MARCUS : WHEN I
LOST
EVERYTHING
I had no money for paint or canvas. I could
barely find bread to eat. There was no rent
to pay, for I had no place to stay : that solid
bench in Tompkins Square Park, well it just
had to do. Back then there was a band shell,
always filled with annoying Spics and
all their God-damned drums.
-
Colossal, all this was - the Slocum Disaster
had a place of its own - a monument of sorts
at my end of the park, over by 10th. I never had
really figured it out - a pleasure ship that
had
burned in the East River nearby, watched by
those on shore. Helpless to do anything, they
stared as some big number of Germans died.
-
That was all it took to move Little Deutschland
uptown to Yorkville, where they've stayed since.
All those sad immigrant Germans, with family
members, friends and kin dead and burned.
Well, anyway, it had nothing to do with me
back in 1967, but that's what I learned from
1909. The park was my wayward home.
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