Gems Up And Down

In 2008 after telling a story about selling a cabochon Sapphire, Lisa, a Palm Beach friend, recounted a tale about her wealthy mother's Burmese sapphire ring. A collection gem. Worth a hundred thousand thirty years ago. Her mother had worn it always, partially because it was too tight to take off her finger.

One evening in the 1980s the house was robbed by three Dominicans. One of them a member of the household staff. They couldn't get off the ring. Her knuckles were too swollen. The other two wanted to cut off the finger. The house boy said no. The ol lady ha always treated him right. They took the loot and were never seen again.

Cut to five years later. Her mother dies suddenly and her body is sent to the mortician. Because drugs are found in the blood, the Palm Beach county ME orders an autopsy. Drugs were not the cause of her death. The old lady was buried in a closed coffin. Planted in West Palm Beach. I'm always surprised to hear that families can bury people in the coral crust of Florida.

Weeks later when Christie's went through the mother's inventory of jewelry and valuables, it comes to light that the sapphire ring had been buried with the mother in Woodlawn Cemetery across Lake worth in West Palm Beach. No human has ever been buried in Palm Beach. Only two pets.

So her mother was disinterred back above six feet and then reburied replanted sans sapphire.

The dead are worth nothing, except to grave robbers.

ps - I don't ever recall seeing a cemetery in Florida.

Palm Beach Sunday 2008

In April 2008 I lived nowhere. My apartment in the East Village had been taken over by the faceless management company. I had lived with my wife and daughter in Pattaya until this April. We had had good times and bad times. It was home, then again I considered anyplace home once you buy a roll of toilet paper. I had been sad to leave, but my January arrest by the Thai cyber-crime police had necessitated a change in employment.

My wife and I discussed the options.

Teaching English in Thailand paid little. At tops 20,000-30000 baht per month.

My friend Lisa in Palm Beach listened to my story over the phone and said, "You can come here. I have a house for you to take care of. It's a little money, but you can get a start." Palm Beach in the middle of a recession seemed a good destination and I kissed my wife and daughter good-bye at the Bangkok airport. I had no idea when we might see each other again. The flight was long. I stayed in New York three weeks and then headed south to Palm Beach. Lisa greeted me at the airport. At fifty-five I was almost the youngest male passenger in the terminal.

"Good to see you." Lisa gave me a hug.

"Thanks for having me."

"No problems, just remember it's low season." Low season meant the rich had vacated Palm Beach for more temperate climates; the Hamptons, Duchess County, Tuscany, Switzerland, the south of France, and the more tony zipcodes of New England. "I'm not going anywhere, because I'm broke."

I had $200 in my pocket.

That evening I sent my wife half and my mistress half. Mem will be having my baby in July. I took over a house near Donald Trump's Mar-o-Lago. My job required walking the owners' Airedale. She was a crazy dog. My only social contact here was Lisa and her son Kris. They were bunkered down at her villa on Chilean Place. We watched Euro Football 2008 together, cheering on France, which didn't make the knock-out round. Life was simple. Beach. Walk Pom Pom. Go for a swim on the empty beach. Write my novel about teenage devil worship in the 1960s, eat lunch with Lisa and her loving son Krys, drink beer, then a bottle of cheap wine in the evening. Few tourists ventured this far south on the beach. too many mansions. Better that way for Pom pom, but I craved more humanity and Palm Beach ran short of that commodity any time of the year.

My friend Bruce lived in Miami Beach. Normally the writer resided was in the East Village, however he had rented out his flat to support a life in Florida. I called and invited him up to Palm Beach.

"I'd love to come up." Bruce wrote stories about his sexual adventures with young foreign men. His last book won the Prix de Flore in France. The French had toasted him at Cafe de Flores. He was considered a young artist. Bruce was a little older than me and the mirror loses its youth juice after 50. We both only regarded out shadows at sunset.

"And I'll bring some friends. Two Romanian writers and a young New York one, I think you met at my party." Bruce had hosted a party in honor of a French artist in early May. I couldn't recall the name.

"Young man."

"In his 20s."

"Too old for you."

"Fresh."

My directions were simple. Up I-95 and turn toward the ocean at US 98 after. That Sunday they arrived in a rental car. Bruce was the first out of the car. The writer wore knee-high black sox and a Romanian soccer uniform anonymously tailored by machines to flatter his XXL frame. "Stop staring at the sox. They hide my varicose veins. Yes, even gods get old."

He introduced his friends. The Romanians were my age, however Glenn was a youth. Gay too, but not in that horrible steroid Chelsea gay way.

He shaking my hand and introduced his friends. "Scottie and his wife, Sylvia. They are the best people. Glenn's my slave,"

I idn't ask for an explanation and escorted my guests inside the house. They were impressed by the swimming pool and scared by Pom Pom. She growled a little too easily to be kidding around and I warned them to keep their distance. She snapped at Bruce, until I whispered our secret command.

"Darling, you didn't tell me the mansion had a monster dog."

"Pom Pom is a little crazy."

"Crazy? She tried to bit off my asscheek. Would have had it too if I wasn't so athletic."

"More vicious than crazy."

"Vicious, hah." Bruce was fearless. "I spend twenty years with hustlers on 42nd Street. I know how to deal with tough."

He tamed Pom pom with a slice of cheese. The big dog begged at his side the rest of the day. We concocted a dinner out of my left-overs; pasta, carrotte rapee, toast with cheese. Wine was our drink of choice. Bruce whispered his desires for the driver's wife, although only in the most cerebral of liaisons. After lunch we strolled through a garden path to the beach. Bruce and I walked down to Rod Stewart's mansion. Pom Pom and Glenn in tow. The Alaskan was a good slave. Not Pom Pom.He confided several secrets to me. We had known each other over twenty years. I gave him advice on love.

"A man with a wife and mistress in a foreign country must know the meaning of love."

"I do when I hold my daughter in my arms."

"And when will you go back?"

