11,682. RUDIMENTS, pt. 653

RUDIMENTS,  pt. 653
(run this by me again?)
I never had any of that

licentious stuff going on :

Mistresses, lovers, girlfriends,

any of that. My version of all

that was just to fall off deep

into some private and singular

string of personal consciousness

and stay there. Get distant.

Alienate others. It always

worked for me, and I managed

to get things done too. None of

it probably helped my reputation

much, for whatever it was. Others

just stayed wary. Good enough.

It still seemed people were

always coming to me with one

problem or request or another.

I always seemed to get into that

same position of 'fixer' or guru

to others  -  seeking solutions,

deals, or just wanting to air some

thoughts. I, by those means, very

often got deeply into the lives

of others  -  kind of completely

opposite to what it was I originally

intended. Weird.

-

It's always been, in my life,

that I can be running along fine,

and then some little, dumb, thing

will trip me up. Like burning my

tongue, or some little ache or pain,

anything like that, even smashing up

a fingernail, say. It's the darnedest

thing how a tiny nothing can set

me off. I used to have a friend,

he's dead now, who was whatever

it's called when everything has to

be perfectly positioned. If a person

even walked by his desk, he'd go

over this whole crazy ritual, as

soon as the talk or whatever was

done, of repositioning everything,

and I mean everything, at the

desktop. Each item had to be

confirmed once more as being

in their correct and rightful spot:

Paperclips, the tape dispenser,

pens, paper, this and that, it all

went on. He really meant his

stuff, and when he got into one

of those tizzies I'd just walk away.

I'd seen one or two people over

time with other things, like facial

tics, or stuttering. But this took

it all  -  it was real, and it was

purely physical. As a kid, right

there on Inman Avenue, I had

two boyhood chums (yikes, can

you imagine, they too are BOTH

dead!), one would smell everything.

Just what I said; he'd pick up a

TV Guide, if he passed it, or a

kid-toy or a trinket or a sofa

pillow, really, and he'd sniff it.

Just for a second, totally self

absorbed in that act, and then it

would be placed back down. But,

hey, that was weird! And the

second friend, right across the

street, Jimmy, he had that even

more bizarre thing for a few

years (I don't know if these traits

disappeared later, because I knew

neither of them as adults) of

saying something  -  anything,

'I just had lunch, and it was good,'

and then, in some oddball sort of

review, or examination of what he'd

just said, he'd silently mouth it again,

repeating it to himself, as if to be

sure there hadn't been a mistake  - 

like writing a line of words, and

then re-reading to edit. That was

completely bonkers too, I thought.

-

I never knew, or know, what happens

with things like these instances; even 

the stuttering guy, that too over time

did all disappear, but it used to be

brutal, like torture, to witness. How

is it that individuals, each separately, 

get to walk through periods of time 

with their own, of these, little 

defining quirks? We learn and see

them by the effect, and in that way

remember them, forever. So very 

strange. What other defining 

aspects of ourselves, I'd wonder,

became the fixed apparitions of

what people remember about us? 

-

There used to be a guy, a sort of

busboy I guess  -  at 'Romeo's'

on 42nd street. It was a sort of

super-glorified, deep pizza place

where you could get a plate of

spaghetti for a quarter. (1966).

People would sit around, there

was a serving window kind of

thing at street-side, but it was

little bothered with. This busboy

guy was a large, mis-shapen,

white-aproned black guy, who

would stare and shuffle around,

taking people's plates and settings

and dumping the things into a

wheel cart with a large plastic

tub on top. Sometimes too he'd

bring things out to people; a

plate of food or some slices.

That was never too cool to 

see, because he was a bit 

messy, and strange, and was,

as well, constantly handling old

plates and trays and leftovers,

plus mops and sweep-ups and 

the rest. Nobody really seemed

to mind, not even me, though

I'd notice it, and it all just went

on. He was always mumbling

or seemingly uttering something

to himself  -  large teeth, a little

bucked, and a mouth that didn't

seem to close correctly, because

of the teeth, I thought.  He became,

for me and my 2 friends, the

defining character to this odd

'Romeo's' place  -  which only

disappeared about 12 years ago.

It was funny like that  -  I made

eye contact lots of times with

him, but nothing ever came of it,

no communication, and no 

acknowledgement. It was strange,

amid all that cranking bustle, to

get to that point of 'just almost'

clicking with someone but not.

