11,591. RUDIMENTS, pt. 615

RUDIMENTS, pt. 615
(no difference between them anyway)
'No one's ever paid me a

damned cent for anything

I've ever done, dammit all.'

The tall guy next to me was

going on. 'And the rest is history, 

right?' I told him that, in response.

It was somehow an easy moment,

though I was at first scared by

it. He laughed and then we had

another beer. I liked the 

place, yes, it was comfortable, 

but I wasn't sure I'd come 

back - everything here 

was quite expensive. Like 

that guy from the Rolling 

Stones  - I forget his name,

the guitar player  -  with

that spin-off group of his

that occasionally makes

records. The Ex -Pensive

Winos. I always liked that

name, but the problem with

all those guys always turned

out to be that I could never

tell anyone apart, couldn't

distinguish who they were;

like in this case. One of

those guys recorded under

that name. I was going to

tell the guy next to me that

I'd bet they'd gotten paid,

and well too. But he'd then

probably just want another

beer again, and I was running

out of pocket money, and all
they kept playing here was
raucous, rude Irish music 
anyway, the pounding 
Dropkick-Murphy kind.

-

In my time here, I'd seen

people shop autographs, and

signed-letters too. That always

baffled me, plus the idea that

there were stores and auctions

for things like that. Seventeen

thousand dollars for a personal

note from Franklin Roosevelt

to Edith Schnod or someone.

Or a penciled inscription by

Benjamin Franklin on the

flyleaf of an old book. A

list of turtles, written by

Charles Darwin. Crazy stuff,

for tons of money. For me

to be walking among people

who were mindful of this

material was baffling. It

sometimes seemed as if

three-quarters of the non-

American world was suffering

for its next meal, yet here

we had people willing to

fork over a bundle for

someone's initials. Divide?

There certainly was a great

divide  -  whether it was

mere economics and class,

or something more political

and ruthless, I never knew.

-

One time, when I was working

in Princeton, I made friends with

an old-school 1960's model type.

She was still high-fashion, had

a wonderful, old house, lived

in a great manner, and had a

huge shaggy-maned dog that

she'd walk daily. That's how I

began seeing her, with her

daily dog-walk situation, and

coffee, at the same place. We

eventually just said hi and all

the rest. And then we'd talk a

little, daily. And then (and then,

and then...) her big dog died.

It was a shocker to begin seeing

her daily, with its opposite  - a

little fluff-muff of a white dog.

I asked what had happened, she

said she wasn't sure but within

three days the big dog just died.

She was sad, but she was just as

happy too, to have the new, little

white dog. Anyway (I've omitted

her name), we sat around some

over that Winter and Spring,

and then, in the same way, she

began showing up with an older

guy, and then they went away

to California -  and stayed there.

Her nice house was for sale for

a time, and then someone else

moved in, but still with most of

her furnishings and stuff out

on the porch and in the yard,

so I never knew if it was a 

rental or a sale. I never saw 

Catherine again, but she 

always reminded me of 

someone who'd be intent

enough, and proper and 

well-off,  enough, to collect 

autographs and signatures 

and letters like that. It's

a very specific thing.

-

Life has all its levels and 

the different people that fill 

them all, Mostly they mingle 

OK, or if not mingling, they 

stay together apart in their 

own spaces and categories. 

When the trouble starts is 

when the pressure points 

finally break  -  like in NYC, 

a black-out or a heat-wave 

or some killing or arrest, 

something will suddenly 

break the chains of peace 

and coexistence that stand

side-by-side maintaining 

their tension but in stasis. 

And that's when you suddenly

 have trouble  -  riots, fires, 

looting, even National Guard 

and things. That happened, as 

I recall, one time in the late 

70's, or maybe it was early 

80's. My friends then, the 

three or four that I'd kept 

were somehow all living 

in the same general area

of the west 80's. Over a 

few years they'd switched 

partners, so each was 

living then with each

other's original lover, 

live-in situations abounding. 

I never cared and  -  much 

like those Rolling Stones 

guys  -  never saw much 

difference between any 

of them anyway. There 

was some fighting, or 

one guy was especially 

mopey. But it was OK. 

At bottom, no one cared.

 It was that economic strata 

and I was there  -  it had 

nothing to do with the 

letter and autograph or 

signature collectors. The 

one guy, the moper, he'd 

get all mad whenever 

he'd see, for pity's sake, 

a Burger King  -  and 

he'd start a rant about 

how disgusting Americans 

are  -  it had to be a 'King' 

right; they could name it 

Burger Plebeian, or Burger 

Serf. Everything was 

politics, even gristle, 

grease, and juice. Anyway,

this one morning, we got

up, and there had been rioting

and looting for the past two 

days, cops everywhere, and 

a lot of black people, mad

even about being mad. I

don't remember how or why,

besides out to get coffee, we

began walking through streets

we'd not realized before were

torn and mangled  - riots and

desecration. Large panes of

glass, broken on the street,

the storefronts open and

obviously looted  -  broken

and dropped items everywhere.

It was about a zillion degrees

out, had been for days, the tar

in the street was hot and soft, 

and things had gotten squished 

down into it. It was weird;

bottle caps, pieces of steel,

stones and pebbles, and it was

all still soft too  -  maybe fires

had something to do with it.

My friend had become livid,

blaming somebody at every turn 

for something  -  the government 

for the conditions, the police for

the brutality, and the residents for

their boorishness and ignorance,

and violence and mob-ethos too. 

People were huddled in open

windows, 3 or 4 flights up, looking

down at us, just watching. I had

no idea what we were doing, but

I got fascinated in seeing how

all the apartment places, one 

small building at a time  -  not

with these inhabitants but, maybe

80 years before, the original

inhabitants  -  each building was

named, over its entry doorway, in

stone with names of foreign places.

Like The Bratislava, the Skopje,

the Budapest. I'm working from

memory, and it's long ago  -  but

the eastern Europeans who first

came here had somehow gotten

their buildings named for their own

originations. Sometimes friends and

neighbors in the old country were

friends and neighbors here  -  of

course not on little farms or plots, 

but in hallways and toilets. What

a crazy world, and that world had,

as well, by 1980, degenerated to

anarchy and pathos and violence,

with inhabitants from who knew

where and who knew if they even 

cared where, living in those same

once-grand places but now as 

cast-off hovels and hulks of what

they once may be been. I'd bet
not a one of those current, fiery
inhabitants could even begin to
tell me were Bratislava might be.
My friend, the mopey guy, for him,
in his anger and froth, I'd bet
if a an antique letter-collector
had come by just then he'd have
torn him to pieces with curses
and mangled oaths!