GOING UPCOUNTRY

Q

Most farangs vacation in Thailand for the beaches food, culture, and temples. I had been to many. In 1997 a friend in exile from the UK off-suggested a visit to the Last Babylon. Pattaya offered love-lost western men a chance to meet a girl of their dream. Past and present are unimportant. Most men are astounded by finding someone who thinks that they are handsome or law. They spend an idyllic vacation on Koh Samet.

The disgust of fat western women on the beach rivaled the envy of these obese cows’ husbands. The Thai-farang couple make love five times a day, mostly to compensate for years of abstinence. Upon his return to Pattaya, she doesn’t mind accompanying the older man to go-gos. His and our blindness is almost comical, since we can't see that she doesn’t trust he out of her sight.

Pattaya has to be paradise and two weeks into the honeymoon his beloved says, “I want see my family. You come with me?”

Her offer seems like an innocent proposition and the old geezer agree to this journey to Ban Mai-mee-tee-nai.

Hearing these plans his bar friends exchange a knowingly glance.

“What’s wrong?” The newby really want to know.

“Nothing.” They smile like he brought a blind donkey “Have a great time.”

“Thanks.” The western man rents a car for several days and leaves Pattaya on a great adventure. Ban Mai-mee-tee-nai is not on the map. He asks his sweetheart for directions. She is about a minute from a semi-coma and points north. “Isaan.”

Isaan.

The mythic plateau of Northeast Thailand which has figured into his friends' countless jokes about the sick buffalo, blind aunt, feeding whole communities of bankrupt Thai farmersdrinking Lao-Khao whiskey till dawn. The farang suddenly realize that he doesn’t know what he's gotten himself into and his tilat isn’t explaining either, because she is scrunched against the door in a state of exhaustion.

Oblivion comes easy after two weeks of making love to a Viagra-crazed farang.

The highway turns into a two lane road. At one point his darling opens an eye and indicates a dirt road. By the time the car hits the first pothole, she has lapsed into another coma.

The electric lines disappear and dry fields stretch to a hazy horizon. Buffalo laze in a torpor. No cars. No people. Crossing a bridge over a muddy creek and his girlfriend opens her eyes.

“We here.”

“Ban Mai-mee-tee-nai?”

“My home.” She beeps the horn, as he pulls into a forested complex surrounded by bone-dry rice fields. Rain drops on the Isaan Plateau with a miser's wish for less.

A horde of Thais surges from several wooden houses. The old farang haven’t seen any place this ramshackle outside of a National Geographic magazine, but everyone smiles a greeting. He smiles back. Kids pull on your leg. An older man greets the farang with a bow. He wais back as directed by his girlfriend. Everyone laughs. He smiles. Food appears out of nowhere. Everyone sits down and eats on the ground. The old codger thinks this isn’t too bad, until his legs cramp up and everyone laughs at his uncomfortability.

His girlfriend’s ‘brother’ gets a chair dating back three centuries. Sweat pours from his skin. They offered beer with ice. He's never drank it like that before. Now it’s perfect. The heat is stultifying. More food is eaten. Some of it he doesn't recognize. He tastes a little. Your mouth is on fire. He drinks more beer. Soon it’s gone.

“Need more beer.” His girlfriend holds out her hand.

He reaches into your pocket. The girlfriend grabs 2000 baht and jumps on a dilapidated motorcycle with the 'cousin'. “Be back soon.”

The remaining crones clear the food and he's left to drink Lao-Khao whiskey with the male family members. They insist on his drinking, even though he's passed triple the legal limit for DWI an hour ago. His girlfriend hasn’t shown up and the farang peaks his ears for the sound of the motorcycle, only to hear the buzz of the early evening’s mozzies.

Several hours later he wakes on the floor of a house with three men aromatized by lao whiskey. He has no idea where he is. His wallet is still in his pants. Thais are very honest. Female voices babble under the floor. Nothing they say makes any sense. The farang climbs over the pile of sleeping men and descends a vertiginous set of stairs to the ground.

Over head stars blaze in their billions. A fire burns in the yard. Some of it is plastic. His girlfriend is sitting with a gaggle of women. She smiles at him. He smiles back, wishing a doctor could shoot him with an injection to get rid of his throbbing hangover.

Footsteps sound behind him. The men are carrying plastic bags of Lao-Khao whiskey. He protests against being offered a glass. His girlfriend frowns. The Lao-Khao goes right to his stomach and the farnag rushed into the bushes to heave like a girl scout drunk from sherry. Everyone laughs and that’s the last he remembers before waking to the sound of roosters cowing. It’s dark. He'll, it’s night.

His girlfriend is asleep and so is everyone else.

The farang tries to go back to sleep but his feet have been chewed by flocks of mozzies hungry for a taste of new blood. Soon dogs are barking and the sky is getting light. Before the dawn a loudspeaker crackles to life. For the next hour a man rants on in Thai. No one stirs from their slumber and the farang wish that he was back in his hotel room.

Air-con. Cable TV. Swimming pool. Mobile phone service. Western food. Chairs. Beds. Beaches. Go-go bars.

Of course his girlfriend doesn’t respond to any hint about a return to Pattaya other than to say that tonight is a big party, which ends up a repeat of the first night only with more family members. Everyone is having a good time and why shouldn’t they? No one has put a hand into their pocket since his arrival and he mentally calculates that he could have flown to Bali for the price of the last two days ie bar fine, car rental, and expenses.

And his girlfriend hasn’t as much as kissed him, as she has reverted to a village girl. Food, friends, family, everyone having a good time. And she knows how to play a man, farang or Thai, because at the night’s end, she comes up to him and says, “Everyone like you. Me, I love you, because you not make face.”

“Make face?”

“Yes, make face same dog, because you spend too much money.” She sneaks a kiss and everyone laughs. He too and he decides to stick it another day.

On the fourth day he wakes up and pack the car. Everyone waves good-bye, except for the three family members joining them for the voyage south.

Back in Pattaya he drops off the relatives without a word of thanks. He delivers the car three hours late for a half-day penalty. The farang is glad to be back in civilization, but his girlfriend cries, “I miss my family.”

They make love for the first time in four days and she cries throughout. He feels like he's having sex with a war widow and almost stop, except those years of abstinence have create a monster and he completes your mission, after which he leaves her in the hotel room watching TV to meet his friends.

The farang is happy to be missing them and later that night the gang at his favorite bar ask, “How was it?”

“It was great.”

And they nodded in unison because they’ve said the same thing too. We all do to save face. When in Thailand.

The Man Who Never Shat

Western travelers regarded the Chosin Peninsula as a 'Hermit Kingdom' well into the 19th Century. Japan pried open the doors of its old rival with more deadier cannons and guns. Korea regained its freedom at the defeat of the Rising Sun. The victors; Russia, China, and the USA Cold War created two separate states. Capitalism versus Communism. A bloody war failed to resolve the political differences. South Korea benefitted from the largesse of the West and its modern industrial base rewarded its citizens with wealth. North Korea shut its doors. One man spoke for all. The Supreme Leader's support of the anti-capitalist struggle veered off course into activities considered criminal by its southern neighbor's intelligence agencies. GW Bush condemned North Korea to the 'Axis of Evil'. The First Supreme Leader died with his nation safe from change. His son assumed his ascendancy after his father's demise. Kim Jong-il scored a 38 under par on the first game on Pyongyang's first golf course. He aced eleven holes-in-one. His ceaseless search for a long life ended last week and North Korea mourns the passing of the Man Who Never Shat. This claim had to be true. His government said so and governments never lie. His nation mourns. His soul is gone. I hope in his heaven that there is a toilet. The Man Who Never Shat must need one.

Fuck-Up At DusselDorf

The days of December went into double-digits without my purchasing a ticket to Thailand. I was sitting with Vonelli in his Charleroi mansion sifting through the online travel sites. The Floridian suggested Air Berlin out of Dusseldorf. It was a four-hour train ride from Luxembourg, where I had been serving as 'unofficial writer in residence' to a foreign embassy. Thirty minutes later I booked a flight on December 20 and upon my return to the residence overlooking the Petrousse I informed Madame ambassador that my absence would last into the New Year. "Bon Voyage." Madame Ambassador was stuck at her post. Diplomats at her level are expected to be present at their postings twenty-four hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year. "Get some sun for me." I departed from Luxembourg a day early to visit Koln's medieval cathedral and the Ludwig Museum. My hotel was close to the train station and I walked over to the soot-stained monument to a mythic messiah, which is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe. The spacious interior impressed the gawking tourists. I stretched out my arms to test the mysticism radar. Not a beep lit up my 4D screen, then again I was no longer a Christian. Winter was more winter in Koln than Luxembourg. I drank Glohwein at the Christmas Fair. The girl serving my mulled wine was the prettiest girl in the city and her beauty was enhanced by the glogg. I staggered back to my cheap, but cheerful hotel and crashed on the single bed to the sound of an argument between a married couple in the next room. Nothing says love better than a fight in a cheap hotel. The next day I toured the Ludwig Museum for two hours. Its extensive collection was too much to absorb and such a short time and I exited the museum with my eyes burned my images of Yves Klein Otto Mueller, and Alexander Rodchenko. I had thirty minutes to kill before my train and I spent twenty of them at the gloog bar. The girl's name was Helga. The twenty-year old came from Bremen. Her favorite music was punk. If only I had been thirty years younger with three more hours to kill, but I had a train to catch. I ran to the station and caught the 12:40 to Dusseldorf. An hour later I stepped onto the platform of the Aeroport Station. A hanging monorail brought passengers to the terminal. I presented my ticket at the check-in. "This is one-way." The blonde Air Berlin attendant held up my ticket with consternation. "Is that a problem?" "Air Berlin won't accept the responsibility of your getting refused entry to Thailand." She was following procedure. "It's never a problem at the other end." The passport control at Cobra Swamp was overwhelmed by the deluge of tourists spewed off 747 and Airbus." "Let me check on it." She picked up the phone. A minute later she handed back my ticket and pointed across the terminal. "Talk to them. They will find you a ticket." Buying a last-minute ticket at the airport was daunting, but the counterwoman found a cheap flight back to Dusseldorf on January 16. $500 one-way. "Make it so." I love quoting Captain Picard of the Starship Enterprise. It almost makes flying an adventure.

