Damned Les Habitants

My introduction to French was via the heavy accent of Pepé Le Pew. The cartoon skunk appeared on TV every Saturday morning in Maine during the 1950s. Pepe never got the girl. Skunks smelled bad and supposedly the French also never bathed with soap. France was across the Atlantic Ocean, but another France was much closer to my home across the harbor from Portland.

Quebec.

The largest minority in Maine was the French Canadians. They worked in the mills and logging camps. A radio station from Montreal played songs for these workers and their families. I listened to them on a ROCKET RADIO, Miniman Model MG-302.

Somehow attaching its alligator clips to the metal frame of my bed powered the crystal. I listened to the French music. None of the words had any sense, but several evenings a week in the winter a hoarse voiced announced the hockey games from ‘le Forum’.

The Canucks in Maine supported the Canadians or ‘les Habitants’. The team dominated hockey in the NHL, winning six of the decades’ Stanley Cups. My father came from an old New England family. We rooted for the Boston Bruins. They always lost to the Habs just like Pepe le Pew never got the girl.

My father moved our family from Maine to the South Shore of Boston in 1960. My ROCKET RADIO was upgraded to a Japanese transistor and I caught the Montreal station when the atmosphere was clear of static. The music was changing from smooth to pop. A young singer was very popular with teens.

Francoise Hardy was the ‘Yeh-Yeh Girl’.

I bought 45s in Mattapan Square. The nuns at Our Lady of the Foothills taught us French. I understood the lyrics and plotted to meet her one day.

Pop lost favor for rock.

I loved the Sultans' garage rock version of LE POUPEE QUI FAIT NON.

But some things never changed.

The Bruins continued to lose to the Canadians with regularity and the Montreal team captured four Stanley Cups in a row, until the Bruins’ Bobby Orr scored a Cup winning goal in 1970. The victory was against an expansion team, the St. Louis Blues, but this was their first Cup since 1940.

They had been lucky to avoid the Canadians during the playoffs.

They never lost to the Bruins.

April 1971 the Bruins were favored to beat the Canadians in the semi-finals. The goalie Gerry Cheever allowed one goal in the first meeting. It was Easter Week and my three friends and I were driving down to Fort Lauderdale for Spring Break.

We had rented an apartment across from the Elbow Room, famed from the 60s movie WHERE THE BOYS ARE.

Below Washington we entered the Deep South. We were longhairs and rednecks hated hippies almost as much as we hated the Canadians.

Our only stops were for gas and food.

Throughout Georgia we listened to WBZ's broadcast of the second game between the Habs and Bs. The Boston-based radio station had a strong 50,000 watt signal. The Bruins went up 5-2 at the end of the 2nd period. The signal died at the Florida border.

In my mind the Bruins were returning to the Stanley Cup. We stopped for complimentary OJ at the state hospitality stop and drove the rest of the night to reach our destination at dawn.

I had never been to Florida before and I marveled at the palm trees, the Gulf Stream, and co-eds in bikinis.

Our apartment had a view of it all. I went down to the store for beer and picked up the local newspaper, opening the sports section. I blinked several times in disbelief before the printed tragedy hit me with full force.

The Habs had come back from the abyss and scored 5 goals in the 3rd period.

The series was tied at 1-1.

The Bruins pushed the Canadians to the limit and lose game 7.

That misfortune was repeated often over the next four decades, but two nights ago with history on the line the Bruins played the Habs in another game seven. I was watching from Mullanes across the street from Frank's Lounge, which does not do hockey.

The teams were tied into OT.

I was ready for the loss, but the Bruins of 2011 were not those of 2010 or 1971. We won the game and I toasted my team with another beer. I was the only Bruins fan in the bar. It felt good and I lifted my glass one more time. “To Pepe Le Pew.” I hope that somewhere he got the girl in the end.

Studio 54 plus 34

Studio 54 opens its doors 34 years ago. It changed the nightlife of the world. I was hanging out at CBGBs. We sneered at the discophiles. I visited the club that winter in leather and jeans. Everyone outside was in satin and glitter. The doorman pointed at me and waved for me to come forward. The crowd parted like the red Sea for Moses' staff. They liked strange in Studio 54. Flashing lights, poppers, and sleek skin.

I liked it too.

Tonight I'm sitting my Fort Greene apartment. The night is warm. I wasn't at Studio 34 years ago, but I'll try and make the 54th anniversary thanks to my years of clean living.

Scottie Taylor, a bartender at Studio, asked if those years of clean living were 1961 & 1962?

I answered him yes, but added 1963 and 1964. Paul Keenan and I started drinking the altar wine in 1965. His father was a druggist. We roofied the priest to keep his roman Catholic hands off us. Surplices and cheap wine in a church. Better than Studio 54 and twice as wicked. I know,because I've been to both places.

The Beauty of FREEBIRD

My youngest brother's health suffered a precipitous decline in 1995. The experimental drugs had failed to stem Michael's ruthless aliment's advances. I received a telephone call from my older brother in Boston. I was running a nightclub in Beverly Hills. He told me the bad news. The next day I was on a plane to Logan. My family was waiting at the hospice on the South Shore. I had seen friends die of AIDS. None of that prepared for the sight of my brother. His only nourishment was a morphine drip.

I guessed his weight to be 120. His family sat by his bedside. My mother patted his hand. My sisters wet his lips. My father met the tragedy with a noble stoicism. He had done his best. Tears were for another day. My older brother read from the Bible. My youngest brother responded to none of this.

One night I entered Michael's room and my younger brother was playing FREEBIRD on his guitar. Paddy was a kind soul, but my youngest brother was more into show tunes and disco than southern rock. I mentioned this to my brother.

"You're right, but in his state I figure that he would hear this song and know it was me." My youngest brother strummed his guitar and I joined his singing the song. I was more a punk than anything else, but I knew every word. FREEBIRD had been a huge hit in 1972.

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on, now,
'Cause there's too many places I've got to see.
But, if I stayed here with you, girl,
Things just couldn't be the same.
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now,
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can't change.

Bye, bye, its been a sweet love.
Though this feeling I can't change.
But please don't take it badly,
'Cause Lord knows I'm to blame.
But, if I stayed here with you girl,
Things just couldn't be the same.
Cause I'm as free as a bird now,
And this bird you'll never change.
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can't change.
Lord help me, I can't change.

My younger brother put down his guitar and kissed his emaciated brother on the forehead. I kissed the other side. His skin was waxen. Michael had only a little further to go.

"Let's take a photo."

"Now?" Paddy knew how vain Michael was. It was a family trait.

"If not now, then it will be never." Michael had hours left in his heart. I positioned my camera on the bureau. The timer ran for thirty seconds. The camera snapped a shot of Paddy and me with my baby brother between us. He died a day later. We buried him in the town cemetery. I fled the sorrow to Asia and mourned my brother at the holiest temples in the Orient.

Upon my return I developed the roll of film from Michael's last days. I didn't show the shot on the bed to anyone but Paddy. He shook his head.

"What? You thinking about how thin he was?" I asked taking the photo back from his hand.

"No, just thinking about how fat we were."

I looked at the picture and laughed at the truth. Michael would have too and probably did someplace in the afterlife. He was out there somewhere.

FREEBIRD INDEED.

HATE ‘HEY JUDE’ HATE By Peter Nolan Smith

The Beatles and the British invasion vanquished American music from the Top 40. April 1964 the Fab Four dominated the US charts with 5 #1 hits. I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND was the first. One smash after the other and the Liverpool band had long legs. A HARD’S DAY NIGHT gained a stranglehold on 1965. RUBBER SOUL was released in December 1965. Another year lost for the garage bands of the suburbs. Their potential hits blipped on the radar of pop music. The Rolling Stones confronted the Beatles on equal ground, but the adoration of teenage girls had transformed the English group into gods.

Even the drummer Ringo.

When John Lennon claimed that they were more popular than Christ, priests and preachers sought to burn their LPs in Nazi fashion, however the bonfires of the Bible Belt were shunned by virtuous teenage girls willing to sacrifice their maidenhood to Beatlemania.

This defloration fantasy was shared by the majority of New England girls. My next-door neighbor favored John Lennon. He was the Smart One. Addy Manzi had seen the group at Carneige Hall in December 2, 1964. Her father had played with big bands in the 40s. His old music contacts had scored the tickets. Addy was the envy of every girl in my hometown, yet even her beauty had not been enough to pierce the siege lines at the Plaza Hotel. She had attended the Boston Garden show a week later. Her luck was better for that concert.

“John played every song for me.”

Most girls pined for Paul McCartney. The Cute One. My younger sister wrote him a dozen letters. She was not alone. Kyla Rolla was the cutest girl in my 7th Grade class at Our Lady of the Foothills. I knew her since we were 8. Our first puppy love died with her parents’ divorce.

Kyla wore her blonde hair long like Paul’s girlfriend, the British actress Jane Asher. She had cried for days after seeing the Beatles at Shea Stadium. Her older sisters had driven to the concert. They stood high in the standings of girls in my hometown. It didn’t take much, but going to that show was more than enough.

My band was the Rolling Stones. They were outlaws. I couldn’t tell Kyla that SATISFACTION was the greatest rock song of all time. I love the B-side of the 45. UNDER-ASSISTANT WEST COAST PROMO MAN. In order to gain her heart I had to commit treason to the best rock and roll band in the world.

I stopped visiting the barbershop in Mattapan Square. My hair grew over my ears. Loafers were abandoned in favor of Beatles boots. I wore a Beatles jacket. No collar like Chairman Mao. It cost $15. Matching pants were another $10. I wore the suit to school. The nuns sent me home with a note for my parents. My streak of perfect attendance was shot, but Kyla noticed me for the first time in years.

