July 13th 1978 - Journal

Hung over from a night drinking at CBGBs. The English band Wire headline the the show. Another great set with their hit, I AM THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT. The front row loaded with young teenage girls in love with Richard Hell, who was in the audience. He gets all the girls. Bill Yusk offer me some grass. I turned him down. I haven't smoked anything in in the last two weeks when I was in West Virginia. I've never really liked marijuana and while many of my high school and townie friends in their 60s huff weed. I didn't smoke until I graduated from high school. My friends and I were my 1967 VW Beetle. The sunroof open. Coming back from Nantasket Beach. A beautiful day in the Atlantic. Tommy Jordan hit up a joint, and I said, "Let me have some of that."

After a few pops the world changed, slowed down, the clock stopped ticking. The Chambers Brothers TIME was on the radio. We stopped at the red light on Beale Street n Hingham, where Route 3A turns from the harbor. A horn honked from behind us. The light had changed. Maybe once maybe twice maybe three times. The song was over. I shifted into first and we drove away. For the next year I smoked almost every day trying to relive that high.

LATER

I lie in the bed of my SRO room on 11th Street. It's a small bed. Too small for two people. Alice is dead asleep. At CBGBs she had been drinking Jack Daniels. Three glasses knocked her out. Her feelings were hurt because no one flirted with her. I flirted with no one. Klaus was with his girlfriend, Claudia. A starkly beautiful dominatrix. She wants nothing to do with me. Klaus is the opposite. We talked to a leather bound redhead, who was passing from consciousness to Oblivion. I make out with her. Alice is too drunk to see. Klaus was caressing me, very friendly after our last tirade at Kiev when I called out Samo, for recording me with a tape recorder. He was very angry about that.

Afterwards I ignored everyone. Only interested in drinking and playing pinball.

LATER

Last night after CBs Alice wanted to make sex. She had a hard time taking her clothes and I let her fall asleep unmolested. My hangover is brutal an this my head feels as if I have two barbell stuck in my skull.

I get up and shower in the hallway bath room. It is relatively clean for once . And everyone has gone to work. I take my time and come back to bed extremely clean. Alice is still in a shambles with her plastic skirt down to her knees and your bra around her neck. We've been together for the last two weeks twenty-four hours a day. I love to get a real place soon so that we can escape from one another to another room instead of this one room.

She looks over her bare shoulder, "Please fuck me. Maybe cumming will help my hangover."

I do

LATER

Jimmy Carter's in Berlin. I hear it on the radio. A Berliner asks, "When will Berlin be united?"

"Ah wish ah knew, but ah don't." It was an honest answer, but the American people can't stand him. They blame him for the week of economics and are defeat in Vietnam can we have a 12% inflation rate it shows no signs of stopping.

LATER

CBGBs as I said was fun. Kyle serve me plenty of vodka tonics. She has a vicious crush on Richard Lloyd from Television, who her sister Kim says is crazy. Kim loves Greg from the Revlons. Serena is pissed at Sean, who inherited $300,000. At the bar he gave Serena and me shit about not having any money.

"We don't need money. We get drinks for free."

But Serena is hurt about the money, because he never told her. She found out from his father at Film House when she was taking care of the wife, old money bags. I don't care. if he has money. And no one really bothers me, but I do like Sean he's smart and he's funny you're probably smarter than me fro money. I certainly aren't no smart after as much as I drink last night .

LATER

My hangover is gone. And I'm drinking a beer at Dojos. The bartender loves me. The owner always waves for her to give me one. I don't know why, but I sort of vaguely remember saving him from some thugs trying to rob the place. I spent the afternoon wandering through the village and Soho. Allison with Kim did you see the Three Stooges Festival. Three hours of Mo, Larry, cheese. I had enough when I was a kid. They are still Our Heroes.

Drinking is destroying my libido. This morning and I was fucking and I couldn't come. Faked an orgasm again with Alice on top of me. Afterwards we have each other. Your body naked feels like flesh tailored from me alone.

PHOTO BY EUGENE MERINOV

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Much more to come__

JUNE 30, 1978 JOURNAL ENTRY

THe first half of 1978 ends today. It's 10:30 and I'm ready for the new half-year. Tomorrow morning I depart my departure to Charleston, West Virginia, where I will paint Alice's father's house. As a teenager I painted two houses in my neighborhood in the Blue Hills. Ten years ago. My parents' and a neighor's split-level. All the houses on my street with split-level. My older brother and I were a team. The job took us two weeks. My hand hasn't touched a brush since. So many of my friends here are artists. I asked Ro for advice.

"Put down a drop cloth. Start at the top and paint with up and down strokes. Wear a hat and long sleeve shirt to protect yourself from splatter. And don't do it by yourself."

Alice says she will help.

A ticket on Piedmont is waiting for me at JFK. I have $70 in my wallet. Her father will pay me $500 for the job. At present I'm lucky to earn $100 a week. I hope to finish in two weeks. Alice says it is not a big house. Her father is a lawyer. It has to be as big as my parent's house, but it is not a split-level. At least it isn't a hillbilly shack up some hollow with moonshine running down the creek. Chareleston is the Capitol of the Mountaineer State. I know nothing about it, but I suspect her home is in the suburbs up a creek.

This afternoon I asked Ro what I should buy for a gift.

"Perfume. Opium by Yves St. Laurent. It's a natural scene with mandarin, jasmine, patchouli, and vanilla. Very sensual."

We made love at my place and then I went up to Bloomingdale's. Matthew worked in the perfume department. He wants me badly enough to give it to me. I trade a kiss for the perfume.

Alice doesn't wear any. She is a hippie. She smells good without any I sniff the perfume. Patchouli. She will like that hint. She's a hippie. I open the box and spray on a little. The attar warms on my skin. It reminds me of smoking opium and I wish I had some.

I pack a bag. Jeans, tee-shirts, and an old seersucker jacket. Alice says it's hot in the mountains. I'll bring a bathing suit. Maybe I'll swim in a moonshine creek. I haven't flown since Chuck and Jackie's Philadelphia wedding in 1975. I was in the wedding party. They moved to Cinncinati. It's not far from West Virgina. Maybe I can find their phone number by dialing infomation at 555-1212.

The New York Post featured a report about a Miami voodoo priest who creates Baron Samedi dolls of victims by gathering his victims' nail clippings and hair with water and a little rum and then puts them into a Waring blender after which the finished product is poured into a small doll. Supposedly the victim wakes thinking he is a doll.

La Guardia-Charleston flight departs at 1:30. I'll get there two hours before take-off. An hour flight to DC. A three-hour layover. Then an hour to Charleston. 7-8 hours with the subway the first stage of the trip. A distance of 500 miles. Ten hours by car. Longer by hitchhiking. West Virginia is the original hillbilly country. They hated hippies. They must hate punks even more. I'll soon find out.

Later

The musicians at CBGBs only talk about music, drugs, or other musicians. My world has fallen into a world of drum, guitars, and bass. Their only goal in life. Hit the Top 10. Even Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Hard-driving noise band with Lydia Lunch singing. My fav song EVERYTHING. It is so radically un Top 10 with James Chance on sax, but in their eyes I see the collective dream of opening for the Rolling Stones. All the girls on the scene think Richard Hell is cute. No one thinks that of Teenage Jesus. They sound like they're covering Lour Reed's Metal Music Machine, whihc is almost unlistenable. Cecil Taylor loves them.

