12,209. RUDIMENTS, pt. 843

RUDIMENTS, pt. 843

(a useful distinction)

By late 1967 there were only

a few - or a very dwindling

number - of horse-cart vendor

guys around. The area where they

were stabled, the horses fed, carts

tended, re-loaded, cleaned, etc.,

along the w20's mostly, and up

into maybe the 40's, along the

westside areas, is gone now.

Much of it having become either

art galleries or some/any other

sort of glamor-row usage. The

tourists primp and chomp,

the aimless young beggars

beg. It's nothing at all now

like the old days  -  or my old

days anyway. (Which of course

were not old days for those

people then, who already had

their own and deeper versions

of old days and what-was-there).

During my passage there, I was

still able to find day-chores,

make a few paltry bucks, help

out, and become acquainted

with a world I'd never known.

Old men, working guys, a very

occasional woman -  females

usually deep, harsh, and rugged,

or any of that  -  they'd be around

sluggishly doing their work.

Water-pails, straw, hay, horse-feed,

more buckets, hoses, charcoal

(many of the carts, chestnut, for

instance, had small warming-tray

fires always going and there

was always work to be done.

Same with the pretzel carts).

It was a different time and

feel when all of that was slowly

transported around the city by

the clop-clop of horse-hooves on

cobblestones  -  it also meant the

horses needing tending, matting

and brushing; blankets, bridles,

etc. Here and there would be,

in fact, an occasional blacksmith

garage  -  for shoes and other

horse-trims. It was a wildly

different world, and one with

its own version of a unique,

working, silence and quiet.

I kind of fit right in.

-

I never knew what sort of world

it really was, the one outside of

me  -  I couldn't stand the taste.

People were always enigmatic to

me even as they apparently thought

they were at their most clear and

forthcoming. It seemed to me as

if no one ever asked 'why?' about

anything. I'd see well-dressed and

highly appointed financial types,

down along Nassau Street and that

area  -  lots of stockbroker clothing

and shoes joints. The people I'd see

were already well-dressed and onto

it for keeps, yet they were always

shopping, seeking, hunting about,

for more. Why was that? Whatever

was that all about? Did no one

know when enough was enough, the

point reached, any 'need' fulfilled?

At about the same time, everywhere,

there was always some 'starving

kids in Biafra' campaign, with

posters of pathetic, wide-eyed

children affected by some gross

African internecine tribal warfare,

hungry, crying for food and for

assistance, and these shits would

stroll right by, oblivious, and on

their way to possibly purchase

their 14th pair of freaking shoes.

A wing-tipped Paradise, they

lived in, but filled with ignorance

and pride. It made me sick enough

to wonder, and  -  to tell you the

truth  -  I always thought it

wouldn't be such a bad idea to

have penal colonies for jerks

like that. Screw their IPO's.

-

Perhaps for a time I was a sort

of madman in the city. I don't

know and  -  frankly  -  I don't

remember ALL of it. Something

other then me had me in its grasp;

formulating, planning itself,

through me. Jean Paul Sartre

had a concept of 'the Other' that

made some sense to me. It went

as if 'consciousness outside the

self' is crucial to our formation

of a full sense of selfhood. In

a way, it means you don't want

to ever fall under the spell of

another, lest you then become

subject to that 'other person's'

interpretation. Of course, now

that's all we do, and, in fact,

that's pretty much probably

all we as Humankind has

ever done. I'm sure that the

early caveman, Rocky

Chiselman, while making

stone tools and banging rocks,

making round things, and

figuring out what fire was,

had a constant awareness

that others were both

watching and judging him.

Not much to be done about

that. Yet, these westside horse

and stable guys were different.

I just don't think they had much

to say nor even cared much

about finding things to say. You

were on your own; that's how they

lived it. Barrel fires and the charcoal

trays kind of went together, and,

in all, it was like a Kennedyesque

perpetual (or 'eternal') flame;

of course in 1967 that was still

a current idea, though it means

little to people now. The idea

of an eternal flame was crazy

anyway and how any real American

could acclimatize that idea over a

dead President, I never got. It was

more of an Eastern European kind

of thinking  - heavy and weird

reverence for a 'dead' leader. Not

even a fallen one, just dead. The

only real 'Nobility' about it was the

constant public push and presence

of it all. It wasn't right, yet it rode

hard on everyone's shoulders for

lots of years. Americans didn't do

that sort of stuff, even if it had

hit a stride alike, for a moment,

back when Lincoln went down.

But I considered that different,

more in this horse and wagon

mode I was living.

-

A person can't live their entire

lives in a quiet, dead morgue,

and of course I knew that. Yet,

at the very same time, I reveled

in this new little find I'd gotten.

Winter was setting in, which meant

more delicious odors than usual  -

the carts and the goods and the

little fires and the horses, and 

everything with that slow and

strange onrush of 'Holiday' that

NYC undergoes each November.

It may be a professed secular and

irreligious place, but Commerce

is its God in another way entirely

and they sure do lap up at the

golden honey of all that. The

Winter entry of foodstuffs  -  it

changes, yes, by season though

the only constant is hot dogs. 

The Winter format runs, as I made

mention, to chestnuts and those

large, browned, soft pretzels, 

which are nicely kept warm. 

Now they're about 2 bucks or 

so I (I think), but back then

they were had for maybe 30 

cents. All the same, and no one

ever balked. The endless touristy

types from Idaho, seeking the

comfort of Christmas and all that

seasonal 'holiday-fication,' sure

got it, and ate up a walking storm.

I used to say they'd probably buy

pin-cushions, unknowingly, if

you warmed them and said it was

a NY delicacy at Christmas.

-

The Turkish language, I learned

(from reading Orhan Pamuk, an

author) has a separate tense for

hearsay and rumor. That ought to be

enough to stop someone dead in their

tracks (or so I'm told) [Ha! That's an

English version of that tense!]. In

any case, what a remarkable idea, and

I wondered if other languages also have

that. And why? For home-side English

here, for instance, in politics let's say,

three-quarters of all their bullshit is

just that, so I guess newspapers would

have to be written all in that tense.

He phrases it more delicately: "In

Turkish we have a special tense

that allows us to distinguish

hearsay from what we have seen 

with our own eyes; when we are

relating dreams, fairy tales, or

past events we could not have 

witnessed, we use this tense.

It is a useful distinction.'
-
And well it may be, though for me
everything was present tense and
active voice, and I had no two ways
around that. I was stuck knee-deep
in the middle of it all, willingly. 
Learning to love it may have been 
the most difficult part; but even
that was easy  -  and I somehow
knew I'd never be laid low by
by anything except myself.