RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,132
(the origin of sink)
Going back to that Uncle Boxer
guy from the previous chapter,
he represented immediately
to me another world entire.
As an 8 year old, all of this
was strange to me. I can recall
entering a room once, of a
friend of my father. He was
in the center of an open, bare
room, as my father and I entered,
for a visit. On a pedestal in
the center of that room, was
a small television, broadcasting,
in black and white, a baseball
game. The man had a chair,
at the the center of that room,
just one chair, up close to that
television, and he was intently
watching that baseball game.
A beer in hand, he gestured
his greeting as we entered, and
told my father to grab a beer
and see if there was any soda
for me. That's all I remember.
A blanked-out memory like that
wasn't much good for anything
except being haunted, and that's
what I got.
-
This was adult stuff? How men
lived and talked with one another?
Thinking back now, it's like any
one of those old, clunky, TV
serials or shows - men in tee
shirts, a bit sweaty, strange
spaces and rooms, going on
about or engaged in the most
simple of endeavors and nothing,
for sure, of value or consequence.
Life seemed, by those parameters,
so useless and futile, and yet it
was all I had to look forward to?
What changed all that? What
switched all these worlds?
-
By the same token, at the same
time, there was a night, along Inman
Ave., when I can remember most
all of the block turning out one
warm night to gaze skyward, almost
as one, to watch Sputnik pass
overhead. Sputnik was the first
'Soviet' spacecraft, launched by
our 'enemy' to vault the sky, to
own it, exploit it and 'control' it
too; as if in a Twilight Zone of the
real, not just imagined, those late
1950's craned necks went sky-up in
a most frightful manner - suddenly
realizing, I suppose, that all was,
or could soon be, at risk. Lost
in an abyss. Maybe that was an
instance of that flailing 'American'
strength that was, in essence, 'all
dressed up with nowhere to go.'
And there, right above my eight-year
old head, high up, was the refutation
of everything I'd been led to - that
TV in a large, open room, the funny
freedom of a baseball game, or a
boxing match, or a game show, or
any of 10 'Westerns' showing the
exploitation and triumph we'd once
'had' over others. All down the tubes.
As shallow as a foot bath. Us useless
as a 'screen door on a submarine.'
-
The Soviets, in their space quest, had
already sacrificed various animals;
a sore subject for which I'd not yet
forgiven them; and now this. They'd
lost dogs and monkeys on space-flight
tests. Re-entry and splashdowns that
amounted to nothing but death when
the capsule doors were opened. To
my little knowledge, we had at least
not done that. Some oddball American
dignity? Not really. Some strange
reference for life? No, I could not
sense that either. I always wondered,
really, what it was, if truly we'd not
sacrificed animals in that same quest.
High, high, overhead, the lights went
blinking by. They 'told' us what it
was, so we imagined it was true.
-
That street was never the same after
that. It seemed, from that day, more
silent, more morose. It got more frumpy.
Whatever momentary lapse that one
Sputnik had brought out showed a
dangerous side to American life: 'We'
didn't necessarily get to be first. That
was a myth, just then beginning to fall
apart. Yes, we did get to the moon,
eventually, first, but that was, by that
time, already sullied - assassinations,
cranky ground-wars, intrusions, race
riots, cities on fire. They all showed
that, beneath our national core, we
were as unsteady and as beleaguered
as anywhere else. Anyone, by that
measure, could have a Disneyland
of their own in their own backyard.
Anaheim was open to all! But, under it
all, Dad's hand still shook at poolside,
chugging on that beer and dragging
on that cigarette; and Mama's doily
apron always seemed unsteady at
the kitchen stove and sink. Sink?
I wonder where they got that name?
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