The Bud of Ten Years After

The nuns at Our Lady of the Foothills comforted their young pupils' loss of a favorite toy by telling the tearful student that in heaven there was a closet containing all lost possession. I found solace in this possibility even after I lost my faith in heaven and hell, however one day I realized that that the closet would be filled with one sox and one glove without their match. My disappointment was tempered by the understanding that you really don't ever have a favorite pair of sox, plus some possessions are meant to be lost. As my Irish grandmother said, "If you lose something then it wasn't yours to begin with."

Her harsh statement bore the truth.

Take care of your possessions and they will stay with you throughout your life.

Having lived around the world I've left a scattering of boxes and bags in LA, Paris, Bali, and Thailand. A VW bug in Germany. A Yamaha motorcycle in Florida. Books everywhere. Multiple pairs of glasses in this very apartment in Clinton Hill. Nothing seems to stay with me forever, but the other day my longtime friend Juiliana came to visit me on 47th Street. She had a paper bag in her hand.

"You left this at my house." She lives on West 18th Street. I had last stayed there in 2002. I couldn't remember ever having stored anything at her loft, but the bag held photos, CDs, and a Thai rice basket containing jewelry and a big bud of marijuana. The necklaces, rings,and bracelets were from my mother. The bud was still big and fluffy. I thanked Juiliana with a small gold ring. She could have kept the gold for herself, but she was an honest woman.

Later that night I stashed the jewelry in the apartment and broke out my pipe. The bud was fluffy. Its aroma had faded years before. Black specks coated the seeds. AP, my landlord, asked, "You're not really going to smoke that, are you?"

"What's the worst that can happen?" It looked dry not dangerous.

"You could be transported 10 years into the past." AP had seen HOT TUB TIME MACHINE. The RISD graduate was a fan of the 80s. New York was fun in those years. The 70s had been wicked, but too far away in the past. Nothing could bring them back.

"The year 2000. Here I come." I would be 48 again. My body would like that. Later in the summer I could try to stop 9/11. My name would be synonymous with hero. I stuffed the pipe with moldy weed. The reefer burned fast. I half-expected the room to swirl out of 2010, instead the clock on the wall ticked forward to 2011. The bud of Ten Years After was harmless to the time-space continuum, but harsh on my lungs and I coughed out a haze of smoke.

"How is it?" AP was curious if pot could be vintage. There was only one way for him to find out the truth. I handed over the pipe. He coughed himself into the present. Higher than minute before. Maybe time was more fragile than I imagined. It was a matter of perception to the Bud of Ten Years After. The master of the universe lost once, but now found.

From Kiev with Love

The Kiev Restaurant opened in the late-70s. 24 hours. We went there after CBGBs, Max's, and the Mudd Club. Bacon and eggs as the dawn broke the morn. It was a scene. I had a fight over a tape recorder with Samo and discussed a photo-roman with Klaus Nomi. They went from obscurity to fame. I stopped going to the Kiev after the cook served well-done eggs. I sent them back and the waitress brought a plate of transparent eggs on top the first order. His message couldn't have been clearer. That was 1980.

Kiev meant the Kiev all those years, but not since September 2009..

That year I landed in the Ukrainian capitol seeking payment from a local internet company for equipment from a Palm Beach manufacturer. An hour drive into the city. Onion-bulbed domes gleaming in the May sun. I booked into the Domus Hotel and walked around the old town. Punks drank on the corners, goths huffeded glue in the alleys, and bums fought in the parks. Broken beer bottles glittered on the streets. It looked like a tough city, but I recognized that there was a distinct female/male advantage. Something like 55/45% in the youth. And none of women fat like Americans.

Then again there were no 7/11s or fast food.

And the beer is cheap.

On the steps of a cathedral a long-hair was playing Nirvana in the main square.

His audience consisted of all ages and two old men danced along to FEELS LIKE TEENAGE SPIRIT. They even knew the words. Not a bad town.

Kiev 2009.

Make Mine Rare

Last Labor Day weekend in Maine my brother-in-law and I had several discussions about whether it was better to BBQ with charcoal or gas. The world's leading leisurologist voted for gas and I bowed to the swami's greater savvy on this subject. Some subjects you have to leave to the experts.

The Death of the Road

In 2013 my summer holiday plans fell apart one by one. An ex-girlfriend's Nantucket house had too many guests, my mate in Millbrook had accepted an invitation to the Rockefeller’s’ Adirondack estate, and my sister was leaving Maine for a conference in Boston. All the flights to Thailand were out of my budget and Labor Weekend came with a harsh realization.

I was stuck in New York.

At least it wasn’t New Jersey.

Earlier in the day I had bought a small painting off the street for $1. It hung on my kitchen wall. Telephone poles outlined against a cobalt sky. The words HIT THE ROAD in the corner spoke the ancient language of wanderlust and I contemplated hitchhiking across the USA, following Jack Kerouac’s route in ON THE ROAD.

“That’s a great idea.” My landlord AP loved adventure. He had two kids. His freedom was linked to their attaining 21 in the year 2025.

“Have you seen any hitchhikers?”

“Not on the LIE.” AP drove once a week from Fort Greene to Hamptons to check on his building site. “Or anywhere else.”