SEA CRUISE by Peter Nolan Smith

While I had moved away from Boston 1971, every Christmas of my adult life had been spent with my family on the South Shore. This streak of thirty-three years was broken in 1985. An art dealer invited a female French singer and me to his cottage on the Isle of Wight for the holiday.

I phoned my mother to break the news. It was December 23.

“Oh, really.” The hurt was audible over the trans-Atlantic static. “This will be the first one you’re not home.”

“I know, but I will be flying to Boston on the 26th.” Our club in Paris was closed until after the New Year. My bosses had given me a good bonus. We were more friends than co-workers.

“Where are you going for Christmas?” My mother was worried about her second son. I had been in Europe for the past three years. The rest of my brothers and sisters lived within ten miles of our parents.

“The Isle of Wight.”

“Didn’t Queen Victoria have a palace there?” My mother was extraordinarily well read. She loved to read books and I had inherited that love. My father liked to travel. I was his son too.

“Yes, and I’m staying at a cottage on the grounds of the former royal residence.”

“Osbourne House.” My mother had a bear trap of a memory for details.

“Yes.” Victoria lived in Osbourne House with Prince Albert and she ruled the vast British empire from there. The Italian palazzo was visible from the windows of the cottage.

“Sounds very grand.” My mother had loved visiting the grand houses of Newport, Rhode Island and mansions along the Hudson River. She breathed the history with her senses.

“Supposedly when her husband died, the Empress went into mourning at a pavilion on the beach.”

“That’s what I heard too.” I refrained from mentioning that the affairs of state had languished without her participation in the day-to-day governing and Her Majesty’s ministers approached the Scottish gillie, John Brown, to bring Her Majesty out of her grief.

My mother was a devout Catholic. She had no knowledge about the rumors of the Queen’s affair with a common huntsman. Sex was for procreation. She had six children. Queen Victoria had nine.

“After her death it became a convalescent home for navy officers. They still walk around the grounds.”

“That is so fabulous.”

“I suppose it is.”

“I love you and we’ll spent our Christmas together a day later. They will be plenty of left-overs.” She was succeeding in seeding guilt into my heart.

“I’ll see you on the 26th.” I fought off the urge to get on a plane from Charles De Gaulle Aeroport to Logan. Maine, Boston, and the South Shore my roots. None of them had been my home for a long time.

I hung up the phone and called the singer.

We had been having an affair for the past month. Neither of us pretended that we were serious about our time together. She and I were free spirits. Our paths met and joined in many cities. Paris was just one of them.

“I’m ready to go.”

“No more mama and papa.” The petite brunette had a vicious streak tempered by an adoration for danger. She had been the first punk in France. Her record had been # 1 in 1984. We liked each other for our independence, although I had bought her a bottle of Chanel # 5 for a Christmas present.

“Not for Christmas, but I have a flight leaving Heathrow on the 26th.”

“And how do I get back to France?” It was a good question.

“Vonelli will take you back.” It was my only option.

“And he is a gentleman like you who abandon helpless women in a foreign country filled with beef eaters.” She had never met the bearded Floridian.

“Much more of a gentleman than me.” The singer and I had met at an after-hours club in Lower Manhattan. Her friends were starting a fight in the decorated loft. I was security. Stopping them was a matter of a single punch and bum-rushing them out of the club. Lizzie liked telling her friends about that incident. She really was a punk.

“We will see.” The singer could take care of herself. She had lived in the Lower East Side in 1975. It was a neighborhood on fire.

“Meet me at the station.” The train left from Gare St. Lazare at 4:45pm. The station was across the Seine from my apartment on Ile St. Louis.

I showed up at the train terminal a good half hour before departure. The holiday queues at the ticket booths were breaking down into mobs. I spotted Vonelli at a news kiosk. He was looked smitten by prosperity in his tan cashmere coat and his beard had been trimmed to a respectable length.

“Where is she?” Vonelli was waiting with the tickets. The art dealer was excited to meet the singer. He liked beautiful women.

“Women are always late.” I usually planned on any female companion to be at least thirty minutes behind schedule. “But not my friend.”

The singer was running through the crowds of homeward-bound travelers to Normandy. A cigarette hung from her mouth. Her unruly hair was wrapped under a scarf. A heavy coat hid her petite body. Doc Martens shielded her feet from the cold. Early winter had been unnecessarily harsh in Paris.

She lifted her head to acknowledge seeing us. A shroud of tangled hair fell onto her face. Her gloved hand pushed away the matted strands and the singer kissed me on the lips and then pecked Vonelli on both cheeks. Other passengers stared at her. She was famous.

“Let’s get on the train before I have to sign an autograph.” The singer dropped her cigarette on the ground. Her left boot extinguished the embers of the discarded butt. She had studied ballet in Lyons and that the gracefulness of that training showed with the most insignificant gestures. every

“I saw you sing on TV.” Vonelli offered to carry her bag. It was twice the size of mine and the singer liked to travel with thick books of philosophy. The art dealer grunted , as he hauled the heavily laden bag over his shoulder.

“French pop stars never sing on TV. We lip-synch the words. It’s good for our voices.” The Paris-born singer handed her bag to Vonelli and lit a cigarette. She was a heavy smoker and her naked skin smelled of tobacco. The Gitanes were hell on her throat and she made no effort to stop. “But I am on holiday and we are taking a big boat. So no more talking about music.”

The three of us boarded the train and took our seats. Vonelli had commandeered a 1st Class compartment. The singer was very pleased with his arrangement and I noticed the warmth in her smile. The same glow had greeted me the first time that she had seen me in Paris. I thought about whether I should be jealous, then decided that Vonelli and the singer made a good couple.

The train pulled out of Gare St. Lazare on time. The journey to the coast lasted a little over two hours. The ferry left later in the evening. That crossing lasted eight hours. We would reach Southampton slightly after dawn.

“Here’s to Noel.” Vonelli poured champagne into three glasses. The man came prepared for the journey. We ate foie gras on crispy baguettes and he amused us with humorous tales of sales at the Hotel Drouot auction house.

“They have their own Mafia. The cols rouge in the black uniforms with red trim come from the same region of the Alps and nothing gets shipped or stored at the Drouot without their okay. This morning one of them said that he couldn’t transport a painting to London, because it was in violation of Christian holiday traditions. 200 francs converted him to atheism.”

Vonelli fawned on the singer and she adored his gentlemanly manners.

“You know how I met your friend?” She pointed at me.

“I stopped her friends from having a fight at an after-hour club.” I hated people bringing up my past as a bouncer. In Paris I was called a physionomiste for my talent to recognize faces and decipher who was who as well as determine if the person was a welcome addition to the melange of personalities within the club. It was not a skill taught in schools.

“You stopped them and then threw me down the stairs.”

“I didn’t throw you down the stairs.” I couldn’t remember the particulars of that night.

“Yes, you did, but I forgave you.”

Vonelli shook his head. “Bad boy, but that’s why we like you.”

I sulked in my seat for several minutes. The singer cuddled up to me and admonished me in baby language. Vonelli thought that she was very funny and I had to admit the girl had a biting wit. My anger dissipated with another glass of champagne. Snow drifted against the windows. The darkened landscape was covered with white. It was beginning to look like Christmas.

Vonelli was a seasoned traveler.

At le Havre he steered us out of the station. The city had been heavily damaged during the Battle of Normandy and the devastated neighborhoods had been reconstructed in an appalling dull modernist style.

“Le Havre is the most dreary city in France. Think grey and grim. Concrete and more concrete and no building in the city has more concrete than the Eglise of St. Joseph.” Vonelli’s French was better than mine and he joked about how the church’s Belgian architect was awarded a medal from his government for his masterful uglification of Le Havre. “But even this city has some charm.”

We are dinner at a fantastic fish restaurant. Several diners asked for autographs. The singer was in a better mood than Gare St. Lazare. She even posed for photos with her fans. Vonelli and the singer engaged in a conversation about Sartre. They ignored my comment about his collaborating with the Nazis. I was becoming the third wheel.

It was a short walk to the ferry.

We boarded the ship. Our cabins were comfortable. So far neither the singer nor I had put our hands in our pockets. The three of us rendezvoused at the stern railing and watched the ferry slip from the harbor.

“Fuck you, France.” The singer gave her native land the finger.

“It’s better than America.”

“But not New York.” The singer had been introduced to the scene at CBGBs by a legendary singer of a punk band. Forkhead showed her his world. In 1975 the East village was the only place to be in the world for people like us. I got there one year later.

“New York is special.” The veterans at Max’s considered me a late-comer. My pinball play won friends at CBGBs, but no one ever called me ‘Tommy’. I was just me.

“Why don’t you two wash up and I’ll meet at the bar.” Vonelli returned to his suite. It was a double.

I stood with both hands on the railing. The singer leaned into me. The ship’s wake glowed with froth and the stars shimmered with increasing numbers, as we left the light of land. The icy night wind gust a salty mist off the Channel. The ferry’s prow was cutting through increasingly larger waves. The singer gripped the railing with both hands and leaned over to kiss me. It felt like the last one. I put my arm around her and we walked back inside.

“Your friend is very generous.” The singer shucked her heavy clothing in the cabin and entered the shower room. It was too small for two people, but she left the door open. The ferry was pitching from bow to stern in heavy seas. Tonight’s crossing was promising to be a rough one.

“I guess he had a good year at the Drouot.” I had the feeling that his extravagance was aimed at impressing the frail-boned brunette.

