A Bolt from the Blue

In 1997 I rented a house in Ballyconeeley, Galway from Lord Guinness. A haunted unheatable cottage in the bogs. Plenty of rooms and Dad came over to visit. He rented a car at Shannon Airport and somehow made it to the house. The man had a wicked sense of direction. I put him in the guesthouse with an electric heater. The next day, my friend, Todd Shikegane, Dad, and I set off on a road trip. One destination was Nana's village. Dad knew the name. He wasn't so sure about the actual location. We stopped at the church and the parish priest said, "Ah, yes, I know Timmy Walsh. He lives in a cottage across the stream. A local musician with a taste for whiskey."

The last sentence wasn't a compliment.  I stopped at the town grocer for a bottle of Paddy. A coming-home gift from strangers.

His direction coincided with Dad's remembering his visit here with our mother back in the 1960s. We crossed a shallow stream to find ourselves before a primeval windowless stone house. I parked the car and we got out. A long-haired man emerged from the cottage. A bit scruffy, but not many reasons to get dressed up in the early morning in County Mayo.

"And who you might be?"

"My grandmother, Nana Walsh, lived in this cottage before she emigrated in the Year of the Crow." No one in our family had been able to discern the year. I had guessed it to be at the turn of the century. The cottage hadn't seen any improvement since then other than a tin roof had replaced the thatch.

"You're not here about the cottage." Those that stayed behind the Migration called visitors like ourselves 'a bolt from the blue,' according to the drinkers at Keough's Pub in Ballyconeeley.

"Not at all." 

"Well, why you come?" He was suspicious, as are many bachelors in rural Ireland. Mostly first sons, since everyone else left for the cities or America or the UK to find a new life. There were no women left for the first sons. All they possessed was the land and whiskey.

"To see where I came from and give you a bottle of Paddy."

I handed him the liter and he smiled.

"I'll get glasses."

He didn't invite us inside. He brought out a tray with the Paddy tucked under his arm. We had a drink and my father said, "Here's to Nana Walsh. A good woman."

Clink and down the hatch. A nod, good-bye, a handshake, and we left, heading north. We had a lot of miles to go.

WALK LIKE A WOMAN by Peter Nolan Smith

Billy Wilder’s 1959 SOME LIKE IT HOT was a funny movie about two Depression-era musicians hiding from the Chicago Mob in an all-women band working in Florida. My family saw the hit film the next summer at the South Shore Drive-In outside Boston. All the children wore pajamas in our Ford station wagon. We all laughed at the confusion of men thinking men were women. I didn’t think much about men dressing as women, until several years later my next-door neighbor asked me in his basement, “Who you think is prettier? Jack Lemmon or Tony Curtis? In that movie.”

“Neither.” I answered, although I thought Tony Curtis more feminine.

In 1964, men in dresses weren’t meant to be pretty to twelve-year-old boys on Boston’s South Shore. Men were men and women were women, except for Milt Berle. The comedian wore dresses all the time for laughs. Men were men and women were women, except for Milt Berle. The comedian wore dresses all the time for laughs. He was never pretty.

“Yeah, but if you had to make a choice, who would you pick?” Chuckie Manzi was my new best friend. We were good Catholic boys.I thought this was a weird question.

“I pick Marilyn.” The blonde actress was the logical choice. Everyone in America loved her. Male and female.

“Marilyn’s a dead woman. You wouldn’t want to make love to a dead woman, so if you were on a deserted island with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, who would be your wife?”

“I would kill myself before marrying either of them.”

“I am not talking about marrying them.”

I knew what he was talking about. I didn’t want to hear about it.

The Catholic Church condemned men dressing as woman an abomination, however the priests wore long black cassocks. They looked like dresses to me. As an altar boy, I also wore in a cassock and surplice. We all knew what’s evil lurked beneath the priests’ robes. Accordingly, I kept my distance from the predatory black robes.

“I know.” I had heard boys say that term at my school, Our Lady of the Foothill. school. A classmate had explained the term originated from England, where strange men wore women’s dresses with long hems dragging on the floor. He hadn’t explained how he had learned that knowledge.

At Sunday morality lectures, the priests warned of strange men with hatred greater than communism. I possessed several sets of clothing; jeans and a teeshirt, snow clothing, summer gear, school uniform, and an altar boy surplice and cassock. My mother so wanted me to answer a calling to the Church.

“Some of them are supposed to be pretty.”

“Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon are not pretty.”

“You’re no fun.” Chuckie gave up on getting an answer he liked.

A year later, I entered over his house and caught who I thought was his sister, Addy, upstairs in lingerie. I was in love with my ex-babysitter, but it was Chuckie in a wig. He said, “I just wanted to feel what it was like.”

“Right.”

We remained friends throughout the 1960s. The two of us attended the same Catholic boys' school. I had stopped serving as an altar boy. When Ray Davies sang on The Kinks’ hit song LOLA, “She walked like a woman and talked like a man.” Chuckie asked, “You ever see a man walk like a woman and talk like a man?”

“Once at the Greyhound Bus Station. I had bought Levi's jeans at Walker’s Jeans on Boylston Street and was walking to South Station.”

“Through the Combat Zone?”

Strip bars, gay clubs, porno parlors, and prostitution had a place there. Boston’s adult entertainment district was the antithesis of the suburbs. Boys my age were banned from entry into these sin palaces.

“Yeah, I was looking for something at Jack’s Joke Shop and outside the Hillbilly Ranch. A man in a dress was fighting a sailor. He hadn’t paid her.” The Hillbilly Ranch was next to the bus station. Anyone could drink in the country-western bar and anyone did. The beers were fifty cents. Drinks a dollar.

"For sex."

"I guess so."

“Who won?”

“The drag queen. They’re tough, because they have to be tough. You still try on Addy’s lingerie.”

“No, I outgrew them.” His comment sounded more like he was speaking about his waist and not the act.

“You could always try on your mother’s panties.”

