The Life, Legend & Legacy of Bruce A. Coleman

An Upper West Side Story

Context
“I hope that Bruce downstairs doesn’t give you too much trouble!”
That was the first I’d heard of the man.

That was not exactly what I wanted to hear just two days after moving into a small walk-up on the Upper West Side. The sentence in question was typed by a college buddy of mine. More of an acquaintance, really. While clearing out old tenants’ letters in my mailbox, I found a Columbia Alumni magazine. I knew I hadn’t told the school where I was living (It was enough they had my phone number to hit me up for donations 47 minutes after graduation), so I flipped it over to see who the magazine was addressed to. I actually knew the guy! I sent him a Facebook message to let him know about the wild coincidence, and to tell him I’d be happy to send along the few coupons, old bills and AMEX card I found to his new home. He got a kick out of the idea I was living in the apartment, and sent a lengthy message about how to handle the mail situation. But it was the last line of his note that made me dizzy.

What do you mean, “I hope Bruce doesn’t give you too much trouble”? Who the hell is Bruce? What kind of trouble?? Why didn’t that shady real estate guy with the weird lips tell me about this Bruce? Was this the reason my friend left the apartment ??? Is my life over? Will I ever sleep? Do I have a Duplex situation on my hands (Very underrated Ben Stiller movie btw)?? 
I spent the rest of the night waiting for a knock on my door from a nightmare named Bruce. 
It never came.

It Begins

The next day after work, I came home to a Post-It note on my door:

Welcome to the Apartment
-Bruce.

Shit.

The meeting

That Saturday night, my roommate and I invited a few (very loud) friends over for a little house warming party. About 2 hours in, the doorbell rang. Standing in the doorway was a young man -I’d say about 29- with a look of discomfort on his face. 
Was this Bruce?

“Hey man” he began, “I don’t care…but I just got a phone call from my neighbor — I live downstairs, btw — and he asked me to ask you to lower the music. Again, like, I really don’t care, but he asked me to ask you so…I think his name is Bruce, maybe?…ok cool.” 
He turned and left. The door slammed shut — by accident, but it heightened the drama nonetheless.

I turned to my roommate. 
“I’m going to deal with this,”

I went downstairs to the ground level of the building and went to the door of the apartment directly under ours. I gathered myself and knocked forcefully.

“Bruce!! Open up! It’s Rami, your upstairs neighbor. Let’s talk this thing out!”
Nothing. 
After five minutes, I turned to leave…but then I heard a faint voice coming from inside the apartment. I waited. 
Another five minutes passed.
Then, finally, I could hear the lock turning. The door slowly opened.

It was Bruce.

Bruce

There he was, looking absolutely nothing like I had pictured him in my head. To be honest, he didn’t look too great. Like, he was in bad shape. 
A man in old faded tighty-whities and a wrinkled undershirt stared back. He was frail, gaunt and had an oxygen tube running from his nose all the way to a machine in the back of the room. 
He had great hair, though. Suave, thick, silver. 
We sized each other up in silence for about a minute. I extended my hand.

“Hey, I’m Rami.”

And this was the first thing he ever said to me:

“I’d shake your hand…but a month ago I tried to kill myself with sleeping pills…I fell asleep for two days on my arm. I pinched a nerve and won’t have strength back in my hand for many more months.”

He slowly held up a limp arm to show me.

“Oh. Uh, ok, hi then. Um, do you want to talk about it?”

He invited me inside. The small studio apartment was dark and dank. A large table stood against the back wall, directly in front of the door. To the right, a bathroom and a small kitchen, to the left (and to the left again, so you’d be facing a space behind the door) was a large bed. Wooden sculptures and paintings covered every inch of the apartment. Off to the back, there was a small door that opened to a room he created by building a wall. This was where he slept. Inside that small room a large desk that ran against the wall, and bed. A glass door opened to tiny patch of patio behind the building. We sat down at the table.

First, he explained his condition — it was emphysema. 
After a forty-year career running a renovation company, along with hearty hobbies for sculpting leather-working and woodworking, Bruce had inhaled enough fumes to put his lungs on the ropes. Because of his emphysema, it was nearly impossible for Bruce to walk around his apartment without losing his breath. Worse, he could not physically travel to the testing facility where they determined if he warranted a transplant. It was a vicious cycle that was inching him pretty close to death. 
He had not been outside in close to a year.

My phone buzzed. It was my roommate. Everyone were curious if I was still alive. It had been two hours.

I told Bruce it was nice to meet him, and apologized for the disturbance. I waved goodbye, making sure not to try and shake his hand.

I closed the door behind me and digested the experience.

The next night I doubled my order at The Hummus Place, and knocked on Bruce’s door again. I waited the ten minutes it took him to make his way to the door. 
“Do you like hummus?”
He smiled and motioned to the table.

Stories

Over dinner, and the many months that followed, he told me countless stories from his life; about his road trip from Germany to India, his farm upstate, his stint with Armando the drug cartel in New York. During our weekly hangouts, he told me about his Harley, his love affairs and his music. We watched Old Western movies and listened to Coltrane. He gave advice on girls and taught me woodworking techniques. We scheduled a long overdue trip to the eye-doctor that finally saw him go outside. We gossiped about the other wackos in building and devised elaborate plots to kill the mouse terrorizing my apartment. He told me about the special needs students he used to teach, and his favorite restaurants growing up.

He loved telling the stories of his life — the same ones over and over, too. It was more of a medication than anything else. Having the chance to tell these stories reminded him he had lived a hell of a life and would leave a hell of a legacy. That he wasn’t just a body waiting to die.

I encouraged him to write his stories down.
So we found an old Macintosh computer- you know, the heavy ones with the fat screen. I showed him how to open a word document and threw in some extra tips like copy+paste.

Every day, he typed.

Beyond

On New Years of 2014, Bruce passed away in his sleep. 
I was sad, but grateful for the chance to form such a meaningful and unlikely friendship.

Bruce ended up typing 11 stories before he died. It was his dream to publish them and share these stories with the world. Shortly before he died, he sent his stories to me to proofread. I never had the chance to send the edited versions back.

Two years since his death, I’ve come to the realize that the biggest gift I could give to my friend Bruce would be to publish these stories myself.

