Winter in the Ukraine

The Russian incursion to the Ukraine aka Winter War II has stalled before several strong defensive positions held by the Kiev troops and Putin had better get it together, since after Monday the weather is predicted to be snow for five consecutive days.

Armored tanks ran like mud tractors in the snow. A roadside ditch traps them in their clutch, but troops are there to defend the tanks.

I was wrong about No War between Russia and the Ukraine. Yesterday Boris Putin ordered the invasion of the Ukraine. The President for Life claimed that steppes always had belonged to Russia. His troops made quick advances. No one wants a war. Especially not in winter like the USSR's failed attack in 1939. Covid has sucked the fight out of most everyone in the world.

And the Russian army marches down winter roads. Boots scrunching the snow. Their breaths a furl of steam and paper-thin boots. Warmth is a forgotten luxury. Food comes as a scarcity. Shelter offers cold ground. Armies disintegrate in bad weather.

And the nights are still long.

"What are we fighting for?" To be cold. To conquer a nation. To prove Putin is a god-king.

The tank is clear. The crew fire a round into the taiga or forest. The shell explodes behind thousands of trees.

All Russians know snow. There are Americans who have never seen the white stuff. It's cold. Even for the Russian Heirless Tsar.

Winter War II

I was wrong about No War between Russia and the Ukraine.

Yesterday Boris Putin ordered the invasion of the Ukraine.

The President for Life claimed that steppes always had belonged to Russia.

His troops made quick advances.

No one wants a war.

Especially not in winter like the USSR's failed attack in 1939.

Covid has sucked the fight out of most everyone in the world.

And the Russian army marches down winter roads. Boots scrunching the snow. Their breaths a furl of steam and paper-thin boots.

Warmth is a forgotten luxury.

Food comes as a scarcity.

Shelter offers cold ground.

Armies disintegrate in bad weather.

And the nights are still long.

"What are we fighting for?"

George, Washington 1972

Back in late August 1972 my college friend Ptrov Sinski and I hitchhiked west from Seattle. A rancher left us off at exit 149, serving George, Washington, a small farming community surrounded by endless fields of ripening wheat. The two of us ignored the sign forbidding hitchhiking, but within ten minutes a Highway Patrol car halted on the shoulder. The officer wasn't that much older than us, but he had an old head.

"You boys can't read." The buzz-cut cop pointed to the sign at the bottom of the onramp after checking our IDs.

"We can read, officer." I played polite.

It was a waste of time.

We hadn't bathed in days.

To him we were dirty hippies.

"Then go back to read that sign again." This was an order and the trim trooper stared hard at Ptrov. His hair was longer than mine and his name was foreign. "If I find you anywhere near the highway, I'll give you a ticket. Do anything else and I'll arrest you."

"Yes, officer."

The uniformed officer drove off in his high-powered Plymouth Grand Fury. We obeyed his edict and held up a sign saying EAST to the cars passing on I90.

For several hours local teenagers gave us the finger and shouted garbled insults. Their hatred of hippies was not a fad. We wanted to get out of there, but we were trapped off the Interstate.

A little before sunset a Chevy van stopped on the shoulder and we ran up the highway.

Before we reached our ride van, the trooper showed up with light flashing.

"What I tell you boys?"

We weren't hitchhiking on the highway."

"But a car stopped for you only he highway. Same thing.

He asked for our IDs. We received $50 tickets for hitchhiking and the driver was fined $20 for illegally stopping for hitchhikers.

"But we weren't on the highway," Ptrov protested in earnest outrage.

"You saying I don't know my job?"

"No, officer, we're not saying that. We just want to get home."

"Then get in that van and don't come back through here again."

We entered the van and the driver pulled away from the exit at less than the legal speed limit.

"Cocksucker." He looked in the rearview mirror, then tore his ticket into pieces.

"What are you doing?" I had put mine in my wallet.

"I'm from Ohio. I ain't ever paying that ticket." The driver pulled out a joint and lit it with the lighter. He introducing himself as Jackson.

"You going to Ohio?" Ptrov asked with high expectations. His girlfriend lived in Milwaukee. It was on the way to Ohio.

"Just as far as the Coeur d'Alene in Idaho. I'm working on the highway building rest stops." Jackson passed the joint to my disappointed friend. "We can crash there. Don't look so sad. At least you're out of George, Washington."

He was right and the two of us tore up the tickets like anti-war protestors at the Pentagon. I threw the shreds out the window. It was good to be free again.

A Winter War

Throughout this Autumn and Winter Russia's leader Boris Putin has been threatening the Ukraine with invasion to prevent any further Western incursion to the ex-Soviet republic. The USA and UK have responded with supplying weapons and supplies to the steppe nation and the newspapers daily report on the potential war without mentioning that only one country has invaded a country in the winter.

The 1939-1940 Winter War between the USSR and Finland was a disaster from the first step over the Arctic frontier. Stalin's troops fought for three months without any success and signed a truce in March.

Lesson learned by the Axis command.

Nothing and the Japanese seized the distant Aleutian Island of Attu from the US after the naval debacle of Midway. Their soldiers suffered from the cold and deprivations of an army trapped in a distant land.

Winters are much better suited to sieges and retreats.

The Nazi defeat at Stalingrad and Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow.

Only 15,000 Wehrmacht Soldaten returned to Germany aftr World War II and only 1500 troops survived the horrible march to the safety of Poland.

