed
the details. or, perhaps, they got the
details but screwed up the theme -
from not understanding it or not
being spiritual enough about it.
That's what was always missing
to me. BUT, the odd zeal of a
valuable timelessness was exactly
what the old Pine Barrens captured.
You could be there, far-off, as if in
a cloud of wonder or a space from
another closet of being. There was
no ned, ever, for the present day,
which is probably why t was always
so jarring to witness those fighter
jets and transport planes overhead
on their training missions from the
Air Force Base. Thos juxtapositions
were, in and of themselves, Twilight
Zoney enough! A thought-dream
delivered by supersonic low noise!
-
One New Year's Eve, I'd guess it
was 1988, maybe '87, my wife and
I decided to spend it in Wrightstown,
the Pine Barrens area home of the
installations of the Army (Fort Dix)
and the McGuire Air Force Base
people; just to see how they lived,
what they did, how loosey-goosey
these military nitwits really got. It
was a cold, but not freezing, night.
Low fog, heavy misting, cold, wet
air. We turned at the National Auto
Dealers Auction place I mentioned
a chapter or two back, and drove
along this long, dark, misty and
sorrowful road. Am occasional
waler was seen one or two with
their local -ride thumb out. Upon
reaching Wrightstown, all one sees
are the usual corners and corner
stores, like a low, ramshackle, built
of wood, encampment. Liquor stores,
a few junk shops, then, now the
sorts of things called 'Dollar Stores,'
with like wrapping paper, smokes,
a hundred cheap pens in a plastic
sack for 79 cents. Ramshackle all.
The usual convenience store crap,
a hotel or motel or two, gasoline
station yards, twisty homes adjacent.
Every 2500 feet, it seemed, another
bar, dance bar, go-go bar and dive.
It was New year's Eve, remember,
and the place was just getting started.
We picked a kind of go-go bar with
free food already put out, loud, ugly
noise, a crowded bar, and a half-lit
stage with a few dishevelled dancers
on it, in various stages of dance undress,
hanging desperately onto silver poles.
Their moves and rhythm, all out of
kilter, kind of forced anyone's rapacious
eyes to watch the jam and jiggle instead
of critiquing the dance. Everywhere
around us were what seemed like either
naive Kansas boys, off-duty, looking to
to get laid, (if you've ever studied the
Civil War and its issues, and read about
'Burning Kansas,' these guy wouldn't have
lasted a minute), or stern-looking militant
types, always angry and on about something.
('I joined the Army to learn 'bout guns!').
The birth of today's right-wing militia
politics was probably just getting started,
then and there. Probably left-wing too;
celebrating its own New Year.
