Lijiang 1995

In the summer of 1995 my baby brother, Michael Charles Smith, passed from this world and I voyaged around the world to pray at the holiest temples and shrines in Asia. I stayed briefly in LA, Honolulu, Bangkok, and Chiang Mai with Lhasa, Tibet as my ultimate destination. I was in no hurry.

In September I flew north from Lanna Thai to Kumming, the largest city inthe southernmost province of China.After a few days in that Yunnan city I traveled by bus from Dali to Lijiang.

A four-hour trip by bus.

Farmng villages dotted the roadless slopes of steep valleys. I was the only gwai-lo on the decrepit bus. A rice farmer opened a bottle of soda. The cap revealed a winning number. 5000 yuan. More than a thousand dollars.

I understood no Chinese, but two weasel-faced men befriended the wary peasant. They tried to get him off the bus, but the driver refused them to steal the villager's prize.

The bus driver was a good man.

We arrived in Lijiang at sunset. The city had been the capitol of the Naxhi people from the year 658 AD to 1107 AD serving as a southern Silk Road outpost for caravans from Burma, Yunnan, Tibet, and Persia. So far the old Baisha city had survived the urbanization wiping out ancient China and the centuries-old neighborhood has been declared a World Heritage site with good reason.

Stone buildings bordered the meandering streams and Naxhi music floated on the air, having been protected from the Cultural Revolution by the remoteness of Lijiang.

I picked a hotel on the outskirts of old city.

Chairman Mao hailed my arrival.

I was the only foreigner to salute the Chairman.

My hotel room on the the 4th floor room was simple. The bed was comfortable and the window offered a view of the Jade Dragon Mountain. Clouds covered the 5500-meter Himalayan peaks. The Naxi called the tallest Mount Shanzidou. In 1987 two American mountaineers had scaled its heights and said the climb was very dangerous.

I set up my typewriter on the desk, content to be far away from the awe-struck tourists on the Great Wall of China.

That night I turned on my Sony Worldband radio. The announcer reported that women from around the world were flocking to an international congress in Beijing for promote equal rights.

Hillary Clinton was scheduled to address the conference.

She was married to the president of the USA.

The BBC newsman said that the Chinese Authorities were at a loss as to how to handle these 'guests'.

There were thousands of them.

Demanding equality.

From men.

Naxhi women were hard workers. The traditional matrilineal family had been eradicated during the Cultural Revolution, however the dominant females retained the right to leave their wealth to women. Men were rarely seen working the fields.

Some tended to tourists in the old town.

At night they got drunk.

Beer was cheap in China.

I got drunk too.

Like I said beer was cheap in Lijiang.

Sadly the restaurants in Lijiang offered a very limited menu.

Noodles, noodles in a broth, scallion pancakes with noodles.

Plus a tasty Yunnan specialty.

狗 or gou or dog.

I had eaten dog in the Spice Islands. I ordered a plate. Backpackers regarded me with horror. Gou was a good change from noodles.

After dinner I attended a concert of Naxhi music. The Baisha Xiyue orchestra consisted of antique Chinese flute, shawm, Chinese lute, and zither.

The multi-tonal repertoire was hard on my ears and I left early to buy bootleg cassette tapes in the night market. I stopped at a stall run by Tibetans. The Buddhist nation bordered Yunnan.

After drinking a few beers at a candle-lit cafe I wandered through the darkness to my hotel. The night manager handed over the key to an ancient lady, who accompanied me to my room. I turned on the TV. A young woman was reading news. I didn't understand a word and sat at my typewriter. My fingers said nothing and I retired to bed and listened to Jeff Beck on A TRAIN KEPT ROLLING.

I fell asleep by the light of stars falling on my face.

I couldn't count how many cross the sky.

In the morning I walked down to the main square. A few backpackers were slurping down noodles. An old man ate dumplings. I signaled to the cook I wanted the same and wrote in my journal. The shuijiao were pork-filled and another welcome detour from noodles. The old man sat at my table and pointed to my block-script writing.

"English not beautiful."

He painted a Chinese character in my journal along with other characters and stamped a red print to the right.

"Love."

"Meili?"

He nodded and corrected by my annunciation.

I spoke all languages with a Boston accent.

Huang Fu was a calligrapher and invited me to his studio. He spoke good English.

"As a young man I go school for English. A lucky man," he laughed and explained his name meant 'Rich future'.

"Good joke. Father not see no one have fortune with Mao. My family not lucky. I # 1 son. Red Guard sent me camp. Almost die."

"Bad times."

"Yes, but they sent me here. Mao want kill all 'olds'. Here far from Beijing. We walk here. Red Guard beat us. We get house. Have food. Red Guard hate here. Hate Naxhi. Everyone hate them. We go back to old ways. I write. Come I show you."

His house was only a few minutes away. The walls of his studio were covered long rolls of Chinese characters. Writing implements crowded the tables. Two friends followed us inside. They told stories of exile. The same as Huang Fu. We drank tea and Huang Fu drew on paper.

"This tell story of Chinese victory over America in Korea."