“Fuck off.” Chuckie dropped this Oedipal subject forever.

After high school, we grew apart.

I attended a Catholic university on the outskirts of Boston and drove a taxi to pay for an apartment near the campus. My last fares of the night were from the Combat Zone; mostly go-go dancers, drunks, and a few drag queens from the Other Side. The trannies were good tippers. Several were more attractive than the strippers from the Two O’Clock Lounge.

The drag queens often trafficked straight tricks to the cheap hotels in the South End. Neither passenger spoke en route. Groping was their only communication. After dropping them off for a night of wicked sex in a cheap hotel room. I couldn’t help, but sing Lou Reed’s WALK ON THE WILD SIDE.

“In the back room she was everyone’s darling.”

In 1971 I didn’t know what a back room was. My gay friend, Bruce, from the 1270, taught me all the sex lingo at the 1270, where I danced with men and fag hags. Sometimes more. A move to New York in 1976 opened my eyes, because sexual frontiers were blurred in a city where people answered their desires with a constant yes.

I frequented the West Street bars with queer friends from the ballet. They told the fag hags about my doubts about being a homo. These models, air hostesses, and strippers thought they might cure me. They succeeded, because I was mostly straight.

One night at the Anvil, I waited for my friends to complete their voyage to Sodom. No women were allowed in the bar. I was surprised when an attractive slender brunette sat next to me. She could have graced a fashion runway in her pink tube top and hot pants. A long lacquered nail touched my shoulder.

”Can you buy me a drink?”

Her faux falsetto betrayed why the bouncer had permitted her into the Anvil. I ignored her request.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, just thinking of an old song.”

“Let me guess.” She rolled her eyes. “LOLA.”

“Yes.”

“Too bad it wasn’t a song you want to dance to like Diana Ross’ LOVE HANGOVER.”

“Why?” The ex-Supreme singer had scored a big hit with that dance song in the gay discos.

“Because I’m a good dancer.” She wiggled her shoulders like a Times Square go-go girl

“I bet you are.” I signaled the bartender for two drinks. Both gin and tonic. “My name’s Dove. How you like to go in the back room with me? You can do anything you want.”

“No thanks.”

“Why? Don't you want me? You will do anything. Anything." Her lips pouted with disappointment. Anything covered a lot of territory for Dove.

“You’re every man’s dream, if I were that type of man.”

“No one who comes here is 100% straight. That’s why I sat here. The queers have no time for me. I’m safe in here.”

Transvestites had it tough in the straight world. Men beat them to prove their masculinity. The queens fought back and created a legend by fighting off the NYPD at the 1969 Stonewall Riots. I had a lisp and a stutter as a young boy. My hometown friends hated anyone different and even more so now, since our side had won the Sexual Revolution. My mother and father knew nothing about my baby brother. He also dressed in my mother's dresses.

“My name is Dove.”

She kissed my cheek, Her perfume Chanel. She sipped her gin and tonic.

“I thought you came over to hustle me for a drink.” “Fresh.” She slapped my hand. “I have my own money.” She flashed a thick roll of twenties.

“I’m kept by a very important person.” “Who’s your VIP?”

“A US senator from Dixie.”

“Which one?”

“If I told you, he’d have to kill you. I accompanied him to Jimmy Carter’s inaugural ball. Every man there stumbled over their shoes to worship my high heels, especially those wicked Christian Republicans. They love nothing more than sin with girls like me.”

“I bet they do.”

After that comment, the two of us conversed about politics, love, and sex. I wasn’t in a hurry for my friends to finish in the back room. I ordered more drinks. My friends were lost in the Anvil’s snake pit.

An hour later I waved for the bill.

“Where you going?”

“Home.” I lived in a SRO room on 11th Street and 5th. A good address. A sunken bed, linoleum floor, and a shared hallway bathroom. Not very clean.

“So I guess this means you’re going alone?”

“Sorry. I have to work in the morning.” It was a lie. I had run out of money. I had no work.

I kissed Dove goodnight.

“Don’t be sorry; one night you and I will get it together.”

“Never,” I answered too fast to be telling the truth.

“I’m patient.”

She stood up to twitch a hip as a calling card for that future date in Never-Neverland.

Dove was not only patient. She was persistent. I refused her at the Mudd Club, Studio 54, CBGBs, Hurrahs, Xenon, Club 82, the Kiev, and Dave’s Luncheonette.

“One night you and me.”

“Never.”

And I thought never was forever, then on Halloween in 1980 I attended a black-tie Paloma Picasso party honoring the NY Ballet at Danceteria on 37th Street. The illegal nightclub was packed with Upper East Side slummers. After an hour of Moët champagne, I retrieved my leather jacket from the coat check.

While waiting in line, a young ballet boy stumbled into me. His clumsiness came not from too many drinks. A brutish six-footer shook the dancer by his tuxedo lapels. The stitching of the ballet boy’s evening suit gave way. I slashed my arm down on his aggressor’s wrists to break the bully’s grasp. The gay boy pirouetted gracefully into the crowd.

“Why you do that?” the thug demanded with eyes blurred red with Dexies.

“Because I didn’t feel like being bumped, while you beat up on a fag.”

“And what are you going to do about it?” His hands clenched into fists. Boys from Boston didn’t back down. I lashed a right to his mouth. The punch staggered him. He spit a tooth in my chest. I had a fight on my hands and not a good one. I threw lefts and rights faster than his counters. My heavy opponent weathered the blows without any sign of damage and backed me up to the wall.

I was in trouble, then two bouncers abruptly stopped the brawl.

I had worked the clubs. They knew me and threw the Jersey boy out of Dacneteria. None of us liked Bridge and Tunnel, even though I came from New England. I had never been a New Yorker. There were no tunnels on the highways from Boston to Manhattan.

Two ballerinas praised my standing up against this gay basher and invited me to an Upper East Side party. I exited Danceteria with the two dancers in tow. Their hero. On the sidewalk I raised my hand to wave down a passing taxi. It never reached the air. Something struck the base of my skull.

