Shin Bet Funkies

On October 7 2023 thirty-nine NYPD officers were training in crowd control tactics in Israel. Shin Bet has been instructing American police in how to treat all protestors as terrorists since 9/11. A large percentage of the 12 are addicted to steroids to protectively bulk up against civilians always considered guilty and potentially dangerous thanks to Shin Bet instructions. Since 2002 tens of thousands of police across the country have been instructed to quell any and all protests with force. The worst are the white shirted upper-echolon officers and last year after a visit to Israel NYC mayor Eric Adams said, "When I retire, I want to live in the Golan Heights."

Last night the NYPD cleared the NYU protest site.

Free Palestine.

Free the hostages.

End the war

Salaam/Shalom they both mean peace.

Gut Gemacht Berliners - 2014

A white flag has symbolized a call for truce or surrender since the Eastern Han dynasty Any combatants under this flag considered themselves safe from attack, although at the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho elders, women, and children under the protection of a nearby fort were slaughtered by drunken US Calvary despite a white flag. Kit Carson, famed pioneer and Indian fighter, harshly criticized the action by saying, " I tell you what, I don't like a hostile red skin any more than you do. And when they are hostile, I've fought 'em, hard as any man. But I never yet drew a bead on a squaw or papoose, and I despise the man who would."

White flags have been ignored throughout history, but this year on July 22 unknown people exchanged the American flags atop the Brooklyn Bridge towers with two white flags. The NYPD and Homeland Security were embarrassed by the failure to protect the bridge after spending billions of dollars to lock-down New York against any threat of terrorism.

Police were equally perplexed by the lack of a letter or manifesto or video explaining the white flag, but promised to prosecute the perpetrators to the fullest measure of Law and Order.

The War of Terror

Fox News preached fear.

Mohammadans were at it again.

I thought the flags were a call for a truce.

The War of Terror versus peace.

Still no one said nothing until today's admission by two German artists.

“We saw the bridge, which was designed by a German, trained in Berlin, who came to America because it was the place to fulfill his dreams, as the most beautiful expression of a great public space. That beauty was what we were trying to capture.”

Their clandestine feat was carried out well past midnight and said according the the Zionist NY Times that when they removed those flags, they ceremonially folded them, “following the United States flag code.”

Mr. Leinkauf, 37, and Mr. Wermke, 35 have pulled off similar stunts without such recognition and I applaud their effort, although they answered the question 'why' with "There is no why?"

A girlfriend had once said that leaving me.

"Sometimes you don't to know why."

I kicked her in the ass.

A brute.

Same as the NYPD will be, if these two artists venture back to NYC

A white flag is a call for peace.

And a call for peace is not nothing.

Time in our time.

Immer, mein jung Berliners.

BAG OF NAILS by Peter Nolan Smith

Throughout the 70s Nickie Barnes ran a Harlem heroin empire under the protection of the Lucchese crime syndicate. His godfather 'Crazy Joe' Gallo helped Barnes create 'the Council' to run the trade north of 125th Street and Barnes earned the nickname 'Mr. Untouchable' for his skill at beating charges and evading arrests. Neither the DEA nor rival gangs could touch him and President Carter ordered his AG to bring down the drug kingpin.

The Feds were too square to catch Mr. Untouchable in a compromising situation, however a blonde-haired NYPD officer with a dirty reputation ensnared the gangster in a dope deal. Johnny Z.

Facing multi-life sentences Nicky Barnes served his time like a man, until he discovered that a council member was seeing his old lady and his investments were being sapped by his friends. He dimed overone-hundred-fifty of his associates as well as his girlfriend and Rudy Giuliani rewarded his snitching with a reduced stretch of thirty-five years.

The NYPD cop instrumental to the bust was given his gold shield and Johnny Z seemed destined for great things.

In the autumn of 1979 a sniper on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 10th Street had shot two pedestrians. One of them dead. A cop had been wounded attempting to batter down the door of the barricaded apartment. The 9th precinct cordoned off two blocks and the precinct captain called for back-up.

I watched the confrontation from the back of the St. Mark's Church. It was a warm day for October and none of us had anything better to do than provide a target to a crazed sniper.

Help came in a black unmarked Chevy.

A tall blonde man in a dark suit got out of the passenger side and he was the mirror image of Clint Eastwood, if the movie star had rattlesnake blood running in his veins.

The nearby officers greeted him with firm handshakes. The captain put his arm around the newcomer's shoulder and then pointed to the sniper's perch.

The tall man pulled out a .38. He checked the cylinder and nodded to the captain.

As he walked away, I asked an officer whom I knew from the restaurant next to the precinct on 5th Street, "Who was that?"

"Johnny Z." The uniformed cop spoke the name with fearful reverence.

I had heard the rumors and followed Bobby Z from a distance. He didn't have to show a badge to get through the police line. All the cops knew who he was.

Standing at the 2nd Avenue Deli the renegade pushed back his blonde hair like he was going on a date.

Twice he looked at his reflection in the deli's windows and then Johnny Z walked to the rear of the building and climbed the fire escape with the agility of an escaped ape

Within seconds he was in the building.

A minute later two shots rang out from the sniper's apartment. A rifle flew from the window. It shattered on the street and Bobby Z waved his hand from the building. His audience applauded his swift work.

Back on the street several officers patted his back, as he headed his car. His glare toward the civilians warned them that they had never seen him. The newspapers never reported the incident.

Someone that cold has enemies and a year later Johnny Z raided a Harlem apartment and shot dead several innocent people. One of them was a grandmother.

The detective protested to his superiors that his informant had given the wrong address.

The media suggested that the killings were an execution.

No one believed a rogue cop and only his previous heroics and numerous line of duty injuries saved him from prison.

Johnny Z's pension couldn't cover his debts, but the NYPD took care of their own and Johnny Z was unofficially employed by various precincts to enforce payments from dealers, gambling halls, brothels, and after-hours clubs. The killer also convinced wrong-thinking cops to maintain the blue wall of silence and his name was spoken by the cops of the 9th Precinct with a hush, as if he were a ghost, but he was no phantom.

In the autumn of 1981 the International on West 25th Street was an after-hours club in the city. I worked the door with Benji, a massive Jamaican street fighter, whose arms were scarred from Trenchtown machete wars.

I thought I was a hard guy just standing close to him. At worst I could take a punch.

The International opened three hours before the legit clubs' closing time. Scottie from the Ritz operated the bar. The registers sucked money like crooked slot machines. By 4am the converted garage was packed with those people not willing to release their hold on the night. Entry cost $10 and drinks in a plastic cup were $5. We paid no taxes. Customers bribed me with cocaine and money. I was rich every night and broke by the next afternoon.

Everyone wanted a piece of the action and the local precinct insisted on a bigger cut from the door.

Arthur the owner thought that $500/night too was generous a donation and stiffed the bagman.

Crooked cops have their own value system and I was nervous about how they would right this situation in their favor.

The next night an unmarked car rolled down the deserted block. I nudged Benji. He recognized the ride.

"Police." The only time on-duty cops cruised this street was to get their pay.

"What we going to do?" A velvet rope offered little protection against the Filth.

We were running an illegal club.

"Are we fucked?"

