THE BLESSING OF THE LIZARD KING by Peter Nolan Smith - 1992

Monitor lizards are native to Southeast Asia. These carnivorous predators are related to the famous Komodo Dragon and varanid lizards are cooperative hunters like raptors in JURASSIC PARK. According to the Bangkok Post monitor lizards are known to cluster in the city's secluded water pipes and up to two hundred of the two-meter long beasts reside in each of the sunken city's districts.

Many urban Thais regard the sighting of a hia or monitor lizard as the harbinger of bad luck in spite of the legend about sighting them warns humans of crocodiles. Down south on the Isthmus of Ka country folks keep the miniature monsters as domestic pets, because crocodiles still wander the mangrove swamps lining the peninsula.

"They keep increasing in numbers because these reptiles have few natural enemies, and their food is always plentiful," a Thai reptile expert said, "Water monitors eat almost anything; fish, eggs, and even rotten meat."

The only lizard in my hometown south of Boston was Jim Morrison singing 'crawling king snake', but in 1991 I ferried from the Malaysian Peninsula to Tioman Island in the South China Sea, which the Lonely Planet had called a tropical gem. Jungles blanketed the hills and the sea was an invisible sheet of desperately clear with white sand gleaming white in the midday sun.

European backpackers overstayed their visits on this paradise. The beer was cold and the bungalows were cheap.

On my second week there I met a Swedish blonde traveler. She liked my poetry and we spent four nights together.

"Our sleeping together means nothing." Velda was telling the truth. European hedonists were devoted to the pleasure of the sun and on the fifth morning our relationship had reached the end.

"I want to sleep alone," the slim Swede announced with her back tuned to the dawn.

"No problem."

I got dressed and returned to my hut. Velda didn't even kiss me good-bye and I expected that she would leave on the morning ferry for the mainland. I slept in late and hit the bungalow bar at noon.

"Beer for all my friends." There were only three Germans at the bar, but I loved that line from the movie BARFLY.

Before the beers arrived, a scream screeched through the trees.

Velda ran into the bar. Her long blonde hair was a Medusa snarl and her voice hit a soprano high on every word, as she exclaimed in a panic, "There's a lizard in the bathroom."

The Malays working at the restaurant laughed about a lizard. Lizards and snakes crawled and slithered everywhere on Tioman, but I understood her fears. My mother was scared of insects. If one got into the house, she cried, "There"s a monster in the bathroom."

I figured that Velda was just as hysterical as my mother and grabbed a broom.

"I'll get rid of a lizard."

"He more big than Gecko." The terror had stripped away her high school English.

"I"ll take care of it. Show me." I followed her down the path to her bungalow. The A-frame stood in a palm grove perched next to a tidal inlet. Mangrove trees had sunk their roots into the brackish swamp water. It was good breeding place for lizards. The buzz of mosquitoes hummed from the swamp and Velda pointed to the bathroom door.

"He's in there."

"Don't worry, this will only take a second." I grabbed a whisk broom.

"Be careful."

"Careful is my middle name."

I peered inside the room. The bathroom door was shut. I heard no noise from inside and figured that the lizard had escaped through the ceiling. I tiptoed across the floor, broom in one hand. I yanked on the bathroom door expecting to find only a toilet, instead thick-chested monitor lizard bared slimy teeth with a hiss.

The broom dropped to the floor and I slammed the door shut.

"That is a big lizard." I ran outside to Velda. "You want to stay at my place?"

"Yes, but no sex."

"None at all." I grabbed her bag and she moved back into my place for another week.

I thanked Jim Morrison the Lizard God for those extra days and nights.

I had seen the Doors at the Boston Tea Party in 1968. I didn't tell that to the Swedish girl. Velda hadn't realize that I was in my late-30s. The twenty year-old's skin was as smooth as river-polished stone. After her departure to Koh Phi Phi, I spotted the monitor lizard lazing in the sun.

