Laying in a two dollar guest house in Mellow TownI continued a couple of months brewing over on "The Four Nobel Truths".
Third of the three kinds of suffering is all pervasive suffering. The under
laying foundation of discontent and naivety of the origination of suffering
which is our conditioning . The Buddha said,"The suffering of being
conditioned is not apparent when it arises remains or cease, but it is still
the cause of our suffering". Samuel Beckett's, Waiting for Godot, popped
into my thoughts.Two friends waiting on Godot and the action implies"
nothing is a thing that has to be done".
I was writing to a good friend of mine recently about our down and out
days at the Highlander. The Highlander was a seven or eight story apartment
on Lomo Alto near Lemmon Ave right at the edge of Highland Park. Across
Lemmon Ave was Craddock Park were I jogged each morning or evening
this was the juice that kept me going. Back on the other side of Lemmon was
the jazz club Strictly Taboo were I spent some of the little money I had
available on scotch while wondering why God gave me such little feet.
Of course, the Highlander had seen its better day and certainly tonier
clientele. The basement held parking and rooms long ago vacated. One large
room with adjoining rooms was the Europa Spa. I always envisioned the
Highland Parkers getting their butts rubbed and hairdoo's done up there.
It would have been very Texas glam in its time. There were many storage
rooms with loads of furniture for the use in above apartments. All kinda that
cheap antique quality you find prevalent in today's junk shops. Among the
secrets buried in these walls were whispered mummers of past memories.
The lobby,as good as I can recall, was curved marble walls with doors and
entry ways going here and there. On the left was the old managers window
were a dear woman in her sixties sat forlornly watching that the unwelcome
stayed away and the rent money didn't skip out. In the center waited the old
antique European styled brass cage elevator or lift some called it. Everyone
loved this old lift, solid old world craftsmanship and as you lifted up you held
a brief view of the lobby until disappearing into the ceiling and floors above.
A large part of the tenants were gay and generally older like myself. So
returning via way of the ole lifty was always an adventure at two am in the
morning. Going up in the elevator many a drunk gays would openly declare
themselves the best cock sucker in Dallas with an arched expectant
eyebrow. Being a veteran of these late night elevator episodes roomy and I
would politely decline. Early mornings rides on old lifty were always an
adventure and topic for hilarious reenactments once we were safe behind
our own door.
My friend had the readers eye for plot characters and he visited with
the manager enough that she reveled to him her warm secret. The only thing
she really wanted out of this life now was a real leopard skin coat. Roomy
telling me about the talk said 'he wished he had the money to buy her a
leopard skin coat', I mean that's all she wants ,for Gods sake. Living with her
was 'the son' early middle aged cigar smoking lurker of the basement he had
the Herman Munster look. I am sure he thought I was the lurker of his
basement.I had visions of him listening to those whispers while he lurked
about the Highlander catacombs.
Two souls adrift were we. The hippie scheme of changing Amerika went off
track a bit so there we were bettin a quarter on a quarter and a cup of coffee.
Mostly I did odd jobs here and there for rent,food and refreshments
for the night. Roomy being the school trained reader began handing me the
better quality books like the french existentialist Celine and the master crime
fiction writer Raymond Chandler. I particularly liked the quotes Chandler's
pulp novels ; The Big Sleep: Marlowe; "you know what he'll do when he
comes back? he'll kick my teeth out,then kick me in the stomach for
mumbling". Only Humphrey Bogart could deliver lines written like that.
Celine's "Journey into the End Night" burned pessimistic images in my brain
like, describing the light shining through Venetian blinds casting parallel lines
of light and shadows across his bedroom walls intersected by patterns of
swashed cockroach bodies. Conjoining nihilist images and our persistent
'ennui' was like wet and water or hot with fire. That was the registry in our
cynical humorous lives.
We laid on mattress on the floor and read until it was time to go to our
water hole to make certain this wasn't the night we missed something.
The Stoneleigh did seem able to provide entertainment on a fairly regular
basis and mostly I ended up the night stumbling happily to my 'beater' pickup.
The other cultural experience was foreign movies and again the detective
mystery movies by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet. Since film noir
generally was the film technique it harmonized with our register on life.
Reading,watching and living noir was not bad. My instincts warned it should
feel bad I ought to mature and achieve something but I was tripping the lights
noir. The European directors examined our faults with a kind indication that
suggested, this is how that is and this is life, isn't it.
This noir bubble moved about as I moved. The stuff dreams are made of.