“He seems like a nice man.” Her voice was sappy with dreams.

“He is a good friend.” The singer and I had been on a train to nowhere with our affair. It had just pulled into the station and I was getting off. The singer had a new destination and I asked, “Do you like him?”

“He’s cute.” She lathed her body with soap. It was a show with one purpose.

“Really?” No one had called me cute since I was a kid.

“Almost like a Santa Claus in training.” The singer was my age, but looked much younger in the dim lighting of our cabin.

“It must be the beard.” His efforts were succeeding judging from the sing-song tone in her voice.

I reminded myself that she was in my cabin this evening and not his. I took off my clothes and staggered into shower. The ship her in the shower. It was big enough for two people.

Thirty minutes later we went to Vonelli’s cabin. We drank a bottle of wine holding onto the table to stay in the chairs. They had been screwed into the deck for just such weather. This was the Channel. The Spanish Armada had been destroyed by this stretch of water and I was beginning to understand why.

“I suggest that we skip dinner in this weather. Always better for the stomach.”

The singer and I concurred with his suggestion. The uneven motions of up-down-sideways-back was testing my constitution. I put down my glass without finishing the wine. This was going to be a long night.

Vonelli suggested that we visit the midship casino. I hadn’t gambled since losing big time at Reno in 1974, but we sat at the blackjack table together. Two other players greeted us with green faces. The crossing was not agreeing with their stomachs. The dealer wasn’t much better and our first five hands were winners. The slick-haired pit boss replaced her and succeeded in cooling the table.

Vonelli and the singer were more interested in each other than the cards in their hands. Their inattention gave the pit boss an edge and the odds of the house weighed against the six people at the table. The balance shifted a minute later, as the power of the sea overcame the inescapable grind of blackjack.

Casinos are constantly on the watch for card-counters, but my mind was calculating the time between troughs. The ship rode down one wave for four seconds and struggled up another for the same length of time. The spray covered the windows with foam, almost as if the ferry was a half-submerged submarine. The pit boss was struggling to deal out the cards and keep his balance.

The rhythm of the waves stretched into a extra long descent to the bottom of a nautical chasm and the deck shuddered, as the ferry’s engines fought to climb the steepening slope of a ship-crushing wave. Everyone’s eyes went wide and the bow cleared the crest and the ferry dropped into the next trough in a free fall. I grabbed my stack of chips before floating out of my seat. The head grazed the ceiling and then I fell right back into my chair. Vonelli and the singer were also lucky, but the pit boss landed on the table.

“I think it’s time to call it a night.” The pit boss was visibly shaken by his flight. The rest of us nodded assent to his suggestion. “Go to your cabin and we’ll cash you out in the morning.”

He shouted to close the casino and ordered the passengers to their cabins.

“Sorry about this.” Vonelli helped the singer to the door. He had wanted everything to be perfect. We separated to enter our rooms. For a second the singer seemed ready to go with him and if this had been a voyage from Southampton to New York instead of Le Havre to Southampton, then tomorrow night she would have made the move.

“See you two in the morning.”

The singer stripped off her clothing and slipped into bed.

“You like Vonelli?” I asked lying next to her. I hadn’t bothered to take off my clothes. If the ship sank, I wanted to be ready to abandon ship.

“Yes.” This question only needed a one syllable answer.

“I mean more than like.”

“Yes.” At least the singer was honest.

“Then I wish you luck.” Vonelli was a complicated man, then again men are much more simple than women.

“You do?” Her surprise was tempered by relief. No one liked a nasty ending.

“It’s obvious that you two like each other in a way that we would never come close to.”

“It is?”

“I think so. Remember I’m a professional physionomiste.” I could see everyone’s future but mine. I caressed her shoulder without daring to touch a more intimate stretch of flesh. This was it. “I’m happy for you. For you both.”

The ferry shuddered with a wave slapping the port-side.

“You think this ship will survive.” She was frightened by the ocean.

“Ships make this trip all the time. They are built for La Manche. Everything will be fine. Go to sleep.”

It was easier sad than done, but after two hours the sea surrendered its fury and the ferry resumed a gentle course to England. The singer kissed me on the cheek and went to sleep. I followed her within seconds. We woke with the announcement that the ferry would soon be docking in Southampton.

“How you sleep?” Vonelli was waiting at the railing. The low coastline lingered under a low grey overcast. We were approaching England.

“Good once the storm ended.” The singer stood between us, although a little closer to Vonelli. She made her choice. I watched the ferry about Southampton at half-speed. The captain had brought his ship to safety. Tonight was Christmas Eve. The day after was Christmas. I would fly home on Boxing Day. My mother would love the Chanel # 5. It was just her style and like all men I loved left-overs.

No Better Than Yesterday

Nearly four years ago the Thai cyber-crime unit raided my house in Pattaya. The head officer officer arrested me on charges of intellectual property theft. My website offering F1 merchandise had been #1 in the search engines over various multinational car corporations. I knew that ranking would cause me a problem one day and this was it.

The police transported me to Bangkok, where I was processed with politeness. The head officer whispered to me that he had interrogated my neighbors and they had reported that I was a good farang. Their comments saved me from a night in the monkey house. I wished that they had informed me about the investigation, but the Thais know best when to shut their mouths.

The colonel in charge of the operation set my bail at $1000. I paid it on the spot. The next morning I was back in Pattaya. It was obviously time to leave the Last Babylon.

My friends attempted to persuade me from leaving them. My work options were limited to teaching or managing a bar. The first paid 30,000 baht per month and the second required late hours and heavy drinking. I opted for a return to New York after my trial. My pregnant wife wasn't happy about my departure, but I told her that things would be okay. It took a long time for that promise to be true.

My website has been closed for a long time.

Yesterday I decided to see, if any mention of www.f1-shopping.net existed online.

I discovered that the site was up for sale and several urls lower was a testimonial from a satisfied buyer.

"I got a AMG jacket on-line at Formula one F1 Jackets Formula 1 Shirts and caps F1 Merchandise

It was $79 bucks and took about 10 days to get........I am pretty sure it"s not orginal "AMG"..........

Good Luck."

We all need a little of that these days.

THE FIRST FORTY MILES by Peter Nolan Smith

May 24, 1974 was a warm morning in Boston. A pale blue swathed the sky from east to west. It was a good day to start a long trip. My friend AK, a blonde nursing school co-ed, and I traveled by the trolley to Jamaica Plains. We got off at Boynton Street and walked down to number 166. A middle-aged man stepped onto the sidewalk and tapped his watch. It was 9:10. “You’re ten minutes late.” A porcupine buzz-cut topped his erect posture and his chino trousers had been ironed to a razor sharpness. The startling whiteness of his tee-shirt shouted ex-Marine. “Sorry.” It was my standard answer to men of his age and conviction. A blonde woman sat on the porch of the three-story apartment building. Her black dress testified to a lingering period of mourning. I bowed my head in respect for her loss. She bit her lower lip and dropped her gaze to the folded hands on her lap. “I suppose ten is better than twenty. The name’s Jake Moore.” The forty year-old seized my hand. “Please to meet you.” I met his firm grip with strength. “So you’re my driving team.” His steely eyes studied my shoulder-length hair, then regarded AK’s pony tail, and warmed to Pam’s free-flowing blonde locks. “That’s us.” I released his hand and introduced us by name. AK let me do the talking. Jake and I spoke with the same Boston accent. The piano player came from Long Island and Red Sox fans hated New York. “My grandmother lived not far from here on St. Joseph’s Street.” Nana had passed away in 1968. I missed her beef stew on cold nights. “Irish?” “From the West. Nana spoke Gaelic.” My grandmother had sailed over from Galway at the age of 14. “She came off the ship and lose her shoe. Nana said she came to America like Cinderella, but she ended up working as a maid in a Marblehead mansion.” “Better than a potato patch in the Connemara. Mine came over in the Year of the Pig.” Our shared heritage erased some of the gap between our haircuts. “My Nana arrived in the year of the Crow whenever that was.” It had something to do with Chinese Astrology. “Those women liked keeping a secret.” “That they did.” Jake looked over to the driveway. “That’s the car.” I glanced at the off-white station wagon with black and gold California plates. The chrome details were polished to a high sheen and the fake wooden paneling was unblemished by dings. The spacious back could sleep two with the passenger seats folded down and it was going to be ours for the next week, if Jake gave his OK. “Looks like a good ride.” “It’s not just any car.” He walked over to the station wagon with a content glow on his face. “This is 1967 Ford Torino with a 428 FE V8 and a three-speed automatic. I was lucky to get one of the last Cobra-Jet engines.”

“Wasn’t the same engine in Steve McQueen’s ride in BULLITT?” AK interjected to demonstrate his knowledge of cars.

“Ford designed that 390 for a Mustang GT, which had a much lighter chassis than the Torino.” Jake launched into a minute-long monologue about the Torino’s selling points. Most of them dealt with speed. “This baby can do a quarter-mile in 14 seconds.”

“Cool.” I nodded my head with appreciation. “My only car was a 1964 VW bug. Its top speed was 85.”

“85?” Jake scoffed my claim.

“Downhill with a tailwind in the White Mountains.”

"You know telling someone about your speeding isn’t the best way to get them to give you a car.”

“I guess not.”

“I’ll make sure that he keeps it down.” Pam shook her head.

She thought I had a big mouth. She wasn't all that wrong.

“I had hoped for someone more like me to drive the car, but there’s not many of me around Boston these years.” Jake searched our eyes for signs of drug use.

“More than you think.” South Boston still supplied the Marines with warm bodies.

“I suppose you protested against the War.” His statement was more an accusation than a question.

“When I was 17, I tried to enlist in the Marines to get out of my town, but my mother wouldn’t sign the papers.” My mother was a devout Catholic and hated communism, but she had loved me too much to allow my fighting overseas in a deadly war. “She threw them in the trash.”