I bought a dozen boiled eggs from the warung and fed them one by one.

It was the least I could do for a cousin of Jim Morrison.

Anything else would have doomed me to bad luck and bad lick with a lizard was worse than bad.

THE CURSE OF A NE'ER-DO-WELL by Peter Nolan Smith - 1974

Back in 1974 I was going out with a sixteen year-old high school student from Brookline. Hilde's father, th editor for the Boston Globe, was separated from her mother. Ann was insane, but many insane people lived normal existences and Ann was the mother of six kids.

Her new husband, a VP at Bose Speakers, believed in a New Age cure for madness, but one winter night Ann got hold of a bottle of vodka and ran out of the house naked in blizzard, shouting, "I'm the queen of the snowflakes."

Snow howled down the street. The temperatures neared zero. White spindrifts blotted out the black of night.

"Get her," Hilde pleaded with urgency.

My best friend AK was dating Hilde's sister and the two of us hunted for Ann

We found her hugging a tree in the neighbor's backyard.

"Ann, you have to come back to the house." I took off my jacket and covered her cold white body.

"You dare tell me what to do?" Her mad eyes grasped my face.

"I'm not telling you what to do, but Hilde is worried about you."

"My daughter is sixteen and you're twenty-two."

"Sorry."

"Sorry for what? You're just a taxi driver," Ann spoke possessed by the voices of MacBeth's three witches and added, "You are the ne'er-do well. You'll never amount anything."

I led her back to the house, where her husband ran Ann a hot bath.

"Don't listen to her." AK and I warmed by the fire.

"About what?"

"About being a ne'er-do-well. No one is a ne'er-do-well anymore."

"I suppose you're right."

We smoked a joint and Hilde brewed us a cup of tea. Her older sister worked in the Combat Zone. Strippers didn't have snow days.

Hilde and I broke up that Spring and I left Boston for New York.

Ann's curse was on money.

I never could hold onto anything valuable.

Possession is 9/10ths of meaninglessness, because I am a ne'er-do-well.

It is a madwoman's curse, but I'm the best of the ne'er-do wells and in these days when no one has nothing being a ne'er-do-well is a blessing .

We know how to live with nothing.

THE LAST GO-GO BOY by Peter Nolan Smith - 2013

Americans tend to judge the nation’s fiscal well-being by the rise and fall of the Dow Jones Index, even though Wall Street’s accumulation of wealth has destroyed the spending power of the middle-class. Next month’s bonuses for the hedge fund managers will not save a single consumer buried under debt, after which the corporations will trim benefits and wages to the bone to maximize profit.

Few employees protested the low pay in fear of losing their jobs with good reason.

In 2013 the nation's economy was in recession and I asked myself what jobs are available for a sixty year-old man in Newe York City.

Very few was the answer.

Years before I had been lucky that Manny had reserved a place for me on West 47th Street after my yearly global circumnavigations, but this year has been the exception. Times were that tough in the Diamond District.

Early in December I flogged a gay writer's family heirlooms to a gold dealer at another exchange.

Later that evening at his East Village apartment I paid Bruce $4000 minus my commission.

"Now I can pay my health insurance." The heavyweight writer sighed with gratitude and invited me an Asian fusion restaurant on Avenue B. Every seat was crammed with young people enjoying the approach of the holidays. They were immune from teh desperate times, unaware that their future had been hocked to the banks by college debts.

“I never see anyone my age on the subway.” These go-getters were my competition for a subway seat in the morning. Thankfully none of them were as ruthless as an old Irishman.

“Most men our age are retired.” Bruce's finger darted over the menu. His thinning hair was bleached blonde, so he resembled an aging beach bum. The fey waiter paid attention to his every word. Bruce was generous with young men.

"Or dead."

“You're not dying anytime soon."

"I'm too healthy for that." My health care plan involved the practice of never get sick.

