Saturday, May 31, 2014

Combat Zone Amnesia


In the 60s urban social scientists in Boston created an adult entertainment area between the bus station on Boylston Street and Chinatownan to contain the wickedness of mankind. The experiment green-lighted prostitution, drag queens, piano bars, go-go bars, rent boys, and pornography along Washington Street and the adjacent blocks. The Boston Record-American newspaper labeled haven of sin the 'Combat Zone' and men across New England gravitated to Boston's Decriminalized Zone of Sexuality to cut loose with friends and complete strangers.

The Combat Zone featured top-notch strippers at go-go bars such as the 'Teddy Bare Lounge', the 'Two O'Clock Club', 'Club 66' and the 'Naked I'. LaGrange Street was the hot spot for street hookers running out of 'Good Time Charlie's'. Most of the pimps frequented the Sugar Shack. I saw James Brown performed on that stage and my friend Andy K swears that he went to the Sugar Shack with Bill O'Reilly, future right-wing propagandist for Fox News. I

During the early 70s I was driving taxi to pay for college and every night I stopped in the Combat Zone to drive the strippers and whores home after closing. It was a good fare and sometimes we smoked a joint together on the route to their apartments. I never thought them bad, but the newspapers attacked the Combat Zone as proof that Satan was walking the Earth.

I wish that I could say they were wrong, but the Combat Zone was too much fun for most men and bad things happened on those wind-blown streetst. APimps beat up girls, girls ripped off johns, hustlers robbed gays, drugs killed the weak and in 1976 a Harvard football player was murdered on LaGrange Street. That well-publicized homicide brought on the end of the Combat Zone, although its true killer was the higher rents for downtown properties.

Sin was cheap.

No sex is expensive.

Few people remember the Combat Zone, but I recall the organ/bass/drum trios supporting the white-skinned strippers. I learned about sex from the stroke books in the XXX parlors. I had good luck with the dancers after midnight. I was their ride home and I got them there fast.

It was the best a man could do.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

LUCKY IN LOVE by Peter Nolan Smith

The dawn sun burned misty shadows off the mountains and a stark brightness seared through my eyelids, as I rose from my sleeping bag to drink in the austere surroundings.

Flatness stretched forever.

A hissing wind pelleted my face with ancient brine.

The salt lay five feet deep this far from the lake.

A quick swig of water from my canteen washed the dust from my mouth.

This was the second time that I had woken in the Bonneville Salt Flats. The dried-up lake had been a hard mattress on both occasions. I stretched my arms and legs without loosening their stiffness.

Today was my twenty-second birthday. I walked to the Ford Torino.

To the South cars and trucks sped east and west on a mirage of mirrors.

The station wagon was parked several miles from I-80. In the back AK and Pam were lying inches from each other, but it was obvious to see that they hadn’t touched each other throughout the night. I could have let the two of them sleep another hour, but there was a shower room at the truck stop in Wendover and I intended to be there within the next thirty minutes. Utah was a godly state and I felt like bathing in Nevada.

I opened the driver’s door and AK sat up with a jack knife in hand.

“Oh, it’s you,” the pianist sighed, sinking back into his sleeping bag.

“Who were you expecting? The Manson family.” Remnants of Charlie’s followers roamed the western deserts. It was a bad sign that whatever they did out here never made the news

“Or worse.” AK sat up.

His eyes blinked in the increasing glare. “So this is it?”

“The fastest place on Earth.”

Rocket cars and super-charged motorcycles ran a measured mile farther to the North. Every one was seeking the land speed record. Gary Gabelich’s Blue Flame had hit 630 in 1970.

“I’ve seen this place on TV. I didn’t think it would be so desolate.” “It’s prehistoric.” The Salt Flats were uninhabitable for man or beast.

“Didn’t you sleep here with Marilyn last year?” AK crawled into the front seat and handed me the keys.

“Who’s Marilyn?” Pam remained lying on the folded down seats. Her sleep tousled blonde hair reminded me of young Brigitte Bardot in AND GOD CREATED WOMEN.

“She’s how AK and I know each other.” I didn’t want to tell this story to Pam. Her roommate in college was my ex-girlfriend Jackie’.

“Last summer he was hitchhiking from Berkeley with a friend.” AK had heard two versions of this story.

“The two of them were stuck on Telegraph Avenue for hours.”

“There were about thirty hippies heading east and few cars stopping for us.” Three of the longhairs had been stuck there for over a day.

“You were in a hurry.” He repeated the story the same way that I had told it to him, but I needed to take over for my own good.

“I had to be at school and Nick was headed to Tulsa to pick up his BMW. He had crashed his car, while rubbernecking at the State Fair’s roller coaster. A Ford Maverick pulled over driven by a woman. She was leaving her husband. He had become a transvestite dancer in the Cockettes.”

“Cockettes?” asked Pam. She came from a good family.

“That’s what Marilyn told me. Her six year-old daughter was in the back. She was headed to Boulder, but had room for one person. She wanted someone to share the driving. I asked Nick if he minded me leaving him.”

A better word was deserting.

“What'd he say?” Pam asked, then sipped water from my canteen.

“He told me to go and I went with Marilyn.” Boulder was almost halfway across the country and I was down to my last twenty dollars.

“That’s good friend.” Pam regarded me with tired eyes and asked, “And?”

“And we drove till we crashed here.”

“And then what happened?

AK was dying to tell Pam about my making love to Marilyn on the salt flats, while her daughter slept in the car crowded with all their possessions. Anything I said now would get back to Pam’s roommate. She had been my girlfriend in 1973. I cut the love scene from my tale.

“The next day she drove me to Cheyenne, saying that she might come see me in Boston.”

“And now comes the weird part.” AK had a slightly different angle on this story. “He and I lived next to each other in Boston. We didn’t know each other, but one day a Maverick pulls up in front of his house and this woman gets out of her car with her daughter. My girlfriend and I were surprised, since we had gone to college with Marilyn. Only she’s coming to see him, instead of us.”

“But once she sees you two, she decides to stay at your place.”

Marilyn and I never made love again.

“We had a bigger place.”

“After that you and I became friends.”

“Unlucky in love.” AK handed the canteen to Pam. “Lucky with friends.”

“Marilyn and I weren’t in love.”

“Was this after Jackie broke up with you?” The blonde wanted to get the facts straight.

“Jackie had left me earlier in the summer.” I shrugged the acceptance of my fate and asked, “You know what today is?”

“Let me guess. It’s your birthday.”

“You helped celebrate my last one in Buffalo.”

I had hitchhiked back and forth from Boston to Buffalo to see the doctor’s daughter. She was that cute.

“Jackie, you, and me drank tequila on the American side of Niagara Falls. Later that day we had played softball against her ex-boyfriend’s team in Delaware Park. You had knocked two balls over the railroad tracks. Her boyfriend had been playing centerfield.”

“That night Jackie had said that she felt sorry for Jerry. It didn’t take me long to find out how sorry.” Not making love for my birthday had been a bad omen.

“Maybe today you’ll have better luck.”

“Yes, maybe I will. You know I shared the same birthday as JFK and Bob Hope. It was also the day that the Turks stormed Constantinople.” History had been my college minor.

“Happy Birthday to you.” Pam sang the entire song. She had a good voice and AK backed her lead with a solid baritone.

“And you know what I’m going to do for my birthday.” “I can’t wait to hear.” Pam shivered in fake anticipation. “I’m going to drive this car as fast as it can go.”

“I’m not sure the owner would appreciate your putting his car to the test.” AK was the more cautious of us.

“Jake would love it.” The ex-Marine had boasted of the Torino’s Cam- Jet injection and 428 FE V8 back in Boston. “This is the Bonneville Speed Flats.”

“What the fastest you’ve driven?” Pam had exhibited a heavy foot on the gas throughout this trip. Her destination was a boyfriend. Ours was the beach. Neither was going anywhere without us, although the ocean was more faithful than a man.

“About 110 in my father’s Olds 88 on a straightaway in my hometown.” The road crews prided themselves in the condition of Route 28 from the parish church to the Blue Hills.

“This car should beat that.” AK drove a Pontiac Firebird. “It’s your birthday. Knock yourself out, but if anything goes wrong, you pay for the damages.”

“Nothing is going to go wrong.” I started the special edition V8 engine. “If you want to play it safe, you don’t have to come along for the ride.”

“He doesn’t, but I do.” Pam jumped into the front seat and strapped on the seat belt. “I want to see how fast I can get it to go too.”

AK’s reservations were overruled two to one and he folded up the rear seats, then clinched the seat tight.

“Roll up the windows.”

Speed was all about better aerodynamics.

I revved the Cobra-Jet engine and stepped on the gas with a young man’s mercilessness. The tires responded to the acceleration on the salt surface without any shimmy from the steering wheel. The speedometer in the second dashboard pot climbed to 60 within seven seconds. The needle hit 80 and my grip tightened on the wheel. At 110 we were traveling almost two miles per minute and I grit my teeth, as the speedometer passed 120. The saltpans shivered in the morning light and I pinned the needle at 125. The car had more goose in its go, but there was no way of telling how fast was its fast and I lifted my foot off the gas.

“That was fast?” AK was a convert to the religion of speed.

“I figure it topped out at 130.” We were rolling to a long stop and I lightly tapped on the brake.

