8812. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, Pt. 224

224. A PENNY-WHISTLE 

IN THE NIGHT

There are/were very often

times, as a writer too, that

I'll say something or write

something and then  -  often

not two days later  -  see the

same thing or close to it

somewhere else. 'Hey, I

just said that' or wrote that.

It's very disconcerting and,

really, more common to

me than you'd realize. I

have never known what

to make of it. Coincidence?

But I'm bedeviled sometimes,

at the same time, by the idea

that some other, cosmic,

'great' mind is involved

here, interdicting all these

crossovers and meshings.

Perhaps that's how thought

and some form of Human

consciousness all gets

played out. Who knows,

really? I've always been

pretty eclectic with my

outlooks - things here,

things there. I delve and

I read, a lot of things. I

need not 'agree' with

things, I'd rather just

absorb. We otherwise

spend too much time

simply entrapped in the

very mundane.

-

Plato to Plotinus. You

know. One of those guys,

it was, who presented this

world of ideals of which

this world is but a pale

glimmer of poor approaches

and bad approximations.

So many things. I used to

like to take in scenes and

situations, and then retell

or replay them. Which is

what I'll do hear, in a minute

when I shift the scene back

to New York City. That is,

eventually. As for right now,

1964 seminary stuff still

beckons: The world was

so much cleaner then, with

simpler stuff, operations

under control, and the

normal person just taking

in all the normal stuff.

I was like a fresh sponge,

back then, taking a soak.

One thing after the other.

My friend, John, from

Brooklyn, another seminary

runaway, fleeing a horrid

home situation. He'd say

he was just there to get

away. Confusing as all get

out. The guy was perfect.

Attired well, and well-spoken

too. He had a real thing for

theater and ballet. Rudolph

Nureyev was his big idol. I

never knew anything about

that, or ballet, and certainly

never cared. Nor all those

tired out Broadway plays,

the musical-score and

cast albums he'd be playing

all the time. From him I

first heard the phrase

'Fruity Rudy,' (about

Nureyev). Hell, from

him I first realized that

there were what's now

called 'gay' things

everywhere. Honest

to God, until I got to the

seminary I hadn't a clue

about that stuff. His

commerce in language,

on the other hand, was

all about that. I figured

it was a Brooklyn thing,

or a New York thing, or

an 'entertainment' thing.

And then I started noticing

right around me. It was an

everywhere thing! All of

a new sudden, we learn.

(Yes, that's how I wrote

that, awkward and weird,

that 'new sudden' thing is

what I wanted to write).

Not a mistake.

-

So, what I was saying was

how things used to be 'clean'.

They weren't if course, but

at least by appearances they

were. You only learn later who

was a screw-up, but it does

all eventually come out. Like

Donald Manes. Does anyone

remember Donald Manes? He

killed himself, but all before

that, politically, he was the

real toast of the NYC town.

I myself think the issue, in

1986, besides being 'corruption'

hinges as well on his hidden

homosexuality. That would be

too bad if so. His twin brother,

a few years later, tried to kill

himself too, in the very same

manner as Donald  -  a small

penknife-type dagger into the

heart. His attempt failed. Man

all that was weird stuff, but

it all connected, with me,

forever, in my head, with

this seminary stuff, this

entire 'Fruity Rudy' kind

For the rest of my days,

I was unduly influenced.

-

Which brings me to Christopher

Street, and one of the bars there,

and the Lucille Lortel Theater,

which was about as g-a-y was

you could get, in the late 70's

and into the pre-AIDS 80's

anyway  So, as you can

surmise, some years have

passed, this was no longer

'seminary days,' and I'm

just sitting there with echoes.

What had caught me up was

how Time had me enclosed,

as if an eggshell around me.

The idea was of 'sensation'

passing, and all of the

realizations of what-will-be.

I'm sitting at the bar, near a

guy who says to the next person

over, as he is leaving, 'Say hello

to the Belgian for me,' and the

other guy gets up and as they

shake hands and do that kind

of New York cheek-peck thing

(men do there), says, 'I will if

you keep on selling.' Just the

odd and idle patter of two guys.

Not that far outside, the crooked,

crazy river to nowhere ran,

alongside us, near enough to

us. We call it The Hudson.

The old days called it the

'North River,' to distinguish

it from the Delaware, or

'South River,' which ran to

Philadelphia. That's how

things used to be. Plain and

clear. Nobody does that any

longer; everything's got names

without reference, glory-names

and game-names. I'm surprised

they don't call the Hudson now

the 'Magical Poof-Poof River.'

The little, magical words of

these two fellows, to each other,

carried for me the unmistakable

whiff of a whole other world.

