SHORTEST FIGHT IN THE WORLD by Peter Nolan Smith

The World on East 2nd Street hosted a screening of the Tyson-Spinks fight on June 27, 1988. The nightclubs's door was handled by the tough guy mooks hired by the Bensonhurst fat boys hosting the event. The fee for televising the fight was $20,000. The Brooklyn boys wanted $25 a head. The NYFD occupancy limit for the old Polish meeting hall was 800. The gate had clicked 1200 entries. Another couple of hundred had been cuffed for free by the owner, Arthur Weinstein. He was my friend.

"Arthur, that's freebies 351 and 352." A fat boy whined as Scottie Taylor and I entered the club. His muscles looked ready for murder.

"Good thing you don't have to count on your toes." Arthur had faced down tougher mugs than these. The Russian Zeks from Brighton Beach never whined like the fat boys. They were stone-cold killers and we walked past the pseudo-wise boys into the downstairs lounge with a smirk on our faces.

"Three Vodka-OJs." Arthur ordered from the cute bartender, who resembled Little Red Riding Hood freed from two years of hard time at Bedford Hills. She only shared smiles with Arthur and bull dykes. The native New Yorker had a way with girls who played for the other team.

"Nothing for me." Scottie was not a drinker.

"I'll drink his." It was a hot night. My first sip downed half the drink. I threw away the plastic cup by the time that we stood before the big-screen TV. "Big fight."

Three years earlier Michael Spinks had won the heavyweight title from Larry Holmes in a 15-round decision. He had lost the crown after fighting Gerry Cooney rather than fight Tony Tucker.

"Spinks is nothing." Scottie loved boxing.

"He beat Cooney." A drug dealer barked over the roar of the crowd. The fighters were entering the ring. Blood fled through all our hearts.

"Cooney was a bum." Arthur said out of the corner of his mouth. He didn't like strangers hearing him. Sometimes I thought he should have been a ventriloquist.

"You got that right."

Scottie and I had seen 'the great white hope' huff cocaine a month before that bout. We had bet every dollar on the fight. 7-5. The outcome was never in doubt and in the 5th round Spinks countered Cooney's lumbering left hook with a overhead right to his opponent's glass jaw. The rest of the fight teetered heavily in favor of Spinks, who pummeled Cooney with a blinding succession of combinations. The referee called it with 9 seconds left in the round.

"Spinks ain't no bum." He had been ringside at the fight in Atlantic City. "But like everyone else he thinks Tyson is a orthodox Rightie. Iron Mike is a natural Southpaw. His left jab has knock-out power. Watch."

"This is going to be Spinks night." A Columbian dealer pulled out a C-note. "Tyson is a punk from Bed-Stuy. He speaks like a girl."

"Bed-Stuy, do or die, but he grew up in Brownsville." It was famed for its hard guys. "Their motto is never ran, never will."

"Tyson runs like rabbit tonight."

I bet the yea-ho dealer straight up on the result. The big screen filled with the two fighters. Tyson versus Spinks. It was time to rumble. The robes came off and the two heavyweights stood in the middle of the ring. Instructions by the referee lasted about a minute. The bell rang for the first round.

Tyson landed a hard left hook quick. Spinks backed up into the ropes. He would have been better off jumping into the front row. The crowd on the dance floor sensed the kill. I grabbed the dealer's arm, as Tyson smashed the champion with a left uppercut and a right hand to the body. Spinks' knee touched the mat. Back on his feet he suffered a vicious left-right set-up and Spinks flopped on his back.

Down for the count after 91 seconds.

Tyson the victor.

The dealer paid the c-note on the spot.

I tried to buy a round of drinks, except Arthur said, "Fugedaboutit. Your money is no good here."

A few customers complained about the brevity of the fight.

"I wasn't in the ring, but tonight was long fight."

"Long?" I couldn't think of a shorter fight, although most of my brawls lasted less than 10 seconds. Tow or three punches and someone was saying 'enough'. I was good at knowing when to quit.

"Shortest fight was 10.5 seconds. Al Couture KO'd Ralph Walton. 1946." Arthur was too young to have seen that match.

"Welter-weight." Scottie added to the fray.

"That's short." Arthur snapped his finger. "But tonight was short, so drinks on me."

The Prince of the Night was generous to a fault. His friends loved him, as did his family and fiends, because Arthur was enough of an artist to see beauty in someone's faults.

"No one's perfect."

