RUDIMENTS, pt. 125
Making Cars
It's funny about words. I always thought
anyway. Like 'Baptist.' Someone who
baptizes, or gets baptized, whenever,
later in life at a point of reason and
choice. They're called a 'Baptist.' Why
isn't a rap-music guy then called a
rapist? Might as well be. Or like,
here's another one - in church, you
go into the confessional, profess your
sins, get forgiven, and come out with a
few meager prayers to say as a penitent,
and you're all cleared up. Supposedly.
You knock over a bank or something,
get caught, get 5-7 in a Penitentiary.
Where you're supposed to be a penitent
and make good for your crime, which of
course you can never do from behind
bars. So they take everything from you,
and keep you locked up. I never figured
that for too much sense. If you just went
into the confessional, without being caught,
of course, and just said to the priest, 'I
knocked off the Kendall Bank and beat
a guy up Father. I'm sorry for my sin.' The
priest can't squeal on you, and all he'd do
is tell you to say 100 Our Fathers and sin
no more. Penitent? It's a deal.
-
In New York City, a lot of the serious
New York guys I knew didn't say that
much - a grunt was a long sentence for
them. They'd go about their tasks and
keep silent. Like the horse stable guy
I often write about. That was one of
my favorite places, all those carts and
things coming in, and he'd tend the
horses. It was a combination foundry,
blacksmith welding shop, and barn.
That's all stuff I'd never thought about
before. Everything I'd ever seen about
New York City had to do with the bustle
and the pressure, all those anxious people,
the big buildings and the traffic. It could
really get to you if you let it, yes. But from
the other end, if you really learned about
New York City, the history and the base
geography, it really could be one of the
nicest, most natural places on Earth.
Which is a real perplexing conundrum.
This side of New York - the quiet
and small-scale side - foodcarts and
wagons, the still few yet remaining
horses which worked and carted things,
and these little places that cared for that -
it was all totally different, and magical.
Quiet and serene. These guys, and some
girls, were always real New Yorkers and
all that ever did for me was make me
dig some more for information. There
was tons of it, but, unlike now, you had
to scratch and dig for what you wanted.
There were old maps and waterways,
books about the dredging and cutting,
old photos of the leveling of the old
geography, as well as schematics,
drawings and renderings of street
plans, old houses and lanes. If you got
enough information, you could start
to walk around with real knowledge
of place and just about recreate
everything. Which was another
cool word item - re-creation as
recreation. Who would have thought?
-
Anywhere else I'd go, people seemed
mostly dumb. Nothing profound going
on at all. It was all what you made it,
yourself. That was the bottom line. I'd
blown into town as a 'naif' - I later
found - which is a naive person, one
new and with little experience of the
situation they are in. It's usually used
for the innocence of young girls, say
like Capote's 'Holly Golightly' in
Breakfast At Tiffany's. But it worked
here for me too, and I sure was that.
There were a few situations where I
simply walked into things, completely
unrealizing. I usually wiggled out of
problems OK though. But not always.
('He coyly left that comment hanging').
-
I don't want to be a queer word-hound
here but....here's another, reflective of
my situation : When you can do
something real and authentic, it's called
being 'genuine.' When you fake something,
or falsely portray a feeling or an emotion,
it's ingenuous, meaning false, not real,
dis-ingenuous. Yet, when they portray a
new young girl, all innocent and fair,
who blows into town, filled with
expectations, she called an 'ingenue.'
That's a complete opposite usage of'
that entire 'genuine' or 'not genuine'
routine. How'd that happen? Besides,
I thought, after a while that everybody
was fake - the only genuine guy I'd
ever see, outside of Jim Tomberg
and the drunks, was that blacksmith
guy - all by himself, strong and steady.
No comments:
Post a Comment