War this winter?

I doubt it.

Spring?

No one wants a war, except the Pentago who have never backed away from a war they sought to lose.

BET ON CRAZY / WHO DONE IT by Peter Nolan Smith

47th Street was dead on Friday. None of the Hasidim had shown up to work for high holiday of Sukkot. The yidlocks would be out for a week. Gabriel our broker had left us ten big diamonds. I had put them in the window. Gypsies entered every half-hour and asked, “How much for the big stone?”

“It ain’t for sale.” I had never sold to a Roma. They were a WOT or a waste of time. Worse was the possibility that they might rob you. Romas had a bad reputation for a good reason. They were thieves and I gave them a price. “But the price is 40K.”

“$40K for a 6-carat F SI3?” The man was wearing a Italian suit. He was top of the line Roma and had dibs on any score in the Diamond District. “Would you take 20K for it?”

“Thanks but no thanks.” The diamond cost me $35,000.

“I have the money.” He brandished a roll of hundreds. It was thick enough to be 20K, unless the center was all $1 bills.

“Sorry, the price remains 40K. That’s the bottom line gypsy price. No haggling either.” I got 10% of the profit. $500 was half a ticket to Thailand, where my kids lived, but there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Death Valley of selling this Roma a toothpick.

“Let me speak to your boss.” He waved the money in my face.

“So you can waste his time?” I slapped away his hand.

“That’s not nice.” He stuck the roll into his jacket.

“Hey, that’s depends on how you see it.” I signaled the guard to throw him out.

“I’m going, I’m going.” He exited from the exchange. There were other marks on his list. It was Friday and everyone wanted to make money for the weekend.

“Good luck.”

I sat at my desk and the girls behind the counter asked if i wanted a lobster roll for lunch from the new take-out. Coming from Maine I was eager to try the lunch special. Richie Boy signaled that he was in too, even though lobster was tref or unclean and unfit for consumption according to Jewish tradition, however only one member of our staff was religious. The rest were bacon Jews.

Lunch came, we ate, and then discussed the lobster rolls. Cindy thought it was good. She had gone to UMass. Richie Boy was unimpressed. He was nursing a hangover. I had eaten better in Maine, but the Lincolnville Pound was an eight-hour drive from 47nd Street.

A hand slapped the window.

Lenny.

The Hassidic bum was sweating in a tee-shirt. His thinning hair was plastered against his skull. A pudgy hand was twitching for money.

“First a gippo and now Lenny.” Richie Boy had little patience for Lenny. The 53-year-old was a drunken bum. His mouth was a volcano of insults. The fat man called Richie Boy a country-club Jew. Lenny was no Don Rickles, but he made me laugh. I put down my lobster roll and went outside with Windex and a paper towel.

“Lenny, you’re messing up the window.” His greasy hand imprint was scattered on the glass like prehistoric paintings. It took me fifteen seconds. “I have to clean it.”

“Sorry, Damian.” Lenny was a slob. Filthy tee-shirt and ripped flannel trouser were matched by sneakers shaped like melted cheese. He has been living on the street for more than twenty years and the fat beggar earned more than $200/day. I’ve seen him deposit his daily stash at the bank. Some people said that this lunacy is an act. His eyes told the truth.

“No worries.” I liked that he called me ‘Damian’. The name smacked of THE OMEN, the Son of Satan.

“You know that the president of Iran said that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks. He’s stupid, but there are still questions that no one has ever asked about that day. Like how the third building collapsed or how there are no black boxes or how the police found Mohammad Atta’s passport intact or the 15 Saudis. None of them pilots.” Lenny’s rant was punctuated by occasional assaults from his unwashed body.

“That’s all old news.” Something was missing.

“You want names?”

NYPD had installed CCTV on the street. Every words was live. A story like this could lead to dead. Lenny had lived in every homeless shelter on Manhattan. Fear was a stranger and he named names. Current and past. Some people on the street regarded Lenny as a genius. His trajectory revealed a keen intellect dependent on studious reading. “And we bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, because their radio operators were running the war from a supposed safe haven.”

1999.

“Bill Clinton showed chutzpah that day.”

"And 9/11."

“You really think a band of fanatics could have executed 9/11. A military operation. Could have been anyone?”

“Even the Israelis.” I whispered the word, because any criticism of the Holy Land was off-limits on

47th Street. My pay check was more important than politics. I had four children. “The Chinese were deeply involved in numbers.” Lenny was on the verge of launching into a primal reverie about cardinal numbers. He actually understood Georg Cantor’s set theory. I should have grasped how one-to-one correspondences referred to equality of sets, but I must have slept through that class in high school.

“Lenny, I don’t have the time for this.” I had to make a little money. It was Friday. I wanted to buy a box of wine. 3-liters lasted for the weekend.

“You got a dollar for the holiday?”

I handed him two bills.

He wished me luck and called for a blessing on my kids in Thailand. It was Sokkot, a festival to commemorate the wandering the desert.

“May you get home soon.”

“Thanks.” Seeing my kids was my greatest wish.

That and an old motorcycle.

I went back inside the diamond exchange hoping to close a deal in the last hours of Friday. Stranger things have happened and stranger things weren’t too much to ask from life, especially with Lenny’s blessing.

His were a mitzvah.

