Spring 2010 - BET ON CRAZY NYC

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

A hard rain.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They will taste good.

Win or lose.

Times of Nothing - BET ON CRAZY

Thanks to Daylight Savings Time sunset will come an hour earlier this evening.

I hate the winter shift of an hour.

Back in the early 21st century I was working at a diamond store off 5th Avenue. A good address.

Not West 47th Street. The Diamond District. A squalid block which processes 89% of the diamonds in America. Dusk was always a little scary from November to March and one afternoon I received a phone call from a friend in Bruxelles.

"Are you all right?"

"Sure, why not?" I hadn't drank anything the previous evening. That's a lie, but one martini in the Oak Bar couldn't hurt my system.

"There was an armed robbery in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel." Alan was an art dealer. Criminals in that field never use guns. "A guard was shot by the robber."

"It doesn't surprise me." My police friends have been warning about the rise in crimes of opportunity. Times are tough. Budget cuts deplete patrols. Criminals are freed from prison. "The city feels a little like 1976."

"Rome seven days after the Huns burn it down." He quoted a line from my book about punks. "You be careful."

"I will." With two kids in Thailand I have no interest in getting shot.

At least not over money.

St. Valentine's Day Massacre / BET ON CRAZY by Peter Nolan Smith - 2011

Every Valentine's Day diamond dealers and jewelers on 47th Street anticipated a winter spending spree by lovers for their loved ones, but each passing year of the 21st Century the sales numbers have dropped drastically, as the economic downturn cuts into everyone's surplus, but the rich.

The Friday before Valentine's Day in February 2011 shoppers crammed the chocolatiers along 5th Avenue and the high-end stores hawking peach fuzz soft cashmere scarfs and libido-arousing lingerie at Victoria's Secrets. Rose hawkers manned every corner and no man was going home empty-handed, if he knew what was good for him.

Hlove and I stood in our diamond shop at noon. The ex-junkie is not in a good mood. Not a single customer had entered the exchange throughout the day.

"This is not looking good." I shared in his pessimism. My kids in Thailand needed money for the weekend and I was late on my rent.

"Valentine's Day isn't what it used to be." HLove was a little better off. He had given five guitar lessons in the last four days.

"Not that it ever was good." I failed to recall a single Valentine Day in this century.

My telephone rang and I checked the number. It was an unknown caller and I answered the phone with caution.

The caller was a friendly voice.

"My name is Alex. I was recommended by a friend. Are you open?"

"Very open." There wasn't a single customer in the exchange. "What can I do for you?"

"I need a gift for my girlfriend."

"Then come on over and I'll help you find something."

I hung up with dismay, because Richie Boy and Fat Karl had stripped the store bare for the annual Palm Beach Antique Show.

Lenny the Bum rapped on the window and mouthed the question if we had been robbed.

"Not at all," I answered in mime, but we had nothing to sell and I complained to Manny, my boss.

"Stop your crying." Manny had seen four score plus Valentine Days and he had spent most of today arguing with his girlfriend in Florida. All the big machers on the Block were down at the Show, because nothing said 'loser' louder than pale winter skin for non-Hassidic diamond dealers.

"Selling when you have goods is easy. Selling when you have nothing is the sign of a great salesman. When your G comes in, act if you're standing in Cartier, because you are in the center of the diamond world and you know where to get everything."

"Right." There was no sense in fighting Manny, since he was usually right, even when he was wrong.

At noon Alex showed up with a smile on his face. Forty years old, slightly balding, well dressed. He wanted a bracelet. A tennis bracelet. I asked, "What's your budget?"

"Around $3000."

"How long you been going out this woman?" $3000 was more than most men spent on their wives. For that money a 14K 3-carat tennis bracelet was possible.

"Six months." Alex sounded like they were still having sex.

"Really? What does she do?"

"She's from the Ukraine and studied economics at University of London and works at the Bank of America."

"Oh."

According to my calculations Alex was about one zero away from happifying this woman. We had no tennis bracelets in the store and I told Hlove to pick up some for our wholesaler. I had to kill time. Five minutes and I pulled out diamond hoops for $15000. They were the only ones left in the store.

"Way too much." Alex owned a budding high-tech company. They had no investors, so I showed him a pair of Italian diamond earrings with two carats in diamonds set in 18K white gold flower design. I had sold several other pairs over the last month and I had guaranteed each male customer a happy ending upon giving the gift to their loved ones, but I also suspected that might not be the case for Alex, so I asked my diamond associate for her assessment of the diamond earrings.

"There's very nice." Danni was Eastern European, young, and adored jewelry. Her engagement ring came from Jacob and Company. Her mother-in-law ran Moscow's largest jewelry store. She examined the earrings and asked Alex, "How long you been with your girlfriend?"

"Six months. She's petite. Like a ballerina."

"The earrings cost $3000."

"They are beautiful. Italian too." Danni told the truth. We always do, mostly because the truth is easier to remember than a lie.

"I'll take them." Alex paid the $3000 without haggling for a lower price. We gave him a nice box. I even wrapped it. It was a classic ring-box-go sale, although Hlove was pissed I had wasted his time, but he wasn't important.

"If you don't get a happy ending, I'll give the money back." It was our standard offer.

After Alex left, I called Richie Boy at the Palm Beach Antiques Show. He wasn't happy with the sale. There was only $500 profit. "He's a friend of a friend."

"Oh, great." He had to share the profit with me.

50/50 minus the expenses.

"Better than nothing." I hung up the phone and put the money in the safe minus my commission, then closed the diamond shop.

The evening train men rode giftless to Brooklyn. Valentine's Day was on Monday. They were cutting it close, at crowded with men carrying Valentine Day gifts. They wore smiling faces. My effort had made Alex happy. I spent $10 of my commish on a Mexican dinner and fell into bed reading Pier Brendon's THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. Within three pages I was out cold and didn't wake until 8am.

It was Sunday morning. I called my wife in Thailand. She was happy to hear from me and my daughters and sons wished me much love. The store wasn't opening until 10, so my wake-up process lasted longer than normal. I read a little more of the book. England had really put it to India. I watched some basketball and went to sleep early.

Monday morning I called Richie in Palm Beach. The show had been a success. He was coming back tomorrow.

"At least we didn't get shut out in New York"

One sale."

"Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick."

He was right. I had sent money to my family and still had some for me, but not my rent. I left my apartment in Fort Greene at 9am. It was warm for February. Sunny too. The subway wasn't too crowded. I arrived at work a little past 10 with a buttered bagel and coffee. My co-worker, Hlove, waited by the safe. The ex-junkie musician's face wore a veneer of exhaustion. The sixty year-old had just stopped drinking on his doctor's orders. The H was harder. I said nothing. We weren't friends.

"I couldn't get to sleep." Hlove tried to make conversation.

"Don't worry, I'll set up the front window. You do the cases." I wasn't having any of that.

Manny wasn't coming in early. I took my time. Mondays were always slow. I was wrong. Alex showed up several minutes later. The chagrin on his face revealed the answer to my question, "How'd it go?"

"Not good." He stood at the counter, sagging with the weight of disaster.

"Tell me." The $140 in my pocket didn't feel like mine anymore. I expected having to refund thevsale, except all sales are final is printed on the sales receipt.

"Last night we were going to the ballet. She came out of her bedroom in a dress, which looked like it was woven out of the wind. On her ears were two-inch long strands of diamonds. They were antiques and looked like her family stole them from the Czar. I handed her the box."

"The box." I had luckily given him an expensive box. "It cost over $20."

"She looked for a name."

"Oh." The box was elegant, but anonymous.

"She opened it and her face dropped like I had called her mother a bad name. She examined the earrings and said, "You have to be kidding." She didn't stop either."

Most women like her don't when they're on a good roll realizing the man was defenseless.

"She said they looked like they cost $600." Alex was reliving the pain from his failed gift.

"Enough already. I blew it. It's my fault." He handed over the box. The earrings were inside.

