244. RICE
(chinatown 2)
Trying to get this piece
going, on about Chinatown,
is like the Wright Brothers
first learning to fly. When
they began telling people
of their plans, it was,'Right,
brothers.' Then, only later
it was, 'Awright! Brothers!'
Chinatown was an allied
yet completely separate
fiefdom of New York City.
If you got there, you got
there, and the burden was
on you. It's much the same
today, but law enforcement
has, by comparison, gone
lock-down tight-crazy. What
once was anarchic, is not
now so much. (Red Hook,
Brooklyn was much the
same). Chinatown was
leftover streets, extra
spaces, voids with
mysterious passageways
and alleys down which
people disappeared. I
never knew where.
Funny extra story here;
much later, one year,
about 1985, I brought
my son and a friend of
his there. They'd wanted
to buy fireworks, cash
deals, off the streets,
where sellers lurked.
They had like forty
dollars with them,
and engaged a seller
in front of a building.
He led them, they
said, around a bend
and into a narrow
passage, to meet
another party for
'the deal.' They came
back ten minutes later,
with nothing. 'We
got mugged. He pulled
a knife, took our money,
and ran off.' They each
were crestfallen and
ashen. 'Chalk it up,
fellas, chalk it up.'
That's what I told
them as we slowly
left the scene.
-
I left off the previous
chapter with a trip to
the men's room, for
'draining the dragon'
in my friend's parlance.
In order to reach the
restrooms in this, oh
quite typical, restaurant
of Chinatown, one
first had to wend one's
way through clustered
diners, and waiters.
The waiters in a
Chinese restaurant -
of the urban,
Chinatown sort -
are unique in their
ways. They gather,
against walls, when
not busy, just
watching. They
seldom write things
down until the very
end, when they have
perfect memory of
all that they've
brought you, how
many dishes, etc.
It's all precise, and
it gets amazing. There
was one place, called
'The Mayflower Tea
House,' which was the
perfect exemplification
of this - the same five
guys, at all times, with
a perfect aggregate
memory of even your
last orders there. It was
quite possible there to
just say 'again,' and be
delivered exactly of what
you'd had on your last
visit. Within bounds,
I guess - though
maybe not.
-
These guys would
seem preoccupied -
with something. I
cannot believe they
would just have been
vacant. Each an
abacus of mental
precision, maybe,
in their heads,
they watched as
you ate - it wasn't
uncomfortable,
just weird. Every
so often you'd
catch one watching.
Then they'd go
away. Then they'd
come back. New
patrons entering,
they'd get a
person-count,
and finger motion,
quickly, 'Three!
Over here.' You
had to be sharp -
it all moved,
quickly and
efficiently too.
-
Well, getting back
to the rest-room.
It was down a quite
steep stairway, steep
enough to have posted
warnings, for women in
heels, for instance. It
was steep, yes, sometimes
dark, often wet too, and
consisted of about 40
stairs - I mean right
down to the deep. Two
tiny rooms, both basically
filthy and unkempt, and
poorly marked. Around
each were other, steamy,
doorways to whatever
other warren-like dens
of kitchen, cooking,
waste, and retrieval
by whatever means
that happened. Pots,
pans, baskets, bushels,
any of those things in
any array, littered the
area - along with,
often, eggshells, the
head-tops of bok-choy,
the litters of peas and
greens, and then the
obilgatory 50 lb.
sacks of rice. Chinese,
unbleached, white
rice. Unlike any of
today's million
varieties of it, this
was soft, sticky,
Chinese white rice,
when cooked and
ladled out. Enough
to smother the world.
It was once said that
the rice was the reason
Chinese men were
impotent by age 50;
they ate way too
much of that. I
always figured
that bad idea was
dreamed up by some
chubby, pimply
American guy
chowing down
on his fourth
Snickers bar
for lunch. Talk
about impotent.
-
Chinatown had over
it, on those cold,
Winter nights, a
cloud of real
enchantment,
as if you were
sure to end up
far-off somewhere
- one of those
cliched 'I've
been Shanghai'd'
deals, (like I saw
once on a 'Bonanza'
TV episode; no joke).
Guys being hustled
down alleys and
onto wooden ramps
leading to the river,
and right into the
working maw of
some well-strung
Trader-Joe steamer.
From certain corners,
one could smell and
hear the harbor - the
East River, not really
that far off. Piles of
freshly-caught fish,
recently deceased
and laid out on ice,
were the front
porches of each
fishmonger's cart
along the way. All
the pinks and strange
purples of 50 types
of fish, just waiting
for fresh purchase.
Surprise. Anguish.
Wonderment.
I felt it all.
-
The two most interesting
streets were Pell Street,
and Mott Street. There
were plenty of others too,
all of historic import. I
think it was Pell Street,
a curvy, nowhere stretch
simply connecting two
other places, which was
the strangest. It was
very dangerous, vile,
and piled up with intrique
and mystery. About
1965, in fact, the US
Government, in order
to alleviate some of
the problem, took
down a nasty stretch
of the street and built
a modern, up-to-date
post office, of grey
stone/granite. It really
looked crummy, just
didn't fit in, and was
always a mess besides.
I guess they figured any
form of 1960's brute
architecture could cover
a multitude of sins.
Oh well. It's still there.
Both are, in fact - the
building AND the sins.
Around the corner some,
as well, along what once
was notorious Mulberry
Bend, through Five Points
and all that, they tore a
swath of old housing
stock and put up some
'Confucius Park' or
'Washington Park' - or
some-such faux-patriotic
localized name. Old-line
Mafia funeral homes
(Italian, from before the
Chinese arrivals) fronted
it, still bearing those
long, vowel-rich names.
'Montegliore Funerales.'
There were probably
still hundreds of bodies
in the soil underfoot.
There weren't always
'funerals', you know;
just Italian justice.
In Chinatown there
were still the echoes of
all those searing afterlives
of what had gone on
previous. It was scary,
some. I used to walk -
often there were
wet-clouds of cold
air from the harbor;
they'd collect on late
February nights and
make everything
seem really strange.
Often I'd walk right
down, in that
cold/wet/damp mist,
to the Staten Island
Ferry. Passing along
the financial area the
white, cold mist always
got even stronger.
Other-worldly,
I'd ride the ferry,
back and forth,
all night, like it
was my own,
personal, five-cent
Chinese junk.
(Back then, you
could pay once, all
of five cents, and
stay on the same
boat all night, just
going back and forth).
Guitar guys, bad
singers, drug addicts,
hookers, people
sleeping whatever
'it' was, off; because
of 'security' now, even
though it's free, they
make you disembark
and get back on - most
often a different ferry -
each trip. It dulls the
experience a little,
to be sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment