RUDIMENTS, pt. 641
('arms first, people second')
My time-worn alliance with
all things is now quickly running
out. In order to compensate, I
bury myself with over-reaction
and by making undue claims
on all things. I'm still thinking
that washing a car is a ridiculous
endeavor. Walking through the
world of this current day, I'd
rather be pulling my teeth out
with pliers.
-
In late 1967, when we were
stealing whatever we could
from the usual and likely
sources, there was a ready-market
for the sorts of things we'd get.
One source was a record store.
Any of those dumb-ass LP's, as
they came out, could be dropped
onto a blanket at Astor Place
and there'd be for sure some idiot
within 20 minutes picking through
whatever there was. The same
with books - grubby, tattered,
dog-eared, used texts. (Same way
the two Riggio guys for their
start for Barnes & Noble. Selling
collected NYU textbooks right
back to the twits who's peers
sold them. You never wanted
to mess with hard-goods. Hitting
up a truckload, say, of hardware
store goods would bring trouble.
They could kill or at least badly
beat you, because at that point
you were getting closer to the
organized and union-bound
craft workers and their livelihoods.
That stuff was all locked up, and
in-place. Not that they wouldn't
buy cheap, but rather they just
didn't like someone else messing
with their trade. You just learn
this stuff. Uptown now, at the
east 50's by DeWitt Clinton Park,
there are still one or two industrial
plumbing and sheetrock/building
trades kind of places; they have
the same deal they always did.
In the early morning hours, the
contractors and union-work guys
show up for tools and needed
supplies, their tanks of propane
and all that, etc., and you'd not
want to be caught trying to
undersell the same goods
at curbside. Woe betide!
-
The framework for everything, you
need to understand, already exists
when you arrive there. Newcomers
always make the same horrible
mistakes - like the guy who, in
a storm of thought, buys himself
a hot-dog cart and then just decides
to start selling, here, or there. Good
luck. That street corner or side of a
ark location is bought with blood,
guts, and money, (and connections
and memories too) and 'ain't no
outsider' moving in with a huge
hassle and a bagful of trouble.
Around me, all of a sudden (and
I already wanted out) had grown
a sort of network of 11th street
small-time crime. Right across
the street was a car-shop/body
shop - repairs and bodywork
combined, which mostly also
meant stripping and dismantling
whatever would be 'dragged' in.
There were many times when total
value of a car as 'parts' was greater
than as a 'car' itself. So, such
dismantling was a bona-fide
walking money endeavor. Once
behind the closed garage-doors
at streetside, all real work ensued.
Law enforcement was at a complete
minimum at this level of things.
The mostly Spanish people all
around us didn't much have even
a clue as to what went on, or if they
did their better parts of valor were
to keep quiet about everything, since
one or more of the dismantlers, etc.,
probably had something to do with
their family or extended kinship.
It all worked out, and skilled 'body
men' for such work were easy
to find. They abounded, like
vocational-school kids.
-
In old New York, kids used to die
from drinking, or being given, what
was called 'swill milk.' It was called
swill milk because cows were fed 'swill'
which was the leftover mash and crud
from local distilleries; the mash still,
it was said, had nutrients. The pale
liquid was whitened with plaster of
Paris, thickened with starch and
eggs, and 'hued' with molasses.
Long about 1860 or so, same era
as the Civil War Draft Riots, the
breakouts of insurrection and
hangings citywide, and the great
fires and smallpox breakouts here
and there, finally forced the hands
of the 'Authorities' (there were none
really, nothing was yet regulated or
controlled), to do something. What
did they do? I'll let you think about
that for a few minutes while I write
on, and I'll get back to it - because
it's NOT what you think.
-
By the 1960's, from what I could tell
then, most all of that clean regulation
stuff was shot to hell. Things were
everywhere shoddy, stores were
filthy and hot, air-conditioning was
still a not-always used option. Some
of the places were viciously hot, and
I mean the Summertime interior
temperatures that would melt a
popsicle STICK! The couple of
dumps I got to work in were awful.
The Studio School was hot too; I
don't recall what they ever did
about the AC deal; no memory of
that. The First and Second Avenues
4th to 12th street areas I was in
were rife with rundown, ancient
housing, decrepit from years of
immigrant overuse, sagging and
weary. The interiors were usually
rank and falling apart; plumbing
was horrible, water service was
often deplorable. If there could
have been a swill-milk distribution
center somewhere there, believe
me the usual money-creeps would
have tried it. Oh, and what was the
response of authority back then to
the breakouts of insurrection,
riots, and swill-milk diseases and
death? Besides occasional health
inspections and the institution of
what were then called 'Sanitary
Commissions,' their organized
answers were to build a series of
armories, citywide, to protect and
muster their defensive forces and
armaments against any further
breakouts. Wonderful idea.
Arms first. People second.
-
The one guy who worked the deep
nights with me was a Mexican or
Aztec or Peruvian or something
I never got straight, and he was
hiding out, like so many others,
from what he said was a situation
in Colorado which had involved
killing his own wife. Oh boy. Most
Mexicans I'd ever before seen were
small people, but this guy was big.
Like six-two big, maybe, and hulking,
with long black hair. He more to me
resembled a held-in-check American
Indian, just off the reservation and
not sure yet if he wished to go mar
or just shape up. Whatever he'd
done, it was done. Eventually I
just disappeared, walking from
the job and losing all touch with
him or his story. And, lastly, if
he'd gotten caught, I didn't want
to anywhere within five miles of
him, for fear of being suspected
of snitching or giving him up.
Some people just walk into
trouble. Not me.
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