from NYC Sal A Manders

in 1974 I started work on a biographical/fiction. ( originally titled salamanders) incorporating bits of journal, drugs sex and drama from the point of view of a 18 – 20 something male living in an old factory town New England as he discovers drinks weed cocaine love sex marriage divorce fatherhood etc. it began by the river it hasn’t ended yet. here’s another excerpt – for what its worth. still ruff n ready I suppose ~

from NYC Sal A Manders

Part Three /   I am feeling restless. “New York times” a song by the Motels is what I’m listening to. Restless. Hungry for what?  I don’t know.  I only know what I don’t want, and I don’t want to go to work tomorrow.  Weekends are too short. (oh, how fuckin’ blue collar.) But what else? Yesterday spent the day climbing, feeling good, looking good. Today, I don’t even have the patience to write. Write about the climb? the people I was with? One of them a fifteen year old boy who had been living on the benches of central park until his sister took him in. So, at her request I bring him and her along. It was good showing them the ropes and now I can’t write fast enough.

   Central Park thoughts.  Yesterday finding time to cry over Wendy a-fuckin-gain. Was it Wendy or The City or what’s the difference? I’m doing what I’m supposed to here in Connecticut: School, Work, Saving money, Climb, Party but, but ,but today I cried over Beethoven’s ninth and my mother .Maybe the bottom line is I’m lonely. I guess.  And I haven’t written anything in so long – some tragic shit attempts while hanging out in New Haven (a great town reminding me a little to the village, so it too is underlined with New York blues.).I’ve not met anyone interesting since Wendy, a few nights here and there but no one I want to be with, and I guess that’s not so bad but no one I feel good enough with just to have good sex with? I miss making love like I mean it. I resent the women I meet who can’t even tell my heart isn’t really in it; in fact, they act as if there really is something there and seem so surprised – can they really be that stupid? Can’t they tell that orgasms are not necessarily a sign of love?

 Trying to exist without adventure, trying to maintain and oh fuck it how I just want to say fuck it all, cash it in on a one way ticket to somewhere as far as I can go. I don’t know why I don’t feel better about things. My life is full. I do well with school. I do well

with my job, enough money. Money to spend, money to save. Go to concerts, plays, operas, movies; keep a good running car… Is the adventure of romance so important to me that it counters everything else with its absence? I don’t just want to get laid; I want the danger of emotional intrigue. That’s what missing. I meet lots of women and even though some are really beautiful I just don’t have the interest in them. I don’t feel the attraction to them, to their bodies yes but not to who they really are. So, I’m busy.  Busy at being a drug counsellor, a student but not an artist, not a lover.

   It’s October 26 and the deadline for submitting to Princeton is November 15 and of course I haven’t even started. The last one “Lessons On Neurotic Conversations In A Foreign Language” was eventually rejected by both Yale and Pittsburgh. Screw it maybe I’ll just send it in as is and not get caught up in trying to anticipate their wants.

Painted a canvass a few months back – first one in a long time. Obviously it was not the beginning of something renewed. Smoking again not as much as last year but back at it again – just can’t get away from those ‘boros. Reading Jack Kerouac’s biography – not much to write home about.

When I was a child

There was the wind

Angels tip toeing

All around us…

Back in the early eighties I was living in Manhattan. Studio apartment on Maiden Lane 14th floor – in love wth the city and in love with the girl i was living with. I was working in Queens – took the E train. Was due to start school at the School for Human Services. The towers still stood and I’d cut through the financial center to get across the highway and go grocery shopping. The Batter Park was fairly desolate in those days, especially in winter, but i could wander, any time day or night always something worth doing always even going no where was an adventure….

Maiden Lane

spoon-fed in the dark room

draped by butterfly hands

angels tiptoe all around

curling quiet across the bed

behind sunglasses and cups of old coffee

home to lands edge from the sea

the city stirs a brown wrapped overcoat

with room for damp cigarettes

and no place else to go

among the 4 A.M.’s.

~~~

down the block of slow return lean

one last quarter into the viewer

and there as far away as

possible, the rusted Dutch

freighter makes its way through

another sleepless night

like rain.