Wind River Mountains 1998

Wind River Mountains 1998

In the Spring of 1998 my 78 year-old father and I embarked on a road trip through Wyoming and Montana. We picked up a rented car in Bozeman, Montana and stopped the first night in Chico Hot Springs. The next morning the two of us continued down Paradise Valley to Yellowstone Park.

Buffalos grazed the new grasses in the low valleys and my old man marveled at Old Faithful's punctuality. He had never been to this part of the West.

"I wish your mother was with us." She had passed away in Boston from previous year.

"Me too." My mother loved to travel and before her death she had asked me to be her eyes.

We spent the night near Inspiration Point and headed south in the morning.

Snow tipped the jagged high peaks of the Grand Tetons, but my father didn't talk much of the long stretches between towns. His thought rested on his dear Angie.

When I was behind the wheel, we listened to the country-western stations. My father switched to his classical CDs during his driving shift. Sometimes he cried during the opera arias. My mother had a great singing voice.

On the fourth night we stopped Pinedale in Wyoming. The mountains to the south were painted pink by the setting sun and the clear evening sky shone with the cosmos. My father marveled at the remote beauty and I told him, "Back in the 1830s mountain men hunted beaver in that wilderness."

"Doesn't look like it?s changed much since then." My father had fought Maine's Great Fire in 1947.

He knew his woods.

"Probably not."

There was only one way to find out and during our steak dinner at the hotel restaurant I pored over a map of the Wind River Mountains and plotted out a day's hike across the range from south to north.

"What are you thinking?"

"That tomorrow I might take a walk." I pointed to a trail crossing the mountains. "I calculate the distance to be about fifteen miles."

"Distances in the mountains are different from distance on the road," my father cautioned with the wisdom of a Boy Scout leader.

"I should be able to cover that distance in ten hours walking two miles an hour. You drop me at the southern trailhead and pick me up at the northern end." I was in good shape for a man my age.

"These aren't the White Mountains."

"I know."

Back in the early 60s our family had climbed Mount Monadnock, whose summit was a little over 3000 feet.

The Wind River Mountains' highest peaks towered above 12,000 feet.

"That hike could end up being a long fifteen miles." My father didn't walk anywhere. At Yellowstone

I had to drag him to view Old Faithful?s eruption of steam. "And you're not as young as you think you are."

"None of us are, but Mom asked me to be her eyes on the world and I know she would like to see those mountains."

"She would be just as happy with a postcard." My father liked playing it safe, but he was only in condition to talk me out of attempting this hike and not accompanying me.

"My eyes are to see for her."

"If you say so." My father regarded my life a reckless journey. He wasn't too wrong, but I finished my wine and refilled the glass with water. I didn't need a hangover for tomorrow's trek with the trail cresting two 9,000-foot passes. "I don't like you doing this on your own."

"I'll be careful." Only two years earlier I had hiked in the Himalayas.

"It's your funeral, so please don't take any shortcuts. That's how people get lost."

"Yes, sir."

The next morning we woke at dawn and ate quick breakfast.

"Looks like clear skies," I said getting into the car.

"The weather down here isn't the weather in the mountains." He gazed at the peaks.

"There isn't a cloud in the sky."

"Now."

"I'll be fine."

Forty minutes later my father dropped me at the southern trailhead.

I checked my bag for my map, compass, knife, water, food, whistle, matches, flashlight, an all-weather jacket, fleece, and camera. It was 7:34 AM.

I looked at my watch.

"Sunset's in twelve hours. I should get to the northern trailhead before then."

"I'll be waiting on the other side."

My father hugged me and I set out on the trail to soon be surrounded by wilderness. Bighorn sheep danced on rocky tors and elk herds groomed the alpine meadows.

Back in the early 19th Century Indians had hunted these animals and trappers had caught beaver in the glacier-fed streams. I fell into a good pace. No other bootprints marked the trail.

Within an hour I topped a bald promontory two miles from the trailhead. Mountain peaks barricaded the western horizon. My mother would have loved the view and I toasted her in heaven with a sip of water.

I surveyed the trail map. The path divided into three directions. The northern fork led to a nearest col. The distance to my destination was thirteen miles. I was making good time and I anticipated seeing my father in seven hours. The weather changed at this height and light clouds obscured the steep pass. A sharp wind swept chilled air across the bare rocks and a strengthening flurry obscured the peaks. I pulled on my cap, fleece and jacket, then trudged down into the aspen forests, where the sun broke through the overcast and I took off my jacket to eat an early lunch of salami and cheese.

