RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,003
(it was all adventure)
Eventually I got tired of everything:
Tired of listening seeing, talking.
It's at the point when the body
begins telling you there's trouble
brewing. Your urge is to stand
in front of something, go to the
train yards ('cept nothing there
goes fast enough). Maybe the
motorcycle and alcohol stuff
was a death wish. However
you wish to slice it. I had to
move on new urges and get
straight. My straight, of
course, never being what
others saw as straight. One
single life is never enough;
a person lives like 5 at one
time. I began imagining, and
the imagined situations, though
fraught too with peril, were
better than my life because they
at least were worked around a
philosophical basis of acceptance.
I had a friend, named Tre, over
at the Village Den restuarant,
I think that was the proper name,
though I just always said 'The
Villager,' for my uses. (see
'Miasma Arms Hotel' for more
on that), and I'd end up there a
lot. A buck and a quarter, endless
food and coffee if things were
right and she was there. It's
gone now; about 5 years ago
there was one of those signs in
the window about 'Owner
Retiring. We'd like to thank our
loyal friends and customers for over
40 years of loyalty.' Whatever that
means, and whoever the owner was
at the end. 1967 to 2015 is, what,
closer to 50 years, and I don't
know when they began. For all
I know the original joint was from
the 19430's. Theresa's long gone,
I guess. She's the one who called
herself Tre, or was called that. She
claimed she was the third kid, and
her father could never get names
straight so he numbered them. She
was number Tre. She had a brother,
some kind of hoodlum guy with
the Sullivan Street crew; I never
knew much on that, but I knew
they were tough, probably docks,
probably killers too. The whole
waterfront west was rackets and
mayhem.
-
Sometimes I'd just sit in there,
that first Winter anyway. There
were all sorts of locals, oldsters
then, who'd come by, slowly enter
and then take their seat, with her
already knowing what they'd
want. 'Tuesday, Robert gets the
veal platter....' That sort of stuff.
A few of these guys were local
Royal Gay Villager old men,
probably from along Christopher
Street; they carried themselves
regally, and had real presence.
The Ninth Circle was a bar with
food too, on Christopher Street,
but it was a totally different
ambiance. I guess a number of
these guys switched off. Old
women like that came in too.
Full of ancient presence, with
odd little pocketbooks, kerchiefs,
and all that stuff. Sometimes
heavy on the make-up too;
always out to impress, but there
really weren't that many 100
year old men around. I only
went to the Ninth Circle if
certain friends came, and brought
me there. It was pricey. and if
you didn't keep buying they'd
get antsy. They had big bowls
of peanuts, and popcorn, all
along the bar. I'd never seen
that before, but the idea was
to keep you salted up so you'd
keep buying beer or drinks.
They didn't bother me like that
at the villager, and I wasn't a
bar anyway, o it was less lecherous
and better lit, to begin with.
-
There was another place, on
4th Street; a tiny little hole in
the wall, literally, called The
Bagel. It was pretty striking,
in those years, to see a tiny
place simply called by that
name. Commercial bagel
sales weren't yet a big deal,
it was all still new. I remember
one time being somewhere in
the village and a truck-driving
cow-poke kind of guy comes
into where I was, looks up at the
menu board, and says, 'Hmm,
let me try one of them there
'Bahgels,' which is how he
pronounced it. Probably his first
time ever. I couldn't wait until
he discovered pizza. Yep, you
got all kinds in NYC, coming
or going. It was all adventure.
-
Theresa was cool. Her brother
was trouble, and had her worried.
The place itself was like an odd
oasis of old-timey eatery New
York; not like 'Automat' old time,
but just another era. They sold
some junky paintings, by locals,
which paintings hung on their
walls; the same people who'd
put out their paintings and stuff
for that Greenwich Village
Outdoor Art Show stuff. It was
all part of what was supposed to
make the Village so quaint and
daring and all. It was never that,
really, at all. Maybe in the 1920's
with Eugene O'Neil and all those
crazy John Reed guys and ladies
hanging around the the Golden
Swan and such. Gone now too.
But the rest of the village was
a lot of conservative, cranky,
harsh, old-line Italian people,
still angry at getting pushed
out, pushed eastward and south.
In the 1950's, there were times
when bands of Sullivan Street
Italian guys would come through
the area, some with sticks and
bats, just to savage and beat up
on the queers, creeps, beatniks,
and weirdos they'd run across.
It was a tough scene. Only once
really did I see the worst of it;
some mob muscleman came in
to the restaurant and trashed it
when the cook and owner refused
to give him money. He was really
mad and started throwing things
around and overturning stuff, and
the the white-aproned cook, a
big guy too, came out from
behind the counter, with a
baseball bat too. They were
hollering and yelling at each
other for a minute. The mob
guy started leaving but was
throwing stuff all about too
all along the way out. Everyone
was rattled. I was confused, and
Theresa was near to crying, sobbing
something about her brother too.
I just stayed in place. I couldn't
figure how anyone would want
to have to live that way on a daily
basis, always fearing for what was
to come through the door. I knew
it was a bad scene and people
really could get hurt from stuff like
that. Damned racketeers, it always
seemed, wanting always to just
get what they demand.
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