Triggers... and Nuvia

Life is filled with triggers and sometimes I get surprised.  There are the usual triggers like an aroma that can take me back to Mom’s cooking or a song that sticks in my head for a week or two.  Then there are the unusual triggers, like a word you haven’t heard in a while or a memory that just jumps out of nowhere and you can’t figure out why.

Well, this happened to me last evening at the dentist.  I’m sitting in the smallish waiting area, when the receptionist says ‘Hold on Nuvia’ into the phone.  I hear the name and in an instant, I’m back in the 1980’s lost in a memory about my dentist, a coke smuggler named Nuvia, and as crazy a situation as any I’ve put into this story.

In a previous post, I mentioned Steve from Buffalo who lived life as much on the edge as anyone I ever met.  He was given to excess, whether it was a heroin habit, free-basing coke, drinking, smoking two plus packs a day, or dealing in tons of weed.  Steve Pfeiffer was the prototypical outlaw, living on the run, facing down all dangers, and basically as confrontational as you’d ever imagine being. 

For example, I remember a house rental in Brookville, NY where we had a big delivery of bales that were chock filled with seeds and shake.  And by big, I mean there were rooms with bales piled to the ceiling.  So we put together a tight crew and began carefully mixing the shake, buds and seeds into bags and boxes that were destined to be shipped out to the northwest or up to Buffalo or just sold locally.  This kind of operation took weeks and there came a morning when I was there with Steve and suddenly, the local hamlet cops were at the door, knocking after a report from a neighbor that some strangers were seen coming and going at odd times and with high frequency.  I’m like, well this is it, we’re getting popped and it’s been a good run and what was I thinking and I knew Steve was trouble all along and how could I have been so dumb as to be here this morning...  Pfeiffer, on the other hand, isn’t in the least bit fazed.  Without ever opening the door, he waits until they knock another few times and then yells loudly , ‘Who the fuck is knocking on my door this early in the morning?’  And when the cops say ‘It’s the police, open up.’ he replies angrily, ‘I’m sleeping, come the fuck back after twelve if you want to talk to me.’  And when a beat passes without an answer, he adds, ‘And bring a fucking warrant because I ain’t letting you in and this is the last thing I have to say to you.  Now get the fuck off my property before I charge you with trespassing!’ Long story short, the local cops left and never came back.  This is a very wealthy area and he actually faced them down.  People who live in Brookville are entitled to live however they want because they’re all set.  The sick thing was that this was totally typical of him.  Yes, he was given to excess, but he always kicked whatever habit he got caught up in.  He got into some very crazy situations but he always found a way out of them.

So, to get back to the Nuvia trigger...  At the sound of the name, I’m transported back in time to the late 1970s and early 80s.  Pfeiffer is on the scene in Manhattan, living in a downtown loft.  While I called him Steve from Buffalo, that came later.  He actually grew up in Astoria (not far from me although we didn’t know each other at the time) and went to City College.   We grew close primarily as part of the social scene that was typical of the drug-dealing subculture.  He was always on the periphery of things that I was doing until one day, we got together and decided to deal directly with each other.  That happened a lot, and this particular time, it changed a lot of things for me, my circle, and my sensibilities.  Even today, I look back to Steve and remember him walking into my house one day in the early 80s and saying, ‘You really have to get a personal computer.  These things are going to change everything and if you don’t get one, you’ll be left behind.’  Yup, Pfeiffer was my launch into the digital world.

Nuvia...  right...  so Pfeiffer isn’t only living downtown, but he’s taken up with a Colombian coke smuggler named Nuvia.  She was, in a lot of ways, a perfect fit for him -- totally fearless, completely insane, and with an incredibly loud mouth that never stopped spewing obscenities.  And, oh yeah, she also had beaver style front teeth, which takes me back to the trigger. 

So, back around the time when I was working at the Times, my brother returned from an Asian stint in the Air Force with a wife from Oklahoma and took an apartment in Rego Park’s Lefrak City.  I had a short but happy affair with a neighbor of his who recommended a dentist in the area, Ken S.  I hadn’t seen a dentist in quite a while and was happy to connect with Ken, and as things go, we became arms-length friendly.  I shared with him when I left the Times and began my ‘other’ career.  He was an interesting guy, a talented dentist, and I always liked to spend time with him.  At one point, I bought a 14 foot sunfish sailboat on a trailer from him but that’s another story for another time.  So...  time goes on and one day, Max S (who at the time was partnering with two other guys—Jerry S and Pfeiffer) asks me if I know a dentist.  I recommend Ken.  Max sees Ken, likes the result and tells a friend who tells a friend who tells Steve.  Before you know it, Ken has a growing client base of pot dealers who are paying him in envelopes filled with 10s and 20s.  Now Pfeiffer, after his heroin and coke things, had awful teeth and by the time he finished with Dr. S, he had laid out more than 10 grand (which was a LOT of dough before the current stupidly expensive dental pricing happened).  His mouth was fixed and he was happy as a clam.  Next thing you know, he sends Nuvia to see Dr. S and for another 10 grand, he rebuilds her mouth too.  Unfortunately for her, he only rebuilt the teeth and not the bad-tempered, foul-language spewing nature of her madness.  It was pretty funny to hear her curse people out with her Colombian accent...  or at least it seemed funny until one day, she just disappeared.

Steve was around but Nuvia was gone.  No goodbyes, no farewells, no Nuvia.  Did I mention that they fought?  Steve and Nuvia were two of a kind.  Loud, profane and in each other’s face.  And, oh yeah, they both weren’t afraid of owning guns. 

Until, about six months later, I get a freaky call from Dr. S, ‘I’m calling you from a payphone near my office...  The cops were just here...  Homicide cops...  and they’re asking me to identify a set of teeth they found in a burlap sack in Jamaica Bay along with a full set of bones.'

So Ken, being more or less a ‘straight’, tips the cops to Max, Max’s girlfriend, Jerry, Steve, and ID’s the choppers as belonging to Nuvia.  Although he didn’t include me in the mix, the shit hits the fan and about six months later, Pfeiffer gets indicted for murder.  Yes, murder.

Defended by Stanley Siegel (RIP by Alzheimers in 2002), Pfeiffer pleads not guilty.  Siegel puts on a spectacular case, proving Nuvia was smuggling coke for the Medellin cartel, and denying that Steve had anything to do with her disappearance or subsequent reappearance in the sack in the bay.  The government put on a case with neighbors testifying about frequent fights, loud verbal abuse and Nuvia often displaying facial bruising and black eyes.  They covered Steve’s record, from time in prison to his dozen felony arrests that never went to trial to his paying the dentist for her dental rebuild.  After they rest, Pfeiffer actually takes the stand and testifies on his own behalf.  Talk about having a brass set of balls!!  He testifies and gets acquitted because they can’t rule out a possible role of the cartel that she smuggled for.

And this all just popped into my head last night after hearing ‘Nuvia’ for the first time in about 30 years.  BTW, Pfeiffer passed away about ten years ago in Buffalo, the victim of lung cancer.  Perhaps another time, I’ll share some more Pfeiffer stories because there are LOTS of them.  From him flying us around in a Lear to pick up cash, to him swimming the Rio Grande with a bail of Mexican on his back, to him playing the key role in a bank robbery that ‘sort of just happened’ a few years later.  And he never... ever... told me if he did it or didn't do it. Whenever her name came up, which was not frequently, he just smiled and shrugged.

Happy holidays Everybody!!