Reinforced by the meal I followed the trail up-and-down over several aretes, then switchbacked down to a creek.

The spring melt flooded the path. I swam from one side of the torrent to the other somehow losing my way and I backtracked a mile in soaking clothes.

Cold and exhausted I sat on a flat rock and dried my boots in the sun.

Thirty minutes later they were merely damp. I took out the map and realized that I had only covered three miles in the last two hours.

A family of moose wandered across a boggy swamp. They were thin from a long winter. The wind carried my scent to them and they trotted into the forest. I pulled on my boots and tramped over a 9000-foot high pass. The air was thin and my heart thumped out a rapid beat. Not having seen anyone all day I wondered whether I was on the right trail.

A sign post confirmed my suspicion.

I had missed my turning.

I gazed at the wet ground. Bear tracks marked the path. The paw prints were three times the size of my feet. People died in these mountains and died easy from cold, starvation, and animal attacks. I ate my last chocolate bar and counted my blessing. At least I wasn?t lost anymore and I spoke to my mother every step of the way downhill.

At 7 O'Clock I arrived at the parking lot. My father stood with two rangers. I must have looked a wreck and the rangers shook their heads, thankful that they didn't have to traipse into the forest at night to find my body and returned to their pick-up truck.

"Twelve hours on the nose." My father tapped his watch.

"Better than thirteen."

"And certainly better than twenty."

"How was it?"

"Beautiful. Mom would be happy."

"She's happier you're in one piece. You hungry?" My father opened the car.

"You bet." I hobbled over to the passenger side on noodled legs and threw my bag on the floor.

"Thirsty?" My father started the engine.

"And then some." I unlaced my boots. The smell was wretched.

"I got a six-pack of beer and a half of a cold pizza." My father cracked the window. "I thought you might need some nourishment."

"You know me all too well." I popped open the Coors and drained the can in one go, feeling every seconds of my forty-seven years. The pizza had an extra topping of pepperoni.

"You don't know how good this is going to taste."

"Oh, yes I do. After the bulldozers stilled the last flames of the Great Maine Fire of 1947, my crew and I had celebrated our victory with a pizza in Portland. It was the best thing that I ever tasted outside your mother's cooking."

"Same as this pizza."

"You know it."

We toasted that thought with beer

Neither of us were mountain men.

We were simply a father and son on a road trip.

Cold pizza.

Colder beer.

And my father had a bottle of white wine in the cooler.

My mother would have liked that.

And so would we later.

My Father, My Best Friend

My father, Frank A Smith II came from Maine. His mother and father met during WWI.

Edith Hamlin had been a nurse with Royal Canadian Medical Expedition.

My grandmother had been trying to make a troopship to France. The gangway was being pulled and a man extended his hand to haul her aboard. That man was my grandfather, Frank A Smith I, who had been serving with the RCMEF since 1915.

Both of them witnessed the horrors of trench warfare.

Their pacifism hadn't prevented my father from joining the US Army Air Force in 1942.

His war was testing B25s over Kentucky. The casualty rate was 25%, but he survived those odds to marry my mother, who he had met in Boston. The Irish girl said he wasn't his type, until she saw his convertible.

They married and started having kids.

Four was not enough.

Neither was five.

They stopped at six.

We were a happy family living on the South Shore of Boston. My father worked as an electrical engineer for the phone company. His two loves were his family and my mother.

'Angie' liked to wear her hair in a bouffant.

Me too.

Sadly in 1996 my mother passed a year after my younger brother Michael.

My father and I took trips. He loved traveling.

To Ballyconeeley in Ireland.

France.

Northern Quebec.

Thailand.

The West.

In 2008 he was diagnosed with Alzheimers.

He forgot us one by one.

I was the last, even though I only saw twice a month.

"Why can you remember me?"

"Because you still like you, whoever you are."

All his friends were gone.

As much as he loved his grandchildren, he was ready to go.

'Angie' and Michael were waiting for him.

I wasn't ready to join them.

My family is in Thailand.

And anytime I go there, so does Poo Frank.

He will live in my heart forever.

For one simply reason.

Poo Frank is my best friend.

More Than 500,000

Over 500,000 Americans have died from Covid.

