RUDIMENTS, pt. 331
Making Cars
If you sit around drinking
enough, you stop thinking,
or you start thinking about
'thinking' as your subject.
Which gets fairly weird
because it's a bit incestuous
and totally self-referential. A
dead-end of sorts. I know. I've
been there. What saved it for me
was the input of creative spark;
otherwise I'd easily be a dead man
by now; and long ago too. It's
somewhere in the Gospels or
one of those Jesus quotes, how
he said something like, keep
your wick trimmed and your
candle at the ready, for you
never know the time when -
oh, I don't know, the Lord or
the Fire of Righteousness,
would come. Something of
that nature, to the effect that
you'd better be ready, have
your crap together for when
the moment would arrive. Maybe
I even made all that up and then
convinced myself it was right,
and that it existed, I don't know,
but I always lived by that. I made
sure, instead of just bragging about,
their work, (as I'd heard so many
do), all they've put into it, without
really having anything to show
(since it was all BS anyway), made
damn sure that I had at least 500
or 600 pages of stuff at the ready,
in case the real God-lightning ever
struck. If someone ever demanded
that I show them what I could do,
I'd at least already have it at the
ready. It's still like that, multiplied
many times over. I'm a fool for
doing it that way, but, so it be.
-
What the do you make out of life?
A sticky wicket? (That's some
sort of cricket term, I believe).
Believe me, between Puffy's and
Nancy Whiskey, I found out how
useless most people really can be.
To rub my face in it, to make myself
be sure I was correct, I'd occasionally
drag myself down, a bit further
downtown, to a place called the
Raccoon Lodge. Now, if you can
consider the least-artificial tier
of crudeness but still within the
bounds of some sort of 'respectability,'
the same as those other two places,
the Raccoon Lodge had it only
because of its nearness to the
overflow sleaze of the financial
district. Most financial district bars
were just after-work-hours places
for the securities analyst class.
Strivers, with a drink to calm
themselves down after twiddling
a few hundred thousand bucks
of other people's money all day.
No dirt, no grime. The Raccoon
Lodge needed a Brillo Pad each
morning to open up with. It was
a marque, with alcohol and taps.
-
One day, on a whim, I had taken
a lonely friend there because it was
his birthday - stupid idea, spur of
the moment. We walked on along,
past the Woolworth Building and
turned east. It was along in the
area sort of adjacent to City Hall,
Chinatown, and Wall Street. A
fun walk, and he was all keyed
up. We got in there; it was the
last remnant of Fleet Week, of
which I'd completely forgotten.
Which meant, in these slumming
hours, the place was not really
happening, except for a few 'girls'
and a good-sized clutch of sailor
boys, out still on the town. Real
Kansas rube types, just thrumming
along on what the assumption they
had of what 'New York' should be
was actually coming true. I always
hated that stuff - transients, people
from other walks and places. The
idea of 'Sailors' made it all worse,
because all they were was gung-ho
about there 'mission' and all that
crap. this one guy starts going on
to me about how brave he was
because he spends all his time
patrolling the Sea of Japan on
some big-deal cruiser ship armed
to the hilt in case Japan starts
getting trigger-happy. Yes, Japan.
This is about 5 drinks in, on my
part, and who knows how many
on his. I sort of started sputtering
back as to how it might be quite
possible that Japan, if it had
anything, perhaps had some
Made In Japan water pistols or
maybe a water-cannon or two
but that I really didn't think
there was much to worry about
from a de-militarized Japan
whom we had disarmed for
good about 40 years previous.
Then I proceeded to line out
for him, mostly in alphabetical
order, all of the foul, curse-words
I knew. Now, my friend was
having a good old time, talking
with some girl and the barmaid
too, while a group of my guy's
friend-sailors were huddled at
the other end, yes, with a few
gaggling girls. These guys were
all in their Navy Whites (isn't
that a contradiction of some
sort too?) for landlubber duty
or whatever this all went by.
I pissed the guy off, like calling
his mother green or something;
I guess I'd defamed his outfit,
besmirched his country, called
a 'Tilt' to his estimable service,
made fun of his dangers, picked
at his metal capacity for being
gullible, whatever. Fortunately,
for me - mainly because I
couldn't have cared less and
would have probably just let
the lame lummox punch the
crap out of me, as he got up to
come towards me, sort of in
anger, the first, and only, thing
he actually did was trip himself
up and go sprawling to the floor.
Where he just stayed. I realized
he was pretty much d-r-u-n-k
past decay. I wasn't sure what
on-land Naval regulation was
about something like this, but
I kept hands-off. Calling for
his buddies, who had started
to come over anyway, I said
something to the effect of 'you'd
better come over and help up
your buddy here.' That fall, I
realized, had saved my day. he
said nothing and all I said was
how I thought he'd passed out.
We all helped get him up and
over to one of the ratty old chairs
in the sportsman's corner of the
Raccoon Lodge - dartboard,
card table, even a pin-ball
machine of some sort. It all
went okay, and my friend and
I managed out without any
further complication. We just
went elsewhere for the remainder
of our day, hoping we'd not
interrupted these fellows in
getting their, perhaps 'nights
entertainment' arranged. Close
call, but no real danger.
-
I remembered at that point,
an old writer, and my father's
favorite book. My father was
a navy guy too, in his war
years, and always talked about
Richard Henry Dana and some
sailor book titled 'Two Years
Before the Mast.' Only because
my father had often mentioned
it (as well as one called 'Twenty
Thousand Leagues Under the
Sea' by, I think, Jules Verne,
which I could never get into),
I had studied it a bit. He was
like a rich guy, (Dana) who
went declasse, to sign on with,
after graduating Harvard, as an
able-bodied seaman, some
shipping company; signing
on for two years, he 'lived
among the flotsam and jetsam
of humanity in the holds of
two ships, the Pilgrim, and
the Alert. Living among the
'scum of the sea,' Dana said
of a superior that, 'Every sin
that a sailor knows, he had
gone to the bottom of.' Dana
ended up writing this sea-memoir
and in it to reflect his admiration
for these men, not so much for
their sinning but for their own
fortitude in withstanding the
hardships and privations of
maritime life, 'terrible at even
the best of times.' Arbitrary
power by the sea captain,
vicious floggings, so vicious
as to leave men permanently
damaged. He later, after 1840,
became a lawyer, defending the
rights of sailors under admiralty
law. Whatever had just happened
in the bar, however close I maybe
had come to real trouble, it was
amazing to me how all that old
information had quickly floated
back up for me to recall. Well,
meaningless recollection, yes,
but amazing nonetheless.
No comments:
Post a Comment