“And at 18 you were a hippie?” Long hairs were traitors in the eyes of the Silent Majority.

“Something like that.”

An older friend had returned from Viet-Nam in 1968, extolling Muhammad Ali’s creed that no VC had killed anyone in the USA and my hair grew down to my shoulders in less than six months.

“There’s a lot of ‘something like that’ going around.” Sadness tinged his words and Jake held out his hand.

His fingers twitched a request. “Let me see your driver’s licenses.”

AK and Pam gave him their out-of-state driving permits. Mine had been issued for a Boston address. Last autumn I had been arrested after a high-speed chase in a VW from Pam’s college, but that information was only available downtown at the Department of Motor Vehicle on Causeway Street.

“Well, the faces match the photos.” Jake returned the IDs. “We drove out here for a family visit. My wife can’t bear driving through those corn fields again.”

“It is a long ride.” The distance from coast to coast was almost 3000 miles.

“You ever gone cross-country before?”

“I’ve not driven, but I hitchhiked back and forth twice. The first time was in 1972. A Super Bee picked us up in Iowa. The driver drove 100 or better most of the way to Reno. The trip from Boston to San Francisco took me and my friend about fifty hours.”

Pam and AK dismissed this claim with matching smirks.

“Fifty hours sounds fast, but it ends up averaging 60mph.” Jake stepped away from his car.

“We didn’t stop much. The driver was in a hurry to reach LA.” I had nothing to gain from an explanation about steering from the passenger seat whenever Lucky nodded out from his Methedrine jag.

“When I was stationed in Key West I used to hitchhike to Boston. Everyone who picked me up told a different story, almost like they were trying to change their lives, if only for the time I was in their car ride and that’s the beauty of the open road. You become someone different with a new name and a new past. You get out of the car and stand on the road with your thumb out, you go back to who you are. There is no escaping the future of you.”

Jake’s unexpected insight humbled my youthful arrogance, because his words constructed a link between college students, hoboes, tramps, soldiers, beatniks, runaways, and hippies traveling the same paths across America.

“No one believes my story about making the trip in fifty hours.”

“All stories are true, if interesting.” Jake clapped my shoulder and I gave him a smile.

The War in Vietnam was coming to an end and we had lost our hatchets instead of burying them.

“Hitchhiking’s a great way to travel. People have been traveling that way since Jonah rode in the whale. As for driving cross country in fifty hours this time, I’d appreciate if you take it a little easier on my car.”

“Driving fast in America is against the law now.” Congress had established a national speed limit earlier in the year.

“These idiots in government think driving 55 will save gas and free us from the Arabs. There’s no shortage of gas.” Jake’s face turned red with anger. “But you be careful on the road. Nothing the state troopers like better than arresting hippies for driving 60.”

“Thanks for the warning.” A station wagon provided good camouflage for passage through the Midwest. “We’ll keep it to 55. I’m sure your car gets better mileage at that speed.”

“Why are you driving cross country?” Jake asked Pam.

“The farthest west I’ve ever been is Buffalo to visit my college roommate and I’ve always wanted to see the West.” The blonde in her breast-clinging paisley dress was a vision of Woodstock beauty. Like most girls her age she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“Then you’re in for a treat; the Great Plains, the Rockies, the high deserts, the Sierras, and then California.” Jake had been on the road before and more than once. “And all the people. All different. All Americans.”

“Seeing America.” Pam added to her credibility as the girl next door by saying, “My fiancée is doing his internship at a hospital north of San Francisco, and I’ll be working at the same hospital this summer. Harry and I met in high school.”

“You’re high school sweethearts like my wife and me.” Jake regarded the woman in black. Her eyes remained fixed on her hands. “Somerville High School. Class of 1950.”

“I just graduated from college with a degree in economics.” I volunteered this information to change the subject.

My high school sweetheart had married my friend. Kyla had give Happy two kids. Everyone in my hometown said that they were the ideal family.

“What about a job?” Jake asked, as if had served his stretch in the military without counting days or years.

“I drove taxi to pay for college.” Four to five nights a week had taken their toll on my grades. “I probably spent too many hours behind the wheel. I ended up at the bottom of my class.”

“His diploma read ‘sin laude’.” AK added with a smile. He had told the same joke at my graduation party

My father hadn’t appreciated the Long Islander’s humor, yet my mother had beamed with pride after the graduation ceremony. Her mother had not finished grammar school back in the Connemara.

“You graduated and that’s what’s important.” Jake ignored AK’s dig.

As a fellow Hibernian the ex-soldier admired a lengthy education. Both our grandmothers had probably not finished grammar school under the British.

“Anyone can drive taxi. What about a real job?”

“I’m starting a teaching job at South Boston High School in the fall.” It was actually a substitute teacher position. I had taken no education classes in college, but a friend of my older brother had been elected onto the Boston School Committee and my position had been a reward for working on his campaign.

“I’d rather face a banzai charge than a class filled with teenagers.” Jake shivered in shudders.

“Yeah, when AK’s friend invited us out to Encinitas for the summer, I figured to take one long last beach vacation.” 65 was mandatory retirement age for a teacher. I would be working well into the next century, but this summer was dedicated to sea and sun south of LA. “We appreciate your letting us take your car.”

“It’s a big engine and guzzles gas, so I’m giving you an extra $100 for the trip, but I want you to fill the tank up every time the gas gauge hits half and only use the highest octane from Sunoco.” He held out the keys.

“Yes, sir.” I smiled to Pam and AK. We were minutes away from hitting the road. “We’ll see you in six days.”

“Make it seven. I don’t need you breaking your old record.” Jake and I signed the matching contracts from the drive-away company. “Have a good trip and drive safe.”

“I’ll make sure they take care of your car.” Pam put her bags in the car and positioned herself in the rear. She rolled down the window, ready for the wind in her hair.

“You do that, Pam.” His eyes studied her face for a few seconds, as if she might be someone else. To me she looked like the singer from The Band Named Smith. They had hit the Top Forty with BABY IT’S YOU.

“See you in Lodi.” Pam’s major was nursing and bed manners were her strong point in TLC.

I tossed my canvas bag in the back and sat behind the wheel. AK was my co-pilot. I reversed out of the driveway, then shifted the transmission into Drive. I beeped the horn and headed onto the Jamaica Way headed toward Brighton, where we would pick up the Mass Pike at the Charles River.

“For a second I didn’t think Jake was going to give us the car.” AK unfolded a map of the USA.

“It was never in doubt.” I drove around Jamaica Pond in the slow lane.

“What? With your admission to being a traitor.”

“I was telling him the truth, besides Pam had him wrapped around her little finger.”

“The power of feminine wile.” Pam smiled at me in the rearview mirror.

“Something never to be underestimated.”

“This is a nice car. It even smells new.” Pam came from the suburbs. She liked things clean.

“Jake was in love with his car.” AK had the same feeling for his Firebird.

“It’s a man thing. Sometimes I think my boyfriend loves his car more than me.” Pam checked her reflection in the window and tied a scarf around her head to keep her hair from getting snarled in the wind.

“What kind of car does he drive?” AK asked with the sly interest of a jealous suitor.

“A 1974 Mustang II.” She sounded disappointed of this. “It’s red.”

“Nice.” I didn’t mean it. Ford had dumped a Pinto engine into the classic Mustang to sacrifice power for fuel efficiency. “He drive it cross country?”

“No, he put it on a train and flew to pick it up in San Francisco.”

“Good thinking.” AK rolled his eyes. His Pontiac Firebird was fast, but its low mileage and bald tires were two reasons that we were driving Jake’s Torino.

“I wish we were that smart.” I remembered that I didn’t like Harry and his choice of cars reinforced my disdain.

“Are you making fun of Harry?”

“Not at all. I don’t have a car or a girlfriend to love.”

“Funny.” She didn’t mean it and I cringed at stepping on her toes so early on a long trip.

# 1 rule of reefer was to only break one law at a time.

“Wonder what Jake listened to on the radio.” AK pushed a button and both of us were surprised to hear Wildman Steve cuing up America’s # 1 hit. The Hues Corporation had scored a huge crossover hit with ROCK THE BOAT. AK’s fingers crawled over an imaginary keyboard. For a long-haired white boy from Levittown he had a lot of soul.

Five minutes later I turned off Storrow Drive onto Cambridge Street. The sun flashed off the Charles River.

The clear sky was a good omen for our journey.

A bearded hitchhiker stood at the entrance to the Mass Pike. I veered over to the breakdown lane and braked a hundred feet before the toll booth.

“What are you doing?” Pam asked with alarm. “You don’t know this person. He could be an ax murderer.”

“I’ve hitchhiked everywhere in the States and I never ran into an ax murderer.”

The ragged longhair was waiting by the passenger door. The scent of damp earth seeped through the closed windows. He was older than I thought and I was having second thoughts about him, but karma overruled my apprehension.

“Next week I’ll be hitchhiking down the coast of California. If I don’t pick up hitchhikers now, then I will be stranded in Big Sur for days.”

“I’m not happy about this.” Pam slid over to the driver’s side. “If he starts anything, I expect you to take care of it.”

“I promise I will.” I unlocked the rear door.

“Thanks for stopping. The name is Bill. I’m Mississippi-bound.” He was weathered by the road and a thick Southern accent slithered from his chapped lips.

“We can drop you at Sturbridge. We’re going to California.” I had friends from the South. They were good people.

“Damn, California, always wanted to see the fucking weirdos out there.” He was no hippie. “I’m joining a fucking carnival for the summer. We travel from Biloxi to Texas and up into the wheat fields. I specialize in bumper cars. How people drive them says a lot about them.”

“How so?” AK had to ask.

“Cautious people play it safe. Aggressive people go for fucking head-ons. You look like in-between people.”

His barbed comments were aimed at me. “In-between people get sandwiched by aggressive people. They don’t stand a fucking chance in life.”

