Burned.

I got lobotomized drunk in Bar Buen Tiempo and then went to a queer bar that stays open till dawn. A skanky little hole in the wall in an alley in the Old Mercado. I don't even think it has a name. Just That Bar. I must have had more drinks at the queer joint, because there was a lapse of time. It was getting light outside when the bar hits one of those sudden pockets of quiet. Quiet is something that does not happen often in a queer joint. I guess most of the fags had left. I was leaning against the bar with a beer I didn’t want in front of me. The noise cleared like smoke and I saw a skin-headed cholo looking straight at me and standing three feet away.

He didn’t come on faggish, so I said, “Howzit going, man?” or something like that.

He said: “Do you want to go to bed with me?”

I said, “Okay, let’s go.”

As we walked out, he grabbed my bottle of beer off the bar and stuck it under his coat. Outside, it was daylight and the sun was just coming up. We staggered through the Old Mercado passing the beer bottle back and forth. He was leading me in the direction of his hotel, so he said. I could feel my stomach knot up like I was about to take a shot after being off the junk a long time. I should have been more alert, of course, but I never could mix vigilance and sex. All this time he was talking on in a sexy southern voice which was not a south Texan accent, and in the daylight he still looked good.

We got to a hotel and he put down some routine why he should go in first alone. I pulled some bills out of my pocket. He looked at them and said, “Better give me ten.”

I gave it to him. He went into the hotel and came right out.

“No rooms there. Let’s try The Milano.”

The Milano was right across the street.

I waited an hour and by then it occurred to me what was wrong with the first hotel. It’d had no back or side door he could walk out of. I was so pissed if I found the bastard I was going to strangle him. I waited around The Milano and looked for the kid all through the Old Mercado. About noon, I got hungry and ate a plate of tacos with a glass of beer, and suddenly felt so tired that when I walked out of the restaurant my legs were folding under me as if someone was clipping me behind the knees.

I took a cab home and fell across the bed without taking off my shoes. I woke up around six in the evening and went to franks. After three quick beers I felt better.