162. LET'S EAT

162. LET'S EAT

I was never untrammelled

or disjointed. Odd words,

right? I tried walking straight,

even when the woe of the

roads was all crooked. Some

things I'd just notice, and

they'd strike me funny, or

as a pose, or they'd stay

with me. It sill happens:

like Tom Wolfe noting,

'It was said that a British

Gentleman could steal your

underwear, your smalls and

skivvies and knickers, and

leave you staring straight

at him asking if he didn't

think it had turned rather

chilly all of a sudden.' See

what I mean  -  a general

tone of nonsense and

nothing, but something is

actually there as well.

You do get the picture.'

Like some old Laurel and
Hardy routine in my head:

And oh how I used to dislike

those guys; I could never

find anything funny in their

humor, and that skinny guy,

Laurel, I guess, the with long

look and that wretched face

and expression, things always

going wrong  -  helplessness,

neediness. No way funny. It

used to drive me up the wall,

much as did the chubby guy's

smug superiority and triumph

and slow burns. Ugh. At ten

years old, I'd be going to see,

like, 'Rocket To Mars' or some

other movie, and I'd have to

sit through, first, one or two

shorts by those two monkeys.

Enough to rip up the seat in

the dark. I'd be wrankled :

'Everything you don't want

to be; dumb, stupid, etc.' I

had to look that up, thinking

maybe I'd coined it or something,

but evidently the word exists.

-

When I got to Pennsylvania,

the entire world was different.

Number one was the fact that

there, in PA, everyone looked

at you, or in this case everyone

looked at me, not you. I'd never

been in a place where, as in a

dog-pack or among wolves, the

interloper, the new face, was

immediately under suspicion

and scrutiny. It was, yes,

annoying and awkward at

first, but then I realized that it

was, actually, great, just what

I'd want. Like the mob guys,

always out front guarding the

clubhouse on Mulberry or

Sullivan Street in the city,

nothing got past. Of course,

all I had to do was work my

way in, among these people,

and I did that, starting right off.

First night I got there, I arrived

with my car about to blow up

and running on a bare three

cylinders. I went right to work,

asking about, and got a neighbor

guy of mine as a preferred

reference for quick-repair 
mechanical work on the car, and
right there out of his home

garage too. I just knocked on

his back door, said 'Willard

Brown sent me over,' (he was

the guy I had bought the

house from and who had

told me to go 'see Kenny'),

and hit it off with this guy,

and his rather nicely tawdry,

very dry-witted, wife. They

were like, maybe 39 or 40,

to my 24, say, but it hardly

mattered. She was still

'hot' and playful, as they

say, and the guy Ken, he

was an amazingly astute

mechanical wiz, with a

gift for just homing onto

the task at hand. Had me

all fixed up in some three

hours, mostly which had

been spent breaking the ice

and mentally moving in among

them, to be part. I knew my

stuff and what I had to do to

get packed in  -  play a little

dumb here, a little worldly

and wise there, a bit nasty,

a bit nice. It was all falsity,

but I knew what was up. I

was passing muster, and I

guess I did; two days later,

everybody around was cool

with me. That meant, first, I

could be left alone as needed,

but, second, no one would

really hesitate to come my

way either  -  I'd get offers

of help with this or that,

trade tasks. I started hanging

around Warren's barn, learned

all about Ken's family and kin

(they too were mostly all still

around there, in the hideaway

spaces, houses way back

somewhere, ekeing it out).

Warren was great too, about

everything  -  neighboring

farmer, etc. Use the tractor,

take the truck, whatever. I

started playing a real good

L'il Abner, and no one

laughed me off again,

New Jersey/New York

City or not. That might

have been cool, but it

was all important too.

The less to chance, the

better. It was only to

my imaginings maybe,

but I figured still that

at any minute some

'federale' or FBI guy or

 State Police could be

pulling onto my dirt

road in his dusty black

car with some paperwork

in hand to take me back

with him. Now I had a

frontline defense, at least

- or so my paranoia-thought

went. Yeah, a little too

much drama there, but

I wasn't about to be

going with no one.