Bill had been in the car for less than three minutes and I was already regretting having stopped for him. I slowed down to hear him fill the sullen silence between AK, Pam, and me with a rattling monologue about the life on the road.

“I spent the winter in a fucking logging town. Them damned Yankees don’t give a fuck for crackers like me, but at least I have my fucking front teeth. Last night I was in a bar on the river. They had a live band.” His hands draped over the seat. The knuckles were scuffed with scabs. “The pansy-assed guitarist wouldn’t play FREEBIRD, but played fucking Neil Young. I taught him the chords later. Fucking Yankees.” Pam sighed loudly in disapproval of his favorite adjective and he laughed, “Sorry, Sunshine, if I offend you. I was brought up twenty miles past the fucking wrong side of the tracks."

I turned up the radio for HOLLYWOOD SWINGING by Kool and the Gang.

“Why you listening to this fucking disco shine crap?” Bill barked over my shoulder.

“Fucking disco shine crap?” I glared at him in the rearview mirror. His face was swollen from hard drinking and his nose had been flattened by well-earned lefts and rights.

“Yeah, I hate fucking disco.”

“This isn’t disco.” The song was a big hit at the 1270, where gay boys loved dancing with straight boys and the deejay spun the best dance records in Boston. “Kool and the Gang are a thousand times more hip than that BAND ON THE RUN bullshit by that loser Paul McCarthy.”

“Loser? The Beatles are the fucking best band in the world.” Bill looked like he hadn’t slept much in the last few days and he smelled like a disinterred corpse.

“I’ll handle this.” AK had a much cooler head and I shut my mouth rather than lose my temper. Bill was a human like the rest of us. Maybe he was a little more unlucky than us, but the same flesh and blood.

“What makes you an fucking expert, Jew Boy?”

“Jew Boy?”

“What? You’re not a Jew? I can them as I see fucking them. Sorry, I don’t mean fucking nothing by it.”

“I’m at Berkelee Music School.” AK was also auditioning for a gig as a keyboard player for an all-black R & B band from Roxbury. Jump Street wanted a white guy in the group to deal with Boston’s honkie club owners. I had called him the ‘token whitey’. He didn’t think that was funny, but it evened us for his crack about my ‘sin laude’ status.

“So you go to fucking school for music?”

“Yeah, and the one thing I learned was that there are all kinds of music. HEY JUDE might be the best song for white people, but it’s nothing in comparison to SEX MACHINE by Sly Stone.”

“Or KUNG FU FIGHTING.” I checked the speedometer. The needle was wavering on 75 and I slowed down to the new limit, which felt 15 mph in a Model T. “Or SOUL MAKOSSA. You have to open your ears or else you close your heart.”

“That’s the fucking music they play in fag bars.” The word ‘fag’ carried a long-seeded hatred.

I stomped on the brakes in time to pull over to the breakdown lane. The bridge across the Charles River was another hundred years ahead. Cars whizzed by switching lanes for 128 North or South.

“That’s it.”

Fags were not strangers. The neighbor across the street from my parents was a homosexual. Arthur let us swim in his pool. My youngest brother showed his tendencies by stripping my sisters’ Ken Doll and not Barbie.

“Why you stopping?” Bill leaned forward with menace.

“Why?” The car’s owner had a buzz-cut. Bill had long-hair. Jake was more us than our passenger. I turned around in the bucket seat and revved the big V8. The Torino was still in drive.

“I’ll tell you why. Jack Kerouac wrote in ON THE ROAD that the biggest challenge for a hitchhiker was proving that the driver didn’t make a mistake picking him up and I have to admit I made a mistake with you. Now get out of the car.”

“He really means it.” AK had seen me fight on more than one occasion.

“This isn’t fucking Sturbridge.” He hesitated opening the door.

“Doesn’t matter to me. I don’t like queer bashers.” We hadn’t even reached 128.

“I fucking knew it the second I got in the car.” Bill opened the door and pointed a finger at us.

“Knew what?” I had to ask the obvious.

“That you two were fucking queers.” His accusation had been launched at hundreds of young men who weren’t hurting anyone.

“Even if I was, I wouldn’t fuck you with an elephant’s dick.”

“You fucking fag.” He started for me and Pam shrieked with the shrillness of the music from the bathroom murder scene from Hitchcock’s PSYCHO. I blocked his hands and AK leaped out of the car and grabbed Jim’s jacket.

The pianist mightn’t have been a fighter, but he manhandled the roustabout out of the car like a mahout hooking an elephant and flung our passenger across the breakdown lane. Bill tumbled down the embankment and AK chucked the vagrant’s bag over the slope. A lucky toss hit the rising Jim in the shoulder and our evicted passenger completed his descent down the gully.

“Go.” AK jumped in the front, checking his hands.

My right foot hit the gas and the Torino accelerated from a standing stop. Pam shut the back door and then leaned over the seat to examine AK’s knuckles.

“Nothing’s broken.”

“I’m not much of a fighter.”

“Unlike some people we know.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Well, I hope you learned your lesson.” She folded her arms across her chest. “He had his hands all over me.”

“Sorry.” I checked the rearview mirror.

Pam’s eyes met mine.

No straight man will understand the everyday terror of being a woman or homosexual and the blonde smiled at me, happy that Bill had hit the dirt hard.

“Let’s pretend it didn’t happen.” She tilted her head to the side. Blonde hair covered one side of her face and the twenty-year old nursing student pushed the strands behind her ears. “No more hitchhikers. This isn’t ON THE ROAD. And one more thing?”

“What?”

“Could we keep the use of ‘fucking’ to a minimum?”

“Your wish is my command.” I gripped the wheel and AK turned up the volume. The radio station WILD was playing James Brown’s PAYBACK PART 2. The Godfather of Soul had a wicked rhythm section.

AK and I exchanged a shrug. She was right about hitchhikers, but then women were right about everything and men were always wrong.

We crossed over the Charles River and I slowed to pick up a ticket at the toll booth. I thanked the attendant and laid a light foot on the gas.

A warm wind gushed through the windows. The traffic on the Interstate was rolling at 60. The Torino had a full tank. The station wagon overtook a procession of slower cars.

Three days from now was my birthday and I was going to be 22.

I stepped on the accelerator.

Once the speedometer hit 100 AK looked at me and I maintained my pressure on the gas. At this speed the other cars on the road were standing still, but none of them were heading to California and it was a long way to the Pacific.

Paffgen Brewery

Last evening I dined at Paffgen Brauerei, the last family brewery in Cologne. The beer served at this establishment is called "Kölsch" once the most popular beverage in the city. Once a dark beer, the draught's color was changed to resemble a pilsner. It is still served from the keg at Paffgen and I ordered a weinerschnitzel with three beers. The beer came in 2cl glasses and cost only 1.5 Euros. If I had been with a friend, I could have drank about twenty of them. Kolsch is the only beer to order in Cologne and the natives view Dusseldorf's Alt beer as water. I hate eating alone and left as soon as I was finished, but the manager asked where I was from. "New York." I was born in Boston, but lived in New York most of my life and I explained how the two cities share a bitter rivalry. "Same as Dusseldorf and Koln. One thing I want to tell you. Nico from the Velvet Underground was born here. Her family name was Paffgen. Her father was a solider in the War." He lowered his voice. "The father suffered a brain injury and they experimented on him in the camps." "Schiesse." Those were bad times for everyone. "I once saw her here." "Nico?" I had attended a concert of silver-blonde siren at the Mudd Club. The Warhol superstar accompanied her harmonium with a gravelly voice like a sledge dragged through mud. I escaped to the upstairs bar. She should have done a duet with Yoko Ono, the Axis of Drone and Shriek. "She was blonde and tall. A true Paffgen. Are you leaving?" "No." I sat for another two beers. You are never alone as long as you have your memories. PAFFGEN Friesenstraße 64 50670 Köln 0221 135-461

One Dead Clown

GW Bush was concerned about the potential casualties in the Iraq War and asked Dick Cheney for advice.

"Tell them the truth. 5000 Americans, 1,000,000 Iraqis, but add one clown."

"Why?"

"You'll see."

At the next White House press conference the reporters clamored for details on the casualties and GW Bush says, "We estimate that there will be 5000 American dead, 1,000,000 Iraqis, and one clown."

The reporters jumped to their feet and asked, "Why one dead clown?" GW Bush smiled at Chaney and misquoted HL Mencken under his breath, "Nobody ever went broke misunderestimating the intelligence of the American public." Dick Cheney could only smile, because only a fool laughed at his own joke.

Eight And Out Of Iraq

On September 11, 2001 the United States was assaulted by three hijacked commercial airliners. A fourth jet crashed into a Pennsylvania field. 9/11 shocked the nation and its populace sought revenge. The President, CIA, and FBI laid the blame on supporters of Osama Bin Ladin. The Al-Quada leader was living in Afghanistan and the Pentagon quickly arranged for long-range bombing raids on the Taliban in control of that land-locked country. Northern Forces swept south to Kabul driving the Islamic fundamentalists from power. The operation was a complete success and an increased military presence accompanied by political presence of mind might have been consolidated the victory, except the neo-cons under GW Bush had switched their focus from Afghanistan to Iraq. They wanted regime change to alter the status quo in the MIddle East and the president's men convinced a vengeful nation that Saddam had a hand in 9/11. His Weapons of Mass Destruction were a threat to American interests around the region. The prediction was that an invasion of Iraq could be done on the cheap; $50 billion doors and the troops would be in country for a very short period. The Shock and Awe campaign shook the foundations of the Baathist government and the conquest of Saddam took weeks instead of months. GW Bush landed on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and declared 'Mission accomplished' on May 1, 2003. He was wrong about weapons of mass destruction and terribly wrong about 'mission accomplished'. Us troops lost over 4000 troops and the Iraqi civilian population suffered from 'friendly fire' and an aggressive suicide campaign by insurgents seeking to oust the occupying foreigners as well as settle old scores based on the religious fractures within the Shiite and Sunni communities. The list of mistakes made by the US leaders only worsened the situation. Looting, torture, summary executions, indiscriminate killing by US mercenaries, IUDs ad nauseum showed the ineptitude of the Defense Secretary and the callousness of the Vice President, yet the President refused to cut and run. He wanted victory. It never came in his term and today the last US troops pulled out of Iraq, except for 157 soldiers protecting the US embassy in Bagdhad. The Second Iraq War is over for the USA, but it certainly was no victory. $1 trillion doesn't buy much when it's spent by fuck-ups like the Bush regime, but it is over and Private First Class Martin Lamb said it best at the Kuwaiti border. "Part of history, you know - we're the last ones out." Just in time for Christmas. One down and one big one to go. Bring the troops home.