Hard.

I toppled into the gutter and pulled my arms over my head. A second blow booted my ego past my superego into an emerald green id pulsating with lightning. This was not a good sign. Finally, a voice asked with a Jersey accent, “Have you had enough?”

“Yes.”

I sat up on the curb with difficulty. Blood streaming from my forehead. A handsome young man stood between me and my assailant. The thug strode away the victor. I rose to my feet, shaken to the core. My eyes were still rimmed by the emerald flashes.

“Are you all right?” asked the young photographer on the scene.

I had seen him around. His name was Marcus.

“I think so.” My teeth were intact and my nose unbroken.

“He might have killed you if I hadn’t pulled him off.” Marcus was clearly horrified by the damage to my face. He pointed to the bat in my assailant’s hand.

“I owe you one.” I glanced in a car mirror. Blood drooled from a dozen cuts and bruises blossomed on my skull. I picked up a napkin from my gutter and wiped my face clean.

I took a taxi home and stayed in bed for a few days.

Every second of my convalescence I plotted my revenge. An attack from behind. New York was a city of millions, but the nightlife in 1979 consisted of maybe 3000 people. I counted on running into the thug again and carried a slender stiletto to exact my payback.

Two weeks later, a transvestite trapeze bar opened in Times Square. Dove’s lover was part-owner. She sat at the bar. She was more beautiful than ever. She signaled the bartender for drinks. A Virginia Slim glowed between her fingers.

“I heard about you saving that gay boy at Danceteria. You’re my hero.”

“Heroes don’t get the shit beaten out of them.” My swollen facial bones had returned to their original positions. The scars had healed and the bruises a lighter yellow.

“Well, you’re a hero to me. I’d love to show you how much.” The black Chanel dress revealed the best features of her Mia Farrow figure.

“Thanks, but I’m not really in a romantic mood.”

“I could change that in a second.”

Her hand caressed my thigh. Dove opened a Pond’s Cream jar packed with shiny pink Bolivian flake. A rarity in the clubs. Cocaine was everyone’s weakness in the clubs. No was never no on blow.

“You, me, and an ounce of blow. How can you say no?”

“Not tonight.” I rose off the stool.

“What's wrong?” She was an expert judge of men's moods.

“That guy who beat me up just walked past us.” He had checked out Dove. Most men and women do. Not a flicker of recognition upon seeing my face. My hand sought the knife in my pocket. The handle was as cold as the blood in my veins. The thug had his back to me. I had envisioned this opportunity for weeks.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Dove pushed me back down and puffed on her cigarette. “But girls like me learn early how to protect ourselves and our friends. I’ll take care of this.”

“This is something I have to do for myself.”

“No, you don’t. Believe me, it’ll be better this way.”

She read the murder in my eyes.

“This better be good.”

“Silly man, this will be better than bad.”

Dove stole through the crowd like a sleek serpent sneaking through high grass to its prey. She sucked on the slender Virginia Slim. The ember on the tip burned a lava red. Dove winked at me and tapped the thug on the shoulder. He turned around and she stuck the cigarette in his eye. Screaming, he dropped to his knees. Hands over his eye. Dove returned to the bar.

“Will you go home with me now?”

“How can I refuse?”

At my room, we snorted blow, then necked and petted and groped without intercourse. The cocaine was too strong. I wished it hadn’t been. In the morning Dove left my apartment, whispering that my erectile dysfunction was our little secret.

“Thanks.”

“No, thank you, super-hero.” Dove was a starlet of discretion.

Her bar lasted a half-year. Dove sold out her interest to the owners of Danceteria. Over the next months, Dove began to dress like a Park Avenue divorcee with nova blonde hair. One day she told me that she was moving south.

“To Palm Beach.”

“Big money country.”

She shrugged a shoulder cloaked by Dior.

“The Senator isn’t running for re-election. He wants to make me an honest woman.”

“An operation?”

“Perish the thought.”

“Good luck.” Beauty was a powerful card to play with the rich.

“Thanks, but I was born lucky.” She smiled, knowing the odds weren’t in her favor, but they never are for girls like her.

And now every time I hear WALK ON THE WILD SIDE I think about Dove. She was everyone’s darling in the right mood and beat out Tony Curtis as my # 1 choice on a deserted island, although I couldn’t have foreseen that option in 1964.

Not even in my wettest dreams.

THE END

Dove vanished into the 90s. I saw her once in this century. I think of her often. She was very beautiful, funny, and tough. I liked that in her, because that meant I didn't have to be me.

Marcus and I remained friendly into the new century Both born in 1952 like Duncan Hannah and Jorge Socarras Marcus and I lived around the world He in India and Portugal Me in Thailand and France He passed in 2022 He is still here in my mind So is Dove Forever and a day___ THE END

Ireland - ELK BOOKS The Last Issue

Jocko Weyland has published his last issue of ELK and included an excerpt from my journal entries from my long stay in the West of Ireland. 1997. Ballyconneely. Twenty-five years ago.

Yeah, Todd and my stay in Ballyconneely was weird. September was fine. October grew grim with a damp cold emanating from the thick walls. November the rains struck with a sodden ferocity.

On my first day in the farming town I went to the village's only pub, expecting penny whistles, singing around a peat fire, and frothy Guinness. Instead a brooding huddle of sullen EU-subsidized cow-farming bachelors greeted my entrance with squinty gazes.

I offered a round. They accepted them with any thanks. I hadn't expected any and settled into getting drunk on Guinness, listening to the brogue and warmly thinking, "This is Ireland, the land of my grandparents".

A shove interrupted my fond memories of my Nana.

"Whatcha lookin' at?" asked a gnome wearing a tam over a Brillo pad of a sweep-over.

I answered the local color honestly, "The wall."

"Well, I'll be troublin' you to not look at that bit of the wall. It's mine."

