GONE ARE THE GODS - 2011

This afternoon at the diamond exchange my co-worker Ava was reading scripture, while listening to god music on her computer. This good woman is worried about my soul. I told her that I was content with the threat of hell, because my best friend had drowned in Sebago Lake at age eight. No one saw him over his head. He died alone. Over fifty years ago I decided that no god could have permitted such a death and I told Ava, “I am happy with my spirituality.”

“But I don’t want you to burn in hell.” This single mom had a heart of gold. Only Jesus could bring me to the promised eternity.

“Believe me. I will not burn in hell.” I’ve never done anything so bad in this lifetime to deserve an endless torment from the devils of Satan. “I’m a good man. Most of the time.”

“But you don’t believe in God.”

“When I was young, hippies believed that a guitar player was God.” ERIC IS GOD was spray painted across walls in the UK and America. Clapton’s searing performance with Cream had earned that accolade.

“No man is God.”

“Jesus was a man.” Earlier Christianity argued the duality of his natures. Half-God. Half-man. Every variation on that theme.

“He was a God.” Ava sucked in her breath. In her mind my words were straight from Satan. Her lips moved with prayer. “You are going to Hell.”

"I'll have good company."

Mostly sinners, non-believers and heretics, but also those devotees to Eric Clapton, for their rock god was a false idol. There is only one and true guitar god.

Jimi Hendrix.

The Jesse James of rock burst onto the screen with his staggering performance at the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival. A long way from his first gig at Seattle’s Temple De Hirsch. At the end of covering the Troggs hit WILD THING he set his Fender Stratocaster on fire. From that moment to his final appearance in Germany Hendrix was the mountain.

I saw him at Boston Garden in 1970 with my good friend Wayne Shepard. The opening bands were Illusion and Cactus. Their sets were short. No one had come to see either band. We were waiting for the Jimi Hendrix Experience Part 2. Jimi took the stage with Mitch Mitchell on drums and Billy Cox on bass.

The set consisted of Fire, Lover Man, Hear My Train A Comin’, Foxy Lady, Room Full of Mirrors, Red House, Freedom, Ezy Ryder, Machine Gun, The Star-Spangled Banner, Purple Haze, and Voodoo Child (Slight Return).

I kept shouting out THE WIND CRIED MARY. Wayne worshiped Jim. He elbowed me to shut up. I stopped after the LSD hit my brain. I don’t remember much after that other than singing “Cuse me while I touch the sky.”

Jimi didn’t burn his guitar with lighter fluid that night.

Only with his fingers.

40 years ago.

When I was young.

And listening to him tonight broughtme back to those days.

18.

Jimi lives on.

Forever.

One day maybe Ava, my co-worker will understand my worship of the Left-Handed Guitar. He was human. Like the rest of us.

HEAVY METAL ACCORDION by Peter Nolan Smith

Written May 3, 2020

Every boy has a best friend in his youth.

In 1959 my family lived on Falmouth Foresides. Mckinley Road ended at the bluff overlooking the mudflats of Portland Harbor. I was lucky enough to have two; my older brother Frunk and a neighbor.

Chaney and I attended the same kindergarten class at Pinewood Elementary in Falmouth Maine and we did everything together boys were supposed to do that far north.

In the winter we played hockey in the small backyard rink my father built from 2 by 10s or else sledded down a gully to a tidal ice pool. During the summer we swam in the shallow waters beyond the marsh grass and bicycled to the forbidden bridge crossing the salt flats to Macklowe Island.

That August in 1959 the two of us crawled under the fence into a neighbor's strawberry patch and ate ripening fruit on our backs. Mr. Stivelleta caught us and my father paid him for four quarts. They were worth his angry words and ten whacks of the wooden spoon from my mother.

Partners in crime, but Chaney and I were in love with the same girl, although Kathy Burns only had eyes for Chaney. He played the accordion. I had no musical skills, even though my mother was famed for a voice capable of silencing the Portland Cathedral choir.

Chaney was a protege on the squeezebox. He mastered SINK THE BISMARCK and DAVY CROCKETT as well as standards from his music teacher; YELLOW BIRD and MACK THE KNIFE. I envied his virtuosity as well as Kathy's admiration of his talent.

That autumn our brunette schoolmate held a birthday party to which I was not invited. Chaney brought me a piece of chocolate cake. After hearing about how he had kissed Cathy in her basement, the cake tasted like chalk, but I congratulated Chaney's success and ate the cake. It was good.

What was a girl between best friends?

The next summer my family moved south from Maine to a suburb south of Boston. Chaney and I vowed never to go swimming, unless we were together. His parents had a place on Lake Sebago and my grandmother's cabin was on nearby Watchic Pond.

