Lhasa-Nepal 1995

I spent early September- late October of 1995 in Tibet.

I traveled around Lhasa visiting various monasteries. Sera, Drepung, Ganden and the Tsurphu Monastery, home to the Karmapa rinoche.

I prayed at each one for my baby brother's departed soul.

Michael had died of AIDS that summer.

I especially liked the Jokhang.

There was no place holier on Earth.

Michael would have liked it.

He was spiritual in many ways and in my free time I taught English to monks and workers.

The People's Army were a big presence in Lhasa, but no Chinese soldiers were allowed inside the Jokhang.

The female cadres were good fun atop the Potala.

They never carried guns.

The men had AK47s.

The ARs had no ammo.

At the end of October my Chinese visa neared expiration.

The Friendship Highway to Kathmandu had been reopened after work crews had finally cleared a gigantic landslide covering a section of the Friendship Highway connecting China and Nepal.

It was time to say, "Kha-leh phe." to Lhasa.

My English class sang me farewell.

Their choice was SAILING by Christopher Cross.

I thought, "What a silly song."

Somehow dust got in my eyes and I wished my students well through a shimmer of tears.

Lhasa had been good for my soul.

I hoped my baby brother glowed in its holiness somewhere in the cosmos.

The next day I boarded a bus to Shigatze.

It was the last big town before the border.

I spent a day visiting the ancient monasteries.

I even climbed to the dzong.

The fortress was in ruins.

The Chinese had destroyed most everything Tibetan during the Cultural Revolution as had others like the Brisih and Mongols.

The next day I detoured off the main road to Gyantze.

In 1968 the Gang of Four had sent the Red Guard here to cleanse Tibet of the Old Ways. They obliterated the Jokhang and every other temple to obliterate the Four Olds 'old ideas', 'old culture', 'old customs', and 'old habits'. Buildings are stone. Souls are eternal.

The Tibetans were in the process of rebuilding the main stupa of Gyantze.

The inn at Gyantze was horrible. The noodles were greasy. The beer luke warm. Fleas ran rampant in the beds and the flies buzzed through the cracked windows of the dormitary. Every bed was overbooked. I slept about five hours and woke to a brilliant blue dawn.

The morning bus returned to Shigatze.

It truly was civilization after Gyantze, although packs of dogs roamed the alleys.

The Tibetans have a joke about these dogs.

Why do you need two sticks to go to the toilet? One to stick in the ground and hold onto and the second to fight off the dogs.

They were vicious creatures far from Man's best friend.

The paved highway ended at Shigatze. No buses ran to Nepal. I hitched a ride from a van heading to pick up backpackers in Khailash, the holy mountain. I gave the driver $20. Two other westerners were in the back. They were semi-conscious. High-altitude sickness. We grunted hello. Tsering was very happy with three westerners as his cargo and we set off south.

The high Tibetan plateau was like the surface of Mars.

No water.

No people.

Only dirt.

The dust plumes of transport trucks were the only sign of man.

We saw one every hour or two.

That afternoon dropped into a canyon.

Tsering pointed to the opposite slope.

"Landslide."

It was a mile across.

Workers cleared a road with eyes checking up the hill for tumbling boulders.

"You walk. I drive van with dead pepople. "He pointed back to the comatose backpakers. I wondered if they were high on opium. None of my business. Tsering motioned for me to walk. "No problem."

A large stone rolled down the slope. Workers scattered for safety. I ran to the end of the slide.

It was a bad road, but better after the landslide

After that road climbed into the high plateau.

15,000

16,000

The tourists barely moved. They were barely breathing.

North of Lhatze the van became mired in mud. A Tibetan herder's horse hauled it clear.

Tsering gave him $3.

Two minutes later the herder was out of sight.

Tibet was open to the sky.

My brother's soul was in the heavens.

I prayed for his happiness in the Here-Beyond.

He would remain thirty-five forever.

China National Highway 219 split off to Mount Kailash.

I asked Tsering how was the road."

"Very bad. Very dusty."

"Really." My eyeballs were grated red by the road dirt.

"Yes, # 1 bad." Tsering's eyes were red too.

We said good-bye.

Another van approached the t-intersection. Dorge was headed to the border. $20. I jumped in, the only passsenger. The others were Tibetans returning to India after a long pilgrimage to Lhasa.

This was the Roof of the World.

We passed a French bicyclist struggling uphill.