"I don't know." The sun dropped behind the palm trees. We swam in the ocean. I hadn't been with this many people in nearly a month. Lisa came down from Chilean Avenue for a beer. She was a good laugh. Happy to be away from her Palm Beach friens. Bruce taught Pom Pom tricks. He was the master of ceremony. Palm Beach almost seemed paradise, then it was time for them to go. Bruce pulled me to the side and duked $20 into my hand.

"For some more wine."

"Thanks, I need it." Dixie Supermarket sold big bottles. $7 for 1.5 liter. It wasn't so bad with ice. for I wasn't looking for veritas in vino, but oblivio.

"Darling, everything will be fine. You were arrested. You didn't go to jail. You came here. You still speak with your wife and mistress. You'll be a father again and________"

"And?" I hope for him to say I was a brilliant writer.

"And you're living in a mansion."

"Yes, with a crazy dog." Pom Pom ran up to Bruce seeking a last favor.

"Silly dog." Bruce patted the Airedales's head. "The only cheese I have is under____"

"Spare us."

"If I must." Bruce kissed me good-night and slipped his arm around Glenn. Pom Pom barked good-bye and I waved, as they drove to Ocean Drive. Lisa beeped her horn. I walked over to her car. The sky darkened overhead.

"That was something we never see in Palm Beach. Real people. I can't wait till we get out of here."

"Me neither."

She always talked about selling her house and vacating the USA for Paris, but she like me wasn't gong anywhere, but low season in PB. She backed out on the driveway. Pom Pom and I stood outside for several seconds. Rain splattered down from the now black sky and we retreated to inside the house. It wasn't home, but I didn't need a home in Palm Beach, only a place to rest my head and this house suited that Pom Pom and my needs fine.

ps I still have that jean jacket.

Palm Beach Massage - 2008

Not many people have my phone number. Friends, family, my wife and mia noi, so I was surprised to see a Thai phone # appear on the LCD. At first I thought it might be the bangkok cyber-crime police wondering whether I wanted to work for them as a spy, then I recognized the # as belonging to Jamie Parker.

"Where are you?" I asked wishing I was wherever he was rather than the quiet streets of Palm Beach.

"Soi 6 and having a good time. Any go-gos where you at?"

"One named Rachel's. $20 for a three minute lap dance." About the price of a short-time visit to the upstairs chambers of any Soi 6 establishment.

"Any skinny girls?" Jamie was privy to my predilection for skin and bones.

"I wouldn't know." I hadn't enough money to visit the West Palm go-go bar and bicycling in that area was potentially offering your possessions and life to the various gangbangers dominating the nightlife of West Palm Beach.

"What are you doing for money?"

Three months ago my faux F1 business was providing my family with more money than the average Thai banker and allowing me to live like a duke in Pattaya. Now I was mansion sitting for $50/day. Main duty consisted of walking a scarred rescue Airedale named Cujo.

"Not much."

"How you like to make some money?

"Love to." I answered cautious since Jamie Parker loved to take risks with other people's freedom, but at this point I really was dying to return to Pattaya and any other city in Thailand as long as they had cold beer. "What you have in mind?"

"How about opening a massage parlor on Palm Beach. One girl, one guy, and a ladyboy for anyone in-between? I know the rents are expensive, but I'm sure you could recoup any expenses within the first week."

Jamie was right about that. Cars would be double-parked on Worth Avenue and most of them Bentleys. Sex in Palm Beach is mostly extra-marital with surgical-enhanced blondes. Only one problem.

"I think it would be hard getting the licenses." The Palm Beach cops would be difficult too. "This isn't Thailand."

"Hey, I've been to Florida." He had spent two months in Dade County jail for vagrancy in 1978. The charges stemming from his falling asleep in a movie theater. "You have to admit you'd clean up if you opened a massage parlor in Palm Beach."

"Better to have an escort service. These rich people like to be discreet."

"The trio are already in New York. You want them to come down. Maybe they could stay with you at that mansion."

"I'll let you know." I hung up before I could think about too much, for while Jamie's plan was a sure-fire way of making money, it was also guaranteed to place me in jail and Florida jails are no fun in the summer time. Still Palm Beach Massage has a nice ring to it.

Especially in florid Florida neon.

Oh so Palm Beach.

For a related article click on this URL

http://www.mangozeen.com/walk-like-a-woman-by-peter-nolan-smith.htm

Palm Beach Sunday -2008

In June 1 2008 I was living on Palm Beach.

A barrier island off the Florida coast.

So many of the mega-rich had migrated to their summer haunts of the Hamptons, Nantucket, and the South of France that the Sunday night streets of this exclusive resort felt, as if the Khmer Rouge had marched the wealthy into the Everglades for greed re-education. The emptiness was only an illusion.

That evening, as the remaining rich were idling in their mansions, while I bicycled across the middle bridge in a vain attempt to wire by Thai wife $200 via Western Union. Within an hour I discovered that nothing was open on a Sunday night in West Palm Beach.

I was in Purgatory.

I phoned my wife with the bad news.

She asked if I've found a mia noi.

"Mai mee puying suay."

There were no beautiful women on Palm Beach.

Only heiresses whose skin seemed to have been dipped in a Botox dip.

Tight as a turtle's neck.

"Good man." She's happy I'm alone.

"Thanks, I'll send the money tomorrow." I hung up and wandered by bike over to a convenience store. A 24 oz. Modelo beer cost $2 or 60 baht. 5% alcohol. Actually cheap than Thailand, except you can't drink in public, so I rode the bicycle back to Palm Beach drinking from a can in a brown paper bag..

Thankfully Florida has bike paths, but I got a little worried each time the cops passed me, since DWI includes bicycles and golf carts.

I made it back to Chilean Avenue without any mishaps.

No place to buy more beers, so it's to sleep and dream of driving on the wrong side of the road with a beer in my cup holder.

Paradise.

Conversation With Palm Beach # 1

Yeah good morning Allison how are you feeling?

I had the last 3 days off and I basically just wrote. I didn't I didn't bother going into the city but I am heading in there today to pick up some Brooklyn. I just basically stayed around this neighborhood other than going to the Upper East Side to pick up some watches to repair and then sell a piece of gold. I don't't have to do that until tomorrow and I'll go see this book publisher about getting a small photo book published. I'm just going to stop in and see him and that's about it. As for the watches I'll show them to the 47th Street dealers and they offer a price, then I'll call up a private who mught want them.

