RUDIMENTS, pt.330
Making Cars
I guess I was always an
absurdist at heart. Not one
in a prolific, obvious sense,
just in a more subtle manner.
Nothing ever really made
sense or added up for me,
and I simply made that
my raw material. Why fuss
otherwise. It was all around
me, every chance I saw was
for an absurd statement of
reality. Absurdity is a quite
difficult thing to categorize
and explain, and that's half
its charm. A reader can feel
it, and not get the rhythm
at all of what's running
through them. This entire
series of, for instance, bar
things, can run along the
borderline of the absurd, for
that is what they are. Each
barroom I ever entered was
like a theater of the absurd
playlet in action - characters,
dialogue, scenes, and fade-outs
too. The absurdity of Puffy's
for instance was as an
orphanage of a tavern: the
industrial basis that once had
been all around it, and the men
who worked therein, was all
gone. The machine shops,
blacksmith and wagon shops,
hardware and mill supplies,
they'd all closed up - all their
yards and trucks and wagons
and carriages. Way earlier on
too, all their horses had been
removed, carriages and wagons
for that too. The initial street
layouts, the cobblestones and
alleys, stables and dead ends,
they all once had served a
purpose that was no more. I
used to sit and try to think about
that transitional era of New York
City, something about the time
between horses and cars, one
set coming (as they died off,
I guess) and the other just
rolling in (mechanical vehicles).
What a changeover all that must
have been. No wonder men drank.
Did one have to take sides?
Were there some stalwart
diehards who resisted? Who
refused to give up Old Paint,
the horse, the horse team and
wagons? Did they stay and just
get in the way? How many horses
died from that? What was it like
to witness that scene? How did
gasoline filling stations and car
shops first get situated? Who
decided what was in the way
and what had to go?
-
How absurd was it then to be
sitting in a downtown bar, as a
fixtured wanderer, in a place
beyond usefulness and living
on, barely, within its textured
past - but only for and to those
who knew about it. Most of the
pinheads who came in - in
both of these bars - knew
nothing of this. The goofball
stocks-and securities-guys with
their two-toned shoes and
hundred-eighty dollar shirts
had no clue at all. They'd just
gotten out of bloomer school
in fact, and were probably fancy
entry-level order entry guys
hoping for Goldman-Sachs
or Morgan-Stanley to ask for
them as soon as they got sober
and un-handed that 22-year old
lassie they were manhandling.
There were some guys to whom
all this sex was brand-new and
just arriving, and then there were
the muddled schoolteachers I
mentioned - always on prowl,
completely knowledgeable about
it, and probably with kids of their
own, but wanting whatever they
could get if it came their way.
Apparently, they would try to
remain polite within their pact
of telling nothing about anything
later on. Divorced unhappiness,
and estranged unhappiness, is the
same as any other unhappiness.
What happened in Puffy's
stayed in Puffy's.
stayed in Puffy's.
-
I was always driven by something
else, determined to make what I
saw as reality actually be my reality.
It never worked, just as it was never
easy. I was mostly unbalanced,
But anybody near thought I was
all right, perfectly on point and
running my own game. Still -
questions got asked of me, and
still do, about things I don't
really know anything about.
Prophet? What do I know?
Farming and animal slaughter
and husbandry? Politics?
Education? It's was like a
wonderland fantasy in a folded
hand of cards. All these things.
People expected much of me,
but I was just me. Sometimes
I was just wishing people
could just accept that.
Mechanical stuff? Tools?
Motorcycles? Racing? Love
and Life? Huh? It was all
mixed up. All the stuff I did,
I just did what came to me, or
through me. It wasn't any special
wisdom, I had no secrets to impart,
no special knowledge. It was mostly
dedication, and hard work.
dedication, and hard work.
-
Each of these bars had peanut
machines - it was a thing back
then. Like gumballs. You put a
quarter, twist the nob, and you'd
get a big handful of cashews or
peanuts, or whatever the selection
was. It was good stuff, and it kept
people busy and yapping, and,
of course, just made the person's
mouth thirsty, for more beer. Yeah,
all that was figured out ahead of
time. Like life itself, but on the
perpendicular, and we were
never let in on the real angle,
or the joke, or the big, miserable
mistake either. I couldn't always
handle that, nor cope. Some
people kill themselves. Some
kill others. Some make life
miserable for everyone around
them Some run far off and hide.
I kind of did all four in one
fell swoop. And it all just
kept me thirsty for more.
-
One day I walked into
Puffy's, I guess it was after
a few days, and something
horrible had happened a
night or two before. No
one was much talking, it
had to do with money, the
basement, the owner, one
of his crazy jags, off in a
bad mood and all that, and
Nancy, that 40-something
bar lady I'd told you about
who'd worked there forever.
Never seen or heard from
again, though I knew she
lived pretty much right around
there and I'd been told where.
There are some people, in
these situations, you just
never follow up on, nor ever
care to. Different lives; things
converge for a moment and
then they don't. Anyway, she
was the last thing I wanted
in my life.
was the last thing I wanted
in my life.
-
The way I figure it, like
New York and its past,
anything that ever walked
those streets right there, any
old drinking workingman
still proud of his rough clothes,
any old tumbler headed west
to the Hudson River, anytime
and anyplace - they may have
crawled, walked in, or sat here
for hours - they're all long dead.
The past lives on always; it's
just the present that dies. And
the future, I don't know nothing
about, but it only lasts for a minute
anyway, and then it's the now.
anyway, and then it's the now.
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