I shouted out the window, "Do you want a ride?"

"Non, merci."

I collapsed into my seat.

The road rose higher and higher.

After Tingri I spotted a giant snow mass to the south.

It was miles away.

"Chomolungma," said Tsering in reverence.

"Everest."

"Yes, to the West. Miyolangsangma, the Goddess of Inexhaustible Giving, lives on its peak."

I offered a prayer to her for Michael.

The icy summits of the Himalayas filled the southern horizon.

I had Tsering stop for a minute at the top of the Yakrushong Pass, 16,000 feet.

"Not long."

He was on a tight schedule.

I said a prayer for my younger brother.

We rose to 16,900 feet.

My words were few. Even to me.

The wind carried them to the swirl of Himalayan peaks.

The sun descended to the West.

We drove down to the border and arrived at Zhangmu in the dead of night.

I could breathe easy for the first time in a month. The tourists

Trees lined the valley.

I gave Dorge another $10.

We drank beer for an hour and then went to sleep.

It had been a long day.

In the morning Dorge was gone with his backpackers

I crossed the border. My passport had two days left on my visa. I boarded a bus to Nepal.

Tibet was behind me.

The Araniko Highway was good. I had heard that a restaurant served pizza in Kathmandu. My baby brother liked it with extra cheese. Tears dropped from my eyes. It wasn't from dust. I was back in the modern world.

ps the pizza was so-so, but it was pizza.

pps This was first written in 2014 New York.

Bad Road In Tibet

My visa for China was running out at the end of October 1995. My overland departure to Nepal had been delayed by a massive avalanche smothering Tibet-Nepal Friendship Highway, but the staff at the Snowlands Hotel in Lhasa announced that a rough track had been opened through the fall area and I bought a ticket to Kathmandu. The bus only went as far as Shigatze, where we switched to a van, since the makeshift road couldn't support the weight of a fully loaded van.

We reached the distressed stretch in the afternoon. The driver hadn't exaggerated about the condition of the road and he suggested that we walk across the freshly cleared half-mile path.

"Rock fall. Hit van. Die."

He wasn't joking.

Some of the stones were bigger than a house, although a few tourists complained about the walk.

I ignored their whining and hurried to the other side of the fall. The rest joined me a minute later, but a German tourist lingered, shooting pictures of the impressive chasm with his Leica.

Someone shouted and we looked up the steep slope. A gigantic rock had shaken loose the grip of the scree and was starting to tumble gathering speed. The tourist was in its path. We yelled to him, but he was focusing the lenses on the Himalayas.

"My husband," cried a middle-aged woman. "Hilf ihm."

Like what?" I asked, for he was too faraway from safety to help him.

"Something," pleaded a German woman.

"There is nothing to do." The Tibetan guide shook his head. The man's fate was in the hands of the Gods, but we continued to shout.

He finally heard us and waved with a smile.

We pointed at the bounding boulder and he realized the danger, running to the right. The rock bounced in that direction. He juked to the left and the boulder followed suit. The tourist froze in his tracks, as the stone bounced in the air.

His wife screamed.

Her husband was destined for death far from Germany, except the boulder landed twenty feet before him and caromed over his head to smash down the slope to the river below.

The German woman sobbed with relief, as her husband rejoined her. All the Tibetans touched him for good luck. The man laughed foolishly, knowing in another path of existence he was dead.

The van traversed the dirt track and the driver muttered to the guide about stupid tourists.

They understood the power of the mountains and fear fate.

We reached the Nepalese border at sunset. The van dropped us at a hotel. I stayed at a different one than the Germans, because he had used up his life's allotment for luck and being around him wasn't a risk for anyone other than the foolhardy. The Tibetans felt the same way and we drank beer, toasting the stars and heavens and the Himalayas.

With respect.

Because they deserved it.

NOTHING BETTER THAN PIZZA by Peter Nolan Smith

Back in 1995 I left the USA after the death of my younger brother. My plan was to visit the holiest places in Asia. I was a non-believer, but believed this pilgrimage would help Michael's soul in eternity.

By late August I had reached in old Yunnan city of Lijiang in Southern China. My hotel room had a view of the Jade Snow Dragon Mountain farther up the valley. Most travelers visited the old stone city with its traditional Naxhi influences and then headed off to hike the Tiger Leaping Gorge on the Yangtze River.

I skipped the hike down the swollen gorge. It was rainy season and the footing was treacherous on the dirt paths.