Rolexes get good money, but most anything else are basically just 20 cents on the dollar. I'll do it, because I just want to get out of the house.

Professor Ollman's library has been sold to some person, who will make a fortune on them. No university wanted them. Raoul saw no value in them. His son sees no value in them. 10,000 books on Marxism and philosophy. Some intact. Others yellowed by age. Pages crumbling to the touch. I read a few, gleaming knowledge in paragraphs buried by words. hoping to understad the rest by osmosis. Maybe when I was younger I might have been able to read a few hundred in the two years I spent elder caring for the professor.

I can't blame him. Wanting to rid of it all. No one reads anymore. He might have gotten $50,000. He wanted them out.His father is up in Yonkers. A resting home. 91 years old. The professor can't remember anything from those books and only wants to go visit his parents in Milwaukee. THey are long gone. The same as so many people. Same for me.

My father in his late 80s always said, "I'm the only one left."

His generation was gone.

At 73 I get that feeling. No one calls. I speak with few old friends. Even fewer family. Thankfully I speak with people on the street. Just sometimes saying hello to feel part of this time.

The books.

Knowledge for scholars.

Most people in this modern society only reead emojiglyphs or badly written texts. Anytime to tell them a fact, the ask, "Really?

As if everything know is bullshit.

Another barrier to reading are the ambient lightbulbs. Yellow light. Candle light is better than them.

I'll talk to you later. I'm heading up to 79th Street.

When I get back this evening, I'll lie in bed lsitening to scinece. Investigating the cosmos with my eyes closed and my mind open to the universe.I have old school sixty watt tungsten bulbs, but they are still dim. Especially for reading philosophy. LATER

Our Lady of Palm Beach MIA 2008

In the summer of 2008 I took care of an eight year-old Airedale in Palm Beach after my departure from Thailand. The owners had rescued her from a shelter. Pom Pom was a little crazy. She liked to growl at people and loved biting little manicured dogs. My friend Lisa thought Pom Pom was a frat dog raised by drunken frat boys abandoned after graduation from university, but judging from the scars on her head and tattered ears my vote was for a fight dog from a Riviera Beach crack house. Either way I kept Pom Pom around dogs or children or any other living creatures. I know she gets a little lonely with me as her only companion, however better than her mauling a Palm Beach heiress' poodle.

We walk on the beach. It's safer than the dog park in West Palm Beach.

No cars.

No dogs.

A few grey heron.

Our walk passed Donald Trump's Mar-O-Lago. The resort was deserted for the summer. All the cabanas were padlocked and the plastic flotsam gathered at the high tide mark without any beach boys raking the sand clean.

As we returned from our jaunt, I spotted a derelict woman scurrying from the bushes of Trump's estate. It was obvious her previous night's resting place had been in the bushes. Pom Pom's bark frightened her. Dogs were never too friendly with the homeless.

I yanked on Pom Pom's leash and shouted to the woman, "Hey."

She looked over her shoulder with eyes glazed by a long series of bad choices and she hurried toward wooden steps. Federal law allows access to the beach up to the high-tide mark, but every path was marked with NO TRESPASSING signs.

Trespassers were not allowed on property.

I was the exception.

"Don't go." I had $2 in my swimming trunks.

The old woman lifted her plastic bags to her chest like she feared Pom Pom might tear them from her grasp.

"I have some money for you."

These words stalled her flight and she turned around warily to face me from a distance of thirty feet. "That dog bite?"

"Probably." Pom Pom had snapped at me the other night. She wanted some of my hamburger. I didn't give her any. "But don't worry, you don't have to come here to get the money."

I placed the $2 under a shell.

"Thanks." She put down her bags. "I saw you the ther day. I thought you might call the cops on me. I don't like sleeping in the rough, but sleeping in the country jails ain't no picnic either. You don't look like you'd know anything about that."

"You're right." My last time in jail was in Bangkok three months ago and the Thai police had processed my papers in an air-conditioned office. "How long you been on the island?"

"Since the beginning of the low season," she spoke with a lisp. Her front teeth were stumps. "Not many rich people around, so I buy a week of food and live in the bushes. Gets a little scary at night with snakes and insects, but safer than the shelters. They're no bargain either."

"You speak with any of the rich people?"

"Damn, no." She shook her medusa nest of grey hair. "They don't give a shit for people like me haunting their lawns. And damn they're plenty enough ghosts hanging around these houses as it is."

"Ghosts?" I wondered about ghosts after the living room couch had moved a week earlier.

"Oh, yeah, plenty of ghosts from men shooting their cheating wives and women poisoning their husbands. Wandering the lawns like they 're looking for lost gold bracelet. Sometimes I check where they walk to see if there is some gold, but they don't even leave a footprint. Rich people are just as stingy dead as alive."

"My friends are okay."

"Yeah, try asking them for a million." She eyed Pom Pom, as if the dog read her mind. "They treat that dog better than they treat people. So you be careful of those ghosts."

"Where you headed?"

"Someplace the sun don't shine so hard and where the dogs are not too big." She snatched the money and wandered into the underbrush. She was gone and we resumed our walk. Pom Pom moaned and I patted her head. She was a good dog. A little crazy, but then again so is everyone these days.

Bring on the Revolution - 2011

Last week I went out to eat with my nephews and their parents at a Mexican restaurant on Okochobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach. The conversation gravitated to sports; baseball for Trey, golf for Reese, and basketball for their father and me. Their mother was happy to be left in peace. After dinner we stepped into a warm Florida night. There was no one in the parking lot.

Looking at the colorful mural on the wall, I said, “Mexico 1968.”

“What about it?” AK’s slender and ever-beautiful wife responded with interest. We were more friends than before. I was good to her kids and nothing earns trust from a mother faster than treating their spawn well. My clan was far away in Thailand.

“Summer Olympics was held in Mexico City.”

“More like the Autumn Olympics. For some reason they were in October.”