OPIUM
Black tar
On tin foil
Stuck into a pipe
A match
Fire
Smoke furls in the air
Suck
Suck
Suck
My mind stalls
Into a dream
Of nothing
A land of Nod
So sweet nothing
So nothing at all
In a sleep smooth as glass

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks

I woke up dreaming

Rain on East 77 Street - June 5 1978

Midnight
June 5 1978
East 77 Street
Outside
Rain
Thunder
Inside the foyer
My finger
On the buzzer
No reply____
Last winter
Lisa left
To be a model
In Europe
No letters
Since April___
Her face
Never on French Vogue
Nor Italian Vogue
Nor inside any fashion magazine.
Gone___
Inside the hallway
My finger on the buzzer
A last time___
Past midnight
She not here
The last words
In the last letter
Love
Lisa___
Where did the love go?
All I see are ghosts
Of her
All I have
Ghosts and the rain__
I walk away
Into midnight
Into the rain
With
Only one destination
Away from here
To someplace else
And out of the rain

Guns On Avenue C - 1986

In the 1970s I always said that the East Village looked like Rome three days after the sack of the Visigoths 410 CE. Buildings burned day and night. The overstretched 9th precinct triaged the streets beyond 1st Avenue. No patrols ventured farther than Tompkins Square Park. Shooting galleries outnumbered bodegas and hordes of thieves fearlessly prowled their newly-won turf for victims. Nobody honest could survive in a neighborhood more burnt-out than a junkie’s vein and families of all races, colors, and creeds fled the outlaw DMZ for the suburbs.

256 East 10th Street was my home. Sinse dealers ruled the 1st Avenue corner. We got all well. They showed respect for how my friends and I had scammed the 9th Precinct at our after-hour club on 14th Street. East of Avenue A life was tricky. Gunfire was heard day and night. My neighborhood was rough. His was dangerous. Very dangerous.

My friend Uncle Carmine lived on East 11th Street between Avenues B and C. The first time I visited the Sicilian plumber at his ground-floor office. We discussed military history, while Carmine sucked on an unlit cigar. He ate them more than smoke them. We had a good laugh. Our conversations were between two men with convictions about truth and justice. We discussed some schemes only involving us. We were sworn to secrecy. Not Omerta. Carmine was connected, just not that way.

As I got up to leave, he said, "Wait a second."

He reached into his desk and pulled out a 38. He slid it over to me.

"For your protection, this neighborhood is fucked."

I laughed and asked, "Where are all the bullets? I'd emptied this before I reached B. I don't need a gun. I need money."

"Don't we all." He stashed away the piece. "I'll see what I can do for us."

"Thanks." I walked onto East 11th Street. Hakkim was across the street, scoring dope. The junkie thief glared at me. He had a death wish. I was glad not to have a gun. At heart I was a hippie sometimes. Thou shalt not kill.

JOURNAL ENTRY - AUGUST 5, 1978 - EAST VILLAGE

AUGUST 5, 1979 - EAST VILLAGE

No sign of Hakkim on East 10th Street, but the two young boys, Flacco and Manny, warned, "He ain't done with you. Hakkim a stone cold junkie, but he's stone cold baddd too."

"Fuck him. I fucked him up once. Next time will be worst," I boasted,but walked around the ower East Side looking over my shoulder, especailly in the morning taking Alice to work at the yogurt shop.

Last night Rick Guadacanal, the Heartbreakers' roadie, turned me onto cocaine. We snorted blow in CBGBs toilet. Cocaine is everywhere in New York City and the USA. Last month I dealt a little. It's easy money, if you keep your nose out of stash, a feat for men stronger than me.

Living on East 10th Street means cooking at home instead of eating at Greek diners, although there's nothing like bacon, eggs, and toast at the Kiev after a night of punk music.

This morning I woke up in a hospital. The only time I stayed overnight was at birth.

May 29, 1952.

Sixty-nine years ago.

It's forty-two yeasrs upstream from my first days at that apartment at 256 East 10th Street. Alice is living in LA with her husband. I haven't told her that I'm ailing; my blood count in low after expelling the bloodfrom my stomach, my blood sugar count was 450, and the doctors have scheduled an ultra-sound for tomorrow.

With all the tubes in me, I can't move around too much. Just to the toilet. I called Guadacanal to keep him the loop. I had visited the punk guitarist in Jersey City during his COVID quarantine. He was now home with his wife in Kansas City. Rick listened to the news and said, "Don't worry, you'll be fine. I got what you probably have ten years ago. Medicine has advanced since then."

"Yeah, right," I said with the enthusiasm of a hypochondriac. My belief in eternal life had been challenged by the fact that I was wore a shameful 'johnny'.

"You'll be out soon enough, but no more drinking."

"No more, unless the doctors tell me to get my affairs in orefr, then it's back to the 169 to Dylan Thomas body and soul. THe poet had drunk himself to death at the Whitehorse tavern.

Oh, the glory.I researched on the internet for John Thunders.

Journal Entry August 2, 1978 - East Village

Today Alice and I moved out of my West 11th Street SRO room. The temperature was rising into the 90s and I sweated bullets, loading a taxi with our possessions. Jumping in the back seat, I shut the door and we crossed 10th Street to 1st Avenue, where the driver stopped at the curb and said, "I don't go any farther than this. Alphabet City is too dangerous and this corner ain't no bargain." He pointed out the sinse dealers on the corner and spat out the window. "They're hippies in comparison to the junkies. You're not really going to live here?" "Yes, but we found a cheap one-bedroom apartment for $180 a month." I unpacked the taxi, putting our boxes on the corner." "Let me guess. Bathtub in kitchen. Water closet in back. Very 19th Century." He was visibly nervous about having stayed on the corner this long. "Very quaint. Good luck." The Checker burned rubber up 1st Avenue. My twenty-two year old girlfriend shrugged, "We're home one way or the other." 256 was only three stoeps from the avenue. Two scrawny kids ran up to us and asked excitedly, "Mister, you need help?" "$1 each to carry a box to our new apartment." I pointed to the third stoop on the south side of the street. "Can we trust them?" whispered Alice. Her eyes were two different colors; green with tints of red. The latter was the color of fire.

"It's not like we have anything to steal. We let them help and no one will think we're stuck-up white people trying to take over their neighborhood?"

Carrying the boxes the kids joked about us being Mr. And Mrs. Opie, then fell silent at our new address.

A pockmarked junkie sprawled before the door and the taller kid said, "That's George."

"Is he dead?" asked Alice.

"No, he ain't dead, just fucked up," said the shorter of the two boys.

"Let me see, if I can wake him."

I called his name several times and then climbed the stairs to lightly nudge the comatose junkie with my foot. As he slumped from the doorway, an enraged voice shouted from behind me, "Who the fuck are you to kick George?"

"Oh shit."

The two kids dropped the boxes and sped toward Avenue A. The kids in the spray of the fire hydrant scurried to their parents. A bare-chested black man wearing jean too tight for his muscular build approached us with yellowed eyes bellowing with fury.

My girlfriend stepped behind me.

"I'm not goin' to ask you again. You kick George?"

"I didn't kick him. I touched him with my foot."

"You callin’ me a liar, you white piece of shit?" the junkie snarled from the sidewalk.

"I’m sorry." I couldn’t look him the eyes.

"Too late for sorrys. You're fucked." The veins on his neck pulsed with thick throbs of blood and put a foot on the steps. "I’m gonna to kick your ass."