Battle Of Long Island 1776

After successfully ousting the British from Boston on March 17, 1776, General George Washington assembled the 10,000 strong Continental Army in New York to deny King George III's Royal Navy access to the harbor. Throughout the spring and summer Washington's commander's prepared defenses in Manhattan, however in July the British task force landed in Staten Island and General Howe gathered over 30,000 troops for his offensive.

After making landfall on August 22, the redcoats strengthened their numbers with Long island loyalists. Still believing the city to be the prime target, Washington sent over 1500 troops as reinforcement to General Isaac Putnam's command.

It was not a feint and on August 27 the first assaults fell on the forts of Long Island and took the rebels by surprise with overpowering force of arms.

The battle was a disaster for the Americans.

The bravery of the Maryland 400 forestalled defeat, but at day's end Washington and his troops were trapped under Brooklyn Heights. One more push and the rebellion would be quashed with traitors hanging from every available tree in New York.

The the finishing coupe never came that night.

The British had been taught a deadly lesson at Bunker Hill.

They dug ditches ever closer to the American lines.

In the morning the redcoats discovered that Washington and his soldiers had been evacuated by John Glover's Marblehead regiment.

9000 troops had escaped the trap and the war wasn't destined to end until General Conwallis' surrender at Yorktown six years later.

Not a victory.

Most certainly a defeat.

More a draw with the British realizing that the world would turn upside down one day.

But not on August 27.

Mia Noi or Mia Luang

Valentine Day comes once a year.

Today I'm a half world distant from my two wives and four kids in Thailand. I can only say I love you or 'pom rak khun' over the telephone or via Western Union. My wives' preference was for my sending money over the internet. Money always says 'rak mak' or love you much.

Several friends in New York have asked, "Which wife do you love most?"

Mia noi or Mia Luang?

I'd have to go with #2, because you'd never have a #2 if you loved #1 so much.

A geek or a part-time mistress sure.

I don't know a single faithful westerner in Thailand.

Maybe me, because I am faithful to both my wives.

And that was no small accomplishment in Thailand where temptation lurks in the air like perfume from a a fragrant tree. It's everywhere.

THE GHOST FROM PATTAYA GHOST CORRECTED MY THAI.

MIA LUANG INSTEAD OF MIA YAI, HOWEVER MY MIA LUANG HAS GAINED WEIGHT AND NOT TWO KILOS. SO SHE ENDS UP BEING MIA YAI OR UWAN TOO.

Super Bowl Snatch

I love the unpredictabilty of chaos

No one could have predicted on Kearse catching that deflected ball on his back.

On the ensuing play Lynch was tackled and I'm screaming for Belichick to call a time-out, because I know that the 'Hawks will scoree. Nothing comes from Belichik. He's acting like a deer caught in the headlights and Carroll's says to himself, "Now I have the old bastard. He'll call a time-out and give me three shots at the end zone."

Except the seconds slip off the clock.

Long seconds.

No time-out.

Carroll looks at Belichek.

"What's that bastard up to?"

Now's there's only time for three plays for Seattle and one of them has to be a pass.

The 'Hawks have a play.

A slant pick in the center.

Carroll makes the call.

Everyone in the world is expecting Lynch to run.

Everyone, but Belichek.

The Wizard of Foxboro knows the future, because he's seen the videos on the upcoming play dozens of times. The defense knows this set-up. They've played it in practice. There is only one place the ball is going to go.

To the cutting receiver.

Hike.

The ball is snapped with 26 seconds lft. Lockette runs his pattern. He's in the clear.

Destiny has written Seattle as the winner.

None of the Seahawks see # 21, the walk-on rookie from Western Alabama.

At some casinos they call the game of Blackjack 21.

Ten and an Ace are a winning hand.

Positioned in the end zone Butler sees everything. Wilson. Lockette. The pass. The ball. He steps in front of Lockette, knocking the taller end to the ground, as he miraculously intercepts the game-winner.

Tom Brady raises his hands to heaven.

I jump out of my seat.

The game is over.

The Patriots win 28-24 and Belichek looks across the field at Pete Carroll, who thought this was a done deal.

Belichek doesn't smile. He doesn't say a word. He walks down the sideline, knowing one thing.

It ain't over until it's over.

Chris Chase of USA Today shares my opinion.

By the way I can watch this following highlight forever.

http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/02/01/super-bowl-2015-seahawks-patriots-interception-russell-wilson

THE SMELL OF MOONSHINE by Peter Nolan Smith

Back in the late 50s my Irish grandmother took my older brother and me for a monthly visit to downtown Boston. We left her house in Jamaica Plains and rode the trolley into Boylston Street. The El from Forest Hills to Washington Street was quicker, but Nana preferred the trolley. My late grandfather had driven them out of Forest Hills. Once on Washington Street she headed to St. Anthony's Shrine for a ritual of lighting candles. The priest on duty heard her confessions. Her penance was five Hail Mary's and one Our Father. Nana asked if we had been good boys. We nodded yes. At six and seven Frunka and I were too young to have broken any of the serious Commandments, especially since my childhood atheism was a secret to my family and friends.

Next stop was WT Grant for hot dogs and then we went over to the Orpheum Theater.

Nana liked handsome movie stars and she was particularly partial to Robert Mitchum. THUNDER ROAD was a hit in May 1958. The actor played a Korea war veteran running moonshine through the hills of Kentucky. A hot-rodded 1951 Ford, illegal whiskey, hillbilly gangsters, and a rocking title song.

