wandering hillbilly

life of buddy don, chaptur 75:
crap notes

as part of my obligayshuns under the collidge scholars program, i promissed i wood rite a novel. twood be my senior project, witch ye had to have one to graduate with collidge scholars fer yer major. i gut em to let me do a novel on a counta i needed sum kinda way to git me to rite one. i had been dreamin of bein a riter since i wuz eleven years old n rote a cuple of pomes. i showed em to mama n she lacked em a nuff to ast fer more, n that gut me goin.

thay wuz times, lack in junior hi skool, when ifn twernt fer ritin them pomes n later short stories, i dont thank i coulda made it. i wood be hurt by the stuff that kids that age are foolish a nuff to care about, witch thats thangs lack whuther a gurl says hi or whuther ye kin play football or baseball good a nuff sos ye wood git picked in the first few in sted of as the last one. as ye mite member, thay wuz more ways than ye could shake a stick at to git yerself into a lil depresshun. n whenever it happened to me, i wood rite a nuther pome, n purty soon i wuz feelin ok, speshly ifn the pome came out all rite.

that dont mean them pomes wuz inny good. they dun me good on a counta it seemed lack i had sumthin goin on in my life other than the junior hi skool soap opers that set how everbidy else wuz a feelin. but i gut myself in the habit of ritin, furst with them pomes n later with a diary n then i tride to rite longer thangs lack short stories.

my dream wuz to rite novels. i wonted to be lack dostoevsky, witch he rote one of the gratest novels of all time name of the brothers karamazov. thang wuz, once i finely gut suthin longer writ, it dint turn out to be all serious n tragickal n all i had hoped fer it. in sted, it turnt out to be pure irony n more than a lil funny.

it tuck me a few tries to git goin on whut i wonted to rite. i wood half to turn in a typed vershun of it, so i figgered i wood type the ruff draft. thang wuz, i couldnt get nuthin i lacked writ down thataway. i wood try to git sumthin, start makin typin miss takes, tell myself it dint matter nun, but git so wound up by them miss takes that i couldnt git no more ritin dun. i wood lack as not rip out the piece of paper frum the typewriter n wad it up n throw it into the waste basket along with all tutherns.

it gut me a lil deepressed, but then i figgered i should wurk it the same way i wurked thonly other long thang i had writ up to then, witch that wuz my diary. n i gut to thankin bout that verr diary n that led to one of the mane idees of the book, witch i deecided i wood make each chaptur the idees writ down by the mane care ackter whenever he wuz takin his daily dump. i figgered twuz a symbol for how his life wuz too full of junk that dint matter, his job n his wife n all.

so i gut me a nuther notebook jes lack the ones i used fer my diary n i gut into the same habit, witch i wood open it n date it jes lack twuz my reglar diary, n purty soon, that wuz wurkin fer me.

n corse, i wuz under the sway of all them flossofers i had dun been reedin n tiz a wunder the book cum out with innythang of its own. but i wonted it to include lots of wry commentairy bout them same flossofers n i wood ack lack all them grate thankers befor me n pertend lack i wuz jus as good as inny of em. so i started the book off by ritin, "All men by nature desire to crap," witch that wuz a obveeus take off on aristotles metaphysics whar he starts out, "All men by nature desire to know." n thar wuz way too much of that kinda thang innit.

the big idee of thatn wuz how the mane care ackter, gregory gurley, wuz splainin his inventchun, witch he had cum up with the idee that ifn ye could git rid of sum of the ineffable conceps frum life, witch he figgered love n god could go, then he could fit the human personalty into a machine that wuz programmed. he called it DESIGN, witch that meant data environment synthesis through the integration of governing nodes. this wood be pronounced design but wood sound a lil like dasein, witch thats a german wurd used by heidegger n such n it means literaly "there be," but flossofers tuck it to mean sumthin to do with genuine bein or bein real. so ye kin see the kinda jokes i wuz puttin in thar.

n thang wuz, i gut into a nice set of habits while i wuz wurkin on it, lease until the nex big life change cum along, n twuz one of the sanest times of my life. i tuck two classes, buddhism n german, n tuther 8 hours of credit wuz for the novel. so i studied moren ever fer my classes n wurked on my novel. n when thar wuz time off, i planted my garden n spent sum time with susannah.

n all wooda bin jes fine, but our relayshunship had reached that point woody allen mentchuned in that movie name of annie hall, whar he sed, "A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know, it has to constantly move forward or it dies. I think what we have on our hands is a dead shark."

n whut wuz killin our shark wuz how it dint know which way to go. i wonted to travel n that wuz the mane reason i wuz takin german. i figgered since i wuz makin strate a marks in skool (ceptn fer that b in golf my first quarter), i should be able to git sum kinda skolarship or fellaship to study in a foreign cuntry. n since i had dun figgered out how i couldnt larn spanish, i looked roun fer a nuther langwage that i thought i could git, n german seemed lack it on a counta how ye could tell whut so many of the wurds mint, witch they call such wurds cognates.

but suze wonted to finish gittin her house built n move in n start havin babies. n rite thar wuz a nuther thang fer me to cunsidder. i had been a'studyin relijuns lack crazy, n frum the momint susannah n me furst gut together, i tuck a innerest in judaism. i read sevrul books, the bestn bein Jews, God and History. ifn ye aint red it, i wood highly recommend ye git a copy n read it. tiz a mazin tale, n ye cant hardly read it without cummin away with new respeck fer such a grate cultchur.