My friends, Ro and Doctor Bertoni, were two of them.

As was Dakota Pittman and many others.

Last year this time I was atop Kilimanjaro. The 2021 team of Kili Initiative descended from the summit. I got an internet connection on the Saddle. Reports from the Guardian and BBCNews informed us of a deadly situation in Italy. Thousands were dying across that country and my Kenyan friends asked, "What do you think will happen?"

"I have no idea."

I certainly hadn't thought 500,000 dead.

That is more than the population of Kansas City, Cleveland, or New Orleans and the next year promises more of the same for a nation half-dedicated to the Trump story line on Covid fraud. Rest in Peace all of you.

Pig Snout a la Thai

Several years ago my Thai cousin and I stopped by the Jomtien tha-lat. My sister-in-law ran a food stall inside the open-air market. On my last visit Yai had been selling chickens. Now it was pig and Khim said, "We eat from tail to nose. Everything, but the oink."

On display were heads, tails, feet, innards et al.

"I have never eaten the jamook-moo. Ears and feet yes."

"Feet are good, but hoo are chewy. Nose more chewy than ear. Soup from snout a-loi."

My sister-in-law waved for us to sit down behind the counter. We obeyed Yai and the two of us planted at a table. Plates of feet, crispy ear, and a snout were placed on the table. I ordered three bottles of Lao beer.

Several other food merchants stood by to observe a 'farang' reaction to the food.

I had once been fooled into eating pig ear to cure my stuttering once.

I knew how to make a good show.

Khim's and my teeth wrestled with the tough ears. Better if we were hyenas or goat whose chompers can gnaw through beer cans. The feet offered easier prey and tasty, after the hair had been braised off the trotters cooked in a soy sauce. Our lips smacked with every rice.

Yai chopped up the snout and dropped the morsels in a wok adding scallions, soy sauce, and garlics.

We finished the beer and I ordered three more bottles. We were soon ten at a small table, chewing on the nostrils where there is only skin and gelatinously textured tissue. These are the chewy, crispy bits that taste like candy to some meat lovers. It definitely didn't taste of chicken. My wife and daughter showed up and I ordered another plate. Everyone was happy, because the Thais only love food more than having fun.

Dtik Ang - Stuttering in Thai

My speech problems were many in my youth across the harbor from Portland, Maine.

A stutter coupled with a lisp and stammer forced the school authorities of Falmouth Foresides to test my mental competence. The teachers were surprised to discover through a battery of intelligence exams that I was the smartest child within the school system, especially since I sounded 'retarded' to them.

Thankfully I had hidden my dyslexia otherwise the school ppolice

would have imprisoned me at Mackworth Island and nothing good ever happened on Mackworth Island.

My fellow classmates passed through these stages , but I still spoke with difficulty. Bullies had recognized a weak member of society and my teachers wrote in my report cards, "Great student, but can not say S."

My uncle Russ thought my saying, "I lub youd." was cute, however my father saw a hard road ahead and we went to see specialists at the Maine Medical Center in Portland. My grandfather had been a doctor there and I was treated like a damaged godling. After intensive examinations the doctors reported to my father that my tongue was too big for my mouth instilling laziness into my speech patterns.

"Best, we slice your son's palate to force his tongue to work harder."

Slice it how?"

"With razor blades."

My father was an electrical engineer, not a doctor, but realized these experts know nothing and said, "I'd rather him have a lisp than be tortured by doctors."

I spent years in therapy.

I learned how to black out time.

I allowed my tongue to wait for syllables.

Consonants were more problematic, but I passed more or less, although smarter sorts heard my weakness in other language as I lived around the world.

I learned the word for stutter in foreign languages.

Bégayer.

Sssstottern in German.

Gagap in Bahasa Indonesian.

Phūd tidx̀āng in Thai.

Even in my 50s I stuttered. My Thai cousin in Ban Nok suggested an easy fool-safe remedy.

"Eat the hee of a pig."

"Pig vagina?" I played along, because there's nothing better that upcountry-Thai rice farmers like better than making a fool of a farang.

"Mai CCCCCHua."

It can't hurt," my wife said, but she hadn't loved me in years.

"OOOOOKKKKay."

I dug into my wallet and said, "B-B-B-uy a pig and beer."