"Don't tell your mother about us seeing this movie." Her accent was pure County Mayo.

"No, Nana."

Neither of us were brought up to be rat finks.

We sat in the darkened theater and heard the rocking title song.

BALLAD OF THUNDER ROAD

And there was thunder, thunder over Thunder Road
Thunder was his engine, and white lightning was his load
There was moonshine, moonshine to quench the Devil’s thirst
The law they swore they’d get him, but the Devil got him first.

We left the theater singing the chorus. Nana warned us not to sing it in front of my mother.

“She doesn’t like whiskey.”

Years later I heard from my aunt that Nana had brewed whiskey and beer during Prohibition. Our Irish blood was true to our devotion to spirits. My juvenile encounters with alcohol were restricted to beer bought by the town bum, Red Tate, and hard liquor siphoned from our parents’ bottles. My next door neighbor and I rationalized this abasement of vodka saved the adults from drunken misbehavior.

Moonshine remained beyond our reach.

Only white trash drank ‘busthead’.

In 1970 I was attending BC. My college friends from the South extolled the virtues of ‘popskull’. Al Wincent and Hank Watson drove taxi together for Checker Cab in Boston. We were hippies, but liked to finish the night’s work waiting for the go-go dancers from the Combat Zone.

One night a blonde from Tennessee invited us to her apartment in the South End. We drank distilled alcohol from a jug. Its strength content was near-lethal, but Al slurred, “It might kick you in the head, but it doesn’t have the light. I can’t explain something you can’t touch unless it’s in your hands. Once you taste it, nothing else will taste like it."

I accepted his explanation and in the summer of 1971 I hitchhiked to Virginia from Boston. The trip took 7 hours from Mass. Ave. to the Tap o Keg in Georgetown. Al was waiting for me. It was almost 1am, but the bars along Wisconsin Avenue stayed open until 4. The southern girls were friendly to long-hairs. A red-headed coed from hill country knew where to get some ‘shine. Her name was Billy.

Al made a call from the payphone and twenty minutes later we met a thick-tongued grit in a alley. He was standing next to a rusted Ford pick-up.

“You ain’t no revenuer?” His accent was Appalachian. He smelled like his burly body had been dipped in medicine. A .38 was in his waist.

“Jimbo, put away that gun. He ain’t no police.” Billy laughed at his accusation, but I understood his concern. The federal government frowned on the sale of untaxed alcohol.

“$15 for three.” Jimbo pulled a tarp off a crate in the flatbed loaded with clear glass jars. Al cracked one open.

“Smells like good shine. Watch.” Al lit a match to the liquid. A blue flame. “Good color. Won’t make you go blind.”

“That’s right.” Jimbo finished the transaction with the speed of a snake needing to take a piss. He drove away with a rumble. The V-8 under the hood was not stock.

“Here’s to ‘shine.” Al chugged a sip. His face went sour and then his body shuddered with spasms to every muscle. “Now that’s ‘shine.”

He handed me the open jar. I offered some to Billy. She waved it away.

“Ladies don’t drink ‘shine. It makes them crazy. You go right ahead.”

I brought the jar to my lips. Mountain Dew wasn’t made for sipping. I pour a good swallow down my gullet. White lightning splashed down my gullet and flashed against my spine.

“Now I understand.”

“I thought you would.” Al toasted my conversion to ‘shine.

Billy accompanied us through the night. She felt responsible for the two of us. The last thing I remembered was singing the chorus to THUNDER ROAD over and over until it faded to a mumbled lullaby. Morning came ten hours too early. I was in a strange bed in a woman’s room.

Al lay on the floor.

“How you feeling?” Billy lay next to me. She was older than us by a few years. 22 to our 19.

“Okay.” My hangover was survivable and I sat up in bed. There were no spins. “Did we drink it all?”

“Every last drop.” She pointed to the empty jar by Al. He looked comfortable in that position. “Your friend made sure of that. You feel like some breakfast.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

How about some bacon, fried eggs, and grits."

A southern wake-up dish.

"Sounds even better."

I was south of the Mason-Dixon line. My breath tasted of ‘shine. Billy’s accent was a drawl. Moonshine was good, then again I always knew it was, because like my Nana I liked Robert Mitchum too and he was a good ole boy.

To hear THUNDER ROAD by Robert Mitchum, please go to this URL;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdwUpxkfSJw

White Trash Humor

1. Did you fart? Cuz you just blew me away. 2. Are yer parents retarded? Cuz ya sure are special. 3. My love fer you is like diarrhea. I just can't hold it in. 4. Do you have a library card? Cuz I'd like to sign you out. 5. Is there a mirror in your pants? Cuz I can see myself in 'em. 6. You might not be the best lookin' girl here, but beauty's only a light switch away. 7. I know I'm not no Fred Flinstone, but I bet I can make yer bed rock. 8. Yer eyes are as blue as window cleaner. 9. If yer gunna regret this in the mornin', we kin sleep 'til afternoon.

AND ... the best for last! 10. Yer face reminds me of a wrench. Every time I think of it, my nuts tighten up.

Send by Tottenham Spurs fan.

NIK Rieter. A Yid fan to the end.

Amazingly no liberals ever get upset about anyone dogging white trash or hillbillies. No one on the right either. White trash are fair game. No one ever defends them. No one ever will.

