Drunker than Mud

Humans like their drink.

They like it a lot.

But not as much as polar bears.

They love a cold beer or forty in the summer time.

Public Knowledge

Several years ago the beach resort of Pattaya announced plans to place public urinals along the Beach Road to better serve the nearly five million tourists expected that high season. Most sunbathers piss in the sea and beer drinkers relieved themselves in the bars along the busy road. Everyone else has to hold their water until the city actually follows through the the Mayor's plans.

I bet the chances of hong-nams being financed very good, but the money will disappear before a single WC can be built.

Paris was famous for its green pissoirs. Over 1200 were in service during the 30s. These vespasiennes were replaced by more profitable pay toilets. Only one pissoir on Boulevard Arago survived the 20th Century. I haven't ever used the new ones.

Not everyone is in favor of public toilets.

Gabriel Chevallier's 1934 book CLOCHEMERLE satirized the attempts of a small village to erect a urinal next to the Catholic Church.

In the end no one is happy with the new arrangement and those in need resorted to the nocturnal tradition of pissing against the church. The novel made the town of Vaux-en-Beaujolais famous.

In 1984 New York closed its subway toilets. The bathroom were homosexual dens of iniquity known throughout the gay community as tea rooms. The city has been discussing designs for a street toilet ever since without any installations on the sidewalks. Public urination remains a crime on the police books and I have avoided citation by holding my telephone to my ears as I violated the city statute.

The most famous urinal in history in Marcel Duchamp's 1917 Fountain signed R. Mutt.

My favorite urinals are those in PJ Clarke's bar.

Big and comfortable.

Works of functional art.

For as long as the bars remain open.

So good luck Pattaya.

Until then I will pee in the sea.

20 million Europeans do the same in the Mediterranean every July morning in the South of France.

It's only natural.

God's WC

A drunk staggers into a Catholic Church, enters a confessional booth, sits down, but says nothing. The Priest coughs a few times to get his attention, but the drunk continues to sit there. Finally, the Priest pounds three times on the wall. The drunk mumbles, "Ain't no use knockin, there's no paper on this side either.

Staying In The Cage

Back in the 1970s East 10th Street between 1st and 2nd Streets was what the locals called a 'hot' street. Drugs of every kind were sold at the Blue Door. The Green Door was a brothel servicing old Puerto Ricans. Street dealers conducted their business on the sidewalk with impunity. The police were on the take. I avoided walking down that block. Shootings and rip-offs were common and threatening junkies provided an annoying gauntlet for pedestrians seeking a short-cut rather than skirt the danger zone.

My old neighborhood of Fort Greene had been equally dangerous back in 'the day', but a wholesale exodus of white professionals had transformed the area into a desirable quartier for exiles from Manhattan. Muggings and robberies were rare, but I detoureds from the block between Lafayette and Fulton same as I had East 10th Street, although this time because of a cigar store on the southside of the street.

I hate the smell of the cigars and there was something not right about the middle-aged Wasta cigarsmoker running the den of nicotine. He nodded to me on several occasions and finally I told him, "You don't know me and I don't know you. Let's act like that's the case and life will be good."

He was surprised by my aggressive rejection, however my 6th sense about good and bad remain remained keen despite my age.

One morning around 9:30 my landlord AP received a phone call about his double-parked car. His Audi station wagon was blocking the Wasta's motorcycle access to the street. AP said that he'd move the car and like a good neighbor walked down to pull out, so the Wasta could hit the street, only when he arrived at the spot, the wasta was nowhere in sight. AP beeped his horn and the wasta strutted from his house to confront AP.

"What are you doing blocking my bike?" The Wasta is a wiry 6-1 and imagined himself a tough guy.

"I'm here to do you a favor." A line of cars were double-parked awaiting the passage of the alternate side of the street enforcement at noon. "I'll move out and then go back into my space."

"You don't have any consideration for this neighborhood." The Wasta worked late at the cigar shop. Rumor has it that his work had nothing to do with cigars.

"I have plenty of consideration, otherwise I wouldn't have put my number inside the car." AP was a good family man, but he's also a New Yorker. Backing down wasn't in his make-up.

The two of them jawed without escalation and he reported the confrontation to our mutual friend, Mumbles.

"Where was your upstairs tenant?" Mumbles meant me.

