General George at Valley Forge (SSKC excerpt 2)

He’s mounted on the intersection of South 5th street and South 5th place, with Brooklyn’s Broadway launching eastward directly in front of him. The General faces South. He and his four-hooved soldier, standing on all four of them have the bright sea-green skin of patenized copper, transformed by the salty air, spit up by the tidal straight masquerading as a river, just a stone’s throw to the General’s right.

All year round, the sun shines on his face on a head held high, his skillfully sculpted eyes, nose, and silently puckered lips stare down with sour judgment at the loud, stinking machines of industry that growl past him daily. Thousands and thousands of cars and trucks, hundreds of subway cars pass The General every day, caking their mythic forefather in noxious soot on their way to the Red and Gray steel blemish on the face of the city’s bridge & highway network, The BillyBurg Bridge; Brooklyn’s brawny little bro.

And I bet none of them ever salute him.

Like Grant, he too wears a cloak, though his is wrapped tight around his chest, for this General is not preparing for a battle in the Autumn Rain, but for a long, cold encampment, facing the depravity of the sadistic winter wind.

This General’s pedestal is a perfect match for his 17th heir mounted 3 miles South; it’s a stoic monolith, nearly a dozen feet high with the width and length of a granite coffin. If hollowed, it could generously act as a mausoleum, perhaps for a soldier of great valor, but not for a General.

His name is nowhere to be found, neither on pedestal nor sculpture. Why would it? With his face staring, unblinking into the sun, the face we acknowledge every time we pay tender for a bottle of water, a soda or a chocolate bar at the corner store and greedily slug down as we rush from errand to errand on these non-stop New York days. It’s a face that any red blooded American should know.

Instead of a name, it offers us the name of the encampment where the General kept his troops trained and ready through the winter of ’77 and ’78, trained and willing at all times, every day through the bloodless cold to protect the good city of Philadelphia against the Army of The King.

The Godfather of our nation forever sits poised on his horse at the mouth of the Williamsburg Bridge: General George at Valley Forge.

The Good General led his men with stalwart courage and diligence, but that’s not to say that defeats were not suffered at the hands of the British. History had many years to slough through before General George would be cast in the bronze of victory. And victory against adversaries would never be remembered, if it were not for the nemeses against whom we stand.

We speak praises of the great Washington from when we are old enough to place a hand over our heart in the presence of Stars and Stripes, but when history is penned by the victors, we forget the names the we once faced with, fear, dread and the vow of resistance.

Sir William Howe.

The resolute Knight of Great Britain who sent Washington and his army fleeing across the same estuary that flows beside his statue in the brutal and terse battle of Long Island. The General who strung up Nathan Hale at the hangman’s tree in Manhattan, and would have gleefully done it again if the young spy had more than but one life to give for his country.

Hmmph. Showboating whelp. Your patriotism is much less glamorous when its dripping down your legs at the end of a noose, now isn’t it, BOY?

But Howe was no monster. Howe was no sadist, and in the same vein, he was no different than the Patriot General who sent thousands of his own young men to their graves in the name of an ideal.

Howe and Washington were Generals. Men of Honor.

After the retreat to Manhattan in the summer of ’76 and the defeats at Brandywine and Germantown, the cold was settling in, and Washington needed to keep his men from losing their morale. He took them to the Valley in western Pennsylvania named for a great iron forge there. Close enough to the Patriot capitol to hold off British raiding parties, yet far enough to thwart any surprise attacks. They arrived on the 19th of December, his men poorly fed and ill-equipped. The Schuylkill River had frozen over and the snow was six inches deep. Clothing was inadequate, blankets scarce, food always in shortage with men forced to eat the charred flour & water mixture they bitterly called firecake. The head of the General’s horse is hung low. Perhaps she’s staring at her hundreds of fellow equine who perished in the appalling conditions of that unforgettable winter.

I think back to General Grant, his eyes hidden beneath his shameful brim, realizing that if it weren’t for Cincinnati, head held high, the General might not have known which way to go. Sometimes the horse leads the soldier, and sometimes…

I look in the direction of Great George’s gaze, down Bedford ave, and can’t help but think that he’s keeping on eye of his next century successor, judging him, judging all of us through history’s impregnable wall.