America's Heartland

Iowa is in the center of the USA. I drove through the state in 2009 with Brock Dundee. He was shooting a film of the sculptor Barry Flannagan and part of the project consisted of VDOing the ailing artist's hare statues in their various settings around the world. One was in front of the Des Moines Art Museum. People walked by the work and Brock asked for their opinion. They all had something to say. This was America's Heartland and its citizens liked to be heard by folks in distant places. Most Americans have never visited Iowa and few could probably find it on a map, however the state will kick off the 2012 presidential campaign on January 3 with the famed Iowa caucuses. The standing president has no rivals contesting the Democratic nomination, while the GOP field for the White House consists of seven candidates; Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum; one Milf, one hypocrtite, two Mormons, and a cracker from Texas a complete asshole have dominated the debates to deny the only logical candidate ie Ron Paul airtime. America is a country of over 300,000,000 people and the Iowa caucuses give the Hawkeye State the chance to change the nation. Its population is 1% of the nation. "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain." Ah, Iowa.

Christopher Hitchens RIP

Long-time Vanity Fair writer and general anti-anythingist Christopher Hitchens passed away at the age of 62. Seconds after his death his body remained dead. He was not Christ and he promoted atheism to his dying breath. Friends and colleagues mourning his passing. Vanity Fair represented the sell-out of an intellect, so I was not familiar with his writings, but his editor wrote that, "Pre-lunch canisters of scotch were followed by a couple of glasses of wine during the meal and a similar quantity of post-meal cognac. That was just his intake. After stumbling back to the office, we set him up at a rickety table and with an old Olivetti, and in a symphony of clacking he produced a 1,000-word column of near perfection in under half an hour." That is some damned good typing at sixty words per minute let alone writing. New Yorkers loved him; he was British, intelligent, and a drinker. He knew the known and the known knew him for his work in The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, and Free Inquiry. Few had the gall to question his Roy Cohnesque association as a neo-conman for the Hoover Institute. A fan of GW Bush and the War in Iraq cost him deeply, but he was a man of conviction are as all neo-cons. The years at Vanity Fair tortured his socialistic roots and he declared himself a 'conservative Marxist who favored international capitalism over the unreality of revolution, yet I applaud his radicalism against Zionism and his undying faith in his own beliefs. The cocksucker spoke his mind. Nothing was sacred and he was no fool.

Bah Fucking Xmas

I remain true to the old school despite my non-believer status. Today we were hanging ornaments on the tree at the residence in Luxembourg. I came down in a Scrooge-like night garment. The young people regarded me strange and I explained that I was Scrooge. They had no idea what I was talking about. "Don't you know Tiny Tim?" They had to be aware of the youngest Crackett's soul. No was the expression of their face. They were ignorant of Christmas Past Present or Future. "Fucking hell." I stormed upstairs in an atheistic huff. "Fucking Bah Humbug." They could decorate their Giftmas tree by themselves. There is no Christmas in the world of Skyrim and it's a good thing that I didn't ask them for the words to WHITE CHRISTMAS. They wouldn't have even known how to hum it. Dumb little bastards.

First Come First

The world economy has suffered numerous setbacks after the banking debacle came to light in 2008. Governments bailed out the banks and politicians told the taxpayers that they and their children were responsible for the debt. The USA merely printed for dollars, but the nations of the EEU were handcuffed by the Euro and the insolvency of several members, especially Greece. France and Germany sought a compromise to bolster the faltering currency and last week seemed to have reached an agreement acceptable to all parties until UK PM David Cameron obeyed the demands of his country's Euro-skeptics to protect the financial institutions of the City of London and vetoed the EEU's call for more fiscal regulation on the banks. The UK under the Tory leader has decided to go it alone. Austerity now. Austerity next year. Austerity forever. A lost generation of youth, cuts to the public sector, loss in income are Cameron's offer to the British nation, as the PM showed a strong face to his right-wing constituency. 'Blunder of a lifetime' was what one European parliament member called the treaty boycott. "There is one golden rule in politics: you only walk away if you are sure that the others will follow, for when you are invited to a table, it is either as a guest or you are part of a menu." Liberal Party leaders have distanced themselves from the PM, as if he had cut a fart during a dinner. "It's not us." But the stink sticks to the coalition partners, while the Tories hope to weather the storm by calling labor and the Liberals 'cowards'. When in doubt, name-calling works best for the weak-minded. Cameron's use of the veto scored a rousing 58% with his Tory backers showing support of 87% for insuring the safety net for the City of London.

Back to 2007

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." - Sinclair Lewis

Oh No Canada

Like most New England hockey fans the national anthem of Canada has been screwed into our aural memory. Some of us even know the lyrics of the English version. Few can sing the French version and no one in my immediate family has heard the Inuit rendition. "O Canada! Our home and native land!" The opening words were changed to 'Oh no, Canada', when conservative environment minister announced that his government was rejecting the Kyoto Protocol on climate change in favor of seeking a path more suitable to the present economic situation in the northern nation. "Meeting Canada's obligations under Kyoto would cost $13.6bn. That's $1,600 from every Canadian family - that's the Kyoto cost to Canadians, that was the legacy of an incompetent Liberal government." Fear of money and blame the old government are classic ploys from conservatives around the world as a gambit to protect the vested interests of corporate polluters such as the massive mining corporations ravaging the polar region under the aegis of Stephen Harper's regime. The Kyoto Protocols was accepted by every nation in the world back in 1997 with the exception of the largest energy consumer on the planet, Canada's southern neighbor. In per capita usage Canada ranks second behind the USA. The environmental minister extolled the nation for its 2% of consumption, even though that marks them as 9th overall. Not close to the bronze, but nothing to write home about, unless the press is controlled by the right. Oh no Canada. The land of frozen hockey pucks. Bad bad bad. Top-ten emitters China – 17% region's emissions as a percentage of the global total, 5.8 in units of tons of GHG per-capita United States – 16%, 24.1 European Union – 11%, 10.6 Indonesia – 6%, 12.9 India – 5%, 2.1 Russia – 5%, 14.9 Brazil – 4%, 10.0 Japan3 – 3%, 10.6 Canada3 – 2%, 23.2 Mexico – 2%, 6.4 Inuit Version OH CANADA Uu Kanata! Nangmini nunavut! Piqujatii nalattiaqpavut. Angiglivalliajuti, Sanngijulutillu. Nangiqpugu, Uu Kanata, Mianiripluti. Uu Kanata! nunatsia! Nangiqpugu mianiripluti, Uu Kanata, salagijauquna!

The Unglitter of Gold

Last week Peru's president suspended civil rights in a northern Andean region after a series of protests had shut down the development of a new gold mine. The locals had resisted the government's attempts to aid Newmont Mining to exploit the region's watershed for their project and the politicians have responded to the the violence response to police tactics by banning the right to assembly and authorizing arrests without warrants throughout the four enflamed provinces. "We have exhausted all paths to establish dialogue as a point of departure to resolve the conflict democratically," the president told the Press, but his prime minister disagreed with the repressive measures and he resigned from the cabinet. The environmental damage of draining four lakes to provided the mine with a reservoir for poisonous waste material has been at the heart of the conflict. The locals have no reason to believe the environmental studies by Newmont, since the world's largest mining consortium has a long history of ignoring the wishes of the people. with no resolution in sight, Newmont's NYSE stock prices have fallen from their high, but this set-back can only serve to push gold prices higher and that means bigger profits for its shareholders. They know how to win win with the best of them.

World's Worst Road

An article from Travelling Board ranked the most dangerous roads in the world.

http://travellingboard.net/travel-guides/the-most-dangerous-roads-in-the-world/

The winner was the 'Road of Death' or North Yungas Road in in Bolivia.

The winding mountain 'highway' covers about 70 km. through the Bolivian Andes from La Paz to Coroico. Heavily traveled the route reaps from 100-200 souls every year. The slightest lapse in attention and the driver will find himself hurtling down the steep slopes with his passengers screaming out their last breath.

Eeeeeiiiieeeeeeiiiii!

I googled 'Thailand worst road'.

A web search delivered the road between Poipet and Siem Reap.

I overlanded on this horrid road from Siem Reap to Pattaya rather than fly Bangkok Air. My friend Nick and I figured that the plane-taxi option cost about 6000 baht and 6 hours versus 2000 baht and 7 hours staying on the ground. 4000 was almost over 60 beers at the Buffalo Bar. Too much beer to sacrifice.

We hired a 1997 Camry and set out at 8am.

The driver drove the 220 kilometers every day.

"Four hours. 10 hours have rain."

Dirt dust and potholes.

Bangkok Air pays Cambodian officials to not repair the road to maintain their stranglehold on the air route being the only option for anyone other than backpackers and heavy beer drinkers like Nick and me.

Rattling across the flat plain we passed buses loaded to the gills with passengers wearing scarves to prevent breathing the dust.

"Seven hours. 100 baht." The driver informed us.

I love beer, but also my butt and was glad to be speeding to Poipet at 50 kph. Once we hit 70. A stone cracked the windshield. It wasn't the first time. We arrived at the border in four hours as promised. Another 3 took us to Pattaya.