White Trash Test

The Halloween pumpkin on your front porch has more teeth than your spouse.

You let your twelve-year-old daughter smoke at the table in front of her kids.

You've been married three times and still have the same in-laws.

You think a woman who is "out of your league" bowls on a different night.

Jack Daniel's makes your list of "Most Admired People."

You think Genitalia is an Italian airline.

You wonder how gas stations keep their restrooms so clean.

Someone in your family died right after saying "Hey, y'all watch this!"

Your Junior/Senior prom had a daycare.

You lit a match in the bathroom and your house exploded right off its wheels.

The bluebook value of your truck goes up and down, depending on how much gas it has in it.

Ya' can't git married to yer sweetheart 'cause there's a dang law against it.

You think loading the dishwasher means getting your wife drunk.

Your toilet paper has page numbers on it.

New Ancient Cave Paintings

45,000 years ago ice sheets covered the polar regions and mountain tops of the world. Human population during this glacial period has been calculated to have been in the tens or thousands, if not even less. According to pre-historians, as the Ice Cap retreated, Homo Sapiens gained the upper hand on the Neanderthals and dominated the good hunting grounds and lands with shelter. Several years ago researchers discovered a cavern in Sulawesi covered with ancient paintings considered to the dawn of art.

There are only animals in the wall tableaus.

Big animals.

Abstract like Paul Klee. No humans.

Only handprints. I personally think of these caves more as religious museums than domiciles. Otherwise there would be pornography deeper in the earth, because that's just the way men are, unless all these early cultures were dominated by women. Eve and Adam. I know who came first no matter what the Bible says. Darryl.

Darryle Postcard - Never Send - March 1984

In January 1984 I accompanied a fashion photographer to Jamaica to shot a new blonde Star, Darryl Hannah.

She was good people.

After the trip I returned to Europa and traveled across the Alpes with a Italian cartoonist.

We spent a night in Milano.

I sent a letter and not this postcard from Roma.

Maybe I didn't have a stamp.

I'm glad it didn't make the journey.

Miss Hannah It's easy to jump the Forum Fence Even easier to avoid the guards The hard part is to decide what to do once your are inside. I stand beside a young romanette She speaks no English I speak no Italian That works for both of use. Nothing open in Rome after dark Which is why he jumped the fence. No idea why she's here; No bars, no drugs, no hotels. She lays on broken stone and pulls up her skirt Latin letters impressed into her flesh... Ancient dust powders thighs.... The girl is open for me tonight Such is life overseas on the trail.

Heading north to hike around Zermatt, then back to Paris.

I wish you luck.

Cave Women Of The Ice Age

# 1 has to be Raquel Welch from 1,000,000 BC. Blonde. Great Hair. And no dirt.

This female humanoid is the darling of the anthropologists.

Call me old fashioned, but I prefer Lorna the Fair One.

Or Carole Landis from 1,000,000 BC (1940)

Then there is Darryl Hannah from CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR.

We smoked weed in Jamaica.

Finally Rae Dawn Chong in Paris.

In the winter of 1985 I met the star of QUEST FOR FIRE in Paris. I didn't go home with her, because I was faithful to a junkie blonde aristocrat and I was leaving for New York in the morning.

I was a fool.

At my flat off the Grand Boulevard Mirabelle and I huffed Persian Brown and crashed on my bed with the window open. I woke in the afternoon at 2pm, which was when my flight was taking off for the USA. I reached over to the skinny blonde. She was as cold as a corpse and I suddenly aroused by being in bed with a dead woman, then she drew a breath.

Alive and a fool.

But then what can Homo Sapiens expect from a Neanderthal?

NOT A CHANCE by Peter Nolan Smith

In 1984 I flew home from Paris for Christmas in Boston.

After the holiday I headed south to New York.

The East Village to be exact.

New snow prettifying Tompkins Square Park would be cold dirty slush tomorrow.

My apartment was cold. The heat sucked. I had $200. Florida was 1200 miles away. Hitchhiking to Miami Beach took as long as the Le Mans Classic race and most of the trip would be cold.

My phone rang. It was Clark Hoseman, a New York fashion photographer.

I had assisted him at the Paris pret-a-porter in October. He shot the fashion models back stage. At night Clark bought the girls to the Bains-Douches, where I worked as a physionomiste or doorman. The French were experts at having at good time.

"What are you doing in New York?" asked Clark and I told him, "Waiting to sublet my apartment and then return to Paris."

"You ever been to Jamaica?"

"Only in THE HARDER THEY COME." I had seen the reggae movie in 1973 at the Orson Welles Cinema on Mass. Avenue in Cambridge. Jimmy Cliff transported me to a world far south of Florida. A world of Jah, guns, and ganja with a few palm trees and white sand beaches.

"Do you know how to scuba-dive?"

"Sort of. Why?" I had snorkeled in Florida and the South of France.

"Because I'm shooting the cover of Life Magazine with a young movie actress in Jamaica." He mentioned the very American name.

"Never heard of her."

"She's going out with Jackson Browne."

The singer was on the cover of the Rolling Stone. He had protested against the nuclear plant in Seabrook. Ground zero was about 40 miles from my hometown of Boston. Jackson Browne was cool.

"Is she good-looking?" .

"She was in BLADE RUNNER."