“Who’s your favorite Beatle?” she asked on the way home from school. I sat in last seat of the yellow bus. Her uniform skirt was four inches over her knees. The nuns sent home any girl with a higher hemline. The seat next to me was empty. There was only one answer.

“Paul.”

“Me too.” Kyla sat down close. Her skin smelled of Ivory soap and her hair emanated the scent of Johnson’s baby shampoo. Her green eyes were emeralds stolen by Murph the Surf from the Museum of Natural History in New York. Green as cut grass. I prayed that she didn’t notice my stealing her fragrance with near-silent inhales, as our conservations revolved around Paul McCartney trivia.

Paul was a Gemini like me. He was 22. I was 12. His favorite color was blue. Mine too. I told Kyla that she looked like Jane Asher. She let me hold her hands. I sang her songs off BEATLES 65. ‘YOU’VE GOT TO HIDE YOUR LOVE AWAY. Kyla closed her doe eyes dreaming that I was her Paul.

“Kiss me, Jane.”

“Oh, Paul.”

Our lips met at the red light before the local church. Paul’s soul invaded my body and my hand touched Kyla’s sweater. It was cashmere. Her ribs felt like thick guitar strings. My fingertips inched higher. They grazed the bottom of her breast.

“Oh, Paul.”

My hand glided over her nipple. I had practiced the movement on my own thousands of times. I had expected a moan, instead Kyla gasped with outrage. A slap to my cheek devastated my imitation of Paul.

“But I thought that____”

“You thought wrong. You’re no Paul.” Kyla pulled down her shirt and stormed down the aisle to the girls her age. My older brother had seen the entire episode. His eyes warned the other boys to not make fun of me. It didn’t stop their snickers.

Every day I begged Kyla for forgiveness. I had never imagined that her fantasies were rated PG. She ignored my every entreaty. I was no longer her Paul. She went steady with Jimmie Lally. His hair color was closer to Paul’s than mine. I didn’t hate him or her, because they were caricatures of the greater world beyond the confines of Boston’s South Shore. Rock and roll, fame, and fortune.

My parents bought SGT. PEPPER for my birthday. I listened to it once. Kyla had ruined the Beatles for me. The Rolling Stones regained my devotion. I played HIS SATANICAL MAJESTY’S REQUEST twice a day as if the Devil could restore Kyla to me. His power failed day after day. The Beatles seemed more powerful than Satan, then we came back together. I didn’t know why and didn’t ask why either. We were childhood sweethearts touched by the Devil.
Kisses were not kisses.

A caress was soul-deep.

Her family was living on the other side of town. Her older sisters had moved out of the house. Two of them were stewardesses. The other dated a biker from Wollaston Beach. His name was Chico.

Kyla and I were a thing. We were saving it for our wedding night. Herr mother was going a man from Chile. They spent nights out in Boston. We had the run of the house until midnight. I was almost a man.

Kyla introduced me to WBCN on her FM radio. “Mississippi Harold Wilson” was the first DJ to play Cream’s I FEEL FREE. She loved the Velvet Underground. I was a big fan of the Jefferson Airplane. We lay on the couch of her dark living room. Our nights were everything except have sex. My parents understood that we were in love. My mother was okay with our dating as long as I got home before midnight. I felt a little like Cinderella.

My hair got longer. Kyla and I talked about running away to San Francisco that summer. We got as far as Wollaston Beach.

At summer’s end I spent a long night on the couch. Her bra was on the floor. Her panties down at her knees. My Levis were unzippered. Our hands did the rest. Time disappeared from our universe, as WBCN’s night DJ played the Modern Lovers’ ROADRUNNER, the Velvets’ ROCK AND ROLL, and Quicksilver’s MONA. We were naked, when JJ Johnson announced over the air, “I have a special song to play this evening. A masterpiece. HEY JUDE by The Beatles.”

I stopped rubbing against Kyla’s thigh. WBCN never played The Beatles. Paul McCartney, my old rival, opens with vocals and piano. F, C and B-flat. The second verse added a guitar and tambourine. Simple. Pure Beatles.

“I love this.” Kyla pulled me closer and closed her eyes. The four minute coda of ‘Hey Jude’ went on forever. At the song’s end I was still a virgin, but only just. Kyla opened her eyes and sighed, “That was good.”

I read the love in her eyes.

Paul.

Always Paul.

I looked at the clock on the wall. It was 2:10. I kissed her lips and dressed fast, as if my speed could turn back the hands of time. Kyla waved from the door way. She was wearing a silk robe.

“Tomorrow.”

“Manana.” I had learned the word from her mother’s boyfriend. He let me drink wine.

The streets of my hometown were suburb quiet. No cars. All the houses dark. My home was three miles away. I began to run. I was on the track team. A car appeared around a curve. A VW. My father’s car. He must have been coming to get me. His mood had to be dark. He liked his sleep. The VW 180ed in the street with a screech. It had a short turning circle. The car braked to a halt and the passenger door shot open.

“Get in.” It was a command. I sat down expecting the worst. My father read the riot act. “All you had to do was call. Ten seconds and say you were all right. But you were only thinking about yourself.”

I never saw the punch coming. The VW never swerved. Blood dripped on my shirt. My father handed me a rag. I could tell that he was sorry for having lost his temper. I had never hit me before.

“You’re grounded for a week.”

“Yes, sir.” A month was punishment. A week was an apology.

He turned on the radio. WBZ. The disc jockey was playing HEY JUDE. Soon The Beatles song would be the only song on the radio. It stayed #1 on the American charts nine weeks. Kyla played the song at home. Her mother did too. My mother also. My father knew the words. I couldn’t get them out of my head.

Even to this day.

Always telling me, “I’m not Paul.”

Then again I never said I was.

And the next night I didn’t have to be anyone to Kyla, but me.

After that there was no manana.

Only on HEY JUDE a thousand "Na na na na na na na."

Who's # 1

Easter weekend brought the youth of spring to New York. The trees are flowering and the temperature will be in the 70s by midday. Holiday-makers are returning from their vacations with tropical tans and the city is slowly resuming its hectic pace. The Hassidim will return to the Diamond District tomorrow and Manhattan will abandon the spiritual for its incessant search for the superficial.

Jesus has been exiled from his temporary # 1 status on the Google search engines by superstar Lady Gaga follow by teen heartthrob Justin Bieber and then cats. Not the musical CATS. Cats as in the household pet beat out the saviour of the Believers. Cats also scored higher than Barack Obama, Elvis, and the Beatles. John Lennon must be rolling in his grave to have fallen so low. At the peak of the Beatles, the singer said in a UK newspaper interview, "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity."

The Believers in the USA freaked at this statement and irate church officials burned Beatles records in the South. Reporters in America badgered the Fab Four for a retraction and John Lennon gave them the following apology.

"If I'd said television was more popular than Jesus, I might have got away with it." Lennon said he had only been referring to how other people saw their success, but "if you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then okay, I'm sorry."

He was a man of his word.

And I think that he really was sorry.

For something, but not his words.

Click on this next image to see who's where on Google Search

Nines

Easter was a special holiday for our family. My mother was a devout Catholic. My father had converted from agnosticism to marry his Irish bride. The Bowdoin College grad was a good dresser and they attired their six children, as if we were the jewels of empire. Every Easter we wore new clothes from tie to shoes. Our family's fashion statement for the holiday was the highwater mark for our parish south of Boston.

My mother and father have been promoted from this mortal coil. I never confessed my rejection of their faith. The truth would have only pained them both and my apostasy is a private matter, however this Easter as every Easter before it I dressed to the nines. Not a stitch of old on my limbs. Tan suit, white shirt, Celtic green tie. White shoes. My mother loved white shoes and this Easter Day was a day for white shoes.

A misty morning had surrendered to the will of a balmy afternoon. The long winter was gone and the youth of new season was blooming on the trees. My mouth broke into a smile at the sight of the white flower of the ornamental pear trees.

I walked over to Frank's Lounge in my finery. No people on Lafayette were dressed for the occasion. I spotted Raldo on Fulton. The old high-lifer was slick as an otter in his racing red sweater, flannel trousers, and panama hat. The rakish style icon rarely sports a jacket in warm weather, so the police know that he isn't carrying a gun. They can't believe the light-skinned Prince of the Strip has retired from the game for good. Most of his friend share the sentiment. Raldo and I have no history and 80 year-old greeted me with a nod.

"Hey, there, white boy." The salutation has no bite. Raldo doesn't know my name. "Looking good."

"Thanks."

"But I don't know about the rest of these folks." His eyes shuttled from left and right terminals. His vision took in the whole street. Disappointment scrunched his grin and he hitched up his 30" waist trousers. Raldo weighed as much as the wind. "Low-assed jeans, a sloppy tee-shirt, and fat. How did those young people get so fat. Damn, they so fat they put the Fat Man of the Carnival out of work."

"It's a plague." I didn't say more. It had been a long winter. Comfort food warmed the flesh. My estimate on my weight was 10 pounds off. I had to lose my girth and I sucked in my stomach. It almost hurt. "And catching."

"You better watch out, white boy." Raldo tipped his hat.

"Do too."

Raldo looked over his shoulder with a snap of his head.

"I'm good." He sauntered up the hill with women on his mind.

I headed down Fulton to the bar across from the statue of General Fowler. The Civil War general fought at dozens of engagement against the South. This winter an admirer covered his cold shoulder with a cape and wrapped a wreath of Xmas lights around his head. It was a good look.

I entered Frank's. The Celtics-Knicks game was on the TV. Tom the bartender whistled with appreciation. His two octogenarian friends applauded my effort. I bought the three immortals a round. We toasted my parents. The Celtics won the game and I returned home.

Happy.