The bartender told Mikey to shut his hole and the pub sunk into the sullen silence of the West of Ireland. I drank only with the MacGregor brothers. They owned the post office/grocery shop. Protestants. The village’s Church of England in the village was next door. To our cottage.A pile of stone. The IRA had sacked the church during the Civil Waranc the congregation had fled to Ulster,

Over the following weeks, the locals avoided Todd and me. Mikey always told me not to look at the wall. It was the only contact I had with the village males.

It didn't matter. I walked through the bogs to the Atlantic. Wellingtons kept my feet dry. Todd had a bad back and stayed close to the haunted schoolhouse, which we had rented from the Guinness family. His girlfriend called the house every day and told him how sunny it was in LA.

He later married Lori.

On my next birthday in New York, she and I drank margaritas at Banditos in the East Village and went swimming in the East River. She wore a tablecloth as a sarong. Todd hated me. They married and had a daughter. They still are married.

The reason for going to Ireland was that my mother's deathbed wish was that I marry someone like her, my sisters, or aunts. This sounded fairly incestuous, but the only women in Ballyconneely were fourteen year-old girls pregnant from their pimply boyfriends, married wives in the forties, and two lesbians from Clifden.

One evening Mikey and I were drinking at the pub.. . Not talking, except for grunts. The village's only attractive female over eighteen was behind the Guinness stick. Mikey noticed my interest and called her over.

"Does my American friend stand a chance with you?"

"Not a chance."

"He punched my arm and said, "Right them, back to your beer and keep your eyes off my wall."

October 26, 1978 East Village Journal Entry

On Alice; she is very frustrated with the lacak of progress on Moliere's GENTLEMEN OF VERONA at the Kurt Dempster's Ensemble Theater, since the young actors all hate each other. She is the director of this production. I asked, "Can't you channel the hatred?"

"What do you know about theater?"

We were on the Bowery. I stopped walking to ask myself, "What am i doing here with her?"

Alice kept walking and hadn't noticed I wasn't with her. She had been lost in this maelstrom of anxiety and anger for the past month, as if her this play was on Broadway, instead of a college repertory for out-of-state students.

Last night in my SRO room, I went to the dresser to take out my contacts. Alice thought I was leaving to drink at CBGBs and turned off the light, saying, "Fuck you."

I turned and she said, "Don't hit me."

"You fucking stupid bitch. What do you think I am? I love you and you say you love me. What are those words? Something you memorized like a script. That's all you can give. Words. You can't wait to be with someone new to use as a dumb actor for your scenes."

She shriveled into the pillows.

"Please don't hit me, please."

She was frightened, but sounded like she really wanted me to hurt her. "Yesterday was my birthday and all I got from you was your freaking out about nothing. This play is important to you. But I matter not all to you. I'm nothing to you."

"I'm sorry." The words sounded sincere, but she's a better-than-good actress. I loved her, even now.

"Sorry. Another word. It means nothing. Words on more words meaning nothing. If I didn't live in this shithole, I would leave you. What can you do to make me not throw you out."

It was late. I wanted her in my life. I had no one else. I never did. I breathed deeply to cool down and asked, "Have I ever threatened you?"

"No, but you fight people all the time."

She was right. I had no answer for why. I have always fought. I have never hit a woman, although I had taken off a Fyre boot and thrown it at my younger sister, who had said she hated me after I picked her up late at a bowling alley when she was 12. Women are normally terrorized by men. All their lives. I stripped off my clothes and slipped under the covers.

"I'm sorry I scared you."

We went to sleep without a kiss or a caress, and I remembered a line from Wim Wenders KINGS OF THE ROAD.

"I don’t know how one can live with a woman,” says Robert. “I’ve always felt lonely inside a woman."

I had a horrible dream about being trapped on an interstate. I woke and saw Alice sleeping. She looked at peace. I returned to the nightmare. It wouldn't go away.

In the morning, she parted without a word, as if we would never see each other again. After the play, she's going back to Ohio to finish her last college semester. Even her leaving this morning is hard on me. She'll be gone maybe for good. We've been together since March. Nothing lasts in eternity except eternity.

foto from Wim Wenders' KINGS OF THE ROAD

NOT A CHANCE 2013

In 1984 I flew home from Paris for Christmas in Boston.

After the holiday I headed south to New York.

The East Village to be exact.

New snow prettified Tompkins Square Park.

Tomorrow it would be cold dirty slush.

January 1985. East 10th Street - East Village.

This morning I had $200 in my wallet. Nothing in my bank. My subleasee wasn’t moving into my apartment until month’s end, when I was flying back to Paris. Two weeks to klll in the subarctic of New York City. Florida was 1200 miles away. Airline ticket $149. Hitchhiking to Miami Beach took as long as the 24 Hours at Le Mans race, especially with the Federal speed limit set at 55 mph.

In the winter of 1975, I had hitchhiked to California. Nearly froze to death in the back of a pick-up truck crossing West Texas. The first stage of a trip south now would be freezing well into the Carolinas. Hitchhiking to Miami was out, but not staying in the city. At least my apartment had steam heat.

An hour later, my phone rang. It was Clark Hoseman, a New York fashion photographer. I hadn’t seen him since last autumn in Paris.

During October, I had assisted him during the pret-a-porter shows. He had shot the fashion models backstage. Sometimes catching them in states of undress. At night, Clark had brought the girls to the Bains-Douches, where I worked as a physionomiste or doorman. The French were experts at having a good time, and aside from le Privilege under le Palais disco, Les Bains was where to be.

"What are you doing in New York?" asked Clark

"Waiting to sublet my apartment and then going back to Paris at the end of the month."

"You ever been to Jamaica?"

"Only seeing THE HARDER THEY COME." I had seen the reggae movie in 1973 at the Orson Welles Cinema on Mass. Avenue in Cambridge. Jimmy Cliff transported me from frozen New England to a world far south of Florida. A Rasta world of Jah, guns, and ganja, with palm trees and white-sand beaches.

"Do you know how to scuba-dive?"

