8815. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, Pt. 225

225. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, 

TOIL AND TROUBLE

One of the problems I've

had in life has been making

things hard  -  for myself.

It all stems back, I always

thought, to my father  -  once

again  -  he always 'taught'

me (his phrase  -  he always

announced it so, "Now,

listen up, I'm gonna' teach

you something")...that

nothing should come easy,

nothing should 'be' easy,

anything good could only

be good after trouble and

toil. The easy things were

never right. Be suspicious.

If it seems too easy, or too

good to be true, inspect it

carefully for something's

wrong. I took all that to

heart. Meanwhile, of

course, he's driving some

old '60 Chevy wagon

with bad brakes 85 mph

along Route One, and

trying to impress this

lesson on me using his

hands as he talked

(an old Italian trick).

I'd sit there and think,

'Oh boy, this death's

gonna' be too easy. Must

be something's wrong

with it.' Lesson learned.

Growing up was a

hardship. Even more

difficult was trying to

explain something

to my father, something

personal, anything. For

instance, my constant

drawing. He would fume

at me for, he said, wasting

time, sitting around drawing

and reading, or any of that

'creative' stuff. He'd ask

why? What was I up to?

Etc. It was always hopeless.

The most complicated I

ever got to explaining

to him was weirdly, one

day, just saying  -  'Dad,

I draw places I want to

be. I make the places

that I need to exist in.'

Whew! Might as well

have explained 'talking'

to a rooster.

-

So I was taught that things

should always be difficult.

Boy, that's a real help. like

having legless pants. I don't

mean shorts either. I mean

legless pants. get the dilemma?

It is or it isn't. Legless pants?

I never used that one on my

father, though I should have

tried. He'd probably mutter,

as he often did, 'I swear,

you're gonna' be breaking

stones in Alcatraz someday.'

Or maybe it was rocks. I

never understood that one

anyway, although I did

actually see cartoons now

and then where prisoners,

in cartoon prison garb,

were actually doing that,

like with leg irons on and

in a stone-yard. So I guess

it bore some validity. But

why Alcatraz?, I always

wondered. Both my

grandfathers had died

in East Coast prisons.

Now they weren't good

enough? He could have

said Dannemora, or

Sing Sing. I wouldn't

have minded.

-

So, my head was always

full of trouble, my whole

life was trouble, basically,

and hardly worth the living.

Thus, I guess, I kept running

off. The train wreck was a

good diversion, for a while.

Then the seminary, and then

too running off as I did for

New York City. Which is

where I pick up this story.

-

Struggle and toil : Yes, both

were pretty good watchwords

for the normal run of things.

When I got to NYC I really hit

it head on. There were guys

there who were defining

'struggle'. It made anything

of my own past, of the silly

yard and lawn male-eunuch

crowd of old Avenel, look

like a lark-song. I never knew

what my father knew, but I

decided that he'd blown it

anyway by ending himself,

and my mother, and me, up

in a dumbass place such as

that. There guys  -  my father's

group  -  I understand, were

determined and forceful and

each wanted new and better

post-war lives for themselves -

they'd selected 'Avenel,' -

yet from my perspective

giving up on city and urban

living, and 'greening' out to

nowhere places like this was,

represented a huge error. In

so many ways - ecological,

psychological, metaphysical,

intellectual, and more. A

complete abandonment of

any human reserve of psychic

awareness. What'd we get

because of it: 'Alpha-Bits'

and 'Cap'n Crunch', 'Lawn

Doctor' and Little League

suburban dumb-ass parks.

-

I was never happier to have

gotten away than when I'd

gotten away. New York,

once I landed, was the best.

I was in the very middle of

real guys, real people, with

their stories and hurts, the

fallen and the failed, all the

grand remnants of 'what

had been. 'Dad,' I often

wanted to say, 'Dad, here

are the guys with struggle

and trouble.' These were

slumming men, later-life

failures, and I met most of

them around the fire-barrels

of the lower west-side piers.

If there were ten of these

there were fifty. Men,

hunched and mostly silent,

with their cigarettes and

bottles  -  smaller-size whiskey

bottles, swigged and drunk,

not with abandonment, but

with concise clarity and a

real drinker's precision. The

times I'd come around, I

was always entered in, the

young kid getting the tales

and stories and sorrows

of the old. Things regretfully

told in the drum-circle of

smoke and booze  -  and the

grand warmth and exaggerated

light of the fire-barrel.

-

Sometimes a beer. Always a

cigarette. I always found

cigarette to be such a dainty

name for what it really was.

