Notebooks part 8 by Ron Steinman

• Posted by Roger on September 24, 2008
• 27 comments

I can start over. I can build anew, now. I may only be for me. I have no girl, but I will find one---in time. The need is there because women are the greatest tension relievers and sounding boards who ever lived. They are useful and enjoyable, necessary for the house. Here are women at two for a quarter or on any street corner. Take a long look. Don’t touch. Step right up and make your choice. The Last Chance Saloon. Buy a beer. Get entangled with the most electrifying, delectable, enchanting beings ever created--- sponsored by the greatest entrepreneur in existence.

“Go away boy, you bother me.”

The way I think is at times appalling. I should be ashamed of myself. You should be ashamed of yourself, is something my mother would say. But I never feel it for long. A long trip is in order. Where? I’ll be an old man before I finally figure myself out and I wonder if all the time spent will be worth it.

My daddy. My mommy. That’s how they want me to think of them. It’s who and what they are and they can’t forget it, even if I try my hardest to erase them from my life. I’m tired of puppet masters. I must pull my own strings. For once. For all.

In the middle of all my anguish I think about Carole again. What is she doing now? How is she doing it now? I miss her. Someday I may find her again. Maybe I’ll even look for her again. When I’m with her, I love her. When away from her, I miss her and I’m curious how she thinks of me even after seeing her and opening myself wide to her a short time ago. She could be in the arms of another now. Then she would have a hard time remembering me, who I am, who I was to her. I must be getting soft, a sentimentalist, a misplaced romantic. It can’t happen here. That’s what they all say. Who are they? It happened once, twice and if we are lucky it may happen a third time. If we are really lucky it will never happen again.

April 14, 1955. Brooklyn, New York. Two-fifteen in the morning. Another late night. Raw taste of beer. Dead cigarettes inhabit my mouth and throat. Shards of tobacco cling to my teeth. Raw taste of ugly emotion.

April 15, 1955. To write or not to write. Stream of consciousness.

A perplexing question. I write. A penny a word. Payable on demand. Balls.

Words: pleonasas, aulic, propitious, contiguous, tired (how did this get in here?), attrition, palimpsest, said (huh!), declared, stated, jejune, valetudinary, exacerbated. Words, words, words.

“The Company She Keeps.” Mary McCarthy. Should shake them up a bit on campus.

How many days until the end? Definitely not mine. How far can the cable car go without stretching the cable beyond its normal tension point? Torque tension drive cannot go without fuel, some kind of fuel. Is there a proper fuel for discourse drive, for the time-honored so-called treasures of shelled, hollow husks of physical beings, if that’s what we can call ourselves? Easy---nothingness.

Luther. Circular reasoning rarely gets participants into trouble, especially with themselves. Circles are circular and not square and when a man enters one of these geometric sets and closes the door behind him, if things go right, there is little doubt he will end exactly where he started. He will also run into the occasional paradox. That, too, is inevitable. Luther locked the door but by virtue of some very neat logical interpolation, he justified his enclosed, locked-in, swinging self. For the illogical, inconsistent thinker he is, he does an unusually fine job of rationalizing divine law, natural law (Scholastic in theory) and the relationship of the church and state. For me, and this is quite unfair, but I don’t care, my inference is again we are seeing the fallacy of simple logic. After all, I am Jewish and he is only Luther.

Carole answered my letter.

History, said Aristotle, represents things as they are, fiction as they ought to be. Tonight I met a woman who said she was born in a police station at the age of four. I think I heard her right. And if she is right, what then? There is something in that someplace but damned if I know what it is or means.

An idea is forming for something that I’ve wanted to do for some time. One man is talking, remembering, reflecting. Or he is reliving the experience in his mind. No. He is not, I think. Not exactly reliving but close to reality or as close as he wants to get. It is difficult for me to formulate the idea. I am tired. I need sleep. I can’t write now. I don’t want to write now. If I write, I will miss my badly needed sleep. The coming weekend might tell part of the story. What story? In truth, it is not the whole story. In reality I haven’t done anything yet to have proven myself. That will wait. Meanwhile, I’ll have to try to work out the ideas floating in my head. This is an important pursuit of mine.
Work on history as I have been doing. Time is drawing near. Try to read what is really important. But isn’t it all important? Discipline is most important.

I wonder how Carole will answer my last letter? It seems I’m always wondering what women will say to me in their letters. Usually they give up on me, figuring something is wrong with me. Or they don’t answer me at all. Some fun. It’s interesting, though, how women, the majority, do not really understand what I say. Or why. They can’t be all that stupid or am I so far above them? Am I? Nah. That can’t be it either. What is it? Am I the bad risk my parents believe? Yeah. I guess that’s it. My arms hurt. I’m, sleepy.