Bad road?

Yes, but not dangerous like 'The Road of Death' or Pattaya's 3rd Road.

Someone dies between Pattaya Tai and Pattaya Klang every day.

Mostly motorcycle drivers racing without helmets.

Their death poses are memorialized by white paint outlining their final sprawl.

Scary.

Almost as frightening as crossing Sukhumvit at 3am.

Now that's really terrifying.

Especially if you run the red light.

ROUGH ROAD / Peru

Peru sucked in 1995.

The capitol city Lima sucked even more.

I had spent the better part of two days trying to score a bag of cocaine. The airport police had fingered me as a user. They weren't wrong. An undercover squad had tailed my ventures into the slums. Their obvious presence had scared off any steerers. To the dealers I was either DEA or a fool.

Ms. Carolina didn't understand my mounting frustration. The golfer pro had been reared in a convent. People like me didn't frequent the 19th hole at country clubs.

The blonde southern beauty and I had been seeing each other for over five years. her husband was in his late-60s. They had an understanding. He gave her space to take trips on her own, so she didn’t feel trapped after twenty years of marriage. Ms. Carolina came back with a smile and the small town doctor had a monthly week of peace and quiet. The arrangement had worked for years, except Ms. Carolina had violated an unspoken tenet of her pact.

She had fallen desperately in love, but even worse I had met the old doctor at a party in New York. He was a good old boy. The Ten Commandments had no influence over my deepening reservation about adultery. The Sixth Commandment was superseded by my rule about never sleeping with the wife or girlfriend of someone I respected. Her husband was a deep woods cracker, but he helped people white or black. T

They were meant for each other and it was time for us to part.

Ms. Carolina deserved better than a nightclub bouncer and nothing said an affair was over faster than a coke binge in Peru.

The Lima police refused to cooperate.

On our last night in Lima I pretended to be asleep. Ms. Carolina cuddled up to me and I mewed with pleasure, as she stroked my skin. Convent girls were tough to refuse in the dark, even in their 40s.

On the third morning I left the hotel and there were no police on the sidewalk. A heavy fog was rolling off the Pacific and I headed over to a plaza in Miraflores, where I noticed several nasty pieces of work hanging on the sidewalk. I approached the one with the best clothing and explained my proposition. I gave him $20 and promised another $80, if he came back.

"Non problema." The dealer shifted his eyes left and right. "Trente minudos."

I sat at a cafe and ordered an expresso. The bastard hadn't shown up by my third. I swore under my breath, thinking I had been ripped off, then spotted the dealer across the plaza. He walked as if he was carrying the mother lode. We exchanged smiles. My hand went into my pocket. A car screeched to the curb. A squad of 'tomba' hit the pavement and threw us against the wall.

"I am screwed." I muttered several times, but the cops cut us loose.

"Bamba." The lead detective hefted the bag of powder.

"Bamba?" This word didn't register in my lexicon of Peruvian slang.

"Fake." The detective spoke English like he had spent time at a police academy in LA. "You got ripped off. Via con dios."

I returned to the hotel in a black mood. Ms. Carolina and I had been together long enough for her not to ask the whys. A black rental Nissan Sentra was waiting outside. The odometer read 70,000 miles. The steering wheel betrayed the real wear and tear. Lima's potholes had taken their bite from the suspension, but the coastal highway was smooth as the surface of a frozen Maine lake. We were driving north along the Pacific, taking turns at the wheel. I acted 'nice' and put CDs in the stereo. Ms. Carolina liked my music.

The land north of Lima was a desert without houses or vegetation no trees. A few giant chicken farms with millions of chickens pooping out eggs into basket for consumption in the capitol dotted the sand expanse and towns huddled next to streams flowing with water from the glacial melt to the east. According the guide book the Sechuran Desert received close to no rain each year.

The ocean was a dark blue mystery. The Humboldt Current surged south from the Arctic. Balboa had named it 'Pacific' as a joke. The waves crushed ships on desolate shores, doldrums starved men to death, and storms sucked armadas to the depths.

I went for a swim at a nameless beach. The cold water stun my skin. Seals surfed the waves. Ms. Carolina took pictures. She was happy. It would have been easy to make her sad, so I kept my mouth shut, as she handed me a towel.

Back on the road Ms. Carolina handed me a Pilsen Callao. The bottle was icy cold and I thanked my passenger.

"You're a good traveler companion."

"Is that all, precious?" She only said the words precious to dogs, children, and people who annoyed her.

"Why?" It was a question a man is never supposed to ask of a woman.

"Because there's also this." She held up a bag of green leaves and explained with a southern accent. "Coca. I know it's not what you want, but it's the best I could do with my limited habla espanol."

"Okay, you're a saint too." I stuck a wad of dried leaves in my cheek. Breaking up was hard to do with a woman this nice.

"That's what I thought too." She smiled and joined my predilection for epiphany.

The coca and the beer loosened my tongue. I told her about Pizarro's conquest of the Incan Empire. His march in 1532 had traversed the coastal wasteland. "His troops numbered less that 200. They headed into the mountains and found the Royal Incan at a place now known as Baños del Inca. For some reason Atahualpa and his army of 80,000 were defeated by a sneak attack on the king. They later garroted the Incan when he didn't give them more gold."

"Nice people." Ms. Carolina loved hearing my shortening versions of history. She was smart enough to absorb the parts that sounded almost true. 'You know that coca makes you real talky, precious."

Like Pizarro we left the coast and drove into the mountains. Our destination was Huaraz. The road wound through an arid valley walled by ever-steeper cliffs. We entered the high plain with the eastern horizon blocked by snow-covered mountains. This was the first sight of the Andes for both of us. Ms. Carolina lowered the window of the rented car to admire the sun gleaming off impressive range of peaks.

"How are you feeling?" Traveling in rural Peru was more dangerous than Lima, since the local motorists drove as if they were used to empty roads. They passed on blind corners and sped through switchbacks with deadly intent. Being a defensive driver I anticipated their every stupid move with an almost ESP alacrity.

"Fine." She sounded a little dreamy.

"Good, the coca makes it easier to breath at this altitude." We were 3000 meters above sea level, which was higher than most of the Rockies.

"You want me to drive?" She had been behind the wheel most of the way from Lima to Casma.

"No, I'm good." The surface of the valley road was impeccable, however the uncertainty of the indigenous motorists' way with the wheel was a test of bravery as much as skill. "You enjoy the view."

She loved the mountains and we arrived in Huaraz in the late afternoon. Our hotel was cheap, but cheerful and we sat on the roof drinking wine and examining the map for the next day's travels. Ms. Carolina held THE ROUGH GUIDE TO PERU. She loved reading about where she was to learn the history and geography. The temperature dropped with the setting sun, but we were warm in our alpaca sweaters purchased at the farmers' market.

"Those mountains are the Cordillera Blanca. About fifty miles north of here a road crosses the Andes and descends into the jungle. The road cuts south. It's probably dirt and none of it good. I bet fewer than ten westerners travel it." A couple of years before the trip would have been too dangerous. The Shining Path had ruled the Andean highlands. Their president had been captured by the military and there was no number two to take over the role of leader for the Maoists.

"What are you thinking?" She fluttered through the guide book without finding any references to the region. It was terra incognito.

"Maybe it might take two days from here and back to Lima." I spit out a gigantic chaw of coca. It hit the tiled roof below us with a splat.

"Then I'm all for it." Ms. Carolina tried to imitate by projectile gobbing. The green goop rolled down her chin onto her new sweater. Girls from convent schools were terrible at spitting.

"Good thing your sweater is green." I brushed the dregs from the alpaca with my sleeve. She laughed at the absurdity of this gesture and we clinked glasses to honor the possibilities of tomorrow's trip.

The Olluquito con charqui accompanied our excellent dinner of lake trout. The waiter hailed from Matibamba. He pointed it on the map. His hometown town was on the other side of the Andes.

"No one goes there. Only people leave." His eyes clouded with disbelief and then suspicion, as if we might be DEA.

"We're not the police." Ms. Carolina had changed into a lovely traditional dress. Her smile reconverted him to our side. She knew how to treat men and bought him a beer. "How's the road?"

"Road? Malo. Muy malo e mucho peligroso." He begged us to only visit the twin glacial lakes east of Yungay. "Very beautiful same."

"Muchos gracias." She toasted him for braving his fears as well as his compliment. Gringos are never good luck in Latin America.

As we retired to our room, Ms. Carolina hooked her arm with mine. Several piscos reserves had affected my equilibrium. High altitudes played havoc with hard drinking. Now was not the time to say that we were over. I kissed her with the tenderness of a sailor about to sail away from his port and fell into bed as soon as we reached our room. I didn't have to fake going to sleep.

The dawn sun rose behind the eastern horizon shark teeth rising from marshmallow glaciers. Some of the mountains rose to 6000 meters plus. Their names came from Quechuan. Stone fireplace, hummingbird beak of ice, and the butcher were just of few. Climbing those monster were for experts. Driving was strictly for fools.

Ms. Carolina put on her explorer outfit. The pants and shirt had an excess of pockets. I wore jeans and a leather jacket. This was a road trip and not a safari, then again she was a woman and women like looking good in case they have to get dirty. I put her wide-brimmed hat in the trunk.

"I like that hat."

"Tough. I'm not traveling with Indiana Jones."

"Sore sport." She threw my Red Sox cap in the trunk. "And I'm not traveling with a jock."

It was a good way to start the morning and we went our separate ways.

I filled the gas tank and had a mechanic check the engine and tires. I hoped that we didn't need a spare, if we drove slow enough on the rough roads. When I told the mechanic my destination, he wished me luck.

"Mucho Gracias." His comment reinforced my opinion that crossing the Andes in a rented car was plain old stupid.