I hadn't spilled a beer on my new suit. My white shoes were spotless. Messing them up is for a day other than Easter.

Hellbound and Loving It

My co-worker at the diamond exchange on West 47th Street is a born-again Christian. Ava sits behind me. She listens to Brazilian Jesus music at a low-volume. I don’t understand the lyrics, but the word ‘Jesus’ is repeated often in the choruses. Ava attends church on Saturdays and Sundays. She believes in the 2nd Coming of the Messiah. The Judgment Day is a tangible date in the near-future.

“Do you think I’m heading to heaven?” I was joking with her. My non-belief is well-known on 47th Street.

“No.” Ava shook her head vehemently without condemnation. “You’re not going to heaven?”

“I’m not?” My concept of the afterlife consists of coming back as a skinny blonde go-go dancer, so I can control the destiny of men. Ava’s version was more traditional and I said, “What if I repent at the last moment?”

“Then you go to purgatory after you die?” Ava was convinced on this fate.

“That’s better than hell.” The fiery pit was legendary for its lack of cold beer, although the only beverage in limbo was a gray flagon of regrets and heaven’s fountains are not spraying lager.

“Only if you truly repent.”

“And who decides that?” I had a feeling that the arbiter of eternal salvation would not be fooled by my last-minute re-conversion to my old faith.

“God.”

“He has to have too much to do to bother with me.”

“That attitude will send you to hell.” Ava exercised no sense of humor on the subject of eternal damnation.

“Well, could you tell me when the Day of Judgment is coming?”

“Why?” The Brazilian was puzzled by this question.

“So I can drink cold beer for a month before I go burn in Hell.”

“Damned. You’re damned, but I'll still pray for your soul."

"Thanks." Ava was a good girl and a man like me needs a good girl to pray for his soul, for in Hell there will only be bad girls. Go-Go girls, whores, sluts, trannys et al. It will be a Hell of an Eternity and I will be in bad company. How bad can it be?

A Man from Nowhere

My older brother and I were born 13 months apart. My mother dressed the two of us in the same clothing to firstly prevent us from fighting over shirts, pants, and shoes and secondly to heighten the illusion that we were twins. She loved people asking that question and she would reply 'Irish twins' with pride, even though Yankees considered the term an insult or that "Irish Twins' were siblings born within 11 months of each other.

My older brother and I accepted her dress code without question. We were born in the 1950s. Not only was silence golden, but children were better off seen, but not heard. The Sisters of Our Lady of the Foothills were of the same mind. My brother was a class ahead of me. I was a little taller. In our uniforms or altar boy outfits we still resembled each other to most people, but both of us could tell the difference. His hair was darker and my head was larger. For the earlier segment of my youth there was no question about our kinship, but as I grew older I rejected many of my family's traditions and beliefs, most importantly the acceptance of God and somehow I doubted whether this family was actually my family, almost as if my real family had abandoned me at birth.

This confused state was the opposite of the Capgras delusion theory, in which according to Wikpedia 'a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor.'

I was the impostor and searched for the proof of my substitution. My birth certificate bore my name and the baby in the photos of the family album resembled me and no one else. I was who everyone said I was, but that is not the case for Barack Obama.

During the last gasps of Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, her staffers released the rumor that her opponent had been born outside the USA and his citizenship came into question. This strategy was a failure. Barack Obama ran against Senator McCain, who was too much of a gentleman to use such underhanded tactics. A wise move to take the high ground, since the GOP candidate had been born in Panama, while his father was posted to the Canal Zone by the US Navy.

Over the past three years critics of the president have continued to challenge the validity of his Hawaiian birth certificate. These 'birthers' are the backbone of the Tea Party and a plurality of GOP supporters regarded Obama as a foreigner. Several state governments have actually introduced bills on the subject. The governor of Arizona vetoed such a proposal, however Donald Trump, the New York billionaire, has publicly expressed his discomfort with the POTUS' nationality issue by demanding that the president produce his birth certificate.

My friend Ty Spaulding attended school in Hawaii with Barack and said to me, "He's as American as you and me."

We met in Nepal atop a Himalaya glacier.

Our opinions do not matter to birthers, but the State of Hawaii will provide proof of birth to anyone who asked for it. Only 26 people have asked for this document in the past three years. Donald Trump, Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt, Ohio Republican congresswoman Jean Schmidt, Georgia Representative Nathan Deal, Sarah Palin, and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich have yet to visit Hawaii to take a look and CNN made it easy for Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachman, who's no relations to the beautiful Barbara Bachman by showing her the birth certificate.

The issue stays alive on talk radio, because no truth sounds better than a lie everyone wants to believe.

As for Obama he can only say his version of the truth.

"Just want to be clear - I was born in Hawaii."

Like he had any idea where he was on the day of his birth.

My mother knew where I was back on that cold day in May of 1952.

Boston.

An American through and through.

Until someone finds my Irish passport.

Then it's Erin Go Bragh.

I do love my Guinness.

It's certainly better for you than Budweiser.

No-Go Zone on the Hudson

Last weekend I rode the Hudson Line north to Poughkepsie. Spring was suffering a delay thanks to a powerful storm warping across the nation. Heavy winds were expecting to batter the region overnight. I sat by the window and watched the a gray rain lace the river. At times the opposite bank was obscured by a heavy mist, but just north of Croton-on-Hudson the weather lightened to allow a view of Peekskill Bay.

Three concrete towers dominated the southern vista. The cooling towers of the Indian Point nuclear station supply a third of New York City's electrical needs. Subways, elevators, my computer and lights, and millions of energy drains depend on Units 2 and 3. # 1's pressurized water reactors was shut down by the AEC due to its failure of its emergency core cooling system to meet regulatory requirements.

Entergy, the owner of the plant, has long held that the two reactors pose little threat to the area, despite the site's proximity to the Ramapao faultline. Their claims have not assuaged renewed concerns about the plant's safety, especially since the Japanese government declared a 20-kilometer no-go zone or NGZ around the earthquake-damaged Fukushima nuclear reactor.

"No need to worry."

A 20 kilometer NGZ at Indian Point would encompass over 300 square miles according the the following formula; A = Pi times r squared.

West Point would escape the zone, but Peekskill and Croton-On-Hudson would be as deserted as the forest surrounding Chernobyl. At least 200 years before anyone could survive in the dead zone, unless the Japanese or extra-terrestial visitors could save us from ourselves.

Yesterday was Earth Day.

I toasted our planet at the diamond exchange with my co-workers and Manny, my boss. Beers for everyone on me. Richie Boy, his son, had taken off the day. He was driving his brand-new SUV to Montauk. It is powered by gasoline. I keep telling people that we won't have any cars 20 years from now. No one believes me. I don't really believe me too, but no one will be driving in Fukushima until the year 2212.

I won't be around then, unless the extra-terrestials also invent a youth rejuvenating machine.

29.

I wouldn't mind being that old again.

It's my half-life.

You Bet I Would # 6

A friend of mine posted this photo on Facebook. The website managers warned him against such material. Squares of Political Correctness and many of his friends also chided him for purveying sex. Americans are so puritan that the adults have forgotten how to have sex and the white race has to depend on teenage single mothers for population growth.

Of course Sarah Palin's daughter was rewarded with a TV contract for her unwedded mommy status.

Way to go, America.

West 23rd Street Afoot

Residents of Chelsea are noticeably thinner than the inhabitants of other Manhattan neighborhoods. Their sparse frames might be attributed to youth, exercise, and diet, however the cause of their weightlessness is a result of the paucity of M-23 buses. Every time I exited from the F train at 23rd Street to head west the the galleries by the river, the connecting bus stop is crowded with commuters. This evening was no exception. I stepped onto the street and studied the oncoming traffic. There was not a bus in sight. A glance in the other direction affirmed my suspicions that the 3rd term mayor of New York had targeted Chelsea for the first stages of public transportation cuts. The young were impatient with the wait. Walking home was faster than the bus and good for their circulation. The old and infirm had no choice other than to grimly tolerate the abysmal service. I was tired from a long day at work, but hoofed the four long blocks to 10th Avenue.

The paintings at the gallery were worth the hump, although the slog to 8th Avenue tapped the dregs of my reserve. I descended into the subway. The toll booth was not only unattended. It was gone. A white square of ungummed concrete marked the ghost of its existence. The platform was packed by travelers on the C Line. The train arrived several minutes later. I took a seat to rest my weary bones, thankful to be living in Fort Greene and not Chelsea. A bus runs in Brooklyn. In fact many of them. It's a good place to be.

ps I like skinny girls

The Downside of Heaven

A holy man from Bali died from old age. He arrived at the Pearly Gates to be greeted by St. Peter.

“Welcome to Heaven.” St. Peter led the Balinese holy man inside the holy rest home of eternity.

“I thought heaven was only for Christians.”

“No, no, heaven is for everyone. Over there are the Balinese. To the right the French. Back there the Muslims. Up front the Christians. Over there the Irish.” St. Peter pointed out every segment of heaven, then as they walked through a forest of euphoria, St. Peter whispered. “And over there are the Fundamentalists.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“Because they think they’re the only ones up here.”

Read Stanley Elkins THE LIVING END

It's a Smaller World

My bloodline is divided between my maternal Hibernian roots and my father's Yankee heritage. My Nana was transported from the West of Ireland across the Atlantic in steerage and my DownEast ancestors sailed with the Pilgrims on the Mayflower. Both families held strong convictions about the value of hard work and in 1962 my father found my older brother and me a job delivering the morning newspaper for the Boston Globe and Herald to our neighborhood south of the Neponset River. The distributor paid four cents a paper. My brother and I earned more than $10 a week at a time when then minimum wage was $1.15. We were rich boys at 8 and 9. My mother banked the money from the newspapers for our college fund. We got to keep the tips.

