RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,060
(a head full of rocks)
I'm pounding rocks with my skull
while eating nails for my dinner. Yep,
that's what it all feels like now. 70
years of crap filling an endless book
of adventures : Willy-Nilly musings
of a soul on fire. How far anyone
wants to go back is up to them. I
think.the taxman gives a better break,
twenty years of schooling, and they
put you on the day shift. You all know
that one. I was always present, but
always at the wrong time too. Hendrix
on 8th street; Dylan on 4th. There used
to be this tiny little place on 4th, I'm sure
it's still there in some newer iteration.
Dylan lived right across the street: a
shoeshine factory, an adult boutique,
a carpenter's shop, and a guitar store.
The tiny little place was called The
Bagel. No, it meant the food, with
coffee; not the NY character type.
-
Over at Bleecker, near LaGuardia,
there was this long-standing movie
poster and postcard store. I can't
remember the name, but it was some
fraught name, not really pretentious,
but maybe. Something about Paris
maybe? I used to muse around in
there; no one ever bothered me; there
were reams of postcards; or art, artists,
weird scenes, city shots, people, fires,
nature, animals, medieval cathedrals,
on and on. You could name your deal
and they surely had a postcard for it.
There was another postcard store,
even more astounding because it was
so small, and packed with perfectly
ordered postcards, like a library
card-catalogue. Again, any subject,
and more. Race cars. Cadavers.
Crime scenes and fires too. It was
simply called, 'Postcard.' On Spring
Street, I think it was, next to or real
close to the Spring Street Bookshop.
That was the bookstore where, one day,
I bought a copy of three Russian novels,
and the clerk, at checkout, looked at
me and said, 'Wow, welcome to a
wonderful spell of reading. Don't
get too happy.' I had bought 'The
Possessed,' and 'Notes From the
Underground,' and 'The Idiot.'
That Dostoevsky was quite the
humorist. a good bookseller
knows.
-
There was a hotel right there too, on
Bleecker. I once picked up two French
kids, hippie hitchhikers seeing the USA
without a Chevrolet. They were intent
(somehow) on walking, like wondrous
Euro-vagabonds, from their landing at
Newark Airport, over the Skyway, and
on into NYC. I don't know how they'd
planned to navigate the Holland Tunnel.
No 'strollers' allowed; French or not.
They jumped into my Renault, and
spit out the name of the hotel on
Bleecker to which they wanted me
to bring them. No problem. It was fun,
the sunroof was open, the Skyway
got their attention, chattering away
in their own tongue, about the
skyline and the streets. It was a
thrill for them and me. And she was
totally French-cute too. He seemed a
little wimpy, to me. I let them off, and
never saw them again.
-
When you're a certain age, you can't
translate excitement and happiness into
anything but more excitement and more
happiness. It's as if nothing blocks you
from forging onward. It's a real graceful
period of living; soon enough gone. I
sensed that from them; that little spark
that happens between people who are
making their grade, hitting it off, and
just right. I wonder what they think of
all that now. For me, in my glumness,
it was yet another eye-opener; to see
Euro-romantics in full-dress, out on
exploration and optimism. What silly
American would even dream of that
walk! From Newark Airport, Skyway,
and Holland Tunnel, to NYC. They'd
probably figure they were walking to
a short-cut to Holland! I was smitten
with their sense of being and adventure.
-
Now, it's all, once again, a mere
head full of rocks.
No comments:
Post a Comment