"Sort of. Why?" I had snorkeled in Florida and the South of France.

"Because I'm shooting the cover of Life Magazine with a young movie actress in Jamaica." He mentioned the very American name.

"Never heard of her."

"She's going out with Jackson Browne."

The singer was on the cover of Rolling Stone. He had protested against the nuclear plant in Seabrook. Ground zero was about 40 miles from my hometown of Boston. Jackson Browne was cool.

"Is she good-looking?" .

"Daryl Hannah was in BLADE RUNNER."

"Ahhh, the Blonde clone." I loved her performance as an acrobatic killer in Ridley Scott's transformation of DO ANDROIDS DREAM ON ELECTRIC SLEEP? by Philip K. Dick. "She was very cool. "

"So how'd you like to come to Jamaica? I’m shooting her for the cover of Life Magazine. I need an assistant who can dive and handle a camera underwater. $150 a day, plus hotels and food."

"Then I'm your man." I was an ace at faking expertise, especially if it meant being warm on a tropical beach.

Three days later, the Life Magazine team departed snowy New York from JFK on an Air Jamaica direct flight to Kingston, Jamaica. Customs was a breeze. Clark hired a small prop plane to fly Bernadette, the Life reporter, Irwin, the make-up artist, Deb, the fey hair stylist, and the two of us to the northern side of the island. Far from Negril, the # 1 party resort on the island along with Negril. We were meant to meet the star in the terminal. Clark led us to a small hangar. For island-hopping planes.

"Where's Daryl?" My eyes scanned the grassy runway for a blonde movie actress.

"A change of plans. She'll be here tonight." Clark was also disappointed by her no-show. "According to the stylist, she's having trouble with Jackson, which might give me an opening."

"An opening?" The word held one meaning for a photographer. Most of them slept with their models. Offering career advancement. Daryl couldn’t need any from Clark. She was a movie star.

"I want a shot at her. You help me and I'll double your bonus."

"Help you?"

"You're a poet. Make me look good."

"I'll do what I can." I was no pimp, but let him believe I was Iceberg Slim.

I understood I had no chance. I was a very unknown poet. An actor friend had once explained the male pecking order of Hollywood.

"At a party, the producer has first shot at the actress. Fifteen minutes later, it's the director's chance. The next half-hour is slotted for the leading man, but a writer never gets any play. An actress would rather go with the parking valet than a writer."

A quick rain burst drove us into the terminal. A propless C-47 cargo plane sat in the weeds. A driver appeared in a van. His name was Dave. He took us to the Trident Villas and pointed to a flowered villa. "That's where Errol Flynn lived. He was good for Port Antonio."

You ever meet him?”

”Mon, I ain’t that old.”

Errol had been a star in CAPTAIN BLOOD, the quintessential sword-swashing movie. Jamaica had once been a pirate island. Port Antonio had once had history.

At the Trident Villas, we headed to our rooms. Mine overlooked a cliff. The waves smashed on the rocks. Next door was a famous Broadway choreographer. We knew each other from the disco days. Tim was leaving the following day and gave me a bag of pot weighing over a pound.

"I'm not taking it. It's yours. Give whatever's left to the next person."

Tim and I hit a bowl. I didn’t smoke too much weed. Not clean weed like the local herb.

That evening's dinner was a ganga fog. I don’t recall speaking with any of the other crew. Clark was talking enough for everyone, but there was no movie star. As the assistant, I was cleared to say nothing. Only to follow orders.

The next morning I woke wanting to sleep more. Someone had been talking in my dreams. It wasn't me. The room smelled of an old woman. I opened the doors to the Caribbean. The sea was blue and the sky was overcast with threatless clouds. I felt no rain in the air. January was not hurricane season.

It was time to get ready for the shoot.

Clark appeared on my balcony. We examined the four cameras and seven interchangeable lenses. All the batteries were charged to the max. The light meters worked to perfection, and our film had nicely chilled in the minibar fridge.

"Ready?"

"All systems go."

"Is she here?"

"She?" I was thinking of an old woman.

"Daryl." Clark shook his head. I was a bit of a fool in his eyes. "Let's get breakfast and hit the road. We have photos to take and remember what I said. She's mine."

Daryl appeared tired from her overnight trip, as was to be expeected from four flights; LA-Miami-Knigston-Port Antonio, No one introduced me. I sat with the driver. Our first location was on a wave-tossed beach. Erwin the make-up guy, lightly powdered the actress' face. The hair stylist let the wind do his job. I checked the light. It was 5.7 f-stop. Clark hadn't been lying. She was a goddess.

Clark shot hundreds of photos. None of them were overkill. Daryl possessed an unquenchable beauty, although we would not see Clark’s shots until we returned to New York.

That night I sat at the end of the table. No one spoke to me. I ate spiny Jamaica lobster. They had no claws. They tasted nothing like a Maine lobster. The water of Casco Bay bred a delicious succulence not gound in the Caribbean.

Clark said, "My assistant's from Boston. They have the best lobster in the world there. Tell her."

I replied with New England pride, but added for the sake of the crew, "This is wicked Lobstah."

It had been a long day. All I wanted was to hit my pillows. Clark had another long day planned for every day of the shoot.

It was not true.

The only wicked Lobstah came from Maine.

Back in my room, I smoked a big joint. Really big. Across the rocks, Paul Newman was staying at the villa. I thought I saw him for a second.

The iconic movie star looked small in the dim tropical night and I wrote a poem about COOL HAND LUKE.

Even on the chain gang
He was cool.
Cool Hand Luke

After I fell asleep, a woman whispered in my ear.

It was not Daryl, and I fell asleep in another Ganga stupor.

The next morning I rose early. I ran into Erwin at breakfast. He looked tired and said, "I didn't sleep last night. Fucking ghost."

"Ghost?" Coming from New England, I was familiar with ghosts, even though I had never seen one.

"It came to my room and wouldn't leave me alone." Erwin was gay, and I asked, "Did it try and get into bed with you."