Our youthful spending sprees devoted to Yodels, cokes, movies, and comic books didn't deplete our personal stashes and I decided to be charitable with my money. The nuns of Our Lady of the Foothills had organized a fund drive to proselytize the war orphans of Korea. My Uncle Jack had fought with the Marines at Chosin Reservoir. My father had escaped service in that far-off conflict by writing a letter to JFK, then Massachusetts' freshman congressman. They had both done their duty in WWII. My father was exempted from joining the battles against the Chinese hordes. He was the sole source of income for his family. I felt that I owed a debt to the less fortunate children and contributed $15 to the nuns' charity.

My selfless donation was praised by the sisters and I was given the right to name the baby orphans at their baptism. It was almost like having my own children and I gave $30 more for the right to these motherless wards of the Church with names such as Peter Nolan Kim, Chaney Park, and Fabian Lee. The pastor of our parish rewarded my generosity with documentation of my wards' baptism and enrollment in an orphanage with hopes of increasing Christ's army in Asia. I stashed the certificates in my closet. I attended Catholic school only to please my mother. My belief in God had reached a dead-end in 1960, when my best friend, Chaney, drowned in Sebago Lake. He had been 6. No god I wanted to worship would have let someone that young die.

Over the years I would wonder about my wards. I hoped that they had escaped the clutches of the Church. My research into the numerical ranks of the faithful in Korea revealed that many Koreans had rejected traditional beliefs in favor of the more liberal concepts of all men and women sharing equality as espoused by the Chatholic and Protestant missionaries. Their proponents ballooned to sizable proportions of the population and in recent years I have Googled the names of my charges without any success. I also have occasion to travel through Korea on trips to Thailand. Korean Air is the best airline in the Orient. Each time I'm waiting in Inchoen Airport, I study the name tags of the workers in their 40s. One day I'll meet one of my orphans.

Either in this life or one of the next.

We are all family.

GONE ARE THE GODS by Peter Nolan Smith

This afternoon at the diamond exchange my co-worker Ava was reading scripture, while listening to god music on her computer. This good woman is worried about my soul. I told her that I was content with the threat of hell, for my best friend had drowned in Sebago Lake at age 8. No one saw him over his head. He died alone. Over 50 yeasrs ago I decided that no god could have permitted such a death and I told Ava, “I am happy with my spirituality.”

“But I don’t want you to burn in hell.” This single mom had a heart of gold. Only Jesus could bring me to the promised eternity.

“Believe me. I will not burn in hell.” I’ve never done anything so bad in this lifetime to deserve an endless torment from the devils of Satan. “I’m a good man. Most of the time.”

“But you don’t believe in God.”

“When I was young, hippies believed that a guitar player was God.” ERIC IS GOD was spray painted across walls in the UK and America. Clapton’s searing performance with Cream had earned that accolade.

“No man is God.”

“Jesus was a man.” Earlier Christianity argued the duality of his natures. Half-God. Half-man. Every variation on that theme.

“He was a God.” Ava sucked in her breath. In her mind my words were straight from Satan. Her lips moved with prayer. “You are going to Hell.”

"I'll have good company."

Mostly sinners, non-believers and heretics, but also those devotees to Eric Clapton, for their rock god was a false idol. There is only one and true guitar god.

Jimi Hendrix.

The Jesse James of rock burst onto the screen with his staggering performance at the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival. A long way from his first gig at Seattle’s Temple De Hirsch. At the end of covering the Troggs hit WILD THING he set his Fender Stratocaster on fire. From that moment to his final appearance in Germany Hendrix was the mountain.

I saw him at Boston Garden in 1970 with my good friend Wayne Shepard. The opening bands were Illusion and Cactus. Their sets were short. No one had come to see either band. We were waiting for the Jimi Hendrix Experience Part 2. Jimi took the stage with Mitch Mitchell on drums and Billy Cox on bass.

The set consisted of Fire, Lover Man, Hear My Train A Comin’, Foxy Lady, Room Full of Mirrors, Red House, Freedom, Ezy Ryder, Machine Gun, The Star-Spangled Banner, Purple Haze, and Voodoo Child (Slight Return).

I kept shouting out THE WIND CRIED MARY. Wayne worshiped Jim. He elbowed me to shut up. I stopped after the LSD hit my brain. I don’t remember much after that other than singing “Cuse me while I touch the sky.”

Jimi didn’t burn his guitar with lighter fluid that night.

Only with his fingers.

40 years ago.

When I was young.

And listening to him tonight bring me back to those days.

18.

Jimi lives on.

Forever.

One day maybe Ava, my co-worker will understand my worship of the Left-Handed Guitar. He was human. Like the rest of us.

To see PURPLE HAZE please go to his URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnFSaqFzSO8

Holiday In Hell

A holy Iman dies in peace. He is astounded to be welcomed by St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.

“Sorry about the no 77 virgins. In this heaven we spend our days in the glory of God, who is non-denominational. You’ll meet the truly blessed evolving into the truly blissed.”

The Iman accepts this heaven in all its goodness, but after a few weeks he goes up to St. Peter and says, “Heaven is great, but all those years on Earth when I was preaching about the horrors of Hell, I was often curious what Hell was actually like.”

“Pretty much as you envisioned it.”

“IS there anyway I can see it?” The Iman was more than slightly bored with the communal utopia of Heaven.

“Of course there is.” St Peter opens the Pearly Gates and points to a set of endless stairs. “You can visit Hell on a one-time visa. Two weeks. Do anything you want. You earned this holiday by all the goodness you create on earth. Get it out of your system and then return to the bosom of the Creator.”

“And I can go now?”

“Anytime you want?” St. Peter walks the Iman to the stairs. He is greeted by doe-eyed houris and escorted to a bar where Jimi Hendrix is playing LITTLE WING. Hitler painting the walls and Marilyn Monroe working upstairs in the Satan a Go Go. It’s great fun and time passes in the blink of an eye. The Iman says goodbye to everyone and climbs the steps to the Pearly Gates.

“So how was it?” St. Peter asks peering down the stairs.

“Not like I expected it.”

“Well, at least you got it out of your system. Back to the eternity of bliss.”

Unfortunately his holiday infected the Iman. He can’t stop thinking about hell. Heaven is all communing with the great oneness. He goes back to St. Peter and asks if there’s a way he could go back to Hell.

“Sure, but if you go you can’t come back.”

The Iman looks over his shoulder at the fleecy clouds and praying angels.

“No problem.”

“See you on Judgment Day.” St. Peter is all smiles like a dealer selling a hot shot and so is the Iman as he walks down the stairs, although this time the houris greet him with pitchforks. Fire laps his legs. His flesh is torn open by the demons.

“St. Peter, this isn’t the Hell I knew. Why’s it so different now.”

St. Peter shouts from the Pearly Gates, “That’s the difference between going someplace on vacation and living there.”

Rent-Free Hell

This evening on the C train between Hoyt-Schmmerhorn adn Lafayette Street a young man was preaching about the wrath of his lord.

"God loves his flock, but hates a sinner. All you sinners will have a special place of torment in Hell." He glared about the subway car like Josef Mengele, the SS Angel of Death at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I met his stare with cold blue eyes, but smiled as I asked, "Are those places rent-free?"

Most of the passengers were immune from his rant. Their headphones and earplugs filled their head with song. A few were free of any device and they laughed at my quip. The preacher was not amused and pointed a finger in my direction.

"The end is coming soon."

"Not soon enough for me, if it means you'll be taken to your holly heaven and I don't have to listen to you anymore."

The train stopped at Lafayette and I stepped onto the platform. I half-expected the preacher man to follow my exit.

"You're lost." The preacher scowled without joy. There are no jokes in hell for the Christians.

"Not lost, but found in the beauty of humanity and the glory of love."

I couldn't imagine the Jesus-lover celebrating Bunny Day with an egg hunt, but stranger things have happened to the faithful.

Even to those without a sense of humor.

Tar in the Blood

My father’s side of the family arrived on the the Mayflower. Howlands. My Nana rode a deck above steerage in the Year of the Crow. She was 12. My parents enrolled my name in the ranks of The Sons of Colonial Wars and Mayflower Descendants. As a hippie I was anti-status quo and never attended a single gathering of either association, despite our rumored family ties to Hannibal Hamlin, Abraham Lincoln’s first vice president. We were from Maine. My grandmother’s last name was Hamlin. I recalled her saying that she was related to the great man and have mentioned this to many of my friends over the years.

A few have backed up this claim. My father compiled a family genealogy. I can only guess at our past, so I researched the family connection on the Internet.

The first page of websites blatantly accused my supposed ancestor of having been a mulatto, citing his dark complexion.

“Hamlin is what we call a Mulatto…they design to place over the South a man who has Negro blood in his veins.”

His Vice-Presidency added another incendiary flame to the secessionists and his political opponents in Maine further scandalized by untruths as to his heritage.

“That black Penobscot Indian.”

Of course no one was really white back then. Artists painted presidents as white when in truth they were men of color, because white women died in droves during childbirth. Faced with extinction white males impregnated black women to save the race, plus sex with white women was an obligation instead of a pleasure, however the darkest of the dark were thrown out of the big house same as Abraham banished his concubine Hagar and his son Ishmael into the desert.

As for me, I walked like the Mothers of Invention sang on FREAK OUT, “I’m not black,but there’s a lot of times I don’t feel white.”

It’s in my blood.

And everyone else’s too.