"This isn't official." Benji read the scene with criminal vision. This Chevy had only one man behind the wheel. "It's worst."

"Worst how?"

"It's Johnny Z. This white boy tougher than a bag of nails." Benji muttered under his breath, as if the ex-cop could read lips. Benji's three-hundred pounds on a 6-2 frame intimidated most white people into crossing the street, especially since he strapped a 45.

Johnny Z got out of the car with the engine running.
"Watch the car," he told Benji. "I don't want no one stealing it."

“Where’s the owner?” Johnny Z asked me, surveying the street without seeing any threat.

"He's inside." I was in no position to lie.

"Show me."

I opened the ropes and went inside the crowded club.

"Let me guess." Johnny Z scanned the room and then said, "The guy in the black suit at the end of the bar."

"That's him." I lifted my hand to warn Arthur.

"Don't be smart." It was the only warning I would get from him.

"Yes, sir. I showed him the way.

"I won't be long." Johnny Z went to the bar and slapped Arthur once. My streetwise boss fell to the floor in a slump.

“500 a night.” Johnny Z helped Arthur to his feet. "You got that? I'll be here every night to make sure I get it too"

"Yes." It was the only right answer.

The extra $500 came from allowing less desirable customers into the club for $20 each. Twenty-five people might not seem many, but these entries proved to be trouble time and time again. Benji and I handled each intruders with force.

Every night Johnny Z watched from the bar with amusement. All he had to do was tell the trouble-makers to leave. None of them ever questioned his command.

Johnny Z was bad news. He had a past, present, and future which he couldn't outrun. He was above the law, but Johnny Z misread the shitstorm coming our way.

The International was hot. The FBI were investigating police corruption. Arthur wore the wire for Internal Affairs. Our partners were Russian counterfeiters. The leader lived with my ex-girlfriend. I was still in love with her. Benji thought I was a fool and so did Johnny Z.

"You." Johnny Z motioned for me to come over to him.

"What's wrong?"

"What's wrong? Are you blind?"

"No." I knew what he was talking about.

"You should get out of here before it's too late to leave."

"What about you?"

"Tonight's my last night. It should be yours too. One more thing. That girl is never coming back to you.

"Thanks."

The truth didn't sound any better coming from a bag of nails.

I gave my notice.

Arthur shrugged like I should have gone long before that.

I left for Paris within the week. I had a job at a nightclub in Les Halles. It was called Les Bains-Douches.

Over the next few months I heard about the International from Scottie. Viktor Malenski's corpse was found outside the club and the FBI raided the premises a day after New Year's Eve. The Special Investigations Unit arrested two bagman for the cops. Johnny Z wasn't one of them. Thirty precinct cops were dismissed without charges. No one was saying who killed Viktor.

I stayed in France for five years.

By 1990 I was out of nightclubs.

A friend, Richie Boy, hired me to work at his diamond exchange.

Part security, part schlepper.

Sleeping regular hours was a treat, although the money wasn't close to what I coined at the International, so in 1995 when Scottie offered a job at his club in Beverly Hills, I accepted without reservation.

A free place to stay, good money, drugs, beautiful women, palm trees, the Pacific Ocean, and a chance to meet a film producer for my stories sounded like a dream come true.

The Milk Bar opened in January of 1995. Its New Yorkishness guaranteed an overnight success.

I met Prince, the husband of the Pakistani president, Mickey Rourke, and a good number of plenty drug dealers. My cocaine use was minute to minute. Our bouncer, Big Bernard, was a skyscraper of a Haitian. His big smile was a calling card to get into films. Everyone in LA was after the same thing.

Fame and fortune.

Bernard was a pussy hound and he had a tendency to disappear inside the club.

Scottie would come out to watch my back.

Beverly Hills was rich and soft, but gangbangers cruised the night looking for ripe targets and we were flush with cash.

Scottie was no gunman.

Neither was I.

One night we were talking about old time at the door, when Scotty's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Damn." Scottie's mild expletive echoed Benji's 'damn' from over a decade ago.

"Let me guess."I didn't have to turn my head. Scottie's voice said everything. "It's Johnny Z."

"In the flesh."

"Damn." I turned around hoping Johnny Z was a mirage, although tipping three hundred plus pounds pounds the ex-cop was more a fleecy cloud. He walked with a limp, which could mean many things, but most of all that I could outrun him if necessary.

"What you looking at?"

While his blonde hair had retreated from his forehead, his voice had not lost the menace

"Nothing." I wasn't saying anything until I had to say something.

"I know both of you." The ragged face came from drinking for more than his health. The pummeled knuickles were the souvenirs of forgotten beatings. He was no pussy cat.

"That might be right." I kept my disatance.

"From where?" he asked with nervous apprehension looking over his shoulder. He suit shined from too many ironings.

Two well-dressed men neared the entrance. They looked like move producers with extraordinarily young skin from a thousand rejuvenation procedures.

"You busted Nicky Barnes," I said the legend.

"I was only small part of the operation." Johnny Z was obviously uncomfortable that his past might track him down. Drug dealers had long memories. "Did you know Nicky?"

"No." Nicky Barnes was before my time.

"Think 1981 we had the International in New York." Scottie had never liked how Johnny Z had sucker-punched his best friend.

"That was a long time ago." The name of that infamous club jolted his memory.

"Not that long ago."

"A lifetime ago," the heavy ex-cop licked his lips, as he said, "I'm looking for work in films as a cop expert. No one out here knows about that shit. They think I'm a decorated cop. I am too, but if they were to find out other things, I'd be screwed."

"So you're asking a favor?" Scottie fished for an edge. Johnny Z might be over the hill, but he had friends here and in New York.

"Yes," he hissed in agreement to whatever we asked of him later.

"Then come on in. Your friends too. Free of charge."

"I'll make good for you." Johnny Z ushered in his friends. They tipped the bartenders with largesse. When he left alone, Johnny Z duked me a c-note.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Depends."

"You told me to leave before the Feds raided the International. That saved me a lot of trouble. Why you do that?"

"I did that?"

"Sorry, I don't remember you at all."

"I suppose that's a good thing."

"yeah, I guess it is." It wasn't easy being as hard as Johnny Z. Even nails get rusty and I wished him good luck. Scottie and I never saw him again.

Over the years I've read that he's got a good career as a consultant out in Hollywood, but I never collected his favor and I was better off for that, because no matter how out of shape Johnny Z gets, it's always best not to owe anything to a bag of nails.

They have sharp ends.

DARK HUMOR

On the first anniversary of the World Trade Tower Attack I was sitting with two NYPD narcotic detectives in a bar on Avenue B. Rocco and I went back to the Milk Bar and his partner Stevie was telling us about his 9/11

“My sergeant said as we approached the north tower, “Be careful, boys, today a lot of people are going to die.” He barely finished that sentence and a body smashed in front of us and then another and another. We ran for cover. None of us were heroes that day, even though we tried.”

“Shut up, Stevie. You did your best. No one can ask for more.” Rocco drank heavily from his glass.

We each had stories of that tragic, but lost the thread as we eavesdropped on a group of firefighters toasting their fallen comrades.

“Fucking Boy Scouts.”

"Who?"

