RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,301
(a peculiarly engrossing graveyard) pt. ONE
I've always had lots of sideways entries
into things during my life. Never having
been one of those sorts who strove for
the best or the most of anything - cars
(I actually always 'enjoyed' buying used
cars; heck with the new), beating oneself up
over the inimitably dreary quest for money
and riches, jetting off the see Europe (screw
them, hadn't we done all that shit already,
and finally just agreed to separate). Because
of that, lots of times I'd learned how to merely
finagle myself into situations I'd otherwise
not be. You have to keep an eye out, and an
ear out, for everything.
-
Elmira did that to me too. I actually knew
nothing about the place when I first arrived
there : no knowledge of its industrial and
rail past. Although I soon learned lots and
lots about the place, and it began to seem
endless and surprising too. But, not being
mainstream, I liked all that. I liked the
chances if afforded for me to go and find
more out; research; dig; all in a screamy
silence of my own.
-
Like this: Andersonville, Georgia. About
two years into the Civil War, the Johhny
Rebs made a Prison Camp at Andersonville.
What's important here are three or four things.
This was NOT an any way 2023. People at
that wartime did nor care much about other
people feelings, about sympathy, or about
being 'nice' to others. Men were often foul.
Life was, to paraphrase a slogan of ta recent
era, nasty, brutish, and short.' [Thomas Hobbes,
'Leviathan', 1651]. No one cared for 'genteel'
feelings or manners, People made their own
life-decisions, and went down with the ship,
or not. Luck was the draw; to mangle a phrase
too. Mothers often had 13 kids, one every 13th
month, so that maybe four could survive to
adulthood. Plaques and diseases lurked and -
in these parts - most every 'boundary' was
fought over or contested. Indians. Settlers,
and, most oddly, the Euro-stupid religions
grappled over every dotted 'i', mote and spec
in their silly scripture, and warred on and
killed too, for their God(s')! There wasn't
any sense; and in the 1860's a war raged,
mostly over the subservience of others.
'Soulless blacks', supposedly, were
rounded up from interior West Africa,
by other blacks, mind you, acting as
slave-mercenaries in the employ of
any employer they could find at the
slave-docks along the coast. From
Dahomey they all became 'da homies.'
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I'll get back to this. One time, in NYC,
about 1988 maybe, I was in a bar, with
a friend, and my wife. Kathy is a very
'sociable' - she doesn't drink anymore,
it all had to stop with her illness. I forget
the name of the bar, but it was like maybe
Ninth Ave and 50th street? Rudy's. It had
a stand-up pig statue out front, with an
apron on, and that pig held the menu
board and drink specials and all that
stupid crap that bars do. We'd been there
probably two hours, getting stupid-slosh
drunk (a little) and talking to all sorts of
strange people coming in and going out.
These three Jewish guys come in, they're
in their late thirties, maybe, serious dudes,
wearing too their Jewish black jackets and
headgear and all that. I had NO idea why
they'd even enter a bar with a porker out
front, but whatever; I was past caring.
I didn't even know that 'afternoon' Jews
casually drank. All new to me. Surprise
Yes, my overly sociable wife eventually
makes her way over to them, [I could see
this one coming] and for some reason she
begins telling them that her husband -
pointing at me - had recently begun
studying Jewish Kaballah and Mysticism.
That was true, so I couldn't deny it or
say she was lying, although it quite
low-key and was not one of those
Yeshiva-school type things. Anyhow,
I'd wished she hadn't made mention.
No one likes to talk about that stuff;
Jews are both scared by it and quite
protective of it. They were a bit
askance, but stayed nice to her.
-
Kaballah is many factors - mystical,
cosmic, and even weirdly magical.
It's essentially a system of and numbers
tied to those words, each containing its
own systematic symbols and meanings.
By these the world is made up. I wasn't
sure what to expect, but these three guys
came over to, saying back to me what
my wife had told them. They weren't
real happy - evidently my choice of
NUN and #24 was bad news to them.
Representing a real bad omen of a
darker power. Honestly, they quickly
finished their glasses, and headed out
that bar as if their butts were afire! I
never got to the bottom of it, but the
moral I took for myself was 'don't get
involved in things you don't know of,'
and - for my wife - don't tell strangers
at a bar what your husband's up to.
-
OK, back to Andersonville. You can
see I'm having untold trouble with this,
because I keep finding things to move
me off the subject. The Confederates
built a huge prison camp, rustic and as
raw as could be. Pallets for the men to
sleep on, amidst muck, sewage and its
seepage, swamp and moisture. A few very
basic lean-to's, where they'd gotten built.
The captured Union soldiers - young men
and boys, and some elders, in every sort
of injury. Open, festering wounds, limbs
missing, bones and scalp shot off. All these
guys were just brought to that location,
thrown on the field with very little care or
hygiene, or proper and steady food for that
matter. Men screaming and delirious and
in all sorts of pain and anguish. And, of
course, the constancy of Death littering
that same field. Burial was a heap, and
later just piles of bones with scraps of
clothing. That was Andersonville, GA.
What did Elmira do? Truly amazing, as
I found it all out and as I visited whatever
remnants and the large graveyard there
was. At least Elmira had gravestones,
names, regiments, dates, and hometowns
on each. But it was far worse than that -
Andersonville was a temperate climate
by comparison. Elmira could be a numbing,
killing 12 below, for days in a row. Again
nothing but lean-to's and pallets with
some tents. Same condition of men. The
Johnny Rebs, blasted and wounded, cut-up
and comatose. Dying by the dozens each
half-day. Elmira had taken over a prison
and transformed that hilltop into an almost
concentration-camp like heap. They'd throw
the men into rail cars, no matter how cold,
and make the three or four-day trip up to
Elmira to the camp. Anyone dead along the
way never finished the journey, and those
who made it to Elmira faced 2 or 3 years
yet of brutal col and medical emergencies,
and diseases and gross malaise. It's all
still there for anyone interested to go
look at. Nothing's left of the wooden camp
itself but many photos and diagrams. You
can see it all for yourself, and visit the
peculiarly engrossing graveyard.