so i wuz impressed by it, but at the same time, i had larned sumthin else bout it, witch the child of a jewish mama is a'gone be a jewish child. thats why whenever i moved up north later in life n mentchuned my mamas maiden name wuz mize, folks wood ast wuz she jewish n whenever they larnt she wuznt, ever jew i ever told it to wood let me know rite away that i wuznt jewish, as if i had been trine to git a unfair advantage frum my mamas name. but it push the point home as shore as innythang could. n i cant say why, but twuz moren i could figger out whuther i wonted our children to be jews. twernt lack i had a nuther relijun i wonted em to bleeve.

n thang wuz, i dint wonta settle down, dint wonta start a fambly, dint wont nun of whut susannah wuz mos wontin in life at that time. n she dint wonta folla me into whut i wuz wontin to do, witch i wonted to live in a forn cuntry n larn a forn lingo to whar i could really speak it n live in new york city sumday.

so we wuz predispozed to split apart, but inertia jes kep us in place fer a while.

befor ye knew it, twuz sprang quarter, n i tuck two classes agin, islam and the furst class of second year german. n one of the furst thangs that cum frum that wuz how they had em sumthin called german table, witch twuz a place in smokeys palace whar students of german could git together to practice speakin it. thay wuz a cuple of german teechurs thar to keep thangs on track.

n i sat down the furst nite n seemed lack thar wuz a blur of voices all round me, all talkin german lack twuz berlin or sumthin. i couldnt hardly catch a wurd that i could recognize, but i kep trine. purty soon i noticed thar wuz a verr innocent looking young student sittin across frum me. she wuznt sayin nuthin neethur, so i figgerd she must be jes as shy bout talkin german as i wuz.

so i wurked out a lil questchun in my mind, checked it all over to make shore twuz correck, n then i ast her, "Warum sprechen Sie nicht?" witch that means why dont ye talk? n shore a nuff, that gut her to talkin n seemed lack thar wuz sumthin sparkly bout her eyes n i noticed that even tho she dint whar no makeup nor nuthin, she wuz purty with her twinkly brown eyes n long silky brown hair.

n fer the nex week, i couldnt hardly thank of nuthin else ceptn that german table. n i wood ast myself why wuz i lookin ford to that? i wuz in a happy relayshunship n susannah desurved better n all. but the hart is made of stuff that the mind finds inscrutable, so thay aint much to say ceptn finely the evenin cum.

n shore a nuff, she sat rite across frum me n we gut to talkin about everthang that wood fit into the wurds we knew, witch she turnt out to be one of the readinest folks i ever met, n rite away i larnt that n could get a idee jes how much we had in common n i couldnt hep but thank twood be nice ifn we could talk a lil english. but the hour cum to its end n one of the teechurs ast me a questchun n nex thang i knew, she wuz gone.

it tuck me a few mints to git away frum that teechur, n once i dun it, i dint know whar the young woman could be. so i figgered i wood jes wait till nex week. i tuck a nuther look round smokeys palace jes in case, but she wuznt thar.

then whenever i lef through the frunt door of the student center, thar she wuz, smokin a cigarette n standing with one hand in her back pocket. she wuz dressed the same as she wood almos always be dressed, witch that wuz wearin a pair of earth shoes, blue jeans and a flannel shirt. we walkt twords each other n i could see she had sumthin she wonted to say but wuz almos too shy to. so i waited n she ast did i wonta cum over to her house sos we could talk a lil more?

n i sed i did but . . .

n after that 'but,' i splained all bout susannah n how i wuz involved n all. n she tuck it purty good n ast could we be friens, n i sed why not. so she led me over to whar she lived, witch twuz in a house on the corner of 13th street n clinch avenue, n whut wuz so sprizin bout that wuz how my daddy had lived in the same house round the time he wuz studyin law n meetin mama.

i went in n tuck a seat in a rockin chair near her bed, whar she lay back n gut to talkin bout how lonely she wuz. we talked a long while befor i larnt her name, witch twuz emily dickinson smith. her mama named her after the poet on a counta she had memerized one of her pomes, witch twuz the one that starts out, 'I heard a fly buzz when i died.'

emily had jus lost her lover n twuz rite hard on her to be so lonely. i knew a nuff to let her talk, n whenever she gut stopped, i wood sorta repeat the las thang she had sed, n that wood git her a'goin agin. whut a sprize to larn that the lover she had lost wuz one of my german teechurs, a woman name of laura bishop.

i hid my sprize n wunderd whut she wonted with me ifn she wuz innerested in women. but on tuther hand, i figgerd twood be easier to splain to susannah how i wuz friens with a lesbian than twooda been to say i wuz friens with a purty young woman who loved to read moren innythang, witch it bothered susannah how she wuz such a slow reader n dint care much fer literchur, witch she knew twuz the mane thang i wonted to practice in life.

but i dint jes git up n leeve upon larnin bout her lover. i figgerd ifn i wuz a'gone be her frien, then i woodnt only be her frien if twuz possibull to be sumthin more. so we talked a lil more till she ast whut i wuz studyin n that led to me talkin bout collidge skolars n her to wunderin whut twuz n my sayin i dint know too much bout it ceptn ye had to do a senior projeck.

then she ast whut i wuz doin and i tole her i wuz ritin a novel. n ye mite could thank i had lit a fire behind her eyes the way she sat up n begun astin me questchuns bout it, n the more i tole bout it, the more she seemed to lack it. she ast whut the title wuz, n i tole her 'crap notes.'

then she ast me sumthin that hadnt nobidy ast me befor, witch she wonted to know when could she read it.