"I thought it was better to leave James Steele in his cage." AP was a good friend and knew how easily my blood got hot.

Of course when AP later recounted this altercation to me, I seethed with anger, but was also glad that he had the presence of mind to keep me out of it.

"No sense in making a big deal out of it."

"Yeah."

"Better to keep me calm."

Better for all parties concerned, because at my age I can't play tough.

Playing is for kids and I liked playing with my son Fenway too much as it is.

Peace and love.

That's the new me.

ps I have nothing against cigars.

As Freud said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Other times it's phallic nuisance.

The End of NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD by Peter Nolan Smith (unpublished)

PAGE 291

Their lovemaking lasted until midnight. They showered together and packed their bags. They didn't have much. Vanessa locked the door to her friend's bungalow. She sat in the passenger seat and Sean got behind the wheel on the Lemans. They bought coffee at a 7/11 on Ventura Boulevard. Sean restarted the engine.

"You ready to go?"

Vanessa nodded with a shrug.

There wasn't anything left for them in North North Hollywood.

After leaving LA at Pomona they headed east on I-10. Sean pulled onto I-15 at Ontario and crossed the California stateline into Arizona at dawn.

Happy World Poetry Day

Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work. The poet Richard Wilbur asserted, She wrote some of the best sonnets of the century.

"My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light!"

Millay died at her home on October 19, 1950. She had fallen down stairs and was found approximately eight hours after her death. Her physician reported that she had suffered a heart attack following a coronary occlusion. She was 58 years old. She is buried alongside her husband at Steepletop, Austerlitz, New York.

From Wilipedia

Spring 2010 - BET ON CRAZY NYC

JoJo, the security guard at the diamond exchange, was a betting man. He gambled the left-overs from his monthly NYPD pension on baseball, basketball, and football. His losses outweighed his wins. JoJo also wagered on odd parlays and on March 1st in 2010 I said that there wouldn't be another snowstorm. Two days ago the city had been buried by a blizzard. It was raining outside on West 47th Street.

A hard rain.

The sleety wind peeled ferules from cheap umbrellas like bananas. The piles of snow were slush in the gutter.

"It ain't gonna snow." The big Pole/Mick was a native of the Bronx. The weather was colder up in that northern borough than Manhattan and the retired cop was certain of his prediction.

"I say that we get one more dusting." I was counting on 'global weirding'. The last decade had seen three snows in April, TS Eliot' 'cruelest month of all. March offered an even better chance for a blizzard.

"Dusting is bullshit. It snowed a little last year." JoJo was a knowledgeable gambler.

"Okay, 2 to 1 odds that New York gets another four inches of snow before the end of April."

"In Central Park." JoJo was fixing the wager. Manhattan is 5 degrees warmer than the outer boroughs thanks to a micro-climate created by concrete, steel, and carbon emissions along with the body temperatures of fat people. JoJo had lost fifteen pounds in the last month by ending a BId Lite drinking binge.

"Okay." I had a good hunch. Cops like hunches too. His was a sure thing. Mine was more a feeling and I started singing the Arrowsmith hit MORE THAN A FEELING.

"Hey, no fair." JoJo was a rock fan. Red Sox too. "Keep that Boston stuff out of the bet. This is New York."

We grasped hands. A bet was a bet. JoJo went downstairs to the vault. It was lunch time. Manny my boss shook his head.

"What?"

"That was a stupid bet." Manny had lost every wager on the Superbowl since 1967 or so he told his son, Richie Boy, who always bet the toher way. We all did. Manny was an expert at stupid bets.

"It's only ten dollars. Plus you never know."

Like the lottery you can't win unless you play.

"No way it'll snow in the next two months." Manny returned to his paperwork. A purgatory of bills and invoices. I pulled out the job box. Not a single envelope was from my sales. Money was tight same as last year. There was no recovery for the middle-class from the 2008 bank collapse, although Manny's son was selling fast and furious to his rich friends. Their sins had been forgiven by the Fed buy forcing the peopple to pay off their losses.

March passed with the temperature rising every day. On March 14 the thermometer hit 70. I studied the meteorological map of the USA. Snow in the Rockies. Canada nothing. The Red River was cresting with ice floes in the Dakotas. The trees in Fort Greene Park showed red buds on the equinox. The planet was on an even keel. I wore shorts. This weather is no good.