“Now it’s my turn.” Pam was eager for her attempt and the three of us traded places.

125 seemed faster in the back seat and I think that she might have hit a top speed of 135. AK didn’t come close to her best, but drove the Torino with a broad smile on his face.

“I didn’t think it would be that much fun.”

“Some cars are built for speed,” Pam said with admiration for the V8’s power.

“I’ve always wanted a GTO. My friend had one and Moon would bet people $20 that they couldn’t grab the bill off the dashboard before he had shifted into fourth. He never lost.”

“They’re about $4500 new.” AK burst my balloon. “And a second-hand one costs $2000.”

“Maybe I’ll be lucky one day.” I owed $7000 in college loans. I had to start paying them at the end of the summer.

“You’ll be lucky as soon as we stop for breakfast. Bacon and eggs are on me.” AK turned on the radio.

A country station from Wendover was playing Ray Stevens’ THE STREAK. We shuddered at the topical hit’s banjo picking.

The radio received no other signal.

We were on the wrong side of nowhere.

“There’s a town with an air force base at the foot of those mountains. Wendover, Nevada. It will have someplace to eat and wash up.”

“I forgot you’ve been here before.” Pam was digging for facts about my night with Marilyn.

“Twice.” I wasn’t squealing on myself. “The motorhead with the Super Bee drove this route two years ago. I have no idea he was going.”

“Maybe 200 miles per hour.” AK still doubted this tale, since it was the truth.

“Lucky liked 300 better, but the speedometer only went to 125. Same as this car.”

“Shame we couldn’t go 300,” said AK and got a laugh out of Pam.

I was tired of being the butt of their jokes and sulked against the door, knowing none of us would ever drive 300.

Our arrival in Nevada was greeted by a shrieking fly-over of two jet fighters. I imagined them on patrol over Vietnam, but they wouldn’t be here, if we were still at war over there.

AK pulled into the truck stop for gas.

Pam wanted to wash the West out of her hair and grabbed her towel before walking into a building detached from the gas station.

and I filled up the tank and parked the car.

Two steps beyond the entrance was a bank of slot machines. Their lights caught my eye. Neither of us was expecting a miniature casino inside the truck stop and I turned to AK.

“Like I said I’m feeling lucky.”

“You ever gamble before?”

“No and it’s because my great-grandfather skipped out on his debts and no one saw him again. My great-grandmother and her two daughters were forced to seek refuge with her uncle in Augusta, Maine.

No one in my family explained the causes of his misfortune, but my father had once said ‘horses’.”

“They don’t call these machines one-handed bandits for nothing.” AK wore a frown of disapproval.

The money in our pockets had to last us the summer.

“Okay, four quarters and I’m quits.” A dollar wasn’t going to bust me.

I dropped the coin into the slot and pulled the arm. The cylinders spun to hit a row of cherries. Coins cascaded into the payout slot.

My jackpot paid for a half-tank of premium gas.

“Beginner’s luck.” I stuck the coins in my pocket and walked into the showers, while AK paid for gas. The shower room had no walls and I stripped off my jeans and tee-shirt.

“Hey, hippie boy, where you going?” A rangy man was soaping an enormous erection two shower to the left.

“San Francisco.” I dropped my eyes to the tiled floor. The only word men are supposed to say to each other in a bathroom was ‘huh’.

“I’m heading your way.” Tattoos sprawled across his rawhide skin.

“I got a car and a girlfriend.” The first was the truth and the second was a pure lie. I swiftly soaped my body.

“Too bad, I thought maybe you and I could have a good time in Frisco. It’s a wide open city. Try the Castro. It’s for men. Maybe I’ll see you there.” He took his time rinsing off the suds in hopes of my changing my mind.

“Yeah.” I grabbed my clothes and dressed without toweling dry.

The Summer of Love might have ended, but Sexual Revolution was spreading across America. Exiting from the shower room I warned AK of the bushwhacker.

“He’s looking for a friend.”

AK had been brought up in New York.

“If I can walk through the West Village without getting hit on, then how dangerous can this place be.”

“You’ll find out.”

I entered the diner and sat at the counter. I didn’t need a menu and the waitress wrote down my order for eggs over easy, bacon, and toast.

Thirty seconds later AK joined me in the dining room.

His face was a bright red after hearing the trucker’s sordid suggestions.

“I never heard anyone talk like that.”

“Can’t say that I didn’t warn you.” I had pored through hundreds of porno books in the Combat Zone and my research had covered every genre of perversion. “That trucker was interested in holding hands.”

“No, that’s for sure.”

Pam exited from her shower in a clean dress and wet hair. She had been with us for three days and

AK hadn’t worked up the nerve to put a move on her. Tomorrow we were dropping off the Torino in Lodi.

Time was running short for him.

Breakfast for the three of us came to less than $4. The truck stop offered cheap food to entice travelers to try their luck with the slots and I succumbed the lights and noise of the one-arm bandits.

“I’m going to try my luck again.” I reached into my pocket for change.

“No one wins on those machines.” AK stood away from the slots, as if they were contagious.

“It’s my birthday.” I dropped a quarter into the slot and pulled the arm. Within fifteen minutes I had accumulated another $5 of quarters. They had a nice heavy feel in my pocket.

“Very few people know when to walk away a winner.” AK led the way to the door and we passed the trucker, who was entertaining the buxom cashier. She laughed, as if he had told her a dirty joke.

When I reached the door, the trucker winked at me and I hurried to the station wagon.

“What’s wrong?” Pam asked at the car.

“Nothing, but let’s get out of here.”

Nevada was a replica of the moon. The tortured underbrush was scarred from the waterless weather.

Treeless mountains skirted the horizon. I-80 followed the trail of the Forty-Niners. The first town up the road was Oasis and the four lanes of asphalt shrunk to a two-laner divided by a yellow line.

We rejoined US 6, Jack Kerouac’s route across the country.

Without the road this community would have shriveled to its original double-digit population of the late 1800s. We drove past the gas stations, restaurants, and stores without braking for a light.

Oasis had none.

Outside town I-80 resumed its trek across Nevada. Jack Kerouac had ridden a bus across this wasteland. He had very little to say about it in ON THE ROAD.

Dirt roads vectored off the interstate into the distance. They looked like they had been here in 1947.

Two years ago I had traveling this highway in Lucky’s Super Bee and I asked AK the same question, which I had asked with friend Steve on this stretch of road.

“What do you think is out there?”

“Ranches, mines, and dirt.” AK studied the map. “There’s nothing out there, but more of this.

“That’s what I thought.”

The temperature climbed into the 90s and we shut the windows to turn on the AC. AK’s renewed his efforts to find a radio station, harvesting more static.

He lifted his hand over his shoulder.

Pam handed him Joni Mitchell’s BLUE.

The opening chords of the title song rolled like a mist off the Pacific into Monterey Bay. After hearing it for the tenth time in five days the three of us sang backing vocals for Joni. We almost were in tune.

Approaching Wells I slowed to 40 mph on US 6. Local cops were notorious for setting speed traps for out-of-state travelers. I checked the gas gauge. It read half-empty and I pulled into the first gas station to top off the tank, so that we could reach the California State Line in one go. AK pored over the map, as Pam talked to the pump attendant.

The tall teenager was a younger twin of the young cowboy back in Sterling, Colorado with whom she had spent the better part of an hour in a pick-up. Neither AK nor I had criticized her detour from being the faithful girlfriend of the medical intern. Pam was on summer vacation until Mendocino

Across the street was a long one-story log cabin with a neon sign blinking CASINO.

James Bond had played baccarat at Monte Carlo. Tuxedos and low-cut evening gowns had been required attire for the extras. Two men in jeans exited from Well’s casino. They blinked in the sunlight and shook hands, as if they had spent the night playing blackjack.

“I’ll be back in a second.” I walked away from the car drawn by the magnetism of a movie myth.

“Where you going?” AK knew the answer.

“To take a look.” A year ago I had passed through Las Vegas on the way to LA. Nick had warned me about the dangers of gambling. Now I wanted to see for myself.

“Don’t do anything stupid.” “I won’t.” My traveler’s checks were in my bag and I had $50 in my wallet.

I pushed open the glass door.

The interior decor was a homage to the town’s pioneer past. A cool breeze blasted from the casino’s ACs.

Cold offered a refuge from the desert .

I strolled past a gauntlet of slot machines to where a dozen green-felt tables arced across the red carpet in two semi-circles. Three men sat at the one farthest from the slots. Tall piles of chips rose before them. They were in a good mood. A motherly dealer in a cowboy hat shuffled a deck of cards with the speed of a Japanese cook slicing meat at Benihanas, then flicked the two cards to each man and herself.

“Feel like joining us in some blackjack.” Her voice sounded like she might have been the Lone Ranger’s aunt.

“It’s a friendly game.” A man in the suit pulled out a chair. “Us against the casino and we’re murdering her.”

“I’ve never played before.” My mother had only permitted Solitaire, Spades, and Rummy in her house.

“The rules and tactics are simple.” The oldest man at the table looked like my uncle and Uncle Jack had paid for college with his poker winnings from the Korean War. “Figure the down card of the dealer is a ten or face card. If she’s showing a six, then she’s probably holding a sixteen. The house has to take a card on sixteen. If she breaks 21, then you win.”

“Today’s my birthday.”

“Then your beginner’s luck is doubled by birthday luck. You can’t lose.”