Thanks to Medium, I’ve finally found a platform to do just that. 
Re-reading these stories has been a powerful experience. While they might not be the defining moments of his life, they are the 11 stories a man has chosen to serve as an overview of a life lived to the fullest. I’ve mostly edited for capitalization and spell check — or instance where the sentence simply did not make sense. But for the most part, I’ve tried to give Bruce a chance to speak for himself.

Stories 1–8 show a man trying to capture the essence of his youthful spirit. By the final 3, you can read through to a man trying to come to terms with a looming death. I don’t expect you to read every story. But read one or two, and maybe come back to them in the future. Personally, I recommend Armando’s Pouch, Bindi Bazar and Suicide Again. 
Without further ado:
 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Life Stories 
By Bruce Coleman

Armando’s Pouch

Four FBI agents entered Armando’s apartment looking for cocaine. They got a tip from somewhere. Army’s apartment was a hangout for a group of friends involved in music, theatre, smuggling internationally, drug dealing locally, and just plain getting together and getting high on good weed. We rented a plane and took regular flights to Colombia. I wanted to sleep with the pilots girlfriend, but I always kept that to myself. I had been staying on Armando’s couch until I could find a place of my own. Another friend of ours was staying in the guest bedroom.

For the rest of the afternoon, friends continued to arrive at the apartment while the FBI continued searching. They were all greeted at the door by the agents and we were told to sit still and wait for them to finish searching the apartment. Friends kept arriving and were searched accordingly. Amazingly, not a single friend had brought even so much as a joint to army’s place that day. Soon, 20 or 30 people showed up to hang out. We all sat around for a few hours patiently, while they searched. I had been living at army’s for about a year and during that time I become one of the best leather crafters in New York. I had already designed my own line of leather and snakeskin fashion belts and evening bags which I had been selling to Madison Avenue Boutiques and some department stores. That business venture afforded me my first trip around the world.

We all sat and watched the FBI agents search — and for a real good reason. While we waited, I thought about when I was in Greenwich Village with some friends earlier that year, and we walked into leather craft shop — they had become extremely popular at the time. The moment after we entered the store, a few of the store personnel and the owner himself, approached us. “Excuse us please, we happened to recognize you. You are Coleman and we would appreciate if you would please leave our store . It’s nothing personal, we are just trying to safeguard our designs.” …This was the greatest flash of ego I ever experienced with my leather-work.

I was high on success and accomplishment even though it was only leather-crafting.

Back to the FBI search. Almost every friend in the room was nervously aware that the pouch Armando was wearing was crafted by me, custom made for Armando and contained a secret security pocket for carrying small amounts of contraband, mostly cocaine. The agents asked Armando to hand over the pouch. They shook the pouch and looked inside, but never found the secret pocket. The small stash was taken care of. As for the larger stash? The real stuff? Well let’s say Armandos intuition to remove the stash from the apartment the night before was certainly timely. And pure luck.
 All the agents were able to come up with was a small box of grass. 
They didn’t find what they were looking for,

The agents were dismayed and were ready to leave the apartment. One of the agents tossed the box of weed back to the coffee table and cracked a smile. 
“I guess you’ll be wanting this back.” 
The painless ordeal had passed now. When the front door of the apartment closed after the last fed left, a round of applause went off for me, having crafted this beautiful leather pouch with the secret pocket that fulfilled its intended purpose. That night Armando gave me the guest bedroom, and our other friend slept on the couch.

Cat Burglars on Riverside Drive

In the cat world, the Siamese and the Abyssinian take the prize for intelligence. They are quite beautiful. These felines show great affection for their keepers. When paired up with other intelligent animals or humans, the result can be an entertaining show. I had the good fortune to live with both; my first pair of cats were an Abyssinian named “Little Shit” and a Burmese named Burma-Shave. I got the idea of Burma Shave because we used to drive to Miami beach in that 1952 Chevy deluxe to see my cousins, and use their cabana and swimming pool at the DiLido hotel on Collins avenue. On Miami beach The Burma Shave billboards popped up every few miles. Little Shit was the tough one. He once saw a bird on the window sill try to pounce on it, accidentally knocking out the screen and falling 12 stories to the ground. At the animal medical hospital on York Avenue, they told us it was some kind of record for a cat to survive a fall of that height. He only broke one back leg in the fall. They operated on the cat about three times including putting a metal pin in the leg with screws holding it together; Less than a year later he was back to climbing the carpeted wall in the living room.
 In addition to the two cats, I also had springer spaniel dog. Rip; the spaniel was flown to Los Angeles monthly with the dog trainer to do Heinz dog food commercials and to be on the box of prime dog food. The cats, especially Little Shit, would love to climb the carpeted wall straight up to the ceiling, in the living room. Rip always tried to chase the cats up the wall unsuccessfully so he was happy that the cats just let him snuggle and sleep with them. One day, we came home to a most interesting predicament, it seems that the three animals together had formulated a strategic manuever to satisfy their adorable little appetites when there were no humans in the house to help them. 
 The cats, well mainly Little Shit, learned how to open the refrigerator doors and let Rip the spaniel drag the food out onto the floor for all to share — certainly a three man job…or rather three animal.
It wasn’t good enough to eat the turkey on the kitchen tile floor, no. They just had to drag the entire twenty pound bird with stuffing and gravy, out in to the living room so that they could “neatly” proceed to enjoy their dinner on the carpet. Where else…?

We started to tie the refrigerator door handles together with a dish towel to prevent unauthorized entries into the fridge.

But every now and then, I snuck back and untied the doors.
I wouldn’t want the gang to lose their edge…

Hells Angel’s Rescue

My first bike was only a Honda scrambler, but I loved it. The design!
I only weighed about 140 pounds, so a Harley was way more bike than I could pick up and toss around. Besides, the respectable bike of the day was a BSA or a Triumph 650. 
But when I first saw the Harley Sportster, I knew that would be the bike I could live with for all times. I was working at the time as an assistant art director in a Madison avenue traditional Advertising agency. I was enjoying the last moments of the pre-digital, pre-computer Madison avenue. I was sure that this was about the last time anyone would cut and paste galley proof type. The world was moving on. I rode that Honda from Sheepshead Bay to 52 & Park every day, to the ad agency, Abbott Kimball. It was a known agency those days with good high fashion accounts. It felt great riding that Honda even though it was becoming a little small for me. I was ready to move up to a larger bike, passing the 650’s , right to the sportster, almost 900cc’s. 3x the power of the Honda.