One of my friends, Jack, the

later Vietnam Medic guy, he

was always breaking his glasses,

and there was a dollar-fifty

eyeglass frame place near there.

Because of that great bargain,

we were there a lot; after that

we just went for the cheap plate

of food. When you're hungry you

don't really have too see to eat?

-

Let me point out, again, that this

was all old days stuff ; the 42nd

street of 1966 bore no resemblance

to what pretzel-palace of lights

and gimmickry that's there now.

Back then, nothing had yet been

redone  -  no updates, no new

buildings, no real attractions.

Strings and rows of sleazeball

porno-palaces, of the old school;

a few playland-like  places of 

ski-ball, ring tosses, photo-booths,

and all that; first run movie places

with the big attractions  -  all

that Ben-Hur and Klute-like stuff.

Morgan! Georgie Girl! The Graduate!

You name it, it was around. In addition,

there were the pimps, whores, gigolos,

queers, dykes, homos, and sexual

deviants of any stripe, even the most

normal, prowling around. Nuns,

with crotchless panties, as it were.

Nothing you'd ever expect. Militant

black guys, seeking to sell you their

papers. A few, and only a few, cops.

There would always be clutches of

suburban kids, off the trains and

buses, maybe, seeking excitement,

maturity or wonderment to take back

home with them, so they too could

slog through another week at some

stupid 'William J. Madison IV

High School.' It was all misery.
-
Suffice it to say there wasn't too much
legit business going on along that 
street. If you were able to find a tax
accountant, or a CPA, or a lawyer in
some walk-up cubbyhole along that
street, suffice it again to say that
that Myron Cohen was crooked.
-
Fact is. I've always done too much
thinking.  The whole communal
ethos of that lame street was always
too much for me; Romeo's cheap
food notwithstanding. I always
felt I was being betrayed. Back some
time ago, there was this sociologist
or something, last name Boehm, and 
he wrote some interesting stiff about
'society' : 'Modern society reduced the
role of communality, and as it did so
it elevated the role of Authority.' In
his studies of older, communal
societies, he found that one of the
most common traits was the absence
of major wealth disparities between
individuals. Another was the absence
of arbitrary authority. 'Social life
is politically egalitarian in that there
is always a low tolerance by a group's
mature males for one of their numbers
dominating, bossing, or denigrating
the others...probably as a result of
hunting large game, which required
cooperative band-level sharing of meat.
Their mobility, as well, made the 
shifting communities difficult to 
have authority impose on the 
unwilling. Males trying to take over
the group were countered by other
males, in coalitions of harsh
resistance. 'Failure to share' was one
of the big three 'infractions' along with 
murder and theft. Freeloading on
others, and bullying, were also high
up on the list  -  punishments included
public ridicule, shunning, and, finally,
assassination of the culprit by the
entire group. A cave painting from 
the early Holocene in Spain shows 
ten figures with bows in their hands 
and a lone figure on the ground with
what appear to be ten arrows sticking
out of him. The configuration portrays
execution, not death in combat.
Boehm also said 'current-day
foraging groups still have group
execution as the most common way
of punishing males who try to claim
a disproportionate amount of the
group's resources.' He then runs this
thought out as follows: 'In old societies
a person couldn't get away with selfish
behavior because people lived in small
groups where almost everything was
open to scrutiny. Modern society, on the 
other hand, is a sprawling and anonymous
mess where people can get away with
enormous amounts of dishonesty
without getting caught : cheating,
insurance fraud, unemployment and
benefits cheating, etc. - most strenuously
including Medicare, Medicade, and
claims of disability. Westerners now
live in societies where scamming small
amounts of money at the bottom are
almost endless, and hard to catch. But
scamming large amounts of money
off the top is even harder to catch.
Systems are built for this. Most tribal
and subsistence level societies would
inflict severe penalties on anyone caught
undertaking such things. Hunter-gatherers
would treat their version of a welfare or
disability cheat, or a dishonest banker,
as decisively and with the same finality
as cheaters or cowards, the modern-day
equivalent of tribe members who
quietly steal more than their share of
meat or other resources.' Think about
that the next time you're standing
in today's equivalent of Romeo's, or
a courthouse, or a town hall.