-

Uncle Remus, Song of the

South, all that. Everything

began to be represented in

my outlook. I was in new

land. There was so much

richness and so little of it

was taken in by those who

lived there. I go back there

now, sad to say, and at the

top of what once had been

'my' hill  -  wasn't of course,

but it all ended at my dirt

road   -  was a small, fenced

cemetery, from Civil War

days and before. It had been

unused and sort of closed

off long ago by a nice,

spiked, iron fence.  However,

right there now  -   much to my
surprise  -  it's been re-opened,

widened, even, and put back

to use  -  and all these guys

I'm talking about are in there.

Buried. First time I saw it, I

near-abouts wanted to cry.

And I did some, at least

teared-up. Names, wives,

and some sons and daughters

too. Newer style stones, some

even with the crazy, modern

graphics on them  -  etchings

of sun-rays onto barns and

onto tractors. Pretty crazy;

but they're there; including

Kenny, the wrench-wizard

guy I just wrote of.

-

These people all ate well too,

there was a big, mid-day meal

everyday, plus breakfast and

some evening meal when they

could get to it. Farm-chores are

on a schedule all their own,

and sort of can't be altered or

pushed off. If the cows aren't

properly milked, two times

a day, like 6 am and 6pm,

roughly, there can be real

consequences. They can

develop mastitis, which

can be deadly. They need

to be milked because they're

always producing milk and if

the udders are not drained it

all backs up, hardens, the

mammary gland, bag, bloats,

and some real sickness occurs.

Miserable, sad, leaky cows,

wailing in pain. So, food

and the regular idea of

food-time for people

takes second place. The

big meal is in the center

of the day, like 1pm,

because that's the time

between chores, when

there's a tiny space

for something. Big meals

were never anything I

cared about; still don't. 

I'd rather eat in tidbits, 

whenever, or not. One 

thing I learned from

the streets is how 

engrained by habit

eating is. It's really 

not needed  -  to the

great, bullshit, extent 

it's pushed now, I mean.

Whoever started that 

'three square-meals a

day' stuff is full of shit 

(literally too). I think

they just heard it all 

wrong and, like idiots,

carried through on it 

all under wrong impressions 

and erroneous information. 

Because of it? Just look 

around you  -  everybody's 

way over done, chubby 

and fat all together, pasty,

and always prowling about

nervously for more food.

Instead of 'three' meals a 

day', it's really more like  -  

and I speak from experience  -  

every three days. That's 

pretty much it. With some 

training and mental discipline, 

you can bring yourself  -  

anyone  -  down to that. Eat 

something every third day, 

you'll be fine, and happier 

and lighter for it, and thinking 

more clearly too. Trust me. 

I've done it, and still try to 

now, but mostly don't. It's all 

mental  -  you can train your

body to live on anything , 

and draw nutrition from it. 

Everything is in everything  -  

all that dietary stuff is crap. 

Again, it's all mental. All life 

is.  Get over your attitudes 

about it, and live. All this 

eating just taxes your system,

way overworks organs and

things, becomes expensive, 

and turns into style and 

pride anyway. Every five 

months it's some new, 

stupid chef, some trendy

new food or 'diet' (anything

but), or some super-saturated

crap supposedly ancient and

great for you. Don't be stupid,

just shut your pie-hole, don't 

eat, don't fill with toxins and

factory chemicals, don't be a

fool and, for God's sake, get

away from sugar, in all its

evil, corporate-food forms.

You really ought to eat like

a cow (learned that on the 

farm)  -  masticate, slowly,

standing in one place, like

it's a big, boring chore, staring

straight out, and make it last.

(Learned that on the farm too).

161. RIGHT OFF THE MAP

161. RIGHT OFF THE MAP

When I got to Columbia

Crossroads, a few years

later, it was like a big

cleansing, a wash-out,

a cleaning of my soul.

By design. I realized it

all had become intolerable

and that the New York City

noose was beginning to leave

marks on my neck : there

were two dead hippie

bodies with which I wanted

nothing more to do. My

draft-resistor lounge-

underground railway

stop for those on the

way to Canada had

been raided. Everything

and everybody had been

carted away. The place, as 
I returned to it, was police 
taped. I had nothing.