"Thankfully no. She was an old woman. Not that I have anything against old women. Just ghosts," Erwin sighed with relief, then added, "Say nothing to anyone else. They'll think I'm crazy."

His secret was safe with me. She had only whispered in my ear. I said nothing to anyone about anything. I knew how to hold my sand. I sat at the end of the table and listened to Clark tell Daryl about his many trips to Paris. He mentioned I worked the op nightclub there. I said nothing, but smiled. Daryl nodded her head. The rest of the crew ignored me. They had their own work to do.

The sky over Port Antonio cleared after breakfast.

Dave the driver had found a trampoline, which the hotel set up on the lawn.

Daryl had been a gifted high school acrobat. Clark shot two hundred shots of her bouncing off a trampoline into the air. I changed film like a machine gun ammo boy during a kamikaze attack. We broke for lunch in the hotel at noon. Clark ordered me clean the cameras. Clark and Daryl and the Life crew laughed in conversation. He came over to me and whispered, "I think I have a shot with her."

"Of course you do." I ordered a rum and coke from the bar.

It ended up being my lunch.

That afternoon Clark photographed Daryl on the rocks. Erwin struggled to freshen her make-up after every suit change. It was easy. As a star, she knew how to give hereself to the pros. I checked the lighting and changed film with increasing skill. I was a fast learner.

During a break, Daryl said, "I heard you're a poet."

"A bad one."

"Could I read something of yours?"

"Maybe later." I shrugged harmlessly. Clark glared at me, as if I was poaching on his turf.

Daryl went back to her barefoot perch on the rocks. A statue of beauty in a bathing suit. The shoot was meant to compete with Sport Illustrated’s bathing suit issue. The magazine had hired Clark, because he was one of the best in the business. I checked the light and obeyed his every command. He was the boss.

Daryl and I didn’t speak the rest of the day.

Clark made sure of that.

“Your friend have his eye on that girl.” Dave the driver wasn’t blind. “But she have no eye for him.”

“Who she have an eye for?”

“Who know the mind of woman?” Dave shrugged with a laugh.

"Certainly not me."

"Then you are a wise man."

I laughed with him, because no man is wise when it comes to women.

After a long day, we returned to the Trident Villas. I smoked a another joint before joining everyone in the restaurant.

During dinner, Clark told the table about his shooting the Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop.

"I love Iggy." Daryl hummed I WANNA BE YOUR DOG.

Clark winked at me. I left before dessert. Three was a crowd in this group and Clark had to get rid of the rest of the crew..

Something woke me after midnight. The room was dark. The door was locked. Outside, waves crashed on the rocks. I went out on the terrace with the joint. Across the cove Clark's room was dark.

Someone whispered behind me.

"Daryl."

I turned. There was no one there, then Dave the Driver appeared out of the deep night below the balcony.

"Nice sky." The Milky Way split the heavens.

"Lots of stars.

”More than any man can count."

"Is that man your friend?” He meant Clark.

"Yeah, why?” Whatever Clark's faults were, mine were worst.

“Because he don’t talk to you like friend.”

“Yeah, he my boss. You want some.” I handed him the joint.

And like that we grooved on the cosmos.

The next morning, the clouds broke into threads of gray and soon blue heaven ruled the sky. I took breakfast in my room. Clark showed up ten minutes later and drank my coffee.

“So today is the big shot.” Clark was breaking out the underwater cameras. “Have you ever buddy-breathed, because you’re going to be sharing your air with Daryl underwater.”

“Sure.” Twenty years ago I had seen Lloyd Bridges save a friend on the TV show SEA HUNT using the same method. I was hoping to get some lessons from the dive team.

"It's like soul kissing without the tongue. Let's go to Blue Lagoon." Clark was a man on fire. He had two missions. I coouldn only help underwater.

Every island in the Caribbean has a Blue Lagoon. Brooke Shields had starred in a film of the same name. Darryl had auditioned for the role and explained at the end of the twenty-minute ride to the Blue Lagoon, "But I turned it down. I thought I was too old"

I did some quick math. She was twenty-four. BLUE LAGOON had been shot in Fiji in 1979. Daryl had been nineteen. Brooke Shield had been fourteen. Darryl was right. Fourteen trumps eighteen for young.

“You dive before, man?” Dave stood with the boatman. I shook my head.

”Don’t worry.”

I only had a movie star to keep alive. What me worry.

A dive crew sand boat was waiting at the pier. Dave spoke to the dive master. A young Rasta, Ernest. He gave me a five-minute lesson.

”No worry”

"I got it, man." A Boston accent couldn't fake Rasta.

The boatman steered to a sheltered cove.

"Not to worry. Easy water dis." Ernest was on my team.

Irwin was back on shore. He had trouble with mal de mer or sea sickness.

“I couldn’t sleep last night. There was a ghost in my room.” Bernadette wasn’t joking.

“Ghost?” Clark stifled a laugh.

"Yes, she kept on speaking to me and wouldn't go away."

"Old lady?" asked Ernest, and Bernadette nodded her head. The boatman said, "That the Old Lady. Everyone see her. She no trouble. She only lost in this world. No ghosts on water. Sleep now. We dive."

Underwater was another world. Sea turtles floated past us. Ernest rigged the Scuba gear on my body. Tanks, vest, fins, mask et al. I felt weighted down and wondered, if I would sink to the bottom. The head diver master geared up Clark had earned his dive certificate from the Chelsea YMCA. The dive master instructed us in safety signals and how to buddy breathe with Daryl. He gave me a thumbs up.

”Not worry. Under you have no weight.” Ernest stuck the breathing apparatus in my mouth. “Breathe and help she breathe.”

I sat on the gunwale. I knew what to do from SEA HUNT. I fell backwards into the warm water. Fish of vivid colors floated past my mask. I was at ease with the aqualung. The lagoon was shallow. Daryl dove in. An explosion of bubbles. She posed as a mermaid and swam to me. I passed her the mouthpiece several times. I was surprised that she trusted me. It was a good thing I had never spoken with her, otherwise she mihgt have asked my qualifications. I had none. Clark frantically snapped shots. Her spit tasted better than mine.

