FLOTSAM AND JETSAM AND A BODY TOO

291.FLOTSAM AND JETSAM AND A BODY TOO - (nyc, Sept, 1968) :

Like having an apple off the cart or purloined from a grocer's counter I fed the junkman's horse its oats while waiting in the street - the dark light of assemblage along the watery end of west 16th where the piles of wood and crates were pretty much all that was left from the pre-dawn unloading and truck-loading which emptied out as soon as it was done - all of to points east and north the 'everywhere' towns which peppered the area and the smaller carts and wagons nearby too were filled with their local delivery items as the junkman (Harmon Pauch) stood idly by with a Greek-cup coffee feathered in his hands : likewise I too lingered - waiting between things for something to do and before too long I'd be going off to the usual 8th Street lair wherein I kept myself amidst piles of stretcher bars and canvas and paints and painting but first the lure of the street kept me steady - a few dollars each day made from helping load and unload along these westside wharves and trucks dens was all that kept me going : potatoes pens and pencils and paint were just then the 4-p's of my existence and to which things I kept first allegiance - a fire in the barrel or a fire in the belly made no difference - as the later hours of morning approached I always moved on.
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Coming towards me I saw one Jackie Lanekay -an odd fellow usually wielding a hammer with an apron and something vile atop his head - this time he saw me right off and came forth to say that 'before long you know they're gonn'a put a stop t'all this shit - and it's us who ain't gonn'a have nothing to do' and I didn't know what he meant and said that and he replied 'every frickin' day it's something new again and this morning wouldn't ya'know they got another dead guy from under the wharf by Denagal's truck bay - the bastard was so dead he was stone cold white and stiff and as my aunties favorite you know what - dumb bastard'd been cut up good - now they're swarming and we're WE're stuck God dammit in place!' - seeing as how I'd not known any of that I wondered what to say but nothing came and I did see the assortment of black cars and detective types standing in place (which I think was one of their modes of operation anyway) : NYC cops pillars of all that's good and dainty always made the most sense to me when they were deeply entwined in a horror-mystery-murder-case like this anyway and usually it brought out the freaks and ghouls but seemingly not this time - even the couple of local whore-girls (or whatever) I knew to be about had suddenly disappeared (or were busy with the cops - who knows anyway) but it did seem that the day had certainly now gotten off-track and just as I started moving away to head out I too was stopped in process by a cop-fellow with a badge wrapped around his neck who asked who I was from where why and how long - all the usual cop gibberish that as always so easy to answer : 'I'm always here in the morning I do some work and get paid I know lots of these guys I work and leave and NO I saw nothing and don't even know what went on' and after the obligatory 'leave your name with Brenda and a place where we can reach you' I was let go and I learned before that that it made no sense to make these names and addresses up because these goons will always find you if they've a mind to - repeat behavior on all our parts - so I walked off watching now two patrol cars come slowly blinking up the wrong way street they'd decided to drive on and I only hoped they'd notice the horse I'd just fed but I didn't even stay around to make sure of that - went sideways instead into Connie's to get coffee and a roll and stood there watching from a distance as they dragged a bag from the wharf to the Cadillac ambulance parked bear there - no movement I could see - but then the dead stay pretty still unless they're forced if you know what I mean and probably this guy anyway was lucky he wasn't just fish bait in the river by now - I turned to Connie and said 'another day another collar - 'cept this time there's a dead body attached' and she smiled grimly and said 'Hell I'm losing customers left and right ain't I?' and we laughed.
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Noticing a body beneath a tarp isn't a great achievement I suppose but in this case someone had done their homework and concealed the body just enough so that it wasn't stretched out there in the open yet was not - as well - so artfully concealed as to never be found - so the message had to be that someone HAD a message to be given - some idea of getting a point across by this deed and whether it was money debt crime betrayal gambling women guns or freight there had to be a thread somehow connecting it all to the place and the people amidst whom this dead-bomb had been left : the Police figured as much and so did the people around and probably the only unaffected partner to this was the junkman's horse - whose use for and need of oats continued unabated - that old oaken bucket was always near-to-filled and I was usually always about to make sure some of it was passed the horse's way and there was a certain tenderness in feeding the horse - a tenderness which came across even over the bleak streets the workhorse plodded over - morose sorrowful and dark perhaps his horse-breeding AND horse-brooding too - but I tried to salve his conscious and mine by being some mad-mercy poster boy for excellence in tending the junkman's horse - it brought the best of me out (what little of that there was) and offered me an informal entry into these people and pals who'd otherwise warily stay about at a distance just watching and wondering what I was doing there : this horse (named Dogget for whatever reason and a truly uncomplaining fellow) represented for me the poetry of the streets and the old ways in their passing for both the Dogget AND myself both knew his days were as numbered as mine as all about us the street was changing - the old wharves and docks were disappearing the roadway was getting all slicked up and what parts of it were not were by contrast crumbling (above us the elevated portion of the road was a constant westside danger to be heeded and remembered) and before long (I look back now from the old salad days) the decade(s) would change and everything would be lost IN FACT the only trace-semblance left of what I'm telling you is the fact alone that I'm telling it - this is entirely gone all finished and in its pace now (I shudder) hideous walkways fashionista-design houses hotels cuisine hovels and all the rest of that now-today modern day and YO! though we must we live through what is thrust and don't do much about it or counter the flow of mad-history's amble through time - I digress.