"Looks like I've lose my bet," I said at the breakfast table to AP, my landlord.

"It was a stupid bet." He had won a bet on St. Patrick's Day for when our party of four would see a green plastic hat. $5 from each of his three friends. Another $5 for one plastic har worn by a female.

"It might snow in April." His wife was from San Diego. Coronado Beach had never experienced a snowfall.

"Thanks for the optimism." Snow crowned the thrones of the mountains east of San Diego. I was positive too. Ten more days of March and another 30 in April. The odds are heavily in JoJo's favor, then again he had bet that the Red Sox would sweep the Yankees in 2004. $100. He was right the first three games of the playoffs and dead wrong the last four games. That was a bet I loved seeing him lose. The Curse of the Bambino no more in 2004. My snow bet was a goof, but neither of us were welshers and $10 will buy three beers in the East Village bar on May 1.

They will taste good.

Win or lose.

AUGUST 13, 1978 - JOURNAL ENTRY - EAST VILLAGE

Last night while we lay naked in bed, Alice requested to have her hands to be bound behind her back. I found a ten-foot cord and forced her onto her belly. She stretched her arms back and I looped the rope around her wrists. I entered her with a steely hardness and we fucked for thirty minutes. Neither of us came and she asked, if she could masturbate.

"Yes, slave."

"But you can't watch."

"You want me to take off the rope?"

"No, I can reach me." Alice had been a gymnast in high school. She could tied her body in knots and always said that if she failed as an actress that she could make it in the carnival as a contortionist.

I believed her and went into the living room, listening as her whimpers became moans.

I sat on the sofa feeling like a Wehrmacht soldier trapped in Stalingrad; no more bullets and nowhere to run, but to death.

This morning I did a wash-dry at the local laudromat on 1st Avenue.

I can't believe I'm writing something so banal, but most of life is banal and in most cases that is a good thing. Mark Amitin's theater venture fell apart on the road. I still have no money, no job, and no future. rent is due in less than two weeks. TS Eliot wrote that 'April is the cruelest month of all'. The poet had never spent an August in New York. Everyone is going on vacation. Only the dead, dying, and desperate remain in the city

Highways carry metal semi-trailers, 1967 Buicks and 1970s GTOs. Hector hitches Indiana-bound The army private is AWOL from Fort Dix. The conscript buzz-cut betrays his rank. The grunt's ironed khakis are government issue. His tee-shirt pressed creaseless. "Damn, it's so strange in boot camp, But it's only another two hundred miles to home.

In the 1960s and early 1970s army deserters dotted the interstate's shoulders either heading to Canada or into hiding at a hippie commune.

"Ain't no way I'm going back to Vietnam. Let the general fight with the blacks."

Afro-Americans constituted a high percentage of combat troops and casualties through the Long War. My draft number was 91. I avoided service by attending college thanks to a $10,000 grant to avoid shooting at strangers and Viet Cong shooting at me in villages foreign to teenagers on the South Shore. I started as a Math major, failed two subjects, but remained at BC. I saw no jungles or rie paddies. I heard no bullets whizzing past me or thudding into fellow soldiers. I studied THE MYSTERIES OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST. A Boy Scout uniform was the only one I have worn other than an altar boy's cassock and surplice forever faithful to atheism.

Alice lies on the futon, complaining about being nothing. She is in a rush to be an actress and their clock ticks fast. Still being nothing is better than being a bullet-riddled corpses in Vietnam, although the only fighting in Indochina is between the Khmer Rouge and the PAVN (People's Army of Vietnam). I have guilt about not fighting for my country. Not much, but some.

Alice looks out the window of the back bedroom.

"It's raining."

"What else is new?" After a heat wave the city has been deluged by rain for the past eight days. My kitchen faucet also drips endlessly.

Rain - the life-giver of water The Johnstown Flood 1889 The Little Conemaugh River The South Branch dam failure The flood washed away the helpless Like the mighty Mississippi through a valley. Forty days and forty night. No, just one torrential night And the next day Johnstown was gone.