The First Shot In Anger

150 years ago

At 4:30am on Friday, April 12, 1861 Brigadier General Beauregard ordered the secessionist troops manning the artillery batteries of Charleston, South Carolina to open fire on Fort Sumter housing 127 federal troops of which 13 were musicians. Two hours lapse before the Yankee commander allowed Captain Abner Doubleday, the inventor of baseball, to return a salvo of solid ball. No rebel or union soldiers died during the 34 hours of bombardment, although one rebel was mortally wounded after the misfiring of a cannon and two union troops gave up their lives on the 47th shot of a 100-shot salute after the surrender of the beleaguered fort.

The nearly-bloodless fight ill-prepared the divided nation for the four years of slaughter to come. I asked everyone at work of today's importance. None of the employees at the diamond exchange had an answer. A good percentage of them are foreign-born. None of the native-born were aware of the date's significance. The New York Times, the Daily News, and New York Post wrote articles about the battle, but 2 weeks ago is ancient history in the city that never sleeps.

My father's side of the family fought in the Civil War. Hannibal Hamlin had been vice president under Lincoln. The first time I googled his name the first article to appear said that the Maine politician was reputed to be a negro, but then most white people at that time had negro blood in their veins after 200 years of slavery. They even paid painters to change their pigmentation in portraits to heighten their whiteness, but then the War Between the States was not about freeing the slaves, the casus bellum was 'states rights' according the the southerners of today and certainly more folks south of the Mason-Dixon Line recall the events of today than in the North.

To the victors go the glory of ignorance.

But in the Great State of Maine granite statues dot town squares. Immortal soldiers from the 10th Maine regiment, the 27th Maine, and Joshua Chamberlain's heroic 20th Maine face in one direction and that direction is South. My family is from Westbrook, Maine. The attic of my grandmother's house was a memorial to past wars. As a boy my older brother and I wore the uniforms of WWI and WWII. In my mind I remembered pulling on a blue coat of a Yankee. It was small. Almost the size of a young boy like myself. I telephoned my aunt to ask her, if she recollected a uniform dating back to the Civil War.

"You have such a special memory," she laughed from her living room in Marblehead. Her husband agreed with her recollection, but men at any age agree with a woman if they know what's good for them.

My older brother was my next call. His memory mirrored that of our aunt.

"What about seeing the last Union soldiers at a town parade on Memorial Day? About 1960?"

"Not a chance. The last surviving veteran was Albert Henry Woolson. He died in 1956."

"How do you know that?"

"Because my son told me that today."

His son was smart. He was graduating from U Penn. His field of studies was pre-med.

"And he also asked me to name the 9 battles in which over 20,000 troops died in the Civil War."

"That's easy; the 2nd Battle of Bull Run, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, Gettysburg, Fredricksburg, Shiloh, Antietam, Stone River, Spotsylvania, and Chickamauga." I had read Bruce Catton's Civil War histories several times as a youth and adult.

I was right, although his wife thought that I read these names from a computer. She was wrong. The Civil War is in my blood. Last month I had driven south of the Potomac to visit Ms. Carolina. She was seriously ill. I wanted to see her before the turns of her travails worsened with the shortening of time. Her house was out on the Northern Neck of the Potomac. I drove down I-95 to route 3 and turned east. Fredricksburg was en route. I was drawn to St. Marye's Heights. The Union Army had been broken on this ground. The 20th Maine had huddled behind the dead. Spring was another few weeks away, but I stood next to the old cannons and mourned the dead.

Theirs and ours.

150 years is a long time. We are still enemies, yet still the same for the Union survived those four dreadful years and this country will be challenged by the present division sundering our connections, for at the end we are all Americans and nobody says it better than Maine's Joshua Chamberlain, who was present during the Surrender at Appomattox. He met with General Gordon of the CSA.

"I am from General Gordon. General Lee desires a cessation of hostilities until he can hear from General Grant as to the proposed surrender."

Chamberlain recounted the ceremony in his memoir and the moment when he ordered the 20th Maine to "carry arms" as a show of respect.

"Gordon, at the head of the marching column, outdoes us in courtesy. He was riding with downcast eyes and more than pensive look; but at this clatter of arms he raises his eyes and instantly catching the significance, wheels his horse with that superb grace of which he is master, drops the point of his sword to his stirrup, gives a command, at which the great Confederate ensign following him is dipped and his decimated brigades, as they reach our right, respond to the 'carry.' All the while on our part not a sound of trumpet or drum, not a cheer, nor a word nor motion of man, but awful stillness as if it were the passing of the dead."

We are one nation.

150 years ago as much as today.

Bad Math I

Multi-Variable Calculus 101

Math is a difficult field of study for most Americans. Few comprehend any process beyond multiplication and division. Algebra is a foreign language and calculus terra incognita. If it weren’t for calculators most people in the world couldn’t count numbers higher than their fingers and even taking off their shoes they would lose count pass the number 16.

For some strange reason I was good at math. The archdiocese of Boston awarded me a scholarship to Xaverian Brothers High School based on my test scores. Neither my teachers nor parents would accept my explanation that my excellence was due to an extraordinary ability to guess the right answers in multiple choice examinations instead of an innate gift for math.

No remedial algebra for my freshman year. I was in the advanced classes. My grades hovered around B without ever attaining the promise of my elders’ expectations. They considered me an ‘under-achiever. I strived to prove them wrong without success and went so far to choose math as my major in college.

Big mistake for nothing erases math skills faster than marijuana and I was dealing pot to pay for my tuition. My nights were spent behind the wheel of a taxi to afford my apartment. 9am Calculus classes were missed with regularity, however I scored well on my final and proceeded into sophomore year to study Linear Algebra under Rene Marcus. His mind could calculate missile trajectories without a slide ruler.

In 1971 no one had a calculator.

Grass gave way to LSD and I spent more time in the taxi than Multi-Variable Calculus 101. The professor was Rene Marcus. His daughter smoked pot with me. At the end of the autumn semester I arrived at the final and Professor Marcus pulled me to the side.

“You haven’t been in class more than three times.” Rene Marcus was about 45. A genius of telemetry. NASA paid him big money to figure out missile attack on Russia. The 70s were the height of the Cold War.

“That’s right.” I had won a high school scholarship thanks to my natural aptitude in math and a score of 710 in my Math SATs. No one cared about my grades or homework. I had a theory of permanent relativity in my head. LSD was a tool to grasp its fundamentals.

“How do you think you can pass this test?” The professor came from the school of intensive learning.

The rest of the class stared at me with pity. Multi-Variable Calculus 101 was not Geology 101 or Rocks for Jocks. I was a long-hair tripper to these brainacs.

“Give me a test paper and let me put my hand on the textbook.”

“And this will help?” Mathematicians only believe in numbers.

“It can’t hurt.” I placed both hands on the book. My palms read nothing. I took the test. My score was 45. The whorls on my flesh were very sensitive.

“I thought you’d get nothing right.” Rene was amazed by my idiot-savantism.

“I still failed.”

Yes, but if you drop out from Math, I’ll give you a D+”

“It’s a deal.” I accepted his advice and dealt with my parents’ disappointment. They thought their second son was going to work for NASA, however a failure would have resulted in my losing a draft exemption. Vietnam was a meat grinder and I was no John Wayne. My new major was economics. I graduated sine laude or without praise in 1974. The Vietnam War no longer needed my warm body and that summer I drove cross-country with my good friend AK to celebrate the end of my education.

It was a great trip and I haven’t opened a math book since then, although I have learned that western man didn’t come up with the concept of zero until well into the Second Millennium, while the Mayans always had zero or Pohp for their 20-based numeral system.

And I don’t have to use my fingers for long math, but if you think you’re smart just remember the words of Phil Pastoret.

“If you think dogs can’t count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then giving Fido only two of them.”

Arf Arf Arf equals three.

Number Phenomena

In 1975 New York's diminutive mayor asked the federal government to aid the city. Its coffers had been depleted by the fiscal short besetting every American metropolis after the 1973 Gas Crisis. President Ford refused any assistance and the NY Daily News infamously shamed Washington with the headline FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD. The city survived the threat of insolvency, while realizing New York existed in its own world birthing that adage 'once you leave New York, you're going nowhere'.

Having lived in Paris, London, Los Angeles, Bali, Bangkok, Pattaya, and Palm Beach I recognize that other places have their special charms, but New York is New York and that New York is Manhattan. The Outer Boroughs and Tri-State Area are snubbed as the hinterland. The farther you get from Herald Square the more you are getting closer to the Ultimate Thule or ultra-nowhere and this evening I received a phone call from my good friend, AC. The Englishman lives on a creek serpentining through the Dutchess County farmland.

"I have a p-p-p-phenomena to report." His house is surrounded by the homes of farm workers. His daily conversations are limited to his loving wife and cherished daughter. He's much older than either, but then I am decades older than Fenway's mom.

"What?" Living in the woods requires a lot of staring at the stars. I expected a report about UFOs.

"It's about n-n-numbers." AC had a slight stutter. I suffered the same affliction. Our friends mocked our dialogues to our faces. We were good humored about our shared speech impediment.

"Numbers?" I've had several friends go crazy and each time they mumbled about the weirdness of numbers.

"Yes, it's how everyone's age added to the year of their birth equals 111."

"Huh." I did some fast addition. AC was right for me, my brothers, sisters, Richie Boy, my landlord, but not his daughter or my son or daughter and my mention of their omission to the phenomena caught AC off-guard.

"I'll have to l-l-look into it."

"You do that." It had obviously been a long winter in the hills and I promised to visit this weekend. Dutchess County can welcome the Spring with open arms. Manhattan for all its hip glory can never rival Nature, except with cut roses and those beauties rarely last longer than three days.

Women Love the Red Sox

No Losing Streak Lasts Forever

My senior year at high school the hockey team underwent a winless season. Attendance for our side was weak. Losing teams don't have an expanding fanbase, but my three cousins played for the Hawks and I attended most of their games along with several friends. Our rival's supporters ridiculed our team with chants of 'loser'.