509 east 11th Street,

by necessity, had to

become dead to me, as

did all the people, on the

on the above floors and

below. Anti-Vietnam rage

and fury, fires and flames,

were everywhere. Bomb

factories, guns and

hideouts. The Studio

School was it  - all I had

and all I wanted, but even

then I knew it was too

close. I somehow knew,

or my inside voice told

me, that to become what

I wanted, I had to flee.

I needed, once again, to

almost fictionalize my life

and come back with a

different character to

represent me. Short of

being one of those old

noir-movie guys who get

their fingerprints burned

off and some facial

reconstruction done, so

as to become new and

'invisible'. Once again, I

needed to rebuild. I wanted

to stay within myself, yes,

and remain authentic, but

some new and finer tuning

was due. I bought a map

and found an area in

northeastern Pennsylvania

that seemed sparse, lots of

white space between town

names on the map, and called

the phone company and they

sent me (pretty cool) phone

books for the three places

I mentioned. (Bentley Creek,

PA., Elmira NY, and Canton/Troy

PA, which ran down as far as

Williamsport). Everything was
pretty perfectly a nice enough
250 miles away. One of them,

Elmira, NY, just over the border,

had three big print shops listed.

I casually and innocently wrote

to them about employment, one

of them answered, gave me an

appointment for an interview,

and  -  blindly proceeding  - I

went there and was hired for

a sometime 'future' date, as

quickly as I could be ready.

(Odd, lucky, liberal break,

yes. This guy was actually

going to 'hold open' a job

for me, until I could get

there to rightly catch up to

it!). The guy, Floyd White,

who 'hired' me said he did

so because he himself had

'done pretty much the same

thing 25 years or so previous

in leaving Plainfield, NJ

and setting out blindly for

places unknown,' in his

case Elmira, then a

more-thriving little city,

where he'd successfully

started a business, Whitehall

Printing and Mailing, (his

wife's name was Marge Hall,

thus 'Whitehall' Printing, the

combined name). What kind

of gift was all this? Of course,

he only got the most skimpy

version of my own story. Then

a real search began for a place

to live. I wanted deep country,

I wanted isolation, and I got it.

I've told this story before  -

in one of these books I've

written here  -  about the old

walnut grove, the tombstone

etcher guy's place, the Parmenter

farm, etc. (More info can be

forthcoming, I guess. If you care,

ask, or I'll get to it all sometime).

It has to pop up again of its

own accord, as all this boils.

I don't much write by design,

in fact I'm probably crazy

enough to just go with whatever

flows here, as things arise

and come through; if

redundant and over again,

I just tweak a bit and add or

remove factors from the

tale. It's all quite lovely. I've

got a God in the sky, and it's

a Word-God who really works

with me.

-

Soon enough, anyway, I got

a house, 12 acres, a big

gigantic barn, outbuildings,

etc., a monstrous, crazy place.

I had just enough money for

a small down payment and

a mortgage, from when I

was creamed by the train

on Rahway Avenue in 1958

-  from which I was never

supposed to recover, but

la-de-dah!, here still I was,

and back again, and still

'spinning records.' Moved in,

got started at this Whitehall'

place, and it all settled in

eventually : quiet,

unassuming, I looked

totally different, shorn

and clean, even got

muscular and chubby

a bit. The weird thing

was, really, now, my head

was in a far different

place, still. I was at

heart a writer and artist,

that was never going to

change. It was the way

I saw things, simply  -

and with no alteration.

And I couldn't change that

anyway. These people had

completely no understanding

or awareness of any of that,

about me or about those

concepts in general. Art

to them was a velvet clown

face or a stylized horse, a

bunch a balloons in a vase.

That was fine, because from

their side they had it all over

me in the other directions:

beautiful, clean, white

spaces, wonderful rooms,

the stillness of country

living, placid days and

nights of an ordered and

lemonade-scented, existence.

Compared to any of that,

I was a twisted mumble.
No matter how hard anyone 
ever tries to escape themselves,
it's fairly impossible. We are
what we were meant or put here
to be, and there's no altering 
those fingerprints or noses.
The more I tried to get away, the
more the authentic me would come
back from the core, to the outer shell.
A strange, but good, feeling.

-

The hard days and the 

calm nights were just 

beginning. This real 

country-living was 

such an eye-opener. 

It startled. I lived next 

to a cornfield, something 

I'd never seen before. 