Returning backpackers reveled each other with the legend of a lone Israeli hiker who fell from the trail and broke his leg. His cries for help were drowned out by the rushing rapids and he died of starvation within 20 feet of the trail. The story sounded like a myth, since the nationality, sex, age, and year changed with each telling.

Still I refused many offers from passing tourists to join their trek.

I was happy in Lijiang and became friendly with two Frenchmen laying fiber optic cables between Lijiang and Dali, another tourist destination to the south. They asked why I was here. I explained how my younger brother had died of AIDS. We drank beer to Michael's memory. They said that they had been working on the project for a half-year without a break.

I suggested a day's holiday.

"And go where?" Jacques had traveled most of the roads of Sichuan.

"Chengdu is twelve hours away." Yves had recently driven back and forth to pick up a transformer. "The roads through the mountains were scary and the food is the same as here."

"My guide book says there is a ski slope on the Snow Jade Dragon Mountain, but none of the locals know anything about it."

"Pas vrai? Le ski ici?" Yves laughed in my face.

"Maybe they have a chalet with fondue."

"Fondue. Je reve du fondu," Jacques whimpered with an often dreamed desire. "Could it be possible?"

"Only one way to find out. We can drive there."

"Non, let's bicycle." Each of us had rented a bike to travel around Lijiang. It was a fairly flat town.

"On Sunday?"

'Pour-quoi pas?" Yves and Jacques had off both days of the weekend.

"Weather permitting." The Snow Jade Dragon Mountain related to the Himalayas. Storms brewed in the high peaks at all times of the year, but Sunday morning the clouds had cleared on the summit and the three of us met for a quick breakfast of rice and eggs.

"On y va."

Yves was very fit and was soon out of sight, while Jacques and I pedaled leisurely up the gradually ascending road with the wind in our faces.

The Snow Jade Dragon Mountain gleamed in the sun. We reached the top of the pass in three hours. At the base of the mountain a badly weathered billboard announced our arrival at the ski slope, which was actually was a chute for toboggans. Skiing in Yunnan had been a lie, but that came as no surprise, since the Chinese adapted many western trends to their culture without shame.

Yves waited at a restaurant serving rice and noodles in a chicken broth. The Chinese tourists happily slurped at the warm food. Jacques oared noodles from the bowl to his mouth.

"So much for the Jean-Claude Killy ski resort."

"At least they have beer." Yves had built up a good thirst after the long bike ride.

After several beers the Frenchmen and I descended on dirt trails through ancient villages and our conversation turned to food.

"The food here is better than most of China," I said, but after a month's stay in Lijiang I had punched two extra holes in my belt.

"I am starving't on noodles and rice." Jacques came from Nice and sighed, "I am dying for bouillabaisse and a bottle of vin blanc."

Yves countered by extolling the oysters of his native Normandy, while I praised Lobster Newburg from Boston's Durgin Park.

"Oysters, bouillabaisse, Lobster Newburg." Jacques spat on the ground. "China has none of that."

"They don't even have simple foods like a baguette and cheese." Yves licked at his lips with a dry tongue.

"There's no cheese in China or baguettes, but there is a pizza shop in Kathmandu."

"Kathmandu? That is a thousand miles away." Jacques frowned at this choice. "We will not be going that way."

"But I will and I'll write to tell you all about it, because there is no better food in the world than pizza. My younger brother and I ate pizza at Villa Rosa in Wollaston once a month. I hoped that they served it on the other side of life.

"Peut-etre." Yves wasn't a true believer in pizza, but Jacques said, "J'adore le pizza."

"Moi aussi."

A month later I bid fare-well to the Frenchmen. They were stuck in Lijiang for another half-year.

"Write us about the pizza. We will be waiting." Yves wished me well.

"Better yet, mail us one. Stall pizza can't be any worse than noodles." Jacques was serious and gave me $20.

A day later I traveled north to Chengdu, where I caught a flight to Tibet.

I stayed in Lhasa two months.

Everyday I set fire to aromatic fir branches and circled the Jokhang Temple every day counter-clockwise and clockwise. I taught English to rinoches or reincarnated monks and workers. I told them about my dead brother. They graciously offered to pray for Michael. I wrote a letter to the Frenchman telling them that the food in Lhasa was even worst than that of Lijiang.