I shrugged and said, "I don't know what to say. All sales are final. You can pick out anything. Why don't you wait until the goods are back from Palm Beach. Wednesday."

Actually that wasn't the truth.

Several curses floated on the tip of my tongue.

"I don't know whether to leave her or not."

"There's only one thing you can do at a time like this." Alex's day of romance had been ruined by this unfeeling chuva, which meant 'whore' in Yiddish, so I said the only thing possible, "Do what you think is best."

My advice was non-committal and exactly what he wanted to hear, because any advice from me would be seen in a negative light. I had ruined his Valentine's Day.

"Thanks for taking care of this. Svetlana said she wanted to come by to check out this place. She's that type of girl."

"No problem." I waved good-bye. "I'll be polite."

After Alex walked away, Hlove, happy that the sale died, said,."That sucks."

"Big time. Can you do me a favor?"

"Anything."

I asked HLove to T the G or follow Alex for several blocks to see, if he stopped at another jeweler.

A half hour later he returned and said the lovelorn executive had beelined into Van Cleef.

"Sucker."

"Yeah." I phoned Richie Boy with the bad news. He took it with a lack of grace.

"That fucking bitch. A guy gives her a gift for $3000 and she shits on it. I can't believe it."

"First time it happened to me."

"Stay long enough in this business and you'll see everything."

When Manny came at noon, he said the same thing and added, "All sales are final."

His son and he were from the same school.

Everyone was out for themselves and no good deed goes unpunished.

Around 2:30pm a small blonde in designer clothing entered the store. A wide-brimmed hat hid her face. She was no ballerina in my book, but Alex must have seen a different performance of SWAN LAKE than me. Alex's fiancé examined the jewelry and I pulled out the earrings.

"You mind if I ask you a question?"

"No." The thirtyish woman was dowdy, but she wasn't telling the truth. She wanted out of here.

"If someone gave you this for Valentine's Day. How would you feel? Good? Bad? It cost me $2500. Maybe it's a little girlish for you. Women in their 40s like something bigger."

"I'm not 40."

"Are you in your 50s?" I was being mean. Someone had to be for Alex.

"Happy Valentine's Day."

She huffed out of the store. Manny gave me the thumb's up. He was happy that I revenged her slight. Alex and she broke up that week. Severa months later he bought a diamond tennis bracelet for his new love to redeem his $3000 A year later a 2-carat diamond engagement ring. That Valentine's Day in 2011 hadn't had a happy ending, but he was now and that's just thecway of the world.been happier with Alex's money in my pocket, but sometimes you have to settle for what you can get and some days revenge is all there is, when beauty is in the hands of the holder.

GUILT VERSUS SHAME - BET ON CRAZY by Peter Nolan Smith

Written Dec 25, 2012

Back in the last century I left work on 47th Street early on December 24. Manny complained that I was deserting my post selling diamonds, but I had been working every day since Thanksgiving.

"I should pay you a half-day." Manny was a grinch of the first-order.

"Do what you want. I'm heading home." Boston was my destination on Amtrak. My mother was cooking a big turkey for our family's Christmas feast.

I caught a train north and arrived at our suburban split-level ranch house on the South Shore in time for drinks and dinner. Our guests left a little before midnight and my mother requested her prodigal son attend church with her. I had been a non-believer since the age of eight, but I respected her faith and said, "Sure.”

I dressed in a dark-gray suit with a black cashmere polo shirt. My mother came into the room and asked, “Where’s your tie?”

“Mom, this shirt is pure cashmere.”

“But what about a tie?” My mother was old school.

“You can’t wear a tie with a polo shirt.” I had worn a tie six years as a grammar school student at Our Lady of the Foothills.

My mother frowned with disappointment.

“I hope at my funeral you’ll wear a tie.” The words were drenched in sadness.

Ridden with guilt I changed my shirt and put on a tie. Saying no to my mother was difficult, especially with tears in her eyes.

Later the next week I related this story to the mother of my diamond employer. Hilda tsked and said, “That’s the difference between Jews and goyim.”

“What?” Her son and I were befuddled by Hilda’s statement.

“Your mother simply shamed you to wear a tie at her funeral, if it had been me I would have guilted my son by saying, “Once you kill me, I want you to wear a tie to the funeral.”

“Aha.” Richie Boy and I replied, for Hilda had explained the true depth of Jewish guilt in a single sentence.

Matricide.

We were all bad boys, except to our mothers.

To them we were saints.

Even if we didn't wear a tie.

Tis the Season BET ON CRAZY 2012

My boss at the diamond exchange hailed from Brownsville, one of the toughest neighborhood in Brooklyn and those streets bred its own language. For years Manny greeted Christmas shoppers to his diamond store with the phrase 'there is no season for giving'. His son Richie Boy tried on many occasions to explain that he was basically saying that at no time should anyone ever give gifts.

"That's not what I said." Manny had a problem with accepting criticism. Most bosses think they are infallible.

Thirty years on the Bowery and twenty years on 47th Street had deafened the eighty year-old's ability to hear his own speech.

"Then what are you saying?" His son was mystified by his old man's vernacular.

"I'm saying that you can give a gift whenever you want."

"We know that's what you're trying to say, but sounds hinky." Richie Boy's command of the queen's language had been polished by his friends in high places.

"Wrong way? You understood what I was trying to say, so what's the problem?" Manny was at the age when being wrong wasn't an option unless you wanted to admit decades of mistakes and admission of one error would lead to an avalanche of realizations. It was better to think yourself forever right.

"Nothing at all." Richie Boy shrugged his defeat and soon 'no season for giving' became our holiday motto.

Of course like a corked wine Manny aged either way and on the day before Christmas my boss was showing a young man a diamond ring.

"I'm not looking for an engagement ring. "The customer was too young to want to get married.

"Not want to give a gift." Manny's hearing was gone so he only hears whatever he wants. Richie Boy motioned for me to TO or take over the sale. I shook my head.

"No, I want earrings." The young man was shaking his head.

"So buy a ring already. This is Christmas, a time for giving, not a time for jerking off."

Richie Boy and I exchanged a disbelieving glance. His father couldn't have said that gem. We laughed aloud we heard and Manny continued to insult the morning's only customer and he wasn't stopping either.

"I don't that the time to waste on someone who would rather jerk off than buy his girlfriend a present."

"All I want is earrings." The young man had never expected holiday abuse from an 80 year-old man.

"I already showed you rings, now stop wasting my time." Manny threw out the young man and went back to his desk. He looked at us and asked, "What?"

"Nothing." Richie Boy and I went back to our desks. We knew better than to ask any questions during the season of 'not jerking off'. It wouldn't be Christmas until we shut the safe and we were counting every minute.

KOSHER CHINESE FOOD

After Valentine’s Day business on 47th Street slowed to a halt. The rich were vacationing in St. Barts and Palm Beach. Oil bills taxed normal New Yorkers to the bone and purchasing a diamond was the last thing on most people’s mind in a bad economy during the harshest winter in modern memory.

Hlove the store manager had succumbed to a cold and called in sick. Richie Boy phoned me to come in to open the safe. I was grateful for the day's work.

After setting up the counters and front window, the standard procedure was to plod through the repairs and pick-ups from the setters and polishers. No one entered the diamond exchange. At least no one with an honest intention of buying jewelry.

By noon Richie Boy and I stood around the space heater discussing our lunch plans. We decided Chinese.

"You want anything, Manny?"

"Chinese?"

"Yeah."

"Not for me. I'm on a diet."

"Suit yourself." Manny, my boss and Richie Boy’s father, was unhappy with our obvious idleness.

“I might as well hired two brooms than you heroes.”

“What else should we do? Get down on our knees and pray for customers?” Richie Boy’s clientele came from his going out at night. None of them got out of bed before noon or out of work until after lunch.

“Maybe that would do us some good.” Manny pointed to me. “I got one goy. You must know some prayers for getting money. Who’s the patron saint for money?”

