RUDIMENTS 86.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 86

Making Cars

Some way or another I was determined

to make my life a study hall. That was it.

That was about all I learned from school

too. Except for lies and obfuscation, what

good was all that? The main thing they tried

to do was socialize you, into other versions

of a useful citizen  -  which basically meant

a go-along slave. You work all these years,

I use to think, to develop a character of

your own, and the first thing they want you

to do once you're done is jettison it. I met

a guy once who said to me, 'Son, whatever

you do, don't do it if it's theirs.' And then the

rest of his point was that it was all theirs,

I'd learn that soon enough, and they were

all killers out to stifle, smother, and then kill

me, or whatever spark there was in me. So,

yeah, that guy knew his stuff. When I was

in New York City for every five people I

knew who worked, I probably knew three

who didn't. It was just that kind of place.

I was never able fully to figure all that

stuff out, all that independence of means,

because it surely was an expensive place.

But these people always got on well enough  -

I never knew, maybe they had some big family

money they were slumming on, or whatever.

The other thing abut New York City, and this

made it pretty different from other places too,

mostly, I used to think, because it was pretty

heavily Jewish, was that it was like a Socialist

paradise, I mean, with all that support and

benevolence stuff all around : missions and

food-banks, and assistance groups, food trucks

into the park and stuff  -  homeless people,

derelicts, dregs, all being taken care of, to the

far, far extreme too. There was a time when 

they even had, in the west-side harbor area, 

over by the Hudson River piers and all, that 

area, some sort of harbor boat thing going 

on for drug addicts  -  as crazy as it was, 

not to cure them or solve the problem, but 

instead to dispense. It was called Methadone, 

like some sort of synthetic replacement 

heroin drug, something like that, that 

would give these jerks all the thrill they 

needed, to stay alive and quit bothering 

people. Benevolence only should go so

far, I used to think. Some of those people

should have been just left  -  whatever 

their ultimate fate would have been.

-

You can answer those questions all day 

long to yourself, it was that sort of era.  

I was always too naive, or separate, to 

make a go out of understanding any of 

that. Sometimes I used to think New 

York people were the very worst. The 

ones born and raised there  -  they were

different. Hard as Hell, blunt, direct, in 

your face always about stuff, heavy-boned, 

the guys all seemed like killers  -  long 

noses, dark eyes, negative space. Just, 

generally, bad faces, no matter the race. 

The Italian guys I met were all thugs, 

just tough bastards, plain and simple,

who'd grown up on streets like Carmine 

Street, Sullivan, Elizabeth Street and 

the rest. Everything was learned and 

done right there. Mostly that's all gone 

now, but it used to be you could still

smell it all, lingering, in the air. I never 

even knew how half those guys survived, 

made it past 18. If you had a sister, to 

begin with, good God, keep her locked 

in place, was the rule. Every 30 feet there

was some sort of church or shrine and 

some jerky, young, Italian priest trying 

to help all the pious little ladies, families, 

and all. But it didn't always work. Someone 

was always getting bonked and impregnated, 

by who and how no one often knew. The 

brilliant solution? Instead of finding the 

guy and grabbing him to make him the 

daddy, they'd stab him. Real genius stuff. 

He'd live, his life then would be screwed 

up miserable, and the next thing you know,

instead of one kid, he and that girl have

three, and he's living in the back closet 

of their four-room walk-up leaning to be 

a baker down the street. It was always 

that way. Tenements, basements, hallways, 

social clubs  -  and always some lame-ass 

do-gooder around trying to make a new

playground or fix up a plaza, which 'new'

effort was  supposed to solve everything 

and clean up the entire scene. Nobody 

cared, and they all just laughed in their

red wine and spaghetti. And that was 

just the Italians. There were plenty of 

others too : All those really jagged Irish 

guys, in what was called 'Hell's Kitchen,' 

whatever that meant. They were thieves,

every last one, and drunks second; or first. 

Or maybe just drunk thieves. No matter. 

Whatever messes got made, they 

always got cleaned up.

-

In a way, you could walk in and out 

of whichever world you wanted in 

New York  -  which is what was cool 

about it. The Studio School people, a 

lot of them had money and some taste, 

even some breeding. That changes things, 

when you can start making decisions and 

stand on your own two feet. By contrast, 

I always lived like a refugee, living among

others but never really a part of them. That's

probably how my entire scene got cracked up 

and amounted to nothing. I really couldn't 

be bothered 'representing' myself, to others. 

My loyalty was to me, I kept it that way. 

Inside the school, in my 'lair' as I called

it, I was kept perfect.  I don't know how 

it happened but no on ever bothered me, I 

had my space and was allowed to keep 

my own time. Coming and going, all

hours. There was a black guy, Mr. Rush  

-  that was all I knew for a name. He lived 

way uptown somewhere, and worked the 

Studio School sort of like a porter or attendant. 

He'd arrive each morning, about 6:30; I'd 

hear him or he'd awaken me with noises, 

all pre-arranged, pleasant. He did his stuff,

and that was the daily start of mine. There 

were nights too when I'd sleep on the 

(thinly) carpeted library floor, or had been 

reading until sleep, and I'd get up from

there. Because this once had been three 

distinct brownstone buildings, there were 

stairways and doorways everywhere  -  

long and narrow, winding, with a door 

here and a door there. It took a while

to really learn where everything was 

and/or get oriented to the layout of these 

three-into-one places. But it was pretty 

cool. I go back there now and, surprisingly, 

some of it is about the same, but that

'library' now has some fanciness to it 

and is funded or endowed and named 

for John McEnroe, with a plaque, and 

chairs and tables and all. How any of that

happened, I don't know, nor why John 

McEnroe and his 'generous grant,' got 

involved. No one I knew ever played 

tennis. Not even the rich kids.