"Burnt hairy yak meat and rancid butter tea loaded with salt. Next week I'm heading to Kathmandu for pizza." My visa for China terminated in seven days.

I hitchhiked on the Sino-Nepal Friendship Highway across the bone-dry plateau to the Himalayas. A tourist van picked me up in Gyantze. The highway wound along the Bum-Chu River. The only signs of civilization were the Chinese checkpoints. After Tingri the road climbed 16,900 feet to the Yakrushong La. The snowy peaks stretched from east to west without a break. The pass was higher than any mountain in Europe. It was almost impossible to breathe.

The driver stopped at a caravansary.

Noodles and broth.

The inn's walls were carpeted by fat flies. I ate nothing. Even the beer looked dangerous.

That evening we arrived at the border of Nepal and booked a cheap room in a cheap hotel in Zhamgnmu. The filthy dining room served rice and noodles. I drank beer from the bottle.

In the morning caught a mini-van bound for Kathmandu. I refused all food on the road. Pizza was on my mind. We reached Nepal's capitol within five hours. I checked into the Yeti Hotel. The cheapest room was $20. I asked about pizza. The desk clerk gave me directions to the restaurant and a rickshaw conveyed me to Fire and Ice located in a new building close to the Royal Palace. The clientele was divided between rich Nepalis and homesick westerners. I ordered a small l'Americano with pepperoni and a large bottle of Kingfisher beer. The waiter brought a glass filled with ice. Ice could be deadly, but I had survived yak meat in Tibet.

A half hour later the pizza came with a knife and fork.

I stared at the plate for several seconds. The pizza looked nothing like the pie from the Villa Rosa.

"Is there anything wrong, sir?" The waiter must have seen my expression of disappointment on the faces of other pizza lovers.

"Nothing at all."

The pizza was nan covered with clouts of goat Nepali cheese topped by a thick ketchup sauce. The pepperoni sweated on the heated pizza. I lowered my head to the plate. It smelled like pizza and I picked up a piece. My first bite told the truth. This was Nepal and there wasn't any better pizza within several thousand miles. I took a bite.

"How do you like the pizza, sir?" asked the waiter.

"It's the best this side of the Himalayas." I ate every crumb. My younger brother must have been laughing from the other side and I asked the waiter, "Can I have two to go and packed them really well."

"Yes, sir."

I got to the Kathmandu Post Office ten minutes before closing.

The clerk secured the pizzas in a shipping box and I wrote the Frenchmen, "I love pizza."

And the pizza in Kathmandu certainly tasted better than yak meat, then again anything tasted good when you're hungry.

Three days later I was stricken with giardia. My intestines had been poisoned by bacteria. The source of infection couldn't have been the pizza and I blamed the ice for the beer.

It was the usual suspect in the Orient.

For a week I suffered from diarrhea, abdominal cramps, nausea, loss of appetite, passage of gas from more than one orifice, and horrible weakness. My planned trip to Annapurna was postponed by the illness. The hotel staff was very helpful. They dealt with stomach ailments on a daily basis and knew of one cure.

Tea and toast for seven days.

Once I was better, I put myself on the scales at the hotel.

175 pounds.

I had lost nearly fifteen pounds.

And my first real meal was pizza l'Americano at the Fire and Ice.

Plus three Kingfisher beers.

No ice.

Nothing was better than pizza and my younger brother, Michael, knew that too.

Both in this life and the Here-After.

LOVE YOU LONG TIME - CHAPTER 3 by Peter Nolan Smith

In the 1990s the Christmas rush in New York's Diamond District consisted of six weeks of working 9:15 to 6 without a day off. My needs were simple and I banked almost every dollar from my diamond sale commissions and weekly salary at Richie’s exchange. By Christmas I had saved more than enough for six months in Asia including my flight. When I announced my departure on New Year’s Eve, Richie asked at a party on West 18th Street, “Is this how it’s going to be? You work six months and then take off?”

“It seems like a good plan.” The jewelry business died in the winter.

“You're a great salesman. We’ll be here when you get back. So will your. Good luck.”

This time I flew east from New York. The first stop was London, where I ran into Toby at a Chelsea bar. He was entertaining art dealers from his auction house. We greeted each other with a hug and saddled up to the bar where I posed a discreet question, “What’s happening with Chiang Mai Arts Center?”

“Sssssh. Six months ago I came here to clear up some banking details. When I returned, the guesthouse had been sold and my girlfriend had run off with the gardener, who was supposedly her brother. End of story. I learned my lesson. Don’t fall in love with a Thai girl.”

