NO OIL FOR PACIFISTS

91. NO OIL FOR PACIFISTS:

I keep thinking back to how long ago everything was and just today I was jolted awake by some crazy headline beaming ‘No Oil For Pacifists’ of which I had no clue what was being talked of and couldn’t relate it to anything sensible anyway but that’s the rub and the fabric of this newer modern world - inconsequential and coded messages of a sort that take deciphering or at least an insider’s understanding and that’s what I certainly don’t have nor want to have and I’d much rather now stand far outside the awning of society than get my feet wet so as to drink that punch being given out beneath that awning and if I told you what I really felt you’d get angry and blush or seethe at the thought but (again as Ginsberg said) ‘we’ve abolished Hell!’ and I certainly can understand THAT and get on the side of such a phrase and enjoy and take note of what it means and even if I’d wanted to I could propound for hours on the import of what that means but as usual in his way he hit something on the head and let it go at that - no further declaiming needed nor intended - and just as sure as farm fields fall there’s still milk on the table anyway and no one’s the worse for wear and all of that but they said - as I recall - that oil itself was going to run out by the 1980’s and as far as I can see THAT’S never happened so what connection pacifists have with any of that is beyond me and if they wouldn’t fight it wouldn’t be for oil I’m sure they’d rather walk anyway but there’s a text and then a subtext and beneath all of that still another text too - the real words behind the words and the words behind that – but there’s someone always fighting somewhere for something anyway and no matter for the rest.
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Worse than worst and whiter than white was the situation most of the time - the paradox itself being the quandary I had to get out of and all around me things were turning and locations were changing - the old lower Westside with its highways and docks was falling apart and being diminished to not much more than leftover and derelict parking spots for dead trucks and cars piles of rubbish tires and lumber and fewer and fewer trucks loading and unloading although it still occurred on a daily basis and the activity still brought in some money crime graft and trouble for varied people here and there - my own late-night forays into these warrens of inefficiency continued - leaky gas pumps and storage barrels broken frames and cargo-trunks piles and piles of contraband and things-to-be-stolen put aside and saved and it was in its own way pretty funny to see – people living in vans and trucks just living there amidst mattresses and piles of clothing and bags of old scavenged food and the occasional TV or radio hook-up ostentatiously displayed like some prized booty so as to watch a game-show or soap opera or any other televised fodder making even less 1960's sense in the situation : runaways losers drug-addicts criminals carriers runners messengers thugs and whores all together in one untidy neighborhood – ciphers each unknown and unnumbered with no one ever knowing the difference and it just went on day after day and night past night the same activity the same parade of crazies and there were no definitions nor boundaries nor borders nor rules : people were there and doing whatever it is they did and I’d step into this nightly and take some small role when needed - help move this or that crate help untie this bundle see what was in this one move this wood carry this over to there and all the while the soiled river rolled the small boats and tugs and barges floated to here or there covered with tarp or laced down with ropes and low in the water and police sirens and rotating red lights came and went the overhead highway – still passable – roared cars and New Jersey itself it seemed exchanged people and things in a steady array of trade and barter - food vendors set-up each morn at daybreak for another wild shift of coffee and sandwiches hot dogs and cake as the truckmen lined up in the early mornings to wait and ate while they waited and talked and huddled and smoked and the more it seemed that NOTHING got done the more it was that actually DID get done and it was for truly a weirdly different world.
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"Ya’ know sometimes when you reach something it turns out it ain’t worth shit – and that’s kinda’ the story of my life" he said that to me with a mouthful of food so that as he talked I had to watch his cheeks bulge and move too – his name was something I’d forgotten but I had become familiar with him over a period of time as he walked around the same areas I did and we crossed paths "I got stuck here and just never left – had a walk-up on 1st Street and I kept it for a while but eventually lost it when I stopped paying the rent and even if I still go back there it’s vacant and I got the key so I just walk in and sleep whenever I want – I used to clean the stairwells and the hallway for the owner once a week but then I stopped that too because the smells of all the Spanish people cooking got to me and it just began making me nauseous and all the little kids that hung around they bothered me too - big brown eyes just staring up all the time at me like they wanted something and I had nothing to give them so the entire thing - except for the place - turned bad for me but it’s no matter now ‘cuz I can sleep in these sheds whenever I have to and the work – whatever it is – turns out to be steady enough for me and I only really need a little money to keep going and I steal a lot of food and get other stuff for free or nearly free from the guys around here that I know and nothing ever comes back to cause me any trouble so on the whole there’s really not much that I want that I don’t already have or at least have already had and given it up - what the hell what’s life for anyway - you lose a jumble and you get a jumble or vice versa whatever and it’s all like urban living in the Black Hills anyway – like NOTHING ever fits – and before I enter the realms of the bitter dead I’m going to first make sure that in some way or the best way I can every debt’s been accounted for and every account is evened – and I’m not talking about money mind you – I’m talking about that open space between every man and his next man his brother his compadre his fellow or whatever and if you leave things hanging they’re just going to hang so it’s better to make them straight early on and quickly you see like William Blake or somebody said – to the effect that a person should get whatever it is that’s on his mind out in the open before it festers and turns to evil hate and violence so it’s always better just to go up to your fellow man and tell them – ‘you’re an asshole I hate you I can’t stand what you’re doing’ etc. – get it off your chest and then AT THE LEAST they know where you stand and then they know too where THEY stand in regards to you and it’s all bettered just like that : I ask you wouldn’t it be just as easy for the President to go up to the Russian Commies and say ‘you fucks are really pissing me off you’re all jerks and I hope you piece of shit system crumbles but until then you ain’t getting a thing from me and I’ll blow you to smithereens if I have to without even thinking it over twice’ and if that was done don’t you think the world would be a better place anyway or maybe no worse anyway" and once again I nodded (the nod of a fool I guess) and just let it go and the waitress was bringing more food and the outside light was brightening the windows and the trucks I’d seen before as dormant were now up and about their ways – smokes gurgling engines on fire – and the backs of many of them were opened again and people were moving this or that here or there and I realized JUST LIKE THAT that the morning had opened up for business and I was again amongst the living – except maybe for this guy – and although he still talked on I knew he’d talk to anybody about anything and it wasn’t dependent upon me sitting there so I threw him some change and said I’d be on my way.