ENTREZ NOUS by Peter Nolan Smith

The scene at BSir's in Hamburg collapsed in December 1982. SS Tommy, a vicious St. Pauli pimp, presented a bill for physical services of my girlfriend. 9500 Deustchmarks. Itemized by acts. At least he hadn't charged me for her pretend caresses. Astrid had never mentioned she was working for him, but the blonde musclebuider said, "Everyone in Hamburg works for someone. Even me."

That evening I handed over the keys to my totaled BMW, which was still waiting to be towed from the Oberalsterniederung Woods. After midnight I caught a train to Paris. The NYPD's Internal Affairs wanting me for questioning about a murder of a Russian gangster and police corruption at the Continental Club on West 25th Street prevented a return to America. I had held my sand during their last interrogations, but they FBI were interested in the Russians, so I opted to stay in Paris.

I checked into my usual hotel in the Marias. Madame Levy gave me my old room on the top floor. That evening at le Privilege its manager Claude Aurenson mentioned that Farida was leaving her position as doorperson at Les Bains-Douches. The Algerian beauty was destined to be the muse for several fashion designers and a famed Parisian photographer. Claude offered to call the owner of Les Bains. Fabrice was delighted that I was available. I had a good reputation in Paris as a doorman. Twenty minutes later a taxi stopped on a small street close to the Musee Centre Pompidou.

BAINS-DOUCHES was carved into stone above the entrance of 7 Rue du Bourg l’Abbe. I tipped the driver 30 francs for good luck. He grunted out a 'merci' like a snake fart and drove around the corner. I climbed the stairs and pushed open the heavy glass and wood door.

The cleaning crew was preparing for the night. Tables set with forks, knives, spoons, and glasses atop paper sheets. In the kitchen a mustached cook chopped vegetables. The thin Italian's name was Tony. He lifted his head in greeting, as if he had been expecting me, then returned to his task.

The boyishly young owner counted money in the tiny office. Records were stacked on the floor and posters proclaimed upcoming concerts of punk, soul, funk, African, French, New Wave, and electronic bands. Fabrice noticed my admiration and smiled like he had found a long-lost toy boat.

"Ah, l'American." He hadn’t used the pejorative 'Amerlot'.

"C'est moi." The previous winter a counter-culture magazine had hired me to be the physionomiste of its eclectic boite de nuit on the Grand Boulevard. The publisher had introduced Fabrice and his rounder partner as VIP. I treated them like movie stars. I had been surprised and relieved by his telephone call. No one in Paris knew anything about the Continental.

"So we are in need of a physionomiste. Do you speak French?"

"Un peu." My French dated back to grammar school outside of Boston and my Boston accent since birth. My accent wasn't going anywhere. "I more learned from my girlfriend."

"Le dictionaire couchant. No place better to learn a language than in bed, but we will speak English," Fabrice swiftly explained the job. My schedule was Tuesday through Saturday. My shift started at 9. The doors closed at 4, but the bar shut when no one was buying a drink. The pay was 600 francs a night. A little better than $100. He mentioned nothing about my difficulty with the NYPD.

"Sounds good."

"You get a meal a night, plus your drinks for free."

"Even better." As happy as I was with new employ, I was honor bound to tell Fabrice my shortcomings. "I am a total stranger to French culture."

"Who are the best singers in France?" He asked without hesitation.

"Serge Gainsbourg and Francoise Hardy." I loved the former's concept LP BALLADE OF MELODIE NELSON and any man not in love with the original Yeh-Yeh Girl failed my cool test.

"Bien, very 60s. What about movies?"

"Gerard Depardieu." The stocky actor had been riveting in Bertrand Blier's GOING PLACES along with Patrick Dewaere and Miou-Miou, but stole the show in Barbet Schroder’s exploration of sadism MAITRESSE and that movie inspired my choice for an actress. "Catherine Denevue in BELLE DU JOUR."

"Bunuel's ode to humiliation. Cruelty is a good trait for a physionomiste," he tempered the term for someone who judges by appearance with mixture of wonder and derision. Friends considered us psychic. Our enemies i.e. those people refused entry used harsher expletives to describe our position. "It is not a problem that you don't know anyone."

"Is there a list?" Most clubs had regulars.

"Ouais." Fabrice held up a sheet of paper with names scribbled in ink. He tore the list into shreds. "Now non. My friends, le clientele, have been treated like les petites princes et princesses. Time for to go to le re-education camp. Le Bains-Douches is the best club in Paris. I don't count Le Palace. That is a disco. The people who come here want to come here. It is their home."