I bought $20 of chips and placed a $2 chip on the table. She dealt me two tens. When it came my turn for a card, I held up my hand like Steve McQueen had done in THE CINCINNATI KID. I loved that movie.

“The hippie sticks.”

The dealer stayed with a nine and Jack. My 20 beat her 19. A chip came my way and the trio at the table congratulated my luck. They had also won their hands.

The next set of cards ran in my favor as did the following hand. I had a good head for numbers as would anyone who had majored in math during his first years in college. Soon I was on a roll.

Pam and AK stood behind me.

Within twenty minutes I was up $100.

Pam waggled the keys in her hand. The two of them wanted to be in San Francisco, not a dusty gambling town in the Great Basin.

“Sorry, it’s time to go.” I cashed in my chips and said good-bye to the three men and dealer.

“Not many people stop when they’re ahead.” The old man spoke, as if he never left the table until his last dollar was gone.

“Beginner’s luck can’t last forever.” I stashed the dollars into my wallet.

“You’re not a beginner anymore, birthday boy,” The dealer was angry at my departure. No one likes losing, because winning is better.

Outside I got in the car and said, “Funny, but I was feeling like I would never lose.”

“All gamblers think that way, until they’re busted.” AK sat in the back of the Torino. “The odds are always tipped in the casino’s favor.”

“And good luck has a funny way of turning bad.” Pam had been with her girlfriend the night that I had left their college dorm after drinking a bottle of tequila. The town police had arrested me five minutes after a high-speed chase in a VW. She was well aware of my luck, both good and bad.

“Give me another minute.” I stepped out of the car. “Not to play any more. I want to call my mother and let her know I’m okay. Remember it’s my birthday. I won’t be long.”

Three minutes to Boston cost $1.20. My mother picked up on the first ring. She sang ‘Happy Birthday’ twice and asked if I was having a good time.

“We’re almost in California.” Any mention of my winning streak was a jink.

As a good Catholic she regarded luck as a gift from God not to be wasted on sin, although I recalled a nun telling me that St. Christopher was also the patron saint of luck. He must have been very popular on Bingo nights.

I’ll call you from San Francisco. Love you and tell Dad I’m fine.” “We miss you.”

“And I miss you too.”

My father had criticized this trip as a senseless fling.

After university I had been expected to begin a real job. America was in a recession and I had been rejected by the banks in Boston. None of them had wanted to employ a longhaired economics major with a stutter .

I hung up thinking about them sitting in our suburban home. The South Shore was a long way from Nevada.

I put in some more quarters and rang Jackie’s house in Buffalo. Her mother answered the phone, “Who is it?”

I didn’t want to say my name and hung up the receiver. I returned to the Torino and sat in the passenger seat.

“Everything good?” AK had met my parents. They had thought that he was a good friend, but also a bad influence for my future.

“We can have birthday cake later.” AK’s parents probably felt the same way about me.

“I’m like chocolate.” Pam pulled out of the gas station and the attendant waved from the pump.

The next town on the map was Elko, which was slightly bigger than Wells judging from the larger print of its name.

Pam didn’t refused my request to test Lady Luck at another casino and thirty minutes later I pushed away from the table $220 richer. The weekly salary at a Boston bank was $20 less than and the blackjack dealers didn’t cared, if I had a stammer.

I repeated my wins in Winnemucca and Lovelock.

I counted the thickening wad of cash several times in the back seat and told Pam to put on Joni Mitchell, “She’s good luck.”

“How much you have now?” AK had avoided from the tables and flirted with the slots. He was down $10.

This wasn’t his day to shine. “Counting the money I left Boston with, almost $2500.”

“That much?”

“I’m on a roll.”

“That’s almost enough for a second-hand GTO.

“One more stop and I’m going to buy a new one.” Last year I had less than twenty dollars in my pocket, as I traveled east with Marilyn. Today was my lucky day.

“That’d be a good birthday present.” AK was happy for me.

“And who deserves it more than me.”

Shutting my eyes I heard the surf of the Pacific. The ocean was cold and the sun brushed my skin with gold. I was looking forward to being a beach bum with money.

A road sign was marked RENO 150 MILES.

Night softened to a velvet blue behind us, as we pulled into the Biggest Little City in the World.

“One more stop.”

Pam groaned at the wheel and AK said, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“It is, it is.” I handed AK my travelers’ checks and $1000. I had seen gambling movies. No one came out on top. “No matter what I say, don’t give me any money.”

“I’ll hold it.” Pam slipped the cash into her pocketbook. “I don’t trust either of you, but Joni Mitchell wishes you good luck. One more thing.

“What’s that?”

“If you’re going to play, then play to win.” Pam was a junior at a girl’s college outside Boston.

Her major was nursing. Her advice should have been more conservative.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” My fingers twitched to hold cards. This was a whole new me.

Reno blazed with neon rainbows above the street. The bright lights outshone the rising moon. I picked the Horseshoe Club as my next victim. I liked its 50s facade. Pam gave the Torino to a casino valet. I tipped him a dollar.

“Whatever you do, don’t let this man sell the car.” She warned the skinny valet.

“I’ll try my best.” He must have failed more than once. “A half-hour. Not a minute more.”

It was my birthday. Reno was at my mercy. I marched into the Horseshoe Casino.

Pam and AK detoured to an empty lounge, where he sat at an idle piano to play Joni Mitchell and

Pam smiled at him for the first time on the trip. I rubbed my hands together and approached the blackjack tables like Genghis Khan on a raid.

After fifteen minutes I was up to $900. The balding dealer in the red vest congratulated my play. I placed a $100 worth of chips on the table. My two cards were an ace and a ten. The dealer paid out $150.

A leggy redheaded waitress in a skimpy mini-dress asked, “Do you want a drink, sir.”

“Jack and Coke.”

“I’ll be right back.” She touched my shoulder and gave me a wink.

I tipped her $5 and I told her it was my birthday.

“Maybe if you’re lucky, we can celebrate it together once I get off work.” Her smile gleamed in the eternal night of the casino.

“That would be great.”

“My name’s Kim.”

I downed the first drink and pulled off a series on wins.

After each hand I counted the bills in my head. Kim kept the drinks coming one after the other.

She kissed me once on the ears.

I lost a few hands and tried to recoup these setbacks by wagering larger stakes. That strategy failed to curb the luck of the house. AK tried to pull me away from the table.

“I’ve only been here twenty minutes.”

“More like two hours.

“I know what I’m doing.”

Those were the last words that I remembered that evening.

The next morning acid sunlight blazed in my eye sockets and my head pounded like a drum crashing down a cliff. I sat up in my sleeping bag to discover that I was lying on the ground next to a rushing river.

Pine trees pierced the clear sky. The Sierras rose jagged above me. I was not in a penthouse suite with Kim.

My hands searched my pockets. There was not one dollar in any of them and my wallet was gone.

The Torino was parked twenty feet away from the river. Pam and AK were sitting at a picnic table.

Their faces told me a sad story. I didn’t need to hear the details just yet and stumbled to the edge of the rushing torrent to stick my head in the icy water.

The cascade rushing over the tumble of worn boulders had to be the Truckee River west of Reno.

I pushed back my wet long hair and checked my pockets again with the same result.

Walking to the picnic bench my body ached with each step.

For an instant I thought that someone had rolled me, but I had no bruises.

I wondered how many Jack and Coke’s I might have downed last night. The razors slashing my brain to shreds shouted more than ten and I shambled to my boots lying in the dirt. I picked them up and stuck my hand to the toes.

There wasn’t a penny in the boots.

AK and Pam were eating sandwiches.

She didn’t look very happy and I asked, “Did I lose all my money?”

“Yes.” AK confirmed the worst.

“What about the money I gave Pam?”

“Gone.”

“But I told you not to give it to me.”

“I never heard anyone beg like that. Not even a junkie in the emergency room.” Pam bit into her sandwich.

“So I’m broke?”

“Busted.”

“Shit.” I was 2700 miles from Boston. “At least I didn’t sell the car.”

“Yes, but you tried.”

“Idiot.”

Last night I had it all.

This morning I had nothing.

“Your birthday cake is in the car.” Pam nodded over her shoulder.

“Thanks.”

“It’s chocolate.”

"My favorite.” I turned slowly in a circle.

“What is it?”

“I’ve been here before.” I recognized the location.

“You lost all your money before.” Pam didn’t have a high opinion of me this morning.

“No, two years ago my friend and I were hitchhiking to San Francisco. A Riviera stopped for us. Two convicts just out of prison were inside. They were drunk and wanted me to drive. Steve didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“And was it?” Pam really wasn’t interested in this story or me, but figured it was better than listening to my moaning about blowing my vacation cash.

“It was until we reached Oakland.” The drive over the Sierras was been a dream for someone in love with fast cars. “They wanted to take over and my friend and we got out of the car. They left the gas station, then stopped and reversed like they had changed their mind, and smashed into the pump, which exploded on contact. They were too drunk to get out of the car, so Steve and I pulled them out. The station attendant put out the fire with an extinguisher.”

“Lucky you were there.” Pam finished her sandwich.

“Saving them meant nothing to me.” I wished that she had saved a bite for me. “Where’s that cake?”

“In the backseat.”

After devouring half the cake I packed my sleeping bag in the car and pulled on my boots.

