The Last Snow - 2018

315 The Bowery Pre-CBGBs

CBGBs existed from 1973 to the summer of 2008 as a mecca for punks.

Prior to Hilly Kristal's leasing the ground-floor and basement of 315 The Bowery, the location had served as a The Palace Hotel Bar for the flophouse above it, housing as many as 600 men every night.

There was life at 315 before CBGBs and there is life after as a clothing boutique, but the Palace Hotel remains the same.

A SRO home for the forgotten men on the boulevard of broken dreams.

But not Hilly.

Photo by David Godlis

March For Never Again

Yesterday hundreds of thousands marched in cities across the USA and world to call for an end to the senseless mass killings. The demonstrations were organized by survivors of the Parkland School shooting.

The 19 year-old killer had attended Stoneman Douglas High School and the police had been alerted to his erratic behavior throughout 2016 and 2017 without being able to discover his true identity.

On February 14, 2018 Victor Cruz murdered seventeen students and wounded another seventeen with an AR-15.

An armed guard hid under cover.

More police arrived on the scene.

They remained 500 feet from the school.

The shooting went on for six minutes

Then he dropped the weapon and walked out of the school with the rest of the student body.

Cruz walked to a Walmart and drank a soda.

Police finally arrested him after a visit to McDonalds.

Seventeen dead.

Seventeen wounded.

Cruz was taken to the hospital.

The students of Stoneman Douglas High School had had enough.

At a rally in Tampa on February 17 Junior Emma Gonzalez criticized the 'thoughts and prayers' offerings of politicians supporting the NRA. Her fellow schoolmates formed the NEVER AGAIN movement.

They showed up at the Women's rally in Washington.

The right-wing and NRA accused the students of being tools of the left wing.

"They are too young to have organized this."

The gun culture of America was gearing up for a fight.

Old folks were instructed in use of a pointed finger.

Donald Trump greeted the survivors and suggested arming teachers with weapons to deter deadly attacks.

Fat white men got out of their chairs.

The head of the NRA called the students thugs.

The kids weren't scared of these people who prefer automatic weapons to safety in schools.

On March 24 they gathered in the hundreds of thousands around America.

They marched in the streets, despite the federal government refusing them the right to assemble on the Mall. A talent show had the date reserved. They used no violence.

They joined with others.

Others joined them.

The police kept their distance.

Emma Gonzalez led the crowd in Washington in a six-minute long Moment of Silence.

The length of the shooting by Victor Cruz.

A blow against the gun culture.

"Since the time that I came out here, it has been 6 minutes and 20 seconds, The shooter has ceased shooting, and will soon abandon his rifle, blend in with the students as they escape, and walk free for an hour before arrest. Fight for your lives before it's someone else's job." - Emma Gonzalez.

Guns kill people.

Never again one day soon.

WHEN FAT MEN FLY by Peter Nolan Smith / Chapter 4

The first week in February I moved into an apartment in Brighton’s Bug Village. The walls were thin as a potato chip and a single electric space heater warmed the living room. I colonized it with a color TV.

Wayne came over to crash with Marie after concerts. Neither of them had a car. She played Dave Van Ronk’s TEDDY BEARS’ PICNIC several times throughout the night. I gave them the bedroom. My bedroom was so cold that Marie called it ‘the bear cave’. Wayne bought an electric blanket for their visits and Marie ceased her complaints.

Wayne and I traded weekend trips to New York. Eddie's loss of weight was more noticeable each time I entered his apartment. He was basically starving to death. Sookie remained skinny. We made love in the back room. She never made a sound. Sometimes I felt like Eddie and her were man and wife.

“Are you sure he’s not jealous?”

“We’re just friends.” Sookie showed me what 'not friends' meant every night of my visit.

In early May Wayne, Marie, Nick, Jolee, Eddie, Sookie, and I attended an anti-war protest in Central Park. Eddie walked about 100 feet at a time without losing his breath. Sookie encouraged him every step of the way. He really was getting thinner and I voiced my suspicions to Wayne that there was something between them.

“You’re an idiot,” Wayne said more than once on the ride back to Boston. Nick agreed with him and so did Marie. “They’re just friends.”

“If you say so.” The difference between friend and fiend was one letter.

Back in Boston I concentrated on school. My grades suffered from smoking pot and driving taxi at night. My draft number was dangerously low and flunking out of school would have been rewarded with a letter from the Selective Service. I passed my final exam in Calculus I. I crammed four months’ of classes into 50 hours. I received a D+. The professor suggested I change my major next year and I transferred my credits to Economics. Nick shook his head at my choice.

“Economics is one step above Accounting.” His grades were no better than mine and his post-graduation destination was a medical school in the Philippines, if Dagupan City University would have him.

“Maybe.” The profit from my reefer sales matched the salary for a Harvard Business School graduate. Economics taught supply and demand. This knowledge might prove essential to our business. It was the end of May. I phoned Sookie to tell her that I was coming down for a week.

“This isn’t a good time.” She hadn’t seen me in two weeks. “Eddie’s been so good, but he had a relapse yesterday. He ate a whole bag of cookies. I’ve shut him in the apartment without any food.”

“What are you? A Nazi?” Sookie was the only woman in my life.

“No, but Eddie’s getting close.”

“How can you tell?” No store-bought scale reached over 300.

“Because I weighed him at the meat market. Eddie weighs 290. He could get to 250 by the Fourth of July.” She was proud of this accomplishment.