"Do you have a retirement plan?” Bruce was a world-known novelist. Critics had recognized his genius. Sales for his last book totaled a little over two thousand, but he owned his apartment and next year he will be old enough to receive Social Security.

“When I hit seventy, I'm flying to Norway." I ordered oysters with seaweed noodles, plus a glass of wine. The thin waiter had to be thirty-five years younger than me. He deemed sixty year-old man as neo-senior.

"Norway?"

"Yes, I'm going to rob a bank with a gun, then they'll sentence me to twenty to life for armed robbery. I've seen photos of Norway's prison for violent offenders. The rooms have computers and are furnished by IKEA."

“Ten years from now the Norwegian prison officials will have instituted euthanasia for the elderly, so robbing a bank in Oslo is not really an option."

"You have any other suggestions?" Supporting my family in Thailand had wiped out my savings.

"Ever think about taking steel pole lessons from your stripper friends?"

"What for?"

"If you lost ten pounds, you could work as a go-go boy at a queer retirement home.” Bruce’s biting wit was best suited to attack rather than self-deprecation.

“Honey, those old wrinklies aren’t so particular about the weight. They like the young flesh.”

“A scary thought.” Just yesterday my Thai wife reminded me over the phone that I wasn’t seventeen anymore. Mam was twenty-eight and our son was four years-old. I couldn’t quit working until I was seventy-eight if I unlucky enough to live that long.

"Those old fags want someone young.” Bruce had written a book on the rough trade in Times Square. His tricks had called him Papi. None of them had been under twenty and he never sunk under two-hundred-fifty pounds.

“Those old queens in the nursing homes haven't seen anyone young as you in decades. You could charge the homes $100 a visit, which has to be more beneficial for the old geezers than any other medicine. And you could do lap dances.”

“Thanks for the idea, but I'd rather rob a cradle than a grave."

"Times change and people like you and me have to change with them, plus graves are richer pickings than a cradles. Hell, you could franchise the go-go scheme in Florida. How many retirement homes you think are in the Sunshine State? Thousands? There has to be a demand for middle-aged men from the elderly queers.”

“Supply and demand.” Middle-aged ened at sixty-five.

“And who knows? You might be able to sex them up for a little more money on the side.” Bruce caressed the waiter’s behind. He was a regular here and the waiter smiled with the anticipation of good tip. Bruce liked to pay for sex even if it was merely a grope.

“No way. I barely wanted to have sex with myself let alone with someone else.”

“Why, because you think you're too good to have sex with someone older than you like me.” He frowned at this unintended insult. “What about the woman you had sex with in Palm Beach?"

"Helen?" The Palm Beach heiress had been unnaturally blonde and fashionably thin. We had been introduced by my longtime mistress at the Breakers five summers ago.

"That's the one. You said she was over seventy.”

“Closing on seventy-five.” Helen published several magazines extolling the good life on the Gold Coast. She had invited me to her house on Lake Worth. The fragrance of her garden had overwhelmed by the reefer she smoked in a diamond encrusted hand.

We had spoken about sex. Helen knew the world; past, present, and future.

"Seventy is officially old."

"She didn't seem old." The elegant septuagenarian spent two months a year at a Swiss clinic rejuvenating her aged body in Botox like it was fondue cheese.

"She had your number." Bruce was fascinated by my sordid encounter.

“How?"

"As I remember it, she said that she hadn’t had cock in her mouth in ten years. She had begged for it and you gave it to her like you were remaking SUNSET BOULEVARD.”

“It was a mercy mission.” I slightly resembled that move's star William Holden in the shadows of her bedroom. A failed writer selling his soul.

With the lights off, the curtains billowing with the evening breeze, and Helen wearing sheer lingerie and satin high heels, I imagined that she was Paris Hilton in the year 2040. On her knees the mirage had performed fellatio like she was entering the Porno Hall of Fame. Thankfully she had never said, “Ready for my scene, Mr. DeMille.”

