RAIN RAIN RAIN by Peter Nolan Smith

September 10, 2001 was a rainy day in New York. The Weather Channel predicted precipitation throughout the afternoon.

I exited from my East 10th Street apartment at 9.13 and headed toward Velseka's on 2nd Avenue. My breakfast of a bagel and coffee came to $2.11 and I gave the waiter a dollar tip. My funds were low, but it was one thing to be broke and another to act broke.

Tony thanked my generosity and refilled my cup to the brink. At least someone was happy to have me back in New York after a six-month stay in Pattaya.

My friends were busy setting up autumn projects or putting their children in school. They answered my phone call with trepidation. Few were in a position to lend me more than $20.

>I exited from Velselka's Diner and watched the NYU co-eds run through the rain. Innocent smiles suited their young faces. They had their lives were before them and like any old person approaching sixty I was jealous of their future, but I still had one too and went over to Astor Place to catch the Lex Line train to Grand Central. I got off at 42nd Street and walked over to the Diamond District on 47th Street. The rain hadn't let up and I bought a cheap umbrella for $4.99. It kept off most of the wet, but nothing could fend off the thickness of the humidity.

My old boss shook his head and I asked the diamond dealer if he had any work.

"Sorry, but there isn't anything happening here, but the rent." Manny lifted both hands in apology. "Why you come back from Thailand? I thought you had it made there."

"It was a bullshit job." Sam Royalle's and my S&M website failed to take off. Both of us were too vanilla to make it real.

"New York's not what it was." Manny read my soul like a ten cent comic book.

"I know." Wall Street Bankers and brokers played the roulette wheel of hedge funds and derivatives. These Ivy League nouveau-riche scorned the dedication of artists and writers. "If I could click my heels like Dorothy Gale in her ruby slippers, I would."

"And end up in Kansas." Manny loved THE WIZARD OF OZ. "I don't think you'd like that."

"No, you're right about that." I had never been to that straight-line state.

"At least it wouldn't be raining." Manny liked the sun. He went to Florida after New Years. That tan lasted the rest of the year.

"This is a drizzle. It's monsoon season in Thailand."

"Drizzle, mizzle." Manny slipped a C-note into my hand. "Wait a few weeks and I'll have work for you."

"Thanks, comrade." Manny hailed from Brownsville and I came from Boston's South Shore. AS much as I could have used more money, a single hundred dollar bill was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

The rain was lightening up, but I could tell it would last the rest of the day. It was Monday. The Oyster Bar was only a few blocks away. A September day like this was a good day for a bowl of chowder. The weatherman predicted a pleasant day for tomorrow.

It would be 9/11/2001 and I liked that results of that equation better than the result for (9/10) /2001 = 0.000449775112.

Carpe cras or none of the Latins said, "Seize tomorrow."

HELLBOUND by Peter Nolan Smith / Bet On Crazy -2011

TS Eliot wrote that April was the cruelest month of all in his epic poem THE WASTELAND, poetry's answer the Led Zeppelin STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN.

Those words rang harsh and true in 2011, as the combined holidays of Passover and Easter devastated business in the Diamond District. On Good Friday I waited for two customers to come back as promised. I had three Burma sapphires for an English broker and a quartet of GIA certified 2-carat diamonds for a Korean girl. Richie Boy insisted that I call the both.

"We needed the sales."

"No one is coming out today to celebrate a crucifixtion and a pogram against the first born's of Egypt, unless we have a special on Chocolate diamonds."

The Hassidim were celebrating the last days of Passaich.

"Can you do what I ask for once?" Richie Boy was pissed at my attitude.

"A raise in salary and a bump in my commission rate would elevate my resolve."

"Your raise this year is your job."

Times were tough after ten years of the Endless War.

"I'll call, but both these sales are dead issues," I complained and picked up the phone.

Neither customer answered the phone and I slumped at my desk.

Scratchy music itched the air.

My co-worker at the diamond exchange on West 47th Street was a born-again Christian and Ava was listening to Brazilian Jesus music at a low-volume. I didn't understand the lyrics, but the word 'Jesus' was repeated throughout the choruses. Ava fervently believed in the Messiah's Second Coming and that the Judgment Day was a tangible date in the near-future. I tapped her shoulder and Ava turned around to face me.

"Do you think I'm heading to heaven?" I was joking with her. I hadn't worshiped a God since the early 60s.

"No." Ava shook her head vehemently without condemnation. "You're not going to heaven?"

"I'm not?" My concept of the afterlife consisted of coming back as a skinny blonde go-go dancer, so I can control the destiny of men. Ava's version of heaven was the more traditional kneeling in prayer to the Lord, a boring forever without pain and suffering. Hell was lots of both and I said, "What if I repent at the last moment?"

"Then you are sent to Limbo after you die?" Ava's congregation believed more in black and white than the gray. It was either heaven or hell without a middle road.

"That's better than hell." The fiery pit was legendary for its lack of cold beer, although the only beverage in eternity were was limo's flagon of regrets and heaven's fountains spraying the ambrosia of God sweat.

"Only if you truly repent." Ava was asking a lot from an old reprobate.

"And who decides that?" I had a feeling that the arbiter of eternal salvation would not be fooled by my last-minute re-conversion to my old faith.

"God."

My old nemesis.

"He has to have too much on his plate than to bother with me."

"That attitude will send you to hell. God is all-caring."

"What about the Palestinians? He doesn't seem to care for them and they're living on the Promised Land."

"The damnation of your soul is no laughing matter." Ava harbored no sense of humor on this subject.

"Well, could you tell me when the Day of Judgment is coming?" My sins had broached the majority of the Ten Commandments, although I honored my parent and have never killed a soul, save my own, and none of my neighbors' wives are desirable.

"What is so important about when?" The Brazilian was puzzled by this question.

"So I can drink cold beer for a month before I go burn in Hell."

"Damned. You're damned, but I'll still pray for your soul."

"Thanks."