“St. Matthew is the patron saint of money managers. He doesn’t really count.” I had been an altar boy in my youth. “Saint Agatha is the patron saint of jewelers. She was martyred for refusing the sexual advances of a Roman. Her body lays in a church tomb, supposedly incorruptible.”

“Enough already.” The thought of a 2000 year-old virgin corpse disgusted Manny. “But say a little prayer to this Saint Agatha. It can't hurt.

“I’ve forgotten my prayers.” Some stuck with me. The nuns taught religion with the help of a ruler. My hands twitched in memory of the flat wood measuring stick striking my knuckles. My atheism wasn’t something I mentioned at work.

“Pray already. We need money.”

"I'll do my best." I rejected my atheism for ten seconds and begged the intercession of St. Agatha, but stopped before saying how much cash I wanted, because lunch had arrived from the Chinese take-out.

“Great, first I have a religious bullshitter and now I have loafers.”

“A man has to eat.” Richie Boy handed me my order of General Tso’s chicken. He was having the same thing.

“I loved the succulent meat covered with crunchy batter and the sweet tang of the sauce. Neither of us ever questioned the source of the meat, until after whoever ordered the General Tso’s chicken had finished their meal. It was just good manners.

“What about me?” Manny asked from his desk, whose surface was cluttering with bills, invoices, and folded packets of loose diamonds.

“What did you order?” Richie Boy pulled out a plate of dim sum.

“Nothing.”

“Then you get nothing, fat boy.” Richie poked his father’s belly. A good three inches of fat hung over his belt. The eighty year-old liked his food.

“Great.” Manny threw down his pen. “I pay everyone to do nothing and I get to starve.”

“You’re not going to starve. We ordered you Moo Sho Pork.” Richie put Manny’s food on the counter.

“Eat here.”

“I’ll eat at my desk.” Manny started pushing his papers aside.

“No you won’t. Last time you did that you ate a diamond with a dumpling.”

“It was only a twenty-pointer.” Manny remembered everything that he had ever done with diamonds.

“And I found it two days later.”

“Don’t tell us where. We’re eating.” Richie Boy had a delicate stomach.

Manny put a paper towel under his collar. His tie was Armani. He also leaned forward.

I ate at my desk with a real fork and spoon. I hated plastic utensils.

Richie spoke on the phone with his wife, mumbling out apologies. He had had a late night last evening.

“Were you with my son last night?” Manny constructed a small crepe from the pancake accompanying the Moo Shu Pork.

“Only until midnight, then we both went home.” I had no idea what time Richie got home from his next destination.

“You’re a good friend, but a bad liar.” Manny crammed the Moo Shu Pork into his mouth. The sauce dripped on the counter. Pork was tref to most Jews, but Manny, Richie Boy, and everyone from our partners’ firm were bacon Jews. They loved the taste of pork more than Yahweh.

“Manny, when you were a kid, did your mother let you eat pork?”

“I’m from Brownsville. We couldn’t afford pork. My mother covered everything in a gravy. I had no idea what we ate. It could have been cat same as that General Tso’s Chicken.”

“What makes you think a Chinaman is going to serve you cat?” I put down my fork.

“There are no cats in Chinatown,” Richie Boy shouted from his desk. “We had a store on Canal Street for twenty years and I never saw a single cat and the Italians in Little Italy never let their cats out of the house. Cat makes a very good General Tso’s Chicken.”

I examined a piece of fried chicken without figuring out what part of a chicken it came from.

""I have a question for you."

"What?" Manny asked daubing at a post of gravy on his shirt.

“Why do Jews like Chinese food so much?”

“Because it’s cheap.”

“It has nothing to do with the money. Chinese culture and Jewish culture go back thousands of years.”

I popped the crispy morsel in my mouth. It tasted like chicken.

Manny expounded on this theory.

“They know each other since Adam. Marco Polo found Jews in China. They weren’t there for their health. They probably came from one of the lost tribes.”

"Lost tribes? That's almost a good a legend as General Tsao Chicken being cat."

"My father told me ten tribes were deported from Israel by the Assyrians. They were scattered across the earth."

"Jake taught you that?" Richie Boy put down his phone.

"Whatever my father taught me stayed taught same as your holy nuns." Manny had dropped out of high school at the age of 15 to working on Canal Street at the age of 16. “My father said our family was a lost tribe in America."

"But then you were found?"

"No, but we discovered China in Brooklyn, because when I was a kid, there were Chinese restaurants on every corner and every Sunday the Chinese restaurants were crowded with Jewish families and the real reason Jews like Chinese is that they never mixed dairy with meat."

"I thought you said that Jake didn't take you out to eat." Richie Boy remembered his family history from its one source.

Manny.

"We never ate at the restaurant. Jake hated giving tips." Manny's father had been a common laborer. He had worked into his nineties as a diamond schlepper for his son. A truck had run him over on Canal Street. Jake had survived that and lived another three years with a slight limp. "Like I said we were poor, but sometimes my father would treat us to take-out. We ate on paper plates, which my mother would hide in the trash, so the neighbors wouldn’t know that we were so poor. Like she was fooling anyone.”

“So you went, because it was cheap.” Richie Boy wasn’t letting go of this bone, because Manny liked to save money. He wore the same shirt twice and to prevent his collars from getting dirty he placed a paper towel between his neck and his collar. We called it his shvets schmatah or ’sweat rag’.

“Sure, it was cheap and good, plus my brothers and I ate pork, because eating forbidden foods showed we were Americans. At the Chinese restaurant Jake wouldn’t even look at the menu. He’d order #3. Pork Chow Mein. The waiter would say, “#3." and never mention pork. They were respectful that way. The number two reason that Jews eat Chinese is that they weren’t goys. At an Italian restaurant there was always a cross on the wall. How can a Jew eat at a restaurant with a Jew nailed to the wall? Feh. But Buddha, he always had a smile and we rubbed his stomach for good luck.”

“You said you didn’t eat at restaurants.” I thought I had caught Manny on this, but he shook his head.

“What you think we had telephones back then. Take-out meant you went to the restaurant, ordered, and brought the food home and another good thing about the Chinese was that we weren’t Jews to them. They thought all white people looked the same, so we were the same as everyone, because they couldn’t care less about anyone as long as you had money.”

“So you never ate in a Chinese restaurant as a kid?” Richie finished off his dumplings.

“I never said never. We went on Christmas, because they’d be no one there and afterwards we’d go to the movies. There was no one there too. My old man didn’t like waiting for nothing.” Manny made himself another crepe. “Stop looking at my food. If there’s anything I hate, it’s a schnorrer.”

“Your son is the worst in here.”

“Only because he studied with the best. You.” Manny bit into the pancake loaded with pork and pointed to the door. A man and woman were coming out of the cold.

My prayer to St. Agatha had hit its mark.

“Enough talk. Work.”

“You got it.” I put away my food before Richie Boy could get out of his chair,

I was hungry for money and ‘nimmt geld’ or take money was the first rule of 47th Street. My lunch could wait till later and Chinese food always tastes better with a little money in your pocket.

Even cold.

11:59PM - Bet On Crazy

The Friday before Christmas was the Winter Solstice. I stopped by the diamond exchange on 47th Street. There were no customers in sight. Only the rich have money and the vast majority of the .00001 had fled south for Palm Beach or St. Bart's. Richie Boy was working with a wealthy friend, asking $260,000 for a magnificent sapphire in an exquisite platinum and diamond mounting.

"Burma no heat. They are the best stones in the world." Richie explained.

"I'll give you $150,000." The banker had settled a recent federal investigations into a multi-trillion dollar scandal and well understood that having money at a time of capital scarcity bestowed a wicked power of leverage, however Richie Boy stood firm at 260K.

The banker stood up and left the store, saying, "If you change your mind, give me a call."

"You'll be calling me before I call you."

The man's wife loved the ring.

I watched the door close.

