RUDIMENTS, pt. 968
(time passes, and only fools stay on the bus)
One of the first things I
noticed, once I got there
and began living a somewhat
normal NYC life, in the
'poorest of economies' ways,
was how I'd oddly enough
stepped back a bit in time.
That's hard to explain a
meaning for, but you need
to visualize: I'd come from
a more than stupid place,
in fact the differences were
planetary. The things each
location valued were miles
apart from each other in
proper thought. I'd just
been relieved of, in
August 1967, the vestiges
of suburban blight and glitter
to the extent that, in, say,
Avenel, the value of a
combined idea of supermarket
and parking area was considered
gold, whereas in NYC the same
was considered a laughable joke,
without meaning and having
no referential reality. Part of the
'continental' urban experience
was the walk and the street-life
during that walk to get supplies,
foodstuffs, fresh vegetables,
fish and meat. The shoe-shop
and the watch-fixer, the hat
store and the dry-goods store.
Hardware. Plumbing. Each
sort of place, small as they
may have been had their own
specialty, niche, and usefulness.
It was really old-world, and it
was, in its own 'urban' way
stuck behind some sort of time
warp ball that, in suburbia, was
speeding along to bring forth,
to the happy minions of whatever,
drive-through convenience, fine
packaging, pre-packaged goods,
self-selection, supermarket
aisles, shopping carts, electric
doors, and the rest. A shopper
need not interact or deal on a
personal level with any one
person, if they wished to not
do so. I found, in the city, that
things were entirely different,
in spite of the maligned image
that New Yorkers had - the
grocer picked your goods, filled
your salt or sugar or loose
purchases into little bags, each;
hardly anything was pre-packed;
scales hung from ceilings, sawdust
and animal drippings festooned
the meat counter floor areas as
loins and roasts went into white,
waxy papers and were taped shut.
Perhaps, with a grease pen, weight
or price was written on the outside.
All this time, it seemed, somebody
would be talking, at you, near you,
past you, for you. The locals knew
the locals, their concerns, and
what was recent or current about
most everyone or everything.
People took time, comparing,
looking. Along the street, nearby
cafes and small eateries took
people in and became rest-spots
after a shopping-walk-excursion,
with young children in tow or
not. Somedays it felt like 1880,
and other days, perhaps, 1924.
As I walked along, not near to
shopping, I took in all the sights
and sounds and was amazed -
both at what I experienced, and
at where I was. How had I
done this? How had I gotten
myself here? I'd think to myself
about being in this great city of
tumult and turbulence amidst
masses of people scurrying
every which way. In my
presence too! I was living
history, walking through a
milk-honey of old times and
places; a still-vivid tableau
of a world mostly dissolving
outside of these two rivers.
I'd somehow done it - I was
basically a damn-fool 17-year
old runaway, scraping and
managing to get by - making
my momentary and weird
alliances with all sorts of
people I couldn't yet fully
define. For I'd never seen
them, or these situations,
before. If one had no money,
I found it wasn't really needed.
There were a hundred ways
around things, from the sorts
of bottom perches I was using. I
was, somehow, afraid of noting.
Stealing, pilfering, caging
leftovers, sleeping outside in
Summer parks, rooftops and,
in my case, atop marquees.
A simple 25 cents could get
one survival, and if a person
looked hard enough, there was
always a quarter and more on
the ground, melted into the soft
tar, or in fountains and pools,
those stupid places dreamers
threw their coins instead of
giving them to others. I never
robbed, nor held anyone up,
but that too was always an
option. Sex? It was free.
When you're 17, anything
will do.
-
Taxi drivers most always,
back then, were white guys;
white 'gentleman' guys - you'd
often see someone who could
have been a grade-school
principal, what with their
bearing and shirt and tie. Men
thought nothing then of their
'overachieving' in dress what
they were actually doing.
Pride, I guess, and appearance,
counted. people still seemed
high and straight and stern
and holy. Yes, even the taxi
drivers. Everyone was living
a drama, yet these guys were
always serene, down to it and
up to the task. They knew the
city like the back of their hand
and seemed afraid of no part
of it. (Unlike now, when some
screeching Ghanian will start
screaming to you about places
and directions he'd rather NOT
take or take you to. It's a far
stupider world; more like a
headache. They have their
damned perfume-sensor bottle
on the dash, and some motley
collection of national home-flags
or sports or starlet photos; with
their assumed cultural-locus
superiority staunchly in place,
even in a dead-meat location
like NYC, which ONCE maybe
had been the actual capitol of
all this stuff and now is, instead,
a noisy bucket of swill.
-
I remember a guy named Emil
Hazenhall, from Nutley NJ.
He was an older gent, like one
of those taxi drivers, except he
was an old-world letterpress
(the old style) printer. In his
work, he'd be in work clothes,
and with a leather printer's
apron on. But damn it all,
when he arrived to work, and
as he left work, he was in a
suit and tie. He'd go to his locker,
and change his clothing, for, as
he put it, he'd 'never be caught
on the street in these soiled
work clothes.' And he'd have
his street fedora on, every
time, coming and going. He's
long dead, I'm sure, and I
never got to know him well
through these passing now
and then moments, but, as
I think now, if he was 60 or
65 back then, which he was,
in 1967, he was born then
about 1901 or 2. Kind of like
my grandmother too, who
was, I think, 1900. How
much I'd like now to have
the opportunity to pick
through their brains, Emil,
and my grandmother too.
There would have been so
much to learn and get. But,
whatever; time passes and
only fools stay on the bus.
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