Maybe the first time, but what about the second time?” Bruce sat back, as the waiter delivered our appetizers; fried calamari for him and raw bluepoints for me. “Gore Vidal said about orgies that once is experimentation, but twice is perversity.”

“The second time was because I was drunk.” Two bottles of wine and a joint had loosened by inhibitions and she had had her way with me. “There was no third time.”

"Only because you saw her with another man at the Chesterfield.”

“She was in the Leopard Lounge.” The other man had been in his late 60s. He had once been an Elvis impersonator. I felt cheap.

“And you heard her use that ‘haven’t tasted cock' line on him, so don’t tell me you can’t go-go boy anymore. We all have a price.”

“I’d rather rob a bank in Norway.” I sucked down an oyster tasting of the Atlantic.

“And end up a stick boy in a Viking prison.” Bruce was enjoying himself. "You don't look like you'd like being a bottom."

"Never." I never would be a bottom, except with my wife Mam. She got off better that way.

“You do what you have to do to survive. Believe me. I know.” He had taught creative writing at a Wyoming dude ranch college two years ago. He was lucky to have escaped the high plains without being charged for with any crimes against the morals of that cowboy state.

“I know you do.” Bruce was forever broke same as everyone in America, but maybe Bruce was right and the only one way of finding out was by a repeat performance in Palm Beach.

We clinked glasses.

“To go-go boys.”

“And Florida.” I felt lucky as would anyone with high season on the Gold Coast only a month away from December.

HillBilly Ranch Bar Boston - 1999

As you get old you forget. as you get older, you are forgotten - anon

I know that I didn't come up with that quote, because I haven't really forget everything yet and several years ago I reminisced about Lost Boston with a few old-timers during an afternoon Jacob Wirth's bar, while killing time waiting for the Chinese bus back to New York.

The girthy fifty-year olds were both members of the court, a judge and a DA, and I introduced myself, asking if they knew my brother, who had worked as a lawyer in Boston for almost thirty years.

"You mean 'No Show' Smith. I can't count the number of times we've requested his presence here and he never shows."

"He's a hard worker."

The sharp winter sun filtered through the thick front window. No music played on the stereo and the TV showed the rerun of last night's Celtics game. At that moment there was nowhere else in the world closer to heaven.

"And this isn't hard work." The DA slugged down a Jameson and signaled for three more.

"It can put a sweat on you, but not like digging a ditch." I had been working as a general contractor on a rich man's house in Greenwich, Connecticut. My hands were calloused from the toils of construction. The three of us were of Irish descent. Our grandfathers had suffered hard labor to make our lives less of a struggle. "Holding a shovel is more honorable work."

"To the Big Dig." The judge raised his glass. The tunnel under downtown Boston had replaced an elevated highway.

"Sorry, if I don't join you, but they dumped the rubble into the Quincy Quarries." The project planners had dumped more than 5.4 million cubic yards into the granite pits.

"Now the Quarries was something. Most every teenage boy south of the Charles River had jumped off Rooftop."

"Here's to Brewster's Quarry" The bartender appeared from nowhere and placed four glasses on the scarred wooden plank, joining us to toast the longgone Eden.

"Remember when they didn't let women drink at the bar here?"

"Yes, bck in the early Sseventies I used to bring my feminist friends here as a joke. They hated that the bartender wouldn't serve them at the bar. "He loved telling those hairy girls to take a seat in the dining room." I couldn't remember his name, but we agreed that back then a woman's place wasn't at the bar in Jacob Wirth's. I was of a different mind now. "I thought it was a good laugh."

"Maybe the bartender didn't think it was that funny. You were probably a dirty hippie and I mean that in the best of all possible terms. I was a Marine."

From South Boston?"

"Yes." I had taught at South Boston High School during the Bussing Era and decided not to mention that.

"Not many choices for young men from Southie back then."