He was proud of his nation's fighting MacArthur to a stalemate.

I told him about my Uncle Jack killing hundreds of PLA soldiers at the Chosin Reservoir.

"War not good."

We nodded in agreement, but I could tell that Huang Fu believed his country to be in the right, even if he was forced to live far from the center of the world and I thought about Ezra Pound's translation of Li Po's poem EXILE'S LETTER.

I went up to the court for examination, Tried Layu's luck, offered the Choyu song, And got no promotion, And went back to the East Mountains white-headed.

I loved that poem, even if Ezra Pound had lied about its origin. I was far from New York and understood the disappointment of Layu's failure.

For a good reason.

To pray for my brother in Tibet.

I gave Huang Fu a photo of me at the Statue of Liberty.

"Big lady," he laughed and said the same to his friends in Chinese. They laughed and he gave me the calligraphy poem of the USA defeat. I handed him 100 yuan. We shook hands weakly. No one in the Orient liked that Western habit.

At sunset I wandered down stone alleys to the hotel.

I spotted a Chinese motorcycle on the street.

It looked like a BMW.

Zhongdian was only six hours away and the road from the frontier town ran west to Tibet.

I asked the owner in sign language, if he wanted to sell the bike.

He shook his head.

I pulled out $1000US.

He shook his head again, signaling it was forbidden for foreigners to drive in China.

That night at the hotel I learned from two Frenchmen that the road between Lequn and Nyingchi was very dangerous.

"How dangerous?"

"Fatal."

Five years earlier I had survived a head-on crash with a pick-up in Northern Thailand. The driver had been at fault and the police had forced him to pay for the repairs to the motorcycle. I was lucky to escape with just a broken arm.

Even luckier in Bangkok.

Then again everyone is lucky in Bangkok until their luck or money runs out.

Bad roads buzzkilled good luck and I decided to stay in Lijiang a little longer.

The Frenchmen and I rode a bicycle up the valley to the foot of the Jade Snow Mountains

The locals said there was a ski slope there.

It was just a toboggan run and there was no snow.

We cruised leisurely down the broad valley through the rural villages. TV antennae were the only sign that this wasn't the 14th Century.

Same as 1450.

A Buddhist temple rested under trees.

The monastery had survived the Cultural Revolution.

A lone monk emerged from a garden. I explained my reason for traveling here. He blessed my late brother and asked in sign language where I was going.

"Tibet." I pointed west.

He picked up a smooth stone.

"Tibet." He said to take it to Lhasa.

I agreed with a smile.

It was on my way to the high Himalayan plateau.

Lhasa was not far away now and and my brother was coming with me.

He lived in eternity always.

We all do in the end.

May 22, 1978 - Journal

This afternoon after finishing the lunch shift at the Ebasco executive dining room high above the Trinity Church, I changed out of my white shirt and white jacket and black pants into my punk outfit. Juan and the rest of the Latino staff changed out of standard uniforms and shook their heads at my clothes. I am the only gringo in the dining room staff. They were friendly, but generally kept their distance, figuring me to be a spy for the engineers of the nuclear power plant division. The workers only speak in Spanish and the executives have mistaken me for a Spainard. The bosses talk about how to secure the nuclear plants in foreign countries around the globe.

"Best to create a zone of fire around the plant," said a senior broadmember.

"No warning shots. They take that as a weakness. Shooting to kill stops them dead."

One of the execs noticed my listening.

"What's the probelm?"

"Nada, senor."

I hated all of them. Vicious capitalists. I could poison them all, but I needed this job.I said nothing about the conversation to my co-workers. They had all heard various version from these murderers protecting their profits. We all needed this job, especially since my fellow employees were mostly illegal migrants. Thankfully they hid my gringoism from the bosses. The manager was German and like speaking his native language with me. I rarely understood hom, but nodded out 'genau' and 'exactly' worked as a response in any situation and any language.

In the subway I waited for the uptown 7. Its approaching rumble announced its impending arrival. An attractive pale raven-haired vixen in black leather sat on the bench. Skin and bones. No breasts under her laced vest. I suspect she is a dominatrix. She read Carlos Castenada's The Teachings of Don Juan. The book about shaminism was dog-eared, either from other readers or she read it so frequently that her fingers had tattered the pages.

Back in 1972 on a hitchhiking tour of the USA with a college friend, Peter Gorr, we met Diego Santos, a hispanic fakir in Haight-Ashbury, who claimed to understand eternity. Peter and I were both majoring in mathematics. I understood the power of zero better than eternity. Diego had reefer and offered us a place to crash, which was gratefully accepted since we only had a couple of hundred hundred dollars and still had to hitch up the coast before heading back from Seattle to Boston on I-90. That night after several hours of ranting Diego claimed to never sleep. Never. Two minutes later he nodded out. Peter and I were grateful for the silence and we left before the dawn to head up the coast.

I had never read The Teachings of Don Juan. So much for Shamanism. I didn't interrupt the vixen's reading. I know nothing of life. I am only a waiter for the lunch shift in an executive dining room overlooking New York harbor.