I was picking up the Honda from the Honda service shop one afternoon, tearing along the entrance to the belt parkway and I heard the drive chain snap, leaving me stranded. I had a few basic hand tools, but no spare parts. I just sat there for a few minutes wondering how hard it was going to be pushing that bike back up the ramp and back to the dealer’s shop. Shit. This could happen to anyone., but I like an uncomplicated life. A few more quiet moments passed and I gazed back up the ramp, getting ready to start pushing. Now I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. About eight Hells Angels, of course all on Harley’s were filling the landscape. I told myself that they were going to ride right by me. Wrong. They all pulled up, and started to get off their bikes. Im dead. Its 1968 or69 and the Angels carry quite a reputation. 
“You snapped your chain, huh?” 
“Yeah, I guess ill be sleeping here tonight.”
 “Not quite.”
 He called for his buddy to get the bailing wire out of his saddle bags.

It took him all of about 12 minutes to wire my chain back together. 
“This will hold you for about a day or two, so get it back into the shop right away.”
“I hardly know what to say. Can I buy all of you a beer at that pub?”
“Thanks, but we have to go. But the next time you see a biker in trouble, you’ll stop and help them.”
 And I always did from then on. I learned a good lesson that afternoon, and enjoyed 40 more years of Harley Davidson riding.

Susan and Paul

Mandy and I had been together for 10 or 11 years. All relationships have a shelf life. I was sure ours does too, but we were doing fine. We were in Ft. Lauderdale in some sterile condo with a pool. Yippee. You had your hippy tenants; your trailer trash crowd and your phony sensitive pretend intellectuals. Everyone smoked weed and drove a VW or a Toyota, beige or silver. You ate breakfast at iHop and smoked a joint by the pool at night…which is also where you’d scope out who you wanted to sleep with. I’m a little too skinny in swim trunks. I’m always so damned self-conscious. And I’m always amazed when I got together with some nice lady. When do I finally attain a realistic and hopeful self image?

Susan also lived at Oakland park apartments. She was so incredibly beautiful and sexy, she would win the wet t-shirt contest any night that she would show up at “the candy store” bar and night club. All the regulars and the predictable were there. And they all wanted to do Susan. Mandy and I got to know Susan in passing around the condo. Sometimes it became a little difficult sitting around near Susan, she put out a wave of passion, and eroticism, just sitting there, that made you want to taste her heat. I could only imagine what it would be like if that woman were to set out to make you feel good. Dear lord, where is Susan McFinn these days?

Mandy and I learned that Susan’s boyfriend, Paul, would be getting out of prison next week. Paul looked like Bluto from the Popeye cartoons. He weighed two hundred pounds with no fat. Paul came home, and suddenly, all the tough, slick Florida gators ceased to go over and hit on Susan. Mandy and I continued to stay friendly with Susan and Paul was amazed that Mandy and I were the only folks that had the balls to keep coming around. I explained to Paul the night we all met for the first time, that Mandy and I had just become friends with Susan and that was all, while we waited for him to get home from detention. Paul was impressed.

At around that time. I was working as an extra in the movies. The movie was “Last Plane Out, “ starring Jan Michael Vincent, and directed by Ricky Nelson’s older brother David. It was fun for me playing the extra part of a Nicaraguan soldier, running around and blowing up stuff. When I got home that night, Mandy and I went up to Paul and Susan’s. I brought some grapefruits and some joints of real good weed. I was already considered Paul’s great buddy. They were broke, and hungry, so this was a nice little evening.

“Susan, Paul, I have a great idea for you. It’s Fun and you’ll make money. Come with me to the movie set tomorrow morning and I’ll tell David Nelson that he really needs you in his film.”

Well they made such an outrageous couple, Bluto and Rita Hayworth, that they were both hired on the spot. Now Sue and Paul loved Mandy and me. It was then that Paul turned to me and told me that with all the murderers he met in his criminal life and in prison, I was the toughest guy he ever met. We sat there eating fruit and ice cream, basking in the warmth of a weeks salary while we puffed some great smoke. I was just telling Paul that he should take my VW and to take Susan for a ride the next day to celebrate our friendship and them getting the extra work in the movie. We turned around and there were Susan and Mandy, sensuously making love on the plush shag carpet, in the dimly lit living room. This was quite a shock for Paul (me, I’ve seen it all). Paul turned to me and asked:
“Bruce, does this make us brothers in law?”
 It’s funny — with everyone trying to get Susan into bed, it was Mandy, my woman, who got her. 
Good girl.

Life Stories Vol.2

Five pipes — no waiting

I am an extremely talented master carpenter. I’m also foreman of my renovation group of craftsman, doing co-op and condominium apartment construction renovation on the West Side of manhattan. I build in the classic Roman and Greek architectural style. I have a list of clients waiting to have me build new kitchens or bathrooms for a quarter or half million dollars on West End ave, Central Park West, Columbus ave, etc. I ride my Harley to the job site, pay the doorman to watch my bike, and build with crown header moldings, all doors are cased in fluted or scalloped door casings, all moldings running into formal plinth block bases. It all looks like a million dollars.

I fly down to West Palm every weekend to help take care of my father in his assisted living apartment. He gave me just everything while I was growing up. My mother and father were the most generous people ever. College, cars clothing, everything.

Now I have a fine art degree from Hunter college and a teaching license with the Board of Ed. Im proud to have finished school. With honors. Summa Cum Laude. I taught in a special education middle school in the south bronx. I am the carpentry & woodworking teacher. I taught for 10 years before the failure of my lungs forced me to call it quits. Now I’m home with rich memories of classroom fun learning. I had created my own curriculum, because my students were emotionally disturbed and mentally retarded, and could hardly understand mathematics, not even tape measure math.

However, life is routine. To the classroom every day, to visit parents in Del Ray beach, florida, every weekend. I now hate flying, and may not take a commercial flight for years to come, after commuting to Del Ray for years.

I begin to find cracks to fall into, and stools to slip between. I have only smoked weed for a few years. Never a cigarette, never an alcoholic beverage, never a hard drug , nothing, just a puff of weed now and then. I told my job crew they may never, ever bring a beer on to my job site. I fired a carpentry helper because he brought a beer for lunch, after my warning. He threw away a good apprentice job for a beer. What a waste.

