GARIBALDI'S CRESTFALLEN KINGDOM
22. GARIBALDI’S CRESTFALLEN KINGDOM:
The Cinder Block Wars having ended and the ladle men having walked on there seems nothing more to report from any edge of the circumference or any angle of the square SOOO they’re hang gliding from Eldridge Park in the strangest way and the roller coaster at the far end is off the tracks and the beatnik in the gray sweater is yawning at the table of poets while they argue yet again over Tavern or Bar and who can blame them but who cares anyway and I walk up to them and just start talking “you know that Garibaldi statue in Washington Square Park is representative of anarchy really and any Italian who’s ever stopped to look at it can realize that whatever it represents from the ‘old’ days is dead now to them and people can’t even understand these days any of the work sweat and toil which went into nation-building back in the day when it all meant something and how much it meant to people coming here early on is hard to say for now all we’ve got (and I’ve seen it with my own eyes) is gentlemen of Italian issue sitting around suburban pizza parlors talking to one another as if it was some 1909 Little Italy scene the stuff we really remember and they talk gibberish (and I’ve heard it with my own ears) they talk about their boats and the big houses with concrete extensions they’ve built in Bricktown and the way there are no more new priests and the way that ‘shortage’ will cause so much trouble in the next ten or fifteen years when there won’t be any priests anymore to go around and then they start comparing disgraced priests with Buddhist monks who – they say – are each assigned a little boy for their own use during their monkhood and they just go on like that oblivious to life and limb itself as they sit there in penny-ante shopping plaza pizza parlors with fake pictures on the wall and them you know them the way they propagate they’ve got two daughters and a son-in-law behind the counter making orders and answering the phone and seating people and fiddling with the grand-kids which they bring into work because they’ve got nothing else to do with them and the whole place starts reeking of kiddie crap stupid toys and ‘pop-pop’ sentimental stupid drivel and they still sit there and the daughters all alike stare stupidly ahead thin-lipped scoundrels that they probably are and there’s nothing worse than Italians hamming it up believe you me they’re the root of all evil - carping whining complaining screaming crying praying begging - my God they make a Jew Shiksa look tolerable but anyway that’s not my point my point was did you see that Garibaldi statue ? it’s in the near-middle of the park and for 75 years Italian girls and Jewish girls if they walked from the west had to pass it to any of their beleaguered jobs and positions on the east side of the park in haberdashery tailoring sewing whatever and they all passed ‘Italian unification’ as it was praised and memorialized and now it’s all forgotten so fast it can’t even smell and that goes to show how LITTLE I said LITTLE anything is remembered these days for THERE’S NOT A ONE who’d be able to tell you what any of that’s about because they’ve just all grown rotten and spoiled and nasty filling in their own shoes just as they see fit - ignorant and ignoble - and they all should be force-fed something different something wiser than what they’ve got but that’ll never happen” and once I said that I at least felt better and was able to sit down and remain still and all of a sudden this guy and girl come in and she’s got a diamond on her finger the size of Nebraska and he’s just a regular hairy Joe and they sit down and as they sit her little summer shift just about pulls up to her hole and she pretends not noticing while they order and then she gets up all demurely and proper and waddles off to the ladies room just like she should and like she always meant to and then she waltzes back in and whispers something to him and they snuggle and hug and get all silly and romantic and their drinks come and hers is pink the color of true pink and he’s got some regular beer and then she gets ice water too and they simply stare out silent as all get-out and no more is said and the other guys sitting there just go on and myself – having just finished my Italian diatribe – am asked what I thought of that and I simply say “ask her about Garibaldi go ahead ask her” and they laugh and figuring her to be as Italian as they come one of them asks aloud and they look over and she smiles and the guy with her says “who?” and they say back “Garibaldi” and she smiles and looks up at the TV which had been showing sports until it went to commercial and she says “we don’t follow soccer sorry” and everyone laughs and I say “what did I tell you?” and that was that as I got up to leave and remembered reading again about the garment workers and the girls in the shirtwaist industry and all about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and I felt I’d really learned a lot again about a time and place that never was for me and never will be again and whatever feeling that is is the feeling that washed over me it’s something like education or the knowledge of things which makes you warm and secure and feeling ‘right’ about yourself and it’s not pride or anything like that it’s just that somehow you all of a sudden feel right with the world and most certainly in your proper place within it and that all has something to do with security and ‘fastness’ and anyway that’s how I felt.