"Prison, OD, or the Marines. None of us had the money for college."

"A wise choice. I protested against the Vietnam War." At sixteen I wanted to join the Marines to get out of my hometown. My mother, a staunch anti-communist, refused to sign the papers.

"You dirty hippie."

"I'll drink to that."

My brother showed up later and our collective memories toured the city of our past. We extolled the prune rolls at Warmuth's, the grilled hot dogs at WT Grants, the strippers at the Two O'Clock Lounge, and relived my brother's bachelor party in the Combat Zone. It was a blank in my mind.

"I vaguely recollect stumbling out of the Naked I into the Hillbilly Ranch. I think I wanted to hear a version of Meryl Haggard's MAMA TRIED."

"We lost you for about an hour."

"Probably ended up with the drag queens at the Other Side." William laughed with his beer belly juggling like defrosted jello. The beer at Jacob Wirth's was better than good.

"No, I'd remember that. At least I think I would, but something sticks in my mind about getting up on the stage of the Hillbilly Ranch and singing a song." Later I had seen Sleepy La Beef, John Lincoln Wright, the Bayou Boys, and other southern bands of the 70s at the dive next to the Greyhound bus station.

"That was a tough bar owned by Frankie Segalini. You were lucky that you weren't rolled in that place. it was filled with Navy peckerwoods and crackers. They didn't like us Irish."

"You returned to the Naked I intact." My older brother had a head for long ago. He was a lawyer.

"And we made it to the church in time."

The four of us clinked glasses to those times gone by. It was good to be with my older brother and two members of the court. We spoke of our lies

The 1978 Blizzard, the Chelsea Fire, BC beating Notre Dame, Checker Cabs, friends, family, the Surf Nantasket, Brother's Bar in Kenmore Square, and the taste of fried clams from Tony's on Wollaston Beach.

Afterwards I walked my brother to his office on Beacon Hill. The bus station and the Hillbilly Ranch were gone. Neither of us said anything about them. We were happy to have seen each other and spend time together. We were in the now in a city we knew so well. As youth we had thought that the good times would never end and they never do in your heads, especially after spending an afternoon at Jacob Wirth's>

Super Bowl III 1969

The Baltimore Colts had entered Super Bowl III as 18-point favorites over the AFL’s New York Jets. The underdogs were quarterbacked by the flashy Joe Namath and the brash Alabama native boasted in Miami, “We’re gonna win the game. I guarantee it.”

The Colts were infuriated by this brash statement and quashed the first drive by the Jets, however big games are won on injuries as much as luck and after the bruising fullback Matt Snell knocked out the Colts’ safety and the secondary was open for Don Maynard, who scored 2 TDs.

The NFL champs never really challenged the upstarts, as their all-star OB missed several opportunities to hit receivers in the end-zone. The victory acted as a turbo-charged boost for the AFL, however the Jets have never come as close to the Super Bowl again.

Betters lost millions on that game. No one ever questioned the outcome. The Jets seemed to have simply outplayed the NFL juggernaut.

In 1984 I ran into Bubba Smith at the Deauville Film Festival. I was attending the gathering for the French magazine ACTUEL. The Colt defensive lineman was in France to promote the comedy film POLICE ACADEMY.

Not #2 or #3.

The original.

Most reporters were huddled around Steve Guttman, the star of the comedy. Bubba was sulking off to the side. He wasn't on my list of interviewees. ACTUEL was more interested in my speaking with Rock Hudson about acting with James Dean in GIANT.

That rendezvous wasn't until after tomorrow's screening of George Stevens' western epic, and I introduced myself to 6-7 280 pound ex-NFL All Star as a longtime admirer. His fearsome tackling at Michigan State had earned the enormous lineman the motto 'Kill Bubba Kill'. I half-expected him to crush my hand, but he smiled when I told him how much I liked his acting.

"Just playing myself."