One Friday afternoon, after work, my carpenters told me that they had something to show me. We arrived at my apartment, about three of us. These boys had it in mind to turn me on to smoking cocaine, something I had never tried. Well, one puff and your in orbit around the planets. This was very high, compared to anything. The high was extremely high, and the crash back down to earth was cranky and painful. This is not a drug to get comfortable with, it’s way too negative of a drug to enjoy. I ended up smoking coke for about a week or so, to get it out of my system. During that week I got quite an education and met quite a cast of insane characters. The apartment where people gathered to get high was a crack house on 91 street and Amsterdam Avenue. You just show up, take out your money, grab an available pipe, and dig in. After all, there are five pipes, no waiting. I remember growing up in Brooklyn and one of the barber shops on Nostrand Avenue had a sign in the window, five chairs- no waiting. Well, back at the crack house, there was Chef Bo, who claimed he could cook up the smallest possible snip of cocaine to make crack. He was always on the scene, ready to suck up any scraps of coke, that may have fallen on the floor. Then there was the limo driver who left the Lincoln double parked for a few days with the engine running while he smoked crack till his money was gone. No one ever asked what happened to the limo, or the driver. Then there was Jack, the ring leader who owned the apartment. When people paid Jack by check for coke, they would comment about their cancelled checks having countries stamped on, that they never heard of. Then there was Doc, another hanger on, waiting for a scrap of crack to fall in his midst somehow. Characters like this exist all over the world, like trolls under a bridge. Each one of these characters, a real piece of work. Im sure you could even purchase a homicide for a small bag of crack. And of course, as always, sex is for sale, at any imaginable price.

When you smoke crack, you completely take leave of your senses. All you want is just another hit of crack, no matter what ever you have to do to get it. You rob, steal, lie, commit crimes, break into places, scam, swindle, commit violent crimes, just anything to get that next hit. Well bad surprise, the next hit is never as satisfying as the first. So you’re chasing a high which you cant have again. Frustration. Shattered nerves. It takes days to come down from that shaking misery. It’s a wonder to me that people even bother to take that one minute of high, followed by days of crashing. It also confuses and knocks out sexual agenda.
Smoking a puff of grass to relax is so uncomplicated, and harmless, soothing and relaxing, why bother with anything else?

New York’s Finest

I’m riding my Harley Sportster downtown on ninth avenue. Everyone is looking at this bike. It’s red with no front fender. It has wire wheels and slightly raised buck handle bars. This is the most beautiful, exciting, piece of automotive engineering I have personally ever seen. Not since the Jaguar XKE has a design been this exciting. Every time I stop at a red light, someone rolls down a car window and tells me that this is the best looking bike ever. It feels great to be breezing along with 900cc’s of power that simply scares the shit out of me. I rarely ever wind it out all the way. I’m always thinking about safety first, like my thoroughbred, upstate. I never let him run as fast as he can go, I always ride him bareback. That gets scary at a full gallop.

Meanwhile, I’m shifting back and forth between second and third gear, keeping my spacing with the green lights. I’m listening to Pink Floyd’s brick in the wall. David Gilmore is playing the hottest guitar lick known to man. So I’m feeling like I’m flying. Next thing I know, I’m way over the speed limit. Wait, not so fast, B. Alan. Cole. There is a police van a few cars back. There are six cops in the van, and you’re probably fucked. I think they saw me. I have my valid drivers license with me, all the lights work on the bike, I’m wearing my helmet, and I don’t have any weed on me. So what’s wrong? The van eventually pulls up next to me. They motion for me to pull over to the curb. Ok. Whatever. Hope I wasn’t speeding. I’m standing next to my bike and I have my license in my hand. A bunch of officers approach me. 
“What did I do wrong?”
“Oh, nothing, we just wanted to see the new sportster up close. A few officers are thinking of getting one.”
“Do any of you want to take a spin around the block, its ok.”
“Appreciate you offering but we aren’t allowed. We can only look today.”
 New York does have the finest. Thanks officers, no ticket today.

Bindi Bazaar 1972

We’re in Bombay, India. 
We got here the hard way. We drove. 
After landing in Luxembourg, we took a train to Munich. Germany would be the place to get a good used Volkswagen. Indeed, We found a ’59 beetle convertible. A classic.

Four new radial tires made that car ready for a rugged trip. I truly will not ever have known such an incredible adventure that the next few years had in store for me and Joe. What was to follow, would be the fuel for prodigious ponder and reflection for a lifetime.

First, we spent a few weeks in Europe, just to get our feet wet for roughing it. What an explosion of education and raw experience. France, Germany. England, women, Spain, Morocco, Holland, food, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Italy,….more women and more food, museums, and eventually onward and eastward to Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and finally, India, with a quick trip up north to Nepal.

They wouldn’t let us go through Syria or Iraq. We didn’t want to go there anyway. All the sights and information that you inhale in such a condensed time frame, is just mind-boggling. You become time, moving through space. Or is it the other way around?

It’s amazing when the car would break down for a while and you are wandering around a tiny town in the middle of Turkey, half way between Istanbul and Iran, where no one speaks a single word of English, and you’re hungry, You really get a chance to see what your made of.

Once you pass through Istanbul, traveling east, you’re leaving Europe and entering Asia. It’s a long ride, driving through Turkey. Most of the roads aren’t paved. Most of the time it’s just tire tracks through the desert to follow. Occasionally some truck driver will try to run you off the road for fun. Sometimes you can’t pass a slow trucks for miles, because their tires are throwing up a dust storm that you cant see around. When you eventually step out of your car, your face, body and clothing are encased in fine white dust. All you can do to stay sane is to smoke another pipe of hashish, and just keep driving.

Eventually we’ll get to Iran, but that’s no picnic. It’s just another step on the way to India. The roads at night are hard to follow, and the signs, if there are any, are impossible to read. You’re standing on a dirt road in the middle of the night, on another continent, Asia, and there’s no one around for a hundred miles. 
Try getting comfortable with that.

