RUDIMENTS, pt. 313
Making Cars
Nothing ever really tantalized
me; I was never taken in or
absorbed by things; what I
saw or had to do. On the whole,
that entire side of life bored me.
Other kids seemed always more
involved - aligning themselves
with thrills and spills. Crosswords,
word games, puzzles, hidden crostics
or whatever they are. The more the
details got thrown around, the less
I was ever interested. I don't sit
and listen very well, and would
rather be making things on my
own than following some tart's
instruction.
-
As for solving puzzles or figuring
things out - that's what Life is for.
We get all that stuff for free. And
anyway, nothing was ever true to
itself : like right now, what appears
out my window like a snow-covered
tree in the dark, I see is really a tree
covered now in its own white flowers.
Anyone trying to explain that to me
would have had to go way out of
their way to get the understanding
across. The product of logic, then,
is just a sort of aimlessness : to
nod in an agreement of
nothing at all.
-
As it ended up, I just got pretty
weary of everything. I could feel
all that coming on. Whatever the
philosophical and technical term is
for it - ennui, angst - I felt it
in my bones. Already young, I
knew it was mostly over. Life
was dangled in front of me, but
nothing tantalized - none of those
promises, nothing of the glib hope
either. For a while I was able to
placate myself : I thought females
were great. New York City was
filled with female stuff - there
were 1967 style babes everywhere;
Tompkins Square Park, in its
high hippie rococo season had
girls dangling from every tree
branch, ripe for the plucking like
plums or peaches are on a rich,
orchard tree. The biggest threat
than was what was referred to as
the clap. Twenty years later it
was AIDS and Death. Replaced
by, instead. I never did find out
what happened, The big reputation
and all the attention went to
Washington Square Park, but
that was for tourists. If you knew
the real game, you took your
steamboat to Tompkins Square
Park. You could live there in
your legacy of things that had
actually happened : Immigrants.
Poverty. Childhood deaths.
Trauma. Sadness. My friend
Andy used to dispense drugs in
that park - the far, northeast
corner of the park, back then,
had swing-sets and real basic
kid-stuff on a wide open lawn.
Anyone coming to you there
was visible at last ten or twenty
seconds ahead; so if it was
trouble arriving, you knew; if
it was a cop or something, you
also knew. If it was some drugged
maniac with a machete, you had
at least a few seconds to pray
or find your gun. If it had
something to do with the girl
in your clutches - a father,
boyfriend, or, brother, you
had time to bail. Really; a lot
of it was like that then. That
place was a catch-all for
whatever didn't go down the
drain. I stayed on that lawn
often enough that first Summer,
days until I got worked in to
what I was going to do, before
I'd found a place, and a half-assed
anything to call a 'job.' Summer
morning now, 50+ years later,
I go there and the situations
about the same, just laid out
differently as if the old designers
were all dead and some newer,
workable, randomness has taken
over. Mostly the kids seem like
foreign vagabonds now, but I
never know. The girls are still
adorable, and dressed in that
half-dressed travel nonchalance
I so love; the guys all look rugged,
dirty, cankered and ready for
anything. They have backpacks
and bags, and, even, dogs with
them. They sleep in spaced-out
groups on parts of the lawn,
some together, some separately,
and by 7am start slowly ambling
awake. Usually the girls first.
Blinking. Stretching. Scanning
for sunlight, while the guys roll
around and groan some. It's still
one of the coolest tribal-type
scenes I ever see; real throwback
stuff to older and more primitive
times. You know how it is now,
when every girl wants soap and
towel, bath and motel, right
off the bat; clean and secure. By
contrast, as travelers, these kids
couldn't care less about any of
that. We never had any of that
stuff, I know, and a bar of soap
I don't think ever entered 509
e 11th when I had it. Weird stuff.
The most luggage I ever had, in
that park or at 509, was whatever
I was wearing, plus my bongo
drums, which mostly went
everywhere with me and kept
parts of my hands and fingers
always calloused up.
-
There were miserable, immigrant
churches everywhere; real serious
stuff. Those old-timers who went
to them acted as if they were still
in the old country, never New York
Americanized, and they kept to
their rigorous prayers and rituals
constantly. For a very un-Godly
place, that always used to amaze
me. New York City was an endless
ripple of paradox and confusion in
those ways. And also, for the times
then, with all that piety and caring,
no one ever really was very much
forthcoming, with free food or
handouts and such. We were all
on our own, mostly, working
food-service junk jobs, if possible,
just for the food. As I've noted
before, I was pretty much headed
nowhere with any of this, and I
never really knew why I even
got the apartment - probably at
the insistence of Andy the great
manipulator, but it all worked out.
Being taken in, as I was, by the
Studio School probably saved
my life. It gave me escape, and
someplace, as it turned out, for
myself to live, actually have my
own place, for free. I still can't
get over, nor remember, how I
managed that coup. But somehow
I got that spacious place to live in.
Believe me, it was not grand - just
two rooms, a sink, and hotplate.
It looked out and opened out to
one of those great, stately old
mansion yard/garden places where
people put sun chairs and plants
and make this great space to sit
around in. The entire rest of that
basement area was also 'mine,'
as it were. No one ever went there,
the shelves were full of cool stuff
from the previous uses of the three
conjoined buildings, as museum,
since the 1920's. I slung a makeshift
bed together with some plywood
and bracing (no springs) and some
blankets, all inside the old space
of a large old fireplace, unused,
which used to function - I didn't
know exactly what for; kitchen use,
living space down there, or maybe
heat for flowing up to others
parts of the old brownstone living
space upstairs when it was still
a single one of three different
homes. Maybe before bloen
central-heat, these fireplaces
made their great fires just float
the upward. Whatever, for me
it was all great, a refuge, no more
pesky fools around me, no more
crime, drugs, sex or perverts
either. All good things, I guessed.
Maybe I was tantalized, in
retrospect, by this.
No comments:
Post a Comment