By mid-June that first 

year, the corn was already 

head-high and beginning 

to 'tassel out'. I loved that

phrase  -  farmers taught it 

to me, when the corn plants 

get that little hairy growth 

that flows out and later 

surrounds the actual corn 

cob. It's a weird, long, 

hairy-wet bunch of strands.

Really cool. The rows of 

cornplants make noise in 

the wind, the tassels blow 

and make a whisper, the

plants sway and blend, and 

their certain 'stiffness' makes 

a tweak and a rigid noise 

all their own, sometimes

almost metallic-sounding.

Animals run between the 

long rows, things try and 

grow, cornplants take 

different heights, the

dryer areas remaining low, 

the stalks in the better 

moisture really thriving. 

Ears of corn everywhere.

That's cattle-corn, not people 

corn, and there's a real 

difference. You don't 

want to eat cattle corn.

Those fields and the 

acreage around me, even 

the unplanted and the 

wooded, and the  ponds 

and the meadow, it all 

went together to bring 

to me a new somewhere, 

totally. My body was 

sound, but my heart 

was in pieces and my 

mind was all over. I so 

wanted all this, and 

kind of knew I could 

manage it, but still, yes, 

there was a void of sorts. 

I guess just the 'city' void 

for what I'd gotten used to, 

the things I used to see and 

do. All gone, right off the 

map. This was aprons, cows, 

and daisies and doilies, 

compared to all that.

160. DAYS OF OLD

160. DAYS OF OLD

There was a time, I guess

I admit, (though maybe not)

when I was a little lost. Age

18, on my own, completely

new place, nothing to go on.

Some weird school to start

at, with a biography I'd nearly

made up. One looks for the

wind then, to see what it's

blowing in perhaps. I was

never one to be swayed by much,

yet I watched everything,

just trying to learn. And

survive. Strange combination,

but that's how languages

get invented. Was I going

to live up to my own made-up

biography? Was that even

valid? Or feasible? What

had I done, and to what

was allegiance owed? It

seemed, I decided, that

sometimes, after all efforts

and work, you're sometimes

left with a pile of nothing

and it's the kind of nothing

which drives you forward,

impels, pushes  -  under

the dark, black night of

the sky wherein you can

no longer see anything yet

of which you dream myriad,

countless depth-of-field

stars as thick as paste and

feathery light in the sky;

and you wake up, or think

you do, remembering, the

vivid sensation of galaxy

and stars and planets and

constellations. And that's

all anything is.

-

You see, by getting into

the Studio School, as I did,

with basically a feigned

storyline of my 'deep' study

and interest of Art and its

theories, I now had to produce

all that. It wasn't that I had

'faked' it all  -  I had the

paintings and my own

self-taught modicum of

knowledge and technique,

and, yes, a worldiew and

that went with it (you'd not

find a better example of the

'wild crazy-man outlier artist

16-year old type' anywhere),

but it was all pretty much

to no effect. I was what I

was, and in many respects

just carried the unlearned

aspects of caring about

nothing at all. I suppose a

lot of kids do this anyway,

writing those crimped and

effusive college-essays

about themselves and 

their month in Ghana 

feeding water to the poor 

and shelving food, to 

show how it's made them 

a better person and one 

more willing to learn and all

their goodwill and glorious

ideas so they can get into

Brown or Cornell, and half

of it's always bullshit anyway.

All I ever took away was

'nothing matters.' How

deep could that be?

-

Only then do you wake up

and see the real situation:

over Manhattan you're lucky

to see ten stars, more or less.

A passing gift of Moon, maybe.

All the crazed Manhattan

extremists, of course, are

running around as if they are

the world's greatest Druids

or something. They'd do better

worshiping a lightbulb. There's

no conscious reason in such a

place to even have a sky, but

for the planes in it. Having

already sundered most of the

connections with the cosmos

and having long ago agreed

to put all that aside as if it

no longer existed, part of

the bargain is to ignore it,

not elevate it. There has

been erected instead, and

in its place, a physical

constellation of cold, hard

objects and specifics, in

which the people living are

worried more about parking

than darkening, worried more

about right than light. 'There

is no sense in the senselessness

of space,' I heard it told. One 

time, some late October night,

beneath a very full moon, I

well remember a crew of 

Manhattan witches, Druids,

Satanists, Nature-Worshipers,

whatever, at their temporary 

encampment, with a few trucks

and vans, over an entire weekend,

for their 'ceremonies' : bonfires, 

chanting, music, dancing, all 

beneath midnight darkness and

light, a strange and an enticing 

scene. I watched for hours.