Joe and I decided to stop driving for the night, and look for a place to sleep, maybe even in some beds. We drove into a small compound with a few shacks, and a sign. An old Turkish gentleman showed us a room. Sparse. The décor was Colonial Deplete. We rolled out our sleeping bags. We couldn’t have driven another mile, and we didn’t feel like sleeping in the car another night.

In the morning, a few other* men came to our room and tried to explain we had to follow them. God help us. We had no choice, there were 6 or 7 of them. They escorted us into a room, and motioned for us to sit on the floor. One by one, they filed into the room and formed a circle, sitting on the dirt floor in the middle of the room. The last man to enter the room, was carrying something we certainly recognized, It was a hookah pipe. These Turkish gentlemen had it in mind to have us smoke that pipe with them in a ritualistic acceptance of brotherhood and lasting friendship. That, we can do.

They started crushing up some tobacco to mix with the hashish. We interrupted. 
“We don’t smoke tobacco, never.” 
“No tobac?”
“No, no tobac.’’
“But pure charas make you crazy!”
“That’s right, we are crazy.”

We all proceeded to take several turns on the pipe. I must say that we were fairly toasted when we got up from that session. And these guys wanted to know how it was that we could just get in that car stoned like we were and just start driving in that condition. 
“Its OK, we were born stoned.” 
I think that was lost in translation.

We left our new friends and headed for Iran. This country has, what may be the worst food on the planet. Pressed lamb meat and white rice. Rice and kabob…only and everywhere. All the bathrooms smelled exactly like all the kitchens. How could Iran have such a terrible lack of selection of food, while Greece and Turkey had incredibly appetizing dishes?

Of course, we had to stop in Tehran. We wanted to talk to some college students and find out what the life was like in the country. Well, all the gentlemen we spoke to, all had the same exact wish. To come to America, to have a girlfriend, and to drive a Ford Mustang convertible — that was the highest priority. 
A desire for better food, was never considered or mentioned.

We had just about all we could stand of Iran. It was time to push on to Afghanistan. We had a thousand-mile drive ahead of us, just to get to Kabul. We were excited; there is a rich culture and history there, much of it war-torn.

Soon after crossing the border into Afghanistan, We came upon a town called Herat. This was a picture postcard storybook vision of a town a few hundred years ago. I gazed down an unpaved road and saw a horse drawn carriage through a misty fog. It looked like a scene out of a Sherlock Holmes movie. You could hear the tinkling of the horses bell. They disappeared into the fog. Only a few gaslight street lamps, dimly lit up the magical scene. A small child ran up to us in the street. “Mister, Mister.” He opened his hand to show us a large chunk of hashish. That’s what these kids do!…Of course we bought it. After the purchase, I looked down at the hashish and back up at the kid, but he disappeared into the fog.

There is a beautiful 2 lane blacktop paved highway running east to west through Afghanistan. Curiously, there are hardly any cars or trucks to encounter, and we have driven this road day and night for a week, to get to Pakistan. The road is, however, used by the goat herders to bed down the goat herds at night, right on the highway, to keep the goats warm . The road absorbs the sun in the daytime and provides a good heating pad for the goats at night.

Too many times, we came careening around a curve at 70 mph, only having to come to a short stop to avoid running into a herd lying on the blacktop. What a world.

The views are incredible. Mountain ranges, lakes, plains…in the distance, across the Afghanistan border, the Soviet Union. 
We continue driving. A herder has moves 80 goats out of the way to let us pass. While he’s ushering his goats off the blacktop, we’re smoking some of the hash we got in Kabul, and we’re gazing at some of the most beautiful, wide open scenery on Earth. Were slowly cruising away and the goat man is waving us good day. He will put the herd right back on the road, till the next car.

Afghanistan is pretty primitive, and Pakistan, which is our next port of call, is a little more civilized. There are large cities in Pakistan. Doctors, and engineers are produced in this country. If you need anything, here’s one place you can get stuff.

All large cities are basically the same, especially now, as computers have taken over the world. In India, Bombay and New Delhi are each large metropolises with computer stores, Burger Kings… the works. But the true magic of India is the mountains, the beaches, the plains, the little villages- thousands of them, spread throughout the country, The popular stop at that time was the state of Goa. The town was Panjim.

It’s about 300 miles south of Bombay on the west coast. Hippies took over this little community, maybe because it was Portuguese settled and not so Hindu. The little cottages rent at 25 to 40 dollars a month, and spread out through onto the beach. There was no electricity or running water. You used the out houses, and went to the well for water.

Joe and I rented a cottage. It had beautiful marble floors and It was about a minute walk to the ocean. Since we had a car, we were quite popular. Almost every night, we, or someone in the next cottage, would steam a bushel of clams or oysters and invite everyone we saw to dinner. It was fun trying to speak all the languages you met. 
This was a paradise of a life that couldn’t possibly go on forever. 
Although some did try.

I was in the tiny town of Calengute Beach one afternoon. I was about to walk back to our cottage, when I ran into some friends that we had met a few nights before at some dinner. They gave me a piece of opium and told me that you “need not smoke it”, that you can just swallow a tiny piece and get really stoned.

I figured I might as well try it. Hell, no one will be doing this any more in a few years. I swallowed the opium and started walking back to the cottage. I remember to walk along the beach, and turn in at the landmark and walk east for 2 minutes and I am at the shack. Wrong. I was so stoned that I got as far as the beach, and I sat down on the sand and just couldn’t move a muscle!

Soon a beautiful sun set itself down right on the Indian ocean, as big as you wish. I sat motionless looking at the ocean all night. I’ll always remember that as the most peaceful time moment of my life.

When daylight arrived, I was able to see that I was just a few steps from our cottage. Years later, I was watching one of the Jason Bourne spy movies which I enjoy, and noticed that the action was taking place at the corner of the road and the beach, right at Calengute! There were super hotels there now and the way of human destruction and personal greed has turned this once beautiful little beach town into a computer infested Burger King nightmare with tourists, international. Soon there’s going to be 12 billion assholes on this suffering planet. Where the hell are people going to shit?

India is a wide open breath of fresh air, especially compared to Turkey and Iran. I could almost even live in India, if I ever had to leave the States (which I would never let happen.) There seems to be a more uplifted spirit and personality with the Indian people. Even an elevated sense of humor. The food here is great and the people want to talk to you, and I love the rain. On the downside, just don’t get bitten by any cobra snakes. One of the reasons I love Manhattan so much is that there are no snakes. The Indian weather is quite agreeable and you don’t need an expensive wardrobe, Its cheap to live and its cheap to die. Just don’t run into one of their cows with your car.