Countless scraps with Southie gangs had taught me the value of not fighting fair and I threw the boxes at his chest. Their weight knocked him off balance and his body slammed onto the sidewalk. The crack of his skull on the pavement echoed off the opposite building. A trickle of blood seeped from under his head.

The street was very quiet. Everyone had been surprised by effect of my attack.

George rose from his slumber and stared at his friend and then me.

"What you done to Hakkim? You fucked yourself good. My man gonna come for you and your little girlfriend. Take your clothes, TV, jewelry and fuck her."

Anyone stupid enough to threaten you deserved a beating and I kicked him in the head. My girlfriend stopped me and said, “We better leave before the police come.”

”Ain’t no police coming here.” I opened the door and carried the boxes to our third-floor flat. We tore the previous tenant's artwork from the walls, twice washed the floors, toilet and tub. The air in the tenement flat was breathlessly still. We soaked naked in the lukewarm bath and my cock began to get hard. I asked the ingenue actress from West Virginia, "You want to make love?"

"Not in this heat," she laughed in this heat. She was right. My body was sapped on all libido, but I was at Alice mercy coming to money and she liked my acting as a hustler. Luckily we had one fan and after drying off laid in the futon naked, awaiting for Hakkim's revenge.

A little past 11AM Alice said, "Nothing is going to happen tonight."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing bad," the lithe brunette said, as if she had been born on the Lower East Side instead of the good end of an Appalachian hollow. She slipped across the futon into the arms.

We were home, far from our suburban roots. The first time I walked these streets was in 1970. Wayne Shepherd and I hitchhiked from Boston to New York City. His sister lived on St. Mark's, two blocks west from 256 East 10th Street. Alice was asleep and I thought about everywhere I had lived in my twenty-seven; first breath - Boston Lying -in, Hingham until 1954, Falmouth Foresides before moving to the South Shore of Boston in 1960, I left that suburb in 1971 and rented an unheated apartment in Brighton's Bug Village, a Brookline basement with a sixteen year-old lude dealer, Park Slope with the jazz impresario James Spicer and now here.

With Alice.

From here into forever.

AUGUST 2, 2021 - CLINTON HILL, BROOKLYN

Yesterday afternoon I rose from bed at the Myrtle Avenue Punishment Cells and walked into the kitchen. A wet belch burbled from my lips and I wiped away the bright red wet with the back of my hand and a second later blood spewed from my mouth into a metal bucket. Another four heaves covered the pots' bottom and the color darkened to near-black. I repeated this several times.

There was no pain, but I instinctively understood that my stomach was fucked.

The retching stopped throughout the night and this morning I packed a night bag with a 1979 journal, Cookie Mueller's book, A Bernie Gunther novel, two changes of clothes, chargers et al and crossed the East River on the Manhattan Bridge heading for NYU hospital. I wasn't feeling too good, but felt no urge to vomit.

At the Emergency Ward check-in the nurses immediately led me to the holding pen and I laid in bed.

"We need you to stay overnight. This blood thing is dangerous," said a young doctor and two hours later I was brought upstairs to Room 2205 hooked up to three feeders. a number of failing vital signs threatened my existence.

I wasn't scared.

I've died before.

I picked up my journal and saw the first page was from August 2, 1979.

Forty-years ago.

I vividly remember the heat.

Alice.

Hakkim.

The one fan.

The crackling of thunder raising the ghost of Rip Van Winkle.

I'm 69.

A man my age don't remember everything.

No one can.

May 26, 1978 East Village - Journal Entry

Tonight is the big Gemini party. The four of us invited everyone we knew in New York. Not everyone likes everyone and Kim is scared there will be fights. I tell her not to worry. I'll be the birthday bouncer. I think she was worried about me fighting. My guests are Bruce, Lewis, who couldn't get into CBGBs last night, Ro, Alice, William Lively, RR, Pud, Klaus Sperber, Anthony with Cookie, Willem, Clare Hartnett, Michael Stumm, Fred and George from the SRO, I invited more men than women, but not everyone is 100% straight. Should be fun,

LATER

I was momentarily saved from temporary destituition by Mark's timely letter saying that an unemployment check arrived from the Boston School Committee. James Spicer had lied to me and Mark Amitin said, "He stole several checks, so it looks like you don't owe him any back rent for that place on Park Slope, but he asked if you still have his typewriter."

"Fuck him. He stole over $250 and lied every inch of the way. Plus I repaired the typewriter.

Mark took my side, at least to my face and said, "Then it's yours."

"We both got what we wanted."

"Not really, James wanted to sleep with you.

"Not a chance." James was still attractive. In the 50s he had fucked James Dean. All he got from me was to drunkily oil my feet like Mary Magdalene did at the Last Supper for Jesus according the the New Testament."

James has gone from moderately heavy drinking to serious drinking and Mark said, "He's headed to drunk's grave. He's looking like shit. The curse of the Irish."

We Irish do drink to exces, although I don't know, if it's a genetic curse or how we dealt with the British oppression. My drinking worries me, but I'll stop worrying, when I stop drinking.

My first drink was with Paul Keenan. Dry Vermouth samplers from his father's liquor stash in their basement. In sixth grade he and I raised our desks to take a slug under the noses of the nuns. I never really got drunk until freshman year at Xaverian. Dave Quann drove his family station wagon down to Horseneck Beach. It was packed with us two, my brother, my next door neighbor Carl, Phil Milan, Kenny Doyle, and Charlie Carr. At the beach we mixed Bourbon with pepto-bismol. I got so drunk that they had to secrertly carry me up my stairs to my bedroom like I was a wounded soldier fleeing the victors. Inatead of bleeding I puked pink for three days. My father knew what ailed me and patted my stomach. More puke.

After that adventure I drank in moderation until I left high school. Those last three years were so pure. CYO and Surf Nantasket dances, school, never any homework, track, no friends, Janet Stetson as my girlfriend, the Smith-Menconi feud over Ava Gardener, church every Sunday to hide my atheism, dry humping Janet, we never went all the way, I lost my scholarship failing German and religion, but my mother wanted me to go to a Catholic school. I hated it.

But I didn't drink.

Recently I wrote my mother a letter. When I went up to Boston we sat at the kitchen table and she said, "I read your letter. "I'm so sorry. I didn't realie how unhappy you were. I feel like I was a bad mother to not have seen it."

"You weren't a bad mother and I hide my pain from everyone. I never told anyone about it. The one place I felt safe from here. With my family. Outside was very different. I was never safe there except for with Sister Mary Osmond, Brother Karl, and Janet. Everything else dangerous."

But I had books as my refuge.

With them I could go anywhere other than here.

LATER

Today is the first summery day; high cloudless blue skies and a warm wind from the south carrying the scent of the sea deep into Manhattan. I am tempted to hitchhike up to Cape Cod and crash in the dunes south of Provincetown. Take the subway to Pelham Park in the Bronx and stick out my thumb on I-95. I could be in Truro before sundown. I haven't been there in two years. I ask Alice if she wants to go.

Her reply, "You must be crazy."

No, I'm not crazy nor beserk nor mentally challenged. Most of the Cape is very white. Very unfunky. I doubt if there are any punks there. BC students off-seasoning as a summer cops. BU coeds serving fish to old tourists. Mashpee Indians, the Silent Minority, glowing in the sun like martini drunk lobsters, Points of interest tourists on holiday for two-week holidays away from the rut of the work cycle, hackneyed scenery artists selling seagull paintings, homos and dykes in P-town, hippies and the really rich on Martha's Vinyard and Nantucket. Miles and miles of beaches covered by teenage sunworshippers happy tobe where they were at this stage of their life as long as it wasn't raining,

Cape Cod was not Times Square. No hustlers, whores, runaways, pimps, narco pigs, and thieves, or junkies. I feel comfortable in either place. I can't go anywhere. The Gemini party is tomorrow. I am a new me in New York, still a New Englander, my accent is unmistakable and my thirst for violence comes from teenage battles with everyone from Southie and beyond. My friends here regard me as an anomaly. Rough trade James Spicer once said.

