Despatches from a side street
|
Oh, I've been the boiled mutton-head!
I've been going around Europe and Asia telling the heathen that the reason we
hustle so in New York is because we get so much done. I never discovered till
today that we do all this hustling, all this jamming in subways, all this
elbowing into elevators, to keep us occupied and keep from getting anything
done!
Sinclair Lewis, Dodsworth, 1929 This is the quote that got me fired, I think, from Morgan Stanley, where I had a lovely job as a not-too-busy proofreader for the financial giant. I had stuck it on the wall."He just doesn't give a shit," said the Überboss to the Unterboss. He was wrong, you know. I gave a shit. As a matter of fact, I was blissful going there every day in my wool slacks and crisp shirts, marvelling at all the money they were giving me just to snip off the most egregious mutations of the English language created by those financial experts who were too busy to learn it. Not enough money to raise a family, buy health insurance or save for retirement, granted, but more than some of the other slimeball international firms were doling out. How can they always tell? Every day I washed, shaved, deodorized, dressed in their clothes, smiled, but it didn't matter. What I thought was helpfully Zen - to truly give a shit you must not give a shit - was to them perfidy. I used to enjoy the kind banter that always goes on during blue-collar jobs,
where you're busy with your hands but your mind is free. Lots of great wordplay
goes on, much of which incidentally is on the theme of "I don't give a shit." I
mean, how canya? You do the job, which takes one per cent of your brain and an
infinitesimal sliver of the world, and the rest is right there waiting to be
pondered upon. The office job has its equivalent of banter: vacuous chitchat.
It's like "anything I can say to amuse myself is pure gravy because I'm on the
clock". What's missing? Irony. You must never not give a shit.
NEW York is a collection of buildings, to paraphrase James Purdy, not a place with a common mentality. It's a revolving door: not the New York of my father's youth, and not the New York of mine. I came here when it was a decrepit hulk and everyone was leaving, it seemed, except for people like me who didn't want anyone's attention or opinion, just a place to find a peculiar kind of peace in the noise and the garbage, a place where two days' work paid the rent on a room in the semi-ghetto, leaving plenty of time to construct just the kind of reality one wanted that day. There's a lot of energy in New York now, a lot of eager beavers looking to make something of themselves. To secure their place in the world, I suppose, not by adding to the discourse, but by buying a piece of the real estate. And why not? That's what the rest of the country's doing. Why should New York be any different? Look at it this way: with one day's work you can buy a new TV, 35mm camera,
fax machine, VCR or scanner. But paying the rent might take you ten days. So who
has time to sit around and think? Financially speaking, it's a loss.
THE other day as I was approaching my building I saw an infinitely sad-looking teenage Puerto Rican girl sitting on one of the squat brick columns that abut our stairs. She had a Barney the Dinosaur doll perched on the other one. She caressed one of its hands between her fingers while he sang, "The wheels of the truck go 'round and 'round" and "Can I be your friend?" As a kid in Bible class I wondered about the concept of idolatry but I wonder
no more. I am worried about the nation's children, though. Not that teenage
girl; shemerely made me suicidal. I'm worried because I caught some Barney on
cable TV last week and what really shook me was the skill of those little
actors. Either they're using midgets or those kids are only four or five years
old. And they're so good! When I was four or five I was barely toilet trained. I
was also suspicious of anyone telling me to act in any way other than how I felt
at the moment. These Barney kids are better than the average sitcom actor. They
must really believe in Barney, or else they have learned to make themselves
believe while on camera. They will go on to brilliant theatrical careers. Or
else they'll fall short, get jobs, become leaders ...
SPEAKING of leaders and idols recalls the role of the santos, the lovingly
carved depictions of Catholic saints, in rural life in Mexico. These revered
statues are propitiated with candles, incense and flowers and carried in
processions to bless the fields with abundance. Sometimes the weather is really
uncooperative, however, and the villagers are ruined. So the santos are hauled
out to bake in the cruel sun, or lashed to a log in a raging creek, to give them
a taste of what their mischief, or their incompetence, has led to. This helps
explain why former Mexican President Salinas, once the wielder of near-absolute
power in that country, has been mocked in every medium of expression in Mexico
ever since the peso crashed. Salinas is wanted for fraud and worse, and now
lives in exile with his millions. Here in the US, meanwhile, Bill Clinton's
approval rating spirals ever-higher. The people are sending a message: "Leave
our santo alone! It's working! We're making money!" But just wait until the
market dives. Boy, will there be some choice names for Bill then. Just saving
'em up.
WHEN the rupiah crashed last month I decided to pay Indonesia a visit, me and a whole lot of Australians, Dutch, French, Italians and Germans, Germans, Germans. Not too many Americans - we're too busy working, and if we're not we're broke, unlike our European friends who have a choice between five weeks paid vacation or 52 weeks paid vacation. No matter - the dollar was king, even if I was the only American there to spend it, and had to take a courier flight to Singapore where I probably committed six or seven caneable offenses just being a New Yorker. I emerged with my ass unscathed in teeming Jakarta, which hasn't yet fully appreciated how broke it is. "Where are you going?" everyone says by way of greeting, until I finally answered"To visit the Queen," but they knew I was lying, even if there were an awful lot of queens one could visit if one wanted to. Everything was ungodly cheap, and after finding the one place to spend money, a disco named Tannamour (see the current Face for a rundown), I made my way to Ubud in Bali, which struck me as a kind of Southeast Asian Woodstock. The countryside there is brilliantly green and rich, every stone is wet and mossy, and the only aggression to be found is among the monkeys who mug you for bananas. Just outside of Ubud I found a West Timorese shop run by a fast-talking teenage Timorese girl where I bought a WWII cartridge belt covered with little hammered-in studs. One brass button sported a cartoony depiction of Australia. The belt was much too short to get around my waist, or dare I say those of the well-fed and -watered Australians I'd seen on the road. No idea what happened to the rest of this infantryman, though I also bought a couple of bone daggers that a friend of mine in New York who makes prosthetic limbs swore were human tibia. However, a collector of primitive weaponry here said they were just the bones of a cassowary. When I got back I was informed by my upstairs neighbor Tahito that Lola, a feisty young Frenchwoman who sublet my room during the three weeks of my absence (now you know it's a New York column), picked a fight with him for playing his music too loud and much too early. It was 1pm and Lola made her opinion known in the inimitable fashion of her nation - and again at 5am the following morning when she got home. My sources tell me she shouted a lot of incendiary things, such as "I'm sorry, I'm not Puerto Rican!" Tahito, ever the gentleman, didn't touch her. However, Tahito's girlfriend followed her back to my apartment and, according to all participants, "beat the shit out of her." Lola calls the cops, cops arrive and explain to her the etiquette of Lower East Side banter, cops leave and things return to normal. I don't know what got the girl so indignant. Tahito usually just plays basketball in his apartment. When I got home I met Lola in the Lotus Eaters' Cafe, looking no worse for
wear and tear, looking inexplicably healthy in fact. "Never argue with a Puerto
Rican," I advised belatedly."It makes absolutely no sense."
HAVING breakfast at a café on Avenue A, I was introduced to a kind-eyed,
clear-faced woman named Kelley, a masseuse who had recently moved here from
Santa Fe. I asked her why she wanted to live here."I visited here for a day,"
she told me,"and I really liked the feeling that anything could happen."
|