They all look alike, every one of them. There is not one bit of difference between them. Look at them hard. Look at them carefully. Hey, just look. They walk. They swing their arms. They move their feet. They swing back and forth, a step forward, always forward. When they run away from you, they continue to move forward. Faster.

Hey, wait for me. Where you going, huh? Geez, I don’t know but come away with me anyway. We may find out a thing or two.

They went. I watched them go. They are two halves of a whole. One not knowing the other and the other half knowing, which isn’t really anything like the sum of its parts “knowing.” They went: side by side, forward, forward. Always forward. Never backward. Restless. The two always are moving ahead. A straight line.

Are we almost there?

No. We are not.

Are we half way there?

No.

Then where the hell are we?

I’m tired. The journey is too much, too rushed. Please tell me where we are.

I don’t know. I really don’t but, you know, you know I wish you knew.
Let’s continue. We must go forward.

Turn your back on the others and lets get our asses out of here.

On the BMT Brighton line to 42nd Street. I’m going out to play alone fortified by six glasses of beer. Schaeffer is on tap.

Four girls sitting together on the subway, huddled against the varnished wicker seats. They can say more about nothing than one hundred men---at least, from the point of view of one hundred men. They talk. Ultimately they walk and that is good to watch. Still they say nothing, or nothing I can hear them saying. Happy little useful creatures how I wish you were only more so, plus or minus. Four must be a female number. They move with each other tonight. They hold only to each other tightly for fear if they move or separate from each other they will perish from this earth. Clinging vines. Old and new wine. Seething teeth. Huge sides of beef. Coral reef.

Club Metronome at 52nd Street and 7th Avenue. Swinging people, what there is of them. Place is mostly empty but the people at the bar are okay. All of them are at ease, at least on the outside. Hope they make it whatever they do, whatever they are up to. The stage is small. The acoustics are poor. Yeah. Joe DeRies swings as does Vickie Carrol. Don’t press for drinks, I tell myself, because I will soon run out of money. Nurse your beer. Dashes, not words, fill the lines.

Later. What do I know best? Good question because it immediately asks what do I know at all, of anything, of nothing, of something? For my purposes, all for the moment will be the same. I will weed this out another time.

Middle class money.
Middle class ethics.
Jewish home.
Jewish family.
Anti-Semitism.
Conservative home thus begets conservative parents.
Sports. Street sports. Roller hockey. Stick ball.
Brooklyn---When growing up---the neighborhood, the streets.
Brooklyn---The kids.
Brooklyn---The Bigger Kids. The block bully.
Trial. Error.
Drink. Confusion.
A whore.

Balls. That lousy drunk finally catches up with me after being on my tail for about six or seven blocks. Man, let me tell you, he is one cat I just do not want to have anything to with, ever. It is a drag, like really obnoxious. Sickening. If he ever changes his clothing, even takes a bath, he will become a candidate for a presidential citation from that dame in Washington who runs the Health Department. I feel a saint compared to him. Of all the bums to discover me, he is the worst. He smells like horses. He must have been sleeping in the stables at Prospect Park and Caton, near a rare traffic circle in Brooklyn.

Clash of values. Father and Son. Conservative middle class father. Arguments that never end. Quiet mother who says nothing. Everything implied. Suppressing violent emotions. Son striving for independence. Father stuck in a rut. In the past. Clash, clash, clash. Old world and new world. But old world is not old in reality. It is old world, as derived from old European world. Father says, son do this. Son says, yes. Then, pop! Son decides he wants to do what he wants. His life. Hell with others. Son remains tied to parents and past because they are his endowment. They are deep inside him. There is little he can do to exorcize them. So there it is, the basic conflict between parents and parents, and between son and son. Within themselves. Within himself.
Now the problem is how to resolve the question. Introspection plays a major part in the confrontation. Son is at a point where he is the only one who can help himself. He becomes reconciled to his fate. In any event, he decides to sever diplomatic relations at home and take off to foreign points, points unknown, or something. No longer is he facing a decision about the basic issue causing the split with his parents. School? Choice of profession? It is tied with elementary middle class Jewish psychology, strangling him slowly.
Change is sudden but it has been building for many years. Son doesn’t think clearly how to tell his parents of his apparent, sudden change. He has to approach them carefully and gently but he doesn’t know how to handle them when he does finally face them. He blurts everything in haste, anger and confusion. Shock on part of parents follows. Argument follows shock. There is no meeting of minds. Emotions and perceptions are too far apart. For the moment, the son is also confused, bewildered, bitter, cynical, skeptical. Wildly so. A young man who believes he is wise in certain ways, doubtful in many others, puzzled with most of what he faces. He is fighting everything: society, his friends, girls, his parents mainly, and above all, himself.
After all this, the least I can do is send a Mother’s Day card. Jeezuz.