"Ahhh, the Blonde clone." I loved her performance as an acrobatic killer in Ripley Scott's transformation of DO ANDROIDS DREAM ON ELECTRIC SLEEP? by Philip K. Dick. "She was very cool. "

"So how'd you like to come to Jamaica, because I need an assistant who can dive and handle a camera underwater."

"Then I'm your man." I was an ace at faking expertise.

Three days later we departed from JFK to Kingston, Jamaica. White people were the minority at the arrival terminal. None of the islanders paid us any mind. We were just tourists to them.

Clark hired a small prop plane to fly Bernadette, the Life reporter, Irwin, the make-up artist, Deb, the hair stylist and two of us to the northern side of the island.

"Where's Darryl?" My eyes scanned the grassy runway for a blonde movie actress.

"She'll be here tonight." Clark was clearly disappointed by her no-show and said, "She's having troubles with Jackson, which might give me an opening."

"An opening."

"I want a shot at her. You help me and I'll double your bonus."

"Help you?"

"You're a poet. Make me look good."

"I'll do what I can." I was no pimp and a failed writer stood no chance with movie actress.

An actor friend had once explained the pecking order of Hollywood.

"At a party the producer has first shot at the actress. 15 minutes later it's the director's chance. A half-hour is slotted for the leading man, but a writer never gets any play. An actress would rather go with the parking valet than a writer."

We arrived at the rundown airport of Port Antonio. A quick rain burst drove us into the terminal. The driver appeared in a van. His name was Dave. The black man drove us to the Trident Villas and pointed to a flowered villa. "That's where Errol Flynn lived. He was good for Port Antonio."

Errol had been a star in CAPTAIN BLOOD.

Jamaica had been a pirate island in the 1700s.

Port Antonio had some of that history in its blood.

At the Trident Villas we headed to our rooms. Mine overlooked a cliff. The waves smashed on the rocks. Next door was staying a famous Broadway choreographer. We knew each other from the old days. Tim was leaving the following day and gave me a bag of pot weighing over a pound.

"I'm not taking it. It's yours and give whatever's left to the next person."

Tim and I hit a bowl.

That evening's dinner was a mist, but there was no movie star.

Only Clark and the crew from Life.

The next morning I woke wanting to sleep more. Someone had been talking in my dreams. It wasn't me and the room smelled of an old woman. I opened the doors to the Caribbean. The sea was blue and the sky was overcast with unthreateningly clouds. I felt no rain in the air.

It was time to get ready for the shoot.

Clark appeared on my balcony. We examined the four cameras and seven interchangeable lenses. All the batteries were charged to the max. The light meters were working well and our film had nicely chilled in the minibar.

"Ready?"

"All systems go."

"Is she here."

"She?" I was thinking of an old woman.

"Darryl." Clark shook his head. I was a bit of a fool in his eyes. "Let's get breakfast and hit the road. We have photos to take and remember what I said. She's mine."

Darryl arrived at noon tired from her trip. No one introduced me and I sat with the driver. Our first location was on a wave-tossed beach. A few mulatto school children picked through the flotsam for sea shells. Erwin the make-up guy lightly powdered the actress' face. The hair stylist let the wind do his job. I checked the light. It was 5.7 f-stop. I stole a glance at Darryl. Clark hadn't been lying. She was a goddess and he shot hundreds of photos.

None of them were overkill, because Darryl possessed an unquenchable beauty.

That night we ate spiny Jamaica lobster in a restaurant filled with white diners served by Jamaicans.

Te lobsters had no claws.

Clark said to Darryl, "My assistant's from Boston. They have the best lobster in the world there. Tell her."

I replied with New England pride, "This is wicked Lobstah."

It was not true.

The only wicked Lobstah came from Maine.

Back my my room I smoked a big joint.

Paul Newman was staying at the villa across the rocks.

The iconic movie star looked small in the dim tropical night and I wrote a poem about COOL HAND LUKE.

After I fell asleep, a woman whispered in my ear.

It was not Darryl and I fell asleep in a Ganga stupor.

The next morning was overcast. I ran into Erwin in the dining room and he said, "I didn't sleep last night. Fucking ghost."

"Ghost?" Coming from New England I was familiar with ghosts.

"It came to my room and wouldn't leave me alone." Erwin was gay and I asked, "Did it try and get into bed with you."

"Thankfully no, it was an old lady." Erwin sighed with relief, then added, "Say nothing to anyone else. They'll think I'm crazy."

"No problem." His secret was safe with me, because.

The sky over Port Antonio cleared after breakfast.

Dave the driver had found a trampoline, which the hotel set up on the lawn.

Darryl had been a gifted high school acrobat and Clark snapped two hundred shots of her bouncing in the air. I changed film like a machine gun ammo boy during a kamikaze attack. We broke for lunch at noon. Clark had me clean the cameras.

"I think I have a shot with her."

"Of course you do." I ordered a rum and coke from the bar.

It ended up being my lunch.

That afternoon Clark photographed Darryl on the rocks. Erwin struggled to freshen her make-up after every suit change. I checked the lighting and changed film with increasing skill. I was a fast learner.

During a break Darryl said, "I heard you're a poet."

"A bad one."

"Could I read something of yours?"

"Maybe later." I shrugged harmlessly, for Clark glared, as if I was poaching on his turf.

Darryl went back to the rocks.