Later that winter Arthur and I are walking up 8th Avenue from the West Village. We're headed to the Tunnel on West 27th Street. A Saturday night fete hosted by Curfew. Crazy people. Free drinks.

"I gotta get warm." Arthur pulled me into a local bar at West 13th and 8th Avenue. "I don't like to hear my teeth chattering."

"Are you sure?" I asked inside the bar, for our entrance is greeted by glares from the clientele. Short people. Midgets. Only the bartender is big people.

"Fuggetaboutit." Arthur knew the bartender and dropped a $20 on the bar. "Drinks for all my friends."

We loved Mickey Rourke's line from the movie BARFLY.

"Drinks here are $5." A midget with buck teeth snarled from his stool.

"That's why I'm only buying this big man a drink. Two Vodka-OJs." Arthur headed to the bathroom. The odds of short versus tall went from 20 to 2 to 20 to 1. The bartender was out of the equation. I heard the crackling of knuckles over the music on the jukebox. I REMEMBER YOU by Skid Row.

"What you think of munchkins?" The snarled-toothed shortie asked with a smile, but before I could answer the front door opened and a dwarf entered the bar.

His head was as large as a small Easter Island statue and his hands twice the size of mine. He swaggered into the bar like he possessed an over-sized penis.

The midgets said in unison.

"No dwarves in here."

"No, well, go fuck yourself." The taller midget expanded his chest. All I could think was Munchkins brawl.

That comment sparked a little person riot. The dwarf fought off each midget with the skill of a wrestler. They flew against the wall. His big-handed punches knocked out three of them in rapid succession. The tide of battle turned with a swift right to the mouthy midget's nose.

The fight ended with a TKO.

12 seconds.

The midgets were thrown into the street and the dwarf at the bar asked, "You got a problem?"

"Not with you."

Arthur exited from the bathroom and drank his vodka and OJ.

"Let's go." He nodded to the dwarf, who said, "Good seeing you, Arthur."

"How was the fight?" Arthur pulled up the collar of his jacket.

"Shorter than Spinks-Tyson."

"Funny."

"No, just the truth." It was over in 5 seconds.

"Dwarves are tough on midgets. Go figure." He handed a handkerchief to the midget with the bloody nose.

"Thanks, Arthur."

"My pleasure. Next time keep up the right."

The Prince of the Night knew everyone.

The tall, the small, and the in-between.

JAI YEN MAI by Peter Nolan Smith

Several years ago on Boxing Day my daughter was playing on our soi in Pattaya. A pick-up roared down the street like the driver had murdered his wife and was bell-bent for the border. From my perspective the bumper came too close to my little precious daughter. I jumped on my scooter and chased the speeding pick-up down the street.

At the corner I slapped his door with my open palm. A clumsy move and I swerved off my bike to avoid entering the car mayhem of Soi Bongkot. The bike dropped to the ground and I struggled to right the Yamaha. My neighbor, appeared to have such a small head through the windshield, got out of the car in a football hooligan fury. The small noggin was attached to a King Kong body tattooed with Chelsea slogan. I spotted 'Strive for victory shun defeat!' a nanosecond before his first punch.

Lefts and rights gashed my eyebrow and cheek. Grappling his arms, I realized, “Shit this guy is strong and knows what he’s doing.”

Finally he was out of breath and asked, “Had enough?”

“Yeah, but you’re still a cunt for nearly hitting my daughter.”

We left it like that.

My daughter's mother regarded at my black eyes and bruised face. “What you want to do?”

“Nothing right now.” Taking a baseball bat to his windshield or slashing his tires would escalate the conflict to the point where someone would get hospitalized since Pattaya is packed with lager louts and hooligans avoiding travel in Europe now that Spain has an extradition treaty with the UK. Fascists to a man.

“Good. Better to have jai-yen.” She kissed my cheek and gave me a beer. Fights led to blood and blood led to death.

My Thai friends from the Buffalo Bar said we have to get him.

Gae-kaen or revenge.

“But not today.” They advised with a grim smile. “Wait, we get him later.”

Their list of suggestions were dominated by a beating or vandalizing his truck.
“We do. You not worry. You not call the police?”

“No.” Calling the police meant paying sin-bon or bribes without any guarantee of satisfaction.

“Good.” The Thais liked keeping the police in the dark. “Lam-Luat no know. Good.”

My farang friends asked, “What happened to you?”

I explained the situation, but changed the story to say that my assailant was an 80 year-old man.

“Really?”

“Some of these geezers are wiry and fast.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing as long as he drives slower in the neighborhood.”