“Ever?”

“Magic runs in their blood.”

“Magic?” Senora Adorno's hex has lost none of its power. I hadn't touched a woman in this city.

“You don’t believe me?”

“I do. I’m no stranger to magic and love potions.”

I gave him the hundred words or less version of Mrs. Adorno’s curse.

“Witches are nasty. They make love potions that will make you crazy and do crazy things. Things you’d never do with a western girl. I lost everything I had there and still wanted her back. People wanted to know why, but I can’t even explain it to myself.”

“So no more Thailand.”

“I’m back with my wife. She's a safe love for a man my age. You be careful out there.”

Toby tightened his tie and rejoined his clients. His story came as no surprise and I vowed to never succumb to such a weakness.

In Bangkok I booked into the Malaysia Hotel and visited Kenny. Not much had changed at his place, except he explained that Pong had gone to Germany. Kenny said, “He a nice man.”

“If she calls, tell her I asked for her.”

That evening I phoned Michael down in Pattaya. He invited to holiday in the south at his beach house in Jomtien. I had no idea what to expect, but knew that backpackers avoided the beach resort’s wickedness to avoid seeing a fat German sunbathing with two tiny Thai girls.

After a three hours bus ride I arrived at his house by motorsai taxi. The Frenchman was living with his lovely daughter and a Thai woman with their baby daughter, Lek. He was 54. Porn was 34. The age difference coupled with the cultural gap fed vicious argument and Emilie and I escaped to a beach restaurant with Lek. The waiter came with a smile. It was low season. We were money. Emilie had a coke and I ordered a Singha beer. The baby sucked on milk

"You want to swim?"p>The ten-year old shook her head and led me by the hand across a beach was strewn with plastic to a murky sea.

"No one comes here for the beach."

"I can see why."

After that evening's dinner Michael and I drank Cote du Rhone and played backgammon. Mosquitos buzzed around our feet. Porn watch Thai soaps. At the end of the night I said, "I have to get a hotel."

“Why stay at a hotel when you stay here for free? Porn and I don't fight every day.”

I doubted that, but accepted his offer and settled into a second-floor room overlooking a field of jungle grass.

Dawn painted the fields with a golden glow and I sat at a table to begin a novel about a XXX movie star in North Hollywood base on my cousin Sherri. Michael and Porn hit bed early. I went to Walking Street. The bars were filled with women. Some of them were beautiful. One night I brought a girl back. In the morning Michael warned, “This is my home. Not a brothel.”

Okay, I understand."

His admonishment was deserved, considering his wife didn’t approve of having a guest. I should have left, but liked taking care of their baby daughter. Porn would disappear for most of the day and miraculously arrive a half-hour before her husband’s arrival.

I thought about telling Michael, but her wife’s absences were none of my business.

He dealt in sapphires and rubies.

I asked him for a job.

“Sorry, but I have trouble paying my own salary.”

“No problem, if I didn’t ask, I wouldn’t know.”

After dinner we drink whiskey and once the house was asleep I ventured across the hill to Walking Street. The sex emporium was wide open to everyone, farangs and Thais alike. Go-go girls begged me to take them home, dying for a night off their feet. I tipped them $5 and returned to Michael’s house.

I didn’t sleep long.

The door opened and a man stood at the foot of my bed. A Japanese sword gleamed in his hands. It was Michael.

“I’m going to cut off her head.”

“Cut off her head"” Decapitation seemed a drastic measure.

“She’s seeing her ex-husband. A Thai man.”

“Why don’t you leave her?”

“She’ll take away my daughter.” Western men have no rights to their children in Thailand.

“If you cut off her head, you’ll go to prison.” The Thai police frowned on westerners killing Thai wives in a fit of jealousy.

Emilie entered the bedroom in tears. Michael joined his daughter. The wife didn’t show up that morning or the following day. Fearing a murderous showdown, I decided to go up north and said, “I have a train to catch. Why don’t you come with me?”

“I’ll be fine.” His eyes told a different story. “I have a business to run.”

"I call from there."

In Chiang Mai I once more rented a 250cc motorcycle from Australian Jim. I drove around the North, avoiding opium and pick-up trucks. My hands were numb from the bumpy roads. Only saunas freed my skin from the deeply ingrained dust. I rewrote my novel in a shack along the Mekong River.

