13,021. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,032

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,032

('hey sweetheart, your tit's in my coffee')

Cereal boxes, and milk-mouth.

Neither of which I ever liked

very much. Can you imagine

today's version of all those

sports guys like they used to

have on the boxes of Wheaties?

Every one of them now found

out to have been filthy womanizers,

drug-addicted right-wingers, or

closeted gay Klansman. Just

sayin'. Don't get your panties

in a bunch. Those guys, and

Wheaties, and General Mills

(Hey! Wasn't he in the

Confederate Army too?),

or whoever makes Wheaties

if they even still do, they'd be

getting boycotted, sued, having

their CEO's and CFO's and

CFS of America guys fired

and removed quicker than a

new bride's pajamas. Aren't

you glad you didn't live then?

Oh, you did?

-

Back on the lower west side,

off the piers and the ends of

all those market and freight

streets, back when there was

still a crumbling westside

highway up above it all, as

it came to a bulkhead of trucks

and freight around Canal Street,

there used to be a real variety

village of excitement. Old

abandoned trucks and their

empty cargo-rears, and cars too.

Abandoned crap, just left

around as dumped. The girls

back then  -  and the guys too,

the kinds who came out of

'WestWorld' or any of those

vile gay clubs that clustered

there by Weehawkin Street,

they'd do business right in

those vehicles, and let no one

deny it because three-quarters

of the people who came out to

have the business done were

regular career-lifers from places

like New Jersey and Long

Island. Whores and flippers

abounded. Sex was like drainage

at the gutter. There were people

sleeping at any time, half dead

or full, mattresses covered in

puke and slime, and voracious

happenings going on after dark,

believe you me. In fact, wasn't

that your father, that one time,

who left his briefcase behind?

-

Innocence and grace are mostly

all lies anyway, and those who

did the damage here were the

same ones who had the damage

done to them. It only later all

turned to really bad drug-doings;

needles, heroin, and they even

had, by the mid-seventies, that

fake heroin stuff the city government

used to give out. The name escapes

me right now, but it's due in any

moment. Ah! Yes; Methadone!

Can you imagine career city

service social workers dispensing

Methadone at city-clinics and

convincing themselves it solved

the problem, to a degree. They

had a Methadone boat, right there.

A person could do their sex

business, go get some Methadone,

and come back and do more sex

business, all in  a two-hour period,

and that it was legally dispensed

to them by a career Social Service

provided in the pay of the City!

There were one or two waterfront

diners there where the girls who

were 'between acts' would hang

out; in addition, each waitress was

like a hen-mother, spiritual healer,

to the girls who'd come in. It was

pretty bizarre; besides the taxi guys,

who back then were all just disgruntled

older white American types with

grudges, cigarettes, attitudes and

bleary chips of one sort or another

on their shoulder, or at least about

what they did, there'd be every

other sort of passing character you

could imagine. They'd mix and

mingle willingly with half-dressed

Summer whores, drug addicts

nodding off, face down, into their

meat-mash or coffee'd potatoes, and

the hookers' customers who'd also

come straggling in, mostly with

shirts untucked or something

forgotten about  -  this was no

Ralph Lauren undertaking, believe

me. It was a real festival of

lights in  a city turning dark.

-

I stayed around or as I passed

through saw it. At this time I had

a decent enough bicycle, before it

was stolen (taken) from my apartment

on 11th street in the infamous raid

on it by Government sweepers who

managed to take everyone and

everything away, except me! The

absentee rentee! Free fake drugs

I guess the government could take,

but opposition to its own  murder

and killing of Asians was a bridge

too far? How many war heroes

were left undone?

-

So, anyway, anarchy had been

unleashed. My entire environment

was anarchy. No item was nailed in

place; things flew around like words

at a party. I tried reading lips. I tried

signing. Very little worked. Instead
of walking off, I stuck with it, working
out of arrears while backing into the
future. Sounds odd, yes, but pretty
much that's how it went, like a retro
politics of reactionary diversion. It's
a fairly strange description of an
environment gone foul, but how
many chances in one life does a 
person really get to stay 'outside' 
of things? My formative years, while 
others my age were getting their 
credentials, papers and training, (just
like a dog gets) for lucrative careers 
and settled regimens, were sent forging 
my world on a newer workbench, 
and with a kiln, of my own design. The 
rest of it all was the same as peering
through a microscope at some
gross specimen I wanted no part
of. I admit, as well, to letting
myself be pushed around by, and 
acquiescing to 'others' who thought
they knew better what careers
should be mine.
-
Without any understanding of 
me, and like a bad Fuller Brush 
salesperson, they just kept pushing
a bad product with no reason
for being at all.