RUDIMENTS 637.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 637

(left for dead on the mantle)

Never knowing why, it always

seemed that people confided in

me, started telling me stuff I

didn't need to know, almost in

confessional ways. I could

never figure it out, and never

knew why  -  nor what they ever

expected I should do about some

of the things they told me. It

was charming, don't get me wrong.

But sometimes it put me in funny

situations  -  like in Elmira one

time we had these two friends,

real interesting people, arty, lots

of nice finesse, etc. On the surface

of things it always seemed ideal;

they were fun, we got along, he

was an art-teacher, if not an artist;

(I never felt one could be both, but

I never pressed the point). It was

his premise that he was - both, I got

close with the wife in this family, 

from work connections. We each 

had a 6 or 7 year old boy, and lo and

behold, as in so many other times,

this wife starts telling me all these

things  -  she's sleeping around with

a boyfriend, he's (her husband)

had a succession of girlfriends of

his own, their home life has become

bizarre, he's high all the time, etc.

It was enough to make me just

never want to hear from her again 

-  all this little missionary context

seemed to me as if her pores

were crying out for help. Trouble

was, it was all nothing I cared

about at all. I wasn't born to help

others like that. All too confusing.

So I tried just keeping out of it;

he'd drop her off each morning

in a cool '65 Pontiac Tempest or

something that they had, and he

always seemed OK  -  but once I

got to know their 'inside' story, I

could never view them the same.

There was nothing in it for me

anyway. The factor and ease of the

way such s sham premise could

be presented and function as if

representative used to amaze me.

-

However, the stigma that went

with it was that I was the go-to

guy (and equally the outsider)

to spin troubles on or off of when

they needed airing. Nothing against

that, it was OK, but what could I

do? Nothing worse than such a

powerlessness to begin eating

away, in turn, at one's own

self-confidence. It all piles up

and you begin wondering about

many things from many different

angles  -  to the point of being

uncomfortable. A part of me has

always wished for, and wanted,

to have ALL solutions, to all things,

everywhere. I was a God-given

saint, but with no brain or power.

for that realm at all.

-

Previous to that, in New York, my

one friend actually was a counselor

of sorts, on his way to some ordinary

psychological degree or something.

I hated that stuff, and we used to

argue over its utility. I used to get

angry at his presumption that all

problems were aberrational and that

everyone should find or be brought to

their owns means of being normal  -

fitting the mold, as it were. I'd accuse

him of killing creativity, destroying

creative minds, claiming that the

aberrational was the normal, at

all time and no matter. Made me

almost puke, And to top it off his

highest aspiration  -  as with so

many of these sorts  -  was to get

some cushy government-structured

job whereby he'd get paid for

violators and others whose legal

sentences demanded enforced

counseling. It was some form of 

new racket getting building up, 

at that time, late 60's, with all

 that Great Society and LBJ crap  

- medical instances of and of those

government-induced 'salvations', 

and massive payrolls too  -  shrinks 

and counselors and life-guides, etc, 

paid for by the referential payments 

of the US tax-funded mental health 

brigades. It was absolutely crazy, 

and to have it used as an end-goal 

for careerism, to me, was maddening. 

That was aberrational, not the sick mind.

-

New York City, in so many ways,

was a huge, welfare-state. I'd imagine

it is now too, only much worse.

There was hardly anything you could

do that didn't have an agency, fund,

alliance or assigned field-worker

to it. They had legions of criminal

and medical workers, case workers,

home-health aids, family counseling

set-ups, and the rest, for what was

essentially a failed mini-society

and an entire under-structure of

goons, agencies, and programs

consuming lethal amounts of money,

by the tons, for nothing really.

There were still families bereft

and broken beat-up wives and

children, crime-ridden tenements,

ways of life, have-baked schemes

of lethal money-making, disease,

peeling paint, retarded kids, poorly

education, broken-family homes,

murders, suicides, addictions, sex

crimes, prostitution, and the rest.

There were legions of medical

personnel, doctors, clinicians,

and all that, living off the dole,

on fat salaries, paid by taxes but

never called welfare, for these

people, as long as they lifted now

and then a pencil, a clipboard,

turned in a report, or showed

up for hearings. Everything was

padded with dollars, and billing

procedures were bullshit  -  an

absolute chaos of falsely inflated

treatment hours, procedures of

medicines, all reimbursable and

kept alive, in turn, by another

ocean of people acting as the

bureaucrats who 'reviewed' all

this crap and made sure the

paperworks kept moving along

the money pipeline. The process

was more important than the

procedures. Your paperwork

could be 80% bogus, yes, but

as long as the dots on the 'i'

were in place, all the slots

filled in correctly, and the

proper signatures in place,

you'd be on the gravy train of

'Normalcy.' You'd make the

grade. As for the rest of the

aberrants 'out there'  -  the

writers and artists, and weird

ones, they simply hadn't yet

been reached. 'But we'll get

them all,' was the working

motto. And, yes, I always felt

the knife was out there, just

coming to get us  -  the creative

one  -  as a group, one single

individual picked off after

another.  Cured! (Now they

have wine and paint nights

where they encourage people

to pretend to be THAT stupid!).

-

All this ever did to me was

fortify me. I was a laborious

warrior at work for my cause.

There wasn't going to be any

way of stopping me. I'd walk

over to the White Horse, just

to feel the fuss. That's where

a lot of the hard-core drinkers

who weren't artists taught the

artists who weren't drinkers to

be both. At the least. I knew a

guy who lived across from it,

'catty corner' as it was called,

and he had is regular corner

bar-seat there, always at the

ready. An Irishman, now already

long dead  -  he'd been at one

point a dock-worker, then some

sort of loader and packer, and

then some union guy over across

the 59th street bridge at Long

Island City. He was tough as nails,

but, in these later years, a sot

as well. It wasn't extraordinary

to just see him flopped or slumped

over by 5pm, as near to dead drunk

as a man could be. And they took

care of him; they knew just what

to give him for refills to keep him

at the right spot, they had the bar

tab always allotted and kept, and

he had all his friends. In the White

Horse, by that time of day, entering

evening the noise level would rise,

murmers, shouts, and the music,

and the need for his seat took over

the friendliness, as someone would

somehow get him back home and up

to his apartment. Right where old

Jack eventually died. Anyhow, that's

that story, and no one cured him;

just left him for dead on the mantle.