"Bastard," Richie Boy muttered, putting the ring in the safe. "I'm making 6% on this sale. 6% and he wants to steal it."

"How do you think he got his money? From Santa Claus. No, he stole it like every rich person in America stole money."

"I don't need to hear your bullshit about only three ways to be wealthy."

"Be born into it, marry it, or steal it."

His octogenarian father snoozed in the corner. A smile was on his face. He had to be dreaming of better times.

"Your father worked sixty-five years. Is he rich? No. You've worked almost thirty five and while you have a nice life, you ain't rich."

"What about you?"

"For the past two years I slaved in the metal factory cutting bronze beams for a salary of $800/week and I was glad to have it, but now I'm working with Jeri on 3rd Avenue. Our store was close to Bloomingdales.

"How's business up there?"

"About the same as here. I sold a fancy yellow diamond for $40,000 and the profit was $4000."

"A luxury, although the other day I sold an emerald for 14K and made 7K on it."

"Sounds like the good old days. I'll see you later."

I picked up some diamond eternity bands for a customer. I returned to the Lexington Avenue store. Jeri sat with her pugs, while going over her bills.

"Anything happen?" It was a stupid question.

"The dogs slept for an hour."

"Lucky them." Samson and Delilah were old pets. I liked them, but they weren't buying any jewelry this or any year and neither were the disappearing middle class. Only the rich had money and they were bargaining like Gypsies with a Minnesota roll of $1 bills.

Jeri's client arrived on time and picked out the best ring. The Palm Beach blonde was in her 70s. Her husband wasn't healthy. I wished that Simon passed over the New Year, so I could marry Elaine. It was a dream too good to come true.

At 5pm we shut the store. It was already abysmally dark on 3rd Avenue. Thieves targeted stores daring to stay open in the shortest days of the year and days didn't get any shorter than the Winter Solstice. this was the winter solstice.

Jeri magnetically locked the front door. The pugs woke from their sleep. We gave them thin slices of apples. Their happiness had nothing to do with money.

"You close safely." Jeri put on her coat. It was fur. Warm too, but like Richie Boy and me she wasn't rich. No one who has to work was rich no matter how much money they have. The real rich don't have to work at all. "Remember you have to be here early."

After closing the safe and locking the door I took the Q train back to Fort Greene. I bought a very good bottle of wine for $41. The staff of Green Grape applauded my escape from single-digit priced wine.

After arriving home I drank the bottle with my landlord and his wife. They had given me gave me a bottle of Jamison's for the winter's solstice. I toasted AP and his wife. I babysit their kids. I don't make a mess. My bedroom has a view. My bathroom too.

After we finished the wine, AP and I retreated to my floor to listen to music. I opened the bottle of Irish whiskey. We drank a few glasses and AP descended into domestic 'for better or worse' bliss. I readied for sleep, listening to Jefferson Airplane's SURREALISTIC PILLOW.

COMING BACK TO ME.

11:59PM

It was time for bed, because tomorrow I have to be to work at 10AM.

She had a customer for an emerald.

The store needed money.

Jeri needed money.

I needed money to send my kids in Thailand.

Only a minute remained in the day.

Within sixty seconds the clock would tick into Saturday.

Tomorrow was filled with twenty-hours.

One of them had to be lucky.

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."

Light Stops On A Dime - 2015

According to Wikipedia the f-number (sometimes called focal ratio, f-ratio, f-stop, or relative aperture[1]) of an optical system is the ratio of the lens's focal length to the diameter of the entrance pupil.[2] It is a dimensionless number that is a quantitative measure of lens speed, and an important concept in photography.

The constriction of light through an aperture has nothing to do with its constant speed, however German scientists at the University of Darmstadt have claimed to have frozen light for a single minute to test its quantum coherence properties (i.e. its information state) in hopes of someday breaking the speed limit of light.

This phenomena naturally occurs in diamonds, in which light slows to half-speed.

Another reason why diamonds are a women's best friend.

They stop time for their beauty.

The Germans under their group leader George Heinze brought the speed of its light to zero, proving they are no constants in this universe.

Only variables of constancy, then again anyone who has lived with a woman knows that oh too well.

Only variables of constancy, then again anyone who has lived with a woman knows time is not an absolute oh too well or me, since I am never a=on time, although I did achieve perfect attendance in fifth grade at St. Mary of the Foothills.

Dreams of Egg Creams / BET ON CRAZY by Peter Nolan Smith

Ten years ago the Hassidim were hurrying home from the Diamond District to beat the sunset. The High Holidays had come early this year with Sukkor coinciding with the ancient pagan festival of Mabon, which commemorates the autumnal equinox. Sukkor is not only a bridge across the Indus, but the festival honoring the 40 years during which the Hebrews were lost in the desert. All over Williamsburg sukkah are erected outside the apartment buildings and houses of the Hassidim in memory of those decades wandering without real shelter. Gabriel M left Richie Boy a parcel of ten big diamonds. The biggest was a 6-carat round brilliant.

"I won't be answering my phone." He wouldn't be back on the street for ten days. Sukkor lasted longer than the San Gennaro Feast on Mulberry Street. Gabriel wished us good luck. "Sei gesund."

I checked the 6-carat stone. Black flecks were visible in the table. Big ones. I figured the diamond for an F I2. A classless combination of size, color, and imperfection.

At best $3000 a carat.

Gabriel had doubled on my estimation.

$40,000.

It was too late to give back the stone. Gabriel was lost in the flood of black-coated Hassidim fleeing to Williamsburg, Eastern Parkway, and Munsey. I examined the other diamonds. They were Nishtkefelecht or no big deal. Richie Boy shrugged, "It's Sukkor."

Gabriel had given us stones cheap. Sometimes as much as 40% off the Rappaport List, which governs the wholesale price of diamonds. We were his vault for the holidays. Our safe was 10 inches thick. The exchange was guarded 24/7. Our insurance covered the retail value of our goods. Both my bosses prayed for thieves to rob us blind, except most robberies were inside jobs and none of us were desperate enough to risk breaking 8th Commandment.

The rest of the afternoon passed without a single sale. My clients were out of town. Foot traffic was confined to a few out-of-towners killing time before their Broadway Show. Richie Boy and I discussed my commission on a sale with a NBA basketball star.

"I'll take 12%. Same as the last sale." I should have gotten 25%, but I was happy with $500. It was half the cost of a ticket to Thailand. Almost three months since I last saw my kids.

"I don't know." Richie Boy was being tight. His bills were enormous, but they weren't my problem. "I feel better with 10%."

Richie Boy and I were friends almost thirty years. He would do the right thing in the end and I didn't need the money until then. An older woman entered the exchange. Her head barely cleared the counter. 4-10 in high heels. Her dyed orange hair was coiffed into a soft helmet. She had to be in her 70s.

"I'd like to see the diamond hoops in the window." Her accent was Brooklyn. Flatbush. 1st generation born in America. Same as my mother, although my Nana was from Ireland and not a shetl of the Palantine. Not much of a difference since the murdering King of England was as much as a tyrant as the bloody Tsar. "The pavee ones."

"Sure." I brought in a pair of diamond hoops. 4.50 carat. 18 karat white gold. After a little sales spiel, I gave myself room to haggle and said, "$4400."

"They don't look very white. My husband was a cutter on this street. Believe me, sonny, I know diamonds." The woman commented off-handedly. Her attitude was kindly. A woman her height had little choice other than to be pleasant with strangers.

"That's the lighting in this place." The Israeli landlord had painted the ceiling of the exchange yellow. I cursed him each and every day. This wasn't the first time I had heard someone say that my diamonds weren't white. "These stones are actually G plus."

"Better than G plus." Our broker added as he passed through the dutch door on his way to the bathroom. FK had good ears for a man in his 40s who listened to Zeppelin at 10 on his Ipod.

"I don't know." The woman was not convinced by his single sentence and FK launched into a sales pitch about having learned his trade from the worst diamond dealer on the street. "Sy Sigelsohn."