Who cares? .

May 14, 1978 - East Village - Journal

Actors are all full of shit.

Expecting attention for an unending of neuroses. Pretending to be someone they are not. Unless they're funny they bore me. Artists are much better. I prefer workers like Patrick the cook and Kim's friend Amos.

Amos's a Southerner always quiet. I didn't know why Kim explained he was dyslexic. "He never finished high school. He can't read and he can't read it write "

Back in Boston I taught at a Special Ed school. The kids were very challenged. Most couldn't read. Most couldn't write. Some couldn't speak. I sang to them. Write. As a child I had trouble speaking. Stutters stammers mumbles lisps eating my words. My schoolmates were not kind. I wanted to kill them all. I wanted to join the Marines and come back to my hometown as a killer. Amos must feel the same way and that's why he's in New York. Because people like us belong here.

Home must have been torture for Amos to stay in school.

He's a good man and he likes me, because I dislike Marky from the Ghosts. But I no longer dislike Marky. He once tore up a picture of mine. It reminded me being bullied. I didn't hit him. Wanted to, but didn't, since my father used to say, "You have to compromise."

I never saw why, but maybe one day I might.

Four fat lesbians

I like the idea of Subway suicide Laying on the tracks The steel wheels running over me Not stopping Not screeching The A train 40 miles an hour heading to Times Square

At that Kim's apartment Amos Cyrena, Kim and I drink party shots. It's afternoon. Sean leans against the plastic wall. He falls through it. No fun. we leave for a dracula film.

THE RULES OF KLAUS photos by Anthony Scibelli / Story by Peter Nolan Smith

In 1978 Anthony Scibelli and I created a foto-roman of his photos and my story

The story was one of my detective poems and the cast featured the Eighth Wonder of the world, Klaus Nomi, Jon Waters Starlette, Cookie Mueller, Club 57 Impresario Andy Reese, A texas runaway, Clover Nolan, and me along with several other people whose names are locked in the past.

Scibelli's eternal black-and-white photos appeared at MoMA's CLUB 57 show 2017-2018.

MoMA's photo experts had digitally improved each image, which are classic reminders of a time when New York belonged to us and not them. We all know who them are.

18"X14" prints are available as are larger and smaller versions

To purchase the 18"X14" prints, please go to this URL

https://www.ebay.com/itm/THE-RULES-OF-KLAUS-featuring-fotos-of-Klaus-Nomi-and-Cookie-Mueller/164117217701

Thank You

Peter Nolan Smith

December 11, 1978 - East Village - Journal Entry

Last week slipped out of existence without any resistance to the daily grind of waking past noon, Alice embracing me until three, Her going to Irving Plaza, while I wandered the East Village until six, having a drink in a Polish dive, then return to 256 East Street to watch TV, sleep and repeat. An unhealthy rut, but tonight was the first meeting of the National Resurgence Party at the downstair bar in Irving Plaza. I was surprised by the turn-out; Kim and the Kyle, Lang, Joseph Curtin, Mombo, Grant, Alice, Mitchell, John Kemp, the British shoemaker, and Jim Fouratt, Who fought at Stonewall, who's more interest in having sex with me than my humorous take on American politics.

After Stanley, the manager brought us a round of drink, I announced that the NRP will officially launch in the New Year with a meeting on the Staten Island Ferry to propose the occupation of Greenland, whose premise is a joke since the USA has no interest in world domination after the Vietnam Debacle other than to capitalism in the USSR through the sale of Coca-Cola.

Yesterday Metro-Novelties went well at Irving Plaza, even though David McDermott narcissistic madman routine of a Stock Broker losing his mind after the Stock Market crash of 1929. Not that he was a jumper. David heroically had helped rescue Patti Astors's husband after he fell of Tom Sculley's roof, but he has been replaced as emcee by the Mumps Kristin Hoffman, who is so funny and musically talented.

Klaus Nomi was the headliner and his popularity has spread beyond the gay demi-monde. We remain friends, but one day and one day soon he will be a star and stars have little time to space of light bulbs like myself. "Lady Bug' Hickman performed he erotic acrobatic routine and I wondered what it would be like to have sex with such a flexible female. Alice and I haven't touched each other in weeks.

Her rat-thin witchy friend Susan glares at me as if I were fucking her cat. She really is a cunt, but thankfully I have nothing to do with such a soul ugly harridan. Lance Loud lovingly covered the Sex Pistols'ANARCHY IN THE UK, then anonymous yet profane version of THE NUN Story followed by the ever popular Businessmen in Space. They are so Devo.

Kim Davis shared the stage with her partner ripping off grafitti tee-shirt after tee shirt, who looking like the illegitimate Jewish son of General MacArthur, complete with sweep-over. Traci Sherman deep-throated fire, accompanied by scantily dressed go-go girls in punk leather. Some egomaniac declared himself THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE. I wanted to throw him off state and suggest so to Alice. Her girlfriend Susan sighed with man-hating ennui, so I shouted the Center of the Universe, "Fuck you.You suck. Someone should have killed with at birth."

Susan gasped and I realized she was fucking this loser unbeknownst to her boyfriend, Tom, but then she's not the only one who hates me. Donna Destri still holds a grudge as my fight with with Blondie and I say to John Kemp, "Fuck her. She has legs like horse and tits as flat as pancakes. Alice and Susan walked away from he and John said, "Don't worry about them. All Susan thinks about if fucking Alice."

"Thanks for the comforting works."

In truth I was a little jealous, as the trio of Alice, Tom Scully and fucking Susan have successfully introduced vaudeville to the East Village and the modern world. They are stars of now, but I never wanted to be them and in truth I'm happy not to be them either. I remain faithfully a no one.

New Year's Day - the East Village - 2024

St. Mark's Church
New Year's Day
Late afternoon
Outside
The sky a darkening gray.

Poetry inside
Hundreds in attendance
Scores of poets
Words twisting into more words
Tangling syllables
Words wrought by the breath of life
Skipping o'er the tongues
Of Poets amongst poets
Within the church.

Outside
Afternoon surrendering to evening
Walk down Second Avenue
This East Village once my home
1977-2005
256 East 10th Street
On the 3rd floor
Three rooms, a bath in the kitchen, a water closet off the bedroom
Next door the Russian Baths
Steaming still
Across the street
Sapphoro East
Sushi still
So many other things gone.

Not the Church
Not Velselkas
Not the library
But the Gem Spa is gone.
As am I
From a place more than thirty years my home.

I don't feel a stranger
Nor estranged
I see those from before
Fighting to be faces
From memories
So many memories
Constructing faces and places
Klaus Haoui Sharon Willem Alice dear Alice
The hundreds the thousands
Dog man
Johnny Thunders
The known and the unknown
Just like today
As the evening swings into night
Not a star in the sky
Only Venus the evening star
O'er the East Village.

Back at th Church
Poems intertwined like snakes
Poets chanti their verses
A magic older than time

I'm outside
Wind, buses, young people laughing
On Second Avenue
Feeling home
In this East Village of mine
Ours and everyone.

