Congenial-speak #10

Grounded at Zero

In the days of my book, for the times it took to memorize history, years from mis-remembered nuances, the idiosyncrasies of narrative writing, ours stood at subterranean level. Before carpet covered the floor, when it was still tile floor and overhead lights bouncing off them like cues to grow into something wise, better, more sociable and judicious. And the walls enshrined my eight-year-old mind, bombarded with audible, textual and visual cues. They were tan wood begging for adornment.

Before antiques or political buttons, I played on the stairs, on the brown-specked carpeted descent to the basement. I had a “big Jim” action figure, I had a Muhammad Ali figure, I had a black version of 'Big Jim.” My figures were diverse, they were powerful, muscled, but not dispositioned to war, to general infantry. The Jim figure came with a silver band that wrapped around his biceps muscle, on the arm you chose, and when it was flexed the band shot off. They all got along, Jim, Ali and the black Jim (I want to say his name was Jack). They went on adventures. I had an RV and camping equipment. It went down the stairs and broke at the bottom. Camp was set, or they climbed the stairs to scale them. My sister came on some trips, crinkling cellophane to simulate frying sounds. I twirled a tiny plastic pan between my fingers. We were a team.

And then one day I noticed the accumulation of the politics of earlier days, of McCarthy, of Humphrey, of Don Fraser, of state and local politicians, of LBJ, of Warren Spannus-AG. I heard the nailing, the hangings, the exacting measures and levels my dad made. Subsequently I felt the walls' emptiness populate. Gradually I watched the bulletin boards' burlapy orange surface area fill, with buttons like islands within another island on wooded tan infinity. A bumper sticker interrupted the islands' tows—of eyes—with a subtle infrequency. They served as inlets, estuaries to teach compromise, to appease a metaphor.

I crawled normally, anyways. I trailed behind the ethnically diverse RV, behind the bar. At the far end of our basement was a bar with an orange-pink shine. Its Formica ran roughly 8 feet. Four stools in front provided endless fun, taking turns, spinning, dizzying, stomaching, the revolving gold seats. Political fundraisers, U of M and socially kosher parties filled the room's memories. My dad's HELP Center parties (a low-income university program) attracted hippie types, creative student, ex-cons and counseling faculty. They drank, and drank, smoked a bit and drank some more. They ate sometimes if a meal was offered. They slept on a trundle couch. I remember one man, somehow associated with my dad and the U of M, staying for an extended time. I had a bowling set, a light ball and 12 plastic pins. We framed our games in the laundry room where I played floor hockey (see blog post CS#7). He was the pin-boy of yore, and set about pinning our games. The ball scuttled across a smudged tan-specked tile floor, unguttered, unparalleled in random accuracy. Three strikes is a turkey he taught me, and also what constitutes a foul.

Six bulletin broads accrued the walls, dulling and enlightening my play and Saturday cartoon sanctuary. At the end of the room, opposite the bar, were twin couches and our first black and white TV. I watched there, as the rest of the house settled, Schoolhouse Rock and Archie. It was an osmotic room with walls that seeped political progress and history. Antiques from up-north auctions were eclectic, at first they had to be. A mannequin in a black dress with breasts and frills stood. It looked in the dark like an evil old woman, and in the early days sleeping downstairs scared me. The witch woman was next to the wicker wheelchair, a combination antiquarian fraught with murderous possibility. On the bar, on trees, were the pointed witches shoes. Above, mounted, was an old gas-light run electrically. Mirror wall backed the bar and your face and all its where was there for all to see. They saw you spinning, dizzying, assimilating to the eclectics of a youth, a stewardship, naturally.

The basement was a museum, a signed den of amusing politically bred and bartered antiquaries. The walls were now hanged with old railroad lights, irons, rug beaters, bed pans and various agrarian utilities. In the corner, as you came down the stairs, one saw a wood box, a copper kettle, a clothes ringer and rack. In the curtained work-room was where repairs were made. My mom stripped and re-finished antiques once begun. In rags and turpentine, she varnished the smells. It was lacquered and mixed, clumpy, gooey, fixes that lasted and peppered the air. I built things with no particular design with legos, tinker toys or Lincoln logs in the next room. The auction lots that were brought home as trophies, as non-political tangible possibilities, to stand in the most elegant and docile room of the house. Upstairs, where the piano played and my dad added method reading to the Sunday paper.