STARTING ANEW by Peter Nolan Smith

Someone once told me that how you spend the first day of the year depends how you will spend the rest of the year.

January 1, 2009 I awoke with a hang-over and thought about heading over to the 10th Street Bath to sweat out the poisons of December 31, 2008. Recovery seemed the perfect tone for the new year, except I rolled over on my side and fell back to sleep. Lethargy ruled the day. I read THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE CIA until 3pm and then dressed for a late lunch on West 90th Street.

It was at an Episcopal church. The pastor was a woman in her 40s. I had been invited by her cousin, an actress from Quebec. My hang-over dissipated with the second glass of wine and my body was replenished by ham and lentils. The conversation was entertaining and by 7pm I felt almost human.

This was my New Years.

Friends, fine food, and wine.

I left the soiree early and took the Lexington Avenue south toward Union Square.

At 59th Street a large crowd got on the train. Most of them were young. Two Brazilian young men spoke with six well-dressed black women. They were laughing, as if they had spent a good first day of the year, then the taller Brazilian backed away from the women with a raised right hand. He was giving them the finger.

"Putas. In my country I could kill you for rejecting me and the police would give me a medal." He was drunk, but several newspapers had reported on the noblisse oblige the police accord macho behavior. Only this wasn't Brazil and I told him, "Boyo, soy tranquilo. No one wants any trouble."

He muttered something under his breath and his friend sat next to him.

I got up and moved closer to the group. A young black man in a leather jacket next to me mumbled, "This ain't over."

The women lagued innocently, but the tall Brazilian got offense jumped from his seat to run down the train. Several feet before the girls he leaped in the air to kick at the women. This feat proved his undoing. He slipped and fell to the floor, but rose to his feet with something in his hand. The girls pushed him away. I tried to restrain him, but he cut my hand with the sharp object.

Badly.

My plans for the first day of the year changed with my kicking him in the stomach.

He went down and I made sure he stayed down. The black man and I pummeled him with fists and boots.

At the next stop the black man and I tossed the unconscious attacker from the train onto the platform. I taught him a few more lessons about manners. I threw off his friend onto his knees too, booting him in the face for not controlling his friend. The first one was in convulsions. THe second laid still.

I asked the women if they were okay.

Two were crying, but neither had been hit. One pointed at my hand. It was bleeding badly.

Before they could thank the black man and me, a squad of cops hustled onto the platform. They surveyed the two fallen men and questioned the women about the incident. I stuck my hand in my pocket to hide the blood. Thankfully none was on the floor.

"That guy attacked me." The prettiest one explained to a rookie policeman.

"And how they get laid out?" The cop looked in my direction. The woman's eyes met mine and she said, "I didn't see anything."

"And what about you?" The cop's query was directed to the black man and me.

"All I saw was that guy attack them. They did nothing to deserve it."

"Me too." The black man followed my lead.

"So you saw nothing?"

"Not a thing."

THe first Brazilian's tremors were lessening. I hoped I hadn't killed him.

The engineer announced that the train was leaving the platform. The cop knew something was wrong, but only because we might have done something right.

The doors slid shut and the train pulled out of the station. I turned around and thanked the black man. He shook my hand. It was sore as was my knee. At 56 I don't give a beating without some damage.

Our fellow passengers applauded our actions. I was a little ashamed by the intensity of the violence, however 2008 had been a tough year, but 2009 promised to be better, because at least I wasn't spending the first night of the year in jail, although for the next week I checked the New York Post without finding any mention of the incident.

I told no one about it.

I was a different man than in 2008, but not much.

Pacem.

A Personal Ban On New Year's Eve

Rain pounded the Brooklyn streets in sheets on the last night of 2018. Shannon and Charlotta traveled to a Fellini soiree on Park Slope. I had planned to spend the evening with Doctor Nepola, except on Sunday I discovered my old college friend invitation was for Christmas Eve.

"Opps."

Geoffery invited me to a Lesbian party in Bushwick.

"There might be ten people there."

"Food?"

"Pizza."