"So I should ask the bouncers for help?"

"Pas de tout." He shook his head, as he had a sudden fever. Owners had a low opinion of the muscle, until they were the only solution to a problem. “Les videurs let in their friends. Bums and clochards. Les voyos. This is a purge. You worked Studio 54, n’est pas?"

"Yes."

I had managed the faded glory of the velvet ropes for one month after it had been sold by the prison-bound founders. The reincarnation was dead from night one. The new owner had bought the legendary club, because he had been refused entry. Money was no guarantee of success in discos. I had nothing to gain by elaborating on the truth.

"How shall I treat everyone?"

"Like the shit they are." Fabrice gave a good laugh like he was watching Jerry Lewis movie, however no Americans understood the froggies’ appreciation of Dean Martin’s ex-partner. My old girlfriend from Aix-En-Provence said it was because the subtitles in French were funnier than the American dialogue. I had tested her theory. THE NUTTY PROFESSOR was kooky, but unfunny in either language.

"Comme le merde?" I wasn’t sure if I heard him right.

"Exactement."

“Are you sure?"

"The French appreciate the rapport de force. You treat them like shit and they will love you."

"Love or hate."

"Do you care?"

"Non." I was happy to be out of New York.

"Where are you staying?"

"There's a hotel in the Marais." The Hotel Des Ecouffes in the Jewish Quarter was a ten minute walk from the Bains-Douches. The top floor had a room with a view of Notre-Dame, which cost 500 francs a week with a petite dejeuner.

"Bien. Tout est regulee. Ce soir viens pour manger avec moi et mes amis."

"D'accord."

Later I dined with Fabrice, Claudine, his impossibly beautiful girlfriend, models, musicians, and artists at the best table at the club. Keith Richard sat two away from me. Midway through dinner Jack Nicholson dragged the Rolling Stone to the downstairs dance floor.

After dessert I excused myself from the table and went to the entrance to introduce myself to the two videurs. Neither bouncer was a giant, but the warped knuckles and broken noses testified to their toughness. They refused no one entrance, but I stopped three men in brad-new Addidas sneakers.

"Pas ce soir."

“Pour quoi?"

"Les tennis." I pointed to their trainers. "Les Bains-Douches is not a gym."

"We're friends of Fabrice."

"Pas de exception."

"Petit con," they snarled and the bouncers smiled with amusement. It hadn't taken me long to make enemies.

Fabrice stood at the top of the restaurant steps, nodding with an approval.

I spent the rest of the night saying 'quais' or 'non'.

Scores of these Paris clubgoers were befuddled by an American at the door of Les Bains-Douches and they asked for my predecessor.

"Elle est en retrait." The exotic Farida was already the top model for Azzedine Alaia.

"Pay at the cashier."

"Va te faire foutre."

"Vieux cochon!”

"Ras de Ped." which was Verlain for pederast.

The French swears rolled off my skin. I had heard worse in New York and Boston.

I treated some people with deference. Beautiful women were granted immediate entry. Interesting faces were given carte blanche. Musicians were given a drink. A little past 2am I call it a night and Fabrice slipped me 600 francs in red 100-franc notes.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"But one question."

"Yes."

"Why did you hire me?”

"You came recommended by the owner of that magazine. He said you had a good eye."

"I never thought that." I was as blind as a stump.

"Now you know, have a good night's sleep."

I walked back to the Marais through narrow streets. Clochards slept on heating vents. I stuck a hundred-franc note into the gnarled mitt of a wine-drunk bum. Hand-outs were good luck.

I reached my hotel and climbed the stairs to the top floor. The apartments across the street seemed within arm's reach.

Beyond the open windows Paris spread west to a vague horizon speared by the Eiffel Tower. I laid on the bed with the covers pulled up to my neck and fell into a dreamless sleep, as the dawn extinguished the night for the City of Light.

That first night had been a one-off. The bouncers turned against me after I refused their loutish friends entry. Later in the month I tossed a famous fashion designer out of the restaurant for insulting a waitress. His expulsion made the morning papers. The crowd of the refused grew before the door like they were Vietnamese waiting a helicopter lift from the US embassy in Saigon in 1975.

The security spent most of the night playing billiards and said nothing to me throughout the night. I was on my own every minute of the night, except for whenever a young black or Arab man tried to enter the club. The two of them formed a wall. Their friends from the billiard hall provided back up.