Doing nothing felt funny. George W Bush wouldn’t do nothing, but the Pentagon wasn’t in my back pocket. Nothing seemed wrong, especially when the skinhead lout drove by my house every day with a pit bull in the back. At least he was going slower.

I spent a week doing push-ups. It was a waste of time.

I was no longer a fighter, but I am vicious and spotted a cluster of red ants in my mango tree. Normally I would have sprayed the swarming tentacles with a pesticide since mot-daeng are wicked biters. This time I went into the kitchen and brought out a pot of honey.

“Winnie the Pooh.” My daughter called out as I coated the leaves with the sweet sticky honey.

My wife took one look and said, “Gae-kaen.”

I nodded my head and waited for the ants to gather their clan.

Red ants swarmed over the leaves to get at the honey. Within an hour the branch bent under their weight. By dark they numbered in the thousands, thanks to my attentive resupply of honey. My daughter's mother was watching a Thai soap opera. She only had eyes for the TV. I drove around the block. The pick-up truck was parked on the street.

I returned to the mango tree and coaxed the red ants into a paper bag. It actually felt heavy and then I dressed in black. Camouflage for the night. I crossed through the backyards of several abandoned house to the adjacent street. No dogs barked out a warning.

The skinhead’s truck was sheltered under a tree. I snuck up to the driver’s door. A dollop of honey on the door handle. Another under the door. I checked the street and uplifted the bag . A little too fast, because more ants fell on me than the door.

Thousands of them sought my flesh.

Hundreds of them found it.

I threw down the bag and ran into the darkness, with the ants biting bite everywhere.

My daughter's mother spotted the welts. “Gae-kaen.”

"Yeah, gae-kaen."

The next day I heard from neighbors how the football hooligan had come out his house and gotten into to his car to be attacked by thousands of fire ants.

They regarded me with approval.

I smile a 'yim-mai-loo', saying I didn't know what they were talking about, but they smiled back to say they knew, because like the Irish the Thais believe that revenge was always best served cold.

Especially with red ants on hand.

OLD COOT

Last summer a boat driver came over to our table at the Full Moon Bar in Jomtien. Tip liked to drink. The young Cambodian smiled at me and said something to Mam.

I really didn't understand what, but her reaction translated the meaning.

Tip smiled at me again like I was an old fool.

That may be true, but I'm only a fool for my friends.

I picked up a knife and said to Mam, 'This boy is going to have a problem."

"No problem." She knew my temper.

"No problem."

I envisioned standing up behind the young man to slip the blade between his ribs.

At my age old fools don't fight young men.

Mam was hoping that I did nothing stupid and I didn't do anything stupid other than put down the knife and ordered another beer. Mam and I crossed the street to drink in front of our apartment building. It was a smart move and Tip was smart too, because he saw the murder in my eyes.

Old guys can be like that and Chas Mover sent a joke that's very appropriate.

THE OLD COOT

An old prospector shuffled into town leading an old tired mule.

The old man headed straight for the only saloon to clear his parched throat.

He tied his old mule to the hitch rail. As he stood there, brushing some of the dust from his face and clothes, a young gunslinger stepped out of the saloon with a gun in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other.

The young gunslinger looked at the old man and laughed, saying, "Hey old man, have you ever danced?"

The old man looked up at the gunslinger and said, "No, I never did dance...

"Never really wanted to."

A crowd had gathered as the gunslinger grinned and said,”Well, you old fool, you're gonna dance now," and started shooting at the old man's feet.

The old prospector --not wanting to get a toe blown off-- started hopping around like a flea on a hot skillet. Everybody was laughing, fit to be tied.

When his last bullet had been fired, the young gunslinger, still laughing, holstered his gun and turned around to go back into the saloon.

The old man turned to his pack mule, pulled out a double-barreled shotgun, and cocked both hammers. The loud clicks carried clearly through the desert air. The crowd stopped laughing immediately. The young gunslinger heard the sounds too, and he turned around very slowly.

The silence was almost deafening. The crowd watched as the young gunman stared at the old timer and the large gaping holes of those twin barrels.

The barrels of the shotgun never wavered in the old man's hands, as he quietly said,

"Son, have you ever licked a mule's ass?"

The gunslinger swallowed hard and said, "No sir..... But... I've always wanted to."

There are a few lessons for us all here:
Never be arrogant.
Don't waste ammunition.
Whiskey makes you think you're smarter than you are.
Always, always make sure you know who has the power.
Don't mess with old men; they didn't get old by being stupid.