Ava was a good girl and a man like me needed a good girl to pray for his soul, because in Hell there will only be bad girls.

Go-Go girls, whores, sluts, trannys et al.

It will be a Hell of an Eternity and I will be in bad company.

But how bad can it be?

THIEF OF TIME by Peter Nolan Smith

Published on: Mar 23, 2011

My first watch was a Timex bought by my father for my fourteenth birthday. I wore that timepiece throughout high school and college. It disappeared in the mid-70s. Lost, but not stolen. I went without a watch for the reminder of the decade. Punks in the East Village had no use for time. Our days and nights were ruled by rising and setting of the sun.

One of the cops moonlighting at Hurrah, the rock disco on West 62nd Street, had a brother in the jewelry business. Manny called me on the phone. The Canal Street diamond dealer asked for a favor.

"Can you let my son into your club. He's a good kid and wants to see the Ramones." Manny spoke like he had spent his working life on the Bowery. It wasn't far from the truth.

"How old are they?" The NY drinking age in 1978 was eighteen. All the girls from the Manhattan private schools were welcome regardless of age. Cute teenage boys were also on the list. Most of the bartenders were gay.

"Old enough and they have ID. My brother will take them home."

The two boys showed up for the concert. Richie Boy and Seth were sixteen. They had a great time. Andy Warhol hit on Seth. Richie Boy met Mick Jagger. Both of them threw up on the sidewalk. Richie Boy's uncle was a no-show. Seymour had a girlfriend on the Upper East Side.

I let the two boys sleep in my apartment. They snored like old men. Manny called at 5AM. His wife thought that her son had been in an accident. I allayed their fears without any explanation. Manny thanked me for acting beyond the call of duty.

"I'll take care of you when I see you." He gave me the address of his diamond shop. "Stop by for lunch. We eat around 1."

At noon I rolled out of bed. Seth and Richie whined on the floor like two dogs begging to be put out of their misery. Threats of a kick got them to their feet. Their clothing looked like they had been kidnapped by white slavers. I gave them clean tee-shirts.

"Where are we going?" Richie Boy rubbed his face. His eyes squinted in the harsh midday sun. It was still his bedtime.

"Down to the Bowery to meet your father. He invited me to lunch."

"Great." Seth showed signs of life and licked his lips.

"No way." Richie Boy searched his jacket with both hands. Money would change my plans for him. He found none.

"Then how are you getting home?" I had already gone through their pockets. Seth was broke. Richie Boy was a gold mine. Home for them was Long Island. Not a walking distance in any condition.

I shoved the two teenagers out of my apartment. We caught a taxi on Avenue A. The ride to Canal Street took less than ten minutes. I paid the fare with a brand new $10 bill. Richie Boy started to say something.

"What?" I was ten years older and famed for my bad temper.

"Nothing." He exited from the Checker Cab knowing his place, while plotting his revenge.

Seth was looking forward to lunch. He was a good boy. Manny wasn't happy to see his son. The forty-eight year-old diamond dealer was dressed in haute couture for Little Italy. An immaculate gray flannel suit and a big diamond pinkie ring. Manny's father was in the corner counting slips. I recognized them as lists for the numbers game. The old man eyed me, as if i might be a snitch. Manny cooled his jets.

"The goy is good people. He works with Seymour."

"Boydem mit politsa." The old man spoke Yiddish.

I had studied German in high school with a Bavarian monk and read several books of Isaac B. Singer. I had no idea what boy dem meant, but aped the old man's inflection, "Nicht Politza. Ein sheygutz. Nicht Goyim."

The man laughed at my appreciation of the difference between a goy and a sheygutz. manny looked at his watch. The clock on the wall made the time 1:05. A tall Puerto Rican boy rushed through the door with two bags of food. He was out of breath.

"That's Domingo." Manny shook his head in time with his father. "That boy is never on time and neither is my son."

Manny slapped Richie Boy's hand hard.

"No food for no one that hasn't worked and don't say nothing about the sheygutz and your friend. They're guests."

The food was a meal from Angelo's on Mulberry Street. It reminded me of Little Italy in Boston. Manny's father was named Jake. He told stories about bookies, the shetl, and working hard as a carpenter. "Everyone has to have some honest work."

After I finished my lunch, I thanked Manny for his hospitality. He lifted his hand. A watch dangled from his fingers. A Pulsar P2. Roger Moore had worn the same model in the James Bond film LIVE AND LET DIE. 007 later replaced the Pulsar with a magnetized Rolex.

"It's yours. For taking care of my son and his worthless friend."

"I thought you were giving it to me." Richie Boy protested from the steam machine, at which he was cleaning rings.

"Was, wasn't. Sie gesund." Manny snapped the watch on my wrist and I wore it with pride for years. Richie Boy and I became friends. Our interests ran the same; good music, night clubs,, beautiful women, and drinking. Manny's term for our relationship was 'asshole buddies' It was a derogatory term. Richie Boy and I were straight. I discounted his bullshit. He had been born in Brownsville. Its motto was 'Never ran never will'. Manny was a tough guy.

Richie Boy and I were Kings of the Night. We went everywhere. I was working for Manny. His son was able to order me around. His revenge had been a long time in coming, but I didn't begrudge his come-upperance. I was getting old.

For Thanksgiving Eve 1992 we had been invited to a party at an apartment overlooking the staging grounds for the Macy's Parade. Gigantic balloons loomed before the windows of our motorcycle friend RT. I drank a little too much too quick and told the story about meeting Richie Boy for the first time. I showed the guests the Pulsar watch.

"James Bond wore it in LIVE AND LET DIE."

"Roger Moore wasn't really James Bond," a young man said and took the watch from my hand. He was a painter. The watch looked as good on his wrist as mine or Roger Moore. I argued for all the 007s and we drank tequila shots toasting the pantheon of James Bond girls. The taxi ride home was in a fog.