"Pas ce soir."

Les Bains-Douches had a color line as pronounced as the back of the bus in pre-1965 Mississippi. I came from Boston. Racism was that city’s second nature. Paris was not white. People of color were everywhere, but the videurs at the Bains-Douches enforced the line with insults.

"Kaffir."

"Noir."

"Negre."

The last word was used on a tall handsome young black man. I had noticed him and his friends hanging out. The bouncers said they were ghetto boys, preying on the foot traffic in Les Halles. They said that about all blacks and Arabs.

He stepped away from the door and the security laughed with racial pride.

I coughed out loud.

The bouncers turned their heads with a dismissive smirk on their faces and I said, "Fuck you, you frog peckerwoods."

They were too French to understand the insult and I walked out through the crowd in front of Les Bains-Douches. The young man was gone.

Several nights later I had a confrontation with a local Mafia gangster. We fought on the stairs, while the security watched in amusement. I tossed my attacker down the stairs. He leapt to his feet and whipped out a revolver.

I shut the heavy glass entrance door. The glass was supposedly bullet-proof. The gangster aimed his weapon and pulled the trigger twice. The first bullet impacted on the glass at my head level, the next was aimed at my heart. The crowd scattered away from les Bains.

This thug smiled at my paralysis. He was a killer and aimed carefully, but before he could pull off another shot, the young black man from before blindsided the shooter with a left and his friend, Philippe, dropped on the gangster to the street like a Sumo wrestler. My assailant's body sprawled flat against the pavement and the revolver clattered from his hand. Philippe snatched the gun and handed to me.

"Faire comme tu vu."

I held the weapon. It had a weight. I walked to the curb and dropped the pistol into the gutter.

When I turned around, the gunman was gone.

Jacques and Philippe leaned against the wall with several leather-jacketed friends. The bouncers hadn't moved from the billiard table. Fabrice had seen the whole incident and I entered the club. Two bullets were stuck in the thick glass. I pushed my way through the crowd at the cashier to Fabrice, who regarded the glass. It had saved my life along with the young black man.

"Ca va?"

"Yes."

"Tu a le chance."

"Yes, I've always been lucky, but our present security staff did nothing just now and they do nothing all the time, but play billiards.

"Eh alors?" The phrase had many uses.

"Les videurs won't let in any blacks and a dead useless. I want to hire one to work with me.”

"Eh, alors."

"I want some real security." I pointed to the young man, who had stopped the gangster from killing me. He noticed my indicating him. "Him."

"Pourquoi pas."

"Merci." The young man was as tall as an NFL linebacker and as handsome as Sidney Poiter.

I went outside and called to the young man.

"Toi."

"T-t-t-tu v-v-v-veux moi." His stutter was worse than mine.

"W-w-what’s your name?"

"J-a-a-a-Jacques." Thick calluses scarred his knuckles.

"Mine's Johnson?" I never gave my real name to strangers.

"You want a job?"

"J-j-job?" he spoke better English than most French.

"Le boulot." I doubted that he had ever been offered a job. "So?"

"Ouais." His smile was as broad as the Nile.

"Come with me."

From the steps I introduced Jacques to the owner.

"He's big and good-looking. The girls will love him and you want the place to change. He knows the street."

"How can you tell he isn't a problem? He comes from Bidonville." Fabrice’s accusation of slum origins was on the money. Every large city had their Brownsville

"I will train him and his friend Philippe."

"I can understand Jacques, but Philippe?" Fabrice was surprised by my suggesting, Jacques’ pote, Fats.

"What can he do other than eat like a horse."

"Jacques, stand behind Fats."

His sidekick's real name was Philippe. He was smarter than most everyone at the Bains-Douches and like Jacques he was as gentle as a sleeping bear.

Jacques crouched behind Fats, who munched on frites from the nearby merguez stand.

"Can you see Jacques?"

"No."

"So when anyone attacks us with a gun, we hide behind Fats. He'll block any bullets."

"Better we don’t open the door, but they are your responsibility. Give him a job.” Fabrice stared me in the eyes, but we were of the same mind. "I'll pay them 400 francs a night plus a meal. Not a sou more."

Fabrice entered the club. His rock and roll girlfriend waited upstairs at their table. Claudine never looked my way. It was better that way. I called over Fats and Jacques.

"You're hired."