Ms. Carolina got provisions for the journey. She had been born in the Adirondacks. Camping in the north woods required planning. The weather killed fools.

"You know I've been thinking about this trip." We had another fifteen days in Peru. This drive might eat two or five.

"Listen you always play that Steppenwolf song for me." She got in the car and motioned for me to get behind the wheel. AS I snapped on my seatbelt, Ms. Carolina said, "That singer sings 'looking for adventure and whatever comes our way. I didn't come here with you to stay at the Holiday Inn and drink chardonnay. Let's see whatever comes our way. What the worst thing that can happen?"

"We get stuck in a remote town and kidnapped by banditos."

"I was thinking about something less worst."

"We get stuck in the remote town and have to tow the car back to Lima."

"Now that's not a bad worst."

We supplemented the coca in our cheeks and I started the car. There is nothing like false courage to make something stupid sound like a good idea.

The road to Yungay was well maintained by work crews. They were happy for the work and good at it. Ms. Carolina had the map on her lap and the guide book in her hands.

"Yungay was destroyed by a glacier avalanche in 1970. Over 70,000 people were killed. The town was buried under ten meters of debris." She read the facts and I spotted the slide. Twenty-four years later a mile-wide scar marked the slope under Mount Huascarán.

"Looks safe today." I turned right and the dirt road weaved through the fertile farmlands into a pine forest and then a series of switchbacks. I kept the speed under 25 to give time to avoid potholes and roads. Several battered cars came from the other direction. They were covered with dust. A relic of a bus appeared at a corner. The passengers waved to us. There were no towns at the lakes, so they had to be coming from the other side of the Andes.

"That's a good sign."

"What?" Ms. Carolina was studying the valley floor for car wrecks. She suffered slightly from vertigo. Coca was working a miracle to calm her fear of heights. The Sentra squeaked around a hairpin curve and it was my turn to feel the fears.

We rose into the chasm with the sensation of sinking, as the twin giants topped with millennia of snow and ice loomed over the road with a fury restrained by gravity. They were close enough to shiver from the cold trembling off their unattainable summits.

"That cars are coming from where we want to go."

"Good." Her lungs were wheezing from the lack of oxygen.

"Are you okay?" I played three hours of streetball every day back in New York. My chest rivaled the width of Henry VIII and he was a fat man. Aided my the coca leaves I was fine.

"A little migraine that's all." Ms. Carolina was a sport, but high altitude sickness was no joke.

"If it gets worst let me know."

The road leveled out for two lakes glistening azure under the high Andean sun. We parked the Nissan by the side of a creek spilling into Laguna Llaganuco. Shredded clouds fingered the cliffs and the sun blistered the lake surface with mirrored flashes of light. I stripped off my clothes and told Ms. Carolina, "I'm going for a swim."

"It has to be cold." The water was straight off a glacier.

"Purification rite." My anti-Catholicism didn't interfere with my spirituality. I wore my shoes into the water. The beach was water-smoothed stone. I leapt from the shore. The cold was deeper than a plunge into a Bar Harbor beach in March. Ice crackled my capillaries and I stroked back to earth. Ms. Carolina spread a huge towel on the stones. I shuddered for several minutes before regaining the power of speech. She was sitting on a storm-wizened stump of a tree.

"Cold?" She handed me a glass of pisco. Ms. Carolina knew how to treat a man.

Stupid ones too.

"Fucking cold." I lay on my back.

Ms. Carolina lay next to me. She was warm. We were close to the sun. Ten minutes later I was on my feet. I pointed to the top of the pass.

"Beyond that the unknown." I dressed quickly in my dry clothes and sat behind the steering wheel. I turned up the heat.

"You want me to drive?" Ms. Carolina was genuinely concerned about my condition.

"No, I'm good." My hands were shaking from the effects of exposure and I chewed more coca leaves. They weren't helping. I put the car in drive. "I'll take it slow."

I did for the first mile. Several cars passed us. They knew the road and I increased the speed to 30 mph to keep up with them. I looked out the window. The valley of lakes was disappearing under a cloud bank. We were at flight altitude.

"Precious, keep your eye on the road."

"Yes, boss." I turned my head to scowl at her. The car scrapped over a rock with a screech of metal. The stench of gas filled the car. Ms. Carolina smelled it too. Something was wrong.

"Damn."

I got out of the car and lay on the dirt. Gas was spewing from a gash in the tank. My attempts to staunch the flow with electrical tape were failures. I stood up and looked up the road. The pass was obscured by a thick fog. It might be snow.

"We have to turn back. We have a full tank and it should get us back to Yungay. At worst we can roll down the mountain."

"On the road, I hope." She lifted her hand. "Just trying to be funny."

"Ha, ha." My humor was diminished by the prospect of having the rental car towed back to Lima. I gave up trying to estimate how much that would cost in my head. "That was my bad. I'll pay whatever it cost."

"This is not a 'me' world, but a 'we' world. 50/50." Ms. Carolina had her moments. "Let's get going before I have to push us."

I drove down past the lakes. They were as beautiful the second time as the first. We didn't stop for photographs. The Nissan rocked through the potholes and shivered across the ruts. The gas meter read half-full. We made Yungay with a quarter tank to spare.

I asked a local about a mechanic. She pointed around the corner. The building was surrounded by wrecks and scavenged hulks. There was no way that I was leaving the Nissan here. The three men in the garage lifted their heads from a V8 block. The oldest man was sealing a crack in between two cylinders with an acetylene torch. He sniffed the air with a knowledgeable nose. It was long and crooked. He turned off the torch.

I stepped out of the car. The boss signed for his young helpers to take a break. They lit up cigarettes and the older man shouted at them in rapid Spanish. Admonished by his tirade they put out the cigarettes.

The older man shook his head and wiped his grimy hands on grimier overalls. His eyes squinted in the bright sunlight like his mind was calculating the price of his solution to my problem. The passenger door opened behind me and his shifted over my shoulder.

“Senora.” The boss bowed his head with a polite deference. Blonde hair the color of the sun was an abnormality in the high Andes. Ms. Carolina was basically an extraterrestrial come to slum on Earth and the boss offered her a chair, then explained in passable English, “This not big problema. Road bad. Rock cut tank. I fix. Take out tank. Empty petrol. Seal hole with solder. Turn tank back upside down. Car OK. Good idea.”

“What is plan numero two?” I asked to re-establish my standing as the man here, not Ms. Carolina. It was a futile effort.

“Plan two?” The mechanic smirked at my question. “Plan numero two I go to Lima. Get new tank.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“Si mucho caro. Plan numero uno est better.”

“Very good idea. How much?” Carolina got to the point.

The man held up two fingers. I thought $200 was a rip-off, but he smiled and said, “$20.”

“Very good idea.” Ms. Carolina shook his hand. None of his grime came off on her hand. Goddesses were above dirt. The man introduced himself as Chocho. “I like Chocolate.”

“Who doesn’t.” Ms. Carolina told our host that I was her husband. The lie was easier than explaining the truth.

“Bueno.” Chocho ordered beers. The two young man jacked up the Nissan and yanked off the tank, as Ms. Carolina took photos of the mechanic and his children. He laughed hearing about our wanting to see the other side of the mountain.

“Nothing there. No hotels. No beer. Nada. Everyone leave there. Come here or go to Lima.” He clapped his hands and ordered his children to leave the garage, as the young men poured out the gasoline into a plastic bucket. They hauled the empty tank into the courtyard and our new friend advised that we get something to eat.

“Senora, better you not here, if tank go boom.” His fingers flicked up to aid our visualizing his plan # 1 going bad. “Not worry. If go boom. We do plan two.” Te two young men didn’t join his laughter. I didn’t think it was funny, but Ms. Carolina laughed so hard that she swallowed her cud of coca leaves. The wad stuck in her throat. Chocho slapped his palm on her back. She expelled the block across the street. It struck the wall with the intensity of a bazooka shell hitting the side of a Panzer tank.

“I guess I went boom boom.” He joke got a rib-ripping chortle from Chocho and we had a classically Peruvian lunch of cuy chactado and olluco, roasted pig and Andean tubers. along with roasted peppers. After several glasses of pisco Chocho looked at his watch.

“Car finish. You can go now. You go to other side of mountain?”

“No, I think we’ve gone far enough.” A gas tank can only be flipped one time.

Ms. Carolina paid Chocho and tipped the two young boys. $5 was a good day’s pay in this part of Peru. I thanked them for their help with two baseball caps. The three of them waved good-bye, as I pulled out of the garage. Ms. Carlo checked the air with a quick sniff. “No gas leak.”

“And they put what they took out back in the tank.” The Nissan had a quarter tank. “So what the plan?” “Head north to the coast and then back to Lima. Chilbote is a city with two bays. I’m sure they have good fish.”

“Me too, you know I came down here for a reason and it wasn’t a coke binge.” I had to tell her my feelings. The word love was dead on my lips.

“Honey.” Ms. Carolina lifted her hand. “We’ve been together five years. I think I know what goes on in that little head of yours. Not everything, but sometimes you’re easier to read than a comic book.”

“I am.”

“You’re a man. I’m a woman. You’re a comic book. I’m a mystery.” Her sunglasses hid her eyes, but there were no tears, despite the hurt warbling in her voice. “We had a good time. We can still have good times, but only on two conditions.”

“Which are?” My mind shuffled through the possibility of conditions like a card shark.

“No explanations. They don’t change anything and seconds as long as you never introduce me as a ‘friend’, I can live with being an ex-lover.” She caressed my hand. “Can you live with that?”

“I only want to make you happy.”

“You want to make me happy, then give me that bag of coca leaves.”

She stuck a clump of coca in her cheek. I put Tom Hardin’s YANKEE LADY on the stereo. I sang the words and Ms. Carolina joined me on the chorus. The insurmountable mountains paraded down the valley to the sea and the sun dazzled off their peaks. It was a good day to be on the road.