"Firemen. Everyone thinks they're heroes, while we're scum."

"You got that right, Rocco." Stevie had been partners with Rocco for eleven years. Rocco leaned over and started talking loudly about how the firefighters have looted the WTC before its collapse.

“You know there would have been no dead firemen, if someone had posted one sign on the World Trade.”

The firemen at the bar turned as one to our table.

“And what would be on that sign?” Stevie loved playing straight man for his partner.

“Nothing of value inside.” Rocco laughed and slipped a hand under his jacket, as a trio of behemoth NYFD approached us. We were friends of the owner, the firemen had their house around the corner, but this was an old fight between rivals.

“What’d you say?” The largest fireman demanded with clenched fists.

“Just that if the World Trade had nothing to steal, then none of you would have died.”

Rocco laid his Glock on the table without taking his finger off the trigger.

“You’re a fuck.” The biggest fireman waved for his comrades to ignore the insult.

"It was a joke," explained Stevie. He wasn't looking for a fight.

“It wasn’t meant to be funny.” Rocco had lost two friends in the collapse. None of us found much funny about that day.

“Now be happy campers and go back to your drinks. The next round is on me.”

“Fuck you and fuck your drinks.” The biggest fireman forced his friends back to the bar, but they drank Rocco’s round and sent us one too.

“Nice one, Rocco.” Stevie lifted his glasses. We were drinking vodka-tonics.

“To the gone, but not forgotten.”

We downed them in one go and ordered another round.

9/11 is that kind of day that was remembered forever one way or the other.

Excerpt From WHEN FAT MEN FLY -CHAPTER 3

New Year's revelers surged through the 5th Avenue entrance across from the Plaza Hotel. The cops had erected a barricade across the road to Central Park. Nick showed them this father's MD pass. They waved us into the park and we drove to the boathouse. It was quarter to 1971.

Eddie got out of the front seat, breathless after this epic effort. We helped him over to a park bench with a clear view of the lake. Strains of rock music faded and rose on the wind. People headed in its direction. One group of longhair junkies ridiculed Eddie.

I glared at them to shut their holes.

Eddie motioned for me to let it go. "I'm used to the abuse."

"Still ain't right."

The air whooshed in and out of his lungs. It seemed like another ten steps might kill him and he stopped by a bench, saying,7 "You go on without me."

“No way.” Wayne helped Eddie sit down. Nick pulled some blankets out of Mini-Cooper. I opened the bottles of Boone Farm. Wayne lit up joints. Sookie cuddled closer to me for warmth. Her body was starved for heat. Nick draped us with a quilt.

"All we need is a fire and we could have a picnic."

Nick rubbed his hands together.

"Try some of this to get warm." Sookie handed him a small bottle of tequila. We each had a nip. The alcohol boiled in our stomachs. Eddie was about to light another joint, when a cop appeared from the shadows.

He was about our age.

Young.

"That looks like marijuana."

His nightstick tapped the bench.

"It is." Eddie craned his neck without being able to see the officer.

"The rest of you hippie scum holding?" The thin cop beamed a flashlight in our eyes and seized Eddie's coat. The NYPD had a well-earned reputation for violence and his comrades in blue were only seconds away.

"No, just me." Eddie admitted his guilt. "You can arrest me and I'll resist the only way I know. By being heavy. But if you shine us on, we'll wish you a Happy New Year."

"Let the big man go free!" one longhair shouted and the crowd chanted for Eddie' release. The cop surveyed the shadows for back up. He was outnumbered 50-1. His hand twitched on his holstered .38, then an older cop pushed through the hippies and assessed the scene with veteran eyes.

"Is that a joint in your hand?" His flashlight shined on the reefer.

"Yes, officer." Eddie excelled at playing 'good boy'"

"And my partner wants to arrest you for possession." He flicked off the light.

"That's correct, officer."

“0"You put away the joint." He lifted his open hands to show this problem wasn't a problem. "My partner and I will leave you alone."

"Thank you, officer." Eddie put the joint inside his coat and nodded his gratitude. "And Happy New Year."

"Same to you." The older cop escorted his fellow officer from the bench and the mob parted for the policemen to leave the area. The hippies cheered Eddie and two seconds later the first rocket for the fireworks arced into the night sky.

1971 was now 1972.

The pyrotechnic display lasted a good half-hour and Eddie cried at the finale.

What's wrong?" Wayne stood by his friend.

"I haven't been out of the apartment in so long I forgot what it like to be around people. To be with friends." Eddie struggled to his feet and dried his eyes.

"Eddie, you don't have to stay in the apartment all the time." Wayne was half Eddie's size. His problems with weight were manageable.

"I can barely walk to the Mini-Cooper." His steps were tentative, as if he expected the earth to crumple beneath his feet. "You should have seen me at Woodstock. I reached the rim of the crowd and gave up getting any closer. Wayne stayed with me the entire time."

"It was nothing." Wayne had never mentioned this sacrifice. He always spoke about the festival, as if he had been in the front row.

"You had to stick with me instead of seeing all those bands." Eddie pounded his chest with his fists.

"I heard the music." Wayne seized Eddie's wrists. His hands barely reached halfway around the thick joints. Plus Woodstock was more than the music. It was about peace and love."

"Horseshit. I'm trapped in this body, but I wasn't always this way. Chubby, but not fat like this, and I blame it all on Devil Dogs. They tasted so good I would do anything to get them. I started dealing drugs on Jerome Avenue to finance my eating habits. Within two years I weighed 200. By the time I was 18 I was over 300. I have no idea how much I weigh now."

Eddie was on the verge of crying. Wayne slipped under Eddie's arm to steady him and I held his other side. He tried to shake us off, except his sense of balance wandered with every step.

"I’m a big fat fuck and I'll never be able to get into a glider."

“Shut up, Eddie." Sookie stood in front of us. "Sure when I first saw you, I thought you were a big fat fuck, but you have a good heart. Fly or not fly, it's not the end of the world. You'll still be our friend. Do you really want to fly?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll help you starve. It's my specialty.” Sookie caressed his face. “Starting tomorrow.”

KILL THE RICH CHAPTER 2 By Peter Nolan Smith

Two NYPD homicide detectives stood in front of the Vent du Sol. Uniformed officers kept the curious behind the yellow tape. Dead men attract spectators. The rubberneckers weren't looking for the victim to come back to life, but waited to see if anything else out of the ordinary happened on this quiet Upper East Side street. An attractive blonde woman was crying at the restaurant doorway. An older man had his arm around her.

"Girlfriend and best friend," Lee Solent said, lifting his eyes from his notebook.

"No, girlfriend and maitre de. From what I heard the victim had no friends." Sam Chatham had been his partner for ten years. They had solved many murders. They hadn't solved many more.

"What we have so far?"

"The victim, Mark Bonsoul, came out to smoke a cigarette. He is one of the richest men in New York. The waiter who had been at the job since the end of the Co-vid closings came outside and for no reason came outside and pumped three shots. Twice in the chest and once in the head. He jumped into a car for parts unknown. License plate unseen. The bullet casings came from a .38. I questioned the maitre. He knows nothing and no one saw anything. I left the girlfriend for you. That's all so far."