“What about the pot? I ran out two days ago." She wasn’t telling me what I needed to hear. “Sorry, he’s not receiving calls this week. Tell Wayne not to call either. It’s only another six weeks.

After that everything will return to normal.”

She hung up and I hitchhiked over to Wayne’s house for dinner. His mother made us lasagna. She said

Jolee was working as a nurse in New York.

“She sees a lot of your skinny friend.”

“Sookie?” I lost my appetite.

“Yes, that’s her name.” His mother was happy. “Maybe she can make a woman out of Jolee.”

“More like the other way around,” Wayne muttered under his breath.

Upstairs I informed Wayne of Sookie’s edict. His brow furrowed with the realization that our dealer had shut off our supply. He pulled out Crimson King’s I LISTEN TO THE WIND, then scratched his beard pondering our situation. His decision came before Greg Lake sang the first chorus.

“Nothing we can do. Eddie’s in her hands. We’re 200 miles away. Best we find someone selling pot in Boston.”

Our luck wasn't good. A biker from Wollaston Beach beat us for a pound. It was shy two ounces. The next dealer demanded cash up front. I gave him half. He disappeared with $200. I called Eddie’s apartment without anyone answering on the other end. Wayne said that his sister had called to say Eddie and Sookie were doing fine. At night I fell asleep to dreams of Jolee in bed with her. They were all pornographic.

Wayne and I stopped trying to score pot. Taxi driving was slow with the college kids out of town. My rent was late. My father found me a summer job drafting new wire charts for the telephone company. My tools were a ruler, a #2 pencil, and an electric eraser. A 26 year-old first-line executive hung around my desk. Linda was a divorcee. The long-legged brunette had a daughter. My father warned she was trouble. Her perfume was Chanel and she had a nervous habit of playing with her bra strap. It was fringed with lace.

Linda lived in Concord. Her mother could take care of her daughter. I invited her to see Emerson, Lake, and Palmer at the Hatchshell along the Charles. After the concert we made out on the Esplanade. She came back to Bug Village. It would have been so easy to betray Sookie, instead I was a good boy. Linda asked if I was gay.

“No.” I wasn’t the only boy in the 1960s to play with his sister’s Barbie dolls. Linda left my apartment and I didn’t expect to see her again. I called Nick on Staten Island. It was after midnight. He picked up after one ring. His mother came on and he said, “I have it.”

She hung up and I asked, “Have you seen Jolee?”

“She and I caught BB King at the Fillmore.” His voice was slowed by sleep. “Moby Grape opened for them.”

“What about Sookie?” I loved OMAHA.

“Her too.”

“How is she doing?” I should have been sitting next to her at the Fillmore.

“Good. She’s says another couple of weeks and Eddie will be ready to fly.”

“How does she look?” I imagined her a smaller version of Jolee.

“Like a hippie fashion model.”

“She say anything about me?”

“No.”

I left the house and caught a taxi down Commonwealth Avenue. The Hi-Hat Lounge stayed open until 2.

I drank ten beers in those two hours. I showed up to work an hour late. My father was not happy. He called me into his office.

“Your behavior reflects directly on me.” He looked at his bald-headed boss. Mr. Ryan hadn’t written my father a favorable report in years. They exchanged a glance steeped with hostility. The older executive made scissors with his fingers.

“You might get a haircut too.”

“Okay.” No way I was cutting my hair, but coming to work on time was easy. “I won’t be late again.”

“Your being late isn’t about that girl?”

“No, sir.” I had no idea how he knew about Sookie.

“That’s what I figured.” My father rose from his desk. His office had a view of Boston Harbor. He stood at the window outlined by the sky. “I know you’re not following the path I planned for you, but you should be careful. About work, school, and especially about that girl. Broken hearts are hard at any age.”

“Yes, sir.”

As far as I know my father had only dated my mother and they had already been married 20 years.

That evening Linda and I saw the Rolling Stones' movie GIMME SHELTER. The only fat people in the film were the singer from Canned Heat, a naked girl on LSD, and a victim of the Hell’s Angels. I didn’t spot anyone like Sookie in the thousands of faces gathered before the stage at Altamont. After the movie we returned to my apartment.

I opened a bottle of Mateus rose wine and put on the Wailers’ CATCH A FIRE on my second-hand stereo. Linda loved KINKY REGGAE, despite on my cheap stylus. The music filtered through the thin walls of my bedroom. Linda lit candles and stripped off her clothing. Her slender body was almost Sookie's twin. We had sex twice in an hour. I didn’t have to make a choice between the two. Sookie was in New York and Linda was here.

The last week in June Wayne called my apartment. I hadn’t seen him a while. Fore River was far from Commonwealth Avenue and Marie was at Beauty School in Quincy. His days were devoted to killing time until she came back from classes. They had no real need to leave the Eden of his bedroom, but the real reason for his absence was that Marie and he were tight and I figured she was avoiding an interrogation about Sookie.

“What you doing this weekend?”

“Going down the Cape.” Linda had rented a cottage on Truro. She expected me to join her on Friday.

There were two bedrooms. Her six year-old daughter was staying in one of them and I was a little nervous about meeting her for the first time.

“That’s too bad. The Fillmore East has the Allman Brothers, J. Geils, and Albert King for the closing show. We’re staying at my sister’s place. Eddie’s still in seclusion. ”

“The Fillmore is closing?”

“We’re staying the week, why don’t you come for the 4th. You have any plans?”

“No.” Linda’s mother was visiting her for the holiday. Our meeting was obviously not a good idea. 19 to 26 was a big spread in most people’s eyes. Linda had said sorry.

