RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,089
(finding a way out)
It had taken me a long time
to make the reach between
real logic and real fantasy;
as crazy as that sounded, it
became Reality for me soon
enough. Realizing the lack
of truthful foundation behind
most things was painful. The
long and dark passages of the
tunnels beneath Grand Central
and the catacomb-like environs
of any of those weird and bizarre
subway stops and stations had
become my answer to the world:
my rat-like warren, my den of
travel and wait. Port Authority
was a cruel NJ joke (bus terminal,
beleaguered outpost of crap).
Penn Station was pathetic, loud
and light and cramped; a totally
inept replacement for the grand
and beauteous one which had
previously been there and had
been ignominiously removed, as
if bludgeoned and torn away,
to the death of all memory,
just a year or two previous.
The 'replacement' station was
a travesty of squared walls,
idle walkways, and paltry
surroundings, all without any
theme or bliss. I still held a
somehow 'romantic' idea of
travel and trains and ground,
and each of these new places
traitorously betrayed all that -
except for Grand Central, which
thankfully still held itself out
as the refuge needed when a
free refuge was, indeed, needed.
Or due. Like a train. On time.
-
The great city surrounded it; nay,
swallowed it, so that one immediately
felt swept up and covered by the
grand maw of the massive scene
- one both, at the same time,
swaddling and comforting. If so
inclined to see it that way. Of course,
for most of human existence all
around it, that same city could be
seen as a treacherous and cruel
executioner. I was always careful
to keep both of those ideas and
inner codes out before me, spread
as antipodes to existing as one
way or the other. There's a certain
form of 'tension,' existentially, that
keeps life itself suspended between
extremes. I was with, and a part of,
all that; so I played it, as well as
I was able. The problem with New
York, and, perhaps with a hundred
other places too, is that what's held
out as the 'ideal' and the prime
aspect of the location - that dreamy
swoon of being - is a view and
an acting-within-it, that, in reality,
is not 'it' at all - that view demands
money and privilege, connections
and inside vantage points that the
greater mass of humankind simply
does not have. Put simply, the 'richly
idealized' and pluperfect view of
location which is presented is but
the dream ideal unavailable to the
more common Joe or Joan, who then
most always comes away disappointed
or let down. I'd see it over and over. It
sometimes turned itself, in fact, into
the anger and disdain felt by people
who'd ended up, instead, trapped in
some ratty 2nd Avenue tenement with
no place else to go, or afford, and
with little hope of getting back out.
-
Things odd have always attracted me;
like the distance between, say, paroxysm
and placebo, each just simple words
in an alphabetic row but with worlds
between them. I sensed the gulfs and
the spaces between worlds. Not just
worlds, but the millions of worlds,
all different, which are being lived
together, all as one, at any one time.
Agreed-upon assumptions, of course, are
the means by which we keep sane and
keep all this 'difference' tied together.
It's the equivalent of the most boring
politics in the world - men and women
saying things, talking crap, and everyone
nodding and acquiescing as if they did
believe and agree. Meanwhile nothing
aligns at all and the entire mess just
keeps moving along. The old sense
of things, even the idea of 'Salvation,'
went out the window a thousand and
more years ago. But now no one cares,
-
Robert Frost it was, who wrote: 'I'm
waiting for the one-man revolution;
the only one that's coming.' I guess,
back then, I figured I could wait
with him.
-
Key phrases and curious sayings
and quotes oftentimes kept me going.
In some ways that's as much being
like an idiot as it is a mime, but it
worked. The train kept rolling. 'Let
those who want to save the world;
if any can see it clear and as a whole.'
That was Hemingway, and he had
another too - 'The great thing is
just to last, and get your work done.'
-
Spacing things out, conceptual things,
as if they were objects, was a means I
kept of monitoring my own, small,
world. I knew I myself was sort of
caught between places, mostly penniless
and at the mercy of lots of other events
and viewpoints that took little consideration
of me, those like me, or those around me.
As a unit, we were mostly a motley array
of the soon-to-be-lost; and it did happen
that way. Suicide(s); heroin; bungled
crimes; run down by cars or taxis. I
found it best to concentrate solely and
as completely as possible on ONE thing
at a time and not be swayed or blown
about by the many activities always
open - for distraction, mis-application,
or complete detour. Looking back now,
there are, yes, things I regret. Things
I did or said; chances missed. I had an
uncle, all that time - my father's
brother, Uncle Joe, in fact - who
daily went to his job on Wall Street,
and to whom I never paid attention.
Not a visit or a talk. Heck, certainly
too I could have gotten lunch! My
rank stupidity and my own certain
forms of unheralded anger kept me,
foolishly, away from any of those
sorts of connections. As in that long
space between paroxysms and placebos,
I'd fallen in, deeply - into a philosophical
space of both my own 'creation' and my
own entrapment. My new assignment
was going to be in having to find
a way out.
