243. THE PRICE OF BEANS
(chinatown)
A long weary glance back
would tell me nothing. It's
all in the interpretation, and
that can be quite changeable.
The streets down there
represented something that
had yet no definition, in 1967.
It was all re-forming and
just coming together. A
weird feeling, somehow,
of 'finance in the ascendancy'
seemed to be taking over. I
sensed it, and at the very
same time I realized most
else of what was going
on around me was a result
of that too. The unexposed
secret of American profit
is War. Armaments, vehicles,
supply pipelines, food, medicine,
clothing, chemicals, and a
hundred other things, let alone
death and poison and funerary
practices, all stand to profit
handsomely from a good,
solid war. Everybody knows
that, yet it's kept unspoken -
most certainly by the gerbils
in Washington DC. Yet, if
everyone 'knows' this, but
no one speaks up, then it's
unknown. At this time, the
high-wire arc of body-suppliers
for the Vietnam conflict was
at an acme : bodies and boys,
please, if you will. The profit
motive went wild - everything
from candy bars to Ritz Crackers
to spray deodorants. The cutting
edge of technology, in fact,
had been turned over to the
military. Thank the military,
in fact, for your modern-day
car dashboard, for one
instance, and many more
things Every item advances,
except the troglodyte thinking
of War behind it all. It's a shame.
-
I always felt the World Trade Center
to be a monument to that sort of
folly. Pure, right-angled, boring-as-
hell rigid structuralism, and an
architecture representing Death.
They were unadorned, stark, and,
really, pretty boring. The identity
they gave the area was one of
brute-force efficiency. In a quite
ridiculous manner, all the silly,
small-time merchants who stayed
there, in their small shops and tiny
outlets for assorted, discounted
sundries, treats, wines, shoes,
ties and 'two-pants' suits, had
placed themselves up against a
new Goliath, hungry and raging
to consume them. It was no
surprise to me that they were
attacked. I WAS surprised, of
course, that they went down as
they did, but there was no
surprise at all that they'd
be attacked.
-
There was a first attack, in
1993, that failed, but opened
eyes. I remember that one,
when they first put up the
pop-up security barricades to
stop cars or trucks from freely
entering the underground
parking that was once there.
Some guy named Sheik Mujib
Rahman, a blind, Muslim,
cleric, as I recall (imprisoned
ever since, I think), had
masterminded the entry
of a large van loaded with
explosives, which entered the
underground garage and
eventually went off. A huge
bomb, fired by timer, or
remotely. The damage it
did was pretty intense, but
never threatening to the
standing of the very structure
itself. He was tried and
sentenced, long-term, and
swore that - although that
attempt had failed - the
'next one' wouldn't. He
swore they'd get us; people
laughed him off. Oh well;
'one if by ground, two if
by air,' as it were. It took
about 8 years.
-
I used to frequent old
Chinatown a lot too - sort
of just up the street a bit,
from the police and the
municipal area - the old
Collect Pond site, Five Points,
Mulberry Bend - all that
ancient, really tough land
area had, over time, somehow
become Chinatown as well.
Strange, crazy place. Exotic
as all get-out and certainly
never-before seen. I went,
almost blindly, just from
hearing about it. A few
Studio School kids would,
every now and then, get an
apartment down there, for
about the price of beans;
nothing to it and dirt-cheap.
-
One day I was sitting in
a Chinese restaurant,
idling with some sort
of fish ball soup and
whatever occasional
dim sum the lady
would bring around;
along with some tea.
It was about 20 degrees
degrees out and cold,
with a biting wind that
had pervaded everything
and the only life on the
streets was to be found
out along Chinatown
and its crazy rim where
nothing ever stopped -
the fish-sellers and
vegetable people and
the little tables with
all their goods for sale
and toys and hats and
gloves and the rest,
and that incessant
chatter of the Chinese
tongue was everywhere
- even with air blowing
out of frigid mouths
as I imagined each
breath taking the form
of some changing Chinese
characters in the air
around them, and I
imagined the great
cacophony of sound
to be allied with the
same, great, melange
of sight and everything
else together : Red
Dragon New Year's
snakes and rats and
pigs and all the rest;
and I wondered if
anyone even noticed.
Sitting there in the
cozy restaurant -
which seemed from
another day indeed -
there were a number
of people around me,
eating, and the two
workers nearby had
spent the entire time
so far cleaning a huge
mound of Chinese pea
pods or something on
the table, and I watched
them work swiftly with
their hands, trimming
and tearing the harsh
parts of the pod-leafs
off. Table had a grand
mound of green things
and I thought 'what a
job for an entire shift!',
meaning 'how boring'
and they'd said not a
word to each other, just
both facing each other,
at the round table
engrossed each
singularly in thought,
and across from me,
at the round table I
was at, was a woman
with her two boys
perhaps ages 10 and
7 each, and though
they looked alike
they were different
in size, and someone
alongside from where
I was said "excuse me
ma'am I couldn't help
but notice are those
two boys your twins?"
and she laughed aloud
and said "no no they
are three years apart."