“You forget about Eddie’s flight? He lost all that weight and has a glider hired for the 3rd. Out in Queens at Floyd Bennett Field. Marie and I are heading down on the train. You want to come with us?”

“I don’t know.” The 4th was a Sunday. I had nothing else to do.

“You think Sookie won’t see you?”

“She hasn’t called me in I don’t know how long.”

“No one likes long-distance relationships, but I spoke with Eddie. He has pot for us. He wants to thank you for not making any problem about Sookie staying with him.”

“She still there?”

“Where else would she be?”

“Your sister’s place?”

He laughed so loud that I had to hold the phone away from my ear.

“Sookie into girls?” Wayne explained how his sister had hit on Sookie several times until Eddie warned Jolee to chill her jets. “Sookie is straight. Straight with you too. From what Marie tells me she hasn’t seen anyone else. Same as you, right?”

“Yeah.” I hadn’t mentioned Linda to him or Nick.

“So I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.” He hung up and I sat on my sofa to consider whether I should go to New York this weekend. An unannounced appearance at Eddie’s apartment could go one of two ways. Sookie had said July 4th. Seven more days was only 134 hours. I calculated the minutes in my head. I had to round off the number. It was more than I could count on my fingers.

WHEN FAT MEN FLY by Peter Nolan Smith / Chapter 5

The next five days passed with increasing slowness, especially at work. I arrived on time in the morning and punched out at 5pm every night. My father and I met my mother for dinner at Joe Tecchi's in the North End on Wednesday evening. We talked politics. Both had voted for Nixon. They were pro-war. We agreed on what to have for dessert, a slice of Boston cream pie each. After dinner I walked them to their Delta 88.

"When are you cutting your hair?" my father asked in front of the Old North Church.

"I'm certainly not getting it cut for your boss." Everyone in the office hated Mr. Ryan. Linda had mentioned more than once how he kept my father under him to boost his figures and my father was too good a team player to speak up on his own behalf.

"It's a sin for a man to have such good hair." My mother toyed with my hair with envy. She visited the beauty shops every Friday afternoon. Her perm was extinct by Monday. I thought that she was more beautiful au natural, but she loved her bouffant. It was very Jackie Kennedy.

"You look like Beethoven."

My father sported a buzz-cut, although his sideburns were long to show younger people that he was slightly in touch with the times. He loved classic music. Everything else was noise. "An angry Beethoven."

"I'm not that moody."

"Teenagers are always moody." My mother slipped me $20. "Go buy yourself a nice shirt."

"And have a good weekend." My father cuffed me a $10. I kissed them both.

I had spent many of my 4th of Julys with them; eating hot dogs, swimming at Nantasket Beach, and watching fireworks over Paragon Park. I almost wished that I was a kid again, so they could take me home, instead I waved good-bye and walked over Beacon Hill to Boylston Street.

Walker's Western Store was still open. I bought a Levi jacket and jeans for my trip to New York. I wanted to look good for Sookie. From what everyone had said, she was even prettier than before.

The Friday evening train to Penn Station left at 5:15. I would have punched out early, except Mr. Ryan had warned the office staff that he expected his staff to remain at their desks until 5pm. He entrusted this edict to my father. Mr. Ryan left at 2 for Cape Ann.

When the clock finally hit five, everyone raced out of the building and I ran across downtown to South Station with a canvas carryall banging against my back. The line at the ticket booth was too long and I ran to the departure platform.

The Amtrak conductor didn't charge extra for my ticket. He was a hippie too. I bought a beer from the club car and watched Boston disappear from the windows. New York was five hours away.

Upon my arrival at Penn Station I phoned Eddie's apartment. No one answered the phone. I didn't know how to reach the East Village by subway, so I exited from the terminal and flagged a Checker on 6th Avenue. The driver was a fellow Teamster. He didn't turn on the meter. Normally the fare to St. Marks Place was almost $3. I gave him a five.

"You want I should wait?"

"No, everything will be alright." I got out of the cab and raised my eyes to the dark windows on the 4th floor.

Two sweating junkies were on the stoop. I had to step around them and pressed the buzzer. No one replied on the intercom. The junkies laughed at my departure. I walked down to the Gem Spa and dropped a dime into the payphone. The ringing only brought on more ringing. I returned to the building. The two junkies had multiplied to four. They eyed my bag. I walked past the stairs and ordered a beer at the Grassroots Bar. One easily became two.

Thirty minutes later I wandered past Eddie's tenement on the other side of the street. The junkies followed me with their eyes. 1971 was not the Summer of Love and I killed an hour in the St. Mark's Cinema. A bad copy of EAST RIDER flickered against the torn screen. Someone sat behind me during the acid trip in New Orleans. It was one of the junkies. I exited the theater and climbed the steps to Eddie's apartment building. The junkies rushed the door. I slammed it in their face.

"We'll get you when you come out." A rat-faced addict snarled with his nose pressed to the glass.

I climbed the stairs two at a time, praying the door held tight. On the 4th floor landing I heard Dave Van Ronk started singing BIRD ON A WIRE. I knocked on the door and several seconds later it opened wide.

"What are you doing here?" Sookie asked with unmasked surprise. She was a little heavier and the extra pounds had vanquished her skeletal visage.

Sookie was beautiful.

"Didn't Wayne tell you I was coming?" I peeked over her shoulder.

Wayne and Marie lounged on the couch. Flowers were arranged in vases. The walls were painted a gentle rose pink. Curtains covered the windows. Eddie's old throne was missing from the living room. The apartment was now more than one person's home.