As it turns out, there is a large market place in Bombay, which has pretty much every type of food item, antiques, dry goods , livestock, fish, vegetables — everything imaginable. There’s quite a crowd mulling about the grounds. There were four of us wandering about Bindi Bazaar. I was with Brigette, and Joe was with a tall blonde lady whom he had just met recently. Joe is black, by the way. He’s my best friend and traveling partner for these years. We continue walking about, marveling at all the stuff in the universe in this grand flea market, second only to the one at Tanger, and Algeciras, near the Rock of Gibraltar. There are groups of kids wandering about, and some have become interested in Joe and his white girlfriend. We hustled along putting space between our groups. But they just came closer. They had to make something of it. We walked a little faster, they ran a little closer. First it was just a plum or peach, Then a rock was thrown. It was time to finish up at Bindi Bazaar. We started running and here come the kids. We look around for an exit and there it is — a horse and carriage.

The horseman saw what was happening and he was on the case. He motioned for us to jump in his carriage. Evidently, he was familiar with this bunch of truants. The horseman told the horse something in Hindi, and with that, the horse trotted us to safety. We paid the cabby handsomely and invited him to tea. Honor all around. 
About the horse understanding Hindi, well…

Thoroughbred on Route 82

Coal is a tall, slender, beautiful, incredible, spunky and outrageously fast thoroughbred gelding. No one but me can ride Coal. They may ride Red, the other thoroughbred, or Meg, the quarter-horse. But not Coal. The caretaker’s guests are amazed to watch me bareback riding at a full gallop and catching a Frisbee on the fly while they, get thrown off the thoroughbred still in the corral. Meg has her little foal, a filly who follows her everywhere. Coal also follows Meg everywhere. Rip, the springer spaniel, follows the whole crowd, and the Abyssinian cat tags along when he feels like it.

Our family spends Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the farm. The caretaker and the folks who rent a few rooms from us live there all week. We work and go to school in Manhattan during the week and come to the farm on the weekends to grow vegetables, walk through the meadows, ride the horses, relax and cook out. I enjoy some good country life. I’ll stop off at McArthurs smoke house and buy some smoked cheese and cold cuts. Sometimes I ride to neighboring towns to shop for small items, or to one of the restaurants for lunch. Its fun to ride into Pine Plains and tie up the horses to the hitching post at the Chinese restaurant.

Today, I’m in the horse barn, doing some chores and tidying up their box stalls. Rip dog is wandering around the stalls, generally getting under foot. The Abyssinian is standing on Coals back. Just standing there so he can be high up and see everything that’s going on. Crazy cat knows how to open the refrigerator now. Damn, and now he’s horseback riding. Whats next pussy cat?

The barn has large rolling doors on the coral side, for the horses. It has a small door on the garden side for people. I kept the large doors to the coral closed for a while to keep the horses in so I could check all their hoofs for any problems. I left the people door open. It was a warm bright morning. I heard a little fuss behind me and I turned around just in time to see that beautiful shiny black thoroughbred, bolt up the two little steps and out the small people door that I would have bet that he could never fit through. As he galloped through the garden, I saw an array of tomatoes, cabbages, and summer squash, flying up in the air, and yes, there goes Coal, headed across the gardens, the lawn, past the mailboxes, and out onto route 82. Just perfect. There was no one in the house, I ran into the garage, there were no cars in there.

Shit. 
I ran out on the road and hoped that someone would be driving north on 82 any time soon, LIKE NOW. I saw the old car approaching, it looked like something from the late 30’s or early 40’s. Like a ford or a Plymouth. There was an old couple in the car like right out of ‘Grapes of Wrath’. 
“Is that your horse ?” 
“Yup.” 
“Wanna catch em? 
“Yeah.” 
“Jump in.” 
“Thank you!” 
“How do you want to do it”?
 The farmer didn’t take his eyes off the road. I told him to pass the horse carefully and let me out a couple of hundred yards past him. I was grateful to the old couple for their help, We had a good laugh about our little adventure, and I told them that I looked forward to meeting up with them again some time. I jumped out of the car, and sat on the ground behind some bushes and waited. Here he comes.

To watch that horse run is pure poetry. His black coat glistens in the sunshine. He’s lean and graceful and fast. A joy to watch. I thought back to one Christmas morning when I rode the quarter-horse bareback alongside the other horses, including coal. Rip tagged along too. What a fun party. We all just trotted along through some beautiful meadows, and some incredible forests and streams. A few of the neighbor farmers smiled and waved as we trotted through. All farmers allow passage through their properties. This keeps horses off the roads. Good thing. After a long peaceful ride we arrived back to the warm barn, and for me, there was a wonderful fire going in our fireplace. Once and a while life is good.

Coal is just arriving where I’m hiding. I jumped up and waved my arms. And like I thought, Coal stopped on the spot. I put my arm over his neck and he stood still for me. I climbed up on him and gently grabbed a handful of his mane . We took the road back. There wasn’t even a halter on him so I had to nudge him in the right direction, back to the farm. There was still no one home when I got Coal back in his stall. Now no one will believe my little adventure. 
I figured Coal was probably headed for the Chinese restaurant in Pine Plains. He likes their egg rolls.

Night Ride / Ice Cream Showdown

Jeffry is one crazy son of a bitch and I love him. 
We smoke weed incessantly, and always look for the craziest thing to do. My apartment is just a few blocks away from his in the west 70’s off Columbus. I know Jeffrey my whole life — we’re first cousins. When we were kids, my aunt and uncle went on vacation for a week. Jeffrey ‘borrowed’ the Cadillac, and crashed it around a telephone poll, up the street in Mill Basin, Brooklyn. He got the nanny to say that she did it. His parents would have just killed him…or traded him in for a couple of hundred shares of common stock.

There was a beautiful 30 foot speed boat at the dock behind the house, on the Mill Basin Bay. Inside, there was an incredible billiard table in the den, looking out through the glass walls to the ocean. There were plenty of hang on friends and neighbors trying to be part of this scene. Bill would drive the boat to Wall Street, to his brokerage office.