“Summer or fall didn’t matter after Bob Beamon set a world record in the high jump at the altitude of 6000 feet. Rightfully never an asterisk for that jump." My individual best had been in my senior year. 1970. 19'6".

“He broke the previous record by a foot and a half.” AK joined in the telling. He was my age. 1968 was our youth.

“The world was on fire. Only the week before hundreds of students had been shot by the Mexican army and the streets of America were on fire after the assassination of Martin Luther King.”

“Could we talk about something else?” AK and I went back over thirty years to 1973. He was no born-again conservative, but the right-wing Storm Front had their headquarter meetings not far from here, White people in Florida tend to be whiter than most whites elsewhere in the USA and my talk was incendiary to white people, but the parking lot was empty.

“Let him talk.” AK’s blonde wife taught music at a private school. The curriculum was restrained by religion. She appreciated my loose tongue. ”

“Other places were in revolt too. Viet-Nam, Paris, Prague.”

I sang the first stanza of the Rolling Stones’ STREET FIGHTING MAN.

“Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy, cause summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy.”

AK rolled his eyes. He was more into R&B than rock, having played in the Authentics, a Boston funk band, to pay for his tuition at Berkeley School of Music. On our cross-country trip in 1974 AK had taught me how to play the kazoo.

"No one at the Olympics protested the death of hundreds of Mexican students. The army was in the streets. The olympic committee banned any protests by the athletes. The best runner in the world was Tommie Smith, 220 and 440 champion. A black man."

“From California.” AK was a sports nut too. Knicks versus my Celtics. We had played countless one-on-ones on the playgrounds of Boston and New York. He dominated the first twenty years. I outlasted his knees during the 90s, although now neither of us were in good shape.

“Tommie Smith set a world record in the 220.

“Time 19.83 seconds.” AK was showing off sports knowledge to his sons.

My best time in the 440 was 54.8 seconds. About thirty yrds behind Tommie Smit's best.

"At the medal ceremony Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the bronze winner, lifted their fists during THE STAR-SPANGLED banner to protest the mistreatment of blacks in America.”

My best friend in school is black.” Reese was named after the Dodgers' Pee Wee Reese.

“And what he say in class the other day.” AK was a Brooklyn boy at heart.

“That his father had been killed in Iraq. His father was a soldier.” Reese was eleven. Old enough to understand that death meant death. His younger brother believed in Santa Claus. I wished that I did too.

“Probably a good man as was the silver-medal winner from Australia.”

“Peter Norman wore an American “civil rights” badge as support to them on the podium.” AK remembered the incident better than me. “The Olympic Committee banned Smith and Carlos from the Village and Norman was dropped from the 1972 team.”

“The good are always good at the moment of their best.”

I explained the myth of the rights of man. My nephews were fast studies and loyal nephews. We were two miles from The Breakers Hotel. I told them a story that I had heard three years ago.

“The beachfront hotel had been a world-class destination for over a century. The railroad tycoon Henry Flagler completed construction on his resort for the rich in 1896. That night Flagler held a BBQ for the laborers on the golf course. While they feasted on ribs and chicken, Flagler ordered his goons to burn out the workers’ bungalows, thus insuring that no poor people will ever live on the barrier island.”

‘Is that a true story?” My oldest nephew asked his father. We had been friends for almost forty years. The West Palm Beach school teacher shrugged with suspicion.

“True as far as I know.” My source had lived in Palm Beach since her childhood, but was no historian. “But that wasn’t right either. That’s why we protest against the evil in man.”

“Your uncle tells a good story.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Interesting if true. That’s you.”

My nephews and I posed before the Mexican mural with raised fists. Their mother took the photo. We said good night. It had been great to see AK and his family. The last time had been in the summer of 2008. Things were better now.

Later that night I went online to find out the truth about the Breakers.

It wasn’t there.

Then again the truth is yet to be told.

Bring on the revolution.

The youth is with us and we are coming for your children.

Gone the Tundra

WINTER 2011

My early youth was spent along the coast of Maine. Winters were harsh. My father was native to Westbrook and every autumn would say, "There are two seasons in Maine. Winter and preparing for winter."

He had learned this adage from his father and his father from his father, for no matter how corny the comment sounds it is true in Maine.

My family headed south to Boston in the summer of 1960. The season lasted weeks longer in our South Shore suburb. Winter was shorter than in Falmouth Foresides across the harbor from Portland's Eastern Promenade. We lived in a land of four seasons and my mother loved the change in the weather.

"Just wait a few minutes in Boston and the weather will change." My mother was a proud Bostonian. Her mother came from the lands north of the Connemara and said of her Ireland, "It was either raining, just finished raining, or about the start raining."

The weather is a safe subject. A beautiful day owes little to religion. It is a gift from Nature and I moved farther south to New York in 1976 to fall in love with a painter from Pennsylvania. Ro left her Brooklyn Heights apartment several hours before my arrival. There was no letter of explanation. I could have returned back to Boston, except April was early spring in New York and the end of winter along the Charles River.

I've lived many places since that day; Paris, Hamburg, Key West, Perpignan, Isla Mujeres, Bali, Sumatra, Thailand, and Palm Beach. Weather differs in each location, but I'm used to the temperate climate of New York. It has been my home for over 30 years.

Winter was never much of a concern in New York. A scattering of snow here and there during the season. Global warming had transformed the five boroughs to a semi-tropical climate throughout the summer of 2010. The temperature rarely hit the high 90s. I threw the air-conditioner in the street. The harvest of tomatoes were glorious and I swam at Fort Tilton into October. The local meteorologists offered no predictions for the winter of 2010-2011. Their crystal ball of their science offered a mere ten days window into the future.

The first snowfall was on November 16. Light snowflakes swirling on the wind. December for the most part was normal. Average High: 44°F and Average Low: 32°F. Christmas in Boston was cold, but nothing arctic. I awoke on December 26 and my nephew was on the phone. His flight to Washington had been canceled due to an extreme weather alert. A major blizzard was aiming at the US capitol. 24-36 inches of snow. New York was next in line. I had been planning to leave Boston the following day, however the Weather Channel was predicting storm of the century status for the impending blizzard. My nephew and I evacuated Boston on the 11am Fung Wah bus.