The next morning I woke up wishing that I had stayed home. Drinking at age 40 was more punishing than at 30. I reached for my watch. It wasn't on the night table. It wasn't anywhere in my apartment. I excavated the dregs of the evening and recalled the painter taking my watch. He had never returned the Pulsar to my possession. I called my hosts and told them of the incident. The painter had left town. I remembered his name. New York was a city of millions, but our scene was small.

Sooner or later he had to show up at a gallery opening or dinner or party.

I was wrong.

My watch was gone.

Forever.

I saw one on 47th Street a month ago. The dealer wanted $1100. I cursed the painter and imagined my revenge, if I should meet him. The rendezvous wasn't a long time coming, for this past weekend I had been waiting for a Chinatown bus. My nephew and his girlfriend came to have lunch with me. Matt and I drank three beers in an hour. His girlfriend only 2. I missed the 4PM bus and his girlfriend suggested that we visit the National Gallery.

We walked by the two score plus portraits of presidents guessing who was whom.

None of us were right about Buchanon.

On the third floor was an exhibit of a modern painter. His name sound familiar. A couple of seconds later I said to Matt, "This guy stole my watch."

"The Pulsar, right, Uncle Bubba." Matt and I had spend time together. He had heard most of my stories. Some more than twice.

"Exactly."

"Well, at least he is a good painter."

The thief's paintings portrayed fantastic apocalyptic vision. I admired his cartoonish prophecies, while raging about his ripping me off back in the last century. A tableau of arctic ice chilled my jets.

"You know you're grandmother Nana said that if you lose something that it wasn't yours to begin with?"

"Matt told me that too." His girlfriend beamed at the bridging of the generational gap.

"Also about the nuns saying that there was a closet in heaven with everything you ever lost."

"So I'll have to wait until then to get my watch back." There was a good chance that the artist had not stolen my watch, but I had lost it in the taxi. I liked my story better. Always true, if interesting.

"If you're going to heaven." Matt knew my non-belief of the afterlife.

"No ifs, buts, or ands. I'm hoping for alien abduction before the end."

His girlfriend laughed at the inside joke. She was possibly family. We walked out of the National Gallery in a good mood. She hadn't seen me key-scratch a painting. Matt had rolled his eyes at my crime. I was his Uncle Bubba and he kn ew it was always better to be a vandal than a thief.

Rolling Stones - Shea - October 1989

October 1989

Joey from Bay Ridge, a client at Manny's diamond store in West 47th Street, repaired elevators.He was as filthy as a coal miner and as greasy as an oil rigger.

"Every job was an emergency." He pulled out a wad of bills with a filthy hand. "I like getting paid in cash."

A steady customer. He came into the store. Richie Boy and I were glad to see the grimy Brooklynite, but he was not buying. He was selling.

"I found two tickets to the Stones at Shea in an elevator shaft. I can't go, but I was in the neighborhood and thought you might buy 'em. $30 each." Joey found lots of stuff in the bottom of the shafts. Once $5000. Other times jewelry. At first we thught he was a thief, but no one got that dirtier doig dishonest work I looked at the tickets. They were legit Steel Wheels tix. They were for tonight. I was familiar with Shea. A friend and I had the third base seats racketed by duking the ushers $10.

"Where are they?" Richie Boy asked.

"They're on the field to the right of the stage "

"I'll give you $30 for the two." Richie Boy never paid retail.

Joey shrugged at the offer for half and nodded 'deal'

Neither of us had money after a long night on the town.

"Get the money from petty cash "

"Your father is not going to like that," whispered, Manny hated both of us. Richie Boy drank like a goy and his father blamed me, the Shabbats Goy.

"Get the money. He's not here. So I'm the boss." His name wasn't all the wall, but I got the money for Joey. We loved the Stones and the seats were great.

KOSHER PIG - BET ON CRAZY by Peter Nolan Smith

In 2013 business in the Diamond District was spotty during the high holidays of Rosh Shananah and Yom Kippur. The Hassidim disappeared to the various shetls scattered around New York and tourists entered our diamond exchange to gawk at the diamonds and jewelry. At least twice a day out-of-towners asked in complete seriousness, "Are they real?"

"Everything is real," I answered the visitors before launching into a short spiel about the value of diamonds and gold. "Years ago we told the customers that diamonds were a good investment. It was sort of true then, but now diamonds appreciate in value better than houses plus they're easier to convert into cash at times of need."

The tourists nodded with understanding. Their homes had lost value three years in a row. My boss Richie Boy doesn't have the patience for these rubes, but occasionally they were buyers.

I sold an Italian diamond bracelet to a Vermont couple celebrating their 60th anniversary. They lived a short distance from Richie Boy's ski shack and he warmed up to them. Selling turned him on like a drag racer on nitro and the Thursday after Yom Kippur he delivered a 31-inch diamond necklace set with GIA-certified .40 ct. diamonds to a hedge fund investor.

The piece was a magnificent blaze of reflected light set in platinum. His customer coined millions every day. He could have shopped at Harry Winston, but Richie Boy and he went back to the 80s. Both were loyal to each other. Richie Boy returned to the store after closing and said, "That's it. I’ve had enough of Yom Kippur. I'm headed out to my surf shack."

“What about tomorrow?” his father asked from his desk. Manny would have remained open 24/7, if the exchange didn’t close at 6.

“Fridays are dead and nothing is deader than a Yom Kippur Friday.” Richie Boy needed his rest. He had rescued the firm through a series of near-miraculous sales. I had helped with a few deals out of the blue and neither of us were broke.

“What about trying to run this store like a business?” Manny was frustrated by his son’s laissez-faire attitude.

“There’s more to life than work.”

“Like what?” Manny lived for his work. His father had been the same. Somehow that relentless devotion to the grindstone had skipped a generation with Richie Boy.

“Surfing.” Richie Boy had a place on the beach out in Montauk. He could walk to Ditch Plains.

"What are you doing this weekend?" asked Marvin, the newly-married diamond dealer across the aisle.

"I'm having a kosher pig BBQ."