"Hired?" Fats had never heard the word before and I explained, "Both of you have a job. I was just kidding about blocking the bullets."

"Really?"

"Fats, you're smart and funny."

"Same as you, Pete Johnson." Jacques slapped Fats's arm. "Mon, we have jobs."

"Un miracle." He didn't stop eating the frite, but smiled at the thought of having a real job.

It was his first.

Same as Jacques.

"Vraiment?"

Doubt mixed with apprehension, as he looked over my shoulder at my other bouncers.

"Ne quittez pas." I wasn't worried about the them. Another body meant more time to play billiards. "You go to school?"

"A little, but I can read."

"D'accord, but you've got a job. Some of your friends other than Fats might get jobs too. You want to work?” I was acting like the Great White Hope, but I was no Gerry Cooney.

"I want to get ahead and a job is the only way." He gave me a short life history. His family was been brought to Martinique, otherwise they were pure Africa.

"What happened to the stutter?”

"I only 'begaye' with white people."

"And I'm not white." I was more Neanderethal.

"No, you are very white, Mr. Johnson."

“Mr. Johnson?" Johnson was slang for penis, but I didn’t explain the meaning to Jacques. "Thanks, I like the name. One more thing, keep your friends in line."

“Les Buffaloes." He waved for his gang members to join him. We exchanged the French version of the black pride handshake.

It was obvious that the gang took each others' backs. I liked that kind of loyalty.

"W-w-w-why are you doing this?" Jacques knew no white people other than the police. Les Flics were the enemy for any young mec from the projects beyond the Champs-Elysees.

"B-b-ecause I can tell you will good at the job."

"And Philippe?"

"He'll be an experiment."

"I don't k-k-know white people." His voice snitched out his fear of my race.

"Don't worry about that. They're no different from me or you. We all have to piss in the morning."

It took him a long time to believe that lie, mostly because it wasn’t the truth.

"And what about mes potes?"

"They're okay to come in, until they're not okay."

"Fats and I will keep them cool."

We were a good team.

Poivre et Sel and Salsa.

Black and White and Hot Sauce.

The models loved Jacques, but he liked big girls. The models never understood this and I never explained his preference for a woman with a big butt, because les amis ne jamais cafter ie friends never snitch

Not now. Not then. Not never.

Just the way it is entrez-nous.

Jacques and Philippe and the Bafalos went onto creating one of the best security companies in the EEU.

We are still all friends, because that is another thing that is 'Between Us.'

Bafalos are all brothers to the end.

Atomic Bloom

Back in the summer of 2014 I bicycled from Fort Greene to Bushwick Avenue. Jane Dickson was displaying a sparse mirrored mural of mythical rock bands at the Silent Barn Gallery. The neighborhood was hard-core without any signs of encroachment from the art phenomena farther to the north. I locked my bike to a gate and hoped for the best. Jane's work hung on a brick wall. My favorite faux-band was THE DUH. Jane greeted friends and admirers. Her work on Times Square, Las Vegas, carnivals and commercial strip malls are well-loved by a large segment of New York and the world. Jane introduced me to people as a great writer. She is planning on using text from my unpublished punk novel MAYBE TOMORROW to add flavor to an upcoming show about Times Square. I had drank heavily the previous night and on Monday hard work was scheduled for the metal shop in Greenpoint. As I said my good-bye, Kenny Scharf showed up at the gallery. I introduced myself and he reacted as if I had been revived from the dead. I said nothing. Some people think I've died, while others are surprised by my appearance. I'm not the man I used to be. Kenny was railing against the radiation plume spreading from the damaged Fukushima reactor in Japan. "The radiation is entering the food chain of the West Coast. My daughter was told to eat sea kelp for iodine, but the seaweed comes from the Pacific. They're doomed out there." "I went through Japan after the quake. No one was traveling there." Narita had been empty. "The Japanese are safer than us, because the wind is blowing the radiation across the ocean." He was right and I thought about the gigantic plastic trash ball floating in the Northern Pacific. It was the perfect breeding ground for a Godzilla-type monster. Kenny invited Jane and me to a disco near his studio. "It starts at 12 and goes till 4." "Sounds like fun." Ten years ago I might have gone, but those hours are deep in my bedtime. I departed from the gallery and unlocked my bike. There was no sign of tampering. My ride back to Fort Greene took thirty minutes. The sky glowed with a pale blue. The color had nothing to do with radiation. At least not yet.