AUGUST 13, 2021 - JOURNAL ENTRY - CLINTON HILL

About fifteen years ago in Pattaya, Thailand I learned that I had somehow transitioned to 'Vanilla' status by a visit to an S&M parlor. Nik, an English friend wanted to pay me back for a favor and suggested we go the THE CASTLE. MY wife was curious about how the club's goings-on and gave me permission for bad boys night out. 'The Castle' sas right across the street from our regular THE BUFFALO BAR. We told the girls there about our intended destination and they joked how we were going to be whipped like 'Kwaii.' or a stupid buffalo. The bouncers yelled we were 'sadique' and Nik asked me at the door, "Are you top or bottom?"

I don't know. I guess top."

"Me too, but I might try some bottom as a test." I wouldn't have expected any else from an Englishman. "Remember this is all on me."

The black-clad mama-san gave us a list. Top and bottom fantasies.

"Yeah, I'll do that and that. What about you?"

"Nothing really strikes my fancy."

Nik and the old lady read through the menu.

"No, no, definitely no."

The dominatrix and slaves enacted rough sex routines. I shook my head in disappointment. "Mai mee faaen-dah-see."

"Good enough for me," said Nik and two slender sadistic witches dragged him into a back room. The lash of a whip. Scream. "More."

After an hour Nik emerged chastened by the experience and said, "Damn, that was something, but I don't think I'll go bottom again. Are you sure you want nothing?"

"Nope, I'm vanilla."

When I was in the hospital I didn't look at any porno online or have a asexual fantasy. My libido had to be damaged along with my body by my years of excessive drinking, but I thankfully don't have any DTs. My roommate at NYU was a black lineman. I had overheard him tell the doctor that he had fallen in the street. Both of us so strong and now invalid. The doctor says I'll get better, but it will be a fight.

And I didn't forty-two years ago.

PS THE CASTLE is still open 24/7. Muang Pattaya, Thailand Hours: Opens at 6PM - Closes at 3AM Phone: +66 91 052 2671

Hand Bondage Foto by Joana Kruse

THE IDES OF MARCH

Julius Caesar returned from the Conquest of Gaul loaded with plunder i.e. gold and slaves. He paid off the debt of every Roman, thereby freeing the hoi polloi from the tyranny of the upper classes. The Senators feared the Dictator perpetu's rising popularity and accused Caesar of seeking the title of King.

Caesar rejected their claim, stating, "Non sum Rex, sed Caesar" or "I am not King, I am Caesar."

The conspirators plotted to assassinate Caesar on the Ides of March, the traditional day on which Romans paid their debts. They chose the Senate for the location, since only senators were allowed within its chambers. The haruspex Spurinna had warned Caesar that his life was in danger up to the Ides of March. He ignored the seer and on March 1 Caesar studied Cassius with Brutus at the senate house and said to an aide, "What do you think Cassius is up to? I don't like him, he looks pale."

More guilty than pale.

The fix was in.

On the morning of the Ides, Caesar's wife told her husband about a horrible dream and asked hm to stay home. He agreed, however Decimus, a trusted general, came to his house and said, "What do you say, Caesar? Will someone of your stature pay attention to a woman's dreams and the omens of foolish men?"

Caesar was a fearless warrior and walked to the Senate. Seeing Spurinna, Caesar joked, "Well, the Ides of March have come!"

"Aye, the Ides have come," said Spurinna, "but they are not yet gone."

Mark Antony tried to stop the plot, but arrived at the Senate too late.

Dozens of knives slashed at Caesar. He bled to death. A victim of collective greed.

"Et tu, Brutus."

Rules of the Game

A decade ago the bishops of the American Catholic Church urged congressmen to vote no on the health reform bill. These churchmen had offered the issue of publicly-funded abortion as the basis of their objection. The nuns in charge of the schools and hospitals broken ranks with their male counterparts to voice support of the Obama measure. This schism has been long coming as the nuns have witnessed the widening scandal of sexual abuse of minors by priests throughout the Americas and Europe. Rome has sheltered the offenders from legal prosecution, as if fucking young boys was a holy sacrament of birth control. The sacrament of pedastry. Earl Butz, the Nixon appointee as Secrertary of Agriculture, had pointed out the Church's hypocrisy at the 1974 World Hunger Congress, when the prime promoter of King Corn had refuted the pope's objection to birth control by saying, "He no playa the game, he no maka the rules." The GOP bureaucrat apologized to Catholics, but two years later was overheard responding to singer Pat Boone's question about why the Republicans had so few blacks in their ranks. Earl Butz was quick on his feet. "I'll tell you what the coloreds want. It's three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit." "Loose shoes?" I liked tight pussy and a warm place to shit, but my affinity for tight shoes prevented my designation as 'colored'. That and my parents being white. The public outrage over this statement ended Butz's political career. One could only have hoped that the Catholic Church's comments on the Obama health reform will lead to the total ban on this criminal man/boy love organization. "He no playa the game, he no maka the rules." Earl was not always wrong.