Eddie stood by the fish tanks. His skin appeared to have melted from his face and his body flesh sagged from his bones. He had lost the weight.

"Yes, but he didn't say anything about when." Sookie wore a powder blue suede vest and no shirt. Her matching skirt was cut short to an inch below her butt. She answered my fantasy with reality until I realized that my arrival was an intrusion.

"C'mon in." Eddie was embarrassed by my expression.

"It's better if I go." I was trespassing on a fairy tale re-enactment of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

"You're here now. Don't go." Sookie stepped away from the entrance. The room reeked of marijuana. The phone was off the hook. I dropped my bag on the floor and Sookie closed the door.

"I can explain everything." Eddie handed me an unlit joint.

"Don't." I had too many questions for which I couldn't expect an answer, plus I had my own secrets.

Sookie lit a match. I inhaled on the joint. The reefer was better than anything we had bought before.

"Is there any more of this left?"

"A couple of pounds." Eddie gestured to the front room. "You can sleep there tonight."

"No, I'll to Nick's place in Staten Island."

"At this hour." The ex-fat man was more concerned about me than anyone else.

"The ferries run all night long." I picked up my bag.

"I'm flying tomorrow morning." Eddie was apologetic without saying he was sorry. "You're coming to that, aren/t you?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world." I looked at Sookie for her invitation. She dropped her eyes.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

"You really are going to Staten Island?" She went to Eddie. Her arm partially encircled his waist.

They made a nice couple.

"Yeah." I exited from the apartment and walked down the stairs. I called Nick from the Gem Spa.

"Eddie's flying tomorrow."

"I know. I'm picking up Jolee. You need a ride?"

"Suit yourself. I'll see you there."

I hung up angry with myself for having come to New York. I wasn't needed here, but I wasn't leaving until after Eddie's flight. I went over to the hotel on the corner of St. Marks Place and 3rd Avenue.

The manager asked for $15. I paid him with a twenty. The room was small and the thin walls didn't block out the shouts of the couple next door. The sheets were greasy and the pillows smelled of a thousand unwashed heads. Several people tried the lock during the night. I lay on the floor with my feet pressed against the flimsy door. My head rested on my bag. It was uncomfortable, but I finally fell asleep.

I woke at dawn. My skin itched from bug bites. The heat of the city had exhausted the air in the room. I checked out of the hotel and walked down St. Marks Place. Bodies lay atop sheets of newspaper.

One was a junkie from the previous night. He looked dead.

Eddie's front window was open and I almost buzzed his apartment, instead I headed around the corner to the B&H Dairy and I ordered a bagel with a chocolate egg cream at the B&H. Someone had left a New York Times on the counter and I read the sports section. The Red Sox had no chance of winning the World Series this year.

Church bells were tolling out 8 o'Clock by my return to Eddie's building. I was just in time, because the LeMans was double-parked on the street. The top was down and Wayne was in the back with Marie. Sookie was riding shotgun with Eddie behind the wheel. The girls wore halter-tops and hot pants. It was a new look from England. Someone had told me it was popular with prostitutes.

"Any room for me?" I was the 5th wheel.

"Plenty of room in back." Eddie opened the trunk and then the side door. I threw in my bag and took my place next to Marie. She smiled 'good morning' and Wayne brandished the power fist. Eddie started the engine. The V-6 was tuned to purr. Sookie slipped Joni Mitchell on the 8-track. The first song was THE CIRCLE GAME. I read her choice as a message without deciphering the lyrics in my favor. Eddie made the light at St. Marks and turned south on 2nd Avenue.

The two couples spoke to each other often during the trip along the East River over the Brooklyn Bridge down the BQE under the Verrazano Bridge and looping past Coney Island onto a long parkway leading to the ocean.

It was impossible to engage me in their conversations with the wind whistling in my ears. The morning air was thick with humidity, but I caught the scent of the sea from the passing marshes. A plane lazily circled in the sky. Eddie slowed down to turn left toward a collection of hangars crowded with Navy reserve aircraft. As we neared the runway, Eddie looked over his shoulder with a nervous smile. A single-engine airplane waited on the tarmac with a glider on its towline.

"You have a good day for it." I studied at the cloudless sky.

"It's your dream come true." Sookie squeezed Eddie's arm.

"I couldn't have done this without you." He parked in the shade of the hangar and waved to the two men standing by the Cessna.

We got out of the car and walked over to the glider. The Preiss RHJ-7 was a sleek two-seater. The pilot explained that Eddie was sitting beside him as a passenger. At no time would his hands touch the controls. The flight pattern was dictated by the proximity of JFK airport. In all Eddie would be air-borne was an hour. He paid the pilots their money and they handed him orange overalls. The size was an XXL. Eddie struggled into the uniform and pulled on a crash helmet. He smiled like he had been born for this moment and walked over us. He was no longer a freak.

He kissed Sookie's cheek and she said, "Go touch the sky."

Wayne and Marie wished him success and Eddie came over to me.

"Thanks for coming." His eyes were edged by unfallen tears.

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world." I gave him a hug. The flesh hung from his bones like his bulk had melted under heat rather than a diet. I guessed he weighed 250. The pilot looked around 180. Most crashes occurred on landing and I asked, "How much can this plane carry?"

"It's not a plane really. It's a sailplane. It's supposed to be safe for up to 500 pounds."

The two men's combined weight came to 430. Eddie turned to Sookie. "It's safe really."