After ten minutes, we returned to surface. The dive crew pulled out Daryl first. Clark and then me. Daryl was in good shape. I had survived the test and thanked Lloyd Bridges from SEA HUNT .

Back at the pier, I packed the equipment while Clark walked down the beach with Darryl taking candid shots.

She wasn't walking close to him, but we had three days left on Jamaica and three days was almost half the time it took God to create the world. I gave him zero chances.\, but I wasn’t a betting man.

We got back to the hotel at sunset.

During dinner, everyone discussed the ghost.

Daryl asked about my poetry again.

Clark cut short my reply and said I had to clean the cameras. I stood up from the table and said my goodnights. I had already cleaned the cameras and went outside to our van. I was ready to see Jamaica. On my own.

"Where's there to go?" I asked Dave. "For fun?"

"The Roof Club. Sometimes they have trouble there.

I got in the van.

”What alright. I know when to leave.”

I rub-a-dubbed with fat women and skinny girls to old school reggae. I sang along with JOHNNY TOO BAD. I drank with everyone in the bar; rum and Red Stripe beer. I didn't remember getting home, but recalled an old woman by my bed. She didn't say a word, but shook her head with disapproval. I apologized and fell asleep. No dreams of the old woman.

The next morning was bright. Clark woke me with a shove. It was the last day of the shoot. Tomorrow we were leaving for New York. I had yet to swim in the sea. No time.

"Where were you?"

"I wandered off the reservation to the Roof Club," I recounted the evening to the best of my ability.

"Lucky you. I'm getting nowhere with Daryl." He sat on my bed next to the camera bag. "I ended up alone."

"You're trying too hard. Chill your jets. Girls like cool."

"Cool,how?”

”Cool like not sending out ‘I want to fuck you’vibe’."

”Okay. I’ll play it cool.”

I could only be right or wrong. The only cool people here were Dave, the Jamaicans, Daryl, and the old woman ghost. We left my room for the day.

On an idyllic beach, Clark caught Darryl in the money shot. She wore a red bathing suit. The light was 5.7 f-stop.

"That's the cover."

"I think so too." Daryl understood how to pose like she had never seen a mirror. She didn’t speak much and followed Clark’s direction to the letter. Clark view her through the camara and the camera recorded his vision. I just held the light meter and tried not to stare.

On the way back to the resort, we stopped to pet some goats in a field. I took a shot with my camera. An Olympus XA2. Nothing like Clark’s collection of cameras. A simple point-and-shoot. All I needed was the XA2. I had nothing else other than my eyes.

We went back to the van. I opened her door. She thanked me and gave a smile. Something about the way she moved exhibited a goodness. A deep goodness. She had been a pleasure model replicant In BLADERUNNER. I recalled her character. Pris’, line, I think therefore I am.” She say in the van.

"Dave told me you went to the Roof Club. Clark said it was dangerous."

"I was the only danger to me last night." I had dropped a split on the dance floor to JOHNNY TOO BAD.

"Maybe we can go tonight. You have some weed?"

"A little." I didn't want to say how much.

"I'm dying for a puff."

"Tonight then." Clark signaled for me to get away. I obeyed his command, but not before saying to Daryl, "And maybe we can go to the Roof Club later. I’ll read you some poetry."

"I'd love that."

She wandered back to where Clark played nice with a baby goat.

I stood with Dave.

"Nothing better than baby jerked goat." He smacked his lips.

Before we got into the car, Clark came over to me.

"What were you talking about to Darryl?"

"She wanted to go into town. She's bored with the hotel." I didn't mention the Roof Club or reefer.

"So we'll go after we get back to the resort. I think your strategy is working."

"I know women."

In truth, I knew nothing about them, but he didn't want to hear that. Clark said to unload the photo equipment. Daryl went off with the LIFE journalist.

”Let’s go in thirty. Meet us at the desk.” Clark walked away to catch up with the two women. A little too fast for cool.

Once finished charging the camera batteries and correctly labelling the date and place on the plastic film canisters, I showered and dressed in a white shirt and jeans. It was never really hot in the evenings with a wind running off the sea. I came downstairs to the lobby. No sign of Daryl and Clark. Dave stood by his van.

"The nice lady left with your 'friend', but I know where. You want to go?"

"You bet I do." I had two big spliffs in my pocket. I wasn’t after anything other than a drinking companion at the Roof Club. Once I had two drinks, all I wanted from life was another. Nothing else.

Dave took his time driving into town like I was James Bond without any pursuit.

"That girl is an island beauty. A good soul. She deserves the best."

"Me?"

Dave's laugh hurt in a good way.

”Not you. But sure, not your friend.”

Dave found the two where he had left them at a record store. I got out of the van.

”You good?”

A nod. He parked up the street.

Daryl sat outside on a bench. Inside, Clark was flipping through LPs and 45s. Nothing like this vinyl was in New York. He loved his music. Across the street were the docks. All the fishing and tourist boats back in harbor. Daryl waved to me. I showed her a joint. She pointed to the piers.

I knocked on the window and motioned to Clark we were going across the smoke a joint. He wasn’t into weed.

Sitting on lobster traps, we smoked the joint. She didn’t cough. She spoke about loving it here, but that she wished she hadn’t had to do this shoot.

”I came to get away from my boyfriend.”

”I came to get away from winter.”

”There is no winter in LA.”

I looked back to the record shop. Clark ferreted through the LPs. He waved for Daryl to see his choices. She knew her role and walked over into the store and rapped on the window. She pointed to me and returned to the other side of the street.

”Where’s the Roof Club.”

”Not far.” It was almost sunset. Night dropped fast in the tropics. The town’s streetlights flickered to life. We strolled to the bar, smoking the joint. Not saying a word.

