Tom Waits...possibly the greatest songwriter America has ever produced. Just genius words...

   

I'm a lazy sod....I'm a lazy Sid...

The Clash......... I still have the 45 of The Clash's cover of the classic 'I Fought The Law'. That's right a 45, a 7" vinyl disc with a hole in the middle and grooves on it, that great music used to be pressed on. You put a needle to it and glorious sound would come out of it... not that kind of needle (you've got a one track mind Johnny). Sonny Curtis wrote it, Bobby Fuller Four released it in 1965 (knocked me out with it then) and The Clash reworked it in 1979 and floored me with it. The same year I saw them at Santa Monica Civic center with Bo Diddley. It doesn't get much better than that...

OPIUM KINGS Novel excerpt

Bad Apple 

   “You’ve got to get that fucking guy's car out of there and park it at some train station or somewhere. Are your prints all over it?” Trebor asks.

  “Probably...yeah.” Bad Apple says.

  “Clean that fucking car and burn it. Far away.” Treb says

   “Anybody know that he was meeting you?” I ask.

   “I don’t know Smitty. Shit. Maybe.” Apples says. “We gotta figure out what the fuck to do.”

   “That’s what we’re trying to do.” Trebor says, “Where’s the body?”

   “In a steamer trunk down in my car.” he says.

   “Are you fucking serious?” I say. “You’re driving around with a stiff in your car? In a steamer trunk?”

   “I couldn’t leave it there Smitty! It was bad enough drivin’ into the city with my head out the window puking...but I couldn’t leave it there.”
   "Where'd you park?" I ask, not wanting to know the answer.
   "Downstairs, out front."
   "Fuck me." I say.

   I look out my window and sure enough Bad Apple's Electra 225 is parked right in front of my building.

   "You had to park the fucking thing there? Right in front of my fuckin' door?"

   "Where the fuck else should I have parked it Smitty?"

   "Fucking Jersey would've worked. Anywhere but my fucking front door. Where's the steamer trunk?"

   "On the backseat, covered with blankets." Apples says.

   "Fuck! What are you keeping the fucker warm? That thing is in full view of the fuckin' neighborhood makin' noise?" I look over at Trebor and he's just shaking his head with a 'this is fucking bad' look on his face.

   "You want me to move the fucking thing Smitty? I will."

   "I don't fucking know." I say. "Let me think."

   Now this is fucking great. It’s freezing mid February weather. The ground is frozen. We can’t turn our backs on Apples. We should, but we can’t. I don’t know what to tell him.

  “You should’ve put him in his car and torched the fucker somewhere.”

  “Damn Smitty. I couldn’t do that. No fuckin’ way. We gotta figure something else out.”

   “Well we ain’t digging a grave in this fucking weather. And I don’t know anyone with an incinerator. Do you?”

   There ain’t no way I’m gonna let him cut up a corpse in my apartment either. Thankfully he never asked to. I can just picture it. Carrying a steamer trunk up four flights of murderous, pre-Civil War, winding stairway and here comes old Mrs. O’Leary.

   “Good morning boys. Ooooh that trunk looks heavy. What’s in it?”

   “Some knick knacks Mrs. O, mostly old junk. A little bit of this and a little bit of that.”

   “Ooooh I think you’re leaking something there me boyos.”

OPIUM KINGS Novel excerpt

Ritchie Dagger...

   As soon as the dealer drops the bags into Ritchie’s hand, boom, all hell breaks loose downstairs. Cops, dealers and junkies are scrambling everywhere. I can hear the cops smashing through somewhere at the back of the building below. Cracking wood, bending metal, breaking glass, whistles, shouts and screams wail up through the building. The dealers and soldiers bolt up the stairs toward the roof. Ritchie and I have no choice but to follow them up and hope to find a way out. The last soldier in front of us turns around and points his gun straight at Ritchie’s head.

   “Don’t follow motherfucker!” he snarls. His eyes wide with fear and survival.

   “Fuck you. Shoot!” Ritchie snaps back.

   There is no way this cat would whack somebody with the cops about thirty steps behind us. But then again he might not give a shit either. Nowadays they’ll whack you for a cigarette. No time for a standoff, bluff called we follow. This definitely ain’t the Plaza Hotel. My heart is pounding through my chest. My brain is exploding in fear and adrenaline rush. With barely enough light to see, Ritchie is following the feet in front of him and I’m trying to follow his. Praying I don’t fall through four floors of this rotting staircase and into the waiting arms of Officer Krupke. I hear gunshots below us and more screaming. Fuck me.

   Help me God, help me God, help me Jesus, hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee now and at the hour of our death amen. St. Jude get me the fuck out of here please. I can’t remember a whole prayer to save my life. Twelve years of Catholic school and I don’t know one complete fucking prayer. Do they still count if you only remember parts of the prayer? I’m just praying and begging, ain’t no atheists in foxholes. How does that fucking prayer go? Give me a prayer, any prayer. Footsteps running ahead of me, footsteps running behind me with deafening noise. Come on, come on, come on. Don’t slip, don’t fall. Shit, piss and motherfucking corruption. Just get me out of here God and I’ll never shoot dope again after tonight. This time I mean it. I swear... Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name... oh Jesus I can’t remember that one either. That’s what Catholic school does to you, they drill it into your head so much that you forget it when you need it most. God damn you Sister Loretta Gerard. No God I didn’t mean that, please just get my ass out of here alive.

