RUDIMENTS, pt. 131
Making Cars
"You're kidding me, right?' On
basis of experience, I suppose
that best sums up my view of
things. A entire lifetime of
things 'til now. Those words,
engraved nicely somewhere,
would fit me very well. So
many layers of what has come
down to me : One time I took
my 14 year old son and two of
his friends into Chinatown,
where they wished to buy some
fireworks. Now, as it stands, all
one needs to do is drive straight
west across NJ for about 45
minutes, and at the Pennsylvania
border one is greeted most anywhere
by an array of fireworks stores.
I mean stores like emporiums;
places specializing in fireworks
by the aisle-full. Not just a sales
counter or a back window. This
is the business livelihood all along
the border areas from the Water Gap
at the north all the way down to the
crossings down south at Trenton,
where the old bridge still says at
Washington's Crossing still has the
sign, 'No horses.' Or maybe it's just
'Walk horses.' I forget, but either
one is a good story. However, in
1984, it was different and the yearly
festivities for February Chinese New
Year's celebrations - including the
twisting human forms of snakes and
dragons and demons, blazing eyes,
noisemakers and dancers, all included
fireworks (until, by law, that too was
'legally' at least, stopped). In addition,
fireworks were sold openly and hawked
along the street. Which is where this
story picks up. Three kids, each with
25 bucks or so for fireworks (a lot more
money then than it is now. Remember a
brand new book then could be bookstore
bought for $8.95. Same book now is,
maybe, $27.95+) - the kids meet their
mark on the street, talk and move aside,
making their deals. Kind of just like drugs,
except for fireworks. He takes them into
an alley, and tells them to wait, while he
goes to get the stuff. They do so, and are
then immediately set upon by assailants
with knives, who put them up against the
building, relieve them of everything, and
that's that. No fireworks ever appear. The
vastly disappointed, and quite rattled,
threesome reappears to tell me the story.
Bad news for sure - sounds nasty and
sorrowful, yeah. And also cliched,
dumb, and stupid too. They learned,
and I did too. I hadn't thought of that
angle with them when I brought them
there. Kids? Fireworks? How could
that go wrong?
-
Chinatown was a bordered enclave
where anything could go wrong. For
years there were the same Chinese guys
on the same Mott Street corners and
crossings, seeking alms, begging and
standing, at any hour. Strange-looking
breeds, long black hair, indescribable
poor teeth, the little gong bell or
whatever it was. The eerie stare was
from God, or Confucius, or Lao Tzu.
Another place entire, one the normal
broad-faced touristy type (the place
was zoned out with hundreds of them).
Nothing ever moved or happened but
everything did at once, and that illusion
just 'appeared' as a non-happening.
I never saw a Chinese girl or woman
I'd have looked twice at, and believe
me I tried. I never knew what was in
the water there, but the representative
genetics were hideous. The clothing
was on par with Jack-In the Box
surprise-wear. Not in the same way
as Indian subcontinent people, who
insist, even after relocating to this
country, to continue to wear those
crazy, long and voluminous,
wrap-garments. For a year or two,
I guess, at least until their kids or
grandkids wise them up and they
decide to finally try to accommodate
and acclimate. Or the Sikhs or other
Arabs, with their form of carryover
dress too. The Chinese version of
all this was bad fit, weird fabrics,
color combos and patterns from hell.
Weird stooped postures, little
bird-feet gaits, and extremely elderly
people smoking, and smoking some
more. There were levels of crime
and violence bubbling under things,
stuff the average person not of that
group or place would never know
about. This fireworks robbery was
laughably penny-ante stuff and it
probably went on constantly. I knew
right sway there was no solution to
it, and the kids then just shrugged
their slack disappointment off,
and we moved on. It was a perfect
example of, 'You're kidding me, right?'
-
The first time I saw Chinatown,
I was swept away by it - first
because it was such a surprise,
and then moreso because it wore
its 'presence' on its sleeve, as
it were. The sights and sounds,
smells and aromas, of two-dollar
foods were everywhere. For that
piddling amount of money, there
were places to eat where the
selections were numerous and
the amount of food was delirious.
Like the Mayflower Tea Room.
The name was a sort of a strange
joke. It was nothing at all like
a 'tea-room.' Down a few steps
from Mott Street (always past
the same ludicrous-looking
dangerous beggar. He only spoke
to Chinese locals, never even
making an effort at begging off
outsiders), into this mostly
unpresentable room of a few
crowded tables along the left,
a nasty-enough walkway to
the rear bathroom (with a 1980's
era Batman comic-book icon-sticker
always attached), and the same
five or six table service guys
cooking, taking orders and
and waiting tables. In the
center was a counter of
pastry display, whatever it
was - dumplings, Chinese rolls,
often stamped with a red Chinese
decal symbol right into the dough.
Stuffed things, bean-curd things,
etc. And at the right side, where
people seemed to stay forever (just
like at the ten or so tables too), a
counter, where people sat and ate
or just nursed coffee. This was
a Chinese restaurant and they
seldom ever had coffee. Plenty
of tea, as here too, but they also
served urns worth of strong black
coffee poured into heavy white mugs,
the sort that truck-drivers use in
roadside diners. The place was
weird. There'd be fringe characters,
NYU and Columbia students and
intellectual types, wonderfully
delicious girls (not Chinese)
always hanging somehow onto
some dweeby Maoist or intellectual-lefty
who wound up talking forever and
spouting ideology. Loners, weirdos,
singularly dangerous-looking types.
Allen Ginsberg frequented the place
often enough, and his friends and
cohorts and who knows who else.
As I said, Mott Street was up above,
a number of steps up (you'd see
feet walking by, but only if you
looked up and out, and there
always seemed to be, also, some
Chinaman or other acting, on the
landing, as lookout. I never knew
for what. Tong-War gunmen,
perhaps. Who knew what
went on there?
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