"How can pig be kosher?" The balding 50 year-old didn't follow the dictates of glatt kosher, but Marvin wasn't a bacon Jew.

“How?”

“Yes, how?” Marvin was a shrewd diamond buyer. He figured everything for a third of its value. He had been the president of the glee club of a summer camp in the Jewish Alps and was as gullible as a cheerleader on quaaludes.

Richie Boy wickedly went for the complete wind-up.

"A special rabbi consecrates the pig before killing it according to an ancient Hebrew tradition. It predates the Torah." Richie Boy is a great salesman and Marvin admired his chutzpah as well as his ability to thrive amongst the goyim.

"Really?" Marvin was swallowing the possibility of kosher bacon with a kvelling smile.

"100%. Come out to my BBQ and I'll introduce to the delight of kosher pork."

Marvin promised to show up at the beach BBQ. We laughed at his schmielism and Richie Boy prepared for his early departure from New York. His father continued to kvetch like an old yenta. At 83 the only choice were work or death. Manny and I fought every day. Our arguments flushed the blood through his body. I hoped that he lived to 103.

At 59 I had more in common with him than most of the people on the planet.

"You know the reason why pork is tref?"

"It caused people to have worms in the old days." Richie Boy checked the exchange. The religious don’t have a funny bone over pig’s feet. "And don't tell me that it's because Yahweh ordered the Jews give up pork as the ultimate sacrifice."

"Little tastes better than bacon." Richie Boy and I knew each other over 30 years. We had heard enough of our stories enough to give them numbers. I was still capable of catching him off-guard. "Pork is tref no matter what. Leviticus condemned pig for its cloven food, but there is such a thing as kosher pork chops. Not for the Hassidim, but it's cooked with pickle juice and kosher salt."

"Sounds as dry as an old shoe." Richie Boy possessed a better than average epicurean palate.

"Not something I'd eat, but maybe scientists can genetically modify a pig to have feet instead of hooves." I had eaten pigs' foot in Berlin. It was considered the city's signature dish. "Pigs with little toes."

"Stop. That's sacrilege." Manny hadn’t been to the temple in years, but once a Jew always a Jew.

"Sacrilege and heresy are my specialties." I set the alarm and I wished Richie boy a good weekend.

"You can come out on Saturday."

"Thanks, but I got to get ready for my trip." I was heading out to Thailand for a month. It would be the longest that I had spend with since 2008. "If there really was kosher pig I might change my mind."

"You never know."

"I know." Richie Boy and I had spent too much time together over the past years. It was time for a break.

Kosher pig or not.

OLD BROWNIE - BET ON CRAZY by Peter Nolan Smith

Yesterday was a quiet day on 47th Street. A winter snow was having its way with New York City. Snow piled up on the street. The porters had a hard time clearing the sidewalk and I was having difficulty looking busy. There was nothing to do.

No one came into the store.

No dealers, no gypsies, and no customers.

"I don't know I had you come in." Manny was at his desk. The 84 year-old had taken a taxi to work.

"Hlove is at the doctor and your son is stuck in Vermont." My work partner wasn't feeling well and Manny's son was trapped by snowdrifts in Stratton. Richie Boy was a better than good skier. "Of course we could close early and go home."

"You'd like that." Manny thought that I hadn't worked a day in my life, even though an eight-hour shift with him was like a week at a steel mill.

Heavy intensive labor like in A DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH.

"Why not?" It was Two O'Clock. Everyone else was packing up early.

"Because we're the only store open. Something has to happen."

I looked out the window. The snow was pelting pedestrians.

"You're right, but don't bother me."

"Why should I disturb you from doing nothing?"

"My thoughts exactly." I was here. I actually wanted to make a sale. I needed money.

Same as Manny.

"The next customer is mine," claimed Manny.

"Not a chance. You can't even hear what anyone is saying."

Manny had lost his hearing aid at his favorite bar.

"I can hear fine."

"But only when you're in a foul mood."

Then he heard what he wanted.

"A hero. That's what I have. A fucking hero." Manny and I went back over thirty years. We could say what we wanted about each other. It was never personal, only on this day an hour passed without us saying a word to each other. Manny was talking on the phone to his girlfriend in Fort Lauderdale. It wasn't snowing in Florida.

Only Big Dave was in the exchange. The other stores had closed for the day. Commuting was going to be hell.

Luckily I only had to go to Brooklyn.

Around 4 the door opened for a woman in a down coat. She was nearing 50. Her face was red from the cold. She shook off the snow and approached our counter. Her brown hair was streaked with gray. I liked her green eyes. They said she was a good person.

Manny struggled to get up from his desk. His hip was shot and I beat him to the shot.

"Can I help you?" I was wearing a suit and tie with rubber boots.

No one could see them from the other side of the counter.

"Yes, I'm looking for a 5-carat diamond." She took off her gloves.

A small diamond ring was on her wedding finger. The band squeezed her flesh. I sized the stone for under a carat. She was looking for a long-overdue upgrade.

"I have a beauty in the window. A JSI1 for $65000."

"I don't want to spent that much."

"How much do you want to spend?" Diamonds were a commodity. Price was determined by cut, clarity, color, and cost.

"$5000."

"$5000?" exclaimed Manny. "There's no way you can buy a 5-carat diamond for that much money."

"I have one stone for that much, but it's really brown."

"We have a stone like that?"

"Yes." I knew everything that was in stock and recalled an ugly stone hiding like a troll in the safe.

"It's a five-carat brownie oblong-cut." There was no designation on the GIA charts for its color.

"What's its clarity?"

"XB."

"XB?" the woman and Manny asked at the same time.

"Yes, extremely bad." It looked like someone stuck a cigarette out in a cup of coffee, which froze overnight.

"I'll show you."

I went into the safe and pulled out the diamond ring.

It was dreck and Manny examined it, "If you had that much black in you, they'd take you to the hospital."

"What's your name?" I asked putting the ring on her finger. It fit perfectly.