The journey usually takes about 4 hours. The snow hit I-95 south of New Haven. We didn't reach Chinatown until 3pm. Good time, but I had spoken with Ms. Carolina down south and she had said that the snow was heavy. I offered my nephew a bed in Fort Greene. He had work the next day. We bid good-bye with a hug and I took a taxi across the river. The driver dropped me at Frank's Lounge for a drink. My landlord and his family had flown west to California for the holidays. They were out of harm's way.One beer turned into four and I finally exited from my local drinking hole into a full-blown blizzard.

I barely made it home and the next morning I woke to a winter wonderland. 24 inches of white stuff. Nature had shut down New York. The mayor was pissed at the city workers for their response to the emergency, but the trains weren't running and the mayor is a fuckhead. He fired the EMS chief to appease the right-wing press who were blaming the lack of services on the unions rather than the epic snow fall.

January had its share of ice and snow. Winter was seemingly endless. I landed at JFK from Thailand. The airport was only accepting international flights. The entire Northeast was shut down.

Cars remained buried until the beginning of February. The city was the frontier of the tundra. Some meteorologists spoke about the New Ice Age. The Far North was very close last week. I left the city on a freezing cold morning. Winter had a month more to go at least.

The flight to West Palm Beach lasted a little more than two hours. Palm Beach was cooler than normal. I swam off Chilean Avenue. The sea was warmer than the air. I got a tan. The sun sucked out my aches and pains. A lingering cough disappeared in the warmth. I swam several times. The Sunshine State was the fountain of youth. I returned to New York.

No feeling about the weather.

The air was cold, but there was no snow. The tundra had been vanquished by several rain storms and a short thaw. Tonight the weathermen have been calling for snow. A dusting. I'm walking over the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan. Winter is over this year.

Brave words for the end of February.

THE BEST FORM OF FLATTERY by Peter Nolan Smith

Written Sep 24, 2010

Midtown traffic was snarled by the security measures protecting foreign dignitaries from any harm during the annual UN General Assembly. Crosstown streets were closed east of 5th Avenue and the beeping tentacles of the congestion packed Madison Avenue. My bus took twenty minutes to cover ten blocks. I was late for a gallery opening on 78th Street and abandoned public transportation for the more ancient mode of walking. My pace was accelerated by two panicked calls from my landlord AP and Billy O. Our dinner guest, an Irish hedge fund banker, was on a 'craic'.

"This is polite society up here." Billy O was looking for clients. He was a real estate broker in the East End. Most people living above 72nd Street had money, especially in between Park and 5th Avenues. "I'm afraid that he's going to shag an old heiress."

"Would be the worst thing to happen to her? When I was living down in Palm Beach, I dreamed about seducing a wealthy octogenarian with three weeks to live."

"You would have given her the best two weeks of her life." Billy O and I went back to the 80s.

"At least." I was never stingy with love or lust given the right circumstances, however my time on Palm Beach had been off-season. Secondly those crones with money knew the game. Men fought over them at the Leopard Lounge. I was too proud to enter that arena.

Except for once.

"Hurry up." Billy O sounded desperate. "He's offering the owner a line of blow."

"Ten minutes."

I made it in 15. The police had blockaded 72nd Street for the passage of POTUS. This evening Obama was speaking at the UN. High-level conversations were scheduled between the Israelis, Palestinians, and our leader. Peace initiative # 257. The presidential cavalcade passed at 65 mph. A fast-moving target. I waved to what I guess was his car. My support for change remained strong.

After disembarking from the bus I hurried the final six blocks to the gallery. It was located in a small townhouse. The crowd was gentile. The artist hailed from the Hamptons. Some of his paintings had crows in them. Two women complained about the crows on their property.

"They're bad eating and worse as pets." A tall man in a Versace suit slurred from his slouch. It was Irish Johnny. His accent was pure Hollyfield drenched by the slobber of art wine.

The two middle-aged women in matching Chanel summer drag glanced over their sloped shoulders at the intruders. Their noses wrinkled with disdain. They had the expression down pat and clattered away from Irish Johnny in spiky stilettos. Popular footwear this season.

Irish Johnny staggered to the bar and grabbed two glasses of Chablis. The first one lasted a second. The second balanced his careen through the gallery. His trousers were rolled to mid-calf and his sneakers were unlaced. He was drunk enough not to recognize me. We had drank at a bar in Easthampton a year ago. I didn't say hello, but nodded to Billy O and my landlord. They signaled to keep an eye on Irish Johnny. The banker was difficult work after closing time on the NYSE. I engaged him in a long conversation on John Kelly, Ireland's premier DJ, and drinking at the Shelbourne Hotel Bar. Irish Johnny couldn't have been happy and neither could the gallery owner.

The dead drunk was with the living drunk.

Billie O and AP schmoozzed the rich. A hard crowd to work, but the two had been laboring in the Hamptons for years. AP spoke to a prospective new client. He owned a football team. His girlfriend was an old friend. The connections were snaking together. It was time to leave. Irish Johnny was hitting on a painting.

"How much you want for one night?"

Billy O took charge. Irish Johnny was his boy. They proposed dinner at Danielle's. A posey place. I begged off that future. Billy O and AP said, "Come."

"Veni, vidi, ibam."

"I came, I saw, I went." Johnny Irish was a Latin Scholar too.

I waved my goodbyes and walked to the 77th Street Subway. Lex Line to Bleecker Street. D train to Atlantic Avenue. Key in the front door at 8:23. I climbed the stairs to my apartment and wrote about Hoegaarten Beer. My wine-weakened fingers were slow on the keyboard.

A knock on my door.

AP.

He wanted to smoke some pot.

"Dinner was fantastic, but you were so right to go. He never broke open the bag of cocaine."

"Better to have a $20 bag with a friend than an 8-ball with a fiend." The lack of an 'r' made a big difference.

AP and I smoke some weed. We drank some wine. We listened to garage rock. Our favorite genre of music, although he loved the Beatles and I hated them as pop poseurs. At least we agreed that WORKING CLASS HERO by John Lennon was brilliant.