How Fights Start

My wife sat down on the settee next to me as I was flipping channels. She asked, 'What's on TV?'

I said, 'Dust.'

And then the fight started...
******************************************
My wife and I were watching "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" while we were in bed. I turned to her and said,

"Do you want to have s*x?"

"No," she answered.

I then said, "Is that your final answer?"

She didn't even look at me this time, simply saying, "Yes."

So I said, "Then I'd like to phone a friend."

And then the fight started...
******************************************
Saturday morning I got up early, quietly dressed, made my lunch, and slipped quietly into the garage. I hooked up the boat up to the van, and proceeded to back out into a torrential downpour.

The wind was blowing 50 mph, so I pulled back into the garage, turned on the radio, and discovered that the weather would be bad all day.

I went back into the house, quietly undressed, and slipped back into bed. I cuddled up to my wife's back, now with a different anticipation, and whispered, "The weather out there is terrible."

My loving wife of 5 years replied, "Can you believe my stupid husband is out fishing in that?"

And that's how the fight started..
******************************************
My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary.

She said, 'I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3 seconds.'

I bought her a bathroom scale.

And then the fight started...
******************************************
When I got home last night, my wife demanded that I take her some place expensive... so, I took her to a petrol station.

And then the fight started...
******************************************
After retiring, I went to the Social Security office to apply for Social Security. The woman behind the counter asked me for my driver's Licence to verify my age. I looked in my pockets and realized I had left my wallet at home. I told the woman that I was very sorry, but I would have to go home and come back later.

The woman said, 'Unbutton your shirt'. So I opened my shirt revealing my curly silver hair. She said, 'That silver hair on your chest is proof enough for me' and she processed my Social Security application.

When I got home, I excitedly told my wife about my experience at the Social Security office.

She said, 'You should have dropped your pants. You might have gotten disability, too.'

And then the fight started...
******************************************
My wife and I were sitting at a table at my school reunion, and I kept staring at a drunken lady swigging her drink as she sat alone at a nearby table.

My wife asked, 'Do you know her?'

'Yes,' I sighed, 'she’s my old girlfriend. I understand she took to drinking right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear she hasn't been sober since.'

'My God!' says my wife, 'who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?'

And then the fight started...
******************************************
I took my wife to a restaurant. The waiter, for some reason took my order first. "I'll have the steak, medium rare, please."

He said, "Aren't you worried about the mad cow?""

Nah, she can order for herself."

And then the fight started...
******************************************
A woman was standing nude, looking in the bedroom mirror. She was not happy with what she saw and said to her husband, "I feel horrible; I look old, fat and ugly. I really need you to pay me a compliment.'

The husband replied, 'Your eyesight's damn near perfect.'

And then the fight started

GOODBYES by Peter Nolan Smith

The night over Encinitas was obsessed with the cosmos. Stars spun in colors unknown to Man and the moon glowed green. When the LSD faded from my blood I joined my friends in the bungalow down on the grass behind the bungalow. AK, Pam, Helen, Cuchillo, and Victor were dancing to soul music and drinking wine. Pam poured me a big glass and AK lit a joint.

"That was a trip." Victor sat next to me on the couch. "But I'm confused about that scene at the parking lot. AK told me that he had thrown that hick out of the car in Boston and the two dykes with him were the same as the two from Big Sur."

"A funny coincidence."

Even more so since Bill had tried to rip me off in San Francisco with his junkie friends.

A rock in my hand had stopped the robbery.

"But not so ha-ha." Victor passed me the joint.

"No, not so ha-ha." I shook my head and he handed it to his handsome boyfriend.

"Floe freaked out big time."

"She isn't into violence."

"It as only one punch and that creep deserved it." Pam was sticking up for me. She had hated Bill from the second we picked him up on the Mass Pike

"Not in her mind.

"Let her sleep off the acid. She'll be fine in the morning." Pam reached over to pat my hand.

"I hope so." I downed the wine and filled my glass.

AK let me play DJ.

Every record sounded sad.

Blues, jazz, or rock.

I couldn't get Floe out of my head.

After midnight I went outside to crash on the lawn. The summer air was intoxicated by the fragrance from the nearby flower farms. I buried my face into the sleeping bag. Floe had slept on it for weeks. Her ghost haunted the shadows and I expected her to appear from the darkness.

I fell asleep certain of one simple truth.

Floe wasn't coming here.