RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,139
(the freak tent beckons where the muscle-guy stands)
All I can ever remember about
rolling down the turnpike to
the seminary - which was
in a place called Blackwood,
NJ - was that it was 80 miles
off, in a straight sort of NJ
Turnpike line south, crossing
the state slowly, on a diagonal.
80 miles is nothing at all for
me now, but back then it
seemed the other end of
the world and I always
had mixed emotions
about it. Farmland, flat,
silos and dairies and
fields and meadows.
It's all so different now as
to be, truly, unrecognizable.
The location once called
'Blackwood' is lost completely
- though something is still
called that yet what it is
now is a few very busy
corners where some highways
meet and a ragtag collection
of the usual global food crap
all come together - from
Wendy's and MacDonald's
to Pizza Hut, Taco Bell,
Burger King and the rest.
A real, solid mess.
Unrecognizable and
thank goodness for that.
It's a place for my ghosts
and memories, and outside
of that they can keep their
measly fries and burgers.
The fools. What once was
the seminary (an old buffalo
farm!) is now plowed over,
paved into parking lots
and gymnasiums and
classrooms, and called
Camden County College.
Without a past, and without
anyone have a consciousness
of the previous two centuries
there. More of a waste than
a belt on a fat man.
-
It's a hard-tell story,
remembering all this.
A goodly percentage
of everyone I may have
ever known there are
dead, and those who
aren't are gone to me
in any case. It's funny
how lives end up - all
those earnest and deliberate
young men, once determined
and on fire, now flaccid and
feeble, aged out like Edam
cheese, with only remnants
of what that drive and energy
brought them. Over in
Metuchen, when I lived
there, the local Diocesan
Monsignor was Michael
Alliegro, an old seminary
chum from Fords. He died
some long time back, from
leukemia. He and I would
sit and talk a little (I did the
Diocesan printing account,
through him), and his rueful
reactions to what he'd gotten
himself into, 45 years on
or whatever it was, even
as a Monsignor, were
nothing but anxious regrets
to him. 'Had I known then
what I'd be doing now'.....
he'd never have gotten
involved. I never pressed
or pried on any of that,
figuring he meant the
business end of his 'work'
was tedious and so far
from religion and its
profession as to be an
insidious spiritual drain
rather than a mission.
Too bad. Those were tough
conversations, mainly because
he was still very intent on his
work, and pious about it all,
and I always had to clip my
tongue to keep from blurting
out stuff like, 'Jesus, Michael,
you still pushing all this crap?
This crap's a trap...' But he
wasn't the kind of person I
could talk to like that. It
never got man-to-man in
those ways, and it all
remained coded and I
had to talk kind.
-
I thought about that a lot,
all during that time, and
wondered what life must
be like for him. He was
at Saint Bartholomew's,
in East Brunswick, as
Pastor, too - for a few
years - and I could
just picture him trying
hard to deal with the
spiritual side of a work
that was probably more
draining from the
administrative side
than anything else. And
anyway, does not everyone,
at some point say something
like that 'If I only knew then
line...'? Using him - and
then myself - as an example,
I figure most people never
really do end up where they
thought they would; even
the best-arc'd rockets miss
their targets, you know.
My life, having remained
exclusive enough and
anarchic enough in its
intents, was never meant
for any targeted end-results,
and I knew it, so it little
mattered to me; but to
someone else, like
Michael, who was in
all other respects systematic,
precise, almost anal, about
purposes, uses, and intentions,
this going so far awry must
have been galling. All those
years later, and he was the
last and only guy I kept in
any touch with. It was
pretty strange and unlikely.
We were so different; as if
Fidel Castro courted Anne
Frank, perhaps. Life's a
wild and crazy fairgrounds,
sometimes - and the
freak-tent beckons where
the muscle guy stands.
-
I knew a few more from
those days, but they all
got dropped. Except maybe
for one friend yet, who's
remained in London, as
an actor and a voiceover
guy, for over 25 years.
Another friend, in the
middle of Pennsylvania,
the capitol city, in face,
after we'd rekindled a
sort of friendship after
40 years, turned out to
be a complete disaster
and I had to drop him;
just couldn't take it any
more, and I myself was
surprised as ever to realize
that he was still in the
religion game and what
he'd ended up as, it being
so completely afar from
what he seemed. I still
regret that one, but had
to move on. What baffles
me - in this case - as
in Michael Alliegro's case,
is how rancid it can be when
religion gets mixed up in
prattling instead some horrid,
off-the-beaten-path line of
falsehood disguised as lust
or money or duty anyway.
A quote I've always remembered,
'I must not trust people whose
lives are centered in gain. They
are different from me, totally
different in intention.' I just
end up intensely sad - almost
suicidedly so sometimes -
when I view this pathetic
life from the tree-limb from
which I look down upon it.
That limb should break
and I should fall.
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