Neither of us had anything scheduled for the afternoon and I suggested that we retire to the Bar of the Hotel Atlantique. It had a great view of the beach,

I told him about being a Boston Patriots fan.

"Tough luck."

The Pats were my team. Their 1983 season had been 8 wins versus 8 losses. The Baltimore Colts had beaten them twice. Both games had been close I was more interested in the past and Bubba told me how it was to play with Johnny Unitas. He said great without any reservation, but I was dodging the real question and after my fourth glass of wine I leaned over to ask Bubba Smith, “The Colts were such a favorite in Super Bowl 3, how did you lose to the Jets?”

“They got to the quarterback.” Bubba answered without caring who heard that accusation. Most everyone in the bar was French. Few of them had ever heard about Joe Namath's boast about winning against the Colts. They were frogs and they worshiped soccer. Not football.

“The game was fixed?”

A shrug indicated that the answer was mine to decide and I remembered Unitas throwing the ball to the Jets defender and Morall’s 3 interceptions.

“Who fixed the game?”

It was a stupid question undeserving of an answer and Bubba stood away from the bar. A few of the froggies gawked at him. They had never seen a man or woman that huge.

"Excuse me. I gotta get back to work." Bubba Smith went over to watch Michael Winslow delight the reporters with his imitations of a helicopter. I laughed at him too.

The retired footballer avoided me the rest of the festival, especially after spotting me dining with Rock Hudson. Bu I didn’t mention Bubba's confession to the editorial staff of Actuel. None of them were interested in a rumor about a football game in 1969. The editors were having trouble with my article with Rock Hudson. My typing was atrocious.

While I've never seen a replay of Super Bowl III, several bookie friends of mine had listened to my story and mumbled under their breath about how the Mob had threatened the lives of Earl Morall’s and Unitas’ families. Bubba said nothing, but the opposing quarterback had a big mouth.

“We’re gonna win the game. I guarantee it.” Joe Namath's words were carved in stone thanks to strong-arm gangsters. Sometimes there is such a thing as a sure thing. although these days games are never fixed by players. They make too money.

Refs on the other hand controlled the game from start to finish.

Not that I'm pointing any fingers.

In truth I know nothing and I'm happier that way.

Knowing even less would only make me happier.

ps Anita Bryant sang the National Anthem in 1969 whose later anti-gay campaign was immortalized by David Allan Coe’s 1978 song “Fuck Anita Bryant”.

4 - 4 Superbowl 2010 Colts Versus Saints

Since The First AFL–NFL World Championship Game was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum betweeen the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs, the Super Bowl has reigned as America's premier sporting event.

In 2010 thee point spread favored the Indianapolis Colts AFC champs, but my heart hung with New Orleans and I bet $20 on the under of the over-under and the 5-point underdogs. My numbers in the 47th Street mini-pool are 4 - 4.

"I need two touchdowns by the Colts and 2 safeties by New Orleans in the first quarter to win," I explained my chances to security guard at our jewelry counter on 47th Street in Midtown Manhattan.

"Those four scores add up to 14-4." Jo-Jo had 5 large on the Colts. The ex-cop was still behind on his wagers. The Yankees 4-2 playoff victory over the Red Sox had hurt him in 2009. He hated the Yankees.

"Win $200." I was counting on a miracle.

"No one's going to get two safeties in a quarter, let alone a game." Jo-Jo's face was red. His doctor had ordered him to stop drinking beer. The big man agreed and continued drinking beer. His gut was huge.

"You wanna bet on it. 5 to 1 odds."

Jo-Jo took the bet. $50 to my $10. He had retired from the force five years ago. His working security at the diamond exchange paid for his lifestyle of fifteen beers a day. Now down to none gambling was his only reason to walk into a sports bar.

"So in my dream world. The Saints scored a touchdown and a field goal to tie it up at the half."