"You know I really love having you live here." AP considered me a NY legend.

"Thanks." I loved living here too.

"No one in New York is like you now and no one writes like you, but I have to say one thing and that's you have been plundering old writing and putting it on your website as if it was new."

"So you noticed."

"I'm one of your most faithful readers."

I had been adding stories to gain girth on treads of interest. Not lazy, just that I don't have much time in the day to write with my boss asking me what I'm doing every two minutes. No much of a defense for AP.

"You should be writing all the time."

"Agreed." I love writing on the 4th floor of his brownstone. My view of the downtown Brooklyn skyline. The changes of the sunset. His kids sleeping on the lower floor. Their falling asleep to the MC5. "I'll try to be more original."

"No one is more original than you in these days of mediocre." AP truly was a fan. "All I want to see is more new."

"Oof." More work.

A sign of the times.

"I promise to not rob the grave, unless it makes a nice flow."

We smoked more weed and drank the rest of his Hoegaarten.

They were good and we were safe from Irish Johnny.

THE GULF STREAM

The Gulf Stream's warm and swift current runs swiftly from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Atlantic, where it splits at about 40°0′N 30°0′W to effect the North Sea and the ocean off Africa. According to Wikipedia the Gulf Stream is typically 100 kilometres (62 mi) wide and 800 metres (2,600 ft) to 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) deep. The current velocity is fastest near the surface, with the maximum speed typically about 2.5 metres per second (5.6 mph).

The sea off Fort Tilden, the Rockaways is swimmable thanks to the Gulf Stream.

As are the breakers off the Montauk Cliffs.

Atlantic rollers off the shore of Nantasket Beach.

But nothing melted Newburyport slush in the winter of 2015.

Not even the Gulf Stream.

But I'm always ready for a swim off Palm Beach.

A Winter Poem

Two years ago my friend Alison in Palm Beach found this poem. Her trees were dying from the cold.

" WINTER " by Abigail Elizabeth McIntyre

Shit It's Cold

The End

That was one of coldest weeks in American weather history.

Even Florida had snow.

Winters weren't always that way and maybe next year will be normal, but in April 1971 I escaped the cold in Boston by driving to Florida with Mark, John, and Tommy. It was spring break. We had rented a house in Fort Lauderdale across from the infamous Elbow Room.

The Sunshine State's drinking age was 18.

The four of us were legal.

We crossed the state line around 9pm. WBZ was on the radio. The Boston station was broadcasting the NHL play-offs. Bruins-Canadians. We were leading 'les Habitants' by 2 goals in the 3rd period. The station's 50,000 kilowatt signal gave out at the 'free OJ' welcome stand. We reached Fort Lauderdale at dawn. We swam in the Gulf Stream at sunrise.

At Wolfies we ordered breakfast and I read the morning newspaper. The Bruins has lost 7-5. None of my friends cared about the loss.

We were used to losing to les Habs and the girls on the beach were wearing bikinis.

I have my own short poem on cold season.

"Fuck winter."

Foto by Alison R

We Are So Fucked

In the first days of March 2020 I stood on Kilimanjaro with the Kili Iniitative Climb group. Once again I did not summit. At dawn I descended from the 16000 feet camp across the Saddle to the Horombo camp, where I met my friend Pendaeli.

The Tanzanian park ranger said, "You can get the Internet here with your phone. You should hear what is happening in the world."

All the guides and porter were gathered by a hut, speaking to wives and lovers.

I tried to call my family in Thailand. The signal wasn't strong enough to speak, but I texted that I was okay and then search for The Guardian online. The news wasn't good. Italy was ravaged by Covid-19. Iran too and the virus was creeping across the planet. Pendaeli knew I had the sight sometimes and asked, "What do you think will happen?"

"I don't know." I hadn't a clue. My sight saw nothing, but I said, "All I can say is this will not be good."

For ten months the world has shut down human contact. There is no real work for millions. The leader of the USA has denied lethalness of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In November FDTrump lost the election to Joe Biden and he abandoned the White House after a few photo-ops before a Christmas tree with a few wrapped packages under the boughs.

There was no one in the White House.

Down in Palm Beach he gave a speech rejecting the Congressional Relief Bill. Now everyone was sure that nothing of value under that Christmas tree. Trump tweetered through the night.

On Christmas he did not attend church or wish the nation a Merry Christmas.

Trump went golfing at his golf course, charging everything to the American taxpayer.

Tens of millions sick across the country, as he shouts, "Fore." in Florida.

We are so fucked, but things will either go back to the way the were or collapse completely.

We are so fucked, but we always were.

Good luck everyone.

The Ghost Town Of Anarchy

During the last debate Donald Trump called New York City a ghost town.

Having lived here in the 1970s I refuted the pseudo-POTUS.

The Big Orange doesn't know shit from Shinola.

I admit the city blacked out in 1977.

I had a good time that night, drinking with my gay friends and trying to smash Fiorucci's window to snatch a gold lame Elvis Suit.

Only twenty-five I easily outran the security.

The city was burning in the Bronx, Harlem, and the Lower East Side.

Sin was worshipped in Times Square.

This was our city, but it was never a ghost town and neither is New York now.

I am an anarchist. I only put only dog on a leash.

Pom Pom.

We lived two blocks from Mare-De-Lardo and nowhere is more a ghost town than Palm Beach after dark.

Duane Hanson statue guarding art.

The beach.

My godson wasn't scared of the ghosts of Palm Beach nor those anywhere else in the world.

Trump doesn't love anarchists and threatened New York and Portland with a cut-off of federal funds.

As a life-long anarchist I say, "FUCK YOU. No more years." and I like living in a ghost town.

I might drink in the 169 bar alone, but one day we will dance again.

The ghosts of anarchy are voting all day-long.

Today I exercised my right and cried seeing the old Sistahs of the Hat struggling to cast their votes, dressed as if they were were going to church.

They know the battle is on.

For our children.

VOTE all you Ghost Town Anarchists.

Peace Love and Happiness. ps my old dog Champoo was also an anarchist.

And a ghost along with Pom Pom.

But I love both ghosts and anarchists.