A 'female' cigar, really,

cigar-ette; white and

pristine. I guess it all

once mattered, to men

and to ladies, who

smoked what. These

guys, they all together

bent and pitched, or

were bent and pitched;

sometimes an old

wharf-dog around

them too. The sloth

of longed-for food;

and the laughter which

sometimes arose, of a

private notion or a

shared thought.

watched, as if

shuttered, and kept

their words covered

with smoke and spittle.

Laughter was rare, but

it occurred  -  the

Chinese cook, bent over,

stirring a pot of hot, hot

and boiling, water, a brew

of some slopman's soup

or dockworker's stew.

Other men came and

went : big, strong men

in oily jackets, with

shirts underneath, and

they carried hooks and

hammers or pulled carts

with ropes or threw things

down to sit a moment

amidst others  -  deep

despair, or not, everywhere.

But on each tongue, another

story. Working. Toiling.

All through the nights.

They emptied ships and

boats. The floodlit passages

shone, often wet with a

wash-down or just dirty

and dusted with toil.  I'd

be around, seeing and

taking note. The guy

called 'Doc' but whose

name was Darnton,

from Amboy-Point

Grocers. I'd see him

enough to know and

say hi. I told him we

shared a town. He

laughed. 'It's big enough

for two, yeah, I guess!'

I meant Perth Amboy,

near to from where I

was from. I think he

thought I meant New

York City.

-

Darnton used to come in

early mornings, and when

he did he'd pick up a small

truckload of fruits and

vegetables  -  the wholesale

district, it all was  - flowers,

meats, vegetables, Gaanesvort

Market stuff. He'd take it

all back to Amboy later, for

sale at the stands there. No

longer like that, everyone

now takes pride in 'local'

produce, locally sourced,

grown nearby. In the days

I'm writing of, people

didn't do that, or care.

The wholesale districts

supplied the vendors,

who supplied the people

- and the source of it all

be damned. No one cared.

This 'Doc' Darnton guy was

a character. Always a

lesson or a story to go.

"For it was good and even

God saw that it was  -  and

He said - "Yes, this is good,

and now Adam needs a

woman!" and so He created

Eve in the very image of

Himself too ('Eve buys my

vegetables you know'). And

God too then was delighted

with what he'd made and

took a great pleasure in

what He had done, saying,

for what I have done, all

of this, is good, and Mankind

shall prosper by it. And all

you knew knew, and those

who did not did not. Thus,

this is all as it should be,

and will be." Well anyway,

that was par of it, one of

Darnton's tales. I never

knew if he was preaching

or just going on. Nobody

much got involved, just

shrugged him off. Trouble

was, there was always

more coming. These guys

were all sullen, really in

no mood for his stuff. They

were tough and briny and

sorry and sad, and lonely

too. They did NOT need

what he was about to spring

on them.  The men stood,

or sat at their loading dock

tables, and looked up at the

getting-louder voice they

heard. But men alone, yes,

and without a woman beside

them  -  '"And so it was I shall

pleasure them yet in ways

unknown" He said;  -  and

thereby The Flesh Tunnel

(spoken loudly) was created,

leading indeed to another world

entire, a world of Pleasure!

my friends, pleasure.' And

then he went on from there  -

that Darnton, called Doc.

Just like Shakespeare, Dad!

'Double, double; toil and

trouble!' (Macbeth).

8814. MAN-CAGE IN A BASTION OF HELL

MAN-CAGE IN A 

BASTION OF HELL

This is how you make it, the cupcake

never lies, the bread dough will rise,

and I'll be back some time tomorrow.

First I need to learn the words.

OR, maybe, this is how the cake is,

it lies on the rise of the bread dough

that bakes some time tomorrow.

Too confusing to know where

it's headed. So, let's do it again:

I've got the dough, I never lie

'til I rise, and the baker will

have some time, tomorrow.

First I need the words

to learn....

8813. SAVAGE ALLOTMENT

SAVAGE ALLOTMENT

Lamps are darkened and the

old bridge freezes. An early

frost to enliven the night.

High in the sky, the over-arc

of starlight cries : black night

for the distant eyes, the outer

reach of what we can see. It's

the old, the very old, savage

allotment that used to be.

8812. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, Pt. 224

224. A PENNY-WHISTLE 

IN THE NIGHT

There are/were very often

times, as a writer too, that

I'll say something or write

something and then  -  often

not two days later  -  see the

same thing or close to it

somewhere else. 'Hey, I

just said that' or wrote that.

It's very disconcerting and,

really, more common to

me than you'd realize. I

have never known what

to make of it. Coincidence?

But I'm bedeviled sometimes,

at the same time, by the idea

that some other, cosmic,

'great' mind is involved

here, interdicting all these

crossovers and meshings.