My two travel companions mercifully refrained from rehashing my debacle, as we drove over the Sierras into California, but I called myself every name in the book.

Jack Kerouac had completed his cross-country trip by bus down the western slopes to the land of palm trees according to ON THE ROAD.

Like him I was in California and we reached Sacramento at noon.

AK and I dropped Pam at the bus station. She was catching the next departure to San Francisco.

Her boyfriend was waiting at the other end. We escorted her to the ticket counter. Both of us were sad to see her go and AK said, “You could always meet us in San Diego.”

“Thanks for the offer.” Pam had the telephone number of AK’s friend. “But I don’t think Harry would want to hang out with a couple of beach bums.”

“Beach bums?” AK was hurt by this opinion of him.

“I don’t mean anything bad by that, but you are spending your summer hanging out at a beach.” Pam had us dead to rights and she picked up her bags. “It was fun.”

“Most of it.” I could have done without last night.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Jackie anything about Reno.” Pam kissed my cheek.

This gesture was as comforting as her promise to keep my disaster a secret from my ex-girlfriend not that it would have made much of a difference, since Jackie was in love with someone else.

“It was real.” She kissed AK on the lips and ran to her gate. “That was a surprise good-bye.”

Pam didn’t turn around to wave good-bye.

“I only wish it was the beginning.” His grin lessened to a smile.

“It is in some ways.” The three of us were down to two and we went outside to the Torino. AK sat behind the wheel for the last time and I wondered how long it would take me to hitchhike back to Boston.

He turned the key in the ignition and reached under the front seat.

“Here.” AK handed me a paper bag.

“What’s this?” I opened it to find my wallet with my traveler’s checks and $1000. My next words came from Captain America in EASY RIDER.

“So I didn’t blow it?”

“You tried your damnedest. I didn’t give it to you this morning, because I thought you would go back to the casino.” He shifted the column tick into Drive.

“Thanks.” I was almost in tears. “I hope you learned your lesson.”

“Two to be exact. First, I’m no gambler and second drinking and gambling don’t mix.”

I was one day older than yesterday and that day had been an education in luck, although I was smart enough to not ask the meaning of the lesson, because $2000 was $2000 more than I started with this morning.

I sat back in the seat and we pulled out of the bus station.

It was May 30, 1974 and I was one day older than yesterday.

Lodi wasn’t very far from Sacramento and that town was the end of the first part of our trip.

AK and I were heading south after returning the station wagon to its owner.

I smiled to myself, because I was still lucky in something and was smart enough to not ask what after one night in Reno, because luck came in spurts.

Both good and bad.

Jamal Shabazz at House of Art

House of Art Gallery established in 2007 is a contemporary fine art gallery that markets, promotes and sells the work of visual artists. The gallery represents artists in the primary market specializing in emerging, mid-career, and established artists. Our collection primarily consists of original works of art featuring a multitude of genres with a focus on unique, distinctive and rare artwork that has appreciative value. HOA Gallery's goal is to educate and provide a professional, comfortable and welcoming environment, whether you are a seasoned collector, art appreciator or merely have an interest in learning about art, alike.

House of Art Gallery
408 Marcus Garvey Blvd.
Brooklyn, New York 11216

(Bet. Macon & Halsey)

Phone: (347) 663-8195

A great collection of Jamal Shabazz photos.

To view more please go to this URL

Jamal Shabazz, House of Art Gallery, brooklyn, http://www.hoagallery.com/artist/Jamel_Shabazz__Originals-52/Kid_Flipping_on_Mattress-577.html

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

TETE DE NAZI

SNATCH-MAG.COM asked French Music Mogul Bernard Zekri how he got into music. Comment êtes-vous arrivé à intégrer ce milieu ? J’avais un copain qui s’appelait Peter Smith, un écrivain irlandais avec une tête de nazi. Genre une tête carrée, les cheveux plaqués en arrière et les yeux bleus. Il avait un manteau en cuir noir ; il me faisait beaucoup marrer. Quand j’étais avec lui, je rentrais partout. Il a été une des premières clés pour que j’accède à ce monde. Tu prends ça dans la gueule quand tu es français, parce qu’à la même époque, Paris, c’était vraiment tristoune. Il n’y avait pas vraiment d’endroits pour écouter de la musique. Et en province, n’en parlons pas. Dans l’East Village, il y avait une jeunesse qui avait envie de brûler sa vie jusqu’au petit matin. Le temps était comme suspendu. La vie était plus facile, on n’était pas en train de penser à ce qui allait se passer dans cinq ans. Les gens n’avaient pas envie d’être stars, ils avaient juste envie d’être de grands artistes.

I love the last line.

These people didn't want to be stars. They wanted to be great artists.

Thanks for that line, Bernard.

I'm not so so sure about the 'tete de nazi', but a young poetress was over last night and said, "You were one scary motherfucker back then."

"And now?" Irene's last boyfriend thought I was not to be trusted.

"Oh you're a little princess."

A Nazi or a princess?

And nothing in between.

ROADS OF THE FLYOVER by Peter Nolan Smith [Kindle Edition]

In the Spring of 2009 a British filmmaker asked me to drive him around the Midwest. Brock Dundee was shooting a movie about a famous sculpter's statues and the artist's reaction to seeing them long after their completion. Barry didn't have long to live. Brock and I were friends from the 90s. "I don't drive and you'd be the perfect guide to America." I agreed to the road trip. It was spring in the Fly-over; the Mississippi in flood, St. Louis in ruins, Indian mounds, cheap hotels, long-lost friends, dirt roads, no highways, and always the destination of seeing another Hare statue. We drove 3000 miles in seven days to see five bronze hares. Before this trip I ceased to see things. I only looked at them. Brock taught me to see again as did his movie. His gift was a powerful thing. TO PURCHASE ROADS OF THE FLYOVER, PLEASE GO TO THE FOLLOWING URL http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KLCNQ3A

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

In the Moment: Recent Paintings by Ro Lohin May 29,2014

​​

Eyes on You, 2010, oil on canvas, 42 x 54 inches ​

Ro Lohin's solo show at the New York Studio School opens on Thursday, May 29th from 6:30 to 8:30.

If you are unable to attend the opening, Ro Lohin will happily meet you at an arranged time during the show.

In the Moment May 29 - June 29, 2014 Opening Reception May 29th 6:30-8:30 pm www.rolohin.com

New York Studio School 8 West 8th Street New York, NY 10011 Open Daily 10-6

What Me Worry Honda

Thailand's military coup has been accepted by Japan's carmaking sector, whose factories stretch across the rice fields to manufacture cars for home consumption and export to other Far East countries. plant managers were concerned about the effects of how a 10pm-7am curfew would affect the assembly lines, however Honda chairman Fumihiko Ike told reporters, "Thailand is where companies can invest with security. I personally don’t think there are huge risks to the economy." Japan's investments in Thailand amounted to $6.9 billion in 2013. Industrialists are backing the military. They know how to keep the police in line as well as the people, because the generals know what's best for Thailand. Same as a Japanese car makers. It's business as usual with the richer gettting richest. And what me worry about the poor.

Cowboy Rules 101


Sent by the ever-tolerant Big Al in Pattaya. He's my hero. A father/X-fighter.

1. Pull your pants up. You look like an idiot.

2. Turn your cap right, your head ain't crooked.

3. Let's get this straight: it's called a 'gravel road.' I drive a pickup truck because I want to. No matter how slow you drive, you're gonna get dust on your Lexus. Drive it or get out of the way.

4. They are cattle. That's why they smell like cattle. They smell like money to us. Get over it. Don't like it? Take I-10; I-40 go east and west, I-17; I-15 goes north and south. Pick one and go.

5. So you have a $60,000 car. We're impressed. We have $250,000 Combines that are driven only 3 weeks a year.

6. Every person in the Wild West waves. It's called being friendly. Try to understand the concept.

7. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of geese/pheasants/ducks/doves are comin' in during a hunt, we WILL shoot it outta your hand. You better hope you don't have it up to your ear at the time.

8. Yeah. We eat trout, salmon, deer and elk. You really want sushi and caviar? It's available at the corner bait shop.

9. The 'Opener' refers to the first day of deer season. It's a religious holiday held the closest Saturday to the first of November.

10. We open doors for women. That's applied to all women, regardless of age.

11. No, there's no 'vegetarian special' on the menu. Order steak, or you can order the Chef's Salad and pick off the 2 pounds of ham and turkey.

12. When we fill out a table, there are three main dishes: meats, vegetables, and breads. We use three spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup! Oh, yeah ... We don't care what you folks in Cincinnati call that stuff you eat ... IT AIN'T REAL CHILI!!

13. You bring 'Coke' into my house, it better be brown, wet and served over ice. You bring 'Mary Jane' into my house, she better be cute, know how to shoot, drive a truck, and have long hair.

14. College and High School Football is as important here as the Giants, the Yankees, the Mets, the Lakers, and the Knicks, and a dang site more fun to watch.

15. Yeah, we have golf courses. But don't hit the water hazards - it spooks the fish.

16. Turn down that blasted car stereo! That thumpity-thump ain't music, anyway. We don't want to hear it anymore than we want to see your boxers! Refer back to #1! Play some Haggard & Jones!

Yee Haw!!!!!