"Another $400. I like your thinking." Jo-Jo was a Bronx native, but cheered for the Red Sox. He loved the fact that I called my son Fenway. "Then two TDs for the 3rd. Another two hundred and the defenses keeps the score tied until the end of the 4th."

"Overtime." I'm up $800. Someone else can win the grand prize in the extra time. "New Orleans kicker is injured and Tom Dempsey suits up for a 71-yarder."

"Tom Dempsey has to be in his 70s."

"No fucking way. Dempsey is only 63." The kicker had score from 63 yards out to win a game for the New Orleans Saints over the Detroit Lions in 1970. I was 18. "Someone broke the record with a 65 yard field goal, but that was in pre-season."

"Jason Elam tied the record, but that was in mile-high Denver, where the ball travels farther. Dempsey kicked it at Tulane, which is under sea level." Jo-Jo knew his football. "Dempsey was one of the last straight-on kickers. Then again he had half a foot and basically clubbed the ball through the uprights."

"How many times you think the announcers will mention his foot?"

"Every time New Orleans kicked a field goal."

"Five times?"

"You wanna bet on it?"

I don't normally bet, but it was the Superbowl and gambling on football an American tradition. Jo-Jo and I shook hands. The ex-cop went to make his rounds and I stood at the counter, hoping that another tradition 'fixing the game' helped me win all four quarters of the pool. $1000 was the price for flying to Thailand and Fenway was just starting to walk.

Go Saints.

BET ON CRAZY / Betting Super Bowl XXIV

BET ON CRAZY / Betting Super Bowl XXIV

Richie Boy and I bet the Super Bowl according to the Manny Principle, which was that Manny never beat the spread for the NFL's final game and the 1989 championship game matched the 49ers against the Broncos in New Orleans. All week Googs, Domingo, Richie Boy, and I had been badgering Manny for his pick and on Friday afternoon we intensified the pressure.

"Who you like?" Richie Boy demanded out in the open.

"Anytime I tell you, I lose." Manny said from behind his desk.

"But we win." Googs, his first son, had won $1000 betting on the 49ers 19 1/2 point advantage over the Chargers.

"And I didn't see a penny from any of you gonifs." Manny wasn't superstitious, but this losing streak was a joke amongst everyone, friends, foes, rivals, but not his bookie Rip, who had kept the bet secret like a priest hearing an altar boy's confession. "You're invited to watch the game at my apartment. There'll be food booze and a big TV, but you want to make a bet, use your head not mine."

Manny didn't speak to us for the rest of the day. Richie made two sales on diamonds memoed from the Randolph firm across the aisle. Domingo and I spent the afternoon schlepping orders from the polishers to the setters to the polishers again and back to the store. At closing we locked the goods in the safe and Manny paid our salaries. We got paid in cash. $100 bills. Normally we were out the door a second later, but not tonight.

"C'mon, Dad, give us a break." Richie Boy pleaded on bended knees, which wasn't easy since he had popped both ACLs in Jackson Hole a month earlier.

"What?" Manny leaned back in his chair.

We weren't the only ones waiting for his prediction. Mr. Randolph turned up his hearing aid to 10. The Jamaican guard eavesdropped at the counter. There was a knock on the door. It was Uncle Seymour. Manny took one look at his older brother and said angrily, "You don't come to see me here all year and now you show up like a long-lost shoe."

"Don't have a cow." Seymour was a die-hard gambler. "I was only passing by."

"Passing by, my brother, the ex-cop, passing by on the way back from the track."

"Ain't no racing this time of year." The ex-cop loved the horses and in the wintertime gave most of his pension to the stables via the OTB on 48th Street. He turned to Richie Boy. "He's not telling us, is he?"

"No." Richie Boy shook his head. "The old bastard thinks he'll win, if he doesn't tell us."

"Win?" Seymour laughed as only an older brother can laugh at his younger brother.

"What?" Manny was hot. "You think I will lose on my bet?"

"Manny, I love you, but you haven't won a Super Bowl bet since the Jets lost to the Colts."