When I returned to Jomtien a month later, the Thai guard said that Michael had returned to France. He had no idea what happened to his wife or daughter. I doubted the guard was telling me everything, but any form of involvement was him for bad luck.

For me too.

I returned to Bangkok and booked a room at the Malaysia. Kenny’s Bar was populated by the usual collection of drunken farangs and young girls. I told Kenny about Michael and he explained, “All Thai women fall in love with Thai man. Get marry. Maybe no marry. Have baby. Man go to see other women. Get drunk. Leave wife. After girl must take care of baby. Meet man. Same your friend. Same story. I hear all time.”

“Ever hear any happy endings?” I ordered him a drink. He liked gin.

“Happy beginning, yes. Happy middle, yes. Happy ending?” Kenny motioned for the bargirl to bring him a slice of lime. “Everyone die in end. Love too. I hear from Pong. She ask for you.”

“Tell her I said hello.” I was leaving for New York and gave Kenny a gold ring.

“Something for you to remember me.”

The ring fit his thumb and he wished me good luck. “You stay safe.”

“That's not problem in the States.”

My apartment was comfortable. I gave my agent the novel. Tony sent NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD to publishers and warned me to be patient. We heard nothing and I committed myself to work at the diamond exchange. It was a grind, but Richie introduced a married woman from Richmond. Mrs. Carolina was married to a country doctor. He had land. The blonde 45 year-old wanted someone to love.

“I wrote out the ten best things about you and the ten worst. The good outweighed the bad.”

“Only ten bad things?” My list was much longer.

"I threw away the small faults."

"Thanks for that."

Mrs. Adorno laughed seeing me with Ms. Carolina and stared with her evil eye.

Ms. Carolina asked about the wizened woman and I said, “She’s crazy.”

“Same as me for you.”

“Do yourself a favor and have nothing to do with that woman. She’s a witch.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Ms. Carolina visited me every month. The sex was good, but only good. Still I wasn't lonely and we traveled to Wyoming, Guatemala, Death Valley, and the Bahamas.

After months I told her, “I'm going to Asia to write.”

“And what about women?” Jealousy is a natural trait for women or men, especially if you are the loved as opposed to the lover.

“I look. Not touch.” I wasn't interested in joining Kenny's collection of Not Happy Endings. Thai women strongly believe in bad, so I steer clear of involvements with them."

“Mostly because you’re scared of love.”

“Something like that.”

After New Years, Ms. Carolina came up to New York and drove me to JFK. She cried at the departure gate.

"Away I'm twice the man as most men and I will be back. I promise."

"I wish I could believe you."

I beleve me and that's what counts most." I wiped away her tears and kissed her good-bye.

This time I flew directly to Thailand.

Bangkok served as a transit point. Cars, buses, boats, planes, and trains transported me to Asia’s ice-sheathed mountains, mossy temples, sugar sand beaches, islands floating on a gin-clear sea, and rivers swelling with monsoon rains.

I loved the feel of dirt under my boots in a distant mountain pass, however writing required a sedentary life and I sought a location meeting my prerequisites; good food, weather, and people.

The Legong dancers of Bali possessed a gracefulness to be envied by Gods. Emerald forests climbed up the jungle slopes of Sulawesi’s misty mountains. Penang served Indian, Malay, and Chinese cuisines.

I had spoke the truth to MS. Carolina and I returned to America. My youngest brother was sick with AIDS. He didn’t last long and after his death I broke up with Mrs. Carolina.

She and I remained close. Her husband became my friend. I was no longer a threat. I was on the verge of becoming a life-long bachelor and I questioned whether there was something wrong with me. Other men had women. They seemed happy. I was sad. Mrs. Adorno no longer answered the door, when I knocked on it.

Several months later my mother was diagnosed with cancer. On her death bed she admonished my avoidance of Ireland. "You have been all over the world, but never to the Emerald Isle Maybe you can find a nice woman there. Someone like your sisters or aunts.”

“I don’t know.” Her solution sounded too much like incest.

“Promise you’ll go.” A quick trip to Dublin was what I had in mind. My mother knew me well. “I want you to reconnect with your roots and not just with a pint of Guinness.”

She passed away after Christmas. Mrs. Carolina held my hand at her burial.

The next summer my father and I toured the Loire Valley. We enjoyed large meals in pleasant cafes and drank wine in caves carved in cliffs. He cried listening to Irish ballads on the car stereo. We missed my mother and spoke about how much she would have loved the chateaus.