We are the future of the greatestd city in the Solar System.

Palm Beach Neighbors

In the summer of 2009 I was house-sitting the old stable of the Woolworth estate in Palm Beach. The main house has been divided in two. The remaining property apportioned to smaller luxurious houses providing safe haven for the mega-rich.

A few blocks away was Donald Trump's estate, Mar-De-Lago. The baroque vision of opulence overlooked the roundabout spinning traffic north, south or west along the barrier island. His mansion was undergoing renovation for the 2009 High Season. A rightwing radio commentator lived to the north, but Russ Limbaugh never left his tin-foiled basement. No one who was anyone was here this time of year, but the man next door to my squat had been living in Palm Beach all his life and said, as we drank gin-tonics by his pool, "I wouldn't live anywhere else."

"What about low season?" I asked, since most of the residents had fled to homes according to their inheritances; Newport, Maine, the South of France, Switzerland at al.

"Low season is the best time of year. I wish it lasted all year long." Mp> He had a point. Ocean Boulevard was unsullied by frantic billionaires in their Bentleys. The parking spots on Worth Avenue were open all day long and you could enter Amice without a reservation.

I've seen none of the other neighbors on the street. The houses are battened down until after the hurricane season. No storms were stirring in the Atlantic and there was no sign of Donald Trump at his tennis courts, then again the billionaire was a golfer and I walked through the bushes to the beach. Donald will never know I was there. Neither will the police.

Palm Beach Off Season / Not everyone is what they seem

During the 2008 NBA playoffs I escaped the luxurious confines of Palm Beach to watch the Celtics versus the Lakers at my friend's house in Jupiter Beach. I patted Pom Pom on the head.

"You be a good dog."

It was an impossible request.

The Airedale had been rescued from a Riviera Beach crack house. Her muzzle was laced with fight scars. She was crazy, but so was I.

"See you tonight."Andy and his kids picked me up at the mansion and we drove on I-95 north. His wife was cooking us dinner, except she was not in the house. Andy hadn't mentioned they had been fighting about her working at Macy's.

"She barely earns enough money to pay gas." Andy complained, while cooking dinner for his two sons. "It's not easy supporting a house on one income."

"Where is she now?" His wife had always been a little high-strung in contrast to Andy, who had been a hippie in the early 70s.

"At a friend's house drinking wine."

"Is her friend cute?" I hadn't seen any pretty women in Palm Beach.

"Yes, but she's going out with this salesman from the Bentley dealership in West Palm."

"Oh." A failed writer stood no chance against a good earner with any woman.

"They're pretty serious. I think they might even want to get married." Any further conversation about the couple was short-circuited by Andy's discovering that his blender was broken so he couldn't mix daiquiris for us. "Damnit, Christina probably dropped it."

"Just sounds old to me."

He wasn't listening to me and vented about his wife for several minutes. Within seconds he was on the telephone to Christina's girlfriend. "I want to speak with my wife."

He slammed down the phone.

"Guess you're wife doesn't want to speak with you."

I knew the feeling having two temperamental Thai wives. The phone rang again. It was his wife's friend. Gabby invited us over for drinks. Her boyfriend had heard that I was a diamond salesman. He was looking for a 3-carat diamond. Andy wanted to make a statement by not accepting her offer.

"Not a chance. Tell her we'll be right over." The profit on this sale could pay for a few week's in Thailand. I miss my daughter, wife, and mistress. "You get 10% of the profit."

Andy said we'd be right over and drove three minutes to another house identical to his, except the interior was a more deluxe. Gabby was on alimony payments. 5-figures a month.

"Excused the sunglasses I left my regular glasses in Palm Beach." I can't see anything without them.

"No problem, they're cool." Gabby served us drinks, while we watched the basketball game. The Celtics were killing the Lakers. Andy went home early. His kids were sleepy. I stayed to speak with Gabby's boyfriend about diamonds.

"Diamonds here are 50% to 100% more expensive than New York." I speiled the opening in less than a minute. Diamonds sell diamonds and I showed him a pair of 3-carat studs. Christina and Gabby were impressed by the sparkle and I explained that the stones were slightly imperfect but of a good color and cut. The boyfriend said nothing. It was getting late for me too. Too late to drive back to Palm Beach and chance a stop by the police, so I slept in Andy's spare bedroom.

In the morning Andy made pancakes with bacon, The syrup on the table was corn. I used raspberry jam instead.

"Palm Beach tastes." Corn syrup was good enough for Andy. He didn't eat pancakes and asked, "Gabby's boyfriend say anything about the diamond?"

"No, he didn't seem that interested. I'll email him the details and prices later in the week. Just say good for me. Car salesmen are more suspicious than lawyers. Both of them lie too much."

"I'll find out what he thinks about it." Andy stood to make a dime bone on the sale.

"Good." We went off to the beach and then I drove back to Palm Beach. Pom pom was floating with piss and spent about two minutes urinating on the next door neighbor's lawn. Good thing they were up in the Hamptons.

On Monday I spoke with Richie Boy in New York. He gave me the prices on several 3-carat diamonds. All good color, SI in clarity, and running around $30k. I emailed the information to Gabby's boyfriend and awaited a response.

None.

Two days later I called his cell and left a message.

No return calls.

I mentioned this to Andy.

"Seems he doesn't trust you." Andy told me over the phone. "You wore the sunglasses the entire time you were in the house."

"I can't see without them." They were prescription.

"He couldn't see your eyes," Andy explained without any need for further clarification. It was a dead deal and for more reasons than dark glasses.

That's bullshit."

"I don't think Gabby's ready to an engagement ring."

"Why you say that?"

"She met him three months ago and he's moved in with her and her kid. She knows nothing about him, so she had a detective do a background check."

"Find good?"

"Not really."

"That doesn't spell love to me."

"He's a good guy, but been married once before, has two grown daughters, and now wants to have more kids. Gabby's a little nervous."

"Understandable."

"And so is her boyfriend. He had a fellow worker call up Gabby and ask for a date. She told this guy that she was seeing someone, but it might not work out. The guy told her boyfriend this and they've been fighting ever since."