Retort to Cowboy Rules 101

Life takes all types, but I respect the customs of faraway cultures. We share some of the same traditions. I wear my trousers high. Pants are your bikini briefs. My cap is curved and the logos honor my hometown teams.

Nothing else.

No truck or lube or fishing references.

I drive fully-insured rented cars in the West. No worries. Even better if someone else drives you.

I eat dust until I pass a pick-up's dusty rooster tail. Cows smelled like shit.

I like friendly too.

I wave to let other drivers know that I'm not asleep.

My cellphone is not a pet.

Motherfuckers will shoot at anything moving to spill blood. I stay out of the woods during deer season, but I like shooting trees. They don't move. I don't shoot anything else.

I leave the butchering to the butcher, but wild salmon is better than farmed salmon. A lot better.

I'm polite to all women, but only give up my seat to mothers with children, expectant mothers, and old ladies. At my age any further extension of etiquette tests my knees' stamina.

Bacon is bacon and nothing else will ever taste like bacon. Pork is not the other white meat. It's pig. Ketchup isn't a seasoning and it's not a vegetable either other than in the flyover where there are no vegetables.

There is no sport evening more important than a Yankees-Red Sox game, except for a Celtics-Lakers event.

I like my rock loud. If you want quiet, go to a Mitch Miller Band revival festival.

I might not be a cowboy, but I do like wearing boots and the hat.

Monday, May 26, 2014

SPILLED MILK

In Memorium For The Unspoken War

A message from Michael Moore

With due respect to those who are asking me to comment on last night's tragic mass shooting at UCSB in Isla Vista, CA -- I no longer have anything to say about what is now part of normal American life. Everything I have to say about this, I said it 12 years ago: We are a people easily manipulated by fear which causes us to arm ourselves with a quarter BILLION guns in our homes that are often easily accessible to young people, burglars, the mentally ill and anyone who momentarily snaps. We are a nation founded in violence, grew our borders through violence, and allow men in power to use violence around the world to further our so-called American (corporate) "interests."

The gun, not the eagle, is our true national symbol.

While other countries have more violent pasts (Germany, Japan), more guns per capita in their homes (Canada [mostly hunting guns]), and the kids in most other countries watch the same violent movies and play the same violent video games that our kids play, no one even comes close to killing as many of its own citizens on a daily basis as we do -- and yet we don't seem to want to ask ourselves this simple question: "Why us? What is it about US?" Nearly all of our mass shootings are by angry or disturbed white males. None of them are committed by the majority gender, women. Hmmm, why is that?

Even when 90% of the American public calls for stronger gun laws, Congress refuses -- and then we the people refuse to remove them from office. So the onus is on us, all of us. We won't pass the necessary laws, but more importantly we won't consider why this happens here all the time. When the NRA says, "Guns don't kill people -- people kill people," they've got it half-right. Except I would amend it to this: "Guns don't kill people -- Americans kill people." Enjoy the rest of your day, and rest assured this will all happen again very soon. SINCE 1999 MORE THAN 300,000 AMERICANS HAVE BEEN KILLED BY GUNS. 7000 SOLDIERS HAVE DIED DURING THE IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN WARS. THE REAL WAR IS AT HOME.

Less Milk

The Financial Times came out of the banking holiday with a putdown on Thomas Piketty’s book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.” and its tenet that income inequality has increased to disparities unseen since before the Great Depression. According to Al-Jazeera the FT’s Chris Giles says Piketty has “got his sums wrong.” Giles writes that the book’s U.S. data contains mistakes and “unexplained entries in spreadsheets,” and accuses the French economist of cherry picking. He also says FT has “cleaned up” Piketty’s work and found that “European numbers do not show any tendency towards rising wealth inequality after 1970.” The numbers don't add up the way Free Marketeers want the public to see them. We are supposedly heading out of the Greater Recession, but little has been done to address salary stagnations, job displacement in favor of profit, and more importantly the effect of speculation on common-day commodities. This morning I went into the deli on Fulton Street. A quart of milk had jumped twenty cents to $1.99 and a half-gallon also increased twenty cents. Equality? Poorer people buy smaller quantities and the shared twenty cent increase is actually a penalty on the poor to subsidize the rich. It's simple math that the purchasers of a quart were subjected to a 200% increase in comparison to that sought from the buyers of a half-gallon. Simple math and no matter how many mathematicians ponder the problem, the truth of the matter is that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting more numerous. No one reads the FT in Fort Greene. We know our math.

BRING THE TROOPS HOME. END THE LONG WAR

Holiday Neighbors

A friend complained about her neighbor's busying up her Memorial Day Holiday.

"Ok...I'm trying not to be too pissed off, but my neighbor who has been home all weekend has decided to harass me more by mowing his lawn starting at 8:30 am on a holiday ! What is even worse is that he has his shirt off and yuk !! very bad tattoos, beer gut and man boobs. The worse tattoo is one that almost covers his back of a vintage Chevrolet symbol with the word NOVA in the middle of it...really?!!!"

Personally I liked the Chevy Nova.

It was a hot rod.

But I live in Fort Greene and for the most part I like my neighbors.

We have no lawns.

They have parties.

They play their music loud.

If you shout at them, then don't shoot back.

Unlike the hinterland.

They take their shouting to the heart.

I found this Chevy tattoo online.

With the following tag.

“He loves Chevy enough to get a tattoo, but not enough to spend any money on it.”

FREE AS THE WIND by Peter Nolan Smith


Man and woman have emerged naked from their mothers for time immemorial. Nudity is our natural state. Adam and Eve roamed through the Garden of Eden without any Gucci grape leaves covering their genitalia. Despite this biblical precedent New York retains several laws banning public nakedness. Most were written to prevent the spread of pornography, however law § 245.01 directly deals with the exposure of a person's private parts in public places.

Several years ago I protested this odious restriction by skinny-dipping at the dumpsters pool erected by Macro Sea along the Gowanus Canal in late-May.

It was late. The full moon was hidden by clouds. Our host Jocko Weyland green-lighted my nakedness and I climbed onto the deck with a female accomplice. May was wearing a bathing suit and expressed no need to bare her flesh to the four elements on a summer night, especially since we had only met twice.

Modesty accepted I stripped off my jeans and shirt.

I was not wearing underwear.

As a young man I had the body of a Greek god, which decayed after the decades of wear and tear.

I thought of myself as the Acropolis.

In a state of ruins, yet in the right light its failed glory was obvious to the eye. I waited for the full moon to break through the overcast. My body glowed like a decrepit statue dug from a grave.

The swimmers in the pools laughed, as I approached the water. 57 year-old naked men are funny, especially since my hands were cupped over my genitalia to avoid any embarrassment about the size of my penis. I leaped in the water. It was cold, although not as cold as the air and I could feel my cock shrivel to a cashew. The other bathers veered away from me, until my accomplice joined me.

May was young.

22.

Cute.

Beautiful girls have a tendency to lessen the younger peopled's disdain for naked old men.

I was no longer a pervert.

Only cold and I climbed from the dumpster filled with water to get dressed in my clothing. No one really saw my member and I was glad, but even cold I was definitely bigger than Michelangelo's DAVID.

No police arrested me and I returned that evening to my bedroom at the Fort Greene Observatory.

I only believe in indecency exposure in the bedroom.

Both alone and with my wife.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

For Peter, on Dark Illusions and Giddy Phantoms by Irene Zimmerman

Dear Peter,

sometimes, when I am sitting on the subway or walking past an ugly park or eating eggs while I wait to move my laundry to the dryer I wonder why it is that I only seem to write when there is conflict

spheres of energy at war with each other inside me but that is also not true another conflict that is an illusion as much as everything else, perspective gained

What is true is that there seems to be nothing to write about today I was on the subway I was in a building I talked to strangers about market trends in Brooklyn and Queens none of this is sad, there is no harrowing meaninglessness to my life more so even since we sat in the garden while I listened to your story about Paris and keys and rooftops and a comedy of errors

What is true is that I have returned to a deep and peaceful plain-ness that I can only ruin with foolishness or boredom –the classic question, again: and aren’t they the same?– that can only be destroyed by my deranged belief that by submitting completely to darkness by confronting the worst we imagine in ourselves can we find truth or be healed

the weight of the world, an illusion as much as everything else, perspective gained this is why old men and women chuckle at Youth at inner city kids living and dying by each other’s slight of hand on the G train this is why I find myself unable to stop singing

What is true in your living room, snickering over the thought that Andy might come upstairs and catch me lounging in my underwear and become jealous what is true getting rude emails from coworkers telling me things I already know what is true unconsciously avoiding the pool so I can regroup before running into Fernando again

is that love is acceptance and life is good breath joy like a giddy phantom lurking in haphazard clown shoes ready to jump out and make club soda rain from the sky

and thanks as always for the cheap wine

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Thai Curfew

Since November 2013 armed skirmishes between Thailand's two opposing political camps have resulted in at least twenty-eight deaths and hundreds of wounded Thais. Once Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was forced from office by a court order the army chief, Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, had the army stepped into the power vacuum to prevent anarchy. Radios and TV were suppressed for 'public good' and this morning the diehard royalist announced a nationwide curfew from 10 PM to 5 AM. He almost demanded for the ex-prime minister and eighteen other government officials to report to the ruling military commission.

Protesting red shirts and yellow shirts have been forced from their protest zones with the army offering buses to take each camps' supporters back to their homes around Thailand.