White Men Redux

The 15th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed the civil equality to black ex-slaves and the GOP has promised to honor their privilege, but the Republicans remain true to the immortal words of Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture, who explained why the party of Lincoln was short on blacks.

“I’ll tell you what the coloreds want. It’s three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit.”

Earl Butz led into that comment by telling the following joke to White House Counsel John Dean and the singer Pat Boone on a flight from the Republican Convention.

"After a horrible forest fire, a baby duck and skunk orphan start a conversation.. all of a sudden, the duck asks the skunk what he looks like. the skunk replies “well, you have webbed feet, feathers, and a bill,…you’re a duck”…the skunk then asks the duck what he looks like,..the duck replies, “well, you’re white, you’re black, and you smell,..guess you’re a Puerto Rican”

White men were angered by Earl Butz’ forced resignation. Insulting the Pope about contraception and telling race jokes in mixed company were protected by the First Amendment or the Freedom of Speech.

Of course being white I never really hear too many white jokes, so a googled ‘fat white guy jokes'. The search came up blank, but I scored big time with ‘white man’ jokes.

Such as;

How do you stop five white guys from raping a white woman? Throw them a golf ball.
How many white girls does it take to screw in a light? None, white girls can’t screw
How many white men does it take to screw in a light bulb? One, white men will screw anything.
What do you call a bunch of white guys sitting on a bench? The NBA
What does a white man do at the club? Pout while all the colored folk are bumpin’ and grindin’ with all of his fine white bitches.
What’s the difference between a white whore and a bitch? The white whore would screw everybody in the room and the bitch would fuck everyone but you.
What’s the flattest surface to iron your jeans on? A white girl’s ass!
Why can't white men jump? They were too busy making racist jokes.
Why did white people own slaves? They were not strong enough to pick cotton – weak bastards.
And lastly what’s 12 inches long and white? Nothing.

That’s bullshit, because the proper response was, is, and will be John ‘Wadd’ Holmes, who was the champion of white cock. The blonde porn legend Seka had sworn that Wadd was the biggest in the industry. His manager had measured a fully-erect penis as 13.5 inches, although many actresses akinned his semi-erect penis to “doing it with a big, soft kind of loofah.”

Is nothing scared?

Only the GOP knows that answer.

MACAM KUMBANG by Peter Nolan Smith

In 1990 I got off the train from Surabaya a little past dawn and headed over to the port of Jakarta to catch the noon ferry to Sumatra. The inter-island ship was a big liner and I was looking forward to a cruise through the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean.

As I neared the dock, a man of indeterminable race approached with a smile. His greeting was in Hebrew to which I responded in Yiddish thanks to my reading the books of Isaac B. Singer.

Sholem Aleykhem." I readjusted the bag on my shoulder. I was traveling light, but also carried a small electric word processor.

"Are you Jewish?" asked the portly man in his thirties.

"No, but I'm the shabbos goy." I had spent the previous year on 47th Street schlepping diamonds between the Ashkenazi and the Hasidim. My commish from the sale of a 5-carat FSI1 diamond bought a round-the-world ticket from Pan Express Travel. Mostly by planes. The Bali to Singapore was by sea and land. My next destination was the West Coast of Sumatra.

"Then you're the closest thing to a Jew in this city." Jakarta was 99% Muslim and this was Ramadan. Not a single food stall was on the pier.

"I like pastrami and don't mix dairy with meat." The Javanese weren't too friendly to Christians and the imams reserved a special vitriol for non-believers like myself. "Some of my best friends are Jewish."

"And I'll be your newest." David Mussery introduced himself as a Syrian Jew running a nightclub called the Pink Panther. "Where are you going?"

"Padang by ferry."

"Have you bought your ticket yet?"

"No."

