12,689. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,011

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,011

(pan-de-monium)

The body compensates for

hurt and injury, maybe even

for loss too, by letting a person

forget. A quite simple 'forget.'

Within two years I was once

more functioning as if nothing

had ever happened. The greater

swill-bucket of life took over and

I carried on with all my kid stuff;

which ran from baseball to Boy

Scouts to camps and swimming.

My mind was NOT bringing me

back to that point of impact, it

seemed, ever. No nightmares;

no dreams or re-tellings about

it. Nothing at all. Whatever I

was that had replaced it, none

of it was ever present again.

So much for that.

-

Hell, so much for everything,

these days. I sit here writing this

as I pretty much watch or at

least witness everything around

me crumbling. Talk about a John

Kennedy 'New Frontier  -   boy

this wreck of a country's now 

in it and deep.  I don't know what

we'll have left when all this is

over, if any tattered remnants

will still be salvageable. I don't 

even know if maybe I myself

might just die after a period. 

For us oldsters, this all just

sort of puts in on the dotted

line; awaiting our signature, 

if you will. 'Bury me in my 

shades, boys; bury me in my

shades,' as Shel Silverstein

once sang. Most people will

just have to re-define themselves

and reformulate their new

equations. On their own  -  

which is the problem, because 

they aren't going to have the

resources of any of 'their own' 

with which to do it; my Mama said
stupid is as stupid does. So once 

more they'll just follow along. 

Nose ring, please.

-

I never, ever, thought  -  had 

I even the resources then to 

have seen this particular future  -  

that we'd end up here. I always

expected a descent into mayhem,

yes, but for far different reasons.

From my own point of view we've

always been doomed anyway,

mostly because of plain old

materialism. A mad, secular

materialism, in fact, upon which

this large, cranking and false

edifice of high ideals and rational

forms of thinking that comprises

the American 'Republic' was
built. Merchants and profit. Once
into New York City, in 1967, 

I was in the middle of all that.

I could see the daily madness :

trucks and handcarts, trading,

selling, and manufacture of goods

and product, the entire industry

of service and needs. There were

people flinging; mad rushes of

Broadway crowds, the shopping

and the getting. Each part of

the daytime city had its own

specialty  -  nuts and bolts,

hardware, electronics, fashions,

leathers, autos, and, on both sides

too, food. Mostly the east side was

fish-trade stuff, and the west side

was food, fruits, and vegetables.

Meats and slaughter and cuts had

their own meatpacking district.

Carcasses and flanks, hanging

on motorized chains, outside

of at last 20 and more packing

operations, refrigerated trucks,

refrigerated rooms where meat

hung. The freshly delivered stuff,

still looking like whole cows and

steers, sheep, goats, and the rest,

hung, freshly slaughtered from 

those chain lifts I just mentioned.

There would butcher and trimmer

guys, wielding saw, cleavers, power

cutters, and machetes, cutting the

carcasses apart, right outside, in

broad daylight, flies and the rest.

Open-air meat preparation, for the

butcher-shops, grocers, and stores

everywhere. Trucks and carts hauling

stuff every which way. It was fast

and furious, and busy with red blood

too, running down, wherever.  I

guess it was never live blood, just

the usual run-off. The famous

Gansevoort, and Washington, 

Markets, along the westside, would

back up with carters and haulers.

Stacks of vegetables, fresh produce,

all sorts of everything categorized

as food, was to be found. Whenever

I got bored there, over on the east

side the same show went on, but 

with fish, and boats. Guys off-loading

entire catches; writhing or not, fish,

large, small, eels, oysters, it was all

there. And still quite primitive too.

Slippery wet, everything always

getting hosed down. The fish side

always bothered me even more than 

the meat side (west) because of the

way these guys just flung the fish

around. There'd be like 8 or 12

pound fish (just guessing), still

whole, and these expert guys knew

how to, in some underhand way,

to heave the fish to another guy, 15

or 20 feet away (guessing again),

perfect catch each time. Coming off

the boats, some, I'd say, of the

fish were still alive  -  that vacant

yet sorrowful fish-eye stare thing,

with an occasional fin flutter, or

mouth-gape movement. It was

sad, to me anyway. Maybe to lots

of others too, for there were

numerous dock-front bars around

and most often they had fish-guys,

on break or whatever, just 'glumming'

around, staring out from a bench or 

a table, with a beer. In a bar, open or

not, when you're seated at the bar

you're facing away from the street.

But in these places, no one really 

sat at the bar itself; they drank, 

while seated, facing back to the 

sea, the water and the business 

at hand. Weird. 

-

Not everyone was glum. There

were some, usual, loudmouth types,

hardy-har guffaws, backslapping

boonhomie, and just plain drunk

too. But they got their work done,

and booze went with it. Not too

many ladies around, and God help

those who might have been. A

hundred years before, most of

these small-building waterfront

places were sailor-lodgings, dog

fighting bits, betting parlors, rope

and twine shops, grog shops, bars, 

inns and whore-houses. I can't even

skimp on saying that, so, ladies,

I already apologize but there it 

went. You can look it up. All that 

stuff was wrecked, most of it

destroyed, to make the South 

Street Seaport. A mad-man scalp

of falsity if I ever saw one. As

inauthentic as an henna tattoo.

All done up to show you how it

was (NOT) back then. Those

effete hipster cats wouldn't 

have the guts to wake up in 

the morning there.

-

These are the same sorts ow,

worrying about their supplies

of Handi-Wipes and toilet paper.

Probably more their speed anyhow.

Fifty years as the point I just wrote

about, the world's a real dungheap.

Just like the Bubonic days, people

dropping like flies. Now they're thrown

into refrigerated storage trucks. They

used to be left along roadways and

paths, for the wolves and foxes and,

what, hyeneas? At least with the

Bubonic Plague you got lesions and

bumps, things that were visible marks

that you were doomed. Most people

in about 6 hours. Once they got the

breakout. Could you imagine that

now! They guy in the toilet paper

checkout line, waiting long

enough so that others start to see

his spreading lesions and 'bubous.'

Pan-de-monium. Sounds like

one of today's fast-food 

take-out (only) places.