SPICE MAD DAY by Peter Nolan Smith

Last year I celebrated Columbus Day with my doctor on Staten Island. Nick was Italian and cooked great meatballs. The doctor and I had met during our freshman class of European History 101. We had received Bs from the professor.

His kids had the day off and we enjoying the meal.

"Hey, Nico, I have a question for you."

"Yeah, what?" He was studying film at a state university.

"What year did Columbus sail to America??

"Why you asking?"

"Because it's Columbus Day."

"And?"

"I was wondering if you knew the date. Do any of you?"

"Sure."

"What is it? Any one you."

"It's not a school day," Nico's best friend replied through a mouthful of meatballs.

"So you don't know."

"Nope," they answered in a collective chorus of ignorance.

"Did we know that little when we were that age?" I asked Nick.

"We went to nun school. The sisters forced us to remember Columbus' three ships by name; the Santa Maria, the Nina, and the Pinta."

"C'mon, you gotta know." I looked to the young people around the table.

"1882?" His youngest son was the only one brave enough to offer an answer.

"You got two numbers right." The doctor shook his head in disbelief. "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. You never head that?"

"Never." The kids ranged from 8 to 21. Columbus was a blank to them and I explained that Columbus had been seeking the back door to Asia.

"For Chinese take-out?" His older son?s friend Squeak asked with interest. He liked pu-pu platters.

"No, for spices."

"That's why no one knows about him. No one knows about spices." His oldest son's only connection to spice was the Spice Girls and they hadn't scored a hit since the turn of the century.

"Spices were the most important commodity in the world 500 years ago." I had been a history substitute teacher at South Boston High during the bussing riots of 1975. "Spices are pepper, cinnamon, cloves, garlic, chili, nutmeg and many more."

"Chili came from Mexico," Nick's youngest son announced from the table.

"Correct."

"The gardener told me that. He's from Mexico."

"Yes, but many other spices came from Asia." I had spent the 90s and 00s in the Far East. Nick had graduated from a medical school in Manila. We liked the cuisine of the Orient.

"Why they need spices on their good, when they had ketchup?" Squeak was spinning linguine on his fork.

"Ketchup is not a spice and it is not a vegetable." Even if the majority of American teenagers choose Heinz ketchup as their favorite veggie. "I'll tell you a story. Back in 1991 I arrived by boat to Ternate in northern Indonesia. The volcanic island was a backwater then, but in the 15th Century European nations fought to control its treasures of cloves and spices. Hoping to discover a short-cut to the fabled island, Christopher Columbus set sail west across the Atlantic Ocean. His fleet of three ships made landfall on an unknown continent. It was not China, Japan, or Ternate. Undeterred by this disappointment, the Genoan adventurer claimed the new world for the King Of Span and his patroness the Queen Isabella. He was as good a salesman as he was a sailor and called it the West Indies to promote future expeditions."

My friend's teenagers were gazing off with disinterest, although Nick's youngest son and daughter were listening to what I had to say. Their attention span respected an adult, so I continued my tale, "Columbus' first voyage was remarkable, for the fact that he was traveling through unknown waters and only lost one ship, the SANTA MARIA on his first voyage. It sank on Christmas Day, but not one sailor drowned in the shipwreck. There was not enough room for everyone to return to Spain and 39 men elected to stay on 'Hispaniola' to further explore the virgin territory for gold and spices."

"What happened to those guys he left behind?" Nick's younger son was showing promise as a scholar. Julien was a straight B student.

"They were'massacred by Carib warriors who detested the newcomers' enslavement of their women, children, and friends, thus initiating the long conflict between Europe and the New World."

"Massacred as in eaten." Squeak was an ace at shoot-em-up VDO games.

"Yes, eaten."

"Did they use any spices when they ate them or just ketchup?" Squeak's comment earned all-around laughter.

"I quit." I got up from the table and went out on the terrace with a glass of wine in my hand.

Outer New York Harbor spread beneath the highest point in Staten Island. Henry Hudson had sailed this bay. His namesake river ran straight north into the Adirondacks. He had been stranded in the Arctic by his men.

Exploration was tough on failures.

In truth Christopher Columbus carried little gold back to his Spanish sovereigns, but he introduced corn, manioc or cassava, potato, the peanut, tomato, papaya, pineapple, avocado, chili pepper, cotton and cocoa to the Old World. It took about 30 years for the chili to reach Thailand, which adopted the fiery spice as its own.

My wife Mam loved chili on her sum-tam salad. All Thai women loved the fiery mango dish and they have Columbus to thank for their pleasure.

Columbus might be forgotten by the young and no longer considered to be a hero by those who blame the destruction of the Indians on his discovery, but I celebrated his discovery of the Bahamas with rum and coke. Nick joined me and raised his glass.

"To Columbus."

He was Admiral of the Oceans.

September 10, 1978 - Journal Entry - East Village

Gold, jewels, power, hate, and sex. Why nations fight wars People decided to die rather than live Stupid reasons

I had a friend in Maine. Chaney and I promised never to swim alone. My family moved from Falmouth Foresides in June of 1960 A week later Chaney drowned in Sebago Lake

He was eight.

In 1974 I left my hometown for good. I left behind another friend Carl married his high school sweetheart. She was seven months pregnant.

I never saw the baby.

I had a friend in college. Neil and I are still friends. He is studying medicine in the Philipines. Dagupan City

Neil was born on Staten island. We will meet again I am not in love with money or gold or God I'm in love with the modern world.

And everything else.

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.

Driving On Water

There are several hundreds in New York City. My good friend, Nick, has one in the backyard of his house atop Staten Island. The good doctor graciously invites me for a swim during the summer months. His four children have four cars and Nick has three along with that of his wife. None of the eight cars have ended up in the pool, but seemingly other pools in the USA have seen unexpected guests plunge into the deep end.

They don't float.

They can't escape the pools.

And you can't drive them out.

Even high class cars find water.

The juggernaut crushes all in its path.

Pools too.

But not Nick's MG.

The Forgotten Borough

Two weeks ago I ferried across the lower harbor to Staten Island. My college friend Nick had invited me to watch the Jets versus the Patriots at his house on Lighthouse Hill. We have a lovely day drinking wine, eating homemade Italian food, and even better the Pats beat the Jets. Nick drove me down to St. George to catch the 9pm ferry. It had been a good day. I just got off the phone with Nick, who's general practitioner of medicine. "We still don't have lights and there's no sign of any help on the way. Worse is that we have no TV or radios, so we don't know what's happening." Nick complained, having spent the greater part of his day giving tetanus vaccines to survivors of the Hurricane Sandy. "I drove down the bungalows on New Dorp and most of them are destroyed along with the million-dollar mansions. There's boats and debris everywhere. And the mayor wants to run the Marathon." I could hear his wife shouting in the background. "Rose is real happy about that." "Fucking Bloomberg." She shouted louder, as if to be heard in City Hall across the harbor. "One guy was guarding the boats with a gun." "Against looters?" "Yeah, they're going through the wrecks for the electronics and the old houses for valuables. There's no cops anywhere." "Except for those getting ready for the Marathon." Rose must have been sitting at his elbow. "If it gets really bad, come stay with me." It was a crazy offer, but these are going to be crazy times. Looking out the window of the Fort Greene Observatory I see the skies getting dark. The weatherpeople are predicting rain for tonight, but tomorrow is supposed to be a sunny day. Don't forget Staten Island and to see the CNN report on that borough, please go to the following URL http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/01/us/sandy-fema/index.html doctor

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.