JOURNAL EXCERPT - JANUARY 1, 1979 - EAST VILLAGE

We saw in New Year's Eve at Hurrah and then took a taxi downtown. Traffic congested before Madison Square Garden. A skinny blonde man with orange-blonde hair stood bare-chested the the traffic. Cheetah Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys and we shouted the lead guitarist's name in passing.

Alice, Anthony, Alexa, and I got out of the cab on the 3rd Avenue. The driver didn't want to go any farther into the Lower East Side. Alice and I stood on the sidewalk. Chest-high Suburban disco drones muttered about our punk attire. I stepped fowards and asked, "What are you looking at creeps."

"Why do you have to always be so violent?" Alice came me from a city where the tarred roads led to dirt tracks into the Hollows. She know all about violence.

"I wish I knew."

Ship's fog horns from the southern harbor searched the night. I was familiar with the docks. Only a few ships moored on the Westside and none on the swift-moving East River.

A gang of teenage Puerto Ricans whooped drunken shouts. They weren't looking for trouble. They were poor, the neighborhood school were bad, and their only futures were as janitors, city workers, and manual labor other than dealing drugs. All of them dreamed not so much as escaping the East Village as making the neighborhood a better place for 'la familia'.

We wandered over to Eve's Lounge. We ordered drinks. They were weak. I was still straight and hoped to be sober the first morning of 1979.

"I want to go." I said to Alice.

"Then let's go."

Yesterday I had met Alice at La Guardia. She wore a white pleather coat, black striped skirt, a purple sweater and knee-high white boot. She was the prettiest girl in the air terminal and every man and woman watched her walk to me. I was a lucky man and tried to kiss her. She turned her face to offer her cheek.

We hadn't slept together in more than a month. New Wave Vaudeville at her soul and Susan the scrawny closet lesbian co-producer was a shrew poisoning my love.

"He's a loser," she said to my face.

I felt like a loser too. same way, but needed even this small money, plus anything I could glom from Hurrah.

"Me too," Alice replied, confessing to trouble sleeping at home in Charleston. "How was your holidays?"

"Good." One visit to family in Boston and a few drunken fetes at the East Village bar. She suspected me of fooling around, except once I've had two drinks I'm only interested in the third, fourth and fifth.

All I could see was a dark black future, but I restrained from revealing that vision to Alice that

She has the whole world in front of her.

MAN OF THE YEAR

My teachers at Xaverian Brothers High School told their students, "Never vote for yourself."

I'm only one vote, so I am can be Man of the Year in my own mind.

Carter's out for his adherent to Rockefeller's Capitalism and not admonishing Taiwan about their treatment of the people of that Island Nation. Anita Bryant's anti-gay stance ended her Sunkist Orange Juice reign as spokeswitch, despite her backing from the Silent Majority and the Shah of Iran is endangered of being ousted by the Persian populace, because of SAVAK, his torture squad, and their destruction of moderate dissidents. Reza Mohammad Pahlavi's murderous attempts to modernize his country had been met with outcries from liberals and western TV journalists, but dragging peasants into the future has failed for hundreds of rulers. The people like their lives and are threatened by any change, especially when you include religion and the mullahs despise him for supposedly distribute their ancient holdings to the farmers, although the lands go to the friends of the Shah in payment for their support.

Long live the Shah.

I bet the house on his not seeing out the 70s.

Times appointed Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese Mainland Premier as Man of the Year.

All hail the Revolution and the end to the Gang of Four.

DISASTER OF THE YEAR

Floods and earthquakes devastated the earth over the twelve months of 1978.

The Jonestown Massacre In Guyana set the massive suicide pact in the jungle from every other catastrophe and hopefully the bloated bodies will not be seen in the future.

CHOKE OF THE YEAR

The AL MVP Jim Rice and the Red Sox' team Captain Yaz popped out for outs in the ninth inning with two men on base to lose to the dreaded Yankees in Fenway in the 163rd game of 1978 and the Yanks won the World Series.

JANUARY 1, 2021 - BROOKLYN

I went nowhere last night. I drank nothing. I did no lines of cocaine. I called my families in Thailand. They had enjoyed their evening eating their favorite foods. I can't even remember what I ate.

2021 was a nothing year.

But I'm lucky to be alive and that's not a small thing.

Journal Entry - December 30, 1977

After waking up late Georg and I walked from our SRO hotel on West 11th Street to the East Village. The setting sun only lit the highest buildings like One-Fifth.

Shit,"he said, "I've lost another day."

"I know. We never see the sun."

"The only sun I see is only TV and my TV's Black-and-white."

"We're becoming vampires, living only a night. Lucky there's a lot of night this time of the year. All of us have trouble sleeping." "You do. I do. Freddie does. And I've never seen Tony sleep." Georg lifted his eyes to the fading sunlight. "Maybe it's living at that place." The SRO housed a collection of minimal achievers. Fwew of us had steady jobs and those that had nine-to-fives were earning a fortune.

"No, I've had trouble sleeping since I was young. My mother too. But we have to straighten this out. I'd like to get up at least by 12, so I see some of the day."

"My New Year's resolution is to rise by 8 and make the rounds of auditions and meet agents." Georg was a good actor, but no one saw his late-night comdy routine other than his friends from the SRO. None of us had any contacts in nightclubs.

"Yes, wake at 8 and go back to sleep until noon." I could write poetry any hour of the day, but it was also unsettling that the only daylight I saw was at dawn.

My skin was the color of parchment paper like blood avoided my veins. I spent my hours after work at Serendipity III with the other near-dead at an after-hour bar; drunkards, whores done their last tricks, queers prowling the Hudson docks, waitresses getting off work, punks, discoers, and the hospital staff. We all share the deepest night.

@Astor Place

Drinking free coffee and my nerves are shot. Only two days remain in 1977, the year of double 7s, an impossible crap roll, since the dice only have six sides.

Swaying thighs catch my eyes. I follow her up the blonde up the block to a bar She hasn't noticed my espionage, then she turns and her green eyes engage mine I politely say 'hello' even though I have intruded on her solitude. She says, "Let's go to my place." I can't believe she said that And she asks, "Do you follow women much?' "No, you're the first." At her place she is silent and beautiful Never saying a word After the act I dress Her body is relaxed. She yawns Her parted thighs moist from me I leave and resume my watch on the city Waiting for ships and women at night

I ask no favor from anyone. I'm a lowly busboy. I will quit in a week's time. To end my base servitude.

December 15, 1978 - East Village - Journal

Last night I ran into John Kemp, with whom I had worked for the New School student registration. He suggested going to CBGBs. I thought about saying no. Alice waited at 256 East 10th Street. We haven't touched each other in weeks.

"Sure, why not?" I agreed to the walk down the Bowery. A cold winter night. I was wearing tennis shoes. Wet from the melting snow. Nothing was happening at the bar and Lang joined us for drinks at Grassroots. The downstairs dive was packed with locals from the scene. Beer was cheap and I downed a few shots of cheap well whiskey. I looked at the phone booth more than once. Telling myself to call Alice, but didn't want to hear the silence on the other end. Things are not good with use. I haven't told anyone anything about her being late. Laing gave me a chunk a hashish before I left at 3. I was really late, but not so drunk. I have a problem of handling my liquor too well. I was surprised to see Alice still wake in the bedroom. She had been reading Ionesco. A dramatist. I had no idea what he wrote. I tried to read it several times without getting a hook. Too esoteric for me. I have a simple mind.