"We'll keep our fingers crossed." Wayne shook his friend's hand.

Eddie kissed Sookie again and whispered in her ear, then he walked over to the glider. He sat in the rear and then the pilot took his place behind the controls. The launch pilot shut the cockpit and sat in the Cessna. Its engine started with a roar. He let it warm up for a minute and taxied onto the runway with the glider in tow. Marie held onto Sookie.

Wayne stood next to me and cleaned his glasses with his shirttail.

"Would you do anything like that?"

"No."

Eddie was braver than me and for more than this flight. His life was different from six months ago.

Sookie loved him. All I thought about when he said he was going to lose that weight was how he would fit in the glider. The rest of it never crossed my mind.

The Cessna taxied into position with the glider far behind its tail. Its engine surged with power and the plane steadily gathered speed until its wheel lifted off the earth and tugged the sailplane into the air. Sookie and Marie jumped up and down. Eddie waved his hand and the girls screamed out his name. He was airborne. Nick's Mini-Cooper pulled up to the hangar. He was with Jolee. She was letting her hair grow long.

"We miss it?" Binoculars circled his neck. They were German-made.

"Just the take-off." Wayne pointed to the two specks flying out over the Jamaica Bay. "He's hire the sailplane an hour up there."

"Cool." Nick raised the binoculars to his eyes. "It looks awfully flimsy."

"Don't say anything that could jink him." Wayne had read up on sailplanes.

"The tow plane released them now." Nick followed the glider's slow turn to the right. "He's climbing on a thermal over Riis Park."

Sookie couldn't take her eyes away from the circling ascent. Nick handed her the binoculars. Wayne and I walked behind the hangar to smoke a joint.

"You're not pissed, are you?"

"Pissed for what?" Sookie hadn't been my girlfriend. She had helped Eddie lose his weight. Eddie was going to deal pot to us again. Linda waited in Boston. "Everything worked out for the better."

Except I would never sleep with her again.

"That's a really righteous attitude." Wayne passed me the joint. "Me, I'd be pissed. Like Eddie said he wasn't going after Sookie."

"Maybe I can guilt him into selling us him the pot at a better price."

"It's worth a try."

Wayne stubbed out the joint and we returned to the others.

The glider looped in circles. This trick had to be taking its toll on Eddie's stomach. They still had another 30 minutes in the air. Sookie handed the binoculars to Wayne. Marie hugged him from behind. Jolee and Nick retreated from the hot sun into the hangar. I put on Ray-Bans, not wanting Sookie to see my eyes.

"Are you okay?" Sookie took out pink-shaded glasses and perched them at the end of her nose. They were more for looks than protection against the sun and complimented the soft satin of her hot pants.

"About you and me."

"You want the truth or a lie?"

"The truth always." She cocked a hip to the side. Sookie had grown up fast in New York. She was no longer a girl of the suburbs.

I stammered slightly before saying, "I liked you. I liked sleeping with you. I missed you these months. I thought about you a lot. I wish you weren't with Eddie, but I can see that the two of you are happy together and there's nothing I can do that will change that other than to make a scene and be an asshole. Is there?"

I had to throw in the last two words just in case.

"No, I'm happy with Eddie."

I should have saved my breath.

"Good, I'm glad someone is happy."

"And you'll be happy too." Sookie glanced to the sky. The glider was approaching the field closer.

"One day soon I hope." I didn't have to hold back with Linda anymore and bent over to kiss Sookie on the cheek. "Good luck."

Eddie landed ten minutes later. He climbed out of the sailplane and walked over to Sookie. She gave him a kiss on the lips. Neither of them looked at anyone else for several seconds, then Eddie went over to the LeMans and pulled a sandwich out of a paper bag. He unwrapped the paper and took a big bite.

"Diet's over," Eddie mumbled through a full mouth.

We drove over to Breezy Point and ate at a fish shack. Eddie had seconds on everything. Sookie didn't eat anything. Everything was back to normal. I left that evening on the train with two pounds of reefer. Eddie had lowered the price by $10.

It wasn't much of a discount, considering he had stolen Sookie, but then again it was better than nothing especially in 1971 when even fat men flew fly like an eagle. One day they might walk on the moon. Maybe one day we all would go to the stars and in space everyone weighed nothing. Even fat men.

TO RUSSIA FOR US by Peter Nolan Smith

In May of 2009 Johnnie Z asked if I wanted to go to Russia.

It wasn't for a tour of l'Hermitage Palace.

The Palm Beach millionaire financed cell phone towers in other countries. His off-shore partners were stiffing him.

"They owe me $500,000."

It was a lot of money. I had $10 in my pocket.

"Why me?" The previous summer I had taken care of his crazy Airedale. Pom Pom was a refugee from a Riviera Beach crack house. The local police force said she was a danger to the community. They weren't wrong, but that summer thunderstorms cured her madness.

"I send my people." His company was filled with young go-getters. "And they came up with nothing."

"Russia?" My voice was filled with hesitation.

"You worked with them at nightclubs."

"That was a long time ago."

1980.

"$5000 and expenses."

"Count me in." I rented easy.

My New York friends thought that I would get killed by the zeks.

"No one is killing me."

"How can you be sure?" AP, my good friend and landlord drove me to JFK.

"Because I have a plan." I had a family in Thailand, They needed the money.

I flew to Kiev. No one was there.

I left for Petersburg and was met by a friend.

Sev had played in AQUARIUM. They were huge in 80s. I loved THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR GLASS.

We showed up at the internet companies.