In Paris we unexpectedly met my friend, Sam Royalle. The Londoner was a computer geek, but had become involved with a money wire transfer with a criminal organization. $200,000 had gone missing and now a gang of Brixton yardies had threatened him with grievous bodily damage, if they weren’t awarded the proceeds of his house sale.

Sam skipped a few details of the scheme and heeded my suggestion to hide out in the Orient. The Malaysia Hotel was a good starting place to disappear from sight. I went to London and cashed a check at his bank. I was a little scared, but no yardies raided the bank, while I wired him the money.

My business in the UK was done and I flew over to Dublin to fulfill my mother’s death wish. I rented a haunted old schoolhouse on the Connemara coast from a Lord and wrote a book about prostitution in Hamburg. Most of the story was based on the blonde and her pimp.

Sullen autumn rains accompanied long walks through the soggy bogs. The cow farmers at the nearest pub shared a nasty word for everyone and wondered why I wasn’t writing my novel in Germany. The women in the village were either 15 and pregnant or 40 with five kids. The house was haunted by old ghosts who whispers crawled down the dark hallways. Sam called from Bangkok. He was grateful for my advice and offered a ticket to Thailand. My funds were low. I said I would see him next year.

Back in New York I worked with Richie.

After New Years Mrs. Carolina and I skied Jackson Hole. No one was interested in publishing my books. My script based on my first novel. NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD was rejected by producers, directors, and one agent said, “It’s sixteen sex scenes chasing a plot.”

I counted the sex scenes.

There were five.

The rest were foreplay.

I was a failure and contemplated throwing my typewriter into the trash.

If I committed to selling diamonds, I would have car, house, maybe even a wife. 47 wasn’t too late to have kids for a man.

Sherri came to town and stayed with me. She had stopped drugs and porn films. Out in California she was attending school to get her degree in psychiatry. It was a miracle that she was alive. Even more so that she could laugh about her last lost period.

I told her about my plan to settle down. “You can’t do that”

"Why not?"

"You’re a legend.”

“Legend?” I felt more like a rumor.

“Whenever I tell people about you, they say that’s the life they want.”

“Any of them willing to switch?”

“None of them have the courage. Plus you are too fixed in your ways to be with an American woman. They want someone stable. Someone who isn’t going to threaten their security. Someone more like their father.”

“I can be all those things.”

“Maybe you can, but you wouldn’t be you.” Sherri's major was human behavior.

“Before I said I shouldn’t get involved with a Thai woman, but there’s one working at a restaurant near me. She met her husband in Thailand. They are relatively happy." I didn't mention the fighting, because everyone fights in a relationship. "She’s not a domestic person like everyone thinks of Asian woman. She has a mind of her own. She’s not a caricature, but never never really left her Thai husband 100%.”

“Where she meet her western husband?”

“In a bar. Maybe a go-go.” Sherri frowned at my answer. “She probably married your friend that to take care of her family. I can’t throw any stones at her and neither can you. None of us are saints. Not even the good are. Not until they’re dead.”

“Okay, I’ll re-open my mind to falling in love.”

I was leaving for Thailand in the spring and called Sam. He was living in Pattaya with a teenage girlfriend.

“Come on down. I have a place for you to stay.”

In my mind I constructed a palace of possibilities.

I’d meet Pong. We’d go to Pattaya. I’d write my book.

I called Kenny. He answered the phone. He didn’t recognize my voice at first. When I asked about Pong, he said, “She living in Holland now. Have new husband and a baby. Fat too. When you come? I call my sister. I have many nieces.”

“A big family.” Thais extended kinship to second cousins, friends of aunts, and schoolmates. Everyone was in the family just like the South of France. I told Kenny. “I’ll see you soon.”

Mrs. Carolina asked if she could come on this trip.

“No, but I promise to phone from Bangkok.” Her eyes misted hearing those words. I couldn’t tell her anything else. We were no longer lovers. Then again we had never been lovers.

The 26-hour plane ride to Thailand was lengthened by an unexpected delay in Japan. The hotel at Narita gave the passengers coupons for a hotel and food. I spent my dining chit on beer. The desk called at 6am. I was back at Narita at 7. We completed the journey in six hours. I got off the plane. The temperature was in the 90s. Bangkok could only get hotter.

After all it was the true Orient.