Perhaps that's how thought

and some form of Human

consciousness all gets

played out. Who knows,

really? I've always been

pretty eclectic with my

outlooks - things here,

things there. I delve and

I read, a lot of things. I

need not 'agree' with

things, I'd rather just

absorb. We otherwise

spend too much time

simply entrapped in the

very mundane.

-

Plato to Plotinus. You

know. One of those guys,

it was, who presented this

world of ideals of which

this world is but a pale

glimmer of poor approaches

and bad approximations.

So many things. I used to

like to take in scenes and

situations, and then retell

or replay them. Which is

what I'll do hear, in a minute

when I shift the scene back

to New York City. That is,

eventually. As for right now,

1964 seminary stuff still

beckons: The world was

so much cleaner then, with

simpler stuff, operations

under control, and the

normal person just taking

in all the normal stuff.

I was like a fresh sponge,

back then, taking a soak.

One thing after the other.

My friend, John, from

Brooklyn, another seminary

runaway, fleeing a horrid

home situation. He'd say

he was just there to get

away. Confusing as all get

out. The guy was perfect.

Attired well, and well-spoken

too. He had a real thing for

theater and ballet. Rudolph

Nureyev was his big idol. I

never knew anything about

that, or ballet, and certainly

never cared. Nor all those

tired out Broadway plays,

the musical-score and

cast albums he'd be playing

all the time. From him I

first heard the phrase

'Fruity Rudy,' (about

Nureyev). Hell, from

him I first realized that

there were what's now

called 'gay' things

everywhere. Honest

to God, until I got to the

seminary I hadn't a clue

about that stuff. His

commerce in language,

on the other hand, was

all about that. I figured

it was a Brooklyn thing,

or a New York thing, or

an 'entertainment' thing.

And then I started noticing

right around me. It was an

everywhere thing! All of

a new sudden, we learn.

(Yes, that's how I wrote

that, awkward and weird,

that 'new sudden' thing is

what I wanted to write).

Not a mistake.

-

So, what I was saying was

how things used to be 'clean'.

They weren't if course, but

at least by appearances they

were. You only learn later who

was a screw-up, but it does

all eventually come out. Like

Donald Manes. Does anyone

remember Donald Manes? He

killed himself, but all before

that, politically, he was the

real toast of the NYC town.

I myself think the issue, in

1986, besides being 'corruption'

hinges as well on his hidden

homosexuality. That would be

too bad if so. His twin brother,

a few years later, tried to kill

himself too, in the very same

manner as Donald  -  a small

penknife-type dagger into the

heart. His attempt failed. Man

all that was weird stuff, but

it all connected, with me,

forever, in my head, with

this seminary stuff, this

entire 'Fruity Rudy' kind

For the rest of my days,

I was unduly influenced.

-

Which brings me to Christopher

Street, and one of the bars there,

and the Lucille Lortel Theater,

which was about as g-a-y was

you could get, in the late 70's

and into the pre-AIDS 80's

anyway  So, as you can

surmise, some years have

passed, this was no longer

'seminary days,' and I'm

just sitting there with echoes.

What had caught me up was

how Time had me enclosed,

as if an eggshell around me.

The idea was of 'sensation'

passing, and all of the

realizations of what-will-be.

I'm sitting at the bar, near a

guy who says to the next person

over, as he is leaving, 'Say hello

to the Belgian for me,' and the

other guy gets up and as they

shake hands and do that kind

of New York cheek-peck thing

(men do there), says, 'I will if

you keep on selling.' Just the

odd and idle patter of two guys.

Not that far outside, the crooked,

crazy river to nowhere ran,

alongside us, near enough to

us. We call it The Hudson.

The old days called it the

'North River,' to distinguish

it from the Delaware, or

'South River,' which ran to

Philadelphia. That's how

things used to be. Plain and

clear. Nobody does that any

longer; everything's got names

without reference, glory-names

and game-names. I'm surprised

they don't call the Hudson now

the 'Magical Poof-Poof River.'

The little, magical words of

these two fellows, to each other,

carried for me the unmistakable

whiff of a whole other world.

The Lucille Lortel Theater,

indeed. Near by as well, all the

vast and great aromas of the

Puerto Rico Coffee Company,

'Purveyors of coffees and teas.'

-

Those rivers: both the Hudson

and the Delaware, were kingdoms.

There once was competition, of

a sort, between the two places for

predominance in the fledgling

nation. Funny to think of now,

(I've always loved Philadelphia

anyway, and in the seminary it

was but a 'hop-ship-and-jump'

across the river from Camden),

but the 'North River' and Erie

Canal, in tandem, won out  -

all that new commerce and

traffic, the huge port bustled

and became our grand city of

York. 'I got a mule, and her

name is Sal. Fifteen miles

on the Erie Canal...'