The Lucille Lortel Theater,

indeed. Near by as well, all the

vast and great aromas of the

Puerto Rico Coffee Company,

'Purveyors of coffees and teas.'

-

Those rivers: both the Hudson

and the Delaware, were kingdoms.

There once was competition, of

a sort, between the two places for

predominance in the fledgling

nation. Funny to think of now,

(I've always loved Philadelphia

anyway, and in the seminary it

was but a 'hop-ship-and-jump'

across the river from Camden),

but the 'North River' and Erie

Canal, in tandem, won out  -

all that new commerce and

traffic, the huge port bustled

and became our grand city of

York. 'I got a mule, and her

name is Sal. Fifteen miles

on the Erie Canal...'

-

Back then (it was pretty

much winding down or over

by the time I got there), the

ports and docks of old New

York were a'bustle. Rows

of ships and piers. The heights

of rigging, in the old days,

all those schooners and

masts. What a sight. Shadows

everywhere, like buildings

are now  -  casting rakish

angles and battering the

light. All of that lazy freight

and cargo got dropped right

here : needing sorting, cartage,

drayage, packing, holding,

loading, buying, speculation.

All of which led to the majesty

of the Port of New York: a

thousand jobs on a dime  -

managers, paperwork,

clerks, haulers, lifters,

stevedores. Anyone's father

could have been anyone there.

There were endless trucks,

carts, and people. By 1960,

yes, most of it was lost. Only

a few horses were still around,

even though there had been a

time when most of the work

had been done by them too.

The huge, heavy, muscular

workhorses pulled carts and

clomped around, adding even

more to the aroma and the

atmosphere of that crazy place.

It's always a shame to lose

so much, but lose it we did.

The opportunities, for gain

and for crime too, were endless.

And eventually took over.

Rampant corruption. In the

beginning of this chapter I

said that 'everything was clean.'

Meaning corruption. It wasn't,

but by today's standards it was

different. Now, the largest

outlets for crime and payoff

and the corrupt are in any

of the layers of 'Government'.

The Donald Manes stuff again  -

rake-offs, padded contracts,

deals, hidden corporations.

At the local, municipal levels,

there's not a clean person

around. The reason for that

is that now the Government

makes the set-up for the graft.

Like sidewalks: Over the

last twenty years, one of

the largest municipal-based

operations has been the open

faucet of concrete and labor

contracts for breaking down

the curbs at the ends of the

walkways and installing

instead those 'handicapped'

ramps to the street. For

wheelchairs and carriages

and all that. Mandated by

Government, mind you. So

every mayor and council

geek there ever was now

has their hand out arranging

these contracts  -  a free-hand

to be built in for the awarding

of them, for the running of

the cash. Miserable slobs.

No one knows. (Then they

discover that icy ramps get

slippery, and they do it all

over again, installing those

grip-pad things which then

had to be installed over the

ramps, for 'round two.')...

Yeah, everything's clean.

-

Anyway, back to this scene:

When I hit NYC, even though

what was left of those old

 piers did become a sort of

second-home too, for a while,

the loss of the piers, the rows

of low, wooden buildings, the

counting houses, brick or not,

on both the west and the east

side (Manhattan had two very

distinct sides of riverfront,

each different from the other

and each very concentrated

on different sorts of freight),

the sailor hotels, loading

platforms, truck bays where

goods were handled and 

sorted, and stretched and 

set-up for the next 

distribution and the

endless and glassed 

rows of worker-sheds, 

counting offices, maintenance 

shacks, bars and taverns, 

hostelries, horse barns, 

smithy shops, cart spaces,

piles of hay and feed and 

rope and lumber, screws, 

straps, leather, steel, the 

six-high-six windows,

crooked with light and 

dark, quiet night and in 

the middle of those nights

the sometimes-heard small

conversations of people, 

men with the low, twining 

pitch of a guitar or a horn 

behind them, the soft, blue 

ooze of a music, of the lost

men somehow perfectly hiding

between things, and the beads

of sweat breaking out on a

hundred foreheads as food

went by them and the hunger

for food took over  -  food

close enough to see but not

eat. Alas, they could not

have what was not theirs.

Their hunger was like a

dead-end, a whistle of time

salvaged from what once

was forgotten and forlorn:

the dead penny-whistle of an

old tug boat resounding the

harbor, crowded as it was;

crates, boxes, and slabs.

The memory-yard of tarred

beams and huge slabs of

10x10 lumber along bulkheads

while the crazed river flew

past, singing at night. How

different were both the

sounds and that light 

in the night.