"I'll send my servant over to the ticket office, while you visit my club. Drinks are free for a Landsmann. It's a fun place. Girls and sailors." "What about Ramadan?" "There is no religion inside the Pink Panther, where Gods fear to enter "

"Sounds irresistable." I liked bars like his. "But I don't want to miss the ferry. There isn't another for three days."

"No worries." He checked his Rolex watch. Business at his bar was either good or the watch was a fake. "I'll get you on the boat."

"Okay, I'll check it out."

"Great, you won't regret it." David grabbed my bag and motioned to follow him down a muddy street.

Jalan Macam Kumbang.

"Macam Kumbang means Panther in Bahasa Indonesian. Are you a journalist?" He pointed to my typewriter.

"No, I'm writing a novel about pornography in LA." I noticed that the sailors on the sidewalk were drinking tuak, a cheap sweet palm wine in violation of Ramadan prohibition of eating or drinksbg anything between dawn and dusk. Their eyes were glazed from the morning's drinking session.

"Shouldn't you be writing that in LA?" It was a logical question.

"Probably, but I wanted to see the world."

"Well, you've come to the right place." David held open the pink door to his bar. "This is the crossroads of the world."

It was barely 8am, but his rundown establishment was filled with sailors from Malaysia, the Philippines, Indian, Africa, and Europe and they were drinking with an assortment of Indonesian women ranging in age from young to very old. The music crackling from the jukebox speakers was loud garage Indonesian rock.

"Dara Puspita doing TANKA AKU. Those girls were big in the 60s."

Several girls danced to the song. Their partners were doing the Twist. Most everyone rank a Bintang Beer, although several Bugis sailors chugged brown liquor from small glasses.

"Palm Whiskey. 40 degree in strength," David explained in a hushed voice. "My customers think it's whiskey."

"After a few I guess they don't care what it is." I sat at the bar and a wrinkled woman chewing betel poured David and me a 'whiskey'. Glancing at its effect on the sailors, I hesitated clinking glasses with my host.

"I know what you're thinking." David laughed aloud. "You meet a strange man in Jakarta and you're thinking I'll slip you a sleeping pill and get robbed."

"The thought crossed my mind." My version had me shanghaied to Sulawesi on a sea pirate prahu.

"I've been running the Pink Panther since 1974. It had been my uncle's place back then. He left it to me. I was the only one who didn't leave for Israel. I went once and came right back. Here I'm me. Back there I was one Jew among millions."

"And you have no trouble with the Muslims." Drinking and dancing were not condoned by strict Islamists.

"As long as I don't throw it in their face, everyone loves the Pink Panther. It's someplace you can come and not be yourself." He raised his glass. "It's good for you."

"Sie gesund." I toasted him and downed my glass. It wasn't bad and I ordered two more. David signaled for a waiter and ordered him to get a second-class ticket to Padang. I handed the man 40,000 rupiah. It was more than a month's wages on Java.

The jukebox switched to the same band performing A GO GO.

I started moving to the music. I like this place. It was rough on the edges and even rougher in the corners. A scary-looking tranny asked me to dance. David waved away the banci.

"Some things are always tref." He snapped his finger and a beautiful young girl emerged from the dance floor. She could have been Miss Teen Indonesia 1990. "Her name is Sandy. She's from Madura. They have a special way about them with men."

In the dim light Sandy looked about 16. She put an arm around my waist and stroked my thigh.
"Sorry, she doesn't speak any English. She's new to the scene." He smiled upon seeing my expression. "Don't look so surprised. Eveything goes at the Pink Panther. So where are you from?"

I didn't tell him Boston, but said New York and added, "I work selling diamonds for an old friend. Manny lets me work six months of the year and the rest I write."

"Diamonds? Maybe I should have slipped you something." David lifted his hands. "Just kidding."

A Javanese version of LOUIE LOUIE dropped onto the jukebox record player. Sandy pulled me onto the dance floor. She was a good dancer and loved a singer called Adnan Othman. When I came back to the bar, David handed me a 2nd class ticket. "My man says no one is in your cabin, so it will be like 1st class."

"Terima kasih."

"So you speak ein bissen Bahasa?"

"Enough to keep from starving." I signaled to the bartender. "Tiga bintang."

"Make it two beers. Sandy doesn't drink. She's a good Muslim girl. Still a virgin too."

