RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,357
(ineffectivess and weird things)
I guess one of the problems with my
life has been sensitivity, and sadness.
That's two, but who's counting and
to me they're both the same. This
whole internet thing really killed
it for me. At one click I can be
taken to some site showing things
that people have posted, and, wham!
I come smack-dab face to face with
some street scene in Laos or Vietnam
or one of those places and it's a clip of
of a dog crawling along the ground
with two broken rear legs, in traffic,
amidst little motorcycles and cars and
a whole crowd street scene of morons
totally ignoring the poor dog trying to
crawl along and making the saddest,
most plaintive eyes contact with
anyone able to maybe help. I swear
to you, that scene - which I'd not
asked for, just about destroyed me,
and I began crying. What the hell
is wrong with the people of this
world, and how can something like
that be overlooked or ignored. I
swear I'd like to deck the jerk who
so cavalierly posted that. It's just
not right. I remember, while
growing up in Avenel, how there
were some really grotesque stories
around town too fictional or not,
I never got to the bottom of. When
you're a 10 year old, you don't often
do get to the 'bottom' of many things.
But the people in these stories were
marked then for life. As I think back
on them now, I realize (well, almost),
that they couldn't have been true, even
in Avenel. The one kid, who lived on
that little curved street behind the
Avenel Fire House. It between Rt.
One and Avenel Street. Don't know
the name. The story was that this
kid would freeze dead cats in his
freezer at home, in water then, as
a frozen block of cat-ice, he'd take
the ice-block to the underpass and -
- from up above on the train platform -
he'd throw the block of ice down and
upon hitting the ground the ice and the
cat would break into lots of pieces.
True or not? I never knew.
-
Cruelty of whatever nature has always
irked me and angered me. There are
certain things that just never seemed
part of the Human makeup but which
people did anyway. At any level it's
cruelty. Kids can be cruel, I knew that,
and as bicycle warriors, when young,
we too did some dumb-ass things that
I regret doing, but it was never with
forethought or malice, if that matters.
When I bought that house in Elmira,
I asked the lady selling it why she was
selling after just having done it all up
(she had an interior decorating shop
downtown). Her answer? 'To get my
son out of jail and pay for a good
lawyer and legal expenses too.' I
said 'Huh? What did he do?' She
replied, 'Manslaughter.' Then she
said he and his friend had taken a
rowboat into the Chemung River, to
one of the islands out in the middle,
one where they hung out and often
camped on. The rowboat was loaded
with beer, and they drank all night
and the other kid passed out. My son
though he was dead. He had a shovel
on the boat, and he buried his friend,
never realizing he was alive, not
dead, and just out in a drunken stupor.
Don't that beat all? I'm losing my shop,
and this house too, over all that.' Man
oh man, it sure did beat all. Her name
was Jeanne Bollen, and I never saw her
again. She was, back then, about 40 or
45 to my 22. Her kid was about 16.
-
How far apart is the distance, I wonder,
between the frozen cat thing and this
kid's island burial - both too weird
to contemplate, but both within human
bounds, I suppose? Not for me though;
I'm the more sensitive type.
-
A lot of times things just become
difficult for me. There's a level past
which I seem to never be able to take
myself. All my dealings with others,
over the years, have crash-landed in
conflicts of one sort with authority.
Bosses and Managers; with always a
new problem. I've got all this bubbling
material all around me, piles of things
and no movement at all. I always felt
ineffectual and stalled, while around
me everyone else seemed effective and
well on their ways towards achievement.
Ineffectiveness sucks, and it's not anything
that can easily be translated in something
with which to communicate a message
about to others. It's more just like a
general malaise which then becomes
a killer.
-
So, I just watched and observed, and
most of my life, at that point, became
recording and channeling each thing
I'd see or observe, like a small painter
painting miniatures of his own life and
thought. I have lota more to say, and
I'm not done yet.
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