And the only thing worse I ponder than being among the General’s loyal men…would be the one who questioned the General’s dedication to and certainty of victory. The one who caved to cowardice and frailty and questioned the General’s wisdom. To face those wide eyes, which even in flesh must have been as cold, bright and hard as the patenized copper I stare upon today, his decree, once the sound touched the air would become the stuff of prophesy:

“You hold your tongue soldier, for we will emerge from this cold winter in victory. I know this. The future that surrounds us has told me so.”

So hold your head high and salute your General the next time you find yourself on that Manhattan-bound ramp, up that ugly fucking Williamsburg Bridge, soldier.

And War was Good again (SSKC excerpt 3)

It’s no wonder that the 6 acre brownstone and brick armory two blocks up from my place, with it’s eight great round turrets, one of which soars dominantly over its peers, and cornerstones the size of coffins on Bedford would resemble a castle. It’s between Atlantic and Pacific streets; in the microcosm of Kings County, I guess that would mean the armory represented the pride of the nation, from sea to shining sea. It was the 1890s, and after a bitter reconstruction, a country searching for its soul for nearly thirty years after losing it in the bowels of hell, America was finding its pride once more.

We had found a new enemy, and praise the good Christian Lord, it wasn‘t us. The greedy, licentious, Spaniards; the Grand Conquistador of 400 years past was now feebly clinging to it’s handful of sad little colonies, island scraps in the South Pacific and scattered here and there in their in the Old New World. A tarnished bronze gauntlet that clutched the peasant colony of Cuba like a vice, while the gold that kept the grip firm grew thin. The Cubans were being forced into concentration camps, mass evacuations and atrocities up and down the coasts.

Those Spanish bastards. This was the Western Hemisphere, our Hemisphere. The United States, still limping and sore was beginning to stand tall once again, taller than it had before. By simple precedent the United States had no just claim on the island. But isn't it true thaat precedents are made, not born? Was it not time for the most civilized nation in the world to assert its presence? Was it not time for An American Empire?

Providence itself had propelled us Westward, teaching the savage Indians of the land the ways of our Lord by any means necessary, and the winds of change now pointed us South through the gates of the justly won Alamo and into the mouth of the Gulf. The beacon that led the way was a ship that burst into flames and sunk nobly into the sea, taking 266 American Boys to the depths with it.

The Spanish had done it. The proof was inconclusive, the evidence contradictory and full of holes, but good God man, for the sake of American patriotism it had to be irrefutable. There was confusion, had the Spanish Navy sunk the Maine? Or was it the Cuban rebels? What did it matter? Hearst bellowed in his Herald paper. What did that matter, if the Spanish could control their harbor, good American boys wouldn’t have gone down, it was our imperative to make change now! By all logic, it had to be true. How and why would we go down there like good Christian soldiers of fortune and freedom if the Spanish hadn’t sunk the U.S.S. Maine?

The evidence was softer than clay, but the fires of battle made it harder than obsidian stone.

It was the dusk of a dark century. A dawn of a new one.

And War was Good again.

It’s a robust, hearty castle, red as the Earth of Adam evocative of the barrel-chested men who ruled the day, McKinley, who had sent the men down into war once claimed that he prayed on his knees to the Good Lord in the middle of the Oval Office for guidance on what to do. That God himself pointed him toward the right way, toward the musket and the bayonette, for the sake of the Cuban people who needed good American liberation.

Coward. The brutish Under-Secretary of the Navy left praying to the women and children, picked up a rifle and bullied his superiors into lead his own squad of wild men up San Juan Hill.

Teddy was his name, a real man of good, rich Dutch-American Stock. a Boy of top breeding who rose as high as the highest rung of New York respectable families. He and his Rough Riders knew that on the battlefield, it is the sword of the Archangel that will guide you to victory, not some vague finger pointed by an absent and ominous God.

They were America’s First Volunteer Cavalry. The Weary Walkers of Colonel Leonard Wood, who found themselves acting as infantry, one of the only three units to see any real action. Roosevelt resigned his Cabinet position to follow Wood into battle, taking with him a mosaic of America’s finest, bravest and most proud, from the Montana Ranch Hand to the Harvard Polo Player, from the Indian Scouts of the Pawnee Tribe to Gunslinger Cowboys of the Dakota Badlands, local town sherrifs and nomadic highway bandits. Even officers who served under Police Commissioner Roosevelt followed their Warrior Prince to the barracks of Texas and Florida where they trained like Spartans during the day and tossed, turned, sweated and burned at night as they dreamed of their Dawn at the Hot Gates of Thermopole.