"Are there any virgins in here?"

"Just Sandy. She's a friend's daughter. She makes her money from tips. Nothing else. But you can always think about it. That's free."

I spent the next two hours dancing and drinking with David. We discussed Palestine.

"They'll never be peace there, until Israel accepts that it stole the land."

"They'll never do that."

"They'll never say it, but they will think it."

"Thinking it is not as good as saying it." I knew, because I really wanted to kiss Sandy.

"Thinking it is the first step, but we're thousands of miles from Jerusalem. Here's to Peace on Earth."

I bought the bar a round. It cost me $20US. We drank to Meraka or Freedom.

"I love this place, because it has everyone from everywhere. We are all human. If only everyone knew that, the world would be a better place for everyone."

I drank to that and several more of his comments.

A little before noon he tapped his watch.

"Time to go, unless you want to stay." He offered me a job with very little pay. "A sheygutz like you could make a fortune."

"Money and I are distant cousins." I was counting on getting rich in my next life.

"I could teach you the ways of my tribe." David was lonely. I had lived in Hamburg during the winter of 1982. Everyone was a German, but me. I also knew loneliness, but I had a ticket for a ferry.

David accompanied to the port with Sandy. They bid me Selamat Jalaan with their hearts. Sandy cried on cue. I tipped her $20. David asked me to call him, if I passed through town again and the following year I swung by the Pink Panther.

Nothing had changed in the bar.

He was a good Jew, I was a good sheygutz, and Sandy was more indah than ever.

Both are a state of mind.

The Loss of Caul's Vision

On March 4, 2020 after a simple breakfast David, my guide, and I left Kibo Hut on Kilimanjaro to descend to Hurumbo Hut. I turned often to eye Africa's tallest mountain rimmed by hoarfrost. Near a grouping of old volcanic rocks David said, "We can get the Internet here. Maybe even a phone home."

I tried to contect my wives in Thailand without successs and read the Guardian online, while David spoke to his family in Chagga. The Guardian reported how the Coruna Virus was scourging Wuhan, China, Italy, and Iran. The world was a much different place than the one we left eight days ago.

David finished his call and asked, "You know about Covid?"

"Just what I've been reading over the last days."

"And what do you think?" David like many of the guides and porters trusted my eye on the weather.

"That we are in for a hard time, but not today."

Pendaeli, the Park ranger, greeted my arrival at Hurumbo with a broad smile. Basketball tied us tight. He was Lakers. I was Celtics. That night at dinner he whispered, "What do you think about Covids?"

I had been born with the placenta wrapped around my head. The phenomena affected one of 87000 births and the Celts believed the Caul granted the newborn with the gift of sight of the past, present, and future, but I admitted to Pendaeli, "I see nothing."

I hadn't foreseen the death of my longtime friend Dr. Bertoni.

Nor my getting Covid in March.

Nor the closure of the City That Never Slept.

All day I heard the sirens of ambulances speeding the sick to Brooklyn Hospital.

Death and illness.

No laughing matter as the world shrunk day by day, but I hadn't been so sick thanks to my Neanderthal heritage and O blood and Charlotta's D3 treatment.

I stayed home alone.

I spoke to the walls.

They spoke back in languages I refuse to decipher, but I understood they said, "Don't go outside."

I didn't listen.

I was a man of the world trapped in the USA.

I visited Guadacanal, an old punk friend, across the Hudson and saw the wonders of Jersey City. The guitarist never left his house and communicated with his wife in Kansas City and the squirrels in his back yard. He was leaving for the fly-over in the next month.

I wished I could click my heels to be transported over Kansas to Thailand to see my children and grandchildren.

The gift of the Caul was my only power and I remained trapped in Brooklyn.

FDTrump's HQ was on Broadway.

Fatso refused to believe in the pandemic.

Thousands of people died in New York City during May.

Then the ambulances stopped coming in June.

My downstairs neighbor Brigette and I became friends.

Her BF Jacob too.

We traveled to the Catskills.

I lost three more friends.

The numbers were mounting and FDTrump offered voodoo medicine as a cure.

I hate him more and more.

No one visited his Bushwick HQ.

There was no way he would win Brooklyn in 2020.

I wandered a little farther from the 'Hood.

Maine and New Hampshire.