She looked, as if she had been crying. That happens a lot. She never says why. Do I make her so unhappy. Coming in this late must hurt her, but she never speaks with me. She goes to meet with her friend, Susan, and never wants to do anything with me, as if I am the sole cause for her possible pregnancy.

"Where have you been?"

"CBGBs first and then Grassroots with John and Laing." I wasn't drunk, but I wasn't sober either.

"Why didn't you call? I was worried about you. I thought you might have gotten hurt or killed or..."

"Or fucking another woman."

"Well, of those three choices, fucking is probably the most likely." She didn't dare accusing me of infidelity. I recognized her fear. I had been violent at Irving Plaza during the fight with Blondie. My bruised ribs from the betting felt better, but I was sure everyone of her friends had portrayed me as the aggressor, instead of the victim. My reputation is not that of a saint.

"Would you have wanted to meet me?" This was the most we had spoken in days and we weren't done. "Truth is I don't now. Last month all I wanted was to be with you."

"And now?"

"You never want to be with me."

Alice was leaving for the holidays in West Virginia with the divorced mother and father, shuttling between Charleston and Huntington. I sat on the bed and held her hand, surprised she hadn't withdrawn from my gesture.

"I know things are not good between us. This possible pregnancy, ahving to deal with feuding parents, trying to do the show, debts, dealing with me. You're going to be gone for two weeks. Skiing most of it." I hadn't skied since leaving New England in 1976. There were mountains north of here. The Catskills weren't New England and the Adirondacks were too far away from the city.

"Maybe this time apart will be good for us."

"Maybe."

The last time she left for DC she returned cold and mean. Nothing like the woman I love. Days passed before she was the Alice I love and that abyss will be crossed again.

Foto by Ann Sanfedele >

Last night I ran into John Kemp, with whom I had worked for the New School student registration. He suggested going to CBGBs. I thought about saying no. Alice waited at 256 East 10th Street. We haven't touched each other in weeks.

"Sure, why not?" I agreed to the walk down the Bowery. A cold winter night. I was wearing tennis shoes. Wet from the melting snow. Nothing was happening at the bar and Lang joined us for drinks at Grassroots. The downstairs dive was packed with locals from the scene. Beer was cheap and I downed a few shots of cheap well whiskey. I looked at the phone booth more than once. Telling myself to call Alice, but didn't want to hear the silence on the other end. Things are not good with use. I haven't told anyone anything about her being late. Laing gave me a chunk a hashish before I left at 3. I was really late, but not so drunk. I have a problem of handling my liquor too well. I was surprised to see Alice still wake in the bedroom. She had been reading Ionesco. A dramatist. I had no idea what he wrote. I tried to read it several times without getting a hook. Too esoteric for me. I have a simple mind.

She looked, as if she had been crying. That happens a lot. She never says why. Do I make her so unhappy. Coming in this late must hurt her, but she never speaks with me. She goes to meet with her friend, Susan, and never wants to do anything with me, as if I am the sole cause for her possible pregnancy.

"Where have you been?"

"CBGBs first and then Grassroots with John and Laing." I wasn't drunk, but I wasn't sober either.

"Why didn't you call? I was worried about you. I thought you might have gotten hurt or killed or..."

"Or fucking another woman."

"Well, of those three choices, that is probably the most likely." She didn't dare accusing me of infidelity. I saw that she feared me. I had been violent at Irving Plaza during the fight with Blondie. My bruised ribs from the betting felt better, but I was sure everyone of her friends had portrayed me as the aggressor, instead of the victim. My reputation is not that of a saint.

"Would you have wanted to meet me?" This was the most we had spoken in days and we weren't done. "Truth is I don't now. Last month all I wanted was to be with you."

"And now?"

"You never want to be with me."

Alice was leaving for the holidays in West Virginia with the divorced mother and father, shuttling between Charleston and Huntington. I sat on the bed and held her hand, surprised she hadn't withdrawn from my gesture.

"I know things are not good between us. This possible pregnancy, ahving to deal with feuding parents, trying to do the show, debts, dealing with me. You're going to be gone for two weeks. Skiing most of it." I hadn't skied since leaving New England in 1976. There were mountains north of here. The Catskills weren't New England and the Adirondacks were too far away from the city.

"Maybe this time apart will be good for us."

"Maybe."

The last time she left for DC she returned cold and mean. Nothing like the woman I love. Days passed before she was the Alice I love and that abyss will be crossed again.

Thanksgiving 1978 From My Journal

Thanksgiving 1978 was spent at our Easts Village apartment; Alice, Kim, Bobbie, Andy Reese, and Grant. I ended up dropping LSD with Bill Yusk. The first hit was weak and I dropped another tab. Still nothing coming on and I drank wine with Alice and Kim.

Two hours later I was drunk and the LSD hit hard. Cooking the turkey was very spacey and the bird spoke to me several times. Bill laughed and Ann asked, "What's so funny?"

"A talking turkey."

"A talking turkey, a talking turkey, a talking turkey."

I saw everything in triplicate. Ann wasn't even high and ordered Bill and me to get more wine. We left laughing and wandered to the Bowery with the street reflecting a shimmering glow.

We passed two women sitting on the curb. Dykes. Both were dressed in black and both were gnawing on turkey legs. Bill and I laughed at them, then the short one called my name. I didn't know the big one, but the small dyke was Gilly, a waitress at Dojos. Their wild eyes emanated yellow.

It was an LSD Thanksgiving for them too.

"You want turkey?"

"Talking turkey."

Bill lost it and I tried to get him away, but he wanted to feast on turkey bones and I returned to 256 East Street. Everyone was gone, except for Kim and Alice, who asked, "Are you okay?"

"I have wine and I have you two."

Kim shook her head and asked, "Where's Bill?"

"He's chomping on a turkey bone on the Bowery with two hippie dykes." I didn't want to rat out Gilly. Alice was very jealous and Kim said, "I hate hippies."

"You hate me?" I asked Alice.

"Not you. Only hippies."

"Well, Happy Thanksgiving to them all."

"And us too."

The trip last into the evening and I came down on the couch, as Alice and Kim watched a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers movie.

It was very funny.

Especially how Ginger danced backwards.

"Talking turkey."

Acid came onto the scene in the 1960s. I was too young for it then, plus I was only into pharmaceuticals, dexies and 'ludes.

In 1971 I hitchhiked up to Montreal to visit friends from New Zealand. I bought a horse choker capsule from a midget dealer.

"Is it any good?"

Tres bonne."

I split it with Brian Alwinkle and his girlfriend, Chris Bilkensapp.

It was very strong and the universe vanished into a webbed mystery.

Forever indeed.

November 23, 1978 - East Village - Journal Entry - VDO

Thanksgiving 1978.

Rainy.

High 45.

Low 31.

LSD.

I cook the turkey without a gauge on the stove.

It came out perfect.

FAMOUS FOR NEVER - ON SALE

A STORY OF FAME AND UNFORTUNE

BY

PETER NOLAN SMITH

Rome wasn't burnt in a day. - James Steele

MANGOZEEN BOOKS 2022

In the 1970s city politicians launched countless projects to stem the tide of 'white flight'. None of the doomed programs achieved their goals and the population of the Lower East Side shriveled from 120,000 to 60,000, never hitting zero, because cheap rents, proximity to the subways, and minimal police presence proved irresistible to malcontents disenchanted with the morality of the Silent Majority War and a diverse smattering of gays, drifters, artists, musicians, and addicts reversed the flow from the smoldering desolation.

