RUDIMENTS 635.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 635

(not a notion; not an ocean)

You know how people sometimes

say 'Oh just do it this once, it won't

bother you at all'? Well, whenever

I heard that, or anything like it,

it just reminded me of being a

kid again, in my basement, with

those Lionel trains my father

always had set up. They were

actually pretty boring to me, at

all times, but I had to go along

with whatever the supposed

sporting pleasure of them was

supposed to be. For the sake

of family. Or my Father anyway.

It was always a big deal to him

that we had, or were meant to

sense we had, the best, largest

and most finely-appointed

train set-up on the block. Of

course we didn't, or maybe we

did, but how were we supposed

to know or care anyway? He was

way achievement-oriented in

things like that - but what

could you possibly do in taking

pleasure from a collection of

trains? Of course, they were the

full-size Lionel best; O-gauge or

whatever. The smaller ones were

HO or something, and he hated

them. Inferior in all respects, and

not worth his pride. Oddly enough,

I knew one or two people who

mixed the two, interweaving the

two systems, tracks and transformers,

and I thought that was way more

interesting and skillful. The deal

was that the train and hobby shops

had all these little plastic towns

and depots and model things, grass,

trees, cows, lights, fences, pretty

much whatever you wanted. The

idea, at its end, was that whoever

had the most money (as in anything

else) would have the best and biggest.

That was all there was to it, and the

rest was bunk. I never cared either

way; was bored stiff, and even hated

it. We'd have to wear (my sister and

me) these engineer hats, stand at

this rather large transformer, and

run these trains along their tracks

as they passed over and under

themselves, beneath fake bridges

and tunnels, and through weavy

little plastic towns, with gas stations

and little cars and little people. He

had this one deal where a white

pill would get dropped into the

smokestack of the engine, and in

a few minutes the thing would begin

puffing out a white smoke. Oooh!

I wanted black smoke; I was always

digging pollution and crud. This

went on for about four years, he

kept enlarging the deal, bigger

towns and distances on right

angle plywood boards making

the layout. To him it all was a

big hoot. For me, bored as stiff,

I got more interested, through

this, in architecture and town

planning actually. And also in

observing the grade crossings and

noting how easy it was for 1950's

plastic people to get run-over

by oncoming trains. Hey? Wait?

That was me? (Yeah, I got hit

by a real train when I was 8.

Footnote. Asterisk. Cut to chase.

I eventually recovered, and lived

on, vividly.)... So, to those who

knew I hated all this, to be told

to 'just go ahead and do it, your

father likes you there,' it was

already fodder enough for any

session with a shrink.

Dad-wise or not.

-

Eventually, no one showed any

interest, my father dismantled

the whole shebang - I only

vaguely remember any of this 

- stored it all away, and turned

his train area into, instead, an

upholstery work area for his

many side jobs redoing people's

chairs. Years later, maybe 12

or 14 years, when I was in

Pennsylvania, living there with

my wife and a young son, he

thought it was time to bring

it all there, and reintroduce it

all to my son. So, one day he

trucked it up, boards and all

the trimmings, in a small trailer.

It was like a visitor, arriving, and

with a bagful of your bad dreams

from long ago, then wanting

to be thanked for doing so.

Not knowing what to do (but

still having no interest in it

at all. I was a crummy Dad),

we took it in, into one of the

outbuildings that I had around

the barn area. Lo and behold,

eventually even all that dismantled

train-layout stuff got in my way

and I eventually dragged it

outside and just propped it up

at the rear of the building. That

was fine, until, months later,

my father came up again, on

another visit, and found all this

weathered crap, exposed and

outside. That wasn't very cool

on my part, but I'd forgotten all

about it. He went pretty nutso

over my apparent negligence

(got that right, I suppose) and

non-caring for what he'd given

us. To boot, I had given the

actual trains away - to a

friend from Avenel, who'd

visited. That was one step too

much for Dad. I was told later

that he, once back in Avenel,

went steaming over to this

guy's house (he was still living

there, on Inman, in his boyhood

home) and made a scene,

demanding everything back

because I was a fool for giving

it away. My poor chum friend,

scolded and confused, turned it

all over, back to Dad. I don't

know where it ever ended up.

-

Pretty typical though, of the

sorts of things I'd always get

messed up into. My life was

mostly one of these types of

disasters after another, all

because I really never pushed

back. And this was late in the

game for me, near 30's, a

young father, having already

done the train wreck in real

life, the seminary years, all

that bizarre NY stuff, and then

the Pennsylvania and Elmira

routine. I was toast; torched

and crispy, and all this junk

kept coming back to haunt me;

as if that big, ugly elephant

tied to my back and which I

had constantly to haul around,

had grown its grafted bones

right into my own and I was

fated for life to carry that

weight, like the song said.

-

If there was any continuity to

life, I'd missed it. I was staring

at a big black hole, not knowing

if I was supposed to start walking

through it or being sure to avoid

it. The more I became sure of

what I was seeing, the more I

was certain I wanted none of it;

ordinary life and values and

reasons - all those false dead

ends and the dichotomies - 

False? Contradictory? Unreal? -

the point of fracture over which

ordinary mental life gets stretched

so you can make money, have a

career, switch and scrounge on

the backs of others for your own

private gain. How did people ever

get started doing that stuff?

Sometimes a few of us (this now is

is back in NYC again) would be

sitting around somewhere, and

the conversation would turn, yet

again, to the negative aspects of

the crap-world around us, ending

up often at the level of 'why can

we not reconstitute the system so

as to remove most of these people,

just get rid of them, break down the

system, and start some sort of new

society of barter and smallness?'

Really, we'd have the long give and

takes over it all. As artist-aspirants,

what the heck did we have to lose and

who cared anyway? You make shoes.

I need new shoes. I make paintings.

We trade. 'SURE!!' (I could hear it now...

'My shoes - worth maybe 40 dollars.

I need 12 of your [stupid] paintings

to make 40 dollars, OK?'). You can

see the dead-end value here, as we

always kept it somehow in our favor

and in the programming of ONE

item for ONE item. That doesn't work.

To make bread, (to trade), you need

flour, and an oven. Get started.

It all reminded my, always, of an 

old rabbinical joke I'd had told to

me - these scientists are all full

of themselves, talking about how

they'd securely achieved everything

necessary for making life, for 

creating Mankind from nothing. The

story goes on, they're telling all

this to a Rabbi, or to God, or

something, and they're then

challenged to 'OK, go ahead, make

a human.' So they ask for a clod of

dirt. God, or the Rabbi, (I forget

the exact telling) raises a hand and

says, 'Ah Ha! No! Make your own

dirt!' Oh well, it was funny when

I heard it.