THE BACK OF MIDDLE AGE by Peter Nolan Smith

Three years ago my friend George Wrage celebrated his 50th Birthday. I've known him since 1978. We worked together at Hurrah. I was the doorman and he was the ticket taker. We came up with the scam of reselling tickets for sell-outs. It was a good gig until another doorman snitched us out after we refused to cut him into the racket.

30 years of friendship and now George is 50. He was 20 in 1979.

"I'm middle-aged," He announced on the telephone.

"40 is the old age of youth and 50 is the youth of old age."

"You read that online."

"No, I heard it somewhere. I think it comes from Victor Hugo." The Frenchman wrote LES MISERABLES as a novel, not a musical."We're both middle-aged now."

"You don't get any argument from me about that."

Neither of us subscribed to the recent adage that '50 is the new 40'.

50 is 50, unless you're doing AIG math.

"I figure I've been middle-aged ever since someone called me 'mister'." George was seven years younger than me.

"The first time for me was teaching school in Boston. I was only 24." I substituted at South Boston High School during the busing riots of the 70s. "That's a little early."

"Not for teenagers. Remember WILD IN THE STREETS." George loved that movie in which teenagers take over the country after the senate changed the voting age to 12. "Never trust anyone over 30."

"Teenagers think I'm ancient, but my official inauguration into middle age was finding a brochure for a grave in my mailbox." The wall tomb for my ashes had a view of the Hudson. "But now I'm wondering when middle age ends."

"It has to be 62 or 65. You get senior benefits at those ages."

"62?" It was only five years away.

I couldn't be that old and I looked in the mirror.

Without my glasses I looked the same as always, then again the best lies are the ones you tell yourself.

"60's coming up really quick. The only benefit I want is half-price beer."

"You can get that at happy hour." East Village bars sell draft Stella for $3 from 3-8.

George doesn't drink and hasn't in years. He doesn't miss it.

Not that way he drank.

"Yeah, so maybe I'm already a senior."

"Don't rush it." George hung up. He was at work. I was unemployed.

A neo-senior bum.

THere was only one way to handle that fate and head over to Solas on East 9th Street. Even at 3 in the afternoon the bar is dark enough to believe your lies after a few beers and I drank my beers to make girls pretty and me younger.

Sometimes the illusion works if I get the chemistry right.