RUDIMENTS, pt. 80
Making Cars
Each morning, in Princeton, a few
years back, I'd see some guy in his
Tesla - he'd pull up, park and get
out to go to the nearby Starbucks.
I guess for his morning stuff. But it was
a funny deal, for a couple of reasons.
Tesla, back then, about 2008 or so,
weren't near as plentiful as they are now.
I didn't even know what it was at first,
thinking it was just some hot, large-engined
car. And the second point was, in Princeton,
going to Starbucks on Nassau Street and
thereby not going to Small World Coffee
on Witherspoon Street, maybe 1000
feet away, was pretty much a faux pas
of some grave social proportion. There
was a quite specific difference 'twixt the
two, and some practical considerations
as well, could have gone into this decision.
Starbucks had automated paying systems,
took credit cards, and had on-line apps and
things, while Small World was just an old-
style pay-at-the-register-with-cash kind of
place, always telling surprised people where
the ATM machine around the corner was -
after their stuff was all poured out already
and the order prepared, if other items. It
was then put aside while they scurried out
and back. A little weird. So I always cut
the guy some slack. But, still, it reeked to
me of some declasse South Brunswick
overstep, like the people out along the
highway with an address about a half mile
from Princeton still using 'Princeton' in their
name or finagling a way to get that location
into their addresses. 'Princeton Plastics,' say
- a small highway factory doing nothing
but crud, yet wishing to share some of the
Princeton panache. (This is the head-stuff,
inside-the-cranium sorts of stupidities that
business people go through., thinking that
will make their product a bit more expensive
and successful by the connection). Yeah, well.
In any case, this Tesla guy, every morning,
flustered his way through. I was usually
outside of Small World, or on the bench by
my bookstore location, and I'd see all this.
There's a unique currency to Princeton. I
don't mean the 'money,' but I do too. It's the
sort of qualitative town that counts its
quality not so much by 'quantity' as by the
'quality' of that 'quantity.' As in, say, 'losers
need not apply.' Difficult to explain, except
I hope you get my point. It's perhaps a
pretension of the mind, deep within it, one
that is always present but never really said.
Even the local merchants - as needful and
as hungry for the dollar and the deal as any
other merchant anywhere - they are constantly
making these silent judgments about those
before them. Judging the quality of the
transaction as it's occurring. Taking it, no
matter, but judging it first. It's kept on as
being actually more important - and I'm
sure the tales and stories are re-told.
-
So, what's the factor of commerce anyway?
It's probably all the same, and wherever
you go. In Pennsylvania, by contrast, 30
years previous and 250 miles away, probably
the same thing went on. Except it was perhaps
me, as a rank outsider, groaning under the
NYC baggage I was running from, parking
my piece of crap then-equivalent of a Tesla
wherever I could and going into Agway, the
feed store, or Kennedy's General Store, over
in East Smithfield, to make my transaction
amidst piles of coiled barbed-wire and burlap
sacks of mash corn-meal and chicken-feed
and coming across, or trying to, as some
latter-day freaked-out Henry David Thoreau
poking my nosy needle into some local rube's
arm. I only did cash back then, and only when
I had it. Anyone who wished to judge me by
what they saw and by my comportment at any
one moment, and were reckless enough to
do so, were just as welcome. I could not have
cared and wouldn't have understood anyway.
I admit, frankly, the economic underpinnings
of my situation there happened fast - the
two banks were real easy, the job-deal was
easy, and the expenses were fairy predictable.
But the inter-personal stuff, the acceptance,
that took a lot longer and that was much more
difficult. For all they knew, I could have been
from Mars, a mad rapist, and running from
whatever law last covered whatever I last did.
Some of those people wanted stories, and I gave
it to them too - half of it made-up dreamlands
tales of depravity so I could watch them drool
their dirt-lane rural drools. Fortunately, that
part of me never got found out.
-
Going to Starbucks, in Princeton, right there on
Nassau Street - even with your fancy new car
and all - and ignoring the more authentic, real,
old-line factor of Small World Coffee, in that town,
was the equivalent of say going to Home Depot
for your hammer and passing up the exquisite
reverie of the local 'Jake's Hardware.' It was just
ghastly, like using a chain store or a mall when
there was no need for that at all. Hell, the word
'betrayal' comes to mind. For Princeton it was
that serious. I don't know if that Tesla guy ever
knew any of this at all, or if perhaps instead he
was just a striver thinking he was doing cool.
The business strips of Nassau and Witherspoon
Streets were singular and curious send-ups of
American commerce. Definitely any 'national'
exposure store, other than maybe the Brooks
Brothers thing around the corner - which
always had its over-the-top yachting and
Martha's Vineyard type fantasy windows of all
those fair girls in perfect ripeness and proportion,
guys, dads, moms, and children in incredible
straw-hat pastel-colored slacks splendor - was
relegated to the fringes of the district, and hopefully
mostly for visitors and those passing through.
The regular old-wealth Princeton and University
dude was custom-fitted, had his or her own
tailor or haberdasher and really only used these
'store' outfitters to replace the rumpled clothes
they were maybe needing in an emergency after
the last-night's unfortunate, yet passionate and
quite satisfying, fling, the clothes of which still
clung to your flesh. Princeton people did those
sorts of things, but it was hushed. I myself can
attest. Names, locations, and addresses upon
request. But you'll need to send me cash first.
-
America is full of such stories and such
places as Princeton, because they represent
the upended striving for an 'American' spiritual
sustenance in the guise of a university-active and
politically-perfect life in a place where there is none.
None - neither 'religion' nor any real 'ideals' of the
pluperfect sort which once put this nation together -
you know, like slavery, graft, corruption, double-dealing
and swine-herding. Well that's the Princeton story-line
these days anyway. Wonderfully ripe, rotting, restless
leftist-dead diatribes for all. Make mine to go.
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