"I like pizza, but the only pizza in that neighborhood in Dominos. Drink?"

"Shots of Bourbon."

"Jack Daniels almost killed me in 1970." Foreign consprators had tried to the same to Cary Grant in NORTH BY NORTHWEST.

"It's a ten minute walk from my house. The B54 runs to my corner. That's your bus, right?"

"I'll think about it."

I hung up and popped the cork of a bottle of Frexenet sparkling wine. I liked how Spanish had Xs.

The dawn was breaking on Sri Racha and Wat Singh. I called my children in Thailand. I wished my wives 'Sawadee Pii Mai'.

My daughter was born on January 1. She was named after my mother.

I have loved her from the moment of conception.

Angie's fifteen.

I am lucky to have her in my life.

Same as my son Fenway.

Noy

Noy.

Flukster.

And crazy little Pen.

"You go out tonight?" asked Mem from the other side of the world.

Nu asked the same.

I told them the same thing.

"I'm staying home. Kin Khao Kundeo. Dim Kundeo. Mii Monsoon."

"I hated winter rain.

I phoned Ty Spaulding in Hawaii. We had met in the Himalayas in 1990. He was going to the movies in Honolulu.

I told him about the rain.

I wished it was snow.

I come from Maine.

When I was a young boy, winter was winter.

Not anymore, but no one now wants to hear about the then-before.

"Is it snowing." Ty wasn't a fan of snow.

"Not at all. Rain and lots of it. I'm not leaving the house."

""Harder than Oahu."

"Yes, and colder."

Ty loves his island.

So do I.

What was there not to love about Oahu?

It's New Year's Eve 2019.

The rain has let up.

A half million people awaited the dropping of the ball in Times Square.

I might have seen it once, maybe twice.

I remember being with the Prince of the Night.

Arthur Weinstein.

We were in the MTV control room two stories about Broadway.

A top executive sneered at the hoi polloi below him and Arthur said out the side of his mouth, "Without them you are nothing."

Only the executive and I heard those words.

The exec cringed with rejection.

Arthur's club THE WORLD was the best in the city. He knew cool better than anyone. The executive knew nothing but profit.

The rain stopped tonight.

Hundreds of thousands of people are stuck inside the police cordons.

There is no leaving for security reasons.

Drones float overhead. Cameras studied the crowd. No drinking allowed.

Yet at ten seconds to the new year and the masses count together.

"Five-four-three-two-one." The voices of the people.

Happy 2019.

One and all everywhere in the world.

And I am happy.

Because I am not wet.

Good night and sweet dreams."

December 19, 1978 - East Village - Journal

Alice left 256 early to catch a morning flight to West Virginia. We have lived at 256 East 10th since August. I carry her heavy blue bag down to the street corner. It's not too cold and she wore a long green Mormon dress, a distressed purple sweater, and her favorite high-heeled boots. I want her to stay with me, but said nothing. We barely speak and both of us succumbed to the pull of our old homes. She to Appalachia and me to the South Shore of Boston for the holidays.

She hailed a cab and a Checker stopped on the corner of Fitst Avenue. I threw her bag in the back. Neither of us said good-bye, as if there was nothing in this city was holding her. Not me. Not her career. The taxi disappeared into the traffic. We hadn't had sex since before she announced she was pregnant after the New Wave Vaudeville Show. These last weeks I had watched her weight gain. Some, but she had been eating like she had been rescued from starving on a deserted island.

After an hour I get a phone call from Jim Bottomly. He's driving up to Maine and can drop me at the Sturbridge entrance to the Mass Pike. A good place from which to hitchhike to Boston. Last night the temperature had been below freezing. The New York Times forecasts it will be bitter cold tomorrow, but it's only fifty five miles from Sturbridge to Boston. There is no mention of snow.

Later.

The Patriots announce that Chuck Fairbanks will be leaving the Patriots after the playoffs to coach at Colorado U. This move must have really charged the team for the playoffs. Why couldn't he have waited till after the New Year? Probably because the Press had the news and couldn't hold their sand.

