RUDIMENTS, pt. 249
Making Cars
I passed a lot of time making
space. Finding my way. The
night I turned 30, some of my
friends threw me a little party
at the White Horse, a tavern,
legendary, on Hudson Street.
I guess it was 1979. The town
was weird, the place was busy
with that vibe of those times
(nothing like now). Everyone
was on the make, crawling
around, if not already on all
fours, to make the grade and
the connections they wanted.
It was a different world, and
if I had to describe it to you
I'd falter. One third of the place
was the tits and ass of NYU
girls, in late September, just
learning to drink and get
sexually adventurous - in
that then college way that
would get guys hung by
their nuts now making a move.
Another third was completely
gay - pre AIDS, pre Chelsea,
even. The piers out from Jane
and Christopher Street, were
hopping. We all ended up there
later on, but this is about the
White Horse here, not that. And,
the last third were the sad sacks,
the old drunks, the graceless
assholes, the dying old men,
local retirees and pensioners,
retired from the docks and still
shriveled up in their two room
walk-ups in the cranky buildings
all around there. All they did was
manage, with a twinkle, to mostly
stay part or more drunk, or very,
with one foot in the grave and the
other in the old days. Insufferable
malcontents, cursing the present.
(A lot like me, 40 years on). God
to be praised, those old cats didn't
live long enough to see cellphones,
smart phones, hand-helds, laptops,
and texting. They would have died.
Well, you know what I mean.
-
My friend, Paul (dead now), for
that birthday, presented me with
a collection of Edith Piaf LP's, as
a gift, from all of them. He said
her plaintive, worn-like presence
reminded him of me and would
be good for me. I'd had no real
awareness of her before that. I
never really took to it, her sound,
(but thanks, Paul), but I did listen.
Paul was two years younger than
me, adopted, and he'd said that
if he wasn't famous by thirty,
he'd kill himself. He wasn't, but
he didn't. I didn't know if any of
that was meant as a good or bad
reflection on me, but it didn't
matter. I told him if I hadn't
killed myself by 110, I'd kill
myself. We deemed it that we
were even and proceeded to get
drunk. The place was a crowded
and noisy wreck. We had a central
table in the rear room, facing the
street (large window), and it was
pretty great. In 5 hours we all got
to know everyone else in the bar,
the good the bad, and, yep, the
ugly. No fights though. Right
above our head was their enormous,
though not very good, portrait of
Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who'd
drunk himself to death there, in
1956, out on the sidewalk supposedly
keeling over to meet his maker.
He was on a USA speaking tour at
the time, and drinking viciously.
Like legends were supposed to do,
back then. Meet my maker, the
mad molecule, as J.P. Donleavy
wrote. It was all fun, and the only
really bizarre and down aspect
to the night was something that
went on, and still is burned in
my mind as a horrid scene of the
damned that makes me wish I'd
been rich. This kid, in of the
streets, about 20, a wastrel,
probably homeless; dirty, funky
and sad, and skinny (and probably
hungry as hell too) was going
table to table, and barstool to
barstool, crying out, in great
pain, pleading for help -
money, comfort, a dentist.
'Does anyone know a dentist
who can help me? Please help
me, money, anything.' The poor
kid was enflamed and swollen,
and evidently in tearful, gruesome
pain, from a dental problem. He
was pleading for help. Pleading
for a dentist. No one paid him
any mind, including us. The long
portion of the night, in and out,
he went (there were also outside
tables). I don't know if he got any
money, or a dentist, or a reference,
but the pain and anguish was
apparent. He was making me
cry just watching him. I really
had nothing to give him, nothing
of any sensible value. My fifty
cents, all our fifty cents's wouldn't
have alleviated his situation; yet
I felt dead, unholy, and graceless.
As helpless as a swimmer with
no arms. I could hardly go on.
-
What is it - I could never fathom -
that runs this life? What was I
experiencing, and what expected
lessons were there that I should or
should not have been taking from
all of this? It was quite difficult,
and I was uncomfortable. Right
down the street, only a few doors
off, lived Jane Jacobs, a famed
writer, just having removed
herself and her family to Toronto,
after a long, delirious battle with
Robert Moses and his transformative
plans for NYC and the razing of
one-fourth of Greenwich Village
for highways, cut-throughs,
and displacement of people and
housing. Jane had written a book,
as an activist, vocal, and heading
demonstrations, fighting the
powers that be, giving life and
power to these streets; a crusade
to stop the destruction of New
York City, and surely, and
primarily, of old Greenwich
Village. She succeeded, in
the village anyway, and beat
Moses at his own game, as he
bitterly retreated with his
extensions of roads, cut-throughs,
by-passes and a thruway, later
to be called Westway. It was a
big victory, and she'd become
so disgusted by the gulf it
left inside her that she packed
up and left. That was still raw
to me. None of the miserable
crap-shoot drunks at the White
Horse knew anything of this and
seemed to care even less. Issues
of that sort just weren't germane
to them. As I could see, it was
more about immediate concerns -
who they were with, are they
bedding down tonight, bra or
no bra, free love, or will it
eventually come with a cost.
(No pun). You had to be there.
It was 1979.
-
To look at Jane Jacobs, she
was nothing - a small, squat,
strange and homely-looking
lady, and she'd slain the beast.
It was amazing. I always hated
Robert Moses anyway, so it
was OK by me. 555 Hudson
Street was sacred ground. If
you go there today, there's not
a mention of it made. Not even
a plaque or a note, I never did
decide which was worse; that
poor befuddled guy with the
raging toothache, out of his
mind in pain over it, or the
distended madness of the
rest of the crazed, pathetic,
world. Jane Jacobs?
Or Robert Moses?
No comments:
Post a Comment