The mention of this name gained the attention of several of the older members of the exchange. Sy had a store down the street, where he would lock the customers in a booth, until they bought from him. It was called the prison cell.

"I remember him."

"How could you forget?"

"My husband never worked for him. He never paid."

"He must have worked once for him to learn that lesson."

"Once only." The woman was fondling the hoops. She liked them. Like was not love.

Fat Karl and the woman played Jewish geography. He came from Seagate. Her family Flatbush. They had eaten at a deli in the 37 exchange.

"There was a deli there?" I had been on the street 20 years.

"Before your time." Fat Karl and I went back that far. "They had a brisket there that you could plotz for."

My mouth was watering, even though the goyim shouldn't know that 'plotz' means to die for.

"What about egg creams?"

Both Fat Karl and the old woman tsked at the suggestion and drooled over long-gone delicacies from the extinct deli, until the woman's husband entered the exchange. His name was Moses, but we remembered him as Max. He had sold Manny the most beautiful 18K jewelry in the early 80s.

"Back when my father was on the Bowery."

"Lola, you want them, buy them." Max was a man of decision. His wife the opposite. "I have to think about it. See you boys after the holiday."

"Sie gesund."

The door closed and Fat Karl descended to the bathroom. It was time for a going home line. For him. Not me. I was being good. At least during working hours. All this week too.

I wasn't hungry enough to eat a brisket sandwich, but a nice chocolate egg cream. Now that was something.

Bah Humbug Stop your Kvetching

My 2009 Xmas season consisted of a marathon work schedule at the diamond exchange. 7 days a week. 9 hours a day. No caroling or egg nog or festive cheer. I was at work to sell diamonds and jewelry to the public to support my families in Thailand. Business on 47th Street is better than last year at the Plaza Retail Collection. After the banks' collapse in 2008, sales weren't good but it was not dead.

Our clientele make big money. Earlier in the year I had sold a ruby for a million dollars to a woman from Detroit. Richie Boy had sold a D-flawless Pear Shape for $600,000. None of my friends were buying anything for their wives. Maybe a cashmere scarf and a bottle of perfume. Not a single call for a strand of pearls or diamond studs. Only the rich had money and the other day Richie Boy called me a hypocrite.

"For all your talk about re-distribution of wealth, you end up earning your money off the upper class."

"I never said I wasn't a hypocrite, but how I make my money has nothing to do with my political beliefs."

"You want to overthrow the capitalist system. What kind of jewelry do you think revolutionaries buy? Nothing?"

"Our customer base shrinks year by year. The rich get richer and the rest of the world has no money. That's why they don't buy anything, but potato chips." I had been thinking about a red star ruby ring for myself. I remain true to the cause. My tastes run left of anarchy. My only jewelry at the moment is a claddagh ring and a half-dozen Buddhist talisman.

"Well, I couldn't be happier for my friends, who are richer this year than last, because without them we wouldn't be in business." Richie Boy had met most of his customers at bars and discos during the 70s, 80s, and 90s and even now. They liked to party as did we. Neither of us were quitters.

None of the rich ever spoke about their good times with the wives around them. They were smarter than Tiger Woods that way, but I didn't have to like them.

"They're all schlubs.

"What about your customer this week. Owns a natural gas company. Was a submarine commander. He's on MSNBC."

"He's a nice guy." The customer was looking for a $300,000 Emerald-Cut Bracelet. I had one from Cartier. The stones were not a great color. The broker pulled the three biggest diamonds. When the setter put them back, he polished out the 'Cartier' stamp. The piece lost $100,000 on that mistake. "I'm going to make him the piece. It will be gem. He'll be happy. His wife will be happier."

She had liked my story about Uncle Carmine being buried with his dogs ashes. Aunt Jane had no idea whose cinders belonged to whom. The three cans are resting well above Schoonic Bay.

"You shouldn't think any of these people are your friends. They're are all Gs." A G was a Goy. They bought retail. "Why not? You do." Richie Boy hated the idea of my customers becoming friends because the commission ratio lifted from 10% to 25%.

"Today's strangers are tomorrow's friends. Opportunity knocking on the door."

"Fucking commie."

"Goddamn fascist."

The door opened for a couple. The husband visibly was in a hurry to buy something for his wife of twenty-some odd years.

"You're up, Che." Richie Boy always gave me the opening. I was the fluffer for the firm. A hypocrite with a golden heart. A man too lazy to lie. A revolutionary waiting for retirement.

My second wife is only twenty-seven.

That's revolution enough for me.

Dec 2, 1978 - East Village - Journal Entry - Poem

Disenfranchised By a dead society
Detested by cult cliques
Dedicated to false idols
Death to their dishonor
Not noble by birth.
Not common by the desire
They are not the avant garde
Few speak of revolution.
I want to fight alone.
A wasted fight.
I don't know what to fight for.
Equality, justice, family, friends.
I know I will fail.
Fail forever
Until I don't fail.
Even if I am only me.
I accept my nothingness.
One day
I can't say when
Car will rust,
Towers wil fall
And diamonds will be dust on the wind.
This destiny will conquer the greed, but what will rule destiny.

BET ON CRAZY / WHO DONE IT by Peter Nolan Smith

47th Street was dead on Friday. None of the Hasidim had shown up to work for high holiday of Sukkot. The yidlocks would be out for a week. Gabriel our broker had left us ten big diamonds. I had put them in the window. Gypsies entered every half-hour and asked, “How much for the big stone?”

“It ain’t for sale.” I had never sold to a Roma. They were a WOT or a waste of time. Worse was the possibility that they might rob you. Romas had a bad reputation for a good reason. They were thieves and I gave them a price. “But the price is 40K.”

“$40K for a 6-carat F SI3?” The man was wearing a Italian suit. He was top of the line Roma and had dibs on any score in the Diamond District. “Would you take 20K for it?”

“Thanks but no thanks.” The diamond cost me $35,000.

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

“Sorry, the price remains 40K. That’s the bottom line gypsy price. No haggling either.” I got 10% of the profit. $500 was half a ticket to Thailand, where my kids lived, but there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Death Valley of selling this Roma a toothpick.

“Let me speak to your boss.” He waved the money in my face.

“So you can waste his time?” I slapped away his hand.

“That’s not nice.” He stuck the roll into his jacket.

“Hey, that’s depends on how you see it.” I signaled the guard to throw him out.

“I’m going, I’m going.” He exited from the exchange. There were other marks on his list. It was Friday and everyone wanted to make money for the weekend.

“Good luck.”

I sat at my desk and the girls behind the counter asked if i wanted a lobster roll for lunch from the new take-out. Coming from Maine I was eager to try the lunch special. Richie Boy signaled that he was in too, even though lobster was 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 the Lincolnville Pound was an eight-hour drive from 47nd Street.

A hand slapped the window.

Lenny.

The Hassidic bum was sweating in a tee-shirt. His thinning hair was plastered against his skull. A pudgy hand was twitching for money.

“First a gippo and now Lenny.” 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 with Windex and a paper towel.

“Lenny, you’re messing up the window.” His greasy hand imprint was scattered on the glass like prehistoric paintings. It took me fifteen seconds. “I have to clean it.”

“Sorry, Damian.” Lenny was a slob. Filthy tee-shirt and ripped flannel trouser were matched by sneakers shaped like melted cheese. He has been living on the street for more than twenty years and the fat beggar earned more than $200/day. I’ve seen him deposit his daily stash at the bank. Some people said that this lunacy is an act. His eyes told the truth.

“No worries.” I liked that he called me ‘Damian’. The name smacked of THE OMEN, 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 third 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.

“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. Current and past. Some people on the street regarded Lenny as a genius. 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.”

"And 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, because any criticism of the Holy Land was off-limits on

47th Street. My pay check was more important than politics. I had four children. “The Chinese were 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.

