RUDIMENTS, pt. 341
Making Cars
Mostly I lived a mental life;
seeing things as I saw them
and as I interpreted my own
reasonings about them. It was
a solitary endeavor, and be that
good or bad, the isolation of it
all strengthened me. It wasn't
like I was a part of anything.
I stayed away from all that. At
one remove from the things that
kept others occupied, I felt I had
a better 'personal' space to adjust
from. All around me was noise
and chatter and - I felt - very
little of promise or value. Like
walking along the diamond
district on w47th street, all
the valued glitz looked like
something, but who'd ever
want it, I didn't know.
-
One time I was talking to one
of those zoo aides, at the Central
Park Zoo. Back when it was the
old way, it was a much more
primitive and stark place. Now
it's, like everything else (how
many times do I have to keep
saying this? I do not know. It
seems everything could end up
with that line attached to it - a
very World's fair type atmosphere;
ice cream and trinkets; stands
for souvenirs; Zoo and Park
Conservancy people everywhere,
as well as the usual hired hands,
in New York City, probably getting
42 bucks an hour and benefits, to
swab toilets and empty trash
because they barely escaped 8th
grade. But whatever, it's a New
York minute, fully unionized
too)....In the old zoo, things were
still metal and concrete, tiles
to be wet-down, pens and cages,
walkways, a seal pond that was
more like a holding tank for,
maybe, waterboarding victims.
But, everything went on, all the
cages were tended to and marked.
They had some really cool people
working it too - these safari-types,
girl ecologists all caught up in
Nature and animal husbandry,
hugging and staring down the
gorillas and chimps; guys with
mops and pails - usually older
men, or Puerto Rican young guys,
back then. And then - big
attraction - the lions and tigers
and such, getting slabs of meat
flung to them at feeding times.
One of those girls, in talking
with me, once - just sitting
around on a bench, like anywhere,
and with the usual like-anywhere
conversation about whatever
they were doing. Her point,
after we somehow got on the
subject of humans versus
animals, and all that, was: 'I'd
rather deal with any one of
these animals here than a
person any day.' That part
of it was understandable and,
almost, cliche'd, but this next
part has always stayed with me.
She said, recalled here from
memory (oh boy): 'There are
no rejects in Nature.' I asked
what she meant. She said, 'It's
only humans who get all emotional
and confused and worked up
over someone born with a defect;
whatever it is - and they spend
a lifetime and a fortune to keep
something alive. In Nature,
that thing is soon dead. There's
no emotion - either predators
or abandonment or, even, the
parent, kills it off.' Needless to
say, I had little to say! There
wasn't much I could respond
to in any way that would keep
her interested in me. Airing my
own feelings of compassion or
asking her to consider maybe
the sorrow and sadness and
attachment and all that of the
parents and people involved
would have probably immediately
scotched any hope of finding
some grounds of shared moment.
Apparently everything to her was
an ape to be hugged or a lion to
be thrown a slab of raw meat,
and to the desert with anything
else. To rot in the sun. Wow! I
was surprised. I'd taken her for
the soothing, sentimental type.
-
There was always a certain part
of New York City that made not
too much sense. And yet, it
followed suit with all other, large,
international, cities : Zoos, museums
of the natural sciences and natural
history, and, of course, endlessly,
art. In NY, the zoo was shatteringly
harsh, in its way. By 1965 it had
become, anyway, fairly decrepit,
and dark and isolated too. There
were people who'd lurk around,
there, and there wasn't any real
type of 'security' going on either.
There was a long walkway, of
benches. Lots of old-timers just
sat there, eventual prey too, to
muggings and stiff-arms and all
that. No one ever cared, and I
can't recall ever seeing a cop.
The oddest thing was how, in
all this darkness and gloom, there
was an adjacent Children's Zoo
area, with cuter animals, smaller
beings, and more childish stuff,
and a small railroad thing, a train
ride for kids, that lasted, for a
dollar maybe it was, about ten
minutes of slow go-round with
some old, filthy geezer in the
lead car pretending as engineer.
It always seemed so 1940's there.
-
Places like New York - any city,
actually - like to have zoos and
natural history museums and the
like, to sort of keep people mindful
of the natural world in such an
encumbered place. Anything
natural was long ago beat back
and paved or built upon, and the
only 'natural' things are on menus
and are over-priced. If you can
believe the hype, the hype will
believe you. So you get weird
stories of this or that natural
redoubt - a cave, a stream,
something where this or that
happened a long, long time ago.
And you're supposed to go with
the image presented. Anyway,
this zoo babe threw me all off,
and I can remember just
scratching my head.
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