Lately ruminating watching television, playing solitaire, and listening to the radio has a greater appeal than writing at the kitchen table. Claptrap no one wants to read.

Other than a stand-up piano and books on drama Alice left little trace. I smelled the pillow. She is too clean to leave a scent. I wonder if she is coming back. She might just go west to hit it big in Hollywood. Another young ingenue to the slaughterwhorehouse. No chance of being the sex symbol Hollywood wants in their grips, but I could go with her. I'll be just as broke there as here.

Standing at the rear window overlooking the alley, I reflect on the past year. I fell in love for the first time in my life, not counting Janet Stetson, Linda Imhoff, Hilde Hartnett and Ro Lohin. All of them ended up in disaster. Not Alice. Our one night stand, a menage a trois in a chilly swimming pool graduated to a weekend fling to a summertime affair ot living together. I rescued Alice from her hometown. Chemical City. She would have come here anyway. The bright lights of the big city dazzled her hillbilly heritage. She is gone, but I live with her and she lives with me with no end in sight.

Second achievement also tied to Alice. I moved from the SRO on West 11th Street to 256 10th Street. My grandmother once said, "Better a bad apartment with a good address than a good apartment with a bad address. My SRO was a single room with linoleum floor and a sagging bed. Off a 5th Avenue. But a dump. 256 is a cockroach-ridden tenement apartment in a neighborhood beset by a drug epidemic, but I didn't have a phone on 11th Street and now I can reach out to people, not that I have been able to find a good job.

I have worked at Serendipity 3 as a busboy, a waiter at an executive dining room on Wall Street, as a production assistant for an Edward Albee tour, and painted Alice's father's house in West Virginia. I haven't done much since summer and the new year promises more nothing.

Bad things.

Too few to mention.

Maybe a baby.

What is Christmas
Snow falling between the drifts,
The glow on holiday lights in the windows
Falling on the winter wonderland.
Presents, giving and receiving.
Friends, old and new,
Families
Together
Telling old stories and future dreams
We celebrate the birth of Jesus
The legend celebrated by Christians. I'm an aethist.

I beleive more in Santa Claus.
The New Testament claims the Son of God
Was
Born in Bethelhem
The Son of God to be crucified
On a cross for our sins.
None of my sins required a death sentence.
Christians see Jesus as a God
Muslims regard him a a messiah.
Nothing like a religious war
For Jesus and Christmas Day

Later

Grant and I discussed the fact that Americans are poorly read, rarely roaming from the curriculum prescribed by a Christian government and the churches ruling over our souls. We watch too much TV and eat too much potato chips. Where are the Renaissance men? Damn, I can't spell that word and I'm too lay to look it up the the dictionary.

2023 Renaissance.

Got it right on the second try.

December 18, 1978 - East Village - Journal Entry

Alice left the East Village to catch a flight to West Virginia. We have lived at 256 East 10th since August. I carry her heavy blue bag down to the street corner. It's not too cold and she wore a long green Mormon dress, a distressed purple sweater, and her favorite high-heeled boots. I want her to stay with me, but said nothing. We barely speak and both of us succumbed to the pull of our old homes. She to Appalachia and me to the South Shore of Boston for the holidays.

She hailed a cab and a Checker stopped on the corner of Fitst Avenue. I threw her bag in the back. Neither of us said good-bye, as if there was nothing in this city was holding her. Not me. Not her career. The taxi disappeared into the traffic. We hadn't had sex since before she announced she was pregnant after the New Wave Vaudeville Show. These last weeks I had watched her weight gain. Some, but she had been eating like she had been rescued from starving on a deserted island.

After an hour I get a phone call from Jim Bottomly. He's driving up to Maine and can drop me at the Sturbridge entrance to the Mass Pike. A good place from which to hitchhike to Boston. Last night the temperature had been below freezing. The New York Times forecasts it will be bitter cold tomorrow, but it's only fifty five miles from Sturbridge to Boston. There is no mention of snow.

Later.

The Patriots announce that Chuck Fairbanks will be leaving the Patriots after the playoffs to coach at Colorado U. This move must have really charged the team for the playoffs. Why couldn't he have waited till after the New Year? Probably because the Press had the news and couldn't hold their sand.

