RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,266
(don't even go there...)
I feel like I've been everywhere;
Hell, I haven't really been
anywhere, but I feel like I have.
That's the crucial difference,
I guess - bounding the real
against the unreal and living it
all together. Fact is, put up
against any other average
person, I'm beat - people I
know have been everywhere:
Poland, Russia, France, England,
Thailand, Iceland, India, Vietnam
and all of South America and
Mexico too. Big deal vacation
romps, cruising the Danube, the
Elbe, or sneaking into Cuba too.
If a person plays the cards right,
it all; becomes doable.
-
I guess that's all something, But
while they did all that, I was
stuck at home. I got around and
all, but none of it had any glamor,
no panache; just regular and junky
jaunts to places mostly unremarked,
I guess that means unremarkable
as well. Finding that none of it
much mattered except as a means
of spending the money I wouldn't
have had anyway, I just let it all
roll off of me and stayed to task
as best I could. I got pretty good
at 'doing' one thing at a time, and
with attention to detail, etc., while
yet thinking of a hundred other
things at that same time. The mind
doesn't need a boarding pass, and
that jet is always leaving the tarmac.
-
'Somebody came up to me, they spit
in my face; but I didn't even feel it
was such a disgrace. I broke the
window, smashed my fist right
through the galss - but I couldn't
even feel it, it happened so fast.
It was fun, such fun, oh such fun,
such fun...'
-
One time - must have been like
1968, Winter - in one of those
all-night diners that used to be
downtown along the old West
Side Elevated Highway, underneath
it, on the sidings and all. Truckers
and whores used them, mostly, and
geeks like me, travelers, cops and
winos. We were sitting in one, me
and a friend of mine, sort of sideways
in a booth, facing each other, looking
out. A few 15 cent coffees and a
hamburger maybe. I forget. The
guy I'm with here, Jim, he's half
shot and tanked already. The coffee
was supposed to help. Black. But he
was too nervous, acting too antsy;
it wasn't working right, and I could
sense that there was something else
going on in his brain right then,
something harsher, and more
distant. And not good. I'd known
him already long enough to not
want to go through one of his
not-so-courageous acts again, like
rolling someone, stealing a wallet,
or even breaking in and robbing
some stupid dish-rag storefront.
Just then two cops walk in. Big
guys, all in leathers, and overstuffed.
There was no eye contact, thankfully,
because of the way we were seated.
That was good. We'd not been seen.
My impulse was to beat it, and
beat it quickly, get up out of there
and slink out. I certainly hoped Jim
felt the same way. It took a few
seconds, but I saw him change;
turn another color, come more to
his senses. He quickly took another
gulp of black coffee, after finishing
the beans. I stood, threw 3 dollars
down on the table. And, fortunately
Jim got up wordlessly too. The cops
never even noticed us. Back out in
the cold air, we swiftly walked away.
-
It made me think of cause and effect,
which we'd avoided. And it made me
think of freedom too - whatever that
concept was, I hoped it stayed. I
remembered something from D.H.
Lawrence I'd read, something about
freedom, or being free, but I couldn't
remember it. After I got back to my
hovel, I found the book, and I found
the quote. Odd how it had surfaced
in my brain like that : "Men are free
when they belong to a living, organic,
believing, community, active in
fulfilling some unfilled, perhaps
unrealized purpose. Not when they
are escaping to some wild west. The
most unfree souls go west, and shout
of freedom. Men are freest when they
are most unconscious of freedom. The
shout is a rattling of chains, always was.
Men are not free when they are doing
just what they like. The moment you
can do just what you like, there is
nothing you care about doing.'
-
Everything is prism-like, with many
different sides that cut light into the
needed fragments for all different
colors. You may argue all day over
this or that - politics, punishment,
right and wrong, the past and the
future - but you'll get nowhere and
it all ends up being garbage anyway.
Two years later and no one remembers
either the issues or the people in
question. I haven't seen Jim in 50
years now, and for all I know he
may be dead, killed by alcohol or
violence, by his or by others' means.
All definitions have changed, and
all our issues then are non-issues
now. Mostly anyway. Those two
cops are surely passed on, dead
from cholesterol or old age. The
waitress, Penny, who was like 40
then and wise as an owlet, would
be 90 plus now - and if she is I
wish her well. Me? I'm still stuck
inside the Liberty Bell that keeps
resounding like a sum'bitch
in my head.
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