"I'll talk to her now." He thought about the .38. No one used the revolver anymore, but it was a good gun to hit a target at close range and he bet himself that the rich guy had been shot from less than a distance from five feet.

Close.

"Try and be nice." Sam Chatham rarely got to play 'bad guy'.

I'm always nice."

"Yeah, right."

Detective Solent motioned for an patrolman to lift the tape. He walked over to the restaurant's entrance and introduced himself. The blonde woman had stopped crying and the detective put his notebook in inside his jacket, noting she wore no jewelry.

"Sorry about your friend. Miss...?"

"Kerry Mahony. This was our third date." Her eyes were as green as mowed grass.

"You're not leaving town, are you?"

"No, this is my home. Born and bred." Her accent said private West Side schools and an Ivy League college and her tone reveal her annoyance at this intrusion, as she said, "Why do you ask that?"

"I wanted to make sure I could question you tomorrow."

"I can't see why not, but I will have my lawyer there." A lawyer wasn't necessary, but people can say the wrong things after a murder and the police like fitting square blocks into round holes.

"My partner will take your information." He stared at the maitre de, as if he were hiding the murder weapon on his person and said, "He'll get yours too.

"Up to you." The maitre de was accustomed to big people and the police weren't big people in his mind. Detective Solent walked away. He knew all about people like the maitre de. Everyone was guilty of something.

Everyone.

WANTED MAN by Peter Nolan Smith

Staten Island was formed by the melt-off of the Ice Age. The fifth borough doesn’t exist to most New Yorkers, but my doctor lived next to the Tibetan Museum on Lighthouse Hill. Nick and I attended the same college and every year he invited me out to his house for my annual mdedical examination.
Last weekend I rode the subway from Fort Greene to South Ferry. Saturday was a sunny day and the starboard side of the Samuel I. Newhouse was packed with tourist snapping thousands of shots of the Statue of Liberty. I sat on the port-side to survey Red Hook NYCHA projects.
Back in the 90s those forlorn houses had been named the city’s worst neighborhood and my friend Rocco had worked under cover for the NYPD narcotics. He had been off the force for years, but his brother was working as liaison between the Mafia, FBI, and NYPD on Staten Island and I tried the retired detective’s cell on the off chance that he might be on there.
“Where are you?” Rocco was a big fan of my writing. I had almost ruined his career as a movie producer with his seeking support for NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD, my screenplay about pornography in the 90s.
“Where do you think I am?” We were used to answering questions with questions. No one could know our answers.
“You’re not upstate.” Rocco never picked up the phone at home, almost as if he was in the witness protection program. “I’m guessing you’re on Staten Island.”
It was a long shot and I wished that I had bet $100, because Rocco said, “You motherfucker, you have someone tailing me.”
“Nope, just playing the odds.” I believed in planned coincidences. “I’m seeing my doctor at Rose Avenue. Maybe we could meet up later. Are you with your brother?”
“Nah, Johnny’s done thirty. He’s down in Florida collecting his pension. I’m with my old partner, Frankie, you remember him?”
“Sure.” Frankie was the scary half of a duo playing bad cop/bad cop. His partner looked like Dean Martin and got all the girls at the Milk Bar. “Wasn’t he related to someone in____”
“Yes, he was, which was he couldn’t get nowhere in the job, because everyone knew his connections, so after I busted out of the job, he became a union delegate.”
“A dead end for a good cop.”
“You got it.” Rocco and Frankie were basically straight in a time when being crooked was easy.
“We’re at Great Kill Yacht Club. You should come by. I’d like you to talk to him.” Rocco was producing a indie film about crooked cops in Red Hook. FIRST MAN IN wasn’t even close to being semi-autobiographical.
“Is he still on the force?” There was no one near me.
“No, he did his twenty and out, but then opened a couple of bars with ties to his family. They went under and he ate the debt, then he tried a deli and pizza shop. Each one was a failure.”
“I know the feeling.” My jewelry store in the Plaza went bust in 2009. I noticed that the ferry was approaching St. George and the tourists were flooding to the bow. I got up and lingered at the rear of the crowd. “What you want to speak about?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here.” I hated secrets almost as much as Rocco hated talking on the phone.
“I’ll call you after my check-up.” I got off the ferry and proceeded through the terminal to the trains. Nine stops later I exited from the train and walked over to Nick’s office. He was waiting in his BMW SUV. It was good to see him. The doctor and I had been friends ever since European History pre-1500 at college.
“Get in.” He popped the locks.
“What about my check-up?” I sat in the car. It smelled brand-new. Nick took care of his things.
“You look great.” He peered over the top of his glasses and pulled away from the curb.
“That was my check-up?” My legs hurt from too much basketball and I had a little hangover.
“I see enough sick people every day to recognize a healthy one.” Nick had been practicing medicine almost thirty years. His name symbolized health care on Staten Island. “You lost ten pounds in Thailand. You stopped drinking hard liquor. My eyes are clear and my skin is in good condition. You look great for a man twice your age.”
“Thanks.” His bill of health backed up what I had heard from the Thai doctors during my summer vacation in Sri Racha. “You mind if we stop by Great Kills Yacht Club.”
“Why there?”
“I have to meet a friend.”
“He connected?” Nick shrugged to say that was the only kind of people who hung out there.
“He’s an ex-cop making a film. He wants to help me with my screenplay BET ON CRAZY.” I had a name actor for the lead. Bill was going to play ‘me’ in the drama about a goy selling diamonds on 47th Street. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all, Rose is cooking dinner. We have an hour.” Nick drove past Hylan Boulevard past the various clusters of strip malls selling nails, sun tans, and pizza. He turned left on Hillside Terrace. “You know where his boat is.”
“I think they’ll be easy to find.” Rocco liked to see any approaching danger. I figured that it ran in the family. We pulled into the parking lot and I scanned the boats in the slip, then spotted Rocco and his brother supervising the storage of a SeaBreeze 25. The white hull was gleamed in the late summer sun.
“That’s them.”
“I thought as much.” Nick parked his car and we strolled over to the two ex-cops.
“Love to see yah.” Rocco shook my hand and I turned to Frankie. He was as handsome as ever, although the lines in his face aged him a little more than his years. At least he wasn’t balding like his partner. I introduced them both to Nick.
“I know you. In fact I knew your father. He was my doctor as a kid.”
“His father was a good man.” He always had a good word for me as did late Nick’s mother. I loved her bacon and eggs.
Frankie reached into a cooler and pulled out four Tecates. We spoke about Staten Island, their years working the Red Hook houses, and our connections to each other. We went back decades. Nick and Rocco wandered off to look at the boats and I stood with Frankie. He had something to say and started with a confession.
“You know me, I’m not a bad man.” He was posing a question.
“None of us are, but we do what we have to do to get by.” I had never killed anyone and Rocco had never spoken about any shootings resulting in a death.
“Yeah, well, I got into financial trouble a couple a years ago. I have three kids and an ex-wife. I needed to get straight and one night I met a guy I knew from the job. He was retired too. I had heard something about him, but couldn’t remember what. For some reason I thought that he was a little like me, but he starts talking about cocaine. I don’t know nothing for it. Maybe a few lines once and awhile.”
“It isn’t a sin.” I stopped, because coke wasn’t cocaine anymore.
“Anyway he tells me that he has a connection from Florida with pure stuff. He’ll front me a couple of ounces and I can sell it to my friends. I knew he was talking about my family. Shit, I wasn’t going to sell the shit to strangers. So I ask around and make a contact. We sell ounces and then a kilo. I get back on my feet and I’m almost ready to pull out of the deal, when this fucking scumbag turns out to be undercover for the DEA. They want me to rat on my family.”
“But you can’t.”
“No, I can’t, so they take me into custody until I make bail for a million dollars.”
“Who’d you shoot?”
“No one. Fucking G-man prosecutor thought he was Rudy fucking Giuliani and I was his case to ride into politics. They have me every which way; wires, tapes, every fucking thing. I felt like John DeLorean. I would have never gotten involved unless they suckered me into it.”
“I understand.” The good are good only because they are too weak to be bad.
“I’m looking at major time and I was wondering what you thought about doing a runner somewhere.”
“And Rocco told you about Thailand.” My old home Pattaya had been a refuge for fugitives. “You have any money?”
He mentioned a number. It almost had enough zeroes.
“If you live quiet that’s good for five years, but most farangs live fast in Thailand.”
“I’m looking to disappear.” A million dollars was a good incentive against flight, but time for cops was hard time in prison.
“You have a passport?” The Feds normally confiscate it on arrest.
“I got one,” he said it in a way that I knew it wasn’t his.
“And you can leave and never come back.”
“All I got waiting is a cell.” His kids were grown. People were going to be looking for him, but he was good-looking and Thais like good-looking people.
“At my age that’s going to be my retirement plan.”
“This isn’t funny.” Frankie wasn’t in the mood for jokes.
“Okay, I’ll tell you what to do.” I laid out a plan for him. The route was direct. I knew a village in the western forests. The headman was a friend. He had a nice sister. Vee had one eye, but spoke English. No one else in the village did. Frankie might last there a couple of months before the peasant food and the quiet of the rice paddies drove him into Bangkok. I wrote down the information with my left hand. My script was almost as unreadable as NIck’s handwriting on his prescription.
“And these people will take care of me?” We exchanged phone numbers.
“For a price.” I lived there some of the year. The tranquility was brutal, but I had my children and second wife. She loved me. I had no idea why. It had only been a month since I left her and I missed Mam.
“No one does nothing for free.” Frankie eyed Nick and Rocco coming back to us.
“I’m doing this for you.” I was waiting for him to ask me to be his guide. We had no history.
“Thanks.” It was a simple thing to say, when you were trying to disappear as a wanted man.
“It’s just a couple of phone calls. You have to do the rest.” He had been a fool, but all that bullshit about not doing the crime, if you can’t do the time is exactly bullshit.
We shook hands and I told Rocco that I’d see him soon. If Frank took my advice, i would see him in the western forests come the new year.
Back in the car Nick asked, “What was that about?”
“You really want to know?” I was getting hungry and his wife was a good cook.
“No.” Nick had his own troubles.
“Good.” And I had mine.
We were good friends. We knew that we didn’t need to know everything anymore and that was a good thing on Staten Island.