"Marjorie."

"I don't mind selling this to you, but it would be wiser buying a smaller stone on better quality."

"Like a one-carat? I already have that. I want a 5-carat diamond." She pointed to the stone. "That's five, right?"

"Yes."

"And it cost $5000."

I checked the tag.

Manny had paid $4000 for it.

"It's yours.

"I wouldn't buy it," said Manny.

"Then how did it get in the safe?" Marjorie pulled out a wad of $100 bills. They were all new.

"I did someone a favor."

"And I'm doing this woman a favor." I warned him with a glare to shut up.

Manny might have been old, but he knew that getting that much money on a snowy day was close to a miracle.

After Marjorie left, Manny warned, "She'll be back."

He hated giving back money.

"Maybe." Manny had a funny way of being right and the next day Marjorie showed up with a bald man in tow.

Her companion looked very contrite.

"See, I told you." Manny was happy to be right.

"Don't be so sure."

She was wearing the ring, which was a good sign, and she introduced the man.

"This is my husband. We've been married for 25 years and for the last two years he's said he'd get me a 5-carat stone for our anniversary, didn't you, honey?"

"Yes." His voice belonged to a beaten man.

Manny minded his business and dug through his papers.

We weren't giving back the $5000.

"And?" I had to ask.

"Last night we had a party for our 25th anniversary and I showed everyone this diamond. "

"I haven't heard the end of it." The man was beyond misery.

"25 years and this is what you got your wife? And that was from his family."

I could only imagine what the in-laws said.

"So?"

"So my loving husband wants to buy me a 5-carat stone. What do you have that's really nice?"

The man looked at me for mercy.

I sold him the JSI1 for $78,000.

The man wrote a check to Manny.

My boss was pissed that I was right about selling a mitziah.

I pulled the woman aside and asked, "Does the first stone figure into the deal?"

"Not at all. I sort of like it, because it makes him look bad."

After concluding the deal the couple left and Manny came up to me.

"Well, that goes to prove one thing. All stones are beautiful, if you sell them."

As always Manny was right.

THE VALUE OF IGNORANCE by Peter Nolan Smith

The 2013 Christmas season was a disaster on 47th Street.

Back in the 1990s I usually sold close to a quarter of a million in jewelry.

My commissions provided a six-month cushion for the winter.

This season my sales totaled less than $25000.

My commish would cover my expenses until the second week of January. Richie Boy didn't need my services after Christmas. He actually needed nothing. Our firm along with most ground-floor stores in the Diamond District were in dangerous waters.

After the holiday Manny, my octogenarian boss, complained that the lack of sales was due to how we set up the window.

"You have to spread out the rings. Show people what we have." Manny roamed the street looking at other firm's windows. Any shop with customers inside it had to be doing something right. Our exchange was a morgue. We have very few diamond rings in the case.

No one-carat stones for the common man.

Everything was a big ticket item and the rich weren't shopping on 47th Street these days.

On Monday I came into the city from Brooklyn to drop off pearls. I met Sammie at Richie Boy's counter. I gave him his goods and he returned my memo.

"I've never seen a Christmas like this." Sammie had been in the business over thirty years.

"The jewelry business is dead." I had been working on the street since 1990.

"Why do you say that?" asked a Hassidic rebbi. Sol was renown for his wisdom. His followers were all diamond merchants. He must have heard their moans.

"Prices went up. Customers don't want to come into the city. They see the ads for Zales and Jared and hit the malls. No one even knows 47th Street exists," I had excuses galore for the collapse of our industry.

"That's rubbish," grumbled Manny from his desk. He regarded idle talk as a waste of time. "Hard work is what makes a business flourish."

"How do you hard work yourself out of this hole?" Sammie was seriously looking for an answer.

"It won't be easy. The street has to advertise itself. Our old customers are dying off. We need new blood, but most people under forty never buy jewelry, because they can't commit to a relationship. All they have are their smart phones and smart phones don't need diamonds."

"You don't know nothing," smirked Manny. He had been in the business for over sixty years.

"Have you ever seen it this bad?" Sol demanded in a quiet tone. The rebbi didn't want anyone to know what he thought of the economic climate.

"I got robbed for a half-million dollars. That was a bad time during a time of good money. All we have to do is make one good sale and everything will be fine." Manny waved his hands in the air like he was trying to conjure a rich customer from the dead. The exchange remained empty. "But when that is, I don't know."

"What do you know?" The rebbi stepped closer to the counter.

"I know nothing," Manny admitted in a display of honesty.

"Then you are the smartest man on the street, for anyone with all the answers hasn't heard all the questions." The rebbi blessed Manny and walked into the cold winter air.

Sammie and I looked at each other.

"So ignorance is a blessing?" Sammie buttoned his jacket. He had to go to see a pearl merchant in Chinatown.

"Socrates said, to know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge."

"Sounds like Greek bullshit to me." Manny waved for us to leave. "I have work to do, not bullshit to hear, you beatnik bums.

"Happy New Year, Manny." I wished the old man.

My boss ignored me and dug into his pile of papers. The answer to his problems wasn't there, but it was better to look where it wasn't than where it was with only one day left in 2013.

Nothing really bad could happen in that time, when ignorance is blessed.

THE WRITING OF HISTORY by Peter Nolan Smith

The dead never come back to life and I know that since I've almost died on several occasions from motorcycle accidents, beatings, and chemical misjudgments, although none of these near-fatal incidents must not have been too serious, because my soul was never enveloped by the tunnel of light.

When I returned to the USA from Thailand in 2008, my friends and family recited the list of the missing. Few of the deceased were close, however I was deeply saddened by the demise of Howie Hermann. The owner of our diamond exchange was a 15 year-old at heart.

Each Monday evening we met at the 2nd Avenue Deli for a sandwich and then drove over to the 20th Street shooting range. His other friends pulled off a few rounds on their personal weapons, but Howie would bring special guns for me.

22 Sportsmans.

Lugers.

