RUDIMENTS, pt. 127
Making Cars
Someone told me just the other day
how prejudiced the New York City
cops are. 'Fairly surprising,' I thought
to myself, since I figured those days
were long over. The kind of amalgamated
humanity that we are today seems to
leave any reason or chance for that
out. Really, no one can claim anything
now; and anyway, this person (white)
said he was a minority. Funny stuff.
I came up through all of that when
mostly the cops were white. Now I
don't much see that. The entire mass
of street-humanity has changed,
including the make-up of the police.
It's just one, large, surging force.
-
What to make of any of that is beyond
me. Each of us grows up out from whatever
generational mix we came through. We
look for guidelines and pointers from,
maybe, uncles, aunts, family members,
and then, I guess, we just as quickly forget.
I had two instances of suddenly-appearing-
from-out-of-the-blue relatives in my own
life. They came in, swept through, and left
me just as quickly, and with little reference.
One time this slight, skinny guy in a suit
and a hat came by with an aunt of mine.
He spoke not a word of English, just
nodded and grinned a lot. He sat at the
dinner table with us all, and there was
translated messaging and chatter back
and forth, though nothing I stayed with
and nothing I was part of (at about 11).
Somehow he was visiting from Italy, a
poor part, farming area, I was told. He'd
wanted to meet relatives wherever he
could, and was making the rounds, as
it were, of contacts. That - right away -
was complicated in my mind because, as
I thought about it, what 'family' did
he mean? And who was this guy
anyway? At any one time, each of us
is only half of whatever family-union
we came out of. Had he then visited my
mother (it was my other's relative, not
my father's) and then someone other
than my mother, from her previous
generation, who represented that other
half of whatever she was? And what
was he? What half of a half had brought
him here? You see, it's all very quickly
spread and diluted and mostly without
direct connecting lines that matter. And
directly behind my current 'last' name
were, immediately about 8 other names
that stretched back into it - so who could
this guy be and why bother? Judging from
appearances anyway, we'd always joked that
my grandmother was black, or part, with
an influence of North Africa maritime into
her South Italian whatever. Could be, who
knew? Where Aldo here fit in remained
an unknown, and stayed that way.
-
And then, a few years later, or 12-15 years
later anyway, my younger sister was to get
married, big wedding and all that stuff, and
who pops up for that festive ritual but some
crazy-as-a-loon high-lifer called by everyone,
'Uncle Johnny.' I'd never heard track or
inkling of this guy my entire life, and yet so
many people knew him, his name, and his
life. He was about 70 or 75, incredibly old
for my thinking of him. Full of vim, vigorous,
a wise-cracker, always going, and a twinkly
ladies man too - cracks and ribald jokes at
all time. He much resembled a large version
of Popeye, the old Spinach-can guy. The guy
was cool, but bizarre, and, again, drew out of
my mother's side of things. He, however, had
none of that seriousness or sadness of the other,
Italian guy, and 'Uncle Johnny' could have not
cared less if he had been created by being shot
from a cannon like Puffed Wheat or having
a grandad who been the Kaiser of Germany.
Lineage would have made no difference to
him. We sat a few times (he stayed a while,
and returned more than once too) and talked.
His 'address' for address purposes was Las
Vegas. He'd spent years in the Navy, his
entire working life, sailing the seas, seven
oceans and all that - you name it, he had a
beautiful tale to tell: Tahiti, South China Sea,
Indonesian isles, Rio, Tierra Del Fuego, New
Zealand. Girls, babes, wives and mothers.
The guy was a pistol. How anyone could
be so amusing was beyond me. Popping up
to do a handstand, to make a point! Magic
tricks with coins, arm-wrestling, etc. OK.
So, yes, he did the wedding, drank booze
like a pro, never wavered. The only thing
I never saw was him driving. He had money,
apparently, airline flights were no problem,
ID cards for some special rank he claimed
got him preferred seatings and first-class
bumps and entry, etc. A few months after
the wedding, he's back for a few days. By
this time he had to be another year older,
or on his way - says he's leaving again,
bound for another sail to the south seas.
Yeah, yeah, right. Then we start getting
postcards - Hawaii, and the rest - all
those tiny places out that way you hear
once or twice in your life. A year passes.
A card shows up saying he's back, in
Vegas all is good, come see me, staying
with Uncle Max and Aunt Rose (no
one I'd ever met, but my grandmother's
aunt, and a sister there too). My parents
go out there. Boom! He's there! All true
to tale, and they stay a week or so, all
the hospitality and visit turns out just
right. Everything connects.
-
I was baffled, and I guess he's dead now,
this was in the late 1980's - but whoever
this Uncle Johnny guy was, and wherever
he came from and whatever he carried,
genetically, I guess it's all part of the mix.
It's all pretty amazing, and sometimes all
it takes is one little thing to let all of that
bottled up stuff - anger, repression,
regrets - come bounding out. For myself,
I just wrote and painted my anguish away,
and that was all a Godsend to me. If I think
it, you're probably going to hear about it
and let the death bells toll. I don't care.
There's a life-stream there, flowing through
each of us, and, if your stop up that flow,
you may think you've got it beat, but it
just flows in, builds up, and eventually
finds a way to blast out. Not good. I always
avoided that problem by just being me.
not saying 'good' me, but me.
-
Paradoxically, I think I have two sides
also. One is represented by that Italian
guy I'm calling Aldo - little known
and a mystery; and the other by the
crackpot sailor within me, my own
'Uncle Johnnie Pathfinder Genius and
the Rest Be Damned' good-life guy.
And both of those, together, seem
just right for me and suit me fine.
I live on a boat of dreams. I go
where I want - which is
really no place at all.
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