RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,126
(a world of conspiracy)
I had tried, and oh had I
tried. Nothing ever landed
exact, everything always
seemed off. 7th grade, for
instance, Introductory
Spanish, in school. Each
kid got a Spanish name,
mostly making sense. Ricky,
for instance, became Ricardo;
Charles became Carlos.
What did I - as 'Gary' -
get? Guillermo. Guillermo?
That meant William, I always
thought. The only thing it had
in common with Gary was the
G. What was this idiot Spanish
teacher thinking? If that was
any example of the truth-value
of the dumb-ass learning I was
about to get, forget it. It hardly
mattered, that 7th grade public
school education crap anyway,
because I wasn't around for 8th.
-
At that point in my life, two early
components had me pretty racked
up. The indeterminacy of existence
had been jammed up against an odd
hard wall of existence: First was
getting hit by the train - there aren't
too many veterans of that tumult. I
was one, and my life, after a long
period of blackout, somehow went
on. The other was - as I said - at
8th grade entering the seminary. An
end to that same, old life, in some
other manner. Both of those are
ghost matter now, all these 60 plus
years later - whatever it may be
and however much longer the rest
of me goes on. I have names and
faces in those memories, but they're
fading now too. I think that unless
one continues going back to things,
so as to reinforce the sense-value
of that which was, it all just
becomes a figment.
-
In the plastic hereafter that was
being 'preached,' I found the same
prevalence to be most everywhere.
It was the time of Roncalli - a fat,
little Italian Pope guy who took
upon himself the idea of ecumenism.
Outreach. Loosening to other faiths.
Big deal, but who in the world did
this guy think he was and what
assumptions of superiority went
with the idea of HIM allowing his
own approach to others? There was
no logic to that in any way, but the
entire world bit - from Time Magazine
to Commonweal and TV, each frothing
mouth went on about it being the
greatest thing in the world. The
broad traditionalism of such a
'radicalism' went unremarked. The
world of Catholics was so hidebound
and threadbare that changing from
the gobbledygook of Latin, and
turning the 'altar' of sacrifice (the
traditional, allegorical daily slaughter
ground of 'Christ as Savior') around
to 'face' the faithful, was supposed
to be the equivalent of almighty
gold! As were, I suppose, the semi
mystical sorcerism of priestly robes,
garments, and hats and mitres. No
one saw anything at all - fish-scales
for eyes and all that.
-
The Papacy and the Pope too had
been Guillermo'd nearly out of
existence, so what was the sense
in my trying to fit into those gear
wheels? Not any man's cog there,
me. Wrong names and wrong
nomenclature abounded, and all
I took away was that the entire
world was skewed. Towards
exactly what, I didn't know.
The oddball things just kept
popping up, with strange names
like Ingemar Johanson from
Sweden, Floyd Patterson and
Cassius Clay, and, later, Sonny
Liston. These were all barber-shop
names, and the men used to
sit about listening and talking
to all this boxing gibberish. The
first was a boxer from Sweden
somewhere; the third was the
young Muhammed Ali. There
were tons of money laid out on
that one - some sort of grievous
upset, Clay did eventually arise
as the newly mantled world
champ who then had the audacity
to 'be himself' and not just some
passive Negro. America was stumped.
So what's he do? Change his name.
Guillermo'd again?
-
I heard and watched all this was
some perplexity, in the same way
I saw the yearly parade of new-
model cars - dual headlights in
1958, massive, weird fins from
'57 to '60, and then their immediate
diminishment to nothing in '61/'62.
Yes! The stupid world seemed that
changeable. Philosophers tried
going on about indeterminacy
and probability. Entire schools
of thought were being built upon
ideas of modern identity and the
validity of being and presence.
What was I given? Near death,
false name at once, and only a
near-lethal ambush into the
rumors and the assumptions of
more-tentative being. Existing
as a cloud, before there was
a cloud! The world, alas, was
its own conspiracy.
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