RUDIMENTS, pt. 210
Making Cars
Going like gangbusters sometimes
gets you nowhere : everything ends
up broken and you're licking your
wounds. Frantic words of haste, and
worries about demolition seem all
around. One time, almost in despair,
I took a job at a car wash. Yeah, like
an idiot. It's an automated line, they
hand you a rag, say stand at the end
and swab the cars down, and hope
for tips. The car wash itself was a
simple fee, like $2.50. We got a dollar
and a half an hour, for working, and a
75 cents, say, three quarters, was seen
as a monstrous tip. Shared in a pot,
supposedly, to be split later for
everyone on that shift to be cut in.
I never watched it close, never cared,
and never knew if I'd been cheated.
It didn't matter, and such were the
ways - half the tips never made
it to any bucket anyway, and I wasn't
going to be the one to go up against
any one or two of these clowns. Man,
these guys invented Brawny, back
than - paper towel or not. New York
street-smart, car-wash, protocol.
Seeing up girls' dresses and stuff
was more fun anyway - it was a
game. Skirts, and dresses, but skirts
really, in that era were about 14
inches long if you were (un)lucky.
Everybody knew this stuff, so no
one was fooling anyone - any little
stretch or bending over, yeah, of
course, mostly got you a view. I
see London, I see France, however
that rhyme went - man, were times
lame. But working a car wash routine
for any number of hours, a person
was crazy in a minute, had to have
something going, and by today's
standards anybody there who ever
touched a rag would be locked up
or sent out of town for half the
stuff that went on. Whatever those
screaming women call themselves
today, back then they, I guess,
would have died of apoplexy.
The place was killer. Pity the poor
girls working there too. The wet,
damp locker room, sitting area,
for breaks and hanging out and
lunch, God forgive the transgressions.
NYC for sure. There was some
really jerk-off song around then too,
I think it was a parody song of a
Beatles thing - 'Lucy in the Sky,
with lots of what you want....' -
it just went on from there and
was a terrible song but it was
like the theme song of the stupid
break room. That and another
creepy song called 'Incense and
Peppermint,' (Curse of Mankind)....'
another mindless 'huh?' song
in my mind. But, this whole
car wash thing was quick and easy,
come and go - no one cared how
long and when you stayed, came,
or left. Mostly, it was something
to do and come away with 8 or
10 bucks. I didn't do it long. I
hated it. And it seemed to have
nothing to do with the city either.
Why bother? It was working there,
to be distant, or be one of the
idiot street-goofs, if you cared to
be. Nothing mattered. This was
Broadway and Houston Street,
like the center of the lower
echelon world : there'd be taxi
guys in a hurry, weird guys in
no hurry at all, street-people and
street-ladies, fruit-pickers, dope
fiends, nut-cases, half-sexers and
all that mis-alliance stuff that's
now taken for granted but back
then was was just totally
freaked-out weird. Failed rock
and rollers, and failed mass
murderers too. 'Yeah, yeah, dude,
you can have the tip, go ahead,
it yours; I'm here for my God-damn
health OK?' Two hours later he's
out of his mind somewhere, on
your money. Square deal, my ass.
-
The role of a car in New York is,
and was then too, pretty odd. I
always wondered why people
bothered, but I can also see why -
mass transit's like having diarrhea
in Calcutta and not being able to
move. Stuck in place; and it's real
bad. I'd rather sit alone in my
car any day, traffic or not. BUT,
no excuse is that - having a car
in New York, and then - to boot -
wanting to have it washed, is a
pretty clear straight line to foolishness.
The place, first off, is like dent-a-
minute unforgiving, so any worries
about the state of your auto is a
waste of time; shiny or not, it's
going to dent. The streets are
clogged; you can't park, unless
you're willing to fork over a
million bucks for fifteen minutes
of parking time, or close. Cars
are always getting blocked in -
double-parked truck deliveries
and guys who have no clue
about time or the clock. Nitwit
people passing out at your
bumper, or in the gutter, or
eating on your hood or pissing
on your bumper. Between-car
activities are a real riot.
Besides the crime. The place
is made for the vertical,
for UP; everything is vertical,
and any of these little lateral,
cross-currents of streets leading
to clogged entries for bridges
and tunnels is like a well-designed
torture, plus there's no freaking
bathrooms really, anywhere, unless
you know the secret map of things,
but even then you can't just park
and pee. Might be a million bucks
in that idea, if someone could
figure it out. Most people just
end up pissing in a big bottle
or plastic container or soda-bottle,
and the bottles are placed at the
curb, looking like flat beer, later.
God helps those who help
themselves. Maybe.
-
The biggest idea in New York is
about survival - for the regular
person, living there, or trying to
eke it out - like a thousands
dollars a day should about do it.
For all the other people, the ones
who come and go, travel in, travel
out, trains, cars, subways, and
buses, it's about money instead.
Making a bundle, career-stuff,
going along with all the current
trends and riding the money-wave
while it happens. 'Going like
gangbusters,' is the way, I guess,
I originally phrased it, here, when
I began - yeah, that works.
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