Bad Santa And Worst

This time of year brings out the best of people, but not necessarily the best out of Santas.

Some drink too much and end up in alleys after selling their outfits in a crack den.

Others are arrested for holiday heresy.

Indecent exposure.

And they get nailed to the cross by holiday buzzkills.

Like the filthy police.

No one knows how to ruin the Holidays better than the NYPD.

Wabbits Of The NYPD

A secret organization in the USA government is in pursuit of an escaped mutant rabbit. They finally corral the beast in a suburban woods, but it's impossible to catch him, because he's so fast. The intelligence organization sends out an offer of $10,000,000 bounty for its capture.

Within hours the CIA, FBI, and NYPD show up to help get the rabbit.

The CIA go first.

Two hours later the black squad emerges out of the woods empty-handed.

"We found the rabbit, but we had a team rendition him to Gitmo." The CIA agent tell the G-Man. "Where's our money."

"No rabbit, no money."The search leader is no fool and points to a group of men in black suits and white shirts. "FBI, you're next."

The FBI go into the woods. Two hours later their team exit from the woods.

"We got him but he's in the witness protection program. Where's our money?"

"Bullshit, you didn't see any rabbit." The lead agent sends them away and turns to the NYPD.

"Don't worry, we'll get your rabbit." The NYPD sergeant leads his partner into the woods.

Two minutes later the trees shake from the ferocity of a fighting. The screams are horrifying and after ten minutes the NYPD drag a battered and bloodied bear out of the woods. The lead agent looks at the cops and asks, "What the fuck is this?"

The NYPD sergeant nudgess the brutalized bear, who says through broken teeth, "I'm a wabbit."

The Tombs In The Aftermath

Four days after Hurricane Sandy and New York City remains calm. Widespread looting has yet to occur and federal aid has been promised to the stricken neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. National Guard troops have yet to arrive to spell of the overworked police, but the NYPD is always happy for the extra hours. Two days ago I was bicycling in front of the Criminal Court on Centre Street. Two cops hauled a blonde woman and an older white man from their patrol cuff. The couple were in cuffs. I tried to think what crime they might have committed to deserve arrest. Prostitution couldn't have been an issue. Theft. They didn't look like thieves and the police were not carrying any evidence of robbery. Bad luck? It's always bad luck to go to the Tombs. The city getting back to normal? Not yet.

The Fort Greene Observatory

Hurricane Sandy barely touched Fort Greene. Trees were knocked down in the park and the internet service has been off for a day, otherwise this neighborhood weathered the storm with ease. We are 120 feet above sea level. Coney Island and the other low-lying areas of city were not so lucky. Lower Manhattan remains without power. Yesterday I bicycled over the Manhattan Bridge to Chinatown. The queues for the Fung Wah bus were around the block. Enterprising merchants were charging phones and computers with portable generators. A few restaurants were selling food outside on the sidewalk, however they were swiftly closed by health inspectors. The Tombs were open for business and I saw two white people led intot the criminal court by cops. The only reports of looting have come from Coney Island. The greater threat are gangs of organized criminals seeking to hit the most ravaged sections of the city. Most of them will be wearing a uniform. Be careful, people. The Fort Greene Observatory will be watching.

Sam 7

There's a helicopter flittering over Fort Greene this evening. Obviously the NYPD pigs are hunting a perp that outran their donut-eating comrades. Probably a shooter, but their ruination of the usual quietude has me wishing for a Surface to Air missile. I would miss my a few hundred meters and my arrow would drop in the river. I suck in video games.

Shooting To Kill

Last month I was talking to an ex-NYPD cop about the Amadou Diallo case. I offhandedly said that the officers involved in that fatal shooting were high on drugs and that the only good thing they did that fateful evening was not reload and shoot the downed African again.

"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. In any shooting the cops are bloodtested and that would have been published in every paper in the world if it was the case."

"I'm not so sure about that." My comment was based on a hunch rather than fact.

"You show me the proof." He was irate enough not to speak with me for the rest of the day.

I have my proof.

I used to lock myself out of my East Village apartment on numerous occasions. I would climb onto the roof and down the fire escape, then force open a window. It was a dangerous operation.