Soon stutterers read poetry without ridicule to NYU coeds. Bums squatted derelict buildings without fear of landlords. Teenager girls denied cheerleader destinies were offered opiated ballerina gigs at sordid go-go bars. Graffiti artists painted heaven on toppled walls with spray cans. Hell portrayed itself without any artistic endeavors.

Jean-Michel Basquiat appeared out of nowhere. Andy Warhol recognized the young Haitian's genius. His paintings sampled the history of black as if the icons were sampled by a hip-hop DJ, however his mania was cursed by fame and he said he wish he was nobody like me. Heroin was his pay day. Junkies normally only care about heroin, but Jean-Michel was blessed by an eternal desire to paint through his ever-tragic fame.

I knew Jean-Michel.

He once painted my refrigerator.

FAMOUS FOR NEVER recounts the opposite poles of fame and failure.

I saw him a week before his death.

The summer of 1988 at my apartment.

He left me a gift.

I wished he was still alive, but he emulated Nick Tosches' first line of THE DEVIL AND SONNY LISTON.

"Sonny Liston was a man born to die."

And that is the awful truth

FAMOUS FOR NEVER costs $20 plus $5 shipping

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NOVEMBER 10, 1978 - JOURNAL ENTRY - EAST VILLAGE

Alice's show at Club 57 was a su

Alice's show at Club 57 was a success thanks to Tom Scully and his bony evil girlfriend, as the first performers their high school drama shows with the same lack of talent, but accompanied by twisted reworkings of old dramatic ghost. None of the troupe, not even Alice has asked me to perform, even though I have scores of badly-written poems in my journals. Susan considered me a 'drunken bully'.

The audience applauded the singers and I sat at the bar with Alex, a recent Polish Emigre and co-manager of the club and the bartender. Josef looked at the stage and laughed, "America is the best. Freedom like this you do not get in Poland."

I downed two bourbons before the second act. They hit me hard on an empty stomach. I had no money and hadn't eaten anything all day. I leaned into the bar and glimmered into a time warp away from the present, the fags and punks, who proudly see themselves as the true culture of America. I agree with them. I hate the suburbs. I barely noticed the second act. Alice glowered at me. She hates my drinking. At least I don't pass out everywhere like a hillbilly Girl Scout. Not that it matters to me as long as she gets home safe.

The second act must have good. People were requesting an encore. Despite our rejection of Capitalism and Church and all our hometown beliefs, everyone in Club 57 dreams to be a star and a STAR in big letters performing before thousands.

I needed air. A holocaust was brewing in my head. I staggered through the crowd, remembering the date.

November 10.

Forty years ago the Nazis persecuted the German Jews, as the police watched the carnage by the stormtroopers.

Kristellnacht or Crystal Night.

"Never again." could happen anywhere in the world against the Jews or any race or tribe. No one at Club 57 cared about the past other than those they were trying to escape and they rejected any history, unless it the study of theater or movies. Lance Loud from the Mumps stood at the door. I love this band. He grabbed me and said, "Isn't her great?"

He meant my friend Klaus who was signing an aria.

"Yes, he's more than great."

Outside I sat on the steps and at the end of the show watched the happy crowd stream from the basement club to other bars around the East Village. I had no one and lit a joint to enter the void alone. Explorers always relish desolation, even sexual adventurers.

LATER

Never again. The Jews reject any forgiveness of the Germans, but drive Mercedes-Benz, while persecute the Palestinians thousand of years after their living in the Levant. The Nazis are old men in their sixties, having failed their mission seek to create a new generation of followers through the skinheads, KKK, and right-wing fanatics.

THE LAST GO-GO BOY 2008

Americans judge the nation’s fiscal well-being by the rise and fall of the Dow Jones Index, even though Wall Street’s accumulation of wealthy has reaped a mostly negative effect on the vast majority of workers. Next month's bonuses will not add a penny to the buying power of consumers buried under debt and corporations will trim benefits and wages to the bone in order to maximize profit. Other than Occupy Wall Street few employees protest working condition for fear of losing their job.

The economy is still in the shitter and I ask myself what jobs are available for a 60 year-old man.

Very few is the answer.

Years before I had been lucky that Manny always reserved a place for me on West 47th Street, but this year has been the exception. Times are that tough in the Diamond District.

Last month I sold some rings for a gay writer. I flogged his family heirlooms to a black gold dealer in another exchange for the best price possible. Going through Manny would have cut into the final number and the writer needed every dollar to pay his health care bill.

My friend showed his gratitude with a dinner at an Asian fusion restaurant in the East Village. Every seat was crammed with young people enjoying the fast life in the city. These go-getters were my competition in the morning for a subway seat. Luckily these happy-go-lucky youths were not ruthless enough to throw me under the train.

“I never see anyone my age on the subway.”

“Most men our age are retired.” Bruce was a world-known novelist. The heavyweight Syracuse native had won awards in Europe. Critics had recognized his genius. Sales for his last book totaled a little over 2000. “Do you have a retirement plan?”

He ordered with his finger darting over the menu. The waiter paid attention to his every word like he was a seeing-eye dog. Bruce had a way with young men.

“When I hit 70, I'm taking a plane to Norway to rob a bank. I'm going to shoot someone in the leg too so it's armed robbery, then they'll sentence me to 20 to life. I've seen photos of the prison for armed offenders. The rooms have computers and are furnished by IKEA.

“Ten years from now the Norwegian prison officials will have instituted euthanasia for the elderly, so robbing a bank in Oslo is not really an option."

"You have any other suggestions?" I had been doing a little non-union extra work for TV shows. The pay was $8 an hour with a meal. Twelve hours added up to almost $85 with overtime.

"Ever think about taking steel pole lessons from strippers? You could always lose ten pounds and work as a go-go boy at the queer retirement home.” Bruce’s biting wit was best suited to attack rather than self-deprecation.

“More like twenty pounds.” December hadn’t been so cold, although a steady diet of stress had melted the fat from my bones.

“Honey, those old wrinklies aren’t so particular about the weight. They like the young flesh.” Bruce had written a book on the rough trade in Times Square. His tricks had called him Papi. None of them were under 20 and he never sunk under 250 pounds.

“A scary thought.” I felt my age and my young Thai wife kept reminding me over the phone that I wasn’t 17 anymore. Mam was 28 and my son was four years-old. I couldn’t quit working until I was 78.

"Those old fags want someone young.” Bruce was a year from Social Security. “None of those old queens in the nursing homes have seen anyone young as you in decades. You could charge the homes $100 a visit, which has to be better for the old geezers than any other medicine.”

“Thanks for the idea, but I'd rather rob a cradle than a grave."

"Times change and people like you and me have to change with them, plus graves are richer pickings than a cradle. Hell, you could franchise it in Florida. How many retirement homes you think are in the Sunshine State? Thousands? There has to be a demand for middle-aged men from the elderly.”

“Supply and demand.” I ordered oysters with seaweed noodles, plus a glass of wine. The waiter was thin and handsome. He had to be 35 years younger than me. He wouldn't think of me as middle-aged. I was almost 60.

“And who knows? You might be able to sex them up for a little more money on the side.” Bruce caressed the waiter’s behind. He was a regular here. The waiter walked away content to know that he would be receiving a good tip. Bruce liked to pay for sex even if it was merely a grope.

“No way. I barely wanted to have sex with myself let alone with someone else.”