The first generation of free American Negros lead that charge up San Juan Hill, but being free Negroes, got the complete lack of credit that the White Men of America waned. Returning home victorious, they were lost in the shadow of praise for Theodore. They quietly and proudly renamed their Manhattan West Side haven after the site of their bloody conquest.

And Commander and Chief of these Obsidian Buffalo Soldiers was the pale, sickly moon-faced McKinley? A sad, dismal answer to the call for an Emperor. How could a man lead an empire if he can’t take a bullet to the chest, get back up and finish the job? The bullet of a workingman no less, one of the millions broken by the ruthlessness of American industry brought down a President at a train station outside of Buffalo. Now The American Empire needed a Bear to wield its big stick. A Rough Rider, a warrior and civic principal of pure American blood. And when the call came up the rural Adirondack mountain, where the warrior prince lay in waiting, Gotham’s favorite son Theodore was ready to answer. Hell he held the lantern like two stone tablets when he came down that mountain in the pouring, weeping rain.

Eight years later, TR was the fourth man to take the lead-slug test of the late 19th century President. He claimed the The Ghost of McKinley himself compelled the Milwaukee saloon keeper John Schrank to put a bullet through this President's chest. It punctured his glasses case and ribcage, but more importantly ripped a hole through the speech he proceeded to read for the next ninety minutes before sauntering through the doors of the closest hospital.

Ten years later, he died of a broken heart. Weeping for his son who was shot down from the skies over the trenches of The Great War.

In America, being A Man would never mean the same thing again

* * * *

The Armory stands like a fortress, a castle to the might of the American Military. If it only had a moat, it could suit the very court of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. After the return from victory in the seas near and far, the Armory was used for sporting events, keeping young men fit and competitive, when there was no grand overseas victory to claim from the bloodied hands of an adversary.

In 1981 it became a men’s homeless shelter. Scores of broken toy solders now huddled in and around the relic in hoodies, caps, faded jeans and cigarette smoke seeking guidance, hope, and just little scratch to score a hot cup of coffee, a meal or a little something to help them forget. Now at the grand armory, it’s just lost boys; each fighting their own small, sad little wars.

I really had to haul ass up Bedford now. It was almost 6.

Of Virtue and Valor (SSKC excerpt 1)

In ’76, we were all high on the New Idea, something with endless possibilities. In each year that came after the Founders had gone to seed, their vision became distorted more and more with each generation hence. I think Poetry was the first thing to go.

Columbia was out, but the vision she embodied still clung to the nation’s subconscious, not in the head, or even the heart, but in the gut, and in many cases, United States of America; it looked good on paper, and we wore it on our uniform lapels hearts, but Columbia warmed us at night, and kept us fed when our bellies laid bare. United States of America steeled our resolve before the gun-smoke mêlées from Massachusetts to the Carolinas, but it was Columbia that lit the fire that charged us forth. She was passionate and scandalous and fueled us with such purpose, that in no time, she had earned bones and on those bones, supple flesh. Breasts, hips, belly and thighs, her arms thrust open, and feet gripping the Earth, standing firm and forward, her chest swelled with courage.

Our Lady Columbia.

She was the girl that all the Revolutionaries kissed once on the lips before bed each night on the march, The one they sang ballads to late at night in the inns, drunk on old Franklin’s Proof of God’s Love. A hundred years later, the crates upon crates upon crates of iron and pressed copper made their way from France across the Atlantic. Our friends from the Revolution bestowed us with a new colossus of feminine dignity. Cloaked and modest, welcoming, yet chaste, we ignored the awkwardness of the situation. Someone forgot to tell them we were already taken.

They didn’t make the easiest of adopted sisters. Liberty was no bully, but she was a big girl and she outshone her big sister pretty quickly. Fine by Columbia, Libby could play nursemaid all she wanted to boatloads of refugees, lifting her lamp day in and day out, coddling and caring for all those confused plebeians with no clue which way to turn. Yes dear, you’ve made it to the New World. No dear, the streets aren’t really paved with gold. No, I don’t know where you can find your cousin, talk to the man at Ellis I’m sure he could help you.

