Category Archives: semi-fiction

Mango Season for Yai

Throughout the first decade of this century I lived in Pattaya in a lovely house off Soi Bong Koch. The neighborhood had once been a mango farm. The last tree stood in my front yard. Nothing grew underneath the tree. The sap killed grass and flowers, yet during the hot season February to April hundreds […]

COME ALL YE FAITHFUL by Peter Nolan Smith

Pattaya is not a city known for monogamy. Promises of fidelity last, until you leave the room, because this city on Thailand’s Eastern Seaboard offers temptations by the thousands and those temptations rarely say no. Bar girls, rent boys, ka-toeys, booze, and drugs added up to damnation according to Reverend Joe Stannis of the Holy […]

CHOCOLATE MAN by Peter Nolan Smith

Maine is the northern most state on the Eastern Seaboard. The distance from its southernmost border to the Potomac River is approximately 500 miles and in the winter of 1863 the 20th Maine Regiment crossed into Virginia to confront the Confederate forces at Fredericksburg. That summer they avenged the one-sided slaughter beneath St. Marye’s Height […]

KICK OUT THE JAMS by Peter Nolan Smith

In the fall of 1969 my all-boys parochial school entered a chocolate-selling competition with the other Catholic educational institutions in Boston. The top prize for most sales was a concert by a band from Elektra Records. Rumors abounded that the band on offer was The Doors. Everyone wished it was true, because in 1967 the […]

NEW YORK SNOW DAY by Peter Nolan Smith

In the winter of 2010 I woke early to snow flakes fluttering against the window of my Brooklyn bedroom. Beyond the glass a winter storm was decorating the city white. I thought about going back to sleep, except the telephone rang. It was my boss’ son, Richie Boy. “I hope you’re calling to tell me […]