Lately ruminating watching television, playing solitaire, and listening to the radio has a greater appeal than writing at the kitchen table. Claptrap no one wants to read.

Other than a stand-up piano and books on drama Alice left little trace. I smelled the pillow. She is too clean to leave a scent. I wonder if she is coming back. She might just go west to hit it big in Hollywood. Another young ingenue to the slaughterwhorehouse. No chance of being the sex symbol Hollywood wants in their grips, but I could go with her. I'll be just as broke there as here.

Standing at the rear window overlooking the alley, I reflect on the past year. I fell in love for the first time in my life, not counting Janet Stetson, Linda Imhoff, Hilde Hartnett and Ro Lohin. All of them ended up in disaster. Not Alice. Our one night stand, a menage a trois in a chilly swimming pool graduated to a weekend fling to a summertime affair ot living together. I rescued Alice from her hometown. Chemical City. She would have come here anyway. The bright lights of the big city dazzled her hillbilly heritage. She is gone, but I live with her and she lives with me with no end in sight.

Second achievement also tied to Alice. I moved from the SRO on West 11th Street to 256 10th Street. My grandmother once said, "Better a bad apartment with a good address than a good apartment with a bad address. My SRO was a single room with linoleum floor and a sagging bed. Off a 5th Avenue. But a dump. 256 is a cockroach-ridden tenement apartment in a neighborhood beset by a drug epidemic, but I didn't have a phone on 11th Street and now I can reach out to people, not that I have been able to find a good job.

I have worked at Serendipity 3 as a busboy, a waiter at an executive dining room on Wall Street, as a production assistant for an Edward Albee tour, and painted Alice's father's house in West Virginia. I haven't done much since summer and the new year promises more nothing.

Bad things.

Too few to mention.

Maybe a baby.

What is Christmas
Snow falling between the drifts,
The glow on holiday lights in the windows
Falling on the winter wonderland.
Presents, giving and receiving.
Friends, old and new,
Families
Together
Telling old stories and future dreams
We celebrate the birth of Jesus
The legend celebrated by Christians. I'm an aethist.

I beleive more in Santa Claus.
The New Testament claims the Son of God
Was
Born in Bethelhem
The Son of God to be crucified
On a cross for our sins.
None of my sins required a death sentence.
Christians see Jesus as a God
Muslims regard him a a messiah.
Nothing like a religious war
For Jesus and Christmas Day

Later

Grant and I discussed the fact that Americans are poorly read, rarely roaming from the curriculum prescribed by a Christian government and the churches ruling over our souls. We watch too much TV and eat too much potato chips. Where are the Renaissance men? Damn, I can't spell that word and I'm too lay to look it up the the dictionary.

2023 Renaissance.

Got it right on the second try.

The Touch of Hands

A hand Five fingers The veined back and fleshy palm. Two hands Ten fingers A woman's hand

Mine are scarred Accidents and fights Only on my right hand.

A woman's hands Palms On my cheeks Soft and warm.

It's been years. Since a woman's touched Me. Eyes shut Soul open Bewitched by the palms Of a woman's two hands And the magic of a new memory. They last the longest.

Drawing by Egon Schiele

THE SEASON FOR GIVING by Peter Nolan Smith

Early on the morning of December 24, 1985 Vonelli, Lizzie and I entered the Gard Du Nord. We walked down the platform to our train. Our breath hung in the frosty winter air. Lizzie exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. The singer loved her Gaulloises.

"So tell me again why we are going le Ile de Wight?"

"To spend Christmas with Lord Ventnor."

"Will there be snow?"

I turned to Vonelli. The art dealer knew in island well.

"Probably not, but it will be cold."

"I hate the cold." Lizzie came from Lyon. Winters were winter there. She blew on her fingers and I held her hand. The tips of her fingers were frozen.

"It'll be cold, but not like New York."

She and I knew each other from that city. The petite Parisienne singer had been a hit on the punk scene. Richard Hell had been her 'friend'.