Colt 45s.

Whatever I wanted, because I liked shooting a pistol and Howie liked having someone with whom he could shoot for an hour. He was as good as they get and his death was even more traumatic, since his loving son Josh had preceded him into the cosmos. I counted my blessings to have known them both, especially since Howard was a man of peace.

"Everyone in the world is the same."

Howard treated everyone like they were family and I was glad to have him call me a friend.

Over the next weeks I noticed a few more faces missing from 47th Street and I asked for Lenny the Bum.

No one had seen him for months and finally someone said that he had passed away in 2007.

"He's a Trombenik." Manny my boss hated Lenny.

The Yiddish expression was new to me, but I divined its meaning, since Manny had worked from the time that he was old enough to wear long pants and Lenny begged for his living.

"Better he should be in Gan Eden without a penny to his name." Manny wasn't very religious, but his hard edge bestowed him with a belief of suffering in the after-life for bums like Lenny.

I'm a humanist. My heaven and hell exists in the now, but I was surprised to see Lenny back amongst the living in 2009 and he was angry at my listing him among the deceased on mangozeen.com.

I was surprised that he read my writing.

"I'm a big fan, but could you bring me back to life?" he pleaded with a whining tenor.

"Like Lazarus and you won't smell as bad." Lenny looked in better shape than when I departed the States in 2001, although his balding head was sporting an ugly growth and his weight had to be over 250.

"I don't wash too much, but I have some place to live. I have to take care of my sister. If it was just me, I'd still be living on the street. I like the fresh air." His clothing was clean and his breath was shy of the old bouquet of cheap brandy. "I stopped drinking too much. Now a little too much, but not often."

Lenny asked about my kids in Thailand and I gave him another dollar. He knew his audience.

Over the past years we have discussed politics, Israel, heaven, Obama, Iraq, and my trips to Thailand. His stock advice made me a few dollars last year and I hold my sand about the personal stories that he tells me about his life.

This week Lenny and I have been engaged in a debate about Egypt and the threat to Israel from the change of regime.

"Lenny, this is not about democracy. This is about revolution and the rich versus the poor. Democracy has failed the Egyptians. It has failed the Iraqis and it has failed in America."

"Maybe, but the Muslim Brotherhood is going to kill all the Jews."

"Lenny, you're too smart than to believe that propaganda."

"Have you ever read the Koran?"

"No." I haven't read that book or the Talmud or Thomas Mann's THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN or James Joyce's ULYSEES and millions of other books.

"You know that Mohammad married an eight year-old?"

"Alyessa." The Mother of Islam was young. Some people say that the prophet bedded her at ten. Others at 15. I could only counter with the truth, because the truth of history is understanding that nothing is true. "Abraham was 86 when he bedded Hagar and he threw her and his son into the desert. So don't get high and mighty about the old times."

My boss Manny rapped on the window.

He had no time for my discussions with Lenny. Every second with the Jewish beggar was one lost to his business and I re-entered the diamond exchange.

Later that evening I passed Lenny on my way to the bank. Angie had to buy school books and Fenway needed some medicine and Fluke and Noi were asking their mother was sweets.

Lenny stopped me in front of the 20 Exchange.

"Damian, you know the Arabs hate us. Mohammad killed all the Jews of Medina."

"Because they backed the idolaters of Mecca." I had been surprised to read how deeply the Jews of Arabia had figured into the rise and fall of Islam.

"Islam comes from the Bible."

"And the Bible comes from the ancient religions. It's all bullshit to me and the Christians and Jews and Muslims kill each other for their beliefs. There is only one good and one evil." I was tired and had lose my track, but then asked, "How many Palestinians were on the plans of 9/11. How many at Dachau? Answer me that."

"The grand Mufti of Jerusalem had 10,000 SS troops at his command." Lenny shouted in the cold winter air and I made a note to check this riposte once I got home to Fort Greene.

Lenny might have been crazy, but he was no fool and I read online about how the Grand Mufti fled Palestine to Nazi Germany, where he encouraged Bosnian Muslims to wage jihad against the Serbs and Jews of Yugoslavia. The 1943 Hanzar SS Division were ruthless during the savage civil war during the Nazi occupation, horrifying their German overlords, but I could find nothing about Palestinians working for the Nazis.

Only the Grand Mufti who worked both sides of the fence between the Axis and Allies to restrict Jewish migration to Palestine.

"Lenny, let me ask you a question." I confronted Lenny the next afternoon.

People on the street had heard about our discussion and stood close to hear what the Sheygutz and the Trombenik had to say about Nazis in Palestine.

We spoke for several seconds. I told him my findings.

"They still hate us." He was talking about the Palestinians.

"As would anyone who stole their lands." I was Irish and my antipathy for the English was buried by knowing too many good people from Britain, even if they thought the Irish were the first niggers. "You know Howard had nothing against anyone."

"Howard was a good man. He didn't let me into the exchange, but he was generous." Lenny sniffed back a tear.

"He was good people, same as you, same as me, same as everyone, fi you give them a chance.

I had to get home and gave him a dollar. It was not a bribe and he said, "Thanks for bringing me back to life."

"It's an easy miracle with a live person."

"I love you, Damian."

"And I love you."

Omnes vincit amor.

But anyone coming back from the dead knows that 'love conquers all'.

