RUDIMENTS, pt. 237
Making Cars
In 1964 it was Merrill, Lynch,
Pierce, Fenner & Smith. That
was pretty much one of the
big names I learned right off -
New York City finance had
gotten into my blood a little.
White, Weld & Co., was
another one. I guess I just
liked the names and all that
mystique which went, for me,
with that world in high finance,
deals and brokerages. A few
houses up from mine, across
the street, as I was growing up,
were two bothers, Michael and
Raymond. Michael was your
average thug - brash and loud
and unsaintly. He was a year or
two older than me. He had an
older brother, Raymond, who
was probably five or six years
older, a complete other generation
almost, and he'd gotten a job on
Wall Street. I guess that was
where I first heard of it all, but
I was fascinated. I also guess I
was, maybe 10 or 11, then. He'd
come home all chipper, with tips
for his father on 'new issues,' and
what money to lay down on this
or that perhaps. There was a small
chart they kept on a kitchen bulletin
board too, the charted ups and downs
of certain prized issues. I guess
they had stock; didn't know. Nor
did I know if all that was considered
insider trading, as I'd think now.
no matter. Small time crime on
Inman Avenue was pretty cool.
Raymond had a car, but I don't
think he drove to downtown NYC
each day, but don't know that either.
Maybe it was just a train-station ride.
Raymond was an all-right guy, but
he never really paid me much care,
it was just that I knew him. His
brother Michael, on the other
hand was fairly pesky. Italian stuff.
'Orlando' was the last name. His
mother was the local dentist's
secretary and office-keeper, so
everyone knew her. Rose. She was
small, maybe five feet, with red hair.
loud and brassy too. She drove a new
1959 Ford Galaxie; some crazy
rose color too. Go figure. The father,
Al, was a wounded WWII veteran,
disabled with shrapnel and who
never much left the porch or the
house, all day, all the time. The
upstairs of the house was cool too,
because Michael had wired radios
up so that, going upstairs to the
bedrooms of the boys, whatever
light-switch you turned on also
brought to life the upstairs multi-radio
sound system of like four or five
radios tuned to WMCA - you'd get
this cacophony of doo-wop or early
rock music, or some blaring DJ
patter. It was pretty weird. Michael
also had a habit of bringing a record
player to the front doorway, setting
it up two high-volume amplifiers, and
playing 45rpm records at top volume
out the front doorway so that entire
end of the street would get assaulted
with the sounds. No one ever
complained, I never saw neighbors
having a problem, but how the
parents ever did put up with the
radio AND the amplified record-
playing was beyond me.
-
It was Michael too who, one time,
decided to enlighten us younger kids
on sex. This happened (unfortunately)
in two different ways. The first was,
upstairs in his room, having to watch
him, I won't mention it, but as 'pleasure
himself'. A real eye-opener. And the
other was, a verbal lesson, by asking
us if our 'parents had ever gone out
for an evening and left you with a
baby-sitter. Well, yes. You see those
are the nights when they come home
and have sex later. After the baby sitter
has gone, your father kisses your
mother's nipples, that opens a hole
for him down below, and he sticks
his thing in.' Yep, he sure had that
one down pat. Glad I learned so much.
-
So, do you see how weird everything is?
I swear they invented suburbs as safety
valves for weirdos to blow off steam. Or
at least I thought - until I myself got
to the city, where I found most people
mainlined bawdiness, sex, and bad
taste probably equal to or five times
worse. Not the rich people, mind you,
I don't know what they did. But the
sluggos down at my level. Everyone
was always talking about someone's
'tits' or 'ass'. or wanting to 'stick a pipe
in her like a rat-hole;' whatever all that
was to mean, man it was all new to
me. Talk about learning on one's
feet. (There's a joke in there
somewhere). Guys would go
uptown, to 42nd street, just to
watch the sexcapades and whores
and hookers throwing their stuff
around, and then they'd come
back with bonafide stories of
things - surely most of them made
up - of what they seen or heard. I
went sometimes, and to accompany,
them, but once there I always got
more interested immediately by the
Black Muslim guys hawking copies
of 'Muhammed Speaks,' - their
newspaper, filled with anti-white
rant cool for the times. Those guys
used to scare the hell out of me,
intense, stern black dudes with a
glare, but always dressed like strange
Harlem businessmen or something
of that nature. Very strange. There
was also a Ski-Ball palace, or some
sort of game-room thing, all lit up
and always noisy. I'd watch in there.
And then, of course, the coup de grace
for me, 'Romeo's Pizza and Spaghetti
palace, where I'd get maybe a 25 cent
slice, maybe it was less, I forget, and
get mesmerized watching the crazy
busboy they had. He'd be endlessly
pushing a cart around, filled with the
dirtied dishes and forks and knives of
the tables. Dressed in dirty whites, with
an apron, he had like pop-eyes, and
his mouth never closed. He was always
gaping, and some sort of weird hum
came from him constantly - maybe it
was a tune he was humming, or perhaps
just an automatic noise. But it was
there. He'd see me, but just stare,
like he did to everyone else too - a
zombie, some sort of marginally
retarded but able to work guy. I never
knew, but never got through to him
either. There were never any race
wars or problems around there, just
a sort of tension always. I never knew
what the black guys really wanted.
-
A few years later, I'd be exposed to
the same stuff in Newark, when I
worked for NJ Appellate Printing.
The same sorts were on the streets
there too, but meaner, angry. They
hawked and yelled and harangued.
You almost just gave them fifty
cents to get them out of your face.
By then I knew their gripe; the city
had been half burned down by
riots and National Guard and
militants and tanks and guns and
police. Arson, looting, fires in the
streets. Dead people. I suddenly
began to understand.
-
I also had to begin thinking about
the allure of a big city for me. What
was that all about? Merrill Lynch
and Raymond Orlando being one
thing, learning my lugs from his
little brother being another, but
after all, six or seven years later
it was me, myself, and I, alone
those same wicked streets. When
Adam got kicked out of Eden,
could it have been any different?
I'm standing next to guys who'd
been in trouble with the law, here,
there, and everywhere. I'm trying
to understand the intentions and
the reasonings of a guy peddling
drugs to anyone he could. I'm
establishing the parameters of
what things I should and should
not believe from what I hear
coming out of people's mouths.
It was a very difficult time, made
no less difficult by all that loud
music blasting out from everywhere.
Sometimes I would simply think,
'I wasn't ready for this stuff,'
maybe I was immature by contrast;
but then I willingly accepted all
the things I myself had begun.
I had no one else to blame, and
I was ready (and the baby-sitter
had already gone home).
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