"You suck. You suck. You suck." We were few, but vocal as only boys can be at 17.

The cheerleaders from the other squad walked across the arena to ask us to refrain from swearing. This was a Catholic league. Theirs was a mixed school taught by nuns. Ours was all male under the Riverine Brothers. We didn't have much congress with the other sex and Thommie Black insulted the cheerleaders' spindly legs by comparing them to 'lobstah' claws. "Red and fat."

I thought two of them were cute. They were the first to cry and their football team strode across the wooden stands to confront us. They were about 30 of them. We were 15. My youngest cousin said that the play on the ice was stopped by the refs and he watched us battle the footballers for a good minute before the security guards broke up the donnybrook.

Our team went 0-1 in 1970 and forty years later my cousin still recounts the tale of seeing me punching out football players. I don't remember it that way, but no one ever mentions that losing season either.

Single events can erase the shame of losing.

In 1971 I coached my youngest brother's little league team. My baseball skills were minimal, however the league needed someone to count heads and insure the equipment wasn’t stolen. Gleason's Funeral Home provided the t-shirt, caps, bats, and balls. We lost game after game after game. Angry parents yelled at my batting orders. Kids cried after each loss. While most of the players on Gleason Funeral Home had a fair grasp of the basics, my brother’s fielding and throwing arm exiled him to right field. The players on the other teams made fun of his batting. Halfway through the season, Michael said, “I want to quit.”

“Me too.”

My father said there were no quitters in our family. My youngest brother and I suffered humiliation week after week. The last game of the season was against the league leader. McGlory Ford. They had matching tee-shirts, pants, and sox.

Somehow we led into the last inning. My brother batted first and the opposing coach commented that a girl had a better practice swing. I called time. The coach had twenty years and an extra fifty pounds on me. I picked up a baseball bat.

“Don’t.” My brother took the bat from my hands.

“What about protecting you?”

“I can take care of myself.” He stepped up to the plate and parodied the macho coach by hitching his pants and scratching his ass. Our team giggled with a loser’s disregard for authority. The other team saw the humor in the uncanny mimic and soon everyone on the field laughed at Michael’s antics. The pitcher on the mound caught the spirit and lofted a cream puff at the plate.

My brother squibbed a hit into left field. He was tagged out stealing home.

Our opponents scored two runs in the bottom of the 6th and the season ended with a record of 0-17. I bought pizza for the team and toasted my brother as a victory in the throat of defeat. The other players would have preferred the win.

This season the Red Sox started out 0-6 despite possessing some of the best batters and pitchers in the Major League. My New York friends crowed how the Bosox would go 0-162 for 2011.

"The curse of the Bambino is back."

Yesterday the Red Sox hosted the New York Yankees at Fenway. Carl Yaztremski threw out the first pitch. The home team triumphed 9-6. The losing streak was over for today. It might resume today or maybe tomorrow, but no losing streak lasts forever and that was proven by the Red Sox in 2004 when they came back from a 0-3 deficit to beat the Yankees and then the World Series.

Babe Ruth is dead.

Doctor Me

Hypochondria struck me at an early age after reading a Maryknoll missionary magazine showing a photo of a young boy wearing a metal contraption to walk. I feared that an unnamed ailment would take away by legs and I'd be a tin boy. Every small cut was examined for gangrene and each fever was a harbinger of typhoid. My mother was unsympathetic to my phobia.

"You're only sick if you're bleeding."

I had perfect attendance during grammar school, despite having the mumps, measles, and poison ivy. My grandfather had been a doctor in Maine. He had met my grandmother during World War I. She had been a nurse for the AEF in France. On vacations at her house in Westbrook I read medical journals and my mother dreamed about having a doctor for a son. I never explained that I was searching the pages for possible future diseases.

By high school I was an expert at counseling my friends about sports injuries. In college I handled drug freak-outs and small cuts. I was always quick to offer a diagnosis to an sick workmate. Richie Boy, my boss at the diamond exchange, was addicted to going to the doctors for his sport-ravaged knees. He ignored my advice to rest and take hot baths. His surgeon operated twice on his ACLs without any success. Americans are babes in the woods when it comes to their personal health.

I've set a broken finger, nursed myself to health after a severe case of amoebic dysentery, and revive my kidneys by cutting out hard liquor, except at Mexican bars. I love my tequila.

Dentistry is my only weakness and I didn't visit a dentist for 15 years. My teeth withstood the neglect, until a point guard from the Bronx stuck his elbow into my saw in revenge for a foul under the basket on the West 4th Street courts. I spit out a piece of tooth in his face. The other players broke up the short punch fest. My teammate told me that the point guard carried a gun in his bag. I gave him the finger and walked off the court. A tooth wasn't worth dying over at the age of 24.

I didn't think much about the ruined tooth. Occasionally my tongue played over the cracked molar. It never got worse and sucking on clove oil alleviated the sporadic pain. Its integrity was finally overcome by chewing on a baguette at the Deauville Film Festival. A dentist in Paris gave me a root canal and placed a gold cap on the stump. It has been there ever since, although the gum suffered chronic bouts of infection, the worst case a massive abscess on a flight to Thailand. The dentist in Bangkok wanted to pull the tooth. I ordered him to lance the pus-filled sac and shot the jaw with antibiotics. A small needle pierced the flesh and my mouth was swamped by bitter filth. Mouthwash vanquished the acrid taste and the painkillers blanketed the agony in a narcotic warmth.

My teeth are relatively good, if a little yellow after 58 years of coffee, breathing city air, drinking beer, and eating spicy foods. The gold cap has been in place since 1985. Almost three decades of use and three months ago I detected a wobble. The cap was loose on the stump. I tried to suck it off the post, but the cap teeters in place. food got trapped under it last week and infected the old abscess. The pain was minor and I thought about visiting a dentist.

They are not expensive in New York.

They are exorbitant.

I recalled the deft hand of the Bangkok dentist and searched my sewing kit for a needle or an etui in French or khem in Thai. I found several and bathed them in moonshine. 180 proof. I dried the sharp needles and tested them for their ability to pierce flesh. One was better than the rest. I touched the swollen gum with my index finger. The pus within the sac stretched the infected flesh to a paper thinness. I shut my eyes and poked the abscess with the needle. I cleared my mouth of the pus and rubbed moonshine on the gum.

That was two days ago.

The swelling is gone and so is the pain.

The gold cap still wobbles on the stump, but once it comes off I have a brand-new tube of Super-Glue ready to re-fasten it to the stump.

Perhaps for the rest of my life.

"Calling Doctor Me."

It's the new solution to the American Health Care dilemma.

In the meanwhile brush them chompers.

They built to last with the proper care and they aren't covered by the GOP in their anti-Obamacare package.

Trust a quack. Nothing will be covered if they have their way. Not even needles or Super-Glue

Wanderlust

The 60s were a time of rebellion. My father was straight. I was a hippie. His politics and mine were in conflict for most of our lives and I swore that I would not be my father. He was no fan of my lifestyle. We were worlds apart from the 60s into the 90s. A truce existed between us during those years. Politics and religion were banned from holiday dinners. After my mother's departure from this world, we became better friends. My older brother attributed this newfound amity to my resemblance to my deceased mother.

"He's not me and I'm not him."

I was still a rebel, however one rainy afternoon I was looking for my umbrella without success and noticed my father hunting for a lost object. I asked him, "What are you looking for?"

"My umbrella."

It was a simple answer, yet negated my years of revolution, because I was him and he was me.

And the tradition lives to this day for Fenway's mom called the other day, saying that his son had disappeared from the house, while she was cooking breakfast. Fenway was nowhere to be found. Not in the house. Not on the street. His sister ran him down at the motor-sai taxi stand some 400 meters from the house.

Safe.

He had been looking for one of the motor-sai taxi boys to drive him to the market to buy fried chicken. I spoke to him on the phone and Fenway said that he was hungry. His mother refused to say that she had beaten his ass for his wandering away from home. I knew better. Mam thinks that Fenway had a beautiful ass. She knows I want him to be a super-star. She loves her kids; Fluke, Noi, and Fenway more than me,but then what else can a man expect from a mother.

I told the story at work. The girls were horrified. Manny, my boss, said that if it happens again I should throw the TV in the street. Richie Boy was worried about Fenway. He's the godfather.

"Don't worry about my boy. He's the same as me." I sat in the diamond exchange wearing a suit and tie. My son was half a world away. I hadn't seen him in two months. We spoke every day on the phone. I have no idea what he is saying to me. Mam translates all, but I feel good. She is a mom and Fenway is my son. I told Richie Boy and Manny, "When I was a young boy in Maine, my mother put my older brother and I into harnesses. The sea was four house away from our driveway. She would hook our snowsuits onto the laundry line and leave us out in the winter sun to run off our energy. My brother was smarter than me and one day figured out how to free us from this prison. My mother came out of the house to find two empty snowsuits. She ran frantic down the street to the sea. My brother and I were in the water. Naked. Wet. Cold. She tanned our asses."

White folks in New York don't understand my connection to my kids.

They're squares for the most part.

Some think my kids aren't mine, but I know better.

"Fenway is just like his father. He wants to roam."

Manny and Richie Boy laughed at the story. They know me a long time. Neither has met Fenway. Maybe this year.

He's a boy of my own heart.

Long Ass Winter

This winter started in October. The temperature dropped below freezing. Snow fell in November. A blizzard shut down New York at the end of December. The rich mayor blamed the the unions for the city's failure during the crisis. He belong to the wealthy class. I escaped the cold three time. Twice to Thailand. Once to Florida. Last month I traveled south to Virginia. I stood on a beach along the Potomac River and stated to Ms. Carolina, "I think winter is over."