"That doesn't look good for our sale." Thailand was out of my reach.

"Yeah, but it's funny he said he couldn't trust you because he couldn't see your eyes. He couldn't even trust Gabby."

"Hey, everyone's gun shy in matters of the heart." It took me 5O years to give someone an engagement ring. "Hell, I don't trust me."

"Well, I do." Andy had purchase two diamond rings from me.

"You want to buy your wife a 3-carat ring?"

"I do but my wallet doesn't."

He was a school teacher in West Palm. The ring would have cost his yearly salary. "But who knows, Gabby likes him. Likes only two letters from loves."

Andy was counting eliminating 'ik' without considering the addition of 'ov'. The letters by themselves spelled nothing no matter how hard I tried to jumble sense into them. Kivo was the best and I said it to Andy.

"What's that?"

"The difference between love and like."

"I like that."

"I'll love it, if I sell the stone." Andy and I could both use the money and all we needed was for two people to trust one another, which isn't too much to ask, because the difference between like and luck was 'ieuc' and everyone knows that means nothing. Especially someone who wears sunglasses at night.

For a related article click on thsi URL

http://www.mangozeen.com/the-demise-of-naked-gay-discos-in-miami.htm

Lisa Rowan In The Stars - Happy Birthday

Last year in Palm Beach my good friend Lisa Rowan passed from this world into the stars. We first met in Paris back in the 80s and remained close for the next thirty years. Our favorite story was about my taking care of a cat on Rue du Dragon and when the owner returned from a modeling trip Christine shouted up to the top floor, "How's my cat?"

Lisa yelled back, "Fine."

And I showed a stuffed animal cat, which I dropped and Lisa screamed, as did Christine, until the stuffed animal harmlessly thumped on the ground.

"You bastards," screamed our friend, but her cat was all right and we had a good laugh at Christine's expense.

Lisa and I told that story hundreds of times along with many others.

A great athletic. She whopped me in tennis like I was a rented mule, but then the Philadelphia native had been selected to play on the 1980 Women's team to Moscow Olympics. And more importantly Lisa was a great mother to her son Krystopher and loving daughter to Renna Kimmel. She will always be our MY GIRL.

Today is her birthday.

Love you long time.

To hear MY GIRL, please go to the following URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IUG-9jZD-g

Cave Anatis

In 2008 I spent the summer on Palm Beach. It was very off-season. Rainy, hot, and no one on the beaches. The mansion off Ocean Avenue was a big change from my previous place of residence, Pattaya, Thailand. I also living alone instead of dividing my time between two women; girlfriend #1 and our daughter and my pregnant mia noi. My only companion was a crackhouse Airedale, Pom Pom. I phoned Thailand everyday and sent money to both women once a week. It was not enough. You don't get paid much to take care of a crazy dog, even if it was on the most wanted list of Palm Beach county for mauling poodles.

My friend Lisa had arranged this job.

She was a single mom. This status didn't win any sympathy for my situation and every day she criticized my lack of decision.

"You'll have to make a choice one day."

"But not today." Thailand was 9000 miles away. I barely had enough money for a cheap 1.5 liter of wine let alone a round trip ticket to Bangkok. This rationale was unacceptable to her code of ethics. I did my best to not tell her 'hoop bargh' or shut up in Thai, but she was relentless.

One afternoon we rode over to the Thailand grocery on Dixie Highway to pick up Thai food. Lisa mentioned to the owner that I had lived in Thailand. The woman asked where and I told her Chainat and Jomtien.

"Why two places?"

"Because he has two wives," Lisa answered the question for me.

"You are very Thai. Who you love #1? Mia noi?"

"Yes." My admission was easy since my wife had done many bad things over our 6 years together. I was no saint, but her list had sins forgivable without being forgettable.

"Should he tell #1 about #2?" Lisa thought now she had an ally.

"Tell for what? For hurt two people. No way. Better to say nothing." The woman was in her 50s. She had lived in America over 30 years. Her family was from Ban Nok same as both my wives. She understood country ways. "If he tell wife #1 she angry and maybe cut off his penis."

"Cut off his penis?" Lisa crunched up her face like she hadn't heard right.

"Yes, Thai lady not want man have sex with other lady. She cut off penis and feed to ducks. Better you say nothing." She looked at me earnestly as if to say never tell the truth until you have to. "Not telling truth not same telling lie. No one get hurt. Not him. too."

It was sound advice from 9000 miles away, but in 2009 I was in Thailand having to be two places at once. I spent the final week with my mia noi. She doesn't like this status for herself and our son Fenway. One night I showed her pictures of Fenway Park on the internet. She said it was suay and understood why I named out son after the Fed Sox baseball park.I don't think it was the truth, but it sounded good.

The next afternoon I left Jomtien for Chai-nat. A four-hour bus ride. More beset by trepidation than fear. My girlfriend said she wanted me to tell the truth. I want to do the same, but sometimes the truth was best said when no one is listening. Especially when my penis was on the menu for ducks.

Cave canard which is a mix of Latin and French for 'beware of the duck'.

OFF-SEASON by Peter Nolan Smith

In late-April of 2008 I left Thailand. My two families accompanied me to the sprawling Bangkok airport. While happy European tourists headed home from vacations, I kissed my children good-bye and hid the tears by burying my head in Mam's neck.

Her belly was swollen with our new baby.

We were having a boy.

I wanted to call him Fenway.

My other wife knew better than to say a word.

She had done me wrong.

I'll never say how.

No one is perfect.

"No forget Angie," Nu said at the airport restaurant.

She possessed little English.

"I never forget anyone. You are my family."

I dropped my bags at the counter.

Planes were going everywhere in the world.

My ticket was one-way to New York.

"You come back soon?" asked Mem.

"Soon." I could not say when and said my goodbyes.

"Pai Gone, Ban Nok."

I would miss the Western Forest.

It was peaceful.

Sriracha too.

The sea was the Gulf of Siam.

I love the food.

Planes flew to hundreds of destinations around the world from Bangkok.

My flight was called over the loudspeakers.

My time in Thailand measured in minutes.

I kissed everyone goodbye.