Kenya, the River Platte, Flanders
Vienna, Istanbul, Berlin
Versus
Moscow, London, and Paris
1914 to 1918
An assassination in Sarajevo to the Treaty of Versailles
World War I
Machine guns, trenches, blood
Airplanes, Zeppelins, blood
Gas, barbed wire, blood
Death in a thousand fields
Verdun
Gallipoli
Tannenburg
Emperors’ armies
Nations’ will
Men’s blood
Victory and defeat
The kaiser in exile,
The sultan deposed,
The Tsar eliminated by the New Men
Yanks, Krauts, Limeys, Frogs, Aussies
Ivans, Turks, Pollacks
Greeks, Serbs, Slavs,
Japs, I-ties, and Scots
Dead by the millions and at the eleventh minute
Of the Eleventh hour
Of the Eleventh day
Of the Eleventh Month
In the year of 1918
A ceasefire to the War to End all Wars.
For a few years.

I’m alone in bed, reading John Toland’s 1918 THE LAST YEAR. Alice rose early and went to Club 57. Her true home. I have classic music from a Philadelphia radio station, a bottle of 1972 Bordeaux, and a joint. No naked body. Alice still thinks she’s too fat to have sex. I think the opposite, but the mirror tells the truth to everyone with their own reflection.

My evening plans are to go to a party and then hit CBGBs. I avoid Club 57. Susan and my old friends, the boys from East 6th Street; Frank Holiday, Andy Reese, and William Lively make me uncomfortable IN that club. Someone spread a rumor that I had robbed Tim Dunleavey. I suspect Andy Reese and Frank Holiday. They are junkies, plus I prefer CBGBs. The bartenders like me. I flirt with girls. Guadalcanal and I snort coke. Not everyone is so friendly. A drunk from New Jersey wanted to fight me. Guadalcanal grabbed the thug and chucked him out with Merv, the Gentle Giant, at the door.

“That was nothing,” says Guadalcanal.

Yeah, that’s all everything is.”

“I meant that guy.”

Alice and her crowd show up. I wave to Lisa Crystal, Holly’s daughter, let in my girlfriend and tell the others to pay. They’ve come to see Pere Ubu, an art band from Cleveland. Sort of a punk Meat Loaf. Alice comes to the bar.

“Can’t you get Susan in for free?”

“It’s not my bar.”

“I’ll pay for her.”

“Why can’t she pay for herself?”

Alice makes a face. I figure the two area couple. We haven’t made love this week. Maybe not last week either.

The Club 57 set come in without saying ‘hello’.

I leave with Guadalcanal.

“Before I came here, I thought Boston was small, but everyplace is small, if you only go to the same places every night.”

“You could always broaden your horizons by joining the real world. Get a 9 to 5. Wear a tie.”

“Yeah, I could always do that.” I have a fear of ending up like Peter Willen, my Aunt Mary’s beau. A socialist with smoke-stained teeth. My mother is scared of that fate for me too.

The GOP scored massive gains in the 1978 mid-term elections. White men hated President Jimmy Carter, They want a strong America to face the USSR.

Prior to the vote the GOP controlled twelve states, now they have eighteen thanks to the media’s portrayal of America losing its way; i.e. the grip of white people over the rest of Americans; Black, Spanish, Asian, and under-paid working classes.

Massachusetts was served by Republicans Senator Edward Brooke and Governor Frank Sargent. My father hated Sargent for not financing I-95 across the North Shore wetlands. I like them the way they are.

No one says a word about World War I. It ended sixty years ago.