“Me neither.” The spring of 2009 I had traveled over 2000 miles through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin without seeing a single hitchhiker on the roads. I called several friends in Florida, Maine, and California. None reported a sighting.

“Maybe they’re extinct.” AP was puzzled by their disappearance and I rethought my trans-American travels. Denver was a good two days from New York by car. Maybe 3-4 by thumb. If I left Monday morning, I wouldn’t get to Colorado until Wednesday. Another 2-3 days to the coast. Saturday or Sunday. Online flights one-way from San Francisco to JFK cost over $300. I had $700 in my pocket, plus two kids in Thailand.

Instead I went to Ralph's Deli and bought a six-pack of Modelo.

I wasn’t going anywhere.

But I had known that all along.

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.

KILL THE RICH CHAPTER 1 by Peter Nolan Smith

The Vent de Sol was booked solid. The clientele hailed from the upper echelons of New York's1%. Table # 4 sat eight people was dominated by a 54 year-old man in an impeccably British tailored suit. No one in the Upper East Side bistro had earned more than the wily investment banker. No one on Madison Avenue and no one in Manhattan either. No one even close.

The masked Latino waiter expertly refills Mark Bonsoul's glass of 2000 Château Lafite Rothschild - Pauillac and the host of the party of eight says, "This one sip of wine costs more than this man makes in a night. Well, it does have to be a big sip."

The banker guzzled a mouthful to the laughter of his friends.

The waiter bowed with dancer's grace and serves the other guests a lesser vintage.

Dinner is served like a ballet of tastes and textures.

Before dessert mark Bounsoul ordered a Remy-Martin Louis XIII cognac and stood, patting his chest for the pack of Treasurer Aluminum Gold.

"You'll have to forgive me, but old bad habits die hard and you usually die before the bad habit."

He exited from the restaurant onto Madison Avenue. The pandemic had emptied the streets. Mark had never caned more money than throughout Co-vids and lit his cigarette with a gold lighter. The windows of nearby high-rises were dark. No one he knew lived in those hovels. He inhaled on the Traveler. rich tobacco. A five-star restaurant. An extraordinary wine. A beautiful wife. Alone he basked in aloneness.

The waiter approached him on the sidewalk. Mark sighed thinking he might have to speak with him. He thought that until he saw the gun. It didn't look expensive and Mark took another huff like a dead man before a firing squad, because there was no running from this fate. A bullet hit his chest, then another, each strangely without any bang.. He dropped to the sidewalk on his left side. His vision was growing black and his lungs offered no help. He was a dead man and nothing was going to change that.

Last Plane From Kabul 8/31/2021

Yesterday the last US military transport jet lifted from Kabul airport packed to the brim with last-minute American departees. Hundreds of thousands of Afghanis hoped to join the exodus from the Taliban ruling Afghanistan. The new government had ordered its fighters to not shell the refugees, although an ISIS-K suicide bombing killed 90 civilians and 9 US Marines. Joe Biden OKed a drone strike and the missile struck the militants, but also a family car with ten children aboard. Typical of the CIA and Pentagon. Kill kill kill.

Americans complained about the speedy pull-out, but the president weighed out the options.

Going back in was never one of them and after twenty years not a single American has his boots on the ground in Afghanistan.

The last soldier out of Kabul was Army Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, who departed on the final C-17 Globemaster III. Something heroic to be the last to go.

General Boris Gromov walked over the Friendship Bridge crossing the the Amu-Daria river on 15 February 1989 with thirty to forty trucks loaded with Afghani treasures as well as an antique Tekke carpet stolen from Darul Aman Palace, which he cut into several pieces, and gave it to his fellow comrades.

Otlichnaya rabota.

Major General Homer D. Smith is generally regarded as the last US soldier out of Vietnam, evacuating more than 7,000 Americans and South Vietnamese before finally retreating himself. A true hero of his times and all that follows and went before.

Back in 2007 Nik Reiter and I waited for a ferry across the Meleleuk River in Cambodia. I was surprised to find a shack selling wurst and frikadelle. The owner was an old German. He was happy to speak German, even though mine was strictly Hoch Schule Deutshe. Oskar had been in the Orient ever since the fall of the 3rd Reich. He explained tht he had been with the Luftwaffe at Stalingrad.

"I was there at the last flights. We loaded the wounded onto the Junkers one of top of the other. There was no heat and one by one they froze in their berths. None of them got out alive. Only my Kamraden and me and some SS. I was never so happy, when the plane lifted from Stalingradskaya airfield. Three Heinkel 111s left as we landed. The flight officer was a major general. Hellmuth Mader. Over fifty years ago. Have you been to Germany recently?"

"Not since 1982." I had been just as happy to flee Hamburg ahead of the pimps of the Reeperbahn as any soldier from the 3rd Reich flying from the doom of the 6th Army."

We crossed the river and I never saw the man again.

On the opposite bank Nik looked back and said, "That could have been bullshit, but it didn't sound like it."

"No, it didn't."

It ain't easy to be the first and it is very hard to be the last, walking away without a backward glance, just thinking Thank the Heavens we ain't there no more.