The Wall of Whores.

Edison James was a new friend of mine who had just been hired a week ago at my job. He recently just moved to San Diego from Dallas, Texas, and was new to the area, was in the market to make some friends. Edison and I hit it off pretty well. Though Edison was hopelessly heterosexual, he was all right. It was rare to meet an ex-marine who was so open-minded. Plus he was handsome. Short and stocky; but pleasing to the eye nevertheless. I like his dark curly hair.

Edison confided in me that today was his 23rd birthday and if I wouldn't mind showing him around Tijuana. He smiled and bashfully commented that he wanted to get a hooker. I said sure, I'd show him around.

After work, Edison and I jumped into his '79 Oldsmobile and headed to the frontier. Edison was very excited; he'd never been to Mexico before and he repeated that information every other five minutes. As the sun began to set, Edison drove his Oldsmobile across the international border without being held up at the Mexican checkpoint. The uniformed official just waved us through, not even giving the car a glance.

"I guess they'll let anyone into Mexico," Edison said as he drove into downtown Tijuana. The traffic was dense and unbearable. "Where the fuck is this place?"

"We're almost there, Buckaroo, keep your cool," I said, noticing his agitation.

"Wow! Look at all the Mexicans!" Edison noted the view coming into the downtown area.

The Central Zone of the city is sprawled out in a sort of a bowl-shaped valley of urban decay. Multicolored buildings, some new, some old, some never fully completed with iron scaffolding jutting into the smog-choked sky spread across the landscape. The chipped and graffitied buildings are dwarfed only by the blaring billboards announcing everything from cheap tequila to the cure for herpes. The surrounding hillsides are blanketed with residential colonias. These multicolored neighborhoods range from elegant haciendas to cardboard shacks. There is always one fire blazing day or night in the poorer quarters so that a choking grey haze hangs over the city. The air is thick with the cloying blare of honking horns and high-decibel Mexican music.

"Turn here." I said pointing to a corner, "There should be some parking spaces."

Edison had problems finding a parking space, the traffic was horrible. He parked his car next to this old cathedral on 2nd and Ave. Ninos Heroes, a pile of ancient stone dating back a couple of centuries. From what I remembered, Tijuana sprang up around the cathedral-like fungus, spreading outward. The sidewalk was bustling with people; all dashing to and fro in their various affairs. As we got out of the car we were swarmed over by ten taxi drivers all on the hustle:

"Downtown, meester?"

"Pussy women? Titty girl?"

"Donkey show?"

"Best pussy...no like pussy? I got boys...twelve years old!"

"Oh, God", Edison said. "I gotta get some smokes."

An old man in a grey dirty jacket, shiny over the dirt, approached Edison with a cardboard box that was full of different brands of cigarettes. Edison pointed to a pack of Lucky Strikes and asked the street vendor, "How much?"

"Vente pesos." The man said.

"What's that? Two dollars?" Edison asked.

"Si. Dos dollares." The old man smiled and took two crumpled bills. "Gracias."

"Yeah...grashiass...hey, dude, where are these hookers of yours?" Edison asked, ripping open the package of cigarettes. 

We walked the two short blocks into the Red Zone. There is this rusted-out corrugated iron wall stretching from one corner to the next lined shoulder to shoulder with whores dressed in a rainbow of spandex and fishnets. They ranged from scruffy, winking, and giggling twelve-year-olds to toothless old hags all vying for our attention. Pawing us as we walked by, grinning and showing silver-capped teeth, groping for our privates.

Being a respectable homosexual, I declined. On the other hand, Edison went ape shit. Like a kid in a candy store, Edison glazed over the ensemble with crotch growing stiff and lust-filled cold dead fisheyes. He sidled up to this one young Indian girl in a white spandex one-piece with plastic see-through platforms. Actually, she was pretty, in a slutty way. She had a great pair of bazoombas.

I explained to the smiling whore that it was my friend’s birthday and how much was the act going to run. She said thirty dollars. I slapped the money into Edison's hand, wished him a happy birthday, and they both went up the worn wooden steps of a nearby hotel.

I leaned against a parked car and my attention quickly turned in the direction of shouts and pathic yelps. An elderly white man was being beaten and then stabbed right across the street; the cholos dragged his bloody body into a shit-strewn alley. What an image, the old man’s pink face under a shock of silver hair, his mouth a bloody hole, arms flailing. No one did anything to help him. The man lay there whimpering in the garbage as his assailants went through his pockets. I was disgusted, yet at the same time intrigued. This town never ceases to amaze me, I thought.

As the police finally arrived ten minutes later at the scene of the violent crime, Edison staggered down the steps, covered in sweat, and wearing a sour look.

"Well?" I asked.

"Worst sexual experience I ever had!" He retorted as we walked into the night. "When we got into the room, she pulled down her pants and her fuckin' cooze smelled like a mixture of raw sewage and rotten fruit! I couldn't even get it up! So, I got the cunt on top of me and she rode me like a champ, but the expression on her face was such a blank turn-off...I finally came. She wanted more money, man! I just pulled up my pants and left."

That'll teach you to fuck women!

Edison kept picking at his crotch. "I hate the type of lube that she used. It's making me itch."

"Hopefully it's not the lube." I quipped.

Edison wanted to go to one of the mega-discos on Ave. Revolucion and I agreed. We chose Iguana Rana's. Paying the fifteen-dollar cover charge, we stood on the balcony up on the second floor and watched the mass of people gyrate and grind to the steady rhythm of the DJ. We must have had ten Long Island Ice Teas between the two of us and got pretty drunk. At one point some fat girl, to amuse her friends, backed that thang up and ground her massive ass against my crotch. I rolled my eyes and said, "Leave me the fuck alone, you cow!" She and her friends said some derogatory remarks as they walked away, but I didn't hear them, nor did I care.

Getting really shit-faced, I explained to Edison that I needed to go to work the next day and bid him a good night. Outside I hailed a Taxi Libre and started home. However, the fucker was careening at such fast speeds that he was making me ill. I ordered him to pull over, I exited the cab and puked all over the curb and my right shoe. The cab took off and I staggered the remaining three blocks home.