311. DEPLORABLE
I hate to always
be rattled but, boy,
so many things
always keep me
going. When I got
to NY City, my
main impetus was
to unshirk myself
from much of the
straitjacketed
material that had
been drummed into
me, or supposedly
had been. It's important
to remember that
(perhaps) someone
like myself, coming
out of a young-boy
mess of seminary
and constrict, pretty
nearly spends the
remainder of a
lifetime either
negating or trying
to negate more than
half, I'm sure, of
the accumulated
mis-knowledge
and tribal junk
which was fed to
him. I had a lot to
struggle out of.
My mission-to-self
was to impel my
way out of the
tunnel I had been
headed into. It
was a big struggle.
It was an existential
willing-to-act; to find
that defining force.
I wanted to be invisible,
which was easy, and
at the same time I
wanted to dig and
find and learn, to be
able to come up
with my own history
of New York. In a
sort of manner that
would keep me
moving forward.
I spent a lot of time
in the NY Public
Library, and some
bookstores too, doing
that. But often it just
maddened me. The
dead-weight of the
past would always
meet the present. Crazy
things I'd see would
never make sense
and would just anger
me. Often, what I
found people
believing in just
made me shudder.
The same old twisted
material always
being brought to
the fore. Example:
- an archbishop or
somebody, in Chicago,
talking about the
wave of crime and
the chilling murders
there, somehow has
the nerve to tie it
together, in the
stupidest fashion,
with the Chicago Fire.
The two things have
nothing at all in
common, and
bringing the
connection out
is just bad church
homily, the usual
soft-talk of nothing.
One is a result of
simple, physical
FIRE, and the
other is the
accumulated and
current result black
on black, mostly,
violence, and cops
- in whatever capacity,
good or bad, you wish
to see it. This following
'religious' quote is pure
bunko. I was infuriated
upon reading :"The Archbishop,
who was being honored
by the council that
evening, spoke of
the violence and
urged its members
to take on the epidemic
of violence, as a
mission and a cause,
and he compared it
to the great Chicago
Fire of 1871 - 'Today,
another fire is ravaging
our city, our neighborhoods;
when violence has become
a terrible way of life,
families and neighborhoods
need to know by what
we say and what we
do that they are not
on their own.'" I
couldn't tell what
any of that meant
but I sensed some
soft-hearted gibberish
getting pushed along
as 'policy.' And then,
even more to the point
- Henry Ward Beecher,
a famed but dubious
NY preacher of the
1880 era, a man
with a grand reputation
and a large following,
responds to that old
despair of his era,
and to the impoverishment
of New York's great
working hordes, during
the rail strikes of those
years, with the most
astounding statement
I'd come across.
Using God, actually,
using RELIGION for
pity's sake, against
the very people he and
it were supposed to be
serving. Scenting
money, he took the
side of the rich,
elitist, railroad tycoons
- all those same names
as before, and more -
who were stealing,
inflating stock, buying
falsely depressed stock,
decimating geography
and landscape, and
running people scared
out of their homes.
He said, I read, denouncing
the railroad strikers,
(and this reallly made
me ill) - "[Their] effort
is immoral because
it contests the
workings of the
'natural law,' which
was on the side of the
largest, always, whether
man would have it so
or not; and no meddling
on their part can interrupt
it. God has meant that
great shall be great
and the little shall
be little, and the
poor must reap
the misfortunes
of inferiority." If
that wasn't a sorry
heap of crap I didn't
know what was. I'd
get a headache just
thinking that a
scant number of
months before I
had been working
to be in the employ
of this 'God' and
proclaiming Him
to others. Man, I
wanted to jump.
Everywhere I looked
within the histories
of New York -
everywhere - I
found greed,
corruption, bribery,
crime, murder,
mischief, violence,
collusion, improper
procedures, false
justice, insider
deals, payoffs,
and the like. Really,
it just went on and
on ad nauseum.
These people
were nothing but
dog-faced criminals,
even the preachers
and saints. New
York City, patron
saint of shit. It
didn't take me
long to realize w
here I really was
- in the belly of
a beast. A Sodom.
A Gomorrah.
Everything like
that all plugged
together.
-
Despair and
disappointment
can lead men
to do lots of
dreary things.
I knew. I learned
quickly. Everywhere
I turned, no matter
how un-affected
and invisible I
tried to remain,
I was always
getting mixed
up in something,
buffeted by some
or another outside
force. Even Huck
and Jim, floating
down that river
in what you'd
think was maybe
a free and clear
passage, they
kept getting
mixed around
with like thirty
different adventures.
I wasn't Huck, and
I wasn't Jim, and I
didn't have no raft.
Nonetheless, I just
kept bumping into
things left and right,
all along the way.
But - and this is
the true mark of
sanity - a man
makes peace. A kid
makes peace. No
sense in endless
emotional fighting;
you just end up like
them. I never wanted
any Sodom, or Gomorrah
either, but all my
connections just kept
bringing me there. I
was in the 'demi monde'
- or at least what it
used to be called of
that. A dark,
'half-world' of the
unsettled underground;
the invisible people.
Nowadays the entire
world's in it anyway
and no one seems to
care. Talk about a
'basket of deplorables.'
I could bring it to you.
I met a hundred dirty
people and each with
a story, and a command
to follow too, should
I have wanted. Some
I did, most I never
did. I could be
dead by now,
for sure.
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