One slip and I could have fallen 50 feet to the hard concrete, but not once did any of my neighbors phoned 911.

Two squad cars responded to the call and the officers showed up to investigate 'a white guy doing something crazy'.

They knocked on my door and shouted, "Open it."

I obeyed their command and responded to their queries with yes officer and no officer. Obviously they hadn't taught that at Harvard.

My answers satisfied their questions, but I'm white.

A person of color might not have the same right as me and no white person will know how few rights are too few, until they are in prison, because there they are the minority.

Under The Gun

Back in the 70s the cops were scared of the streets, but not any more. Two days ago a National Guard solider was murdered by an undercover cop after his victim supposedly cut off two unmarked vans of the Grand Central Parkway. The driver had picked up two females from a Queens nightclub to drive home. One passenger was a NYPD officer under suspension. Upon stopping the Honda a detective approached the car and shoot the driver, who died at the hospital. CBS reported Noel Polanco had been drinking, although the female passenger said that he had a few drinks at the bar at which the two worked. She admitted that her friend was driving erratically, but explained to Wall Street Journal, "The police proceeded to try to chase us, sticking their middle finger at us and screaming obscenities at the car and trying to pull us over." The one bullet fired went by her face and she insisted, "He was shot intentionally ... All you had to do was pull him over, ask for license and registration and take him to jail. There was no reason for this innocent kid to be killed." The shooting officer was treated for a hurt eardrum and released from the hospital. Everyone in this country is innocent until proven guilty, even the dead.

NYPD Wabbit Hunt

The government is after an escaped mutant rabbit in the woods. It's impossible to catch him, because he's so fast. They offer a $10,000,000 bounty for its capture. The CIA, FBI, and NYPD show up to help get the rabbit.

The CIA go first. Two hours the black squad comes out of the woods.

"We found the rabbit, but we had a team rendition him to Gitmo." The CIA agent tell the G-Man.

"Bullshit, you didn't find any rabbit. FBI, you're next."

The FBI go into the woods. Two hours later their team exit from the woods.

"We got him but he's in the witness protection program."

"Bullshit, you didn't see any rabbit." The G-man sends them away and turns to the NYPD.

"Don't worry, we'll get your rabbit." The Sargent leads his squad into the woods. The G-Man hears fighting and screams and after ten minutes the NYPD drag a battered and bloodied bear out of the woods. The G-man asks, "What the fuck is this?"

The NYPD sergeant nudged the brutalized bear, who says, "I'm a wabbit."

WANTED MAN by Peter Nolan Smith

Staten Island was formed by the melt-off of the Ice Age. The fifth borough doesn't exist to most New Yorkers, but my doctor lived next to the Tibetan Museum on Lighthouse Hill. Nick and I attended the same college and every year he invited me out to his house for my annual mdedical examination.

Last weekend I rode the subway from Fort Greene to South Ferry. Saturday was a sunny day and the starboard side of the Samuel I. Newhouse was packed with tourist snapping thousands of shots of the Statue of Liberty. I sat on the port-side to survey Red Hook NYCHA projects.

Back in the 90s those forlorn houses had been named the city's worst neighborhood and my friend Rocco had worked under cover for the NYPD narcotics. He had been off the force for years, but his brother was working as liaison between the Mafia, FBI, and NYPD on Staten Island and I tried the retired detective's cell on the off chance that he might be on there.

"Where are you?" Rocco was a big fan of my writing. I had almost ruined his career as a movie producer with his seeking support for NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD, my screenplay about pornography in the 90s.

"Where do you think I am?" We were used to answering questions with questions. No one could know our answers.

"You're not upstate." Rocco never picked up the phone at home, almost as if he was in the witness protection program. "I'm guessing you're on Staten Island."

It was a long shot and I wished that I had bet $100, because Rocco said, "You motherfucker, you have someone tailing me."

"Nope, just playing the odds." I believed in planned coincidences. "I'm seeing my doctor at Rose Avenue. Maybe we could meet up later. Are you with your brother?"

"Nah, Johnny's done thirty. He's down in Florida collecting his pension. I'm with my old partner, Frankie, you remember him?"

"Sure." Frankie was the scary half of a duo playing bad cop/bad cop. His partner looked like Dean Martin and got all the girls at the Milk Bar. "Wasn't he related to someone in____"

"Yes, he was, which was he couldn't get nowhere in the job, because everyone knew his connections, so after I busted out of the job, he became a union delegate."

"A dead end for a good cop."

"You got it." Rocco and Frankie were basically straight in a time when being crooked was easy.

"We're at Great Kill Yacht Club. You should come by. I'd like you to talk to him." Rocco was producing a indie film about crooked cops in Red Hook. FIRST MAN IN wasn't even close to being semi-autobiographical.

"Is he still on the force?" There was no one near me.

"No, he did his twenty and out, but then opened a couple of bars with ties to his family. They went under and he ate the debt, then he tried a deli and pizza shop. Each one was a failure."

"I know the feeling." My jewelry store in the Plaza went bust in 2009. I noticed that the ferry was approaching St. George and the tourists were flooding to the bow. I got up and lingered at the rear of the crowd. "What you want to speak about?"

"I'll tell you when you get here." I hated secrets almost as much as Rocco hated talking on the phone.

"I'll call you after my check-up." I got off the ferry and proceeded through the terminal to the trains. Nine stops later I exited from the train and walked over to Nick's office. He was waiting in his BMW SUV. It was good to see him. The doctor and I had been friends ever since European History pre-1500 at college.

"Get in." He popped the locks.

"What about my check-up?" I sat in the car. It smelled brand-new. Nick took care of his things.

"You look great." He peered over the top of his glasses and pulled away from the curb.

"That was my check-up?" My legs hurt from too much basketball and I had a little hangover.

"I see enough sick people every day to recognize a healthy one." Nick had been practicing medicine almost thirty years. His name symbolized health care on Staten Island. "You lost ten pounds in Thailand. You stopped drinking hard liquor. My eyes are clear and my skin is in good condition. You look great for a man twice your age."

"Thanks." His bill of health backed up what I had heard from the Thai doctors during my summer vacation in Sri Racha. "You mind if we stop by Great Kills Yacht Club."

"Why there?"

"I have to meet a friend."

"He connected?" Nick shrugged to say that was the only kind of people who hung out there.

"He's an ex-cop making a film. He wants to help me with my screenplay BET ON CRAZY." I had a name actor for the lead. Bill was going to play 'me' in the drama about a goy selling diamonds on 47th Street. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all, Rose is cooking dinner. We have an hour." Nick drove past Hylan Boulevard past the various clusters of strip malls selling nails, sun tans, and pizza. He turned left on Hillside Terrace. "You know where his boat is."

"I think they'll be easy to find." Rocco liked to see any approaching danger. I figured that it ran in the family. We pulled into the parking lot and I scanned the boats in the slip, then spotted Rocco and his brother supervising the storage of a SeaBreeze 25. The white hull was gleamed in the late summer sun.

"That's them."

"I thought as much." Nick parked his car and we strolled over to the two ex-cops.