She rattled off their
ages (I was close, but
wrong), and everyone
smiled - and the one
boy said, "Mommy I
don't want any more
rice it tastes like water"
and she said "finish -
you must just have a
little more." That went
on as the dim sum
lady came around
again, and people took
more things. The Dim
Sum cart was a silver
metal thing on wheels,
pushed along by a woman
whose sole job, it seemed,
was to mark what was
taken, and then replenish.
When a person was done,
they got their dim sum
tally, to pay. Usually it
was in addition to
whatever other food
you'd gotten - it was
all, back then, quite
cheap. Fifty cents
maybe, each. They
were an assortment
of little, filled, dumpling
type things. I'd just refilled
my teacup and took two
sort of dumplings or
something on a small
plate with four on it,
and it tasted as good
as anything else. More
time passed as I watched
the sculpted dragons on
the wall - large and
fearsome, with red
lights for eyes - and
I wondered at their
decoration and what
presence they were
meant to evoke; and
it went on from there
- how the twinned
boys seemed as
coupled as did the
twinned dragons, and
the twin dumplings,
and why I'd gotten
everything in two's
just then - and the
two guys at the pea
pod table made me
sure to expect a bill
of $12.22 if nothing
else but that didn't
happen. It was all a
fancy, and my own
whims at play. I started
thinking about 'Fava
Beans,' which I'd
somehow just read
about recently. They
were some French
concoction, a tradition
of the 'galatte' - a round,
flat pastry with a favor
in its dough - a practice
which I'd read continues
each year through the
month of January, still,
and the galatte, when
distributed for centuries
in France, had begun it
was as a custom whereby
whoever got the slice
with the favor in it
became king or queen
for the day, complete
with a paper crown,
and the favor was
said to bring an
abundance of good
fortune; and even to
this day the favor is
still called a 'fava' (or
originally the French
feve), for beans were
what French bakers
had originally buried
in the cake,s but they
eventually became
porcelain little toys
and trinkets and are
now - of course - instead
PLASTIC items of the
same variety - little
trinkets decorated
with flowers texts
or other themes
meant to delight
the recipient, and I
thought how parallel
all that was to Chinese
New Year, to good fortune,
to customs and trinkets
and luck charms and
even fortune cookies.
But I figured at some
point, perhaps, all
things do mesh
together so that each
culture and every
tradition soon enough
is found to trade off of
the same human needs
by condition everywhere.
And now the Fava Bean,
though it still exists,
is kind of a mysterious
bean only occasionally
eaten and without much
other intention or presence
and so long forgotten as
could be. But somewhere,
somehow, tradition lives
on even in a place like
this - now that
I mention it.
-
And then I decided -
there's no 'favor' in
this world, where the
sewers have been
known to run with
blood, and the very
soil I walked upon
was somehow drenched
in four hundred years
of death. Yet, we forget,
and maybe that's good.
The old parts of New
York City did this to me,
made me think like that.
And at the bank, as I
passed, the fireman was
talking to another about
retirement, and I figured
every mind has thoughts
but only great minds have
great thoughts. The lady
he was talking to seemed
about as dumb as he was
about everything and as
soon as they were done
and the lights had changed
I moved on again figuring
there's always room for
more and there's always
levels of elitism too -
that fireman was looking
to retire by stashing away
enough cash for another
home somewhere to
retire to, while I, by
contrast, was just
looking to survive
and pocketing whatever
money I could here and
there come by. And that
was another elitism
entirely - elevated
elitism versus lower
elitism, or something
like that. The rank
difference between
the two, it always seemed,
was as yet unknown to me,
and if we each had a
daughter they'd probably
look exactly the same at
first, my daughter and his,
and only later start
looking vastly different
(well that was a hunch
anyway), and some
people blame circumstance
for everything, and others
blame environment,
while others say fate.
I never got any of that
straight so I just let it go;
because, no matter what
else, sometimes it all
comes so simply and
leaves everything else
behind because of
its grand simplicity,
while other times
everything's as difficult
as hell and you just
can't do anything about
it anyway. Then I thought
to myself that sucker,
that fireman, could die
in a city blaze tomorrow
and everything would be
for naught anyway, and it
was all like some fervid
zen koan ringing in my
modern-day ears - like
'why did the cookie cross
the road?', and the answer
is 'it had no ears.' Just as
simple and paradoxical
as that. And another one
'what did the zen Buddhist
say to the hot dog vendor?'
and the answer is 'make me
one with everything'. Both
of them made me smile,
(that enlightened smile
seldom seen), and I
realized how fateful -
no matter what - everything
really i,s and how one
moment anyone could
be laughing at themselves
while the very next hour
they could be drooling
on a metal cot shot in
the head over a parking
spot. And that's the hand
that the city plays up -
one minute to the next
you're double-crossed
and just as dead : and
bang your head and
you ARE the missing
link and so what of it.
And since it was Chinatown,
and I needed to pee, I
thought of my friend,
Ed, who, in such situations,
would always say he had
to 'drain the dragon.'
No comments:
Post a Comment