The street. My street. Streets I grew up on. I walk alone. Abandoned objects are on the street. There are too many things on the street that affect me, the walker. Dirt theme. Impassive. Unmoving. Embodiment of static, of non-dynamic, anti-intellectualism. Pound. Pound. Glorify it. Wind blowing all the garbage. Heavy feet, light feet. Light head---whore for all, mistress of none.

Magnificent. It knows of all things, yet allows no one to know it. Subjected to everything, yet it doesn’t allow others to know anything. It always remains emotionally the same yet it changes continuously, but only in a physical sense. People move over it, walking, crawling, running --- over it. The street can care less. It’s the only real unity of life. It’s not in the Dark Ages but it may be Medieval because it’s static, it’s in chains. It has no desire for change but we change it anyway. Progress goes on and it remains emotionally the same. Life rises and falls around it, on it. Wine runs in its gutters. Our blood is heavily cast on it, over it, staining it permanently. Marching feet pass over it, forever. The street has one name, sometimes many names, names created over time, some political, others frivolous. Everyone wants control over it. It wants control over nothing. We use it without permission. Those with passports need not apply. It looks askance at the user.
Man cannot alter its foundation, weather and time withstanding. It’s the sounding board for everyone. All desecrate it. It has no respect from anyone. It does nothing, accepting all comers playing the role of a loyal servant forever in bondage. The great and not so great have walked on it and over it. It’s faithful to each of its owners in turn. Rarely is it worshiped. Consecrating it would be the epitome of all man’s striving. The crowning achievement. The end of all life, love, happiness. It takes everything in its stride.
The trials it has withstood would have been enough to destroy any mortal, any being, anything in creation. It has managed to survive, ready to receive the vicissitudes of life, death, destruction, struggle passion, and red, red, wine. The street never forgets when the wine flowed, when heads rolled, when. . .

May 10, 1955. Easton, Pennsylvania, 11:35 p.m. Why must mysteries always seem to plague me? Is it because I question and therefore invite problems which must fall in the category of the mystery because they remain unanswered? That must be it. Because of my concern, I put myself into situations that perplex me. Perhaps I would be better off if I didn’t think of those matters that could and do generate problems.
If I were a mechanic, a laborer, any man who works with his hands instead of his head, I would not have a life that would lead me to my place in the universe. I don’t have the answer why this is important to me, why I have to discover what that spot is and where it can be found. It’a important. Everything that I do centers on me. Is that wrong? Where? Why? When? How? Etc. I’m upset because I never come up with an answer. Sometimes I think I have the answer. Sometimes I think the answer will be found in others. If so, I would then be prepared to accept their theory. What will happen when a new generation evolves? I can’t believe the new generation or even parts of it will ingest the past. It will go seeking in its own way, trying to fathom its place in this, our expanding universe.

The question of place, of position, seems possible only for those who embrace religion, philosophy (either political or spiritual) or some form of physical escape that often includes self abuse. All, in their own way, are mental crutches. Don’t accept anything too profound. Don’t be too concerned with another’s plight. Don’t give a damn. I can’t be that way. I’m still looking and I’m still unsatisfied with what I see, including what’s inside me. I’m still trying for the brass ring. Maybe I’ll never capture it like other people. Possibly it’s my destiny to search forever, to never solve the mystery of why, when, where and how. Somehow the simple things also count and my goal may ultimately be found in love.
Simple/complex.

May 11, 1955. It shall come out of thin air. (Sounds like H.G. Wells.) Let it flow for itself. (Sounds like a musician on pot.) Let it bring forth anything that is present and alive in the innermost portals of my immature mind. Flow, damn, flow.

Contrast between something untouched and something touched.

Trying to do a story on someone I know. Explain to him that some ideas come from him but it’s really not about him. Who, then? A man has immersed himself in fear, too deeply in self, in conceit and distrust. Tell him that a good part of the situation stems from him and from others in the same position. It doesn’t reflect on his reality because it’s something that I can only guess. It’s also as much about me as it’s about him, about anyone. Finally, it’s about a search for place, for peace, for truth.
©2008 Ron Steinman