Presently I'm reading KEEP THE RIVER ON YOUR RIGHT by Tobias Schneebaum. A tale of cannibalism in the junlge of South America. The train stops at Christopher Street. The vixen and I get off. I follow her at a distance. She stops and turns around. I stop and she writes something on a piece of paper. I follow her out of the station down 7th Avenue in the opposite direction from my room at the Wesst 11th Street SRO. Her leather jeans. Tight. I imagine her naked. Then tragedy. Her boyfriend meets her. She looks at me, as I go by and turns to pass her the piece of paper. Her parting glance says at another date. Farther down the block I opened the paper. A number. A name. Sharon.

Later

Sitting in Yogurt Delight, where Kyle Davis works as a waitress. The boss has a camera on the cash register. I pay for my coffee and sit by the window, opening the Times to the Sports section. The Bruins beat the Canadiens 4-3 in overtime with a goal by Bobby Schmitz. Stanley Cup Finals tied 2-2. Could this be the year the Bruins beat the Candians? I get an erection thinking of Sharon. Not in a bed. At night. In a alley. I walk back to my room.

Mars the red planet is 30,000,000 miles from Earth, If one was to comunicate with someone there a radio signal traveling at 186,000 miles per second takes several minutes to reach Mars. No immediate gratification even on Earth. If I call Sharon on the phone, there will be a delay of almost no time, but still a delay as the call goes through the wires to the telephone excgange and back. Time travel to the past is impossible, but when she answers the phone it will be the future.

Only two words.

"Meet me."

Montauk Sunset 5/3

DANTE'S STATUE - LINCOLN CENTER

Sisyphisian Task - Ditch Plains

n

Sisyphus, the ancient Greek king of Corinth snitched to Asopus, that Zeus the Impaler had abucted Corinth). He reveals Zeus's abduction of Aegina, the river god's daughter, thereby incurring Zeus's wrath. While the mortal noble had cheated death, the gods achieved their revenge by forcing the now-immortal to push a giant boulder up a slope only to have it slip out of his grasp before reaching the summit and he had to start all over. M?e I would have shirked the first attempt and said, "Enough."

According to Wikpeia, thanks to Sisyphus contemporary culture considers all laborious, futile, and never-ending tasks considered Sisyphean.

Last year the town of Easthampton recognized the danger posed by the ever higher tides to the beach community of Ditch Plains in Montauk. Once these houses were lower income dwelling, however now the shacks are valued in the millions dramatically adding to the tax base. The town council passed a bill to finance a $15 million sixteen foot high tidal sand barrier planted with sea grass completing blocking off the ocean from the Shagmoor to past the trailer park.

This weekend Caterpillar tractors and trucks filled the gaps in the wall with tons of sand. I expect they will be at it all summer long and I wish the town of Easthampton success, since I am presently living in a tent in the wetlands. Time will tell of its success.

May 13, 1991 - Bangkok - Journal Entry

Last year this time I was hiking up a river to the Langtang Glacier. The year before I was selling diamonds for the Winicks on 47th Street and in 1989 I was in New York working at Eric Beamon, planning on spending the summer in Perpignan. My passport has three entries to Paris from that year. Why I can't remember why. 1986 I was working at the Milk Bar front door, watching Seventh Avenue with Joel Bernard, my Haitian bouncer. My years were wasted as a doorman. Standing outside while all the action was inside. How long has it been since I threw a punch. A long time.

Now I'm in Bangkok.

This morning I went to the Bangkok GPO.

My only letters were from Irina K. Pamphlets about the Haute Savoie in German, a short note from my father, and two letter from Aunt Jane and the Pampolones.

My friends are either illiterate nor else I disappeared into the ether of their world. Far from thought. I send postcards, always listing the next destination's poste restante as my address. I do get letters, but what more can I expect. I'm on the other side of the world.

The silence from Paris is deafening.

I don't exist.

I had stopped my novel ALMOST A DEAD MAN.

No progress for two months. The longest break since I left the USA.

Too much pot and lack of privacy on Koh Tao, so I fled to the Malaysia Hotel and Patpong and the Soi Duplei bar, Kenny's.

Tomorrow I'm heading south to Pattaya to stay with Michel and his daughter. I'll make a collect call to Andrew and Richie. I stole a Paul Theroux books from Asia Books. THE LOOP. He published his first book at 26. At that age I was a bouncer at Hurrah and going out with Ann or Lisa Johnson. I have always wondered if I would see Lisa again. The last time was in Paris at the Nouvelle Eve. She was still with Vadim or was it in the Metropolitan Museum buying a Christmas card. How old is she now?

32?

30?

28?

Dustin Pittman said she was younger than she said, but she was a nutter.

Vinnie Gallo he had seen her walking barefooted around the East Village when I was going out with her.

He was also from Buffalo.

Better I should never see her again.

The past is the past.

Long gone.

Why does the past haunt the future?

Better to go to Kenny's and have a beer with the girls.

Zee is my favorite.

And Kenny is always a good time.