Chuck Norris Ain't Shit

The other day in the diamond exchange a young woman offered to sell a diamond ring. I examined the goods. The stones were poor quality, but I saw about $500 in it. "Come with me." I sherried her over to my friend. Eddie needed the business and I owed him $200 from a sale in early January. I explained the circumstances to him and walked back to our counter. Stepping inside I turned around to be confronted by Lil' RV, a Bukharian first-generation diamond dealer. "What?" "I should whack you in the face. I get all the shots after you." RV was 5-6 with a swiftly receding hairline. I liked him most days, but coming from Boston I reacted by slapping his wagging finger out of his face. "Listen, you little shit." He had been mouthing off to me, as only the young can when they don't know any better. "That's the second time you've threatened me. You do it one more time and I'll throw you down the stairs. Then I'll drag you up the stairs and throw you down them again. And if you call any of your Bukharian stick pussies to back you up, I fucking break them like dogs, because that's all you are to me." No one in the exchange heard a single word and RV stomped off to smoke a cigarette outside. I could tell me was expecting an apology and I stepped onto the sidewalk. "RV." "My name is Avi." "Not until you show people respect." The previous week one of his thugs had tried to steal a customer from my partner Hlove, who was equally as hotheaded as me. "This is just a job. Stop taking it so serious." I suspected his was on Big Pharma speed. He didn't look like a coke fiend. Later in the day he said loud enough for me to hear, "It's not about how big you are, but how vicious." Hlove saw me tense up. "Don't, he's just a kid." "He's over 15. He ain't no kid." I walked over to his booth. Three of his fat thugs stood at the counter. I pushed them out of the way. "You're right about size. The toughest fighter in the world was Bruce Lee." "Chuck Norris was a better martial artist." RV wasn't in a listening mood. "Maybe, but like me or Hlove he was a brawler. Our best fights were never in a ring and the best fights of all was beating down someone who thought they were tougher than us, as Bruce Lee did to Chuck Norris in WAY OF THE DRAGON." "I don't like Orientals." He knew my wife and kids were Thai. "And you think you're not Asian." I came from Irish-Yankee stock. "There's nothing about you that's white and remember that." "Fuck you." RV thought he was a tough guy and I returned to my booth. "Feeling better?" Hlove had witnessed everything. "Not really." The stairs looked better, but Bruce Lee had let Chuck Norris live and I did the same for RV. At least until the next time. And with a punk like RV there is always a next time.

SOME CHOWDAH, BOBBY by Peter Nolan Smith

Last week my boss Manny hated me. The business was slow on 47th street. I had been hired part-time to help my replacement Hlove, but neither of us had made a sale between Xmas and the New Year.

"I feel like I'm running a charity ward. The two of you are about as useful as a broom." Manny stated in half-jest, as I set up the window.

"Don't worry, you'll be rid of me soon enough." I would be laid off once his son Richie Boy returned from a Vermont ski trip.

“You haven’t done a day of work since you came here.” The 80 year-old diamond dealer was meaner than normal, but we had been friends over thirty years and our weaknesses were well-known to each other.

“The same could be said about you. All you do is shift papers from one side of your desk to the other and insult customers.” I looked over to Hlove. He shook his head. Waking a sleeping dog wasn't his forte, but only this morning he called my main diamond broker a ‘gonnif’.

"These papers run this company." The Brownsville native slammed his palm on the bills, bank statements, and memos.

"Everything you're doing there couldn't be done in a minute on a computer."

"I made this business before there was a computer and I will outlive the computer too."

"I hope you're right." Manny and I went back to 1978. Our best years were ebbing on the tide of the 21st Century.

"Right, only one thing is right and that's one and one makes two."

Hlove rolled his eyes and I shrugged my apologies. Manny was on fire. His kvetching veered off the tracks. "You're useless. You've always been useless."

"Like the time I sold a ruby for a million dollars and you stiffed me for the commish."

Yiddish vindictives spewed from his mouth.

I went to the closet and got my cashmere coat. It was warm. The wind outside was cold.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To get my lunch.” I waved to Eliza Randolph. The elegant brunette was Manny’s partner.

“Eliza, you want some chowdah.”

“Chowdah from where?” Eliza had attended UMASS-Amherst.

Richie Boy had once hoped that the two of us became serious, so I could have been his partner. Her father was glad that nothing came of our flirtation and in many ways so were we.

“The Oyster Bar where else?”

The Grand Central Terminal institution had the best clam chowder this side of Boston’s Route 128.

Manny made a face. His mind had calculated the distance between our store and the Oyster Bar.

"I pay you to work, not gallivant around town."

"You want to buy me lunch?" I already knew the answer.

"What for?"

“Then I'm out the door and don’t worry, Manny, you don’t have to pay for a thing.”

“Don’t get me nothing either.”

“Who said I was in the first place?”

"The chowder there tastes like old man's underwear." The old man liked putting in the 'zug'.

"More like that from a young girl, but you wouldn't know anything about that." I had learned how to make someone feel bad from him, but I left the store muttering under my breath.

Our daily tete-a-tetes were wearing on us.

Manny was deaf and I was grumpy.

His present state was my future destination, although my version of his age was set in Thailand at a teakwood farm bordering the Western Forests. I indulged in this delusion on the 10 minute walk to Grand Central, ignoring the slow-moving tourists. Without them the city would be as empty as the New York of I AM LEGEND.

I turned off Madison onto 43rd Street. The syringe spire of Chrysler Building gleamed in the winter sun. I was used to the sounds of the city, but not dogs’ barking.

There was more than one.

The MTA cops had gathered their explosive- and drug-sniffing hounds to the Metro-North terminal to guard against a terrorist attack.

The shepherd at the entrance to the terminal eyed me with suspicion.

A half-joint stunk up the back pocket of my trousers. The dog growled and his master clocked me as harmless.

“Nice doggie.”

“He ain’t a doggie.”

“Doggies are cows, right?”

Same as all these cops.

All of them wanting to be a hero.

All wanting to stop someone from doing that something stupid.

I smiled and descended into the terminal. Passengers were hurrying through awe-struck tourists from Shawallagah, PA. I might be older than most of them, but I still was impressed by that great open place and surveyed the crowds for anyone who might damaged it or the people within the terminal. My inspection gave GCT an all-clear visa from the danger of terrorism. I entered the Oyster Bar and sat at the counter.

I called Eliza from inside the restaurant.

“Anything other than Chowdah?”

“Chowdah be just fine.”

I ate my chowdah with haste. I don't like making a woman wait.

My counter mates were from the UK. His wife had a big diamond. I told them about working on 47th Street.

