RUDIMENTS, pt. 60
Making Cars
I never had a real head-start towards
anything much, and I knew that. One
of the ways of avoiding that was by just
clowning around. But, that grew out of
over time, just like bad complexion or
voice-changing. Everything I kept doing
discounted humor, big-time. Going to the
seminary was the least humorous thing in
the world - all these snap-happy compadres,
who were also padres, wearing large, beaded
prayer belts around their silly waists. I took
a licking or two for my clowning from them,
and it about ruined me for life. It was over.
What kind of gentleman-preacher walks
about with the dead humor of their own
presence, in the face of a happy God? What
sort of person in 'Authority' gauges it by
taking their frustrated entanglements out on
14-year old boys in untenable situations?
Who can take the joyousness of a creative
God and squash it into the blip of regulations?
Who taught these guys this stuff, and
whatever were they thinking?
-
It never any of it seemed worth crap for me,
since then. Same went for the rest of that finishing
year of high school - a bunch of funky weasels
learning about their own sexuality and constantly
humming a Beach Boys song. Believe you me.
Twisted little mongrel teachers there too. Trying
to pad you through the high-life by reading with
high honors : Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Right you are. I supplanted that with Portrait of
the Artist as a Young Dog. That was the version
Dylan Thomas wrote. It used to be a big deal
to grow two extra inches of hair, or at least lose
that 'just-barbered' look, back then, to be labeled
evil, a muddling swingster, loser, loafer because
'long hair' ! let alone the swank fuzz of a nascent
beard. It was all enough to get you killed. Yep,
by the time I got to New York City there wasn't
a shred of humor left in my being. They'd pretty
much dulled and killed everything human. I had
to fight to stay alive. When you (hope to) hit
the streets running you just take it all on the fly.
As I've said before, about those days there's just
a million words a minute I could write. It was a
zillion degrees for a week solid - which meant
that all of my first exposure to this stuff was constant.
The unrelenting heat made the nights no different
from the days except for the light and that didn't
much matter because most everything was lit up
anyway. Everybody seemed to live on the streets,
all hours, and no one really seemed to have a home.
So, I fit right in. And right off, first notice : that
kind of heat makes everything sticky and melty,
makes everything smelly. You could simply
sense and feel and smell the decay everywhere -
food in garbage cans, overflowing, running
liquids everywhere, stinky people, drunks.
All the sort of stuff that stinks just by living.
And then the flies and bugs. I'd never before
faced the onslaught of cockroaches, for which
I really wasn't prepared : it was almost best if
you loudly announced yourself first, before
entering the room or turning on an interior
light. Maybe they'd begin their swarming
away before you entered. They were
everywhere - often times clinging, coating
walls and counters. There were so many of
them you'd feel like they should be paying
the rent for you. I haven't mentioned the rats,
and I won't - except to say that maybe only
sometimes they were the size of Panzer tanks,
and don't fall dead in the street because they
have your eyes before the coroner ever arrived.
-
So, yes, my fully-retreated sense of humor was
as pulled back as far as a balding guy's hairline.
If it was all drudgery, or if it wasn't, I couldn't
sometimes tell because it sure all felt like it no
matter. Every little cardboard Greek coffee cup,
the kind with the blue Parthenon design on it,
or some fictive God or Goddess, every one of
those, funny as it might seem, was just a terror.
A real diner terror. Along the wharves and the
docks, each of those little open-always diners
turned out to be more a terror than it should be :
late-night dealers, all sorts of shenanigans and
crooked cops and idle-time whores and people
talking furtively. Like rebel-priests on the prowl,
it always seemed there was somebody looking out
to get your ear and make you right, correct your
poor course of action, help you out. I must have
looked like a 17-year old sucker lots of times,
the way people glommed onto me to tell me
what I should be doing right, other than the
'right 'I already thought I was doing. It was all
a fantasy-funhouse-mirror, a regular hall of
horrors. Gay dudes, you could always tell,
prowling young guys. Not so much like today,
when it's open and sing-songy. This was all sly
and sneaky. I had to learn quickly what and how
to say and do. It was sometimes difficult. The
slanted-horror talk of some half-drunk hooker
spouting something drunk and nice in your face,
over someone's scrambled eggs, and she doesn't
quit it, just goes on and on. Finally, all you can do
is tell the truth and just go, 'Listen honey that's
all very nice, but your blouse is unbuttoned and
your tit's in my soup.' Well, like that.
-
It seemed like every other truck I saw, for a
week or so at first, down along Second and First
Avenues, read, on its side, in blue, 'Cascade', with
a graphic of a nice, cool waterfall and a pool of
water beneath it. Turned out it was a laundry
service of some sort that had the entire lower
east-side tied up as far as contracted business.
Probably as Mob-run as any other thing there,
but each time I saw it (aprons, linens, napkins,
all that food service stuff, and regular laundry
too) I wanted to dive right into that pool or cool
off under that waterfall. Remember, this was
1967, and the whole world had not yet become
an 'air-conditioned nightmare' - to use Henry
Miller's phrase. At this point it was still
just a nightmare.
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