RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,267
(executioner monk : master of everything)
"It's always been difficult for
me to be anything but what
I am, and that's always part
of the problem. People expect
too much. In the same manner
that a wedding invitation arrives
in one's mailbox (people expect
you to munch?), the needed
transformation is off-putting:
inane chatter trying to be heard
over loud, idiot-music, people
who screech and dance like
their moments were all a'fire.
'This is Great Uncle Hiram, and
here's Terry's Auntie Mame.'
-
Lip-reading has never been a skill
of mine, but that's about all it comes
down too in such a scene. Captain
Blowhard and his wife Giselle can
sure talk your ears to Hell. So, what
is it with people that brings us all
to this crossing? Like a Wedding
At Cana, but without the water and
wine, this Jesus drinks Jim Beam
and falls fast asleep (all the time).
-
You know what else? I hate the
dispossessed, and I have no feelings
for those in need, or those newly
arrived and seeking support. Screw
them. This country was made for
people already here - like those
Virginia Regents, and any malarky
story I get exposed to by someone
otherwise bleeding at the heart for
others and for those 'dispossessed'
does nothing for me. I am not of
that ilk. I don't volunteer, and I
don't much grieve for others. I
may be an executioner monk,
and with a story to tell."
-
I leaned back in my chair and
suddenly realized how tired I was.
It was 4pm on some Thursday or
other. I remembered a time when
I could do this stuff, endlessly -
five cups of coffee, the TV blaring,
Eric Sevareid and all that crap-news
blaring - "The chief cause of
problems is solutions." Now, some
40 years on, I just really don't care.
-
I sure had traveled a long road,
yet I was convinced that most of
it was meaningless. Church and God
and all that - yes, I was still sure of, but
now it was all by my own valuations,
and I figured that to be correct, for if
this 'God' who'd (after all) made me
and then tainted me too with original
sin (what a concept!), sought for me
to find a better perfection and a
salvation through 'Him' by the means
given to me, I was surely to be found
among the elect by following my own
path. After all, it wasn't really 'mine'
at all! It was that which was given
me to make from. God knows these
things, right?
-
['Biblical allusions lose all their
certainties in the American air. A
dog is a dog here, barking like
Robert Johnson.']
-
I was kind of a madman all through
those early years - '66 maybe, and
all through the 70's. My last year of
regular high school had me appended
with the name 'Mad Dog' by some
idiot group of senior-fellows with
whom I shared 'Gym' - a ludicrous
reversal, surely, of any Greek ideal.
Probably shower-homos, for all I
knew, or cared. The name came, I
was told, from some over-excitement
I was seen doing, like a mad-dog,
in one of those stupid and endless
volley-ball things by which such
Gym classes filled their Winter time.
Evidently I pegged some creep with
a fierce return.
-
Sometimes people get trapped in
ridiculous, (untenable?), situations,
and don't I know. People of eminence,
media stars and politicians (each the
opposite of me), they speak out of
purpose, and they get lynched. Yes,
figuratively, OK but, still...In 'America'
it's presumed, or was, that everyone
has a right to speak, to be heard, to
do as they please, yet, if they say
anything that displeases, the free
mob will lynch them. In this country
the individual ends up having an
abject fear of the dolt next to him,
because they ARE free now to lynch
him the moment he shows he is
not one of them."The American
voice can only be heard in the
collective stories of those who
are for some time, no matter
how brief, pushed outside of
the definition of American.
The American voice is how
one responds when silenced
because of who he or she is."
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