“Lenny, I don’t have the time for this.” I had to make a little money. It was Friday. I wanted to buy a box of wine. 3-liters lasted for the weekend.

“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. It was Sokkot, 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 last hours of Friday. Stranger things have happened and stranger things weren’t too much to ask from life, especially with Lenny’s blessing.

His were a mitzvah.

FREE THE WORLD - BET ON CRAZY

In 2011 gold soared to record prices and a steady flow of customers entered our diamond exchange on West 47th Street to sell their precious jewelry and family heirlooms. They were of all ages, nationalities, and races. Most of them were honest, but buying stolen merchandise or swag was a crime. Richie Boy, his father Manny, and I didn't care who they are as long as they possess a valid ID for our police records. None of us were young men and we had too little to gain from doing the wrong thing, when we could churn out a 5% profit.

Our first question to these sellers was, “How much do you want?”

Most of them said that they don’t know, but we were in the middle of the block and they had already spoken to thirty dealers.

"Let me check it out." I ignored their feigned ignorance and tested the gold for karat and weight.

We calculated everything in pennyweights or 1/20th of an ounce. The Middle Age measurement confused the buyer, but we always handed them a slip of paper from a adding machine. Everyone still understood numbers written in black and white.

I told them a simple truth.

"The final price is determined by the market value of an ounce of gold, which fluctuated day to day."

In 2011 the price soared toward $2000/oz.

Weight and carat determined the scrap worth of gold.

We paid nothing for sentimental value.

Our firm had a good reputation for paying the most on the street.

We had a pitch.

"We only make 5% on this."

It was almost the truth, but some pieces could be flipped for more, especially diamond rings.

Late in the summer a young man of Semitic descent approached my counter. He had a diamond ring in a bag. It was the relic of a ruined romance.

After settling on a price of $1500, I advised the young man to buy something for himself.

“Paying off bills does not soothe a broken heart, but for $1500 you can buy a good used motorcycle. Let me see your ID.” I took his driver’s license.

His name was Arab and I entered it in the police book.

“Are you from Iraq?”

“No, Palestine,” Mohammed spoke flawless English. His father had grocery stores in Queens. He was running three of them.

“Palestine is a forbidden name on this street.” 47th Street was predominantly Jewish.

"People on this street back Israel right or wrong."

"I know that Israel could do no wrong in their eyes. I come from Palestine. Not Judah."

As a goy I had my own beliefs.

"I'm half-Irish. My people lived under the British for four hundred years. I can only say one thing.”

“Which is?” He was used to America’s prejudice against Palestine.

The movie EXODUS had cast blue-eyed Paul Newman as a member of the Zionist terrorist gang and a young blonde Jill Haworth as a kibbutz farmer. There were no Hassidim in the film.

Only tough white-skinned fighters.

“Free Palestine.” I had a tee-shirt in my closet stating the same slogan.

I raised my fist, the accepted sign of world revolution.

“Good, but it is better to free the world.” Mohammed smiled and accepted his money. “I’ll think about that bike and you think about the world.”

“I’ll do that.” I leaned away from the counter slightly stunned by his desire for world peace..

I had been taught an important lesson by this young man.

A simple lesson.

All politics that are local are also global.

They effect everyone.

Everywhere.

Free Palestine.

Free the World.

SHABBAS STARKER - BET ON CRAZY by Peter Nolan Smith

New York in the 70s was a tough place. Tough guys were a dime a dozen. Killers cost a lot more.

Nowadays some guys think they are tough.

Few of them are.

Four years ago Richie Boy, his father Manny and I went to Sofia's on West 48th Street for an after-work drink.

Sitting at the bar was Lil Joe; 6-3 and 300 pounds plus. He had left several jade pieces on consignment at our store. No one had looked at them yet.

We waved for him to join us for a beer. He plodded over with his cashmere coat over his muscular arm. I could have used it as a tent.

"He's good for a laugh." Richie Boy liked a good story and Lil' Joe told of his diving venture on the East River.

"I have access to a shipwreck in the East River."

"The General Slocum?" That excursion liner exploded in 1904 with 1300 souls on board. 1100 perished in the accident, which had been New York's greatest disaster until 9/11.

"No." Lil Joe shook his elephantine head. "It's a British ship from the Revolutionary War."

"What you got off it so far?" Richie Boy was hoping for gold coins. Doubloons were popular with his hedge funder clientele.

"Just some broken plates. It's not easy diving the site."

"Why not?" Manny had swum in the East River as a kid. He came from Brownsville.

"Because the wreck is located in Hell's Gate and they called it that, because the East River and Harlem River meet the Long Island Sound and unlike many confluences which have smooth bottoms, Hell's Gate has jagged rocks on the bottom. Hundreds" Big Joe sounded like an expers. "Visibility is sometimes less than zero and the current runs at 13 knots. We're lucky to get twenty minutes of diving at slack tide."

"Treacherous waters." I had seen the rip tides tear through those straits.

We drank a few beers and Lil Joe told a few more war stories about diamond purchases in Tanzania. Each entailed more danger than most people liked to experience other than at the movies.

"Is Lil Joe bullshit?" asked Richie Boy, when the big man went to the washroom.

"All stories are true, if interesting."

A few more beers were consumed and it was time to head home, because happy hour is my new midnight.

I got Manny his coat. The old man has lost some freedom of movement. Lil Joe slid off his stool.

"I'll help you."

"Piss off," snarled Manny. He didn't need any help from a stranger.

"I could be your bodyguard," Lil Joe offered with a smile.

"The day I need a bodyguard is the day you can throw dirt on my grave." Manny pointed to me. "Besides I have the shabbas starker with me."

"Shabbas starker?" Lil Joe wasn't fluent in Yiddish.

"Shabbas means 'the holy day' and 'starker' means tough guy," I explained Manny's reworking of 'shabbas goy'.

"You tough?" scoffed Lil Joe. He was twenty years younger and had me by a good 120 pounds.

"He was known as Maddog on his good days." Richie Boy had witnessed my performance at various after-hour nightclubs.

"I'm quiet now, but manny is a true starker straight out of Brownsville."

"Never ran never will." Manny had lived the motto most every day of his life.

"And Manny doesn't need a bodyguard. He could take you right now by himself and wipe that smirk off your face. Two years ago Manny was playing tennis with a friend. After the game they stopped at a bar. He looked down the bar and sees this guy who took 50K from him on a memo. Manny excuses himself from his friend and took out his racket. The gonif sees Manny and tries to run, but Manny swacks him the kopf with the tennis racket."

"My best serve of the year," Manny added with a smile.

"Manny swats him a few more times for a good measure> Everyone in the bar is horrified, except his friend, who drinks like this is nothing new, and manny lifts the gonif to his feet, saying, "Everyone remain calm. I'm making a citizen's arrest. Call 911."

"A stupid move, because we go back to the gonif's apartment and he has all my jewelry. The police confiscate it all as evidence." It took me two years to get it back from the thieves."

"So Manny doesn't need me or you." I poked Big Joe in the chest.

At 61 I was a shadow of that Maddog, although the last year at the steel mill had tightened my muscles.

"Well, my family is from the Bronx," Lil Joe mentioned a Mafia gang.

"But they're not here and Maddog is." Manny let me help him on with his coat.

"Sorry, Lil Joe, but a starker is a starker and you go to the grave with that rep," I had to tell him the truth, for amongst starkers no one tells their own tales.

Richie Boy paid the bill and we got his father a taxi.

"You might think you're tough, but I was tough when tough meant something." Manny wasn't leaving without a barb.

"And that's true." There's nothing wrong with letting an old starker having the last word.

After watching the old man disappear into traffic, his son asked, "You think you could take Lil Joe?"

"He's veakling. You know I don't fight fair. Same as your old man."

"Some things never change."

"What about another beer?"

"Downtown."

"Where else?"

He caught a cab to Balthazar.

No one cared about tough guys there.

