September 10, 2001, was a rainy day in New York. There was precipitation throughout the afternoon and early evening. 0.5 inches. The warmest day of the month. Humid and wet.

I exited from my East 10th Street apartment at 9:00 a.m. and headed toward Veselka’s on 2nd Avenue. My breakfast of a bagel and coffee came to $2.11. I gave the waiter a dollar tip. My funds were low, but it was one thing to be broke and another to act broke.


Tony thanked my generosity and refilled my cup to the brim.

At least someone was happy to have me back in New York after my six-month stay in Pattaya, Thailand.

My friends were busy setting up autumn projects or putting their young children in school, and they had all answered my phone call with trepidation. Few were in a position to lend me more than $20.

I exited from Veselka’s Diner and watched the NYU co-eds running through the rain. Innocent smiles suited their young faces. They had their lives before them. I hated their future. They were 18.

None of them would be revolutionaries, punks, beatniks, or hippies, but then no one pursued those fates anymore. I went over to Astor Place to catch the uptown train to Grand Central. Getting off at 42nd Street, I walked over to the Diamond District on 47th Street.

The rain hadn’t let up, and I bought a cheap umbrella for five bucks. It kept off most of the wet, but nothing could fend off the thickness of the moist air. My old boss, a diamond dealer, greeted me with a hug and I asked him if he had any work.

“Sorry, but there isn’t anything happening here, but my rent.” Manny lifted both hands in apology. “Why you come back from Thailand? I thought you had it made there.”

“It turned out that it was a bullshit job,” I told him. Sam Royalle had failed to start an S&M friends’ website. Both of us were too vanilla to make it real.

“New York’s not what it was,” Manny said He read my soul like a ten-cent comic book.

It seemed to me that Manhattan had been overrun by Wall Street bankers and admirers of the instant wealth spun from the roulette wheel of hedge funds and derivatives. This Ivy League newly rich lot scorned the dedication of artists and writers.

“If I could click my heels like Dorothy Gale in her ruby slippers, I would,” I told him.

“And end up in Kansas?” Manny loved The Wizard of Oz. “I don’t think you’d like that,” he said.

“No, you’re right about that.” I had never been to that straight-line state.

“At least it wouldn’t be raining.” Manny liked the sun. He went to Florida after New Year’s and came back with a tan that seemed to last the rest of the year.


“It’s monsoon season in Thailand.” I looked out the window. “This is a drizzle over there.”

“Drizzle, schmizzle.” Manny slipped a C-note into my hand. “Wait a few weeks and I’ll have work for you.”

“Thanks, comrade.”

Manny was from Brownsville, and I hailed from the South Shore of Boston. We understood hard times, and as much as I could have used another C-note, a single hundred-dollar bill was a lot better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

The rain was lightening up, but it would last the rest of the day. It was Monday. The Oyster Bar was only a few blocks away. A September day like this was a good day for a bowl of chowder.

The weatherman had predicted a pleasant day for tomorrow. It would be 9/11/2001.

Carpe cras, or as no Roman ever said, “Seize tomorrow.”

***

OPEN CITY declared Peter Nolan Smith an underground punk legend of the 1970s East Village. In the last century the New England native worked as a nightclub doorman at New York’s Hurrah and Milk Bar; Paris’ Les Bains-Douches and Balajo; London’s Cafe de Paris, and Hamburg’s Bsir.

Throughout the 1990s Peter Nolan Smith was employed as a diamond salesman on West 47th Street in Manhattan’s Diamond District.

The 2000s were spent in Thailand running an internet company and raising his family.

He is currently based in Fort Greene, New York and Thailand and putting the final touches on BACK AND FORTH his historical semi-fictional book about hitchhiking across the USA in 1974.

His website mangozeen.com  covers news and semi fiction from around the globe with over 5000 entries.

His motto: “All stories are true if interesting.“