“Why, because you’re too good to have sex with someone older than you. Like me.” He frowned at this unintended insult. “What about the woman you had sex with in Palm Beach?"

"Helen?" She had been unnaturally blonde and thin.

."That's the one. You said she was over 70.”

“That was different.” The heiress had been the publisher of a Florida magazine. We had smoked reefer in her apartment overlooking Lake Worth. The address had been in West Palm Beach. "She wasn't really rich."

"But she had your number." Bruce was fascinated by the sordid.

“How?" The blonde septuagenarian spent part of a good part of her fortune on soaking her body in Botox like it was fondue cheese.

"As I remember it, she said she hadn’t had cock in her mouth in ten years. She had begged for it and you gave it to her like you were shooting a remake of SUNSET BOULEVARD.”

“It was a mercy mission.”

With the lights off, the curtains billowing with the breeze, and Helen wearing sheer lingerie and satin high heels, I imagined that she was Paris Hilton in the year 2040. On her knees the mirage had performed fellatio like she was entering the Porno Hall of Fame. Thankfully she had never said, “Ready for my scene, Mr. DeMille.”

Maybe the first time, but what about the second time?” Bruce sat back, as the waiter delivered our appetizers; fried calamari for him and raw bluepoints for me. “Gore Vidal said about orgies that once is experimentation, but twice is perversity.”

“The second time was because I was drunk.” Two bottles of wine and a joint had loosened by inhibitions and she had had her way with me. “There was no third time.”

Only because you saw her with another man at the Chesterfield.”

“She was in the Leopard Lounge.” The other man had been in his late 60s. He had once been an Elvis impersonator. I felt cheap.

“And you heard her use that ‘haven’t tasted cock’ line on him, so don’t tell me you can’t go-go boy anymore. We all have a price.”

“I’d rather rob a bank in Norway.” I sucked down an oyster tasting of the Atlantic.

“And end up a stick boy in prison.” Bruce was enjoying himself. "You don't look like you'd like being a bottom."

"Never." I never would be a bottom, except with my wife Mam. She got off better that way.

“You do what you have to do to survive. Believe me. I know.” He had taught creative writing at a dude ranch college two years ago. He was lucky to have escaped the range without any charge for perversion.

“I know you do.” Bruce was in his 60s. His novels were in every bookstore in the East Village. His tales of hustlers and go-go boys were cult classic within the gay community. His name in in Wikipedia.

All that meant almost nothing. Bruce was forever broke. Same as everyone in America, for the very rich have no use for old go-go boys.

And I know, because wealth has a funny way of making an old man young, but I had a few good years in me yet and one of them would be in Florida.

Maybe Bruce was right and there was only one way of finding out and high season was only a summer away.

SEPTEMBER 11, 1978 - JOURNAL ENTRY - EAST VILLAGE

The Red Sox lost to the Yankees 15-3 and they looked bad in defeat. Butch Hobson's elbow needs rest. Yaz's hand in swollen, the Bosox team should have sat for a rest after 3rd inning last night to rest up for the final weeks of the season, although the Red Sox have no chance of make the Playoffs, unless they sweep the six games of the seven-game series.

A dog, a white poodle puppy to be exact, in begging for food on East 10th Street. He has no collar and matted fur. Someone has abandoned him. I wish I could help, but I just finished my bagel and have no money. The Palestinian corner bodega gives nothing on credit. Not even for abandoned dogs.

It is getting colder. I am unprepared for the weather. I have a denim jacket and sweaters. Thankfully my landlord has heard about my painting Alice's house in West Virginia and asked me to painting his hallway and bedroom of their East 65th Street penthouse. I've yet to give him an answer, since I'm scared of fucking up> It's not like I'd ask anyone from CBGBs to help me other than Guadalcanal, who is on tour as a roadie for Johnny Thunders. I have to have more confidence in my myself. If I'm careful I should be able to accomplish the task.

I figure a week's work is worth $500, but hope that thereafter I get regular work.

CBGBs has been closed for tax reasons. Hilly hasn't paid any. I head cross town to Alice's job. She gets out at 1am.

"I'll come back for you later."

She and I are close, but could be closer if I had a steady income.

I ran into Grant Stitt on Christopher Street and spent two hours touring the queer bars.

"Don't they mind a straight man here?" I asked at the Eagle.

Mind straight men. They love straight men and whoever said you're straight. Nothing is happening here. Let's go someplace else." Grant led the way to the International Stud, which prides itself in the blacklessness of its back room for anonymous sex.

"I'm down for a gum job from a toothless man or else a hard cock in my ass."

"When I was a teenager I worked at a suburban hotel. The bearded pot washer was a French Canadian without any teeth. He said it was just like fucking pussy, but nothing smelled as bad as he did. The second cook loved him and swore it was just like a woman only better."

"Enough talk. back room."

I accompanied the New Zealander to the entrance of the back hole.

"C'mon in. No one you know will know." I obeyed his command and inside the windowless abyss shadows pulled down my jeans. Someone sucked my asshole, while another stranger blew me. It didn't feel right and I left Grant to a pigpile of sex adventurers. I ordered a beer and played pinball to avoid any conversation which might lead me back into the inferno of sex.

"Do I look any different?" asked Grant, wiping cum off his shirt and face. He handed me $5. " Got paid."

"How much?"

"Same as always. Did you do it?"

"And then some." He appeared more relaxed than before and leaned against the pinball machine like a hustler on the prowl. He touched my penis and I said, "I have to go meet Alice. She's expecting me," Grant shouted, as I exited from the Stay and added, "Go ahead. be straight. You know what happens to them in the end. They all go queer."

But not that night. I walked Alice home. We held each other for a few minutes. She fell asleep and I read Proust, lasting only a paragraph before deciding to that I was hungry and got dressed to go outside to the Chinese restaurant on 1st Avenue. On the way back from China Star. I gave the poodle puppy a chicken breast. The rest I saved for Alice. She liked food cold.

I haven't seen Hakkim in a couple of days and hope he has traveled to a warmer climate like Wall Street. ​

I haven't had a dog since Champoo and Whitey in Thailand.

In 2008 I took care of Pom Pom in Pam Beach.

Cats are New Yorkers.

They are stuck in apartments.

Their owners ignore them throughout the day and feed their pets dried food

I haven't had queer sex since 1977.

Forty-four years ago.

I don't know why I quit, but loving Alice was a big reason and I did love her.

Not just for sex either."

Whenever I tell young people about the sexual adventurism, they are astounded by the lack of guilt of the 1970s, but are less pleased when I say that the main reason for the last two decades of sexual atrophy is that most people have never been taught the basics of lust and the Baptists crusade for abstinence has corrupted the freedom of their bodies.

Oh, sex, where have you gone?

Today everyone was talking about 9/11.

The day that changed America forever.

"This country will never be the same," said many of my countrymen, but the old normal had only been replaced by the new normal. The USA fought two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite neither nation having participated in the attacks twenty years ago. I Commented to everyone that Osama Bin Ladin had been living in a cave in fear of American drone missiles and undercover assassins without a phone. His fatwahs were carried to the Tribal borders of Pakistan to be transmitted to his followers. Not one order to the hijackers.

Of course in 1979 America wasa listening MY SHARONA by The Knack and no one paid any attention to Afghanistan, whose Communist leader Nur Muhammad Taraki had traveled to a summit in Cuba and returned to Kabul, where he was deposed by Soviet favorite, Hafizullah Amin. Two years later Amin was murdered by the Russian KGD, who had crossed the Amu Darya, thus beginning the Endless War.