SENTIMENT KILLS

245. SENTIMENT KILLS:

I was out standing by a doorway and thinking of names and remembering places and all the things lost when I realized that for moment after moment there'd never again be another voice being sent my way another word of any sort NOTHING that I'd have to recreate textuate orchestrate - Althea Goodyear Wetz herself the girl I used to know the one sitting in the front seat back seat wherever and the big guy walks in with the stupid flower in his hat and sits down right next to her then he begins some trance-talk pretending to know what he don't know and the afternoon goes on like that for too long a time while talk turns to Ireland to where he says "I'm going back and never coming back" and silence is the watchword buzzword of that day but then I realize if there's no way to get back what once was yours then life itself has no meaning or not that much anyway but for whatever purposes that can be made of it we live it anyway nothing ventured nothing gained - and as I remember it Althea turned to him right then and in another language they both understood began telling him of the story of her old Grandma Weenah who 'ran for years the village potato storage facility in a shed behind her country-barn' and I wasn't sure I'd heard the comment related back to me correctly so I said 'you had a grandma who ran a potato collection building?' and she nodded and said 'yes but not really too' and later again when I asked about it after the guy had left she said 'it's just my way to do that - I felt sorry a bit for the fellow having to pack it up and leave and all that so I made up a story about a Grandma that maybe he'd find some solace in or at least something to think about when he got there' and it was almost funny but that's the way she was - always trying to serve others or put a good gloss on things and I began thinking that of all the many people I knew she was probably - because of that trait too - one of the saddest people I knew and she was always nervous-like and overly concerned with how people felt or what they were about to experience and because of that I felt she really did nothing for herself except just wallowed about in other's people's projected misfortunes and those were the same sort of people who ended up like having ten cats or too many pet birds or who took in stray dogs and lived in a mess both cluttered and stinking of pets : but they seemed always to get by even though they were always strung out on someone else's bad situation (like it really mattered to them) and I decided right then and there to understand forever that 'SENTIMENT' is the killer - that no mater what goes on once 'sentiment' enters into it it's all over and one can do nothing to evade the dumb consequences which come from it : after all WARS are fought and bombs dropped and people killed and land ruined and defoliated and burned and all the rest because of 'sentiment' - as a cause or a credo or a commentary and you never read about any heroes having sentiment - they wouldn't because they KNOW it kills them and you never read about no GOD having sentiment - no way no man - plaques and locusts and fires and brimstone blah blah and all that ! Sodom and Gomorrah be gone and you too to a pillar of salt - so anyway 'no matter what confusion befalls one no matter how bad the situation gets - don't fall like rain for the drop of a tear and have no concern for the rest.'
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It all sounds so funny now but back then it was a real big time : you think Harry Truman flinched when he dropped those two bombs? and when you start feeling bad for other people's misfortunes you've taken your first fatal step down a slippery slope leading to nothing but trouble.
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I'll take my chances riding coach and I'll leave the good seats for the rabble - the ones who don't mind paying for the chance to better see things first-hand : the way the priest is dripping wet with his own holy sin the way the athlete shows disdain for the fan the way the mean-dog at the base of the ramp snaps at everyone's feet just the same - Anyway - I finally gave it all up and Althea too and just marched back to my little room in the basement of the building and found a place to sleep.