Established Marvel : a Monk by Abbreviation

179. A SECOND-LEVEL OF BEHAVIOR (nyc, 1968)

I've already told about the Christmas tree set-ups and the guys who'd come to sell them : little sagging pickup trucks with New England plates or some jiggy dumptruck from Pennsylvania suddenly parked on the curb and set there amidst a huge array of trees and stands and lights and wreaths and the average New Yorker waltzing by all this just took it in - looking at the strings of bare bulbs stretched on electrical cord as if they simply were stretched along some construction site somewhere and had to be both tolerated and walked by and the seasonal attributes of 'joy' and 'peace' and all that crap went unsaid except as it related to making Manhattan's old urban canyons of grit and rubble into sudden mountain-men redoubts of woodland bliss and huts and cabins in the forests (New Yorkers have sometimes great imaginations but you can imagine they had to in order to rationalize or conceptualize all this stuff into some cerebral storyland they could live amidst - otherwise it could all drive one crazy) and for a period of three or so weeks there was - amidst the newsstands and fruit and vegetable stands and second-hand books and record stalls - an entire second-level of behavior combining raw frontiersmen with tree-bargaining and the most crafty inspection of merchandise ever seen and within all this too (I must say) was the enormous and wonderful potential of seeing beautiful girls and women in furs and greatcoats and boots and hats looking trim and perfect and luscious as they sauntered through this faux-snowcastle of wonder and awe - I'd swear the most beautiful females who ever were often were right here - and again there were no rules there were no plans and no means of getting to wherever one was going without the fanatical mischief of whatever detour and sidestep these wondrous Manhattan streets brought your way - I mean every avenue and nearly every street - the broader the better Broadway Lexington Columbus lower Fifth and all the rest one after the other and every one had new secrets to bring out and it seemingly never stopped - the amazing rancor and hum of 14th street the wiry torment of 8th and St. Mark's Place and the hootenanny fragmentation of Waverly and Washington Square and all the rest : seemingly a wonder that went forever - and with it ALL I was in love.