RUDIMENTS, pt. 324
Making Cars
While the Hudson River itself
ran hard and steady along the
West Side piers and boat traffic,
the fearsome East River, with its
estuary-tidal reverses and mixes
and its proximity to the harbor
flush into the ocean, was, by
contrast, a feared obstacle,
rough to navigate and filled
with mishap - eventually
leading to, and past, Corlears
Hook and thenup to 'Turtle Bay'
(present sight of the United
Nations, and where Yasir Arafat
of the Palestinian Liberation Army
(PLO) once arrived, by water, with
his pistol on his belt, to address the
United Nation's General Assembly,
Sept, 1974, I think it was.'), then to
'Hell's Gate' a point of turbulence.
If a less-than-perfect river pilot
was going to lose or wreck his craft,
it was at Hell's Gate where it would
happen (where the Harlem River
meets the East River in a great rash
of currents and eddies and river
obstacles). Like opinions, when
wild currents clash all Hell is
apt to break loose. Oftentimes
I'd just sit there, outside these
busy wharf areas, and watch
the men as they worked their
ways up and down the area. I
was able, I was sure, by reading
their faces, to tell the success
or not of a workingman's life.
Some seemed jarred and
disgruntled, dragging through
chores instead of work. Many
years later, I ran across a guy who
was often hanging around my
workplace, at one of my jobs, and
one of his main questions, of
anyone he'd meet (so much
so that I got tired of hearing it)
was. 'Are you happy with your
work? Do you like what you do?'
No one really knew what this
old retired guy wanted, but the
question always threw them.
He'd just say, 'That's very
important. It means good health,
that you like what you do. Don't
do it if you're not happy.' I'd
eventually say, 'Charlie, cut
it out.' Maybe he was right,
or maybe not, and it really
didn't matter - if you need
money for life and family, you
sort of just have to do what you
have to do. It was like that with
these guys too - I'd see fishmongers
all tired and grubby, and I'd see,
as well, some of the most happy,
light-to-the-touch cool guys you'd
ever imagine. It was a world of
differences, all working, somehow,
together. Gentile and Jew too.
You'd think they'd be at war maybe,
or hating each other, but a lot of
Jewish guys were fish-mongers
too. Many oddball fish things make
up Jewish cuisine, and even holiday
fare - all that herring, in all its
variations, creamed, pickled,
etc., and the rest. Like any other
merchant, they'd fight and
haggle over 4 cents. You sit and
wonder why. 4 cents a pound on
400 pounds of fish, 30, 40 times a
day, it figures to add up eventually.
That's what these guys, all of them,
were about - the price and the
haggling, the cutting corners, the
shirking weight, whatever they
could get away with. Both sides,
ready to wrangle. And then, once
it was over, the slap on the back,
the 'Screw this, let's go get a cup of
coffee,' they'd walk off talking a
streak to each other. Business
forgotten - until the next time
and the next haggle - but human
trust, in the meantime, made.
-
Things were quite old down around
there. Buildings sagged. Collapsed,
even. There were a few bars so ancient
in NY terms that you'd be afraid to
sit lest the bricks would unsettle and
come down on your head. To this day,
a few are still there. I see them, they
stand, they do business, and with food.
Cats and rats and all the rest of that
rodent brigade were everywhere.
They opened up, once, one of those
very old buildings, for tear-down,
and once the basement was uncovered
all that was seen was this massive
black movement. I swear. Thousands
of rats, at once, awakened or whatever.
They were everywhere, awaiting again
their noxious nighttime forays out. It
was gross. And they were, mostly
anyway, flame-torched instantly.
-
The Fulton Fish market's daily
commerce, its 'work,' was usually
over by 2pm; the rest was
cleanup for the next overnight -
the fish boats, oyster and clam
boats, and the rest, they start
rolling in near 10pm and quickly
the night's work was underway,
for the 5am commerce that
began as snappily as a whip.
Trucks would begin piling up
an hour or two ahead of
time, parked - while their
drivers would drink or eat, to
wait and pass time, in any of
he dive-bars or places around.
New York City, believe it or
not, was a really big drinking
town; almost traditionally so,
that everything was sealed
or discussed over beverage -
alcoholic or not. It's still like
that - an amazing amount
of bars. and all that waiting for
everything. (I'd think, if there
was to be a new world war or
conflagration, the principals
involved, as representative
leaders, would do best, in a
New York fashion (like Trump?)
to just sit down somewhere
around here, have a few beers
or whatever, and then bellow
and challenge and threaten
and push. Amid all the stupid
bombast they want things would
certainly get settled. I call it
striving for 'the 4-cent solution.'
Peace-pact and new comity),
-
So, anyway, whatever fish
company or guy they each
drove for, the representative/buyer
for that company would show
up by 4 or 5am and begin the
process of the day's buy, and
then the truck would be
ice-loaded or refrigerated,
and the rush of the early day's
deliveries to restaurants, fish
stores, supermarkets and other
retailers, would begin. All
those years I worked in
Princeton, with all its
fancy restaurants and food
establishments and sushi joints,
I'd see the small, refrigerated
trucks, from Samuel's Fish
Distributors, out of Philadelphia,
every day. And I knew exactly
the process they'd all gone
through, except in Philly and
not New York. Same deal;
probably different rodents.
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