I have lived through several Thai curfews.

The last had been in 2010 during which the army killed an undisclosed number of red shirts.

Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha has sworn to keep violence to a minimum until a period of calm will allow elections.

The NPOMC issued a new order to exempt those who will travel abroad or return from abroad and workers whose operations need to be carried out in shifts, such factories, to be exempted from curfew.

Those who need to work during the curfew hours can seek permission from military officers in their areas.

A friend reported that Bangkok all overpass closed street level road open but very heavy traffic with all petrol stations closing before the pumpkin hour.

Soon there will be no late shifts at factories. No overtime. Restaurants will close early.

There will be nothing but the dead of night.

Goodbye Democracy.

It never works when neither side obeys the decision of the people.

Mostly since the election is always bought by Khon Yai or the Rich.

BET ON CRAZY - THE FOUR CS By Peter Nolan Smith [Kindle Edition]

In 1990 a friend in the New York's Diamond District asked me to help him at his exchange. I knew nothing about diamonds other than Superman could squeeze coal to create them. Coal was a diamond after intense pressure changed its density. At first that was all I knew, but I slowly learned about the 4Cs. Color, Clarity, Carat, and Cost are the four determinants of a diamond's value. BET ON CRAZY - THE FOUR CS will explain those mysteries through four stories from 47th Street. After three decades in the business I know a little more than a little than a little about diamonds and while they might be as rare as lightbulbs, the most beautiful one is the one you sell. TO PURCHASE 'BET ON CRAZY - THE FOUR CS' By Peter Nolan Smith [Kindle Edition] PLEASE GO TO THE FOLLOWING URL http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KH7OYT4

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

BET ON CRAZY - COLOR by Peter Nolan Smith

The last week of January I was hurrying down the sidewalk on West 47th Street. I had been on the job since my friend Richie Boy had busted both his knees skiing at Jackson Hole. My watch read 9:35. I was late for the third time this week and it was only Wednesday. Lenny the bum was standing in front of Berger’s Deli. His lightly-clothed body was steaming in the sub-zero temperature. Fat people generate a lot of heat.

“Can you give a little?” Lenny said to a passing Hassidim diamond dealer and then pointed a quivering finger. “There’s the goy who gave me a dollar yesterday. The good goy, Damien.”

“His name isn’t Damien___” The dealer recognized me from Manny’s store.

“I like the name Damien fine.” I couldn’t resist Lenny’s utter helplessness. “You want a bagel?”

“From Berger’s? That’s not kosher.” The Deli had been operating on 47th Street for decades.

“Just what the world has been waiting for, a finicky bum,” The Hassidim laughed, but Lenny cringed with hurt and shambled off with a mutter.

“I’m not finicky, I just don’t eat tref. See you, Damien.”

Berger’s was definitely kosher, though not dairy glatt, and I crossed the street. It was 9:38. Manny was in the front window, tapping his watch.

I entered the exchange and Manny said, “Every day you’re late. Two minutes, five minutes, fifteen minutes. Why can’t you get here on time?”

“I try.” I got up at 8. Somehow 90 minutes weren’t enough time to shower, dress, and get from East 10th Street to Midtown. “I’ve taken the N train, the L, the 4. None of them are faster.”

“So leave a little earlier.”

“Okay.” I took off my leather coat and hung it over my chair. Richie Boy and Domingo were running late too. Nothing really happened on the street until lunch.

“Okay what? Okay you’ll be on time?” Manny handed me a tray from the safe. The metal box contained the heavy goods for the front window. Diamond necklaces and engagement rings.

“Manny, when you going to teach me about diamonds?” If I was going to sell diamonds, I needed some basic knowledge.

“What’s there to teach?” Manny had little time for on-the-job training. “You do what I tell you and you can’t go wrong.”

“Yeah, but here are two 3-carat diamonds.” I held up two engagement rings in 14k gold; a marquise and round stone. “Both the same size, color, and clarity, but they don’t cost the same.”

“I told you about the 4Cs.” Manny sighed with exasperation. He hated wasting any time from his beloved paperwork.

“Carat, color, clarity, and cut.” These 4Cs determined the price of a diamond. “Your lesson lasted three minutes.”

“What you expect to know everything in a week? A month? A year?” Manny motioned to speed up setting out the goods in the window.

“No, I listen to what you tell customers and you inevitably tell them every stone is a G VS, unless it has a certificate from the GIA.”

“I hate the GIA.” Manny had no confidence in the Gemological Institute of America, having sent several stones for certification only to have them come back a lesser grade than his original estimation. “Upstarts.”

“They’ve been around since 1931.”

“And I’ve been around since 1925.” Manny was a little younger than my father. “So I beat them. They think that they’re the be all and end all of diamonds. We never sold those stones on the Bowery. Only when my hero and your friend, Richie Boy, moved me up here did I have to deal with GIA stones and that 4Cs crap.”

“It’s not crap.” Richie Boy entered the store on crutches and lifted the counter top. The braces had come off his legs, so he was able to wear his suits again. Armani, Zegna, Calvin Klein. I had inherited several hand-me-downs. They were little small on me, but better than a 20 year-old suit from Jaeger.

“It’s crap. The G comes into the store for a 1-carat stone. He doesn’t know a D color from a J, but he knows how much he has in his pocket. He has $3000. You tell him the stone is G VS. He has $4000. You tell him G VS. He has $2000. You tell him G VS, because what he wants is a white clean stone for the right price. Nice and easy.”

“Except if he has $10,000 in his pocket and he wants a 2-carat F SI stone. Then your formula gets shit-canned.” Richie folded his cashmere coat and hung it behind the safe. “Manny, the GIA helps the customers and it helps us. Get used to it.”

The telephones ringing ended this discussion. Richie Boy and Manny answered them, while I filled the window with rings, necklaces, tennis bracelets, pins, pearls, chokers, and antiques.

“Manny’s nervous enough to make a statue twitch.” Richie Boy hobbled to my side. “Do us a favor and don’t wind him up.”

“All I asked was about the difference in diamond prices.”

“It took Manny 50 years to know what he knows and doesn’t know. Leave him alone. If you want to learn about diamonds, just keep your ears open. In the meanwhile, run this setting up to Eenon to pick out 20 stones. G SI. Five pointers. Got it.”

“And afterwards the stones will be G VS?” 100 points made up a carat, so five pointers were 1/20th of a carat. “It’s what the ‘G’s want.”

All customers were ‘G’s, not because they were goyim like myself, but they always asked for a G color stone like Manny said. I left the store and headed down the street to the front of a 9-story building.

Lenny was by the entrance front mumbling about deBeers.

His audience consisted of errant snowflakes, as everyone rushed about on their chores. He was too drunk to notice my entering the building and I got in a packed elevator, pressing the button for the 8th floor.

A skinny Hassidic setter hadn’t bathed since the Deluge of Noah. I breathed through my mouth until the 8th floor.

Eenon’s office was at the end of a bleak corridor. The walls were a weak lime green and the overhead neon lights fluttered at the end of a long life. Room 805 was magnetically locked and I rang the buzzer, then lifted my face to the CCTV. The door clicked open and I stepped in the waiting room. An old man face popped into the tiny window.

Eenon’s father resembled a featherless chicken and I heard him say, “The goy is here.” Goy and Damien were my two new names on 47th Street.

His father opened the door and indicated that I should sit on a metal folding chair. The small room was decorated with battered desks on which weighing scales were lit by brilliant lamps. Eenon looked up from a parcel of small diamonds with a smile.

“Ach, it is the goy.” Eenon was my age. He liked calling me ‘the goy’, because there were so few gentiles working on 47th Street. “What does Manny want now?”

“20 five-pointers. G SI.”

“He’s willing to pay $550 per carat?” Eenon asked like he hadn’t heard me right.

“I think so. What’s the difference between $500 and $550?”

“A good question.” Eenon usually had a little time to speak with me, probably because I was his only contact with the goyim. He reached over to the pile of loose stones with long-nosed tweezers and placed two small stones on a folded piece of white paper.

“The price is determined by the usual factors. Color, clarity, cut, and carat size. No matter what the size. Look at these two stones. Each one is a 20-pointer. Same cut and clarity and both are the same color. Different costs.”

“And you can tell the difference?” They appeared to both be white to me.

“My father taught me the difference, although when he was learning they called the stones different colors. D was Jager. E and F were River. G and H were Wesselton. I-J were Top Silver, K-L were Top Cape and the rest to Z were designated as Cape to Yellow.”

“Why you wasting your time telling ‘the goy’ this?” His father was seated at his desk, sorting tiny diamonds, each one a glitter under the electric light of his lamp.

“Because he asked a question.”

“You know why they called Wesselton ‘Wesselton’ or Jager ‘Jager’?” The old man pushed back his sleeve. A tattoo was burnt into his wrist, a concentration camp souvenir.

“No.” Eenon answered with a grin.

“What’s so funny? You think you’re tricking an alte kakher into being the goy’s teacher.”

“No one said you were an old man.” Eenon was fluent in English, Hebrew, and Yiddish. “I want him to know the right thing and not lies.”

“Being honest is easier than lying.” His father tsked with the cluck of his tongue. “Zo, Wesselton was the name of a South African mine. The stones out of it were G-H in color. People called E and F River, but no one uses those terms anymore.”