"We ain't buying no diamonds." The husband was adamant on this.

"He spent a fortune on this rock." His wife brandished her stone. It glittered in the dim light of the Oyster Bar. She was happy with the now.

"Having a good time?"

"We love New York and loved the Oyster Bar. In fact we feel safer here than in London."

“I got robbed in Soho last time I was in the Smoke.” Somebody had picked up pocket.

"We come from Plymouth."

"Nice town. I've stopped there a couple of times on the way to Cornwall." I had friends up west. They didn’t know them.

"If you change your mind, stop by our shop. It's only five minutes from here."

"Maybe." His wife smiled touching his thigh. Diamonds were a girl's best friend.

"Cheers." I sopped up the last traces of chowder with a small roll and paid for my chowder and one to go. I hurried through the underground passages of Grand Central Terminal to Madison Avenue.

They were no dogs at the exit onto 45th Street.

"Five minutes later I entered our exchange with three chowders.

"Chowdah, Bobby?" Eliza loved saying this. The words brought back her youth as a co-ed in Massechusetts.

"Chowdah and it's piping hot."

Eliza was so happy to receive her chowdah that she kissed both my cheeks. Hlove sat at his desk with his.

"What about me?" Manny looked at me with disappointment.

"Sorry, Manny, but you said no."

"I didn't say anything of the kind."

"Maybe next time you'll be lucky."

"This is wicked chowdah." Eliza liked to rub it in.

"Just the way you like it."

Manny muttered under his breath and I said, "Just kidding, Manny."

He smiled with triumph. I was his shabbath goy.

"Incoming," Hlove said, as the English couple entered the exchange.

"I met them at the Oyster Bar." That meant they were my customers and the commish would be 25%.

I motioned Hlove to sit. We worked the sales 50/50 and sharing was always for the best in these hard times, especially if the chowder was from the Oyster Bar.

Who Done It / BET ON CRAZY

Two years ago the Diamond District on 47th Street was dead on the high holiday of Sukkot. None of the Hasidim had shown up to work and Gabriel our broker had left us ten big diamonds. I had put them in the window. A half-hour later an over-weight gypsy in Versace suits came in the store and asked, "How much for the big stone?"

"It ain't for sale." I had never sold to a gypsy. They were a WOT or a waste of time. Worse was the possibility that they might rob you. Gippos had a bad reputation. It was well-deserved. "But the price is 40K."

"$40K for a 6-carat F SI3?" The man was top of the line Roma. I had seen him around the block. His name was Tony. "Would you take 20K for it?"

"Thanks but no thanks." Gabriel had given it to us for $35,000.

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

"Sorry, the price remains 40K. Gypsy price. No haggling either."

I sat at my desk and the gypsy exited from the exchange. Tony had other marks on his list. Maybe he would get lucky.

Around noon the girls wanted to order lobster rolls from the new take-out. Coming from Maine I was eager to try the lunch special. Richie Boy signaled that he was in too. Lobster is 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 Lincolnville was an eight-hour drive from 47nd Street. A hand slapped the window.

Lenny.

The Hassidic bum.

His hand was twitching for money.

"Fuck him." 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.

"Lenny, you're messing up the window." His hand imprint was scattered on the glass like prehistoric paintings. "I have to clean it."

"Sorry, Damian." Lenny is a slob in his filthy tee-shirt and ripped flannel trouser with sodden sneakers shaped like melted cheese. He has been living on the street for more than 20 years, but I had seen the fat bum deposit over $200 at the bank. Some people say that this lunacy is an act. His glassy eyes tell the truth.

"No worries." I liked that he called me 'Damian'. The name smacked of THE OMEN and 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 3rd 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 from his rant.

"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 from the past and present. 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."

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, for any criticism of the Holy Land was off-limits on 47th Street. My pay check was more important than politics. I had four loving children on my back.

"The Chinese are 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.

I had been a math major, but today I had to make a little money to buy a 3-liter box of wine to last the rest of the week.

"Lenny, I got to go back to work."

"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. Sokkot was 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 final hours of Sukkot.

Stranger things have happened.

It wasn't too much to ask from life.

Not in 2010.

Dining On Diamonds

The BBC News reported that a Canadian man had been arrested in Windsor for swallowing a 1.7 carat diamond worth $20,000. Police xrayed the 52 year-old thief, however diamonds do not appear in x-rays, so they have forced the robber to drink several bottles of laxatives without any movement of the gemstone trapped in his digestive tract over the last week. The owners are eager to get back their stone, which shouldn't have suffered much from its passage through a human body. This crime is not as unusual as it sounds, for back in the last century Richie Boy and I were standing at the booth of an exchange, observing his senior partner, Blake Mannheim, show a 2-carat diamond to a walk-in customer. The sweating man exhibited a suspicious nervousness and we 2-10ed the man ie two eyes watching ten fingers, because the hand of a thief is faster than the hand of the victim and this old axiom was proven true by the quick thrust of the diamond into the thief's mouth. None of us had been expecting this move, but Richie Boy and I grabbed the man before he could flee the exchange. "Let him go." Blake ordered tightening his tie. "Let him go?" Richie Boy and I were half the dignified jeweler's age. "If he wants it that bad, then he can have it." Blake waved for us to obey his command. Richie Boy and I looked at each other, then the thief, who was smiling with disbelief at his luck. "It's my stone. Let him go." We released the thief. He walked out of the exchange into the chaos of 47th Street. Blake regarded the two of us and showed us a diamond. "You really think I would fall for that old trick?" "You've seen that before?" I thought that I had seen most everything. "When you live as long as me, you see everything at least once, but I wish I could see that thief's face, when he discovers the diamond is a CZ." Blake sat at his desk, content with having conned a con. It was a beautiful thing to see, but later Richie Boy and I agreed that we could do without seeing the thief's disappointment after picking the cubic zirconium from his poop. "Then the hand better be faster than the eye." And in cases like that it rarely is.