RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,208
(a certain grip, pt. one)
I suppose it's different for
everyone, but there are certain
things that grab the life of an
individual and quickly become
one of the marking-parameters
for the rest of it - that Easter
when Uncle Ned died; the time
Julia jumped into the park
fountain; that crazy Summer
of '69, etc. One of them, for
me, oddly enough, was when
the President, Kennedy, was
killed, in Dallas. Nov., 1963.
-
It's really not such a marker,
but I can remember everything
about it because of all that
moment's strange tidings and
connections. Seminary. Guys
around me. We were sitting
in the library, a few of us, at
the magazine shelves, and one
of the priests rushed in to
announce that the President
had been killed. Not so much
shot, as killed - so there must
have been some time overlap,
because as I recall he was shot
and then twenty minutes or so
went by before he was actually
proclaimed 'dead.'
-
Late 1963 America was a tight
and a strange place. Things were
kind of fixed - the general attitudes
and opinions were stolid and staid
(both odd words), and people didn't
veer much from the ordinary - most
especially the parents and kin of
those who would have their sons
willingly set-up in a 'seminary' role
at a young age. It was really more
like a British private school than
anything else - everyone was too
young really to get the sledgehammer
effect of Papal training, religious
doctrine, and peculiar discipline
of the church. At age 12 and 13,
really, who cared anyway? So,
the distancing that went with the
placement there was pretty specific,
but we each had to remain harnessed,
as it were, to the gooseneck of the
doctrines and easy-rigors of the
priests and brothers lording over
us. I won't say it was 'perverted,'
but it was twisted. Something that
should never be done again.
-
Anyway, with this announcement,
incredibly, we were told to get on
our knees and begin praying for
the President's soul. Yes, just like
that! Separation of church and
state having always been a murky
thing anyway in a country where
the two paradoxical enemies most
often got mixed in together and
everyone fell for it, this was
striking to me. (How little we
all knew anyway. For all we
realized, this priceless dead
President, the night before,
could have been porking Marilyn
Monroe, supplied by the Mob,
and approved by the CIA). His
wife, Jacqueline, was always at
most immaterial, and she too was
probably in the employ of Sam
Giancana. We prayed, Kennedy
was dead, and for the next 10
days or so the proposed scenario
for this 'martyrdom' of a soul to
Goodness, went on. It was incredible
to see an entire nation, as one, grip
itself into the same forms of mourning
as when Kings or Popes or great
Generals die. TV was taken over,
and repeated broadcasts of funeral,
parade, procession, church, dignitaries,
and all the rest of the panoply were
broadcast constantly. The way it was
all arranged, there were no doubts,
no opponents, and only Evil itself
was presented as the assailant. The
entire country was stopped dead
in its tracks.
-
Holy of holies, we were allowed TV!
In our little class-lounge room, where
oftentimes boys sat around watching
Boris and Natasha, Rocket J. Squirrel,
and Fractured Fairy Tales, the b/w
pictures instead were replaced by
a riderless horse with upside-down
boots in the stirrups - something
like that - which apparently in
space-age, dawning of the 60's,
America signified some old-age
tradition of post-carnage respect for
leaders and generals everywhere who
had died in the saddle. Oops, sorry
Marilyn and girls. I was always a
sensitive guy, and even then this
abundance of complete and reverent
national bullshit sent me right to
the barf-bags. Behind the scenes as
well, here. Vietnam and Laos were
idling, and 58,000 men and boys
were being arranged for the same
sort of death, just without the
reverence and respect. I had never
seen such an illicit national paroxysm
before. Plenty since, though.
-
It's easy - nay, too easy - for me
to just write, 'You had to be there,'
and walk away from all this. But
it's true, To any of today's souls
who were not part of those days,
or witnesses to it, I say instead
'Put your damned phones and
gameboards down for ten minutes
and listen up for something that,
by my own experience, seeks after
you, marked and wearing the cloak
of Death - which most of you
'young uns' are probably just too
dense or foul to even catch sight
of. Your soft and squeamish
Devil-may-care attitude of 'Well,
as long as I have my stuff, and
no one's offended, I'm fine' will
get you nowhere, because this
Devil does care and it's forthrightly
after you, seeking to maintain
its grip and its grasp of the very
world you inhabit. It's called
Society. it's called Mis-Education.
It's called Lies, and you've bought
it all, and you're making it all,
as well, very easy. The best thing
I ever saw, live, on Seminary TV
was the instant of the moment
when the grainy TV b/w arm of
Jack Ruby, in the Dallas Police
Headquarters basement walkway,
came out of the foul crowd with
pistol in hand and plugged Lee
Harvey in the gut with bullets
and killed him. Live. Right then
and there. It was all out front,
for everyone to see - the amassed
beginnings of the death and the
downfall of that which we still,
oh so foolishly, try to keep
calling 'America' today. Put
your flags away, for god's sake,
and mourn. The whole world
is crooked and dead.
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