RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,030
(otis redding?)
I used to sit in John's house
and look at things around me -
it was possible there to think
of it still being, say, 1924. Mary
and he kept a severe and steady,
old-format, household. I'd sit
there and think to myself that
this was 'quality,' the way it
maybe used to be. There seemed
to be, kept by John and Mary,
a transcendance to things, some
quality that was above everything
and realized the old days - before
plastics and gilt had a claim
to the storyboard of everyone's
life. Of course, it wasn't conscious,
they didn't have an awareness of
it; for that was their characters
and it was ingrained. The lens
they looked through to see and
partake life was of it, and they
realized not. It only stood out
so grandly to others, like myself,
and was remarked upon often; like
visiting an old catacomb in an
ancient village. Something like
that affects everything else around
it, sheds the very language used
in talking of it. Plastic wall phone?
No, this was an old, cord-wired
Bakelite desk-top style phone with
a cradle and a heavy handset. In
the kitchen, everything was solid
and traditional, the way you'd see
in old magazine-ad kitchen
illustrations : egg plates decorated
with painted chickens, some old
wall clock reflecting a barnyard
scene as motif. Wooden pegs
along the backdoorway, to hang
jackets and coats upon coming in.
It was all as quiet and deep as their
voices were - seldom spoken,
and when they spoke it was slow
and deliberate and tired too.
Old John Harkness never spoke
much, as I said, but when you
arrived at his place to volunteer
a day's work, he'd give out a few
words, of thanks, etc., but any
instructing or laying out of the
day's plans always came from
someone other than him, whoever
it was who was running that day's
operation, whether baling, stacking,
or whatever, The regular milking
and cow stuff, John and Mary did,
the old way, milking by hand.
There wasn't any vacuum pumping
system, or auto-hoses in place;
just buckets, towels, and maybe
some of the disinfectant used to
swab each cow's teats before
milking. Yes, I said maybe.
When John did speak to you,
in this case me, it was as if from
within an odd tunnel of time and
distance, as if from someplace
else. The voice was old, and
deep, and possessed of other
things. On the day of John's
funeral, and burial, the house
was very full, many people
arrived. I was, myself, totally
surprised, after introductions,
that he and Mary had a grown
daughter, maybe 50 plus years
old. I thought about her, as a
girl, growing up there, and
I wondered about what the
environment must have been
like, around her, how she'd
fared, and what she remembered.
That funeral procession, by the
way, once it got started, went
up along the small road to
East Smithfield, just a narrow,
hilly, paved road between two
'towns' (in name only, places
on a map), towards where ther
was a large, local cemetery
which had serviced the
surrounding places for decades
past. The line of cars, maybe
60 long, stretched all along
the road in a slow, mournful
procession, following the
open-back lead car carrying
the coffin. It was an amazing
sight. I cannot recall the reason,
but we did not go to the burial,
somehow remaining behind,
tending to regular concerns.
There must have been a reason,
though I cannot recall it; maybe
it was just regular farm-work
that kept me back. At any point
there were always 3 or 4 locals
working at John's farm, giving
their time.
-
Before any of this Pennsylvania
hide-out stuff, I would only have
had clues to 'other' lives like this,
maybe, through crap like watching
The Waltons,' or 'Apple's Way' or
any of those lower-grade emo
shows they used to run. Purporting
to show the truth from some 30
years previous, in the FDR days
of WPA and CCC and all that
bail-me-out Mr. Govt. stuff. They
didn't have a clue. I learned it by
walking right into it. You know
how, today, a big thing is to make
a statement with a tattoo and a
nose pierce and what else; well, the
1970's ended up bagging nothing
except regrets, more lies and slander,
any number of dead bodies STILL
being shipped home, and voices
saying, 'No, really, we've ended
the war?' Honestly, I couldn't tell;
but the black-night walk into the
large, empty, maw of that day had
none of the earmarks of John
Harkness, nor his ways, his
house, his needs, and his urges.
It ended up killing him.
-
Before this, again, in NYC, I had
somehow reached a point - never
knew how - that people would
come to me, for things, truly
thinking I was somehow in
touch with or 'connected' as it
was to the powers and fames of
those who mattered. It was a sad
comedown too, like hanging
my own self, weekly. (Weakly?).
My stock response had become,
'I don't know anybody who's
anybody, but anybody who's
anybody wouldn't know me.'
I liked to mix it up in people's
heads, and most often still no
one got it. Even if you don't
have the power of the street,
as people think you do, it's a
pretty heady thing to run around
knowing that people think you
do. It's a rough equivalent to
saying, 'How it all got started
is that it never got started.'
-
Sometimes, my hands felt like
they were put on OVER the
gloves. I was reverse-protected,
but completely powerless too,
an owner of hands with nothing
to do. I had friends who sold
blood (their own) for money.
Others who sold drugs or any
contraband they could steal.
I did that too - the contraband,
not the blood. I hated needles
and medical stuff. Even when
I finally did get really sick, and
way out of it, in the basement
room at the Studio School, the
best they could do was call
for my father, who came and
got me, with another Avenel
guy too. Threw me, prone onto
onto the back seat in his 1960
onto the back seat in his 1960
Chevy station wagon, and
dragged me out of there for
my own recuperation, back
at home. That took about a
month, and was just about
the time, as I recall, when
Otis Redding died in a plane
crash. He was some black
singer, with a big number,
'Sittin' On the Dock of the
Bay.' It was a big deal, at the
Studio School, his death was,
and I never really knew why.
I couldn't have cared less, being
way on to other things, realms,
and worlds by that time. That
all seemed so mundane.
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