The next day I jumped off the dock into the river. The water was 45F. My fingers and toes lost feeling within seconds. Only the sea off Bar Harbor was colder. 44F in mid-August. I survived that plunge in the river, but the next day the weather turned wintry. I saw snowflakes a week ago. The Ice Age was triumphant until the daffodils pushed through the earth to show their yellow petals this week.

The trees along South Oxford wore a shade of green bespeaking spring. I played basketball in the park. My joints moved with fluidity. 60 years of age reversed a decade with the promise of warmth. The thermometer didn't break 60, but by the weekend fools would be wearing tee-shirts and sandals.

Winter is over.

For this part of the year.

No telling when it will start on the back end, but I'll enjoy every seconds of heat the world has to offer this old body. It's will make an old man come to life like a mummy meandering from the grave.

How sweet it is.

FREE AS A BIRD by Peter Nolan Smith

Hitching a ride out of Amarillo tested a young man's courage in July of 1974. Cowboys hated long-hairs. My friend, AK, and I dodged more than a few beer bottles, while standing on the shoulder of the east-bound highway. Most of the goat-ropers drank Bud. They had lousy aim.

The dusk sky offered a murky ceiling the color of faded jail jeans. Crows clutched top wire of a fence. They watched us like we were destined to be a meal. The slipstreams of the passing semi-trailers dragged diesel fumes into our faces. The temperature hovered in the 90s. Trouble weather and off in the distant several dirty fingers funneled from the sky. This time of year the Texas Panhandle belonged heat-driven tornadoes and hostile crackers.

An hour after sunset a dented pick-up swerved off the asphalt. The driver aimed at us with murderous intent. AK and I dove into the weeds. The Chevy C-10 fishtailed off the pebbled shoulder and then shivered on two wheels toward disaster. The redneck regained control and swerved into the slow-lane with a shudder.

AK and I rose to our feet and gave the fool the finger with a laugh. The humor disappeared an hour later after a greaser in the passenger seat of a SS Chevelle pointed a shotgun at us. We had seen EASYRIDER, the classic hippie film. The movie ended with the two long-haired bikers getting shotgunned by a toothless cracker.

"Which one of us is Billy?" AK's hands were shaking. This was no movie.

"Me." Dennis Hopper had played Captain America's sidekick as goofy as Jerry Lewis. Peter Fonda's ultra-cool portrayal of a biker/outlaw was beyond our reach.

"Then you hitchhike for an hour, because Billy dies first." AK stepped away from the highway alittle angry,since he didn't have to be out here. He had enough money to take a bus. I had $15, but AK wasn't abandoning a friend no matter how dangerous the road.

"I'll get us a ride." I hadn't slept in a day. My skin hadn't seen water in two. My hair was thick with road grime. I hefted a good-sized rock.

"What's that for?" AK sat on his bag. Weariness was painted on his face. He hadn't closed his eyes in 24 hours.

"The next hick that gets out of line."

"Better get more rocks." AK pointed out an oncoming car filled with teenagers. Their curses were howls at the moon. I could have chucked the rock through the windshield, instead I showed the peace sign with my left hand.

"Commie fags." Grits hated peace more than our long hair.

"Only one of us, you chicken fuckers." AK was 100% straight. I was a little curious.

The night sky filled with a treacherous darkness. Death was waiting for someone tonight. We had to get out of here. I pulled back my long hair into a ponytail and told AK to do the same. We almost appeared normal and cowboys drove past us without any more threats.

I dropped the rock and stuck out my thumb. This was not our America. We were cities, beaches, and mountains. Cars sped by us in the hundreds. Most of them had Texas plates. AK and I switched places twice. Neither of us were lucky.

Traffic died past midnight. Drunks weaved onto the Interstate. Bottles were replaced by beer cans. The throws were off, but we ducked with a flinch. One hit me in the arm. I didn't tell AK, but I had had enough.

"I'm going to crash." I hadn't slept since Arizona. Dirt grated my eyeballs. Exhaustion filled my every vein.

"Where?" AK stared around him. The grimy on-ramp offered no shelter from the elements. Cars and trucks zoomed ten feet away from us.

"Right here." I climbed over the steel railings. The ground was free of glass. I pulled out my sleeping bag.

"You can't sleep there." AK was horrified by my choice. He was half-Jewish/Half Wasp. He washed his hands after pissing in a bar.

"Watch me." I laid down on the rough earth. My head dropped on the rolled-up sleeping bag. The outer cotton smelled of every place that I had slept in the last month. Estes Park, Reno, Big Sur, LA, Encinitas, Pomona, and Flagstaff, Arizona. The interior reeked of me. My eyes shut forever within seconds and I hoped forever lasted until dawn.

AK woke me with a rough shake.

"Get up."

The black wind was thick with electricity. A nasty storm was roiling overhead in the WIZARD OF OZ sky. I scrambled to my feet. A pick-up truck was idling on the shoulder. Two surfboards were in back. The license plates were from Oklahoma. I threw my bag in the back. Andy sat in the middle. I had the window. The hot wind baked my skin to a glaze.

"Where you heading?" The crewcut driver had both hands on the wheel. He looked like he had been driving for days. His eyes were bugged from speed.

"Tulsa." The Spear Sisters lived within sight of the Arkansas River. I had called them from Flagstaff. They were expecting us tomorrow morning.

"A little more than 300 miles from here." The twenty-year old stepped on the gas and we left behind Armarillo. I gave the on-ramp the finger. The driver checked the mirror. "Been there long?"

"Long enough."

"I'm headed to Tulsa too. See my family before driving up to Fort Sill. Just surfed every spot between Seal Beach and Huntington. Stoked so much. A big wave is my God. The ocean my church. If it weren't for my family, I would have gone Surfer Joe AWOL."

"The Surfaris." The 45 had been a big hit for the trio from California coupled with WIPEOUT on the b-side.

"May 1963. I was living in Huntington Beach. My father was stationed in Vietnam. I surfed every day that summer." Chuck was career army. It was a family tradition.

"How you like the Army?" My father and uncles had served in WW2 and the Korean War., but no male in my generation had worn any uniform other than that of the Boy Scouts.

"Better than milking cows or plowing fields. Not much choice to do anything else in Oklahoma other than drilling oil." He was my age and asked, "Either of you serve in the military?"

"No." AK shook his head. "I protested against the War."

"Me too." The protesters were against the government's ruthlessness overseas and at home. The My Lai massacre was matched by repression of the Watts riots. Che Guevara's assassination mirrored by the murder of the black panther Fred Hampton. Our fight was with the Pentagon and White House. I never called a soldier a 'baby killer'. Only the presidents and General Westmoreland.

"Nothing wrong with that. It's a free country."

"I tried to enlist in the Marines at the age of 17. My mother wouldn't sign the papers." John Wayne was my hero. I wanted to fight in Viet-Nam. Two boys from my hometown had died during the Viet Cong's Tet offensive. She didn't want her son to be # 3. That honor was reserved for another boy from my hometown along with #s 4 and 5. "I would have had 6 years in the Corps, if my mother had signed her name.

"Probably for the better you didn't go in. A lot of Marines got killed there." The War was almost over. The troops were coming home. South Vietnam would have to fight its own battles. Chuck was happy with his life. Two more days and he would be back in the ranks, but for now Chuck was a rocker with very short hair. His 8-track played the Amboy Dukes. "I love Ted Nugent."

"He's a solid guitarist." I played no instruments other than the kazoo. "My friend here is in a band."

"That right? What kind?"

"R&B and soul. I play keyboards." Electric piano in a ten-piece band. The only white.

"I love soul music." Chuck pulled out the Amboy Dukes and slipped in Otis Redding.

SATISFACTION with a fat rhythm section.

We smoked a joint of Acapulco Gold. The weed dragged AK over the line into slumber. Chuck and I talked about the California beaches and girls. I had slept with two lesbians in Big Sur. He had one-nighted with several beach girls. My surfing was strictly body-surfing. His experience was big waves up and down the coast. His accent was straight Okie, but his heart was from the sea.

We outran the storms, however the heat of the plains was inescapable. the sun came up early. Out on the plains buzzards rose on the thermals. The thermometer on a Tulsa bank read 92. Chuck dropped us at Riverview Drive and South Indian. The Spear sisters lived two doors away. A light tan Impala convertible was in the driveway.

It was early Friday morning. The newspaper boy was running his route. Long-tailed birds flitted between the trees. We walked into the quiet neighborhood. It was a suburb. AK and I came from the same kind of neighborhood. The cut grass smelled of home.

"You think they're awake?" AK rubbed his eyes, as if he had been dreaming of a bed.

"Only one way to find out." I went to the door, while AK waited on the lawn. The girls lived alone. Their parents had a house on the next street. I rang the bell once. If they didn't answer, then the backyard was our crash pad. We had slept in worst places in the past month. Last night between the guardrails had been one of them.

Several seconds passed before I heard footsteps. I waved for AK to join me. He pushed his long black hair back to become a modern-day Ben-Hur. The transformation was a good act for a demi-Jew from Long Island. The door opened and Vickie greeted me with a hug.

"I was beginning to think that you were lost." The blonde Tulsan was tall. She was wearing a light white gown. She was very alert for this time of day.

"Not lost, now we're found." AK's eyes sparkled with the vision of a fair-skinned woman of the West. She was pure skitsah appealing to his father's bloodline.

"Spiritual on a Friday morning. C'mon in." Vickie was a mirage of America come to life. The goodness in her heart shone through her flesh. She had us dump our clothing in the washing machine and ordered us to do the same.

