RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,159
(...in just going on...)
One time I went to a birthday party,
in Chinatown. Kids were around the
table, singing. 'Happy Birthday, To Yu.'
Yes, that was pretty funny. So were
those dumplings and black bean
pastries the adults were eating. I
did always like Chinatown, even
as much as it was a sort of no-man's
land even then. If one wasn't Chinese
it took an extra thought or two to go
there. There was period of time, in
the Studio School, when getting an
apartment in Chinatown was taken
up as a great way to find cheap rent.
I knew one or two people who did it,
and the forthcoming stories were
then legion - of strange scenes and
smells, groups of people, and the
obscure, behind the scenes, streetlife
they'd see. Barber-shop schools that
doubled as Tong hideouts, small
doorways leading to deep alleys
and opium dens, and - in fact -
there were a few lurid tales of
underground passages leading right
to the east River, from which people
sued to be taken away (and never
seen again). Chinatown was strange.
I got to know, purely by repeated
seeings, the really odd beggar-types
as the stood or sat at their same
places all the time, endlessly chain
smoking, or playing one-string lutes
or whatever they were, with a metal
cup for handouts, and what appeared
to me as, (whether they purported to
be blind or not) eerie lookout-scans
along the streets and passers-by, as
if on alert for gang infractions or
murderers or thieves. I always
wondered about whatever sort of
network those street gangs and
Chinese Benevelent Societies
were running. One other time, as
friends with a Taiwan Exchange
Student - who called herself
Mary Tsei (pronounced like 'Shay'),
I went to a second-story Buddhist
Temple on the east side of what's
called Confucius Plaza - a sort of
crummy-now location where Bowery
begins, and Police Plaza starts too,
in the other direction down, southward.
It was all once called Five Points; at
Street, Orange Street, etc., and was,
early on, the most notorious and
dangerous death den of old NYC.
Many of the streets are gone now,
and, as with Police Plaza and the
civic and municipal buildings
that were constructed in their
places, Government has solved
the problems by simply taking the
places over - jails, pavement,
huge buildings, family courts, etc.
One way of solving the old, human,
problems, I suppose. (But just then
replacing them with another, just
as bad). Anyway, she took me to
that Buddhist Temple (an uncle or
some connection of hers was a monk
there). It overlooked prime Chinatown,
Doyer Street and the rest, but was a
very - seeming - calm large room,
with incense, pillows, some sort of
music, etc. Large, swing-out windows
(no AC, in 1974 anyway) let in street
sounds and some voices too, but nothing
really disconcerting. Halfway or so up
the walls were shelves with candles,
bowls filled with oranges, incense
sticks, and dollar bills too. I was
told they were all offerings, and
ongoing. People would come in, sit
and meditate or rest, while dwelling
on their problems of the moment, and
leave behind offerings. We managed
to stay there, meditatively, for about
five minutes, and then Mary in to
the side rooms, in search of her
relative. Curtains parted, heads
poked out, Mary was gone a bit.
Then she came back out and said
simply, 'We must leave. They are
not happy that I brought outsiders
in, and wish us to go now.'
-
That was the end of that. Not much
else was mentioned about it, and I
certainly wasn't going to be the one
to dwell on the subject. I guessed
some odd line had been crossed, one
by which I was the outsider. It was
a strange feeling. OK, so of course
it got me to thinking about what
being an outsider actually is (was).
I had always been one, and that was
always apparent to me, although this
form of outsider was different. That
was all physical and material form.
My own 'outsider' claim, I realized,
stemmed from internal, psychic
causes of my very own. Yet, they
were agreeable to me, accepted
and, in fact, welcomed by being
most prevalent.
-
As I sit here, writing these things,
I am reminded of much else, and
of others who have said things
about what manners of memory
and recollection we keep our
inner lives alive. Even these now
most basic remembrances of
Chinatown - Mott, Doyers,
Mulberry Streets and the rest -
swirl in with their own new
concretes acting as foundations
for my 'memory.' To an individual
involved, it's all out of their own
control - life makes what it will
of its own manners and memories.
John Updike had it thusly:
"Composition, in crystallizing
memory, displaces it." I think that
means to say that the memory
aspect of it takes over the event(s)
themselves and allow us them to
weave our new selves over and
into whichever memory we are
working. Strange, that is. (I
write this today, after just
receiving news of another
childhood friend's sudden death
and I, in my turn, realize, 'There
has never been anything in my
life quite as compressed,
simultaneously as communicative
to me of my own power and worth
and of the irremedial grief in just
living, in just going on.')....
No comments:
Post a Comment