"That's not Manny's fault." I had to defend my boss on this. Maybe if he gave me his bet and I could double up on the $500 in my pocket.

"Ass-kisser." Googs called them as he saw them.

"No, Manny was fucked by a fixed game."

"They don't fix the Super Bowl." Seymour's statement was more a question than a challenge.

"No, four years ago I'm sitting at a hotel in France. I run into Bubba Smith of the Baltimore Colts who's promoting POLICE ACADEMY. I asked after a few drinks, "How you lose that game to the Jets?" At first I thought he would take off my head, instead he whispered, "They got to the quarterbacks."

"Quarterbacks? Morall and Unitas?" Seymour smirked, because Unitas had a straight reputation.

"Both of them. The bookies had threatened to kill their families."

"They fixed the quarterback?" Manny had won a month's pay on that bet.

"Why you think Joe Namath was so confident. He knew the fix was in."

"It was only one game."

"What about 1979? All the smart money went on Pittsburgh to cover the 3.5 spread, then the bookies stretched it to 4.5. You might remember the game but Dallas trailed 35-17 with 7 minutes left, but somehow come back to score two TDs to beat the spread, fucking everyone who bet the Steelers."

"I lost that bet too."

"I won." I knew Manny thanks to his brother cop partner working with me at Hurrah, a punk disco on West 62nd Street. I had bet my salary on Seymour's recommendation of the Manny Principle.

"Dad, you're gonna lose. Nothing you do can stop you losing the Super Bowl." Googs was in debt to his car dealer. "I win and I'm good for the winter. Think of your kids. Me and Richie."

Manny eyed us all. "No."

"Dad," Richie Boy spoke with the soft tone used it to close deals. "How much you gonna bet. $500? $1000. You tell us your choice and we'll make good your loss."

"A real hero." Manny shook his head defiantly. "You want me to lose."

"I don't want you to lose, but you're going to lose." Richie held up ten C-notes. "You lose every year. Not on everything. Just the Superbowl. We'll make good for you."

"You want me to bet. I lose the bet and then you pay me the money."

"Simple. You come out ahead."

"What makes you so sure that I won't win this year."

"Manny?" Richie Boy, Googs, and Seymour shrugged sympathetically. They were family.

"I can win with you guys. I bet the Broncos."

"You bet the Broncos?" Seymour demanded incredulously, since the 49ers had lost their two regular season games by only 5 total points. "You know something we don't know."

"Only that John Elway is going to win a Super Bowl some day."

We held our breath. Manny didn't think it was funny and pointed a finger at his son. "Okay big shot, just remember what you said, because this year I'm winning big."

ThatvSunday went to Manny's apartment in Grammercy Park. The extentive spread camefrom Little Italy. The couch was big enough to take Googs, Seymour, Richie Boy, his wife from Buffalo, and his two high school friends; Werthel and RD. We bet heavy the other way from Manny. The game was a blow-out. Richie Boy paid his father $500 for his loss and we drank the rest of his vodka toasting Manny, 55-10. Niners. Manny was cheered for this bet, but the sixty year old was in too good a mood for my tastes and when his old man and I stepped out onto the balcony to huff a joint some air. I asked, "Why you in such a good mood?"

"Because I bet the 49ers."

"But you told us that you bet the Broncos?"

"And you believe everything someone tells you?" Manny liked answering a question with a question. "Don't believe nothing and don't tell anyone this either."

"Why you telling me?"

"Because no matter if I tell you not to, I know you'll tell your friend Richie that I bet on the 49ers. I want to see his face on Monday."

"But you took $500 from him?"S

"No, he gave it to me." Manny looked over his shoulder and smiled, "Everyone's much happier thinking I have a curse. Why spoil their good time?"

I felt bad about saying nothing to Richie Boy about his father's bet, because he was so happy. Monday would be a different story.< All Mondays are./p>