   I smell the dust and rotting damp plaster as we bound up the stairs. Where the fuck is the roof? What if there are more cops up there? St. Patty save your Irish son. Finally I see the milky grey light from the open door of the roof shack. Shadows crashing into the twilight sky. As we fly out onto the roof the dealers and soldiers are taking off left. The soldier with the gun turns and just points the gun straight at Ritchie’s face. This time he means it and we know it. We take off right, he takes off left and jumps with the rest of them to the rooftop of the next building over. They disappear down to the roof and scramble. I’m digging this just a little bit.

   Ritchie and I jump-start running toward the opposite ledge, there is no thinking, there is no stopping. More pounding footsteps and shouts coming up from the stairwell behind us. Just jump and fly and pray to make it and land on something besides the ground six stories below. We fly across the span between the two buildings. It looked like a mile but was more like six feet, if that. Crash land and tumble all gravel, tar and broken glass. The palms of my hands are all cut to hell with blood flowing and grit and glass embedded in. My elbows and knees are getting the same punishment through my clothes. Ritchie’s not in such good shape either. He looks more torn up than me. Cursing rips and scrapes, now my knees and elbows are starting to scream.

   “Come on.” I whisper. “Let’s move.”

   Hearts pounding, legs pumping and dry-mouthed we take off through the shadows toward the next building. There is no going down yet. We’ve got to put distance between that scene and the cops. We do it by rooftops for now, just keep flying and praying. We jump off the next ledge, blind again, colliding with the next rooftop, legs and arms rolling and tumbling. All the while trying to be as silent as we can. This isn’t like roof jumping when you were a little kid and you knew every rooftop in the neighborhood. Every jump is unknown distance and landing. We repeat this across a couple of more buildings. More bloody and ripped up with each crash landing.

   We hide behind a roof shack a few buildings down. No cops and nobody following. They may have been too scared to make the jumps but more than likely they went after the dealers and not us. I can see blue and red lights bouncing off the buildings down by the OD. Shadows pacing the OD rooftop. Helicopters approaching with swerving spotlights.

   “Let’s find the fire escape.” I beg.

   Ritchie tries the door to the roof shack and it opens.

   “Down here Smitty. We’ll just stroll out of the front door like we live here.”

   We take our time going down. The building has tenants and there is no need to start a scene by running down the stairs all blood, dirt and wild eyed. Catch a breath, we brush each other off and try to clean up as best we can. We descend wordlessly down to the front door and without hesitation we slide on out and up the street to Ritchie’s cab. God just a little further if you please. Shouts and screams echo up behind us. Don’t look back. We just about fall into the cab. Ritchie starts it up and pulls out. We have to go towards the scene for about a block, make a right and build some distance. My head is ringing, my whole body aches and I’m soaked with sweat and blood. My heart is still pumping with fear.

   "Was that fuckin' great or what!? Ritchie screams.

OPIUM KINGS Novel intro

    When Bad Apple stumbles through the door of Smitty’s Chelsea apartment, looking like murder, Smitty knows his past has caught up with him. Apples is frantic with a story about a drug deal gone wrong and a dead gangster in his car. He’s begging Smitty to help dispose of the body and cover up the crime. It’s New York City 1978, Smitty is a guitarist in a rising national punk band, a junkie, yet no criminal mastermind, but he owes Apples a big favor. Bad Apple is every bit his name but now he’s whacked someone connected with a crew. Someone known to be last seen alive with Bad Apple.

    Fearing cops and vengeful gangsters, Smitty decides to get the band on a quick West Coast tour and get the hell out of Manhattan. During the tour’s debauched anarchy he comes under the wrath of the southern California cops and busted for possession. Facing prison time and massive lawyer fees, his genius solution is to go to Peru and smuggle cocaine back through U.S. Customs in order to raise some quick cash. An East Coast tour beckons a return to NYC, with the merry punk rock pranksters, body dumps and too much junk. And the fear of not so dead gangsters or a holiday at Rikers.

   OPIUM KINGS is an 80,000 word novel about a rock and roll band’s beginnings, rise, implosions and aftermath due to criminal friends, crooked cops, bad addictions and worse decisions. Filled with rock and roll hoodlums, subterranean anti-heroes, noir painted imagery, street-smart action and a touch of Irish wit, it will appeal to fans of Irvine Welsh, Chuck Palahniuk, Jim Carroll and Jack Kerouac...

100 words

One Last Drink... 

   With my head bent into December rain, I'm walking down 57th Street through the chaos of suicide pedestrians and murderous umbrellas. I tip into a pub filled with red eyed Scrooges and elbow my way to the bar. I fold a fifty length-wise so I'll get the bartender's attention quick. I get my pint before everyone.

   Some sap with jutted out lip and a chasm between his front teeth gives me the evil eye. He's pissed because I took the express. He'd better learn how to order a drink in this town or he'll die of thirst.