The bodyguards had Uzis. The owner asked, "Where your bodyguards?"

"Him?"

"Yes, him." I pointed to Sev. He had a long white beard.

"Who's he?"

I told him.

"Sev?" His bodyguards repeated the question. I shrugged, because a nod would have given them too much information.

Sev wasn't the leader of the band.

But he was part of its soul.

"Vodka." The owner called out to his staff.

He led Sev into the garden. He was purer than me. I drank a lot. The owner wired Johnnie Z his money.

"How you do it?"

"Friends know friends." I didn't bother to explain. >p> Sev and I went back to his place in then old city. He played cello for me. One song from MUSIC OF PUBLIC TOILETS.

It was worth the entire trip.

I didn't tell Johnnie Z that.

Like all rich people he was only after money.

Quote of the Day

The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball. ~Doug Larson

I threw snowballs during each snowstorm in New York this year.

My age is only a date.

In my head I'm 15.

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS Aquarium

During my trip to 2009 trip to Russia I was lucky enough to encounter Seve Gakkel, the cellist of the famous Soviet era band Aquarium. The band dated back to 1972, when Boris Grebenshchikov and Anatoly Gunitsky joined forces with several musicians to play art rock at a Leningrad restaurant. The KGB hated the music, but somehow the band flourished in the Brezhnev era and to this date are highly regarded as a voice of freedom for the masses in the USSR.

I don't understand a single word, but love their music.

I'm an old folkie.

To hear Aquarium please go to the following URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCNJp1X0N5Q

Homo Scan

In April of 2009 Johnny Zombie from Palm Beach sent me to Russia to speak with his customers about their non-payment for merchandise. My friends in New York thought that these Russki 'businessmen' would kill me, but I had a band member from Aquarium for my companion. Everyone loved that band.

Seve dropped at the airport and I gave him $100 for his efforts.

"Hope to see you soon."

The cellist was good people.

After passing through immigration I approached the security check and was surprised to see a large machine for screening my body.

HOMO SCAN

Russia was notoriously homophobic and I had many gay friends. Some of them had to rub off on me, however I passed the examination without a hitch.

A customs officer later said that HOMO SCAN detected bombs.

I had none of those.

Only a slight lisp whenever I had a few drinks. It goes nicely with my stutter and Boston accent.

And the beer at the Petersburg Aeroport was dirt cheap.

"One more beer, pleasssse."

I could lisp all I wanted.

I had passed the HOMO SCAN.

In the eyes of Russia I was straight.

Hello It’s Me

The train tracks from Boston to New York were laid through the western pine barrens of Rhode Island in the 19th Century. The pine forests grow on deep sand deposits left over from the glacial melting of the Ice Age.

This desolate region has resisted civilization, however on a winter afternoon in 1979 I was sitting on the left side of a Amtrak carriage heading south. Trees after trees after trees formed a long curtain of green. The monotony lulled me into a nod. I spotted a red sports car parked at a rural crossing. The train rattled past the car at 80 mph. A young blonde woman lay on the ground. Her body was naked and she spread her legs for a show. My head whipped back to watch her until she disappeared from sight. I stood up in my seat and examined the faces of the window-side passengers. None of them showed any sign of having seen the naked woman, but she was no mirage.

She was the real thing.

An exhibitionist in the Pine Barrens.

Ice Cream In Winter

From Dave Henderson

The most coherent explanation for global warming I have ever heard. Courtesy of Mr Peter Nolan Smith

"People have abandoned the Bible and now are going to hell in record numbers. Most American sinners are fat. Fat people burn hotter. Hell is hotter. The earth is hotter. Pure science."

Even ice cream melts in hell.

Still Winter In March

Last week I braved a Nor-easter snowstorm and crossed Brooklyn to lunch with Dave Henderson in Williamsburg. I had thought winter was over. I was wrong.

My clothes were soaked by the slushy rain and the vortex sculptor asked opening his studio door. "How is it out there?"

"Wet, heavy, and white like a check-out girl at the IGA in Fort Kent."

"It must be wicked up there on the Allagash."

"If anyone knows is would be you." Dave had dated two women from Fort Kent.

The northern terminus of US 1 was no stranger to winter.

"I've summered there and wintered there. Bugs in the warm weather and snow in the cold, but this is just plain ugly." Dave had attended a Swiss boarding school.

The Alps had good snow for skiing.

Fort Kent's Lonesome Pine offered snow and ice, which was better than rock and ice.

"I haven't been up there since the winter of 1992." I had traveled north with a friend to see snow.

Fort Kent hadn't disappointed us.

"I once played up there with my band." Dave had been the drummer for the noise band, Spongehead.

Led Zeppelin stole several of their songs.

They hadn't received a single penny in royalties.

"Connie loved us."

"That was your first girlfriend from Fort Kent."

"Yes. It hadn't ended well, but it never dos when you break up to go out with the younger sister."

"And now you're with a third woman from Maine.

Kate was a great artist. They had been married for years. She was a wicked good woman.

"I thought she was English. She spoke like a Brit. How was I to know she was from Maine?"

"You're a regular magnet for Maine girls."

"Kate's the last."

"I know." I was faithful to my wife for years.

Dave and I were to lazy to cheat on a woman we love.

"Come on. Let's get lunch. I'm starving."

We walked out into the snowstorm.

Acqua Santa up the street served a lovely calamari and a filling

The snow was falling hard, but certainly not as hard as in Fort Kent.