"Love to see yah." Rocco shook my hand and I turned to Frankie. He was as handsome as ever, although the lines in his face aged him a little more than his years. At least he wasn't balding like his partner. I introduced them both to Nick.

"I know you. In fact I knew your father. He was my doctor as a kid."

"His father was a good man." He always had a good word for me as did late Nick's mother. I loved her bacon and eggs.

Frankie reached into a cooler and pulled out four Tecates. We spoke about Staten Island, their years working the Red Hook houses, and our connections to each other. We went back decades. Nick and Rocco wandered off to look at the boats and I stood with Frankie. He had something to say and started with a confession.

"You know me, I'm not a bad man." He was posing a question.

"None of us are, but we do what we have to do to get by." I had never killed anyone and Rocco had never spoken about any shootings resulting in a death.

"Yeah, well, I got into financial trouble a couple a years ago. I have three kids and an ex-wife. I needed to get straight and one night I met a guy I knew from the job. He was retired too. I had heard something about him, but couldn't remember what. For some reason I thought that he was a little like me, but he starts talking about cocaine. I don't know nothing for it. Maybe a few lines once and awhile."

"It isn't a sin." I stopped, because coke wasn't cocaine anymore.

"Anyway he tells me that he has a connection from Florida with pure stuff. He'll front me a couple of ounces and I can sell it to my friends. I knew he was talking about my family. Shit, I wasn't going to sell the shit to strangers. So I ask around and make a contact. We sell ounces and then a kilo. I get back on my feet and I'm almost ready to pull out of the deal, when this fucking scumbag turns out to be undercover for the DEA. They want me to rat on my family."

"But you can't."

"No, I can't, so they take me into custody until I make bail for a million dollars."

"Who'd you shoot?"

"No one. Fucking G-man prosecutor thought he was Rudy fucking Giuliani and I was his case to ride into politics. They have me every which way; wires, tapes, every fucking thing. I felt like John DeLorean. I would have never gotten involved unless they suckered me into it."

"I understand." The good are good only because they are too weak to be bad.

"I'm looking at major time and I was wondering what you thought about doing a runner somewhere."

"And Rocco told you about Thailand." My old home Pattaya had been a refuge for fugitives. "You have any money?"

He mentioned a number. It almost had enough zeroes.

"If you live quiet that's good for five years, but most farangs live fast in Thailand."

"I'm looking to disappear." A million dollars was a good incentive against flight, but time for cops was hard time in prison.

"You have a passport?" The Feds normally confiscate it on arrest.

"I got one," he said it in a way that I knew it wasn't his.

"And you can leave and never come back."

"All I got waiting is a cell." His kids were grown. People were going to be looking for him, but he was good-looking and Thais like good-looking people.

"At my age that's going to be my retirement plan."

"This isn't funny." Frankie wasn't in the mood for jokes.

"Okay, I'll tell you what to do." I laid out a plan for him. The route was direct. I knew a village in the western forests. The headman was a friend. He had a nice sister. Vee had one eye, but spoke English. No one else in the village did. Frankie might last there a couple of months before the peasant food and the quiet of the rice paddies drove him into Bangkok. I wrote down the information with my left hand. My script was almost as unreadable as NIck's handwriting on his prescription.

"And these people will take care of me?" We exchanged phone numbers.

"For a price." I lived there some of the year. The tranquility was brutal, but I had my children and second wife. She loved me. I had no idea why. It had only been a month since I left her and I missed Mam.

"No one does nothing for free." Frankie eyed Nick and Rocco coming back to us.

"I'm doing this for you." I was waiting for him to ask me to be his guide. We had no history.

"Thanks." It was a simple thing to say, when you were trying to disappear as a wanted man.

"It's just a couple of phone calls. You have to do the rest." He had been a fool, but all that bullshit about not doing the crime, if you can't do the time is exactly bullshit.

We shook hands and I told Rocco that I'd see him soon. If Frank took my advice, i would see him in the western forests come the new year.

Back in the car Nick asked, "What was that about?"

"You really want to know?" I was getting hungry and his wife was a good cook.

"No." Nick had his own troubles.

"Good." And I had mine.

We were good friends. We knew that we didn't need to know everything anymore and that was a good thing on Staten Island.

THE POLITESSE OF PALM BEACH COPS by Peter Nolan Smith

Back in the summer of 2008 I was taking care of a Palm Beach mansion. It was deep off-season and hurricane season was coming on fast. One evening I went over to my friend's house close to the center on town. After dinner Lisa killed me at scrabble. She scored 33 points for xi, which is a Chinese measurement. All my words were composed of single-digit letters. After she claimed victory, I bid her good evening and drove the LandRover down S. County Road under a fading full moon. The palm trees bent under the force of a stiffening wind. The air was thick with humidity. All the windows were open. I hated AC.

Passing Joe's Crab Shack my phone lit up with an SMS from my Thai girlfriend. Our baby was going to be a boy. I phoned the phone to tell Andrew C about the news of my baby being a boy.

"Congratulations."

HIs salutation was cut short by a Christmas tree of lights exploding behind the LandRover. I pulled over to the curb and said to the British interior designer, "Let me get back to you. The cops want to talk with me."

I kept my hands on the steering whee and the young officer shone his flashlight in my face. I blinked for several seconds and then he shut off the light.

"Yes, officer." As far as I knew I hadn't done anything wrong.

"Your right-rear tail light is out." His Floridian accent was soft to my ears.

"Really?" I had only one beer at my friend's house, while we were playing scrabble, so I wasn't worried about a DWI.

"Yep, license and registration and insurance, please." He was polite for a cop, then again this was Palm Beach.

The license was in my wallet. The registration in the glove compartment. I couldn't find the insurance. Giving him the first two, I apologized, "Sorry, this isn't my car. I'm house-sitting on King's Road. The insurance is on the desk there." My job was to watch the house and walk their Airedale.

The officer asked the address and I gave him the street and number.

"You're taking care of that crazy dog?"

"Yes, officer."

"You know it's on the shot to kill list if it gets off the lease."

"Yes, officer." Pom Pom had attacked two dogs before I got there. She had been rescued from a shelter. I thought that her previous owner had run a crack den in Riviera Beach. "I keep her on a short lease."

"See that you do."

"I'm sorry about the light. Does this mean I'm getting a ticket?"

"No, if everything checks out, it's a simple verbal warning."

"Thanks, I was speaking with my friend. I must found out I'm having a baby boy."

"Congratulations. I'll be right with you."

Five minutes later he returned to the car and handed back my ID and papers.

"Get that fixed."

"I will as soon as the house owners wire the money, officer."

"That could be a long time." He knew his territory.

"I have a bike." It was cheaper than a Rover with gas at $4 a gallon.

"Good Luck with your baby boy." It was a nice thing to say.

"Thanks. Now all I have to do is think of a name.

"You'll think of something." He got into his cruiser and sped down the road toward the Southern Bridge.

I put the car in gear and called back Andrew.

"Did you get a ticket?"

"No, just a warning." I started the car and drove slowly down S. County Road with the crest of waves glowing white on the night's ocean. "He was actually nice."

"Not like New York cops." Andrew C had been living in the country the last ten years, but he explained that the previous month he had been invited to a dinner party at Paul Kasman on 10th Avenue in NYC.