-

Back then (it was pretty

much winding down or over

by the time I got there), the

ports and docks of old New

York were a'bustle. Rows

of ships and piers. The heights

of rigging, in the old days,

all those schooners and

masts. What a sight. Shadows

everywhere, like buildings

are now  -  casting rakish

angles and battering the

light. All of that lazy freight

and cargo got dropped right

here : needing sorting, cartage,

drayage, packing, holding,

loading, buying, speculation.

All of which led to the majesty

of the Port of New York: a

thousand jobs on a dime  -

managers, paperwork,

clerks, haulers, lifters,

stevedores. Anyone's father

could have been anyone there.

There were endless trucks,

carts, and people. By 1960,

yes, most of it was lost. Only

a few horses were still around,

even though there had been a

time when most of the work

had been done by them too.

The huge, heavy, muscular

workhorses pulled carts and

clomped around, adding even

more to the aroma and the

atmosphere of that crazy place.

It's always a shame to lose

so much, but lose it we did.

The opportunities, for gain

and for crime too, were endless.

And eventually took over.

Rampant corruption. In the

beginning of this chapter I

said that 'everything was clean.'

Meaning corruption. It wasn't,

but by today's standards it was

different. Now, the largest

outlets for crime and payoff

and the corrupt are in any

of the layers of 'Government'.

The Donald Manes stuff again  -

rake-offs, padded contracts,

deals, hidden corporations.

At the local, municipal levels,

there's not a clean person

around. The reason for that

is that now the Government

makes the set-up for the graft.

Like sidewalks: Over the

last twenty years, one of

the largest municipal-based

operations has been the open

faucet of concrete and labor

contracts for breaking down

the curbs at the ends of the

walkways and installing

instead those 'handicapped'

ramps to the street. For

wheelchairs and carriages

and all that. Mandated by

Government, mind you. So

every mayor and council

geek there ever was now

has their hand out arranging

these contracts  -  a free-hand

to be built in for the awarding

of them, for the running of

the cash. Miserable slobs.

No one knows. (Then they

discover that icy ramps get

slippery, and they do it all

over again, installing those

grip-pad things which then

had to be installed over the

ramps, for 'round two.')...

Yeah, everything's clean.

-

Anyway, back to this scene:

When I hit NYC, even though

what was left of those old

 piers did become a sort of

second-home too, for a while,

the loss of the piers, the rows

of low, wooden buildings, the

counting houses, brick or not,

on both the west and the east

side (Manhattan had two very

distinct sides of riverfront,

each different from the other

and each very concentrated

on different sorts of freight),

the sailor hotels, loading

platforms, truck bays where

goods were handled and 

sorted, and stretched and 

set-up for the next 

distribution and the

endless and glassed 

rows of worker-sheds, 

counting offices, maintenance 

shacks, bars and taverns, 

hostelries, horse barns, 

smithy shops, cart spaces,

piles of hay and feed and 

rope and lumber, screws, 

straps, leather, steel, the 

six-high-six windows,

crooked with light and 

dark, quiet night and in 

the middle of those nights

the sometimes-heard small

conversations of people, 

men with the low, twining 

pitch of a guitar or a horn 

behind them, the soft, blue 

ooze of a music, of the lost

men somehow perfectly hiding

between things, and the beads

of sweat breaking out on a

hundred foreheads as food

went by them and the hunger

for food took over  -  food

close enough to see but not

eat. Alas, they could not

have what was not theirs.

Their hunger was like a

dead-end, a whistle of time

salvaged from what once

was forgotten and forlorn:

the dead penny-whistle of an

old tug boat resounding the

harbor, crowded as it was;

crates, boxes, and slabs.

The memory-yard of tarred

beams and huge slabs of

10x10 lumber along bulkheads

while the crazed river flew

past, singing at night. How

different were both the

sounds and that light 

in the night.

8811. HERE'S WHAT I WANT OFF

HERE'S WHAT I WANT OFF

Your head. Each Tuesday. Thirty

percent from everything. The gutters

that now run with something, red, is 

that? The dome of the capitol building.

-

I went to Malibu and San Francisco.

I've been to Carmel-by-the-Sea. Every

five and ten cent store had something

waiting for me. Stepping inside, the

lady told me the Marx Bothers started

here. She said hey were called the 

Four Nightingales then. Well, at 

least she seemed sincere.

-

Just down the street and over the

corner, the candy-shop was selling

its wares -   making their own 

chocolate and things. They make

it all themselves, across the street

from a plaza. For some reason,

that day, everything seemed

apocalyptic.