The Cinder Block Wars having ended and the ladle men having walked on there seems nothing more to report from any edge of the circumference or any angle of the square SOOO they’re hang gliding from Eldridge Park in the strangest way and the roller coaster at the far end is off the tracks and the beatnik in the gray sweater is yawning at the table of poets while they argue yet again over Tavern or Bar and who can blame them but who cares anyway and I walk up to them and just start talking “you know that Garibaldi statue in Washington Square Park is representative of anarchy really and any Italian who’s ever stopped to look at it can realize that whatever it represents from the ‘old’ days is dead now to them and people can’t even understand these days any of the work sweat and toil which went into nation-building back in the day when it all meant something and how much it meant to people coming here early on is hard to say for now all we’ve got (and I’ve seen it with my own eyes) is gentlemen of Italian issue sitting around suburban pizza parlors talking to one another as if it was some 1909 Little Italy scene the stuff we really remember and they talk gibberish (and I’ve heard it with my own ears) they talk about their boats and the big houses with concrete extensions they’ve built in Bricktown and the way there are no more new priests and the way that ‘shortage’ will cause so much trouble in the next ten or fifteen years when there won’t be any priests anymore to go around and then they start comparing disgraced priests with Buddhist monks who – they say – are each assigned a little boy for their own use during their monkhood and they just go on like that oblivious to life and limb itself as they sit there in penny-ante shopping plaza pizza parlors with fake pictures on the wall and them you know them the way they propagate they’ve got two daughters and a son-in-law behind the counter making orders and answering the phone and seating people and fiddling with the grand-kids which they bring into work because they’ve got nothing else to do with them and the whole place starts reeking of kiddie crap stupid toys and ‘pop-pop’ sentimental stupid drivel and they still sit there and the daughters all alike stare stupidly ahead thin-lipped scoundrels that they probably are and there’s nothing worse than Italians hamming it up believe you me they’re the root of all evil - carping whining complaining screaming crying praying begging - my God they make a Jew Shiksa look tolerable but anyway that’s not my point my point was did you see that Garibaldi statue ? it’s in the near-middle of the park and for 75 years Italian girls and Jewish girls if they walked from the west had to pass it to any of their beleaguered jobs and positions on the east side of the park in haberdashery tailoring sewing whatever and they all passed ‘Italian unification’ as it was praised and memorialized and now it’s all forgotten so fast it can’t even smell and that goes to show how LITTLE I said LITTLE anything is remembered these days for THERE’S NOT A ONE who’d be able to tell you what any of that’s about because they’ve just all grown rotten and spoiled and nasty filling in their own shoes just as they see fit - ignorant and ignoble - and they all should be force-fed something different something wiser than what they’ve got but that’ll never happen” and once I said that I at least felt better and was able to sit down and remain still and all of a sudden this guy and girl come in and she’s got a diamond on her finger the size of Nebraska and he’s just a regular hairy Joe and they sit down and as they sit her little summer shift just about pulls up to her hole and she pretends not noticing while they order and then she gets up all demurely and proper and waddles off to the ladies room just like she should and like she always meant to and then she waltzes back in and whispers something to him and they snuggle and hug and get all silly and romantic and their drinks come and hers is pink the color of true pink and he’s got some regular beer and then she gets ice water too and they simply stare out silent as all get-out and no more is said and the other guys sitting there just go on and myself – having just finished my Italian diatribe – am asked what I thought of that and I simply say “ask her about Garibaldi go ahead ask her” and they laugh and figuring her to be as Italian as they come one of them asks aloud and they look over and she smiles and the guy with her says “who?” and they say back “Garibaldi” and she smiles and looks up at the TV which had been showing sports until it went to commercial and she says “we don’t follow soccer sorry” and everyone laughs and I say “what did I tell you?” and that was that as I got up to leave and remembered reading again about the garment workers and the girls in the shirtwaist industry and all about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and I felt I’d really learned a lot again about a time and place that never was for me and never will be again and whatever feeling that is is the feeling that washed over me it’s something like education or the knowledge of things which makes you warm and secure and feeling ‘right’ about yourself and it’s not pride or anything like that it’s just that somehow you all of a sudden feel right with the world and most certainly in your proper place within it and that all has something to do with security and ‘fastness’ and anyway that’s how I felt.
posted by gary j. introne at 5:09 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home