“Same with Jager?” Eenon was not through digging.

“Any more questions are $1 dollar.”

“What is Jager?” I put a dollar on the desk.”

The old man plucked a diamond from an envelope. Maybe a 90-pointer. Almost a carat. There was no mistaking the gin-clear color was a D.

“Jager is the finest diamond color. Why they call it “Jager’?”

He motioned with his hand and I put down another dollar.

“It came from the Jagerfontein Mine.”

“The word means hunter in German and fontein probably means fountain.” I had taken the language in high school.

“Jaeger.” The old man’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe you aren’t such a stupid goy after all.”

"I try." It was the first syllable in ‘triumph’ and I learned that from a proverb on a Salada tea bag.

“One more thing and this is a free answer, because you didn’t ask it. Color is determined by the lack of nitrogen in a stone. The more nitrogen, the yellower the stone.”

“Thanks.” I liked freebies.

“Here are your stones?” Eenon gave me a paper parcel. He had written 20 stones = 1.04 and I signed a memo for the goods.

“When is your boss going to pay for these?”

“Wer wisst.” Manny was a notorious slow payer.

“Who knows?” Eenon’s father shook his head. “I like this goy more and more. Sie gesund.”

“Thanks for the lesson.” Eenon had never explained the difference between 500 per carat and 550 per carat diamonds.

I left the office and went to the elevator. and took it to the ground floor.

Out on the street Lenny was leaning against the wall.

Across the street Manny was in the window.

He would have never told me about Wesselton and I doubted if he knew about Jager. If he did, he wasn’t saying, because the best secrets are the ones you never tell.

TO PURCHASE ‘BET ON CRAZY – THE FOUR CS’ By Peter Nolan Smith [Kindle Edition] PLEASE GO TO THE FOLLOWING URL

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KH7OYT4

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Live Long and Prosper


The Masoretic version of the Bible purported that Methusalah achieved the epic age of 969. His name is synonymous with longevity and no one in modern history has neared his nonacentarian record, although my great-grand aunt Bert lived to 103.

She circled the world in a sailing ship. One port of call was Bangkok and she was the first of my family to visit the Siamese capitol, but not the last. I lived there in 1998.

Other relatives have reached ripe old ages.

My father reached 89.

I expected to hit at least 110 if only because many more Americans are living longer and wrinklies are becoming the largest growing segment of the population.

Why?

People don't die as much as they used to die.

Once you get past 30, few want to live by the James Dean adage 'live fast and die young. Leave a good-looking corpse'." Not that they have much choice, since most young people in America aren't attractive after the age of 13.

Even morticians don't want to hump fat kids and those ghouls will hump most everything dead.

With that macabre phenomena in mind I'm living as long as possible.

I don't want anyone touching my dead flesh until I'm way pass my prime.

BET ON CRAZY / CARAT WEIGHT by Peter Nolan Smith


The day after Christmas Manny’s longtime partner, Lee, was showing a 7.04 Cushion Cut Round Diamond to a retired couple from West Palm Beach. The sixtyish woman wore a fashionable Dior outfit, though her nasal accent betrayed Brooklyn roots with an envious coo, “I don’t know, it’s so bigggg!"

Her husband’s skin color of an old leather couch from the decades of sun on Long Island and Florida.

"It is big.”

For once he agreed with his wife. He wanted to get back to Boca Raton ASAP, preferably without buying this rock.

“Big? This isn’t big.” Lee, silver-haired and handsome in his early seventies, slipped the platinum ring onto the woman’s finger. “You remember Liz Taylor and Richard Burton? Well, back when we were all young, my good friend, Buzzy Yugler, had a 55-Carat D Flawless Diamond, which sparkled like snow under moonlight. Liz also thought it was a little too big. Buzzy said they get smaller after time and put the ring on her finger. Liz changed her mind and said, “I think I can get used to it.

Acting as if he had been in the room with Liz, Lee guffawed with practiced elegance and slipped his diamond ring on the lady's finger.

"Maybe you're right." She admired the stone with a smile.

"Maybe there's a little Liz in you." The venerable diamond dealer hailed from Brooklyn too. His posh mannerism were inherited from his wife. Her family was French and he patted the woman's hand. "You got used to your husband. You'll get used to this ring too."

The couple laughed with embarrassment and the man sighed, "We'll have to think about it."

"Take your time. We'll be here when you make up your mind." Lee waved good-bye to the couple. Once the door shut, he handed me the ring, “Put this back in the front window."

As I waked past my boss' desk, Manny muttered about Lee’s unabashed schmoozing, “Buzzy Yugler had nothing to do with that sale.”

Whereas Lee had inherited his father’s diamond business on 47th Street, Manny had spent his youth on the streets of Brownsville and learned the jewelry trade on the Bowery from the bottom up. The Italian suits and imported ties pinpointed his rough background, not that he cared a rat’s ass what anyone thought, because he didn’t have to pretend that he appreciate the division of classes in Jewish society.

“What do you mean?” I asked, bringing the 7.04 to the front window.

Carat weight was one of the diamond trades 'Four Cs', because the cost of a stone was determined by the carat weight, cut, and clarity.

“I don’t have time to tell stories.” Manny looked at the wall clock at the back of the exchange. It was past noon and his customer hadn’t arrived with a promised check. He frowned like Jackie Mason not getting a laugh and turned to me. “And neither do you."

I surveyed the sidewalk for prospective customers, however most of the pedestrians were intent on wide-eyed browsing.

"Not much business out there today.”

“Now you hexed the entire day.” Manny tightened his tie and joined me in the window. He was ready for action, but one glance at the street broke his heart and he said, “Buzzy Yugler bid a million dollars for the stone, which wasn’t 55-carat.”

I was old enough to remember Liz Taylor leaving the singer, Eddie Fisher, for Richard Burton during the filming of CLEOPATRA. “

"A million dollars back in 1964 must have been a lot of money.”

“But not enough to buy a 66-carat Pear Shape, because someone beat Buzzy’s bid by three hundred thou, though that failure didn’t prevent his claiming to hail sold Liz the stone.”

“I thought Harry Winston sold Richard Burton the stone.”

“Maybe he did.” Manny shrugged like he heard different. “Abe Padrush offered Elizabeth Taylor two-million three for the stone. She would have sold it to him, except he wanted her to hand it to him personally and be photographed doing so. Publicity like that would have been priceless, but Richard Burton refused. Thought it was too low-class. Goyim, go figure.”

Richard Burton’s rejecting the prime Yiddish tenet of ‘nimmt geld’ or take the money confounded Manny, as did many aspects of gentile behavior. His son, Richie Boy, had been speaking on the telephone, but overheard his father and decided to his father a zug or needle. “You just don’t understand them, because you were brought up on the Bowery.”

“We had plenty of Gs downtown.”

“Yeah, but not like here and you don’t know how to deal with these uptown people.”

Being Yankee Irish I had a lot of better things to do than intermediate the eternal psychological struggle between father and son, but Richie Boy turned to me and said, “You remember than million dollar ruby?”

“How can I forget?”

The deal was ten years ago.

The fingernail-sized stone possessed an awe-inspiring blood red radiance, but I hadn’t seen one million dollars in it and when I had told Richie Boy the same at our old exchange, he had said, “I don’t either, but believe me that’s what it’s worth."

“Your guy isn’t going to buy it!” Manny had insisted, as we examined the stone.

“Why do you always have to be so negative?” Richie Boy had shaken his head.

Richie Boy had lost his looks, but retained a winning affability. His uptown clientele consisted of wealthy millionaires, though none as rich as the president of a West Coast airline who had been looking to buy his married girlfriend, a blonde heiress, something special for her birthday.

The call had been for a very rare natural Burmese ruby over five carats the color of the blood bleeding from a pigeon’s nose.

The vein, not the artery. The customer had been very specific about the details, which meant he had done his research.

Richie Boy called several dealers and within a day found a stone fitting the client's prerequisites.

It wasn’t cheap and the dealer flatly told him, “It's 875,000 dollars and I don’t want to hear any kvetching about the price."

Banned from chiseling the price angered Manny, especially since his son was reaching for stars he couldn’t see.

“I’m not being negative, but no one, and I don’t care how rich they are is going to spend a million dollars for someone else’s wife.”

“Yeah, but he’s going to marry her as soon as she’s free.” Richie Boy protested, though Manny merely laughed, “Think what you like. You’re young. You’ll find out.”

His father stormed away and Richie Boy asked me, “What do you think?”

“It doesn’t look like a big house in the Hamptons, but what do I know about rubies?” I had grown up as a goy on the South Shore of Boston. A house on Jerusalem Road was much less than a cottage in Amagansett, but rich was rich and there was no way that I could ever afford a ruby for a million dollars, unless I took it with a gun.

"Nothing." Richie Boy picked two diamond necklaces as back-up. Both cost over a quarter million. “The G has to buy something.”

An hour later the client phoned to request a meeting at the Regis Hotel

In his room on the tenth floor.

Upon hearing the plan Richie Boy’s father warned that we were being set up.

Neither of us disagreed with his prediction.

"Get the G to come here." G was the street's label for a goy.

"He isn't coming here." Richie Boy had tried that, however the rich didn't like 47th Street's seedy atmosphere.

Manny wanted to kibosh the entire deal.

"Everything is insured to the max." Richie had spent $1000 on a twelve hour addendum to his insurance policy.