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF NEW YORK by Peter Nolan Smit

The myth of albino alligators slithering through the sewers of New York originated in the 1920s when New Yorkers returned from a Florida holiday with baby alligators. The tiny saurians grew into fierce creatures and the owners flushed the little monsters down the toilet. While this urban legend has been broadly dismissed as hooey, a sewer worker had reported an alligator sighting in 1935. A hunt was organized by the commissioner, who announced that the alligator problem had been solved by the hunters.

Thomas Pynchon wrote about this myth in his novel V.

The myth still reverberates through the marrow of the city.

In October 1978 my good friend Mike S and I wandered through the abandoned rail yards west of Hell's Kitchen. Freights trains ran along the tracks at a slow speed. Several hobo encampments occupied the space under the concrete bridges. One settlement seemed to be laundering cast-off clothing.

Mike's fearless dog acted as point on this expedition. Merlin barked at a doorway in the abutment.

Mike opened it. The stairs led down to an unlit tunnel.

"You want to see where it goes?" Mike came from California. He was a sculptor. His wife had left him for another man.

"Can't see why not." My girlfriend had disappeared in Europe. She had written me a good-bye letter. It had broken my heart. We had nothing to lose.

Mike and I returned to his loft on West 45th Street for a compass, flashlights, batteries, baseball bats, and his .22 revolver. Mike stuffed his pocket with shells. There was no telling what lived underneath the surface of New York.

"Let's go." Both of us were wearing heavy engineer boots and leather jackets.

We almost left Merlin, however the valiant dog was as curious as us and we walked over to the mysterious door talking about alligators and lost colonies of mole people. The afternoon had another few hours to run until night and Mike pointed to his watch.

"Two hours and that's all."

"We have extra batteries for the flashlights, so two hours is more than enough." I had been in a few caverns in the White Mountains. They snaked into the granite shield for several hundred feet before narrowing into impassable crevices. "We run into anything dangerous. We turn back."

"Of course." Mike was broken-hearted, not suicidal.

"This might be like the entry to Hell." "Or the subterranean world like in JUles Verne's JOURNEY TO THE CENTER ON THE EARTH."

"Or a forgotten world like in ATTACK OF THE MOLE PEOPLE."

"I love that movie." It had presented on a semi-annual basis on the old UHF TV horror stations.

We descended the stairs. Merlin heeled at Mike's thigh. The walls of the Stygian passage reeked of urine and stench of shit rotored into our noses. Wrapping bandannas over our mouths and noses filtered the foul odor. As we walked farther from the stairs the smell of excrement was replaced by the aroma of damp dust. Puddles of rainwater gathered on the concrete floor. We came to a split in the tunnels. Savaged rat skeletons were piled in the center.

They looked as if something had bitten them in half.

Something big.

"Which way?" Our flashlights revealed nothing ahead but more darkness.

"Merlin?" Mike asked his dog and Merlin barked to go straight.

The core of Manhattan.

We continued in that direction without speaking. It was, almost as if the city overhead had been bombed into oblivion and we were the last three creatures on Earth, but we weren't alone. An ominous scratching was coming our way. Merlin barked with terror. Mike pulled out his revolver. I lifted the baseball bat, expecting an albino alligator. Our twin beams caught a beast with a hundred eyes.

Rats.

Thousands of them.

Mike's pistol barked out several times without stopping the gray mass of gnarled teeth and fattened bodies.

A bar hung from the ceiling.

"Mike, grab the bar." I dropped the flashlight and baseball bat. My hands grasped the rusted metal. Mike joined me. The railing creaked under our weight, as we lifted our feet to escape the scrabbling horde of rats.

Merlin was caught in action by the two flashlights. He snapped at dozens of the sewer squirrels, his teeth flashing with blood. The rodent deluge was over in seconds and the rats disappeared down the tunnel. Mike and I dropped to the ground. He checked Merlin.

Not a scratch.

"Let's get out of here."

“How?” The rats were headed toward their headquarters. Any direction other than that was good with me.

Merlin barked twice and trotted down the swamped corridor.

"Follow Merlin. "

Merlin reached a steel door. It looked like no one had touched it in this century. Mike and I manhandled open the rusted steel plate and we climbed the stairway to a sub-basement of a building.

It was a fall-out shelter. Dust lay decades deep. The entrance was not locked from the outside. We emerged from the underground on 8th Avenue. The pedestrians stared at us in horror. Michael held the pistol in his hand and I carried a bloody baseball bat.

"Four blocks in an hour." Mike checked his watch. The sun was setting over New Jersey.

"I don't think we have to do that again."

"No, what you think, Merlin?"

Merlin barked out his agreement and Mike bought him a bone from a 10th Avenue bodega. He was a good dog against rats and probably alligators too, for something had to be living on rats down there and I was happy to never discover whether it was big or small.

THE MOLE PEOPLE

Ten year ago I resided in Pattaya, the last Babylon. My house was on a cul-de-sac. The garden hosted orchids and flowers and a mango tree. Butterflies fluttered before my window. Birds haunted the tree. I drove a motorcycle to the beach and spent my night with the demimonde of the Buffalo Bar.

I was arrested for copyright infringement and moved back the the USA.

I lived with my good friend, Walter.

A basement room.

I walked three blocks to the L Train, which I took to Union Square and transfere to the R train for a seven stop ride to 5th Avenue. This station has its own entrance to the Plaza Hotel. I worke at the Retail Collection. It was downstairs from Eloise's playground, the Palm Court. In the evening I reverseed the transportation process and fall asleep before 10pm most nights.

My total time above-ground per diem runs approx. 45 minutes.