My uncle Bill had purchased the lot next to his and kept it empty, just so there weren’t any neighbors too close. I guess Jeffrey grew up a little bit spoiled. I remember always having a crush on Aunt Honey. My mother was quite beautiful and she had four sisters. We were a large family with lots of cousins. They have all passed away by now, all of them, including Jeffrey. 
I am the only survivor of all 25 people, all compliments of cancer.
And now it looks like I’m going to kick it soon too.

On one memorable weekend, Jeffrey took that beautiful mahogany runabout speedboat with the Chrysler engine for a ride out to Long Island. That boat was capable of doing 70 miles per hour. That’s fast for on the water. And what a beautiful ride that was. Leave it to Jeffrey to drive the boat up onto a sand bar, and rip out the bottom of the craft. He just took the Long Island Railroad home. Typical Jeffrey move. And yes, Jeff was a heroin addict. And methadone, and weed, etc. I only ever smoked weed. And that was enough for me.

Jeff and I would spend the weekends at the farm, especially when Uncle Bill and Aunt Honey were somewhere else. There were 13 bedrooms in the main house. Six or seven bathrooms, a few dining areas, a library, billiard room, den, etc, etc. The 50 cent tour of the house was more like 12 dollars. You could easily get lost looking for a room. The garage was filled with motorcycles, and 3/4-wheel sport fun vehicles. Grab one and ride out. There was a maze of trails cut through the woods for miles of riding. Night rides were just great in those 4 wheel sport buggys. They had a beefy little engine that could push you to almost 40 miles per hour. That’s fast for a toy. Dangerous too. Sometimes your engine could stall and your headlights would go out. It’s a strange feeling standing out in the middle of the woods in total absolute pitch black darkness and silence. You’re trying to start your engine so you can get moving again, and see out there. Someone eventually comes riding by and helps you to get going again. Its an adventure every minute. Another game we liked to play was shooting old light bulbs for target practice. They left a few 9 mm handguns at the farm for such fun and games. Now as I look back, I realize that we were crazy animals, and it’s amazing that none of us have any old bullet wounds.

One late fall day — when we were not on the farm — Jeffrey called and said that we were taking the longest Cadillac the family had, to call some girls, roll some joints, and go for ride. He mentioned that he just had to make a phone call to the caretaker at the family farm. I didn’t give it much thought cause Bill and Honey took back the keys to the main house from Jeffrey. He only had the keys to the freezer chest shack.

It was warm and cozy and plush in that ridiculously over long Cadillac. We smoked, drank some good wine, and enjoyed a peaceful ride for a spell. No one was paying attention to where Jeff was driving us. I looked up out the car window and recognized that we were near the farm. But why, without the keys to the house? It was winter and pretty chilly out. He drove up onto the property and just cruised around the buildings. The barns, the main house, the generator shack, the pool cabana, the garage, etc. Then the plan came clear. Jeff drove the limousine right up next to the swimming pool. When you opened the car door, it opened right over the water of the heated pool with the underwater lights. Beautiful plan, well executed. Now I realized why he called the caretaker. To crank up the heat in the pool and put on the underwater lights.

“Who’s taking a dip”?

“I’m your huckleberry.” I love doc holiday.

Jeff kept the engine running in the limo, so we had the heater. It was warm in the car and warm in the pool. Our dates were warm too. What an evening! Jeff brought a bunch of big bath towels in the trunk of the car. When we were finished swimming, we went over to the freezer shack and treated ourselves to some ice cream. What a date. Every one had a great time. On the way off the property, we stopped at the gas pump. Jeff picked the lock and we filled up the tank for the two hour drive home. Thanks Uncle Bill and Aunt Honey. You know, Jeffrey is not that crazy, just a lot of fun, and that is exactly the way it happened.

A Devoted Son

As I grew into my 50’s and 60’s, something got into my head about wanting to give my parents a better ending to their life, as they reliably afforded me with everything I needed for growing up — school, sports, a car, clothing…everything.

I always envied my cousin Landy, the stock broker; the way he showered his already wealthy parents with gifts like Cadillacs and such, always impressing the relatives. I was jealous of rich Landy… that is, until he got eight years for insider trading. 
Less is more.

Mom and Dad came up to see the lung doctor and to confirm that mom had cancer and about a year to live. Not a surprise to me as most of the family had already died of some form of cancer.

For the next year, I took the plane to West Palm every weekend to keep my mother company after a few months of flying, I knew all the pilots, all the stewardesses and all the commuters to Boca and West Palm.

After mom died, I moved my dad to a beautiful assisted living apartment, which he loved. I continued to fly to West Palm each weekend to see my father and flew back every Monday, back to my job with the Board of Education. The principal of the school, Mr. Burke was a world class gentleman, and understood what it meant to lose an entire family.

As long as I was in my classroom during class, it was alright with Mr. Burke. To this day, I can no longer fly in a commercial jet plane. I can still fly a single engine piper or Beach Craft. I can even still go skydiving. But I cannot ever go in a plane that doesn’t have propellers again. I’ll take a train to key west before I will ever go jet again.

Dad was comfortably living in his assisted living apartment with nursing and so many other services, it was a dream to find a place that fit with his pension, and soc.sec check. 
My father would be the last one to die, leaving me with about 25 relatives, cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, all passed away, and me with absolutely no one left in my life, with no children, no wife, and fewer friends than I’ve ever had.
 The chips certainly fall. Now pile on top of that, that I will soon find out that I’m dying of a lung disease, and have a few years at most. And I’m talking about some miserable down time to be waiting till the demise. I’m watching all this transpire and I’m trying to maintain my sense of humor, if that’s possible.

During the last few months of dads life, he had to transfer to the nursing home part of the establishment, which meant I was paying rent in 2 apartments. The doctors took me aside and told me that dad had a very limited time left. I cancelled his apartment, and took a gamble that he wouldn’t be well enough to return to his apartment, and that is the way it ultimately turned out. He would have been crushed if he knew. So dad passed away at his next overnight stay at the Boca-Del Ray hospital. And I never had to tell him about the apartment, his cozy retreat. I felt guilty about that for some time. It was a few weeks earlier, that I was getting ready to fly back to N.Y. I was leaving to go back to the airport in West Palm, and if you looked carefully, you could see I had tears in my eyes. A gentleman approached me and asked if I was ok. I explained that I was hoping to give my father a better send off from this world. That my parents were so good to me and my sister, I was always comparing myself with cousin Landy, and I always wanted to do something big for my parents. The gentleman went on to explain that he was the patient manager, and in all the years he was with the home, he never saw anyone fly down from New York every week for the years my dad was a resident here. He went on to explain that there were residents that simply never, ever got a visit for the years he was there. He said what I had been doing showed true nobility and love that he had never before witnessed. I was so grateful.