Starkers neither.

ps we don't turn off lights on Shabbas and we are peaceful as long as everyone else is.

Happy Stiffmas - BET ON CRAZY

In December of 2009 the jewelers on 47th Street were counting on a big buying spree to recoup from the Great Recession, however the nation's zombie economy had exiled the masses from luxury purchases gold and diamonds. Only the rich had money and Richie Boy had more than his share of the upper class. One customer bought a yellow diamond ring for a quarter of a million. The invesstment naker earned that much per day. Another Wall Street iinvestor dropped a half-million on a Burma ruby. Several other financiers purchased collection-grade diamonds as hedge against another economic collapse.

After setting up the window for the day I went outside Manny's store and cleaned the front window.

"Damian, you have a dollar?" whined Lenny the overweight Hassidic bum.

"Always for you."

Many people on the street considered Lenny a Kadokhes or a worthless person, but he always wished me luck, which I desperately needed, since I hadn't closed a sale all week.

I hope you have a good season."

"Every year is worse. None of the hoi polloi are buying."

"Rich people, feh. All they do is push money back and forth taking a little here and a little there. They produce nothing of value and neither does America." Lenny slapped a greasy hand on the window. Each time imprinting a palm. Richie Boy waved for Lenny to piss off. Lenny turned to me and said, "Why is Richie Boy such a cheap prick? He never gives me nothing. The Jews are so mean to the Jews."

"Lenny, if you stopped cursing him out of the street, he might give you something." I handed the fat slob a dollar. He was getting old. His winter wardrobe was torn coat, a soiled tee-shirt, stained trousers and battered yamulka.

"No, he never gives. Does he treat you alright?"

"Alright enough." I hadn't received a raise in two years. Manny, Richie Boy's father, nickel and dimed my commish for every sale. Still I was able to feed my two families in Thailand and no one was hiring a man my age. I was the only 58 year-old on the subway in the morning. Everyone else was either retired or on unemployment.

"You take care, Damian." Lenny waddled down the sidewalk bemoaning the loss of the middle class. The gap between rich and poor was hurting his business too. I returned inside and helped Richie Boy finish with a Burma sapphire sale.

$150,000 from a Tech entrepeneur.

They were still earning good money.

After writing up the bill Manny came to the counter and said, "I don't know why you give Lenny money."

Manny hated anyone who didn't work and that sometimes included me, since I never showed up to work on time.

"He makes me laugh." Chronic tardiness was my way of rebelling against incessant badgering. He was a prick, but I was inured to his abuse.

"A fucking Trombenick."

Manny's father had worked every day since he was 12. Jake was run over by a truck on Canal Street running an errand for Manny. The accident didn't kill him, but the doctors gave him a deadly infection. He went to his grave three days after visiting the hospital.

"He might be a ne'er-do-well, but he is still very funny and he isn't stupid."

Everyone said that he used the coins and dollar bills that he reaped from 47th Street to finance his online trade. The slovenly bum was rumored to be worth millions. I had seen him on the streets late a night.He hated sleeping in the shelters. He was not a rich man.

Throughout the morning Richie churned out sales. I could barely keep up with him. His phone never left his ear.

"When are you going to make a sale," Manny asked fromk his desk.

"Leave him alone. Our low-end client base is gone." Richie Boy explained to his father

"Teh goys spent too much money at Kmart. Serves them right for buying all that crap from China."

"It's all they can afford after you rich bitches sucked them dry," I muttered under my breath. Richie Boy caught some of it. He had good hearing. A glare warned to keep my antpathy for the rich to myself. Free speech was a luxury only the rich could afford on 47th Street.

Dealers kept showing up at the store for payment of old debts. Manny never ran from them, but paid off these debts slowly. Richie's big sapphire sale saved the firm, but after giving a setter $2000, Manny said, "I don't know how I'm going to get salary this week."

This comment was probably to himself, I suspected that the eight-year old had said this to prepare me for his not giving his working staff their Xmas bonus. He had done it before and I feared that he was getting ready to do so again.

I mentioned this possibility to Deisy. She shook her head.

"I work six days a week and this is the thanks I get."

"It's not sure." Only 90%.

"Yes," Deisy sighed with an accent. She came from Brazil. "But he only gave me one raise in three years. Always the same thing. I wish I could do something but it was a bad year."

"You want to make a bet that we get something?"

"No." Deisy was a Born-again Christian. She believed in the goodness of man, but mumbled a Santeria curse aimed at Manny.

"Don't be like that." As a non-believer I worried about curses. They were almost as real as Santa Claus.

Two evenings ago we had held our annual Xmas dinner.

$50 a head.

25 people.

Richie Boy's partner had given gave Deisy and me $200. Manny had handed us a cheap scarf and good glove. I had left them at the table. Karl had chased me down the sidewalk, "You forgot your gifts."

"No, I didn't." I was pissed. Richie Boy and Manny. Cheap bastards. "Thank you for your gift, but I don't need anything from those two scrooges. Another Merry Stiffmas."

"They didn't give anything?" Karl was a little crazy at work, but the diamond broker had a good heart.

"Not a pfennig."

Karl insisted on my taking the gifts. They would be nice to re-gift. I rode a taxi home and had a beer at Frank's Lounge. Everyone there was happy to see me. The bartender bought me a drink. We toasted ourselves. None of us were rich and in some ways I was happier that the rich owed me nothing and me nothing in return.

Happy Beermas one and all

I hope none of you get coal in your stockings.

It's all the rich want to give.

A Shabbas Goy In Bangkok - BET ON CRAZY

In 1991 I arrived in Thailand and visited the Rebbi of the Jewelry trade.

We exchanged good wishes as I was a respected shabbas goy and he was a learned man connected to my contacts on New York's 47th Street.

"What are you thinking of doing here in Bangkok?" the old man asked with a shrug.

"I know jewelry. I was thinking of entering the trade here." I had enough money to buy a good amount of colored stones and put it gently, "Do you know anyone honorable here?"

"No one. There are all thieves."

"Even___?"

"Yes, even us."

"Viele danke."

And like that I entered the internet schamata or rag trade selling top-line Formula 1 gear.

1000% legit.

www.f1-shopping.net.

Oh, those beautiful years.

PS fuck Ferrari

NEW YORK SNOW DAY - BET ON CRAZY by Peter Nolan Smith

In the winter of 2010 I woke early to snow flakes fluttering against the window of my Brooklyn bedroom. Beyond the glass a winter storm was decorating the city white. I thought about going back to sleep, except the telephone rang.

It was my boss' son, Richie Boy.

"I hope you're calling to tell me not to come in work." I loved no-work snow days.

"No, I have a customer coming into the store at 9:30. He's buying a Rolex."

"And you aren't coming in?" Richie Boy never showed before the crack of 11.

"Not until later." I was more into 10am.

"How much snow is there?"

"Twelve inches so far. Can you make it?"

"If the trains are running, yes." I hung up, made a cup of tea, got dressed for the weather, and called my family in Thailand. My son Fenway was getting ready for school. His mother listened to my description of the storm and said, "I never see snow."

"I don't think you'd like it." The coldest it got in Sri Racha was the low 70s.

"I think I die. You come here soon. I keep you warm."

I hung up, finished my tea, and headed to the Atlantic Terminal. Trains were running slow, but running so there was no chance of a snow day for me. It was a good way to start out the morning and I headed out of the Fort Greene

The train ride into the city took an hour instead of 30 minutes. Richie Boy's customer was already at the store. These Wall Street types didn't like wasting time even in a blizzard. He didn't thank me for coming into the city and I spun the dial of the safe slower than normal. I wasn't making a penny from the sale. It was 100% Richie Boy's deal. After pulling open the door I took out the watch. It was in a box. The banker tried it on. It was a late gift from his bonus.

"You have the money."

He handed over an envelope. $10,000 wasn't much of a wad in hundreds. I count it three times and said, "You're good to go."

Neither of us said good-bye.