I have become a subterranean like the denizens of the classic 50s horror film THE MOLE PEOPLE.

I loved that movie as a kid, especially the pearly white princess who couldn't live in the light of day.

And I was her in 2009.

Maybe not her, but the vizier of her father, the king of the Mole People.

Not a bad job for such a time of dismay.

ps there's also a video game by the title THE MOLE PEOPLE.

So there is life after the 50s for B-movies.

Hotel Sòk-gà-bpròk

My friends in the finance sector travel 4-star. I once stayed at the Hotel Imperial in Biarritz with a French movie actress. The King Farouk suite was 5-star. I know the height of luxury. My travels around the world have been on a budget. Luckily my resources allow the minimum of comfort, however sometimes the best room in town is worst than a Bowery flophouse.

My good friend Dice and I exited the Langtang Glacier in Nepal dreaming of a good meal and a hot bath. Our Sherpa guide, Porterhouse, had been extolling the merits of the Yeti Lodge at the trail head. We trudged to the entrance, our eyes squinting in the Himalayan sunshine. I couldn't see through the dining room windows.

"It's moving." Dice whispered in disbelief.

"Not it. They." The interior of the glass was covered by a billion flies. I turned to our guide and said, "You said this place was clean. It's filthy. Not Yeti. Metoh Hotel."

"Before Metoh. Very Dirty." Porterhouse laughed at our sensitivity. "Now clean. Metoh too. But more clean than before."

Dice, Porterhouse, our porters, and I boarded the next bus to Kathmandu. An eight-hour ride on treacherous road. That evening we drank whiskey in a bar overlooking the parade of hippies. Porterhouse regarded them as metoh. Kathmandu was dirty too. Only the mountains were clean, whereas the Nepalese call the Sherpas 'thulo' or dirty. t Our two-week trek that the high mountain people struggle to keep clean in a very hostile environment more than an Englishman on holiday, so I remember the Yeti Lodge fondly, although dirty hotels abound all over the world and two resorts in Thailand top the 2010 edition of TripAdvisor's list of the dirtiest hotels in Asia; Phi Phi Don Chukit Resort and First Hotel Bangkok,

"Cockroaches...smelly.......yuk! Never ever stay here unless...well no...never ever stay here!!!" One disgruntled holiday-maker wrote of the former and another added, "Ruined our holidays, Disgusting place, terrible service".

First Hotel Bangkok was 2009's dirtiest hotel in Asia, but has dropped to # 8 on the strength of seven other hotel dropping below even their low standards of hospitality.

Better luck next year.

ps the Thai word for dirty is sòk-gà-bpròk.

And one more thing I doubt the staff of www.tripadvisor.com a branch of Expedia have ever stayed at the Grace Hotel.

That's gracious living at its worst.

And then there was Dirty Den's on Soi 6 in Pattaya.

Filthy and sordid.

I loved it.

More Is Not Necessarily More

A friend recently castigated my writing with the criticism that I was a sloppy writer. He was speaking the truth and I said, "My father always thought that I was sloppy too."

"You end up writing too much."

Dannett was editor for a famed newspaper's obit section.

"Sometimes more is more."

"I wish that you had learned less was more by this point. It would make my job a lot easier." Dannett placed my stories in various literary journals after redacting them. "At least your spelling and grammar has improved."

"If I had of known that I was going to dedicate this much time to writing, I would have taken Typing 101 in high school and college." My typing was atrocious thanks to my dyslexic fingers.

So I have a tendency to rewrite stories.

They need the extra work.

Here's an example from IRISH TWINS

First paragraphs from 2010

Last year my older brother was my # 2 friend. My best friend was my father. The native of Maine was 89. His address was an Alzheimer hospice south of Boston. Once a month I rode the Fung Wah bus from New York to South Station and then took the commuter train to Norwood. It was a ten-minute walk to his rest home.

Throughout the summer his condition deteriorated to the point where my father couldn’t remember where he was or what he was doing there. He was better off without an explanation.

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First paragraphs revised 2012

In the summer of 2010 my father’s mental condition had deteriorated to the point where he endangered the public safety. My old man had driven into the town cemetery to visit my mother’s grave and local police had found his Mercedes parked amidst the gravestones. No one could figure how he had gotten that far without hitting anything.

“I never get in accidents,” he explained from inside the patrol car. There were no charges.

A tow truck pulled his car from the graveyard and the next month we moved him from his assisted-living apartment to an Alzheimer hospice south of Boston.

Once a month I rode the Fung Wah bus from New York to South Station and then took the commuter train to Norwood. It was a ten-minute walk to his rest home. Each visit there was less and less of him there and by Labor Day my father couldn’t remember where he was or what he was doing there. He was better off without an explanation.

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There is a difference.

“Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying.”
John Updike quote

And the author of RUN RABBIT RUN knows of what he speaks.

Shit My Dad Said

Some 29 year-old was living with his old man.

73 if not more.

His son was recording his father's salty sayings for fucking Facebook.

It deserved a better forum.

Old man - "If at first you don't succeed, quit. Because you probably suck."

"Universe is 14 Billion years old. Seems silly to celebrate one year. Be like having a fucking parade every time I take a piss."

"I just want silence. Jesus, it doesn't mean I don't like you. It just means right now, I like silence more."

"Son, people will always try and fuck you. Don't waste your life planning for a fucking, just be alert when your pants are down."

Smart old man, eh?

http://www.mangozeen.com/2010/01/09/travel/trains-from-hell.htm