"Wait for me."

"You and me only swimming together."

"And take care of Kathy Burns."

"I will, because one day I'm going to marry her."

I bid him good-bye and my father drove us south in our Ford station wagon. It had wood paneling and he liked to go fast.

That summer was warm in New England and my parents took us to Nantasket Beach for Memorial Weekend. My mother considered the wide strand of sand to be the best beach in the world and she had flown to Bermuda for her honeymoon. My brothers and sisters ran in the eddies of the surf. My father swam past the waves. i sat on the blanket and my mother asked, "Why aren't you in the water?"

"Because I told Chaney I wouldn't go swimming without him.

"We won't be in Maine for another two weeks."

"I can wait."

"Seems a waste." She reached out her hand. "Come with me."

I was a good boy and obeyed my mother.

The Atlantic was cold, but not to the young.

Upon our return to our suburban development in the Blue Hills my father hosed off the sand and salt off his boys outside, while my mother showered my two younger sisters inside. We dried off in the warm summer sun.

The phone rang in the living room. My mother answered it and came out a minute later with wet hair.

"Go sit in the car."

"What I do wrong?"

"Nothing. Just do as I say." She was on the verge of tears.

"Yes, ma'am." I went to the station wagon and sat in the front.

To the West the setting sun shadowed the silhouette of Great Blue Hill.

Several minutes passed before my mother came to the car. She leaned on the open window with a pained weariness and said, "Chaney drowned this afternoon."

"Drowned how?"I already knew how.

"In Sebago Lake. Everyone had gone waterskiing and left him with his grandmother. He swam out too deep and struggled in the water. The grandmother couldn't swim and he drowned. Say a prayer for him."

"What time?"

"I don't know. This afternoon."

My mother walked back into our house.

I sat in the car and looked at the sky seeing only the sky.

Chaney had broken our vow, as had I at Nantasket Beach.

One of us paid the price.

Chaney.

Not me.

Two weeks later my family headed north for a vacation on Watchic Pond.

My father drove first at Falmouth Foresides. New people lived in our old house. We stopped at the Noyes. I hung out with his brothers. None of us spoke of Chaney. As we prepared to leave, I saw Cathy Burns across the street. I walked up to her and she said, "I know what you did and so did Chaney."

"I swam."

"You were wrong."

"I was. I miss him."

"Me too. Chaney could play accordion."

Yes, he could."

"And he kissed good too."

An hour later I was swimming in the tannin-tainted waters of Watchic Pond. It was wide enough, but short by a mile to make a lake.

That night my parents sat around the campfire and my mother sang 'YELLOW BIRD'

I wished Chaney was there to play accordion and since that sad day every time I see an accordion I think of Chaney and any time I see a street accordionist I ask them to play SINK THE BISMARCK. None of them know the Johnny Horton tune and I request IN-A-GADDA-DA-VITA. None of the accordion players can play that 60s hit either, however I'm sure that Chaney would have liked Iron Butterfly.

Cathy Burns too.

After all we were all best friends.

To hear

, please go to the following URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugt9pZVkgtg

Chaney - Sebago Lake - June 1960

My best friends as a child were my older brother and Chaney

We lived in Falmouth Foresides, Maine.

We did everything together.

School, hockey, eating stolen strawberries from the nearby farm, hang at the docks at the end of our street, and swim at Sebago Lake.

My family moved to the South Shore of Boston in June of 1960.

This excerpt from GAYBOY relates the last time we saw each other. --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chaney stood on edge of the lawn. My father had mowed it this morning.

“I guess I’m going.”

“Have a good summer.” Chaney kicked a clump of cut grass with his sneaker. His jeans were torn at the knee. This summer was supposed to have belonged to us. A snorkel and diving mask hung in his hand. They were a gift from his Czech grandmother.

“My father says we’ll return in July for vacation.” The week on Watchic Pond couldn’t come soon enough.

“Don’t go swimming without me.” Chaney lowered his head. Boys weren't supposed to cry in public.

“I won’t.”

I eyed his mask, wishing I had one.

I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out my Pete Runnel’s baseball card. The infielder was our favorite Red Sox player. I offered it to him.

“Here.”

“No, you keep it, but if you go to a game at Fenway Park, have him autograph it for me.” Chaney smiled with the prospective of having the .300 hitter’s signature as well as not having to hand over his mask in trade.

“Everyone in the car,” shouted my father.

“See you.” I slipped the playing card back into my shirt pocket.

“Not if I see you first.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

I recently recorded a piece about what happens to Chaney.

Please go to this url

Chaney

THE EYE OF THE STORM by Peter Nolan Smith

In early September of 1960 Hurricane Donna struck New England as a category 2/3 storm. The radio station WBZ announced numerous school closing led by Beaver County Day School and closely followed by my primary school on the South Shore, Our Lady of the Foothills. My older brother and I were happy to stay home. We were new kids in town.