Clark made sure that Darryl and I didn’t speak the rest of the day.

Every break I had chores.

During lunch I had to pick up more film at the hotel.

“Your friend have his eye on that girl.” Dave the driver wasn’t blind. “But she have no eye for him.”

“Who she have an eye for?”

“Who know the mind of woman?” Dave shrugged with a laugh.

"Certainly not me."

"Then you are a wise man."

I laughed with him, because no man is wise when it comes to women.

After a long day we returned at the Trident Villas and I smoked a big joint before joining everyone in the restaurant.

During dinner Clark recounted to the table about his shooting the Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop.

"I love Iggy." Darryl hummed I WANNA BE YOUR DOG.

Clark winked at me and I left before dessert.

Three was a big crowd in this group.

Something woke me after midnight.

There was nothing in my room and the night was quiet.

I went out on the terrace with the joint.

Across the cove Clark's room was dark.

Someone whispered behind me.

"Darryl." It was wishful thinking.

I turned.

There was no one there, then Dave the Driver appeared out of the deep night.

"Nice sky." The Milky Way split the heavens.

"Lots of stars.

"More than any man can count."

"“Is that man your friend?”

He meant Clark.

"Yeah, why?” Whatever Clark's faults were mine were worst.

“Because he don’t talk to you like friend.”

“Yeah, he my boss now. You want some.” I handed him the joint.

And like that we grooved on the cosmos.

The next morning the clouds broke into threads of gray and the blue heaven ruled the sky. I ordered breakfast in my room. Clark showed up ten minutes later and drank my coffee.

“So this is the big shot.” Clark was breaking out the underwater cameras. “Have you ever buddy-breathed, because you’re going to be sharing your air with Darryl underwater.”

“Sure.” I had seen Lloyd Bridges save a friend on the TV show SEA HUNT using the same method.

"It's like soul kissing without the tongue. Let's go to Blue Lagoon."

Every island in the Caribbean has a Blue Lagoon.

Brooke Shields had starred in a film of the same name.

Darryl had auditioned for the role.

"But I turned it down. I thought I was too old," Darryl declared getting out of the van.

I did some quick math. She was 24. BLUE LAGOON was shot in 1979. She was 19 then. Brooke Shield had been 14. Darryl had been right.

“You dive before, man?” Dave stood with the boatman. I shook my head. Dave’s friend give me a five-minute lesson.

"You got it, man." A Boston accent couldn't fake Rasta.

The light-skinned boatman steered to a sheltered cove.

"Not to worry. Easy water dis." Ernest was on my team.

Irwin was back on shore. He had trouble with mal de mer.

“I couldn’t sleep last night. There was a ghost in my room.” Bernadette wasn’t joking.

“Ghost?” Clark stifled a laugh.

"Yes, she kept on speaking to me and wouldn't go away."

"Old lady?" asked Ernest and Bernadette nodded her head. The boatman said, "No ghosts on water. Sleep now. We dive."

Underwater sea turtles floated past us. Fish wore vivid colors. Darryl posed as a mermaid. Clark frantically snapped shots, as the current dragged us out of position. I passed my mouthpiece to Darryl. Her spit tasted better than mine.

After thirty minutes we returned to shore.

I packed the equipment while Clark walked down the beach with Darryl taking candid shots.

She wasn't getting close to him, but we had three days left on Jamaica and three days was almost half the time God took to create the world.

We got back to the hotel at sunset.

During dinner everyone discussed the ghost.

Darryl asked about my poetry again.

Clark cut short my reply and said I had to clean the cameras.

I stood up from the table and said my goodnights, but I had already cleaned the cameras and went outside to our van.

"Where's there to go?" I asked Dave. "For fun?"

"The Roof Club."

"Sometimes there be trouble there."

"Nothing I haven't seen before."

"This is Jamaica."

"I know." I was tired of being with white people and got in the van.

I liked trouble.

I rub-a-dub with fat women and skinny girls to old school reggae. They called me 'White Chocolate'. They probably called all semi-cool whites that, but I sang along with JOHNNY TOO BAD and drank with the old men in the bar; rum and Red Stripe beer.

Happy."

I didn't remember getting home, but recalled passing an old woman by my bed.

She didn't say a word, but shook her head with disapproval.

The next morning was bright and Clark woke me with a shove.

"Where were you?"

"I wandered off the reservation to the Roof Club," I recounted the evening to the best of my ability.

"Lucky you. I'm getting nowhere with Darryl." He sat on my bed next to the camera bag. "I ended up alone."

"You're trying too hard. Chill your jets. Girls like cool."

"Maybe you're right."

I could only be right or wrong and we left my room for the day.

On an idyllic beach Clark caught Darryl in the money shot. She was wearing a red bathing suit. The light was 5.7 f-stop.

"That's the cover."

"I think so too." Darryl had exhausted her beauty on camera.

She wanted to be herself.

On the way back to the resort we stopped to pet some goats.

"Dave told me you went to the Roof Club. Clark said it was dangerous."

"I was the only danger to me last night." I recalled dropping a split to JOHNNY TOO BAD.

"Maybe we can go tonight. You have some weed?"

"A little." I didn't want to say how much.

"I'm dying for a puff."

"Tonight then."

Clark was signaled me to get away and I obeyed his command, but not before saying, "And maybe we can go to the Roof Club later."

"I'd love that."

She wandered off to where Clark was playing nice with a baby goat.