They allowed anyone outside 

the circle. All I saw, just 

beyond them was the shiny

night-glare of the Hudson 

River, reflecting the light 

from above  - a strange, 

celestial shining I couldn't 

place. Their bonfire, quite 

large, threw its own bizarre 

orange and red and yellow

light everywhere, elongating 

shadows cast and bringing 

them to live as people

danced around the flames. 

It could have been another

world I was in and I was 

mesmerized and so far 

away in mind; transformative 

Nature indeed. Why, I had

to wonder, were the most 

bizarre and diverse groups 

of Nature-addicts here in 

one place where Nature 

had nearly been already 

obliterated. Once or twice

before I had seen things like

this, Tompkins Square Park, 

and another, with chicken 

heads or something, a 

bunch of Dominicans in

a rocky grove up by 

Morningside Heights or 

somewhere up there. 

A friend had taken me. It 

was hard to read all this 

primitive and nature-religion 

stuff, to sense where it was 

coming from, or bound to.

But then I began saying why

not? What else is any other

religion anyway  -  primitive

stone and War-God Iron-Age

worship, no matter what. The

only thing, now, that calms it

all down and keeps it steady is

the stuff we MISTAKE for

religion : the rules and 

bureaucracies and layers of

rubric and priesthoods and the

rest. It's all just the secular crap

that we react to, and no real

smidgen of any 'religion' or

its magic is left. So I drew 

strength from that which I 

could, and moved on. 

-

Sometimes I pissed in the 

streets. Good old gold H2O,

as the bums told me. One 

guy, I called Henry Swallow, 

(no, not that, I was way too

young and naive to have 

even thought of the double 

meaning) like the bird, he 

would just run on with 

stuff  in a singsong way  

-  weird lines of anarchy 

that almost made sense.

'Curvy ants try anything 

once, don't stay too long

at the soda fountain. Find

a bus to sit in for it's all

that simple. Battered ruined

broken bare ruined choirs

where the sweet birds sang.

Count the fires, catch the 

liars. Don' fish in waters

filled with acid, fish the

golden H2O.' (Yeah, that

again). 'Nothing in the 

world changes except 

the level in the gas tank.

Fill 'er up again, be on

your way. Where did he

leave the car? Didn't Lenny

Bruce discover cancer?

Ding dong the witch is 

dead, which wicked witch 

is the witch that's dead?'

There's more, but they get

boring. A few times, other

guys told him to shut up,

but I always somehow 

enjoyed it. I used to think

about what level of misery

makes a different reaction 

for different people  -  each 

of these street vagabonds, 

as much as they were alike, 

were often quite different 

too. To some of them the

sadness and sorrow was 

right to the core, while 

others, probably in much 

the same boat, were elfishly 

funny and chattering around, 

always darting this way and

that. What cold it have been. 

I wondered? 'Been to the zoo,

been to the zoo, the Studebaker 

flies at night and the chattering

monkeys are dangling

 from their poles.'

-

So, before this one closes out,

here's this weirdly checkmated

short tale I wrote one night drunk

in the Fishburne bar and only

jut recently found again: 'THE

STONE EATER - The man who

eats fire, the mighty mother

and her son, they who bring he

Smithfield Muses to the ears

of the kings OH STRANGERS

of all the ages and the quick dance

of colors and lights and the din,

what the voracious city devours

it must eventually disgorge. Isn't

that why chemistry passes by us, 

rubbish and excrement or why'd

God give us rivers? No more, my

young man, no more  -  we are

far too many and things are 

made filthy and clogged,

but what can we do about

it anyway except to think

back to not too long ago 

when the wooden bridge

over Canal Street drew 

hundreds an hour drawing 

water for the community 

pumps there, and the men 

and the hoses would water

and stop to slumber and 

drink and snooze and 

nary an errant Injun ever

stopped who didn't recall 

those wonderful 

days of old.