We're going to the Roof Club." I shouted to Clark, and we wandered to the docks, smoking reefer. I only took little hits and warned her it was strong. I rarely smoked in Paris or New York. She smiled, as if she had smoked something stronger. Darryl spoke about her Hollywood life. I listened.

"It's not easy being this beautiful. I don’t think I am. Everyone wants me." She dragged heavily on the joint. "Your friend thinks he's going to get me. Not a chance. You probably think the same."

"Not me. I'm a poet." Dave's laugh echoed in my ears. "I know my place."

”Let’s hear a poem.”

”Walking on the docks
Port Antonio
Smoking ganga
With a woman who thinks me bad
But I no bad man
No good too
No man in 100% either way
All I want from her is a smile__

”You just make that up?”

I nodded. Daryl said not bad. She had a kind manner. I wished we were friends. I recognized I was just someone she had met at a photo shoot. I pointed up West Street. Some people stood on the sidewalk.

"There’s the Roof Club."

The door opened. They entered the club. We followed suit and climbed the narrow stairs to the bar.

< p>The Roof Club opened at 6. It was 6:17. It didn’t get going till dark, and dark dropped fast in the tropics. We were the only white people in the bar among the twenty or so customers and bar staff. No one paid us any mind. The music was deep funk reggae. I had no idea of the band. The bartender greeted us with a smile. I bought two rum and cokes and two Red Stripes. Both 50 cents.

"My back's killing me."

"Let me give you a massage."

"Please."

Her muscles were pliable to the touch. My fingers sought the taut muscles. Kneading them without too much force. After a minute, she shrugged off my hands. “Thanks, I didn’t want you to stop, but I am ready to fall asleep. It’s been a long day.”

I raised my rum. We clinked glasses and suggested that we leave.

Everyone was having a good time.

TClark walked through the door. He took one look at Darryl and me strode up to us and said, "We have to go. The others are expecting us back at the hotel for dinner."

"I'm cool here." I said. I liked this bar.

"Then you can stay here alone." Clark glared at Darryl and they left with me following them.

I didn't want to walk back to the hotel.

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Back at the restaurant, Bernadette asked me to order wine. They were the first words she had said to me since the Kingston airport.

"Why me?"

"Because Clark said you lived in France. You must know wines."

”Some.” My wine selections were usually price-oriented. I thought she was trying to embarrass me. Why I had no idea.

I read the wine list and chose two Côtes du Rhône. I figured them cheap at eight Jamaican Dollars to the US Greenback.Clark waved his hand and ordered more expensive Bordeaux, as if to trump my selection. LIFE was covering all expenses, although maybe not for me, so I was relieved by his taking over. I avoided any conversations. Everyone spoke about the ghost. I had seen ghosts as a child in Maine. New England is haunted by generations of the gone.. At the end of the meal, Darryl sidled up to me and asked, "You mind if I come to your room. You can finish your massage and we can smoke some weed. I have trouble sleeping.”

”I don’t sleep easy either. “

Everyone at the table was surprised by her request, but none more than Clark, who glared at her leaving with me..

In my room, I tried to tidy up the room.

"No worries. I live in squalor back in LA." She stripped off her shirt and lay face-down on the bed with my journal in her hand. "Is this your poetry?"

"Yes." I kneaded her shoulders. The tropical breeze was soft.

"On a heel I turned to the hell of here."

That was the only line she read of my hitchhiking poem.

Clark burst into the room.

"We have to clean the cameras."

"Darryl was a good actress and read this moment as her time to 'stage left'.

Once she was gone, Clark raged, livid.

"You tell me to chill my jets, so you can zoom into my place. Thanks a lot. By the way the price of wine was in US Dollars, not Jamaican.

"Opps. Glad I didn’t order any."

He slammed the door shut. I totaled the bill, the price of a second-class ticket to Paris. No skin from my wallet.

I went down to the bar.I hadn’t been paid a cent, but had a hundred-dollar bill in my wallet. I was the only one there. The bartender and waiting staff cleaned up and prepared for the morning breakfast. Each of three rum and cokes tasted better than the last. I staggered around the hotel grounds to my room around midnight.

I crashed into bed like a 747 running out of fuel.

I dreamed about Daryl and me on the road. She was a good travel companion. She did most of the driving. We were crossing the desert somewhere out west.

A hand touched my shoulder.

I opened my eyes.

"Daryl?"

It was not her, but the shimmering woman.

She moaned. I tried to speak to her in French and German. Her speech was indecipherable and I said, "Listen, lady, I'm too drunk to deal with this now."

I closed my eyes and the ghost was gone. I had a dream about the glowing woman making love. Her name was Cheri. She had been alone a long time. She thanked me in French.

”Merci.”

The next morning the sea was calm beyond the terrace. My skin smelled of charcoal and mango. The old woman’s scent. I packed everything and headed to the desk with the bags.

Dave was waiting by the van. Clark helped with the bags. I threw mine in the front.

"You ready to go?" He acted like nothing had happened last night.

"I guess I am." I turned to Dave and whispered. "I saw the ghost."

"What she say?"

"Don't know."

"That what everyone say."

"What about Daryl?"

"She left with the rest of them. It's just you and me." Clark slapped my shoulder to show there was no hard feeling and there was none.

It was snowing back in New York.

Clark paid my wages and gave me a bonus.

"You did a good job."

"Thanks."

We came as friends and parted at his apartment as friends. I left for Paris

A month later, Daryl graced the cover on LIFE . Her film was a box-office smash throughout the summer.

Clark became a big success.

I had never stood not a chance with her. I hadn't tried and I’m glad it ended that way.

At month’s end, I returned to Paris and remained a failed poet and a doorman at a nightclub in Place d'Opera, which suited me just fine, because poets knew their place in the world and the City of Light was made for people like me. At least some of us and Cheri, the woman I left behind in Port Antonio. I hope she gets home some day.

Toujours. fotos by Peter Nolan Smith and Dustin Pittman