Rudzinski, Walter W.

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----------~--------26 M,\"USCRIl'TSOlD'rDWNWalter W. RudzinskiThe street was of contemporary design-complete with con-ternporary filth. The filth contained no refuse (the big, white city sani-tation trucks had swept the refuse away), but the unremovable stainsof a big city-the scum and the condensed. fumes clung steadfastly.The street was there for two purposes: one, to support a start-stopspurt of vubber-bottome.I, metal-clacl, gut and blood-fillecl, exhaust-belching cars.The second reason for the street's existence was not so concrete.It was as if the city were once an aggregate of buildings (like asi ngle·layerecl pile of blocks with no space between), and the street,along with its brothers, had darted in and out of the clusters likesmall rivers grooving out the mud of a delta. Each rivulet had manychildren on her banks and usually baptized them with no other firstname than a number. l'heir surnames were always distinctive, however,and this particular street called her cement steel offspring North Wells.But it was many years ago when the buildings were born andnamed. The Brothers North Wells became old men. They had lived fulllives and were ready to die, but something happened so that thewrecking crews were never called. The students and immigrants andartists and thinkers found the old places cheap to live in and came inhordes.The young people of the mind and the Old Town of North WellsStreet were compatible lovers, and they lay together along the filthystreet. And out of the filth grew the flowers.The flowel'·peoplewel'e different and interesting, and now touristscame and stared almost as at the circus or zoo. The outsider with hisfine sport coat and tie, camera and Iu II wallet stumbled about like theCyclops Polyphemus with one big, dazzled eye.Some of the Brothers North \Vells were changed into discothequesand top- less go-go bars and coffee houses and swank restaurants.MANUSCRIPTS 27But most of the venerable old buildings stayed the same: the tinyantique shops, the old art studios, the quaint restaurants with foreignaccents. Order was nonexistent, but no one cared. Square and flower-men smiled at one another (both secretly despising, yet envying theother). The filthy street divided two crowds-one examining therhythmical undulation of sweaty, sweet breasts; the other examiningtheir lives with heads bowed, emotionally urged on by a man of theLord.The Old Town of North Wells Street became the catharsis of acity through a never failing excitement. The executive with an ulcerand his middle-aged wife with hidderi gray hair basked in the warmthof spirited jazz and more spirited whiskey. A little girl, blond hair verystraight and long, munched a soft pretzel and sipped an Italianlemonade. She was fifteen: a week ago she was a girl, now she was awoman. Her mini-skirted loins thumped with excitement at the thoughtof last Saturday night and her "initiation into womanhood." At leastthat was how Tommy Vatsayana had explained it.Everyone laughed in Old Town. You had to laugh. It was thebiggest and wildest circus on earth. It had the wildest freaks and themost beautiful women. It was a never-ending show. Even the filthystreet was not noticed in the din.Lights were everywhere. They flashed and blinked and dazzled.Both neon and incadescent tubes spelled out commands, pointing,pleading. The whole rainbow and all the stars, the sun, the sky hadmixed, clashed, mutated, splashed over the whole street.Old Town's smell was like the rest of the city but distinctivelymore flavorsome. The aroma (or odor, depending on viewpoint) was amad concoction of Hungarian goulash, sweat, beer, incense, and softpretzels.But even in the gay flower-town of North Wells Street exploitationwas not unknown. The bearded young fellow wore a necklace of freshblossoms, and a white candle flickered in his hands. He sat on the curband meditated freedom while the invisible puppet-strings of a profiteerplayed him as a breathing neon sign. The Iittle shops began to chargeprices far above a fair charge.But even with the exploitation, the excitement of Old Town wasreal, personal, irresistable. It was the excitement of people and existedbecause people are exciting. It was the mad circus on the filthy streetcalled North Wells.

Old Town

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Old Town

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