Journal Entry - June 22, 1977 - Gaslight Pub - Park Slope

Last night the improv class at Hunter College was crazy, as Chuck, Carla, and I created another version of STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE about trannys. Carla went home with her ex-husband. I headed back to Brooklyn. No one from Manhattan wants to bridge or tunnel to that borough.

At the Gaslight Pub the crowd was in full swing. Robert, a lanky blood, and his Italian cohort, Rabbit, were fighting over the split of a stolen IBM typewriter. They were fighting over the money split.

"60/40." Rabbit offered without a smile

"70 for me and 30 for you. Truthfully I don't know why I'm giving you a cent. I stole it."

"Because I carried it here."

"How much you want?" I asked knowing they cost about $500 brand new.

"$100," Robert said quickly. "They cost more than that."

"This one is used. $55 is my one and only offer."

"Fuck that, I'll smash it the street before I let you rob me."

I plugged in the typewriter. It worked like a dream.

James slumped against the bar. It was 2 AM. He had drunk like it was 6. I told him the story. He gave me $100. "Get it. Try and get it for less. Those two are junkies. It's late. They need a fix."

I approached with money in hand.

"Rob you. Go fuck yourself. I'll give you $60. Are we down?"

"Yes," they said as a team. I cuffed them $60.

Can you make it $80."

"Not a chance."

They gave me the typewriter.

We drank till closing and every moment Rabbit was jealous of James hitting on Robert.

They might have been junkies, but they were still in love adn love will conquer all for a junkie except for desire.

And a desire not for love.

Journal Entry - June 21, 1977 - Park Slope - Brooklyn

Throughout the night David the super of Berkeley Place played Got to Give It Up (Part 1) by Marvin Gaye over and over again very loud. James rolled into the apartment at 8 and pounded on Hazel's wall and the ceiling above his room.

"Shut that shit off."

He put on a tape of the World Saxophone Quartet - Point of No Return. I preferred Marvin to Hamiet Bluiett, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and David Murray, but wasn't anything better to fuck with the neighbors, especially David, who turned off his stereo.

Around noon I spoke with Ro to arrange an afternoon rendezvous. She promised chaos. We met at the Riviera Cafe in the West Village. I ordered a vodka-tonic. She had water.

"I'm leaving for Paris to study painting at Beaux Arts."

"When?"

"Soon."

"Then I'll have to get a passport."

"You're coming to Paris?"

"Why not? Flights are cheap. Don't worry I won't bother you there."

She looked at me as if she wasn't so sure about that, but Libby was in Paris. She couldn't be that hard to find."

This evening I had tried to seduce Libby's friend Karen at the Rainbow Room. We danced in a very erotic way. my though between hers. We were both turned on, but she finally shoved me away, saying, "I can't. I have a boyfriend. I'd feel miserable if I did anything with you."

"I understand. I'm very used to being alone."

"It's not that I don't want to, but my roommate is at home, otherwise I couldn't trust myself."

"There's always the bathroom here."

She shut her eyes and said, "Okay, it's not like I'm going to be with my boyfriend forever."

Palm Beach Ne'er-Do-Well

Many of my female friends laughed upon hearing about my summer job on Palm Beach. "What's so funny?" "we know what's going to happen." Each women was possessed by a singular vision. "You're going to fleece some heiress." "Fleece?" Both my wife and mistress had green-lighted any multi-zero gigoloing with turtle-fleshed heiresses on the fabled island of the filthy right. "If I'm lucky I'll marry a 89 year-old woman with six weeks to live and give her the best month-and-a-half of their lives." Two months have passed since my arrival. Number of conquered hearts. Zero. In truth I was more happy in my mansion of solitude than haunting the Leopard Room for a horny dowager, which Adrian Dannatt recommended for a hunting ground. I went there once. The women were happy to flirt with their regulars. I was a rookie rogue. None of my clothes were Gucci. Their beaus dismissed me as no competition. My wife and mistress sounded disappointed by my failure. "Aren't you happy that I'm faithful to you?" I posed the question to them both. "Yes." Their answer was half-hearted. "I have two more weeks. Maybe I'll be lucky." Telling them the same thing makes it easy to recall my words. "Chok dii." "Thanks." And I need good luck too. 56, broke, and fading good looks. The ne'er-do-wells of Palm Beach. Ever faithful to my wives.