"I was flying to London in the morning. I had a few glasses of wine, then stopped to drink water. After dinner I went outside to see that a tow truck was backing up to haul away my Audi. I got there before the clamps had been hooked to my car and I drove away to find a decent parking spot. It took more than ten minutes. Finally I crammed the car into a spot a block from the gallery and got out of the car. A light blinded me. It was an unmarked NYPD cop car and two cops ordered him to stay where he was."

"Never a good thing." Cops under Mayor Bloomberg had been become wretched revenue pirates.

"One got out of the cruiser and demanded if I had been drinking. I told him that had two drinks at a party around the corner." He explained with a Norfolk county stutter. "Then I said that I was flying to see my parents in the morning."

"They must have been impressed."

He said that he didn't about my travel plans and demanded that I take a Breathalyzer test. I thought that I was going to jail and wouldn't make my flight. I blew into the device and I passed. The cop was not happy, saying that I barely passed.

"Barely counts with atomic bombs."

"I locked the car and went back to the party. I didn't drink anything else. Coming out of the gallery I saw the cops waiting. I smiled and they said, "Bon Voyage."

"Nice." It turned off the main road to the driveway of the mansion. I could hear Pom Pom barking inside the house. She wanted her walk. "Thailand has four in the whole country. If you get caught for DWI the Thai police will make you drink water until you pass the test."

"If only New York cops were so accommodating."

"What a nice world it would be."

"Once more congratulations of your having a son."

"Yeah." I missed Mam and wanted to put my hand on her swelling belly. A ticket to Thailand cost $1100. I had $20 in my pocket. I hung the phone and opened the door. Pom Pom had the lease in her mouth. I snapped it onto her collar. We walked down the street. Ours was the only house with lights and let Pom Pom do her business on their lawns.

Actually I was lying before.

I had six beers at Lisa's house.

The cop must have smelled them, proving that Palm Beach is more Thailand than New York City and that's a good thing.

All-Seeing Eye of the NYPD

As a child the nuns at Our Lady of the Foothills told us that God was all-seeing. Our every moves was surveilled by Our Father in heaven and the sisters seemed to be blessed with the same power. They had eyes in the back on their head and could catch us passing notes or misbehaving, which were amazing feats since they wore heavy wimples. My mother was a devout Catholic. As a reward for her faith God bestowed the telepathic vision. We couldn't get away with anything. Moving to New York granted me a degree of secrecy, but my cloak of invisibility is about to be trumped by the NYPD's teaming up with Microsoft to set up a $40 million monitoring system of video cameras, radiation detectors, and license plate readersto spy on its citizens in the name of catching criminals, traffic violators, parking infractions as well as the notorious New Yorker enjoying a beer on his or her stoop, The streets will be watched by the watchers. They will wear blue and they will be seeking any wrong-doers both in deed and thought. I can hardly wait. No one has been reading my thoughts, since my mother passed away in 1997. Not even me.

Good Shooting NYPD

The NYPD has been accused of trigger-happy shootings over the years and yesterday two patrolman confronted a killer in front of the Empire State Building. The disgruntled fashion designer was walking away from having killed his ex-boss. A CCTV caught the action on the street. Clearly the police told him to stop. Their guns are out and the shooter pulled a pistol from his bag. The two officers fired sixteen shots and killed the gunman, but also wounded three bystanders with bullets and another four with fragments according to NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Several friends of mine were discussing the shooting in front of Ralph's. One said, "Shootings are an everyday occurrence in America. Too many people have guns and kids too." "There are too many guns, but these cops had no choice." I had seen the VDO. "Plus they hit eight targets with sixteen bullets. That's some top-notch shooting, but they'd never get a job as an extra on THE A TEAM." "Nobody never hit no one on THE A TEAM." Errol waved his hand in disgust. "Shit, and the cops ain't so good. How many shots it take to put down Sean Bell or that African in Harlem. A hundred. Fuckin' shit. They ain't no Daniel Boone." "But why didn't the cops shoot him in the foot, instead of blasting everyone in sight," asked a white female eavesdropper. "Someone pulls a piece on me and I have a piece. He who shots first is right. Who's dead is the fuck-up." Errol had no sympathy for the Empire State Building shooter or the innocent bystanders. He was from Bed-Stuy. "Black people know how to get out of the way of bullets. I bet there wasn't one black man shot there." "All I know is that I don't carry a gun, because there are too many targets. I lived on East 10th Street in the 70s. My corner was a hot spot for drugs. My uncle asked if I wanted a piece for protection. I told him no, because I would have run out of bullets before I reached 1st Avenue. I guess those cops thought, "Shit, might as well cap some other perps." Good thing I ain't a cop. To view the surveillance VDO, please go to the following URL from rt.com http://rt.com/usa/news/shooting-johnson-new-police-542/

Dark Humor

On the first anniversary of the World Trade Tower Attack I was sitting with two NYPD narcotic detectives in a bar on Avenue B. Rob and I went back and his partner Stevie had almost been killed on 9/11 by a falling body. We each had stories, but lost the thread as we eavesdropped on a group of firefighters toasting their fallen comrades. I had always heard about the rivalry between the two services. Cops are considered scum and firemen are cool. Rob leaned over to me and started talking under his breath about how the firefighters have looted the WTC before its collapse. "You know there would have been no dead firemen, if someone had posted one sign on the World Trade." Rob was speaking loud with a purpose and the firemen at the bar turned as one to our table. "And what would be on that sign?" Stevie loved playing straight man for his partner. "Nothing of value inside." Rob laughed and slipped a hand under his jacket, as a trio of behemoth NYFD approached us. We were friends of the owner, the firemen had their house around the corner, but this was an old fight. "What'd you say?" The largest fireman demanded with clenched fists. "Just that if the World Trade had nothing to steal, then none of you would have died." Rob laid his Glock on the table without taking his finger off the trigger. "You're a fuck." The fireman waved for his comrades to ignore the insult. "That wasn't very funny." I commented before picking up my beer. "It wasn't meant to be funny." Rob had lost two friends in the collapse. None of us found much funny about that day, but eleven years is a long time and there are 9/11 jokes; “It’s a bird!” “It’s a plane!” “It’s…. Oh shit, it IS a plane!” Q: What’s Al Qaida’s favorite football team? A: The New York Jets Q: What was the last thing going through Mr. Jones’ head when he was working on the World Trade Center’s 90th floor? A: The 91st floor. A man goes to the doctor and the doctor says, “You are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from being in the Pentagon when it was struck by a plane.” The man says, “Doc, I think I wanna second opinion!” The doctor says, “OK- your breath stinks!” What does WTC stand for? – “What Trade Center?” Q: Who are the fastest readers in the world? A: New Yorkers. Some of them go through 110 stories in 5 seconds Today FBI concluded that New York had been hit by a U.F.M (unidentified flying muslim) Q: What did one terrorist say to the other terrorist before boarding their respective airplanes? A: I slam, you slam, we all slam for Islam! NEWSFLASH…. The WTC has been destroyed…. thousands of New York executives feared dead…. Hookers all across the city are in mourning….. Q: Why didn’t Superman stop the planes from hitting the Trade Towers? A: Because he’s a quadriplegic!