My god, Columbia thought. How exhausting. No wonder she called it quits and shut down shop in 1954. It was a mundane, tedious exercise for which Columbia the wild girl had no time, she would rather be sneaking out the back door to party with the boys. What did Libby know anyway, she didn’t see The War.

Because The War. The real one, the one that had been sewn like a pack of larva under the countries skin, burrowing deep, just to have the wound burst open with blood, pus and Blue and Gray maggots 85 years later. The Real War. That was Columbia’s last moment in the fires of grandeur.

And in the years after the guns were laid down, two men, wise men of the earth stood on a hill’s crest in the City of Brooklyn and said: “Here. This is the spot we have chosen.” The men were architects. Landscape architects, a new term that combined botanical arts with structural design into creating vast natural landscapes in the middle of bustling cities.

Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmstead had triumphed over the Herculean task of returning Nature and Peace to the center of New York. And after Central Park opened as the greatest Urban Miracle the world had ever seen,
Vaux and Olmstead had the standing to build a park exactly as they saw fit. A vanity piece. A new park that would embody the Prospect of a new dawn.

Brooklyn would be their canvas.

Olmstead had been a journalist, reporting as a Northerner in the South. And now in the days of Reconstruction, they wanted a grand sweeping entrance to a pristine urban retreat here in New York’s prominent sister city, a stately yet fervent commemoration to Columbia’s boys that went down.

And Vaux and Olmstead loved their girl, what red-blooded American man didn’t in 1876? They wanted her in all her glory at the doorway to their latest park. Our Lady Columbia atop a Grand Army Plaza that lead into their immaculate Prospect Park. The Arch would be inspired by the French aesthetic, Brooklyn’s own Arc De Triomphe that would welcome trolley-cars through, and horse carriages all around, a wheel with it’s spokes stretching out to the far reaches of the city, this Plaza would be it’s nexus, and our Goodbye Girl would preside from it’s top.

Her Quadriga, a four-horse chariot leads her into battle, two Spirits of Victory, bearing trumpets on either side declare her awesome presence. She too, holds a torch, but this is no blaze of enlightenment. The flame sits atop a long lance, crowned with a ring of fire that she no doubt stole from Helios himself and sweet-talked that sap Icarus into taking the fall for it. Columbia’s fire is a weapon, a herald of the carnage that stood in her path, and would lay in her wake.

Flanked under her, on either side are her boys. Columbia always had the highest standards for her men, and after the first shots were fired, she would only run with fellas who served. The Sailors and Soldiers. The men who threw themselves into battle for her. Would you fight for me, boys? Stand up for you girl if a bully was treatin’ me mean? Would you bleed for me, boys? Would you die for me?

You can bet the farm, the horse, the cow and the hen that that they would, and they did. The boys threw themselves to the slaughter for her favor, The Civil War was Troy and Columbia was our Helen.

Spirit of the Army and Spirit of the Navy; Fred MacMonnies called the two collections of figured that rested in the center of each of the legs of the arch. On her left stand her sailors. Lead by some wide-winged, eagle-crowned daughter of Poseidon, a trident thrust high, her tits: perfection, poised like torpedoes. A captains wheel and quiver of arrows stand behind her. At the forefront stand shirtless chaps and bearded vets, willing and eager. white men and Negros alike. A young black-skinned boy is crouched in front with a cannon by his left knee. And in their right corner, one young boy felled by the villain’s volley, he lays limp in his comrade’s arms.

Under her left Angel of Victory stand the Soldiers, guided by a trumpeting messenger of Athena, their muskets blazing, their bayonettes glinting in the autumn sun. One zealous troop rushes forth with his squadron. Both squads are guided by a buxom angel to an certain doom they accepted long ago.

And they did it all for her.

I’m standing at the mouth to the park, staring up at that sculpture, I can see why they sacrificed their lives in her honor; her lithe frame fully upright behind her blazing lance. Her scandalously voluptuous form is freed from all restrain; the same cloak that Liberty wore with modesty and decorum, is flung wide behind her, swirling through the air and she stands poised in a delicately sculpted and, even in bronze, almost translucent blouse.

MacMonnies must have wet his sheets dreaming of the Hourglass Harbinger.