I looked outside, as I set up the jewelry in the window. The snow wasn't letting up and I doubted Richie Boy was getting here before 1.

The phone rang.

I checked the number. It was a client calling to ask where was his Fedex package. I answered the phone and told the realtor that his wife's gift might be stuck at the depot.

"But Richie said it would get here today."

"The snowstorm is an act of God." I had to blame it on someone and who better than God.

The customer cursed me and I said, "I'll call Fedex soon and get back to you."

"I'm not happy."

"Good morning?" Andrea asked from across the aisle.

We were the only two people in the exchange other than the two guards.

"Yeah, lovely. I thought I was going to have a snow day, instead I get yelled at by a customer who wants his package now."

"Who wants what now?" Richie clomped into the store in his snowboarding gear. He saw the cash on the desk and stuck it in his pocket. He had bills to pay.

I told him about the package in limbo.

"Let's see if we can save it from purgatory." Richie called Fedex and asked the rep about options. "Can a customer can pick up the package from 11th Ave and 42nd Street."

That was FedEx's main depot.

I groaning thinking that Richie Boy wanted me to pick up the package. He blamed me for the package's status, not remembering that he had ordered Monday delivery to save on shipping. Americans loved to blame everything on someone other than themselves. I bit my tongue. I had four kids to feed. They were more important than my pride.

"Where you going?" Richie Boy asked without putting down the telephone. The only time of day his ear was free was when he's asleep.

"To pick up the package." I figured the go-come back would take two hours.

"Let the prick pick it up." Richie Boy hung up the phone. His ear was boiling red. Better his than mine. I have no one talking in my head while I sleep.

"You're right about that." I don't talk about any customers like that, although Richie Boy's father considers all Gs are POS or pieces of shit and they proved him right more often than not.

Richie Boy made another sale. We closed early. The snow was gaining on the rock salt and shovels. His wife was waiting at home. A bottle of wine would be my companion for the night. Later a telephone call would join me with Mem. She would know from the tone of my voice that I had been drinking.

"It's a snow day."

Mem was smart.

She knows what that means and she knows me.

I love snow.

For a related article click on this URL

http://www.mangozeen.com/2010/01/31/sex/the-last-go-go-boy.htm

47 A GO-GO - BET ON CRAZY by Peter Nolan Smith

Last week the best antique dealers in our diamond exchange moved to a new address. Their vacated booth was both minuscule and expensive. The building management had been hard-pressed to find a new tenant in these hard times after Christmas.

I stood by the glass counter with the departing salesman and Jo-Jo the security guard, who were discussing the possibilities for such a constrained space. The salesman was in favor of a rest area for the ill-mannered hawkers of 47th Street. Richie boy hated them and Jo-Jo suggested a bar. It was a good idea, but I had a better one.

"We should open a go-go bar. The girls dance in the window. We have six seats. $10/drink, which have to be finished in less than ten minutes. That's $360 an hour. $3000 a day. Over a million a year. Most of it profit."

Jo Jo and the salesman turned their heads.

"The window isn't big enough for anyone to dance in it." The salesman was thinking normal like most people his age.

"This go-go will be special." I didn't even have to shut my eyes to envision the crowd inside the exchange. The mob on the sidewalk would be five deep. My idea was genius. "We hire midgets to dance in the window. Steel pole hobbits. No dwarfs."

"No dwarfs?" Jo Jo sounded uncertain of the difference.

"Midgets and dwarfs don't get along."

"Don't get along?" Jo Jo was drunk. The redheaded ex-cop had a drinking problem with Buds. I said nothing about it to no one. I wasn't a snitch.

"There used to be a midget bar in the West Village. The bartender never served dwarfs. Midget think that they merely short humans, while dwarfs accept their shortness as normal. Everyone has to have someone beneath them."

"You wouldn't want to be known for prejudice against dwarfs." Jo-Jo knew my politics.

"No, I wouldn't like that." But I had seen fights at that bar between the two vertically challenged groups. "Only one or the other. Not the both. I'll save that for the boxing arena."

"So what would you call the bar?"

"The 147 Club, because that's the average height of a midget."

"And they could be kosher." The salesman laughed at the possibility of shimmishabbah midgets dancing on the go go poles.

"Midgets willing to shave their heads for you." I pointed my finger upward. "Isn't there an office upstairs? That could be the short-time room. I'll be a millionaire in a year."

"The police will arrest you in the first week." Jo-Jo was an ex-cop and all cops are downers on a good time.

"I'll pay them off. For religious reasons."

"Like what?"

"I worship Hassidic midget go-go dancers."

Manny my boss was staring at me. He hated my bullshitting. My salary was too low for him to say too much, but we liked each other and I returned to my counter. There were no customers. Business was slow. Last year had been even slower.

"What were you bullshitting about?" Manny wanted to know how I was wasting his time.

"Midget go-go dancers in the next booth."

Manny shook his head. Most of his 80 years old had been spent in New York.

"You live long enough to hear everything. Please get back to work."

"Whatever you want." I returned to my desk and looked at the booth. The 147 a Go-Go was an impossible dream, but for one day it would have been a paradise for midgets. Me too because I would have served dwarfs just to see the shit go crazy. Once a punk always a punk.

Blue Angel Madness

Everyone hates Mondays. It was the first day of the work week and six years ago I rode the F train from Brooklyn with shudders of trepidation. My boss Richie Boy was especially abusive on Friday. We have been friends for decades, but he was no long who he was, since he wanted to be someone else.

Rich, successful, respected like many of his wealthy clients.

Our relationship consisted of tattered memories, but I had an out.

A job in Europe.

The Old World.

My kind of place.

Class and history.

47th Street was devoid of the first and steeped in the second, although mostly through tales of bad luck.

After exiting the train at 49th Street, I entered Rockefeller Center and ascended to the ground level via an escalator. Outside on 48th Street I grab a coffee at Indus Express. The countergirl knew my order. Coffee – milk one sugar. I arrived at the diamond exchange 25 minutes late. Not bad considering that the world had survived a threat from the Jesus Freaks.

Manny had opened the safe. His son was MIA. Manny was 82. He came to work on time every day. He hated that I was late every day. I tried to come at 9:30, but I hadn’t received a raise in three years. Manny and Richie Boy were masters of demotivation.

Kara, our Korean assistant salesperson, was setting up the inner showcases. My job was to put the jewelry in the front window. I positioned my IPAd 2 on the shelf and listened to Ultimate Spinach’s BALLAD OF THE EGO.

In many ways I remained an old hippie.

I looked back into the store. Ava, my religious co-worker, had not come to work.

“Have you heard from Ava?” I asked Kara.

She was never late and I checked my phone.

“No.”

“Strange.” I called her cell phone.

No answer.

I hadn’t heard from her since Saturday.

The day of the ‘rapture’.

>Ava was a severe church-goer and believed in doing the right thing according to the Bible. She obeyed all the commandments. Her daughter was her treasure. The both of them were without sin and I regarded her empty chair. Kara noticed my staring and said, “Are you thinking the same thing that I’m thinking?”

“Yes, that Ava was taken by the blue angels.”

“Bullshit.” Manny was a firm non-believer for many more years than me. “There are no angels of any color.”

“Then why isn’t Ava here?” While the leader of the May 21, 2011 movement had remained on Earth, no one was counting the MIA on Monday morning.

“Her bus was late. She got her tongue stuck in the microwave.” Manny motioned for me to return to the window. We had a busy week ahead of us. Richie Boy showed at 11. He stared at Ava’s desk. “Where is she?”

“The goy thinks the angels got her.”

“Really?” Richie Boy belonged to the same lack of faith as Manny and me.

“No SMS. No call. That’s not like Ava.”

My cellphone buzzed in my pocket. I checked the message. It was from Ava. She was sick with bronchitis. The angels had left her on this planet. She would be to work tomorrow along with the rest of the wage slaves on the subways, trains, buses, and cars. There was no salvation from work.