I stood with Dave.

The teenaged herders were anxious about their goats.

"Nothing better than baby jerked goat." He smacked his lips.

Before we got into the car, Clark came over to me.

"What were you talking about to Darryl?"

"She wanted to go into town. She's bored with the hotel." I didn't mention the Roof Club or reefer.

"So we'll go after we get back to the resort. I think your strategy is working."

"I know women."
In truth I knew nothing about them, but he didn't want to hear that.

Back at the resort I showered and dressed in a white shirt and jeans.

Dave was at the desk.

"Where's Darryl?"

"She left with your 'friend', but I know where. You want to go."

"You bet I do." I had two big spliffs in my pocket.

Dave drove into town like I was James Bond chasing Doctor No.

"That girl is an island beauty. She deserves the best."

"Me?"

Dave's laugh hurt in a good way.

I found Darryl on the sidewalk of a record shop. The stereo was pumping CRY TOUGH by Alton Ellis. Clark was inside flipping through LPs and 45s. He loved his music.

We're going to the Roof Club," I shouted to Clark.

"Me too." Darryl walked away fast.

We wandered to the docks.

The blonde spoke about her life.

"It's not easy being this beautiful, especially since I don't think I'm beautiful."

"Every beautiful woman does."

"Worst is that everyone wants me." She dragged heavy on the joint and her eyes rolled into her head like cherries on a broken slot machine. "Your friend thinks he's going to get me. Not a chance. You probably think the same."

"Not me. I'm a poet." Dave's laugh echoed in my ears. "I know my place."

"Good, let's go to the Roof Club."

We were the only white people in the bar.

Darryl bought two rum and cokes.

"My back's killing me."

"Let me give you a massage."

"Please."

Her muscles were pliable to the touch and she writhed, as we danced to THE HARDER THEY COME.

The girls in the bar taught her to rub-a-dub. I drank white rum with the locals. They toasted the return of "White Chocolate'. We grooved to Lee Perry's ZION BLOOD. I was ready for a long night at the Rooftop Club, when Clark walked through the door. One look at Darryl and me rubadubbing and he strode up to us to say, "We have to go. The others are expecting us back at the hotel for dinner."

"I'm cool here."

"Then you can stay here alone." Clark snarled and Darryl shrugged surrender. I muttered under my breath, following them to Dave's van.

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Back at the restaurant Bernadette asked me to order wine.

"Why me?"

"Because you lived in France."

I read the wine list and choose the most expensive wines, figuring them cheap at 8 Jamaican Dollars to the US Greenback.

At the end of the meal Darryl sidled up to me and asked, "You mind if I come to your room. You can finish your massage.

Everyone at the table was surprised by her request.

None more than Clark.

In my room I tried to tidy up the bed.

"No worries. I live in squalor back in LA." She stripped off her shirt and lay face-down on the bed with my journal in her hand. "Is this your poetry?"

"Yes." I kneaded her shoulders. The tropical breeze was soft.

"On a heel I turned to the hell of here."

That was the only line she read of my hitchhiking poem.

Clark burst into the room.

"We have to clean the cameras."

"Darryl was a good actress and read this moment as her time to 'stage left'.

Once she was gone Clark was livid.

"You tell me to chill my jets so you can zoom into my place. Thanks a lot. By the way the price of wine was in US Dollars, not Jamaican.

"Opps."

He slammed the door shut and I totaled the bill. The sum was the price of a second-class ticket to Paris.

"Fuck Life Magazine."

I went down to the bar.

I was the only one there.

I asked the bartender to put on some deep reggae.

WINEY WINEY by the Kingstonians, SLAVING by Lloyd Parks, and dropping to the early 70s.

Each of the three rum and cokes tasted better than the last and I staggered to my room around midnight.

In my room I crashed into bed like a 747 running out of fuel.

I dreamed about Darryl and me on the road. She was a good travel companion.

A hand touched my shoulder.

I opened my eyes.

"Darryl?"

It was not her, but a shimmering woman, who moaned in pain. I tried to speak to her in English, French and German. Her speech was indecipherable and I said, "Listen lady, I'm too drunk to deal with this now."

I closed my eyes and the ghost was gone.

The next morning the sea was calm. I went for a swim. The sea was warm. The sun was hot on my skin. By evening I would be in winter.

Dave waited by the van. Clark was packing the bags into the back. I threw mine in the front.

"You ready to go?" He acted like nothing had happened last night.

"I guess I am." I turned to Dave. "I saw the ghost."

"What she say?"

"Don't know. What about Darryl?"

"She left with the rest of them. It's just you and me." Clark slapped my shoulder to show there was no hard feeling.

At the airport I slipped Dave $40.

"Thanks, White Chocolate."

"And you tell the old lady I said good-bye."

"She'll like that."

The prop plane took off and I spotted Trident Villas under the wing.

No one was in the water. Everyone was around the pool.

It was snowing back in New York.

Clark paid my wages and gave me a bonus.

"You did a good job."

"Thanks."

A month later Darryl graced the cover on LIFE.

I had never stood a chance with her, but neither had Clark.

But I had been close.

In February I went back to Paris and remained a failed poet, which suited me just fine, because poets knew their place in the world and the City of Light was made for people like White Chocolate.

Me too.

Toujours.

fotos by Peter Nolan Smith and Dustin Pittman