That morning a raging gale howled against our split-level ranch house and the windows vibrated in their sashes. The electricity died at noon and my father lit a kerosene lamp, which he placed on the kitchen table.

Our family of seven huddled around the flame like Neanderthals sheltering in a cave.

Several hours later the howling hurricane abated to a whisper.

“Where are you going?” my mother demanded with hands on her hips, her voice ringing with the authority of a woman, who had carried five babies in her womb.

“Outside to show them the eye.” My father loved a good storm.

“Hurricanes are not a joke.” My mother had experienced the 1938 hurricane. That tempest didn’t have a name, yet hundreds of New Englanders had died in its path.

“I know.” My father shrugged in weak surrender to the truth.

"You act, as if you don't."

Hurricane Edna in 1954 had destroyed his sailboat on Watchic Pond. The hull lay in our backyard.

Six years later he had yet to repair the damage to the mast.

He never had much free time.

Five kids under the age of ten were a lot of work.

“The skies have cleared." My father looked out the window and then back to my mother.

"We’ll only be a few minutes.”

“I wanna go too.” My two-year old brother bounced off his high chair.

"Not a chance." My mother grabbed his wrist. Padraic had almost died at birth from pneumonia. She wasn't giving Nature any second chances and sternly regarded by father. “Only a few minutes.”

"Maybe even less."

"Then go." My mother trusted my father to obey his promise, since he loved her enough to convert to Catholicism.

“I’ll keep them safe.” My father led us outside.

We lived in the shadow of Chickatawbut Hill.

A sultry wind raced through the trees. Branches were scattered across the yard. Overhead a counter-clockwise swirl of the cloud funnel opened to the blue heavens.

“That is the eye of the storm.”

The three of us 360ed on the lawn to gawk at the storm’s awesome power and glory.

Lightning pulsed within the cloud wall like the Aurora Borealis. If my best friend hadn’t drowned a month ago, the cyclonic display would have reinforced my faith in the Almighty. Instead I said, “Wow.”

Rain dotted the walkway. The wind was soon a gale. The raindrops stung our skin.

My mother yelled at us to get inside.

My father lifted his finger to indicate we wanted a few more seconds.

He had fought the Maine’s Great Fire of 1949. I never had seen him scared of anything other than my mother’s wrath. He quickly explained to my older brother and me how hurricanes formed in the tropics. We were 9 and 8. His meteorological lesson was lost on us and the oppressive pressure of the powerful storm weighed heavily on our skin.

“Remember this for the rest of your life. Few people see this.”

My mother’s next demand was an ultimatum.

“If you don’t come in, I’m locking the doors.” She was serious.

“We better do as she says.” My father guided us inside the house. He gave my mother a hug. She was relieved to have us back inside.

The second half of the hurricane stuck within minutes and lasted into the evening.

The weatherman on WBZ radio announced the all-clear message wagon, as we were going to sleep. School had been cancelled throughout New England. My father was excited as a child on Christmas Eve and he whispered, “Tomorrow Revere Beach.”

The beach there was ideal for watching the storm die against land. Giant waves would slap the concrete flood walls with a force strong enough to make the streets shudder with fear.

The boyish joy in his voice kept us awake for another three minutes, for tomorrow promised to be a day of big waves and wild sea spray.

We could hardly wait.

The Nana Hotel

Directly across from Bangkok's Nana Plaza is the eternal Nana Hotel. This caravansary has been servicing the happy ending needs of travelers since the 60s. I first stayed there in 1991. Nothing much has changed in that time. Men check in with women half their age. The desk clerks smiled without asking for IDs. They know most of the girls by name. Love, lust, happiness, laughter, happy endings, showers, sex ad infinitum.

Certainly a lot more fun than the Hotel Oriental.

And the food isn't bad either.

NANA HOTEL BANGKOK 1960

4 Nana Tai, Sukhumvit Rd, Bangkok, Thailand

Room rates are reasonable, considering what you save on taxis.

Triple 1,690
Superior
SGL./DBL. 1,690
Deluxe
SGL./DBL. 1,890
Triple 2,290
Suite
SGL./DBL. 2,390
Triple 2,790/3,290
Babycot

Collect Call to the After-Life

This summer my brother visited me in a dream. My deceased mother and I were sitting in a ramshackle cottage on Cape Cod. My brother said he was going to meet friends. He looked happy, as he ran out the door. It was a little too short, but I was happy to see him and so was my mother.

I hope he's having a good time.

ps Michael Charles Smith is the smallest and I am the tallest of the boys.