Vickie made us breakfast, as we showered in the bathroom. I went first. The Spear Sister were my friends. I soaped Amarillo off my skin and shampooed New Mexico out of my hair. I shaved with a Lady Bic. It gave a close shave and I emerged from the steamy room a new man.

"Your turn." I held open the door for AK. The smell of two days of road was ripe as cheese. I doubted that he would use the razor. He would question where it had been this morning.

Vickie had laid out gym shorts and a white shirt on the bed. They were my size. I followed the aroma of bacon into the kitchen. Vickie was patting the bacon dry of grease. She had changed into shorts and a white men's shirt knotted above her midriff. Bad Company's CAN'T GET ENOUGH was on the radio. I sat at the table and she turned around with a smile.

"You clean up good." Vickie cracked eggs into the frying pan without emptying the bacon grease. Fried eggs the way I like them.

"It's good to feel clean, but I understand why the crackers call us 'dirty hippies'. Not many places to clean up on the road in the desert. "The only rivers between LA and Tulsa were the Colorado and the Rio Grande."

"We can go swimming this morning. I know a place out of the city." She flipped the eggs and then buttered the toast. Coffee was brewing on the stove.

"Sounds good to me." I loved swimming holes.

AK came into the kitchen and studied Vickie's back. I wasn't gifted with ESP, but could read his mind as easily as a comic book. I knew Vicky through Nick. He was my friend and I protected his interests by asking Vickie, "You heard from Nick?"

"I got a letter from the Philippines this week. He's settled into Dagupan City and med school starts next month." Vickie loaded two plates with our breakfast and recounted Nick's letter in detail. AK scowled at my interference. He hadn't had sex since leaving Boston a month ago and I assured his drought by mentioning his girlfriend at home twice during breakfast.

Her sister Marlyn joined us. She was a younger blonde version of her older sister. All of 18. Either of them could have won a spot on the Dallas Cowboy cheerleading squad. AK and I told them stories of the road; driving a station wagon through the Rockies, seeing a fight between cowboys and farmers in Idaho, my hitching in Big Sur, hanging with hippies in Southern California, and getting stuck in Needles.

"The temperature was 135," AK said the number, as if we had survived Hell.

"Not really 135. The thermometer was broken. It was 117."

"Never gets that hot here." Vickie had the windows open. It was warm outside, but not even close to a 100. "How about you finish eating and we drive you around Tulsa? Show your friend the sights and then go swimming out on the river. You can go swimming in those shorts."

"What about your job?" She had been working as a private detective for two years after graduating from University of Tulsa. She had her heart set on joining the State Police. Her uncle ran the barracks out in the west of the state.

"I took off the next two days and my sister is out of school. We're free as birds."

AK had to be back in Boston. His girlfriend was waiting on the South Shore. He had a job teaching music for a high school. I had nowhere to be for the rest of my life and said, "I'm about that free too."

Vickie packed a lunch and we drove around Tulsa. Vickie and her sister in the front. AK and I in back. The 8-track playing Grand Funk. There wasn't much to see; Oral Roberts University and its Space Age Prayer Tower, the statue of an Indian in Woodward Park, and the cut-out of the Golden Driller at the Tulsa County Fairgrounds. The morning sun was warm on our bare skin. The girls were burnt golden. AK and I had California beach tans. We passed through a residential neighborhood south of the County Courthouse. She hadn't showed this part of Tulsa to Nick and me last year. Most of the people on the street were black and I realized that I hadn't seen a black person since leaving LA.

"This is Greenwood. In 1921 the white people of the city burned it to the ground, because someone thought a young black boy had touched a white girl." Vickie sounded embarrassed by this speck on history. "Vigilantes marched into this neighborhood with guns. The blacks fought back. Nobody knows for sure how many died in the riots."

"I never knew that." The Tulsa Riots were not taught in American History 101 at my university. AK was equally ignorant even thought we had read THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X. The black minister had been born in Omaha. Black wasn't just Harlem or the Deep South.

"No problems like that now." Vickie waved to a couple on the sidewalk and they waved back with a smile. 60 years was enough time to forget the past. Forgiving it would take longer. "Enough sightseeing. I'm hot as a snake on a rock. Let's go swimming."

"We swimming in the river?" It had looked low.

"No one swims in the Arkansas if they know what's good for them. Too polluted." Vickie stepped on the gas. "We're going to the Blue Whale. Out on Old 66."

"The Blue Whale?" My family had hunted whales across the world in the 19th Century. Oklahoma was known for oil from the ground, not blubber.

"You'll see when you get there."

Vickie sped east out of Tulsa on Route 66. Only fragments of the great road running from Chicago to LA remained intact. The land was flat farmland with long lines of trees acting as windbreaks. The houses dated back to the Dustbowl. The wind blew back our hair. The Le Mans was the fastest car on the road. Twenty minutes at 80 mph and Vickie braked the car to pull into a dirt parking lot bordering a pond on which floated a large concrete whale painted blue.

"The blue whale?"

"One and the same." Vickie got out of the car. Teenagers were diving from the whale's head. Young girls were basking in the sun. It wasn't Malibu, but the pond was spring-fed cold. This was middle America at its best. None of the crackers said anything about our long hair. Hot dogs were sizzling at the refreshment stand. The troubles of the nation were distant. We spent most of the day in the water. Marlyn and AK raced across the pond. She won by several body lengths. Vickie and I floated on blow-up rafts.

"You graduated from college this year, didn't you?" Her blonde hair hung in the water. She appeared to be a mermaid stranded far from sea. Her beauty was home-grown, but Vickie would have stopped traffic in LA or New York.

"Yes. A degree in economics." Without any honors.

"What are you going to do when you get back home? You have a job?"

"Nothing yet. I went on several interviews." Two banks and a hotel chain. "Nobody offered me anything."

"You might want to cut your hair. Ponytails in banks are only for women." The blonde detective stroked herself farther into the center on the pond. I followed her.

"One bank said I had a stutter." My speech impediment was a small one. Therapists had taught me how to control the repetition of syllables.

"And do you?" Vickie glided her hand over her flat belly.

"Only when I'm nervous. The interviewer was a bald man. He wore a pin-striped suit. I was scared that I could end up like him." The man had told me that my grades were less than fair and that he wasn't sure that I could apply myself in a 9 to 5 job.

"Everyone has to work, unless you're rich, and I don't think anyone hitching around America is rich."

"No, I'm not rich."

"So what are you going to do?" She had her eyes closed and her face turned to the sun. Her future was assured by her desire to be a state trooper. Vickie would look great in a uniform.

"I don't know." I was not cop material. They were anti-pot and I had no intention of giving up weed.

"You don't look like bank material or hotel or insurance. You like traveling. You should join the Peace Corps."

"I thought about that, but I have to pay off my college loans." I owed about $5000. The price of a Cadillac. Starting salary at the bank had been $300/week. At a $100/month the loan would be paid in full about 1980.

"Too bad, you seem perfect for that job."

Her advice was on the money. I was dead-set against joining Corporate America. I couldn't go back to my summer job at the telephone company. My parents expected better than a clerk from me. My entire life lay ahead and I had no idea what I wanted to do. Boston was less than two days' travel from Tulsa. I would have to make a decision soon. I had no money.

AK and Marlyn swam to us.They hung off our rafts. Marlyn made a face. "Why so sad?"

"Your sister and I were talking about my future and I realized that I didn't have one." Americans expected college graduates to excel at their jobs. Our destiny was a house in the suburbs, a wife, kids, two cars, TVs, and credit cards. That dream held no appeal. I was counter-culture to the bone.

"Everyone has a future. It will come to you."

"In California he almost joined a hippie band. He was going to play kazoo in a street band for quarters."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." I had been high on LSD.

"Everything sounds good when we young." Vickie lifted her head. Storm clouds built black towers on the northern horizon. Everyone was decamping from the Blue Whale. "We better be going."

Hail racketed the Le Mans on the way back to Tulsa. The size of frozen peas. The top was up. Lightning crackled from dragon-tailed clouds. Vickie kept the speed to 50. She wanted to be driving 100. The road condition was safe for 20. The storm broke at the Tulsa city limits.

AK and I retreated to the guest bedroom. The girls' father was having us over for a BBQ. Tulsa was a dry town. Vickie's uncle was bringing beer that he had confiscated from a bootlegger. Our clothes were clean and I picked out a white shirt and jeans. I dressed slowly and AK asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." I sat on the bed with my sneakers in hand.

"You don't look like it's nothing." AK and I knew each other two years. It wasn't a long time, but the last month had tightened our friendship. The road does that to people. "Let me guess. You're freaked out by that talk with Vickie about your future."

"Yes." I was 22 without a plan. No business wanted to hire me. The country was suffering a recession. My only opportunity in Boston was driving a taxi. "You have a job teaching. Vickie has a job. Chuck, the soldier, has a job. Everyone I know has a job. Not me. I don't have nothing."

"It's don't have anything." AK joined me on the bed. "Not everyone knows what they are going to do with their life. I graduated with an English degree and I'm teaching math. I don't want to being doing that and most people end up doing what they don't want to do. They end up having to do what they have to do and so will you until you figure it out, so get dressed and we'll go drink some beer. That's something you do well."

"I guess you're right." I pulled on my sneakers. Even they smelled clean.

"Of course I'm right. We're on the road. Our goal in life is to reach Boston. Until then screw jobs. We're free as the birds."

"Like the song." Lynard Skynard had released FREE BIRD in 1973. It wasn't a hit for the Southern band, but something told me that it would be a hit soon. I got to my feet and thanked AK for his counsel.

"It's only something I would have told myself."

"And you would believe it."

"No, but then the best lies are the ones you tell yourself." AK put his arm around my shoulder and led me from the bedroom. I was free. I was 22. The entire world was before me and that was the beauty of the road. Anything was possible.


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