RUDIMENTS, pt. 572
(no bones about it)
Just like now, I used to be
writing things all the time.
People never believed about
me, if they found out things,
about where I came from,
how I was nothing, just
hanging, no one ever knew
what to make of me. It would
happen often - and in fact
it still does often enough -
that for some reason people
would always be giving me
things. I guess I always looked
needy or sad, whatever - all
that still happens. I guess now
I look needy and sad, and old
too. One guy wanted to give
me a walker and a cane, just
the other day. OK, no, not
really. But, I was always
getting something, small bits
of money too. It was like being
a beggar without having to be
one, nor needing to concoct
a cover story either. It's also
funny, comparing then to
now - in 1968 no one ever
offered water, mainly because
people didn't drink it like
they do now - all those plastic
bottles of water and sports
bottles and all. Now, many
people walk around with water.
In the hot summer days, when
I'm drooping around with my
dog, or not, people give me
water - cold and new, for me,
or sometimes they also say,
'for your dog,' as a cover.
Or, if they come out of a store
or something, with energy bars
or any of that crap, I often get
offered something like that.
It's odd. A short time back some
guy walked up to me and gave
me a ten dollar gift card to a
store named Target, saying
he'd just gotten in on a
return. Problem there was,
I don't much go into stores,
for social reasons, but my
wife handled the matter
deftly. It's good how she
covers for me.
-
In that Villager Restaurant
place, with Tre, in the previous
chapter, I was always getting
some sort of food there, from
others or from her too. Village
people were always really nice;
a lot of old money types, dowagers
or gentlemen, sauntering themselves
about, solitary and mindful. I guess
rich people like causes, and they
always seemed to take me up as
one - sometimes it was pretty
amazing. A platter, a hamburger
and fries, coffee, grilled cheese.
The simple stuff, not big meals.
Just the way I liked it. The things
Tre would give me - sometimes
I figured them to be maybe as
leftovers from other people's
plates, but that never made any
difference to me. Can't be fussy
when you're an otherwise wreck.
-
It was a regular late hours place
too, and there was a movie house
across the street from it. The
movie house is long gone, but
just recently it was that, sadly,
I passed the Villager and they
had one of those sob-story
notes on their front glass about
thanking everyone for their
85 years of loyalty, we are sad
to announce our closing, blah,
blah. Just like everything else
I ever remembered there, too
sad now and gone with the wind.
I'd love to find Theresa somewhere;
maybe she'd even remember some
of this stuff and could deal - stories
and tears and comparisons. A lot
of stories come out of that place.
Too bad they're gone.
-
That whole section, whatever
it was 10th Street and 6th Ave.,
it was pretty strange. It's still
strange, but now it's different;
the little news guys are gone,
the small stores are all replaced,
a lot of restaurants with attitude
have cropped up, and a more
visible contingent of gay stuff,
having spread about in 50 years,
is prevalent. No matter. It's just
that the world itself is so different.
That movie place, and then later it
was a duplex movie place, it used
to get college kids and NYU types
all lined up for whatever was in
there. Now I think people watch
freaking movies on their phones.
They simply ceased making
money, these sorts of places, as
society changed its whole way
of being. There was a news-store
there, at the corner, where they'd
get the Sunday New York Times,
usually about 4 and a half inches
thick, and there'd be piles of them
outside - back then it was still
under a buck, later maybe $1.25 -
and people would be in rows
getting their copy and paying
the newsstand guys with their
little coin aprons on - dispensing
change and money going in all
directions and to all hands. I
used to call the thick Sunday
paper The New York Tomes.
And then probably 1/3 of those
people would traipse right across
the street and sit in the Villager
for two or three hours, reading
the various parts of the paper,
having their lunch or breakfast,
coffee and the rest, while musing
over what to do and where to
go, based on what they'd see in
the paper. It was all that close-knit,
the locals, the city, and the places
within it. Like nothing I'd ever
seen before. You may remember
how, in the old days, the smart
set used to go around saying
how New York was really
nothing but a collection of small
villages, or, even, neighborhoods.
Around this west section of the
upper Village that was kind of
true - most of the faces were
familiar, and lots of people
knew each other, a location
like this small restaurant being
kind of a chat-up place and
social-center all wrapped up
in one. A type of town-clearing
house mouthpiece there would
be Tre, in fact, acting as the
message-transit - along with
the cook guy who was always
hanging around too - person
for any needed or immediate
passing on of local news or
info. Just like a small burg
somewhere, except it wasn't.
-
That night I mentioned in the
previous chapter, when I got
busted up by the waterfront
hoods, I found out later that
was involved with a lot of other
things current at the time. I wrote
about it all, titled under what
I called the 'Miasma Arms Hotel'
episode (I'll post the link here),
all about that first chilly Winter
I stayed there. It was all pretty
miraculous, and sure took my
mind off other things. She loved
the re-telling of that story, and
she also had a brother involved
in the 'Sullivan Street Boys' who
was nothing but trouble (never
met him, I don't think) so I'd
get to hear of all the crazy
things they did. Just before my
days there, in the earlier 1960's
as all the local folkies and fading
beatniks were floating in and out
of the scene, it was almost
forbidden for any of those
people to filter down into the
area of Sullivan Street - it was
a highly developed, harshly
Italian section - and they did
not take very kindly to these new
interlopers screwing up their
'Village' with their soft-touches
and singalongs. The film director
Martin Scorcese came up out of
there, and his early films still
showed a lot of that grit and
hustle. He used to say how each
apartment building or walk-up
on Sullivan Street represented a
different village in Italy where
people came from. If one was
form, say, Taranto, you lived in
572 Sullivan; Santa Marchetta,
say, you lived in 614, etc. It
was almost tribal, and these
people really clung together.
You bust that sequence up, or
start to, and you're in real big
trouble with the Sullivan
Street boys. No bones.
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