Charles and Dorothy Coleman spent their retirement years in Del Ray beach, Florida.

Suicide Again, The Passion of Loss

It must have been at least six or seven years that I haven’t taught art school. I had to retire due to my breathing. I taught middle and high school special education to emotionally disturbed and mentally challenged children and teenagers in the South Bronx. Tough school. Tough neighborhood. Tough job. I was the carpentry shop teacher and if I could have, I would have gone to 20. I only made it to 10. The kids loved my class so that made it really enjoyable for me. I worked summers and afternoon extended hours, so I made a great salary for a single guy with a low rent and hardly any responsibilities. I was loved riding my Harley Sportster around town, and upstate. I had friends, girlfriends, and family. Thanks to rent stabilization, I still have my beautiful small, one bedroom apartment on west 74th street, with my private garden.

The breathing problem continued to get worse as time went on. 
I began to understand about emphysema and COPD, and the damage it does to your life before it finally kills you slowly. There is no cure.

I never smoked a cigarette in my life; just a few joints along the way, so I know now that the cause of all this lung damage was breathing sheet rock and joint compound dust. As a master carpenter and foreman of my own little renovation construction company, I inhaled plenty of toxic airborne dust particles generously provided by United Gypsum Products from cutting sheet rock, and sanding walls smoothed out with joint compound and plaster. Years of exposure to these chemicals have left me gasping for breath and now unable to walk more than a few steps without going into breathing shock. I have lost 25 pounds, and I didn’t have that much to spare in the first place. Soon, I’ll look like a skeleton. I live my life in my bedroom; my cable movie channels have been my best friends for the last few years. My Harley sportster is history and so is going outside. Loneliness’ has a new definition. My family has all passed away, parents, my sister, all my aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone. I’m the sole survivor of about 25 people and I’m only 66 years old. And the only one in my family never to have gotten cancer. This year I’ll try to get out in the garden a few times when the weather starts to get warm. It’s a pity not to use something like that. The garden is an extension of my bedroom, but sometimes there are days that the 10 steps to the garden table and chairs are not negotiable for me. I miss firing up that brick barbecue in the middle of a snowy night. Or a sunny afternoon, Life was a little too good. Something just had to fuck this up. A few years have gone by now but it seems as if in just 20 minutes I had become an old man. I used to be 62 looking like 40. Now I’m 66 and looking like 80. 
But I’m still almost good looking and that’s almost good enough.

I’m just lucky that I have been able to hold on to at least a baseline of a sense of humor through all of this insanity. While I’m stuck alive, I’m wondering about when it was that I began to weigh the value of the quality of my life and the inevitable deterioration to continue. Does it make sense to plan a life around suffering ? When is it the right time to let it go? I made a big mistake selling my .380. Just when you need a ticket to forever, you have to start thinking about stupid things like pills, poison, wrists…
 I live on the ground floor of my brownstone, so there will be no jumping for me any year soon. Hanging is too grizzly, and too Dodge City. A bullet would be the easiest. I made several phone calls. Couldn’t find anyone that had a 9 or a 38. So I’m still stuck alive.
My father told me a long time ago that every Jew should have a gun. 
I should have listened. I had three days of tortured breathing in a row. Add that to the general passion of the loss I’m learning to live with….so its got to be pills. I saved up two months of Ambien sleeping pills to take care of the business at hand. I just have to pick the night.
I wondered if I had had a woman in my life if I would actually be following through with this sad decision.

Patti was standing close to my soon to be deceased body. She was holding my health care proxy document. The physician on call explained that a minute after he pulls the air tube out of my tracheae, I’ll simply expire.
Thank god its over. Are you sure that’s what he wants? He insists, Patti held up the proxy. Joe brown was there with Jackie, Rubin was there, but there was no woman there that called me hers. ………

I woke up out of a coma 4 days later. I heard myself scream… Why the F**k am I still alive?!!! Who did this to me !!! Nurses and aids came streaming by my room. Everyone on the ninth floor had heard that I woke up after 4 days. Shit. They pulled the oxygen, and there were no artificial life sustaining implements keeping me alive. I just freakin’ lived. Now give me the B.S about God not seeing this as my chance to go. I couldn’t eat a single bite of food for 4 or five days. My life was a train wreck. And now the big kick in the ass, my right hand is paralyzed. After lying on my hand for 48 hours, I did some nerve damage to my right arm and now my right wrist is drooped down and absolutely without the ability to lift my hand. 
I’m right handed.
I’m a sculptor. 
I’m a master carpenter and craftsman and designer — with a newly paralyzed right hand. 
God punished me for trying to take my life. I don’t have the right to do that. I began to think that attempting to die could have easily rendered me blind or deaf or brain damaged. As long as I was in the hospital, I had neurologist come to my room every day for a month with an entourage of new doctors, with the chief of neurology. They said that no one could predict whether my hand would restore itself or if I am to be without the use of that hand for the rest of my miserable little life. Some doctors told me that I might begin to see some improvement after six months. I don’t think that I could have made a decision, if I was given a choice whether I would want my hand back or new lungs. What a tough decision. You see, my hand could repair itself but I’m stuck with my breathing till the end.

On Christmas eve, six months after the incident, I detected the first slight move of my hand. I was joyed and amazed! I knew then I would get my hand back. It’s 8 months now and I have 80 percent of full usage of my hand back. Since I prayed to God a few times along the way, I cant deny that She might have had something to do with it. So I’m writing my stories about my life experiences, and I can do light carpentry projects. I just cant let myself get out of breath and chance yet another session of breathing shock.

Maybe I’ll find a woman to be with after all these years.
Maybe I’ll build the next piece of sculpture that I’ve been thinking about. Maybe I’ll get a few weeks in Key Largo, that would be a daisy.

But most of all, maybe I wont have to try that suicide again.