RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,377
(where am I going, where have I been? pt. 7)
This kind of seminary memoir is a bit
like a bad heel. You know you have to
walk on it, to get there, but you also know
that the pressure hurts. That's how it is
with recollections too. Why am I always
so sad? I don't even consider that.
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The more I delve back, the more I want
to tell more than I remember. That's always
a danger - time shifts and bends and distorts.
So that - when I re-tell something - it all
first comes through the present, which has
a lot of new catch-filters. Or, I can wind
up stumbling over stupid things: Was that
a '64 Ford, or a '65, that Father Alexander
used to drive around in? (The Drama Coach).
Well, what to say: I don't much care.
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There were two things also that I glommed
onto, and both of them were cool and sensible
too, because they afforded me time away, even
if just a few hours, and even if only occasionally.
In neither case can I remember how I did it, or
how I got it arranged that I'd be the guy, but I
became like the ride-along assistant for these
trips. As I'll explain: Blackwood NJ to Camden
NJ was, oh, 15-20 miles, and back then, on
small roads, took probably 25 minutes.
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Whenever anyone got a toothache, or some
dental of digestive problem, or was running
a fever or otherwise ill, or - with all the
sports crap we did - sprained an ankle, broke
a finger, or an arm, whatever - and it was
determined that a doctor's care was needed,
myself, and one of the Priests, and the new
'patient' would hop in the car, (that black
Ford again), and take a drive - to the
Camden dentist or doctor or emergency
room, with whom the seminary worked.
I guess they paid extra or something for the
night hours, because we never went in the
day. It was usually after 6pm. They'd go in,
get treated or fixed up, and the driver-Priest,
and me, would sit around for as long as it took.
Sometimes it got a little awkward, especially
after some infraction I'd just been called out
on, but the Priest who would go on that trip
wasn't usually the disciplinarian type, and
most often wasn't even a classroom teaching
priest, so it went easy. (Father Alexander was
the Drama Coach).
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The other routine that I got involved in, which
didn't happen often, but which I loved, was with
Brother Cornelius, or Brother Isidore - whichever
of those farm guy Priests it was. I can't remember,
and they both blend together as the two, bearded
recluses at the farm/barn. Whoever it was had
a 1952 Chevy pick-up truck, for the farm use.
He'd occasionally have me, with him, load it
up with scrap, from somewhere. I never knew
where it came from - metal, steel, old metal
shelves and lockers and stuff; all sorts. We'd
secure it onto the back of the pickup, and t
some point about 5pm, head out to the junkyards
area of Camden. Some really Jewish junk man,
also bearded, scrappy and gruff, would look it
over, weigh it all, and the truck, and we'd unload
where he said, and weigh the truck again, empty,
and he'd hand over some money for the metal.
It sounds easy, and simple, but you really had
to be there to see it. First off, the junkyard area
roadways were dirt, and gouged and pitted.
It as slow going, with bumps and with things
slamming around. And dusty too. A real
no-mans land of dead or twisty trees, bare
landscape, hulks of junk everywhere, old cars
and scrap. BUT, what was most amazing
amidst all his was that in addition to all that
there were homes. Houses. Or domiciles
at least that once had been that. The seemingly
dazed and lost poor blacks would be out,
on the front porches, like an old southern
scene, just languidly staring out - wordless
and sullen. They'd watch us, slowly driving
by, with the faces of inquisitive but very
distant, witnesses. It was a bit strange, but
also was an image that stayed with me. For
all I knew, some of them were the pepper
pickers who'd come in on their work truck
from Campbells. (see previous chapter).
No words were ever spoken.
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Back at the seminary, with all that seared
into my brain, the news and words were of
Freedom Marches, LBJ, Civil Rights, all
those new issues of integrating schools,
sit-ins for the 'privilege'(?) of eating while
black, at a Woolworth's lunch counter. Was
that considered equality? Was that all they
were after? Figuring all that to be Christian
stuff, I wondered why none of this was ever
made mention of. We had assemblies, and
talks about grand matters, but all that I heard
and read about the turmoil in the 'outside'
world was simply ignored. It baffled me.
All I could see to understand any of this
were the faces of those benumbed, Camden,
poor-black folk. Their world seemed beaten
down and befuddled, a hovel amidst the
mansions of others, yet they too were
speechless, without response, and simply
silent. It was horrible for me to bear, like
having to watch, over and over, a dog
getting hit by a car.
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Remember, in the first chapter, about
that Mannlicher rifle of Lee Harvey
Oswald. That's really more along the
lines of what was needed to set thing
country straight. Everything was turning
rowdy and out of control. Ugly stuff
was happening. Down along the hallway
behind the Drama Dept and prop rooms
there were doorways, one for each class,
for the lounge room. Chairs and furniture,
a radio, TV, etc. Freshman Lounge, all
the way up to Senior Longe. One day I
was sitting in the Lounge for my class,
Freshman or Sophomore, I forget, and on
the little B/W TV, I watched Malcolm X
get shot on the stage of the Audobon
Ballroom, in Harlem. It as a stunner for
me, but, again, was more violence and
rabid out-of-control stuff - yet I kept
thinking maybe it was a good thing, like
whipping a nation with the oversize rosary
beads off a leather belt of fate that it
deserved. I was almost willing to
accept, and allow, anything. A real
feeling of turmoil began to well up
inside me, like too much hunger
after a fast.
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I tried everything to stay there, to
cooperate with the programs presented -
codes and beliefs that were beyond belief.
Pope Paul VI visited NYC on October
4th, 1965. That was the first time a Pope
had ever left the Vatican for a state visit.
It was well-covered by the media, all that
pious and reverential bullshit hype, and I
watched as much of the coverage as I
could, in that class lounge room. To my
mind, it could also have been called
giving in the an unsettled compromise
with the secular world. I thought the
Pope was nuts, and making a huge
mistake. When he should have been
scolding and mouthing off, he was,
instead, acting like a tourist, being
co-opted and exploited. That - to me -
was the real sin. In my mind, I knew
it was over. I just had to find a way to
extricate myself. A long year later, I
was gone. By Thanksgiving and
Christmas, the latter end of 1966,
they asked me to go home and
reconsider everything. It was a nice
way of saying 'Go home and don't
come back, OK?' And that's the way
it ended up. I had a few measley,
lumpy months I had to finish up
at my local high school : misery,
pathos, and stupidity combined.
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Don't look back, it is sometimes said.
That' an empty-headed saying if ever
there was one. Looking back is everything.
Review and re-examination are where all
the lessons are. All the rest is impulse.
(But I'm not done with this yet).
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