“And what if you get robbed on the street?” His father played every negative angle in the search for the right path.

“That’s not going to happen!” Richie was licensed to carry and stuck his 9mm in the shoulder holster.

“You’re not really going to shoot someone, if they try and rob us?” I was no gunman.

“No, nothing is worth dying over, but it will look better on the insurance form, if I was carrying.”

To Richie Boy getting robbed was almost like making a sale, since the insurance companies would have to cover the loss, though both of us could do without the psychological scarring of someone sticking a gun in our face.

As Richie Boy hid the jewelry inside his suit coat and I picked up the front section of the newspaper. His father swore, “What you need a newspaper for?”

I was about to tell him, I wanted something to read, however Richie Boy said, “He broke Doom Darazzio’s nose with a newspaper. One blow.”

Manny’s brother. Seymour the Cop, could attest to my toughness, but that beating was a long time ago and I was only taking the newspaper was to have something to read, while Richie Boy conducted his sale.

Leaving the exchange everyone wished us luck and his father swore, "My fucking heroes."

He was right to be worried, but we arrived at the St. Regis Hotel without incident.

Two guests tried to get on the elevator with us.

Richie Boy and I glared a warning for them to take the next car. Reaching tenth-floor corridor, we smiled nervously. So far everything had gone accordingly to plan.

Richie Boy padded his jacket, as if he thought he might have been pickpocketed by the Invisible Man. He nodded to indicate the jewelry was still on his person and then he pressed the buzzer for suite 1121.

Inside a woman laughed and several second later the door was opened by a naked blonde in high heels. She was in her early forties, but her skin tone was a testament to a strict gym regime.

When Richie Boy and I exchanged a glance, she smiled and drawled straight out of Texas, “C’mon in, boys, we’ve been waitin’ for y’all.”

She sashayed into the main suite, where her older boyfriend rose from the satin couch. He was tall, athletic, and wearing only a bathrobe. He greeted Richie Boy with a handshake and looked at me and asked, “Who’s your friend?”

“He’s the protection for these.”

Richie played it right and withdrew the two diamond necklaces from his jacket.

"Come here," he ordered the woman and draped the diamonds around her neck.

"And let's not forget why you came here?"

He slipped the ruby ring on her finger.

She looked several million dollars richer and her head turned to the airline executive.

"How do I look?"

"Come into the bedroom and I'll tell you."

The bedroom door shut and Richie Boy motioned for me to go into the corridor.

"What if they leave by the window?"

"I'll shoot them off it." He went to the window and I stepped outside.

Then minutes later Richie Boy opened the door.

"He likes the bigger necklace."

"What about the ruby?"

"Back in my pocket." He showed me a check.

"It was for $330,000, which was more than we would earn in several years.

Back at the store everyone congratulated Richie boy on the sale. His father shrugged and said, “I told you that he wouldn’t go for the ruby.”

“Yeah, you’re always right.” Richie Boy retold the story. Lee came over and turned up his hearing aid, since he liked to hear about the schitzah’s being naked as much as the blonde buying his piece.

“You would,” Manny commented, since Lee’s admiration of blonde gentile woman was endemic to the most Jewish men. “But I’ll tell you another story.”

“Not about your girlfriend!” Richie Boy groaned.

“No, I’ll tell you a story about schitzahs that will curl your hair.” Manny smoothed down his Caesaresque coif for effect and then continued, “I was working down on the Bowery before you came to work for me, Richie.”

“Back in the Stone Age before the car and telephones!” Lee joked, but Manny was two years younger and said, “You remember those days just as good as me, if not better, but this was also when the blondes were really blondes and not out of a blonde out of a bottle. Well, maybe half of them were real.”

Manny had everyone's attention, including the two Hassidic diamond brokers at the counter.

“It was summertime, maybe 1971. Hilda and I were doing good. She was a lot like Richie in that she could sell rain at a picnic. Anyway this day she’s not working and I’m in the store with Norman.”

“Norman!” Everyone remembered Manny’s first employee and some not fondly, especially Richie Boy, who announced, “Best thing I did two years ago was fire that kuchleffle!”

As far as I could recall, Norman retired once he inherited his mother’s money, but Manny raised his hands, “Norman was a shit-stirrer, but back then he was a real lady’s man back then. He won the Lido Beach Club Body-building contest all through the sixties.”

“And you call that a talent?” Lee asked and Manny answered with a smile, “It worked for me. Anyway this one afternoon I see Norman outside talking with this beautiful blonde. I mean, she’s like a Vegas showgirl. He comes in with her and I expected him to go down to the vault, but instead he tells me she’s looking for a diamond ring. A big one. Five carat. I know not as big as Liz Taylor’s or and certainly not more money than you got for that diamond necklace.”

This story sounded very familiar, because I had heard it from Norman. Manny noticed my dismissive gaze and said, “Norman likes to tell it that he sold her the diamond and got screwed later, but she said to me, “I have this boyfriend. He’ll buy me anything I want. He won’t chisel you for the price, but I want you to give me half the profit.”

“I couldn’t believe my ears and thought she was pulling a scam, but the guy came in, didn’t squawk about the price, and she left with him. Ring, box, go.”

“And so then what happened?” one of the Hassidic brokers asked, stroking his salt-and-pepper beard.

“Well, she came back just like she said she would and I paid her what I owed her."

“Half?” Lee demanded incredulously.

“Fifty-fifty above my cost.” This split could have meant anything, but Manny stilled all other questions by saying, “She was happy, but gave me back the ring.”

“She wanted you to buy it back?”

Manny shook his head.

“No, she said she wanted me to sell it back to her.”

“What?” Everyone asked in unison.

“She tells me she has another boyfriend, who wants to buy her a ring, but she can’t have two, otherwise she won’t remember which is which could lead to complications, so she says, “Sell me this ring again and we’ll split the money fifty-fifty.”

Manny eyed everyone.

Nobody attacked the morality of what the woman proposed and Manny said, “I did what I thought was best.”

“Which means?“ Lee demanded in suspect curiosity.

“That nobody got hurt.” Manny’s last word coincided with the arrival of a young couple looking for an engagement ring. I heard Richie Boy start to say, “You're up."

I turned to the young couple, “When are you getting married?”

“September,” the twenty-two year-old brunette announced as if the vision of her wedding was playing inside her mind.

“2002?”

“No, 2003.” The man put his arm around his future bride.

Manny and Richie Boy chuckled and said, “A WOT.”

They were probably right about the couple being a 'waste of time', but you never knew where missionary work would lead, so I said, “Congratulations.”

"How big you looking for?"

"A little less than a carat?"

"Nice size."

And I wasn’t lying, because in diamonds the best stone is the one you sell and in December 2002 2003 was just around the corner.

TO PURCHASE ‘BET ON CRAZY – THE FOUR CS’ By Peter Nolan Smith [Kindle Edition] PLEASE GO TO THE FOLLOWING URL

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KH7OYT4

Live Long and Prosper


The Masoretic version of the Bible purported that Methusalah achieved the epic age of 969. His name is synonymous with longevity. No one in modern history has touched his nonacentarian record. My great-grand aunt Bert lived to 103. She circled the world in a sailing ship. One port of call was Bangkok. The first of my family to visit the Siamese capitol, but not the last. Other relatives have reached ripe old ages. My father is 88. I expected to hit at least 110 if only because many more Americans are living longer. Wrinklies are becoming the largest growing segment of the population.

Why?

People don't die as much as they used to die. Once you get past 30, few want to live by the James Dean adage 'live fast and die young. Leave a good-looking corpse'. Most of the young I see in America aren't attractive after the age of 13.

Even morticians don't want to hump fat kids and those ghouls will hump most everything dead.

With that macabre phenomena in mind I'm living as long as possible.

I don't want anyone touching my dead flesh until I'm way pass my prime.ans don't want to hump fat kids and those ghouls will hump most everything dead.

With that macabre phenomena in mind I'm living as long as possible.

I don't want anyone touching my dead flesh until I'm way pass my prime.

MARTIAL LAW IN THAILAND

Thailand's turmoil has resulted in the declaration of martial law after opposing factions have battled in the streets and the Prime Minister was ousted by the courts. The media has reported that Bangkok seems calm and according to the BBC Army chief Gen. Prayuth Chan-Ocha said martial law would remain until "the country is safe and there is stability."

The Thai military has attempted or succeeded in taking power at least eighteen times since the nation became a constitutional monarchy in 1932 and troops have occupied TV and radio stations obstensively to prevent any rabble-rousing from the two main political parties represented by the 'red shirts' and yellow shirts'.

Newspapers are also subject to censorship.

Gen. Prayuth Chan-Ocha vowed that the imposition of martial law is not a coup.

Thai soldiers are stationed at all important traffic intersections throughout the capitol and across the country.

Elections are scheduled for August 3.

The police are not in sight, since they are supporters of the Yingluck government and her brother Thaksin Shinawatra who had been a police officer before achieving great wealth as a businessman managing police investments.

This abrupt seizure of power will once more threaten the country's balance of power as the revered king approaches the celebration of his 68th year of rule.

I lived in Pattaya through the 2006 coup.

It was business as usual.

Beer was cold and the lights went on and off.

I hope the same for the next two months as I am hoping to take a trip to visit my family in Thailand.

I miss them very much.