Blow Torch Inward

Woke up with a start - with a feeling of putrid angst. Staggered to the shower and as the hot water careened over me and the steam swirled - black sordid images of the night before popped in my mind like the flash of a camera.

In San Diego took the train to Pacific Beach - wanted to leisurely spend the afternoon in the porno theater there, understand? Guess not. Anyway, plunked my seven at the window and entered.

On screen some asian cooch was getting banged in the back seat of an convertible as they drove down the freeway. Porno is scratching the bottom of the barrel if it has to succumb to such cheap thrills.

Speaking of cheap thrills - sat in the back row like a good fag when the small Mexican next to me whipped out a glass pipe and with a small blow torch began smoking crack without reservations. As I sat listening to the crackle and pop of the drugs mixed with the shrieking of the she bitch onscreen, I smelled the aroma of said crack and the tingle of tired old cells began to activate.

The little Mexican - face shimmering in a fine layer of sweat - handed over the pipe, "Hey, man - want some."

"Nah." I croaked. "Nah, I don't do that shit anymore."

"Don't do it anymore?" He said mechanically. "What do you do now?"

"I write. (Cough.) I'm a writer."

"Really?" He takes another obscene drag. "What do you write?"

I smiled inward, "Garbage."

Ah, fuck it, I thought. I looked over to him, reaching, "May I?"

"Sure, man...it's only dope."

klick - fffft - wheeeeeee!!!!

Small white sparks exploded behind my eyes - my body felt that 60 watt current. "Damn." I quivered. Haven't felt this good since I did dope way back when as I was feeling the blues.

"Yup." The Mexican smacked his lips. "Sure fire way to wipe away them blues."

After a few more hits I was a clicking, teeth grinding, jittery mess. I needed beer. The train ride back to the border was a painful ordeal - everything was sharp in focus and amplified. Some American tourists were being exceptionally loud and all I wanted was to kill them. But I digress, I am not a psychopath...

I hopped the border and made my way through those teeming masses - brown bloodshot eyes followed my every move - and entered Bar Villa Garcia in the plaza.

The joint was packed wall to wall with screeching gesticulating fags. I stomped up to the second floor and ordered a beer. Taking a table it was only a matter of seconds before I was accosted by the local 'buy me a beer, meester' boys. Scattah - let me enjoy my beverage. One of three looking mortally wounded.

Tomas enters the stage and sits with me. We sit for a full five minutes without saying a word. I finally croak, "You holdin?"

Under the table he slips me a paper and I hand him cien pesos. I walk into the bathroom - a den of penis peepers, cock suckers, and pervs. I find an empty stall - close the door - next to me I hear the tell tale sign of sniffing and the other side the slurping of some miate making rent. The smell of shit, piss, and chlorine wafting in the air, I empty my package onto the toilet dispenser - chop out three lines with my Cosco card - thank god it now has a purpose. Roll up a 20 peso note into a cylinder and snort-wheeee!snort-whooo!!

I lean back up and ask myself, Why?

Any addict will tell you and that it is a well known fact a tired long winded fact that addiction comes from the course of pain and worry. I scratch my nose - check for residue. I have not touched the stuff in years. Why now? And then it dawned on me - I am paranoid of the out come of this book that I had written. A book that has enveloped my mind the past few months. It is done and is going to be published in a few weeks - I should be happy. But, I am not. Maybe the content has depressed me - all the trauma and degradation that I had put myself through the last 20 years. I don't know.

I return to my table and finish three quick beers. I strike up a conversation with an attractive bespectacled lad named Javier and he being quite literary. Well read. We sit and chat over authors - Kerouac, Shelby, Burkowski, Hemingway.

Around 3am we are in a hotel and doing that which nature doesn't abide and I feel nothing. I just go though the motions. As Javier lay asleep wrapped around me - my mind spins. I think of the new book I had started - this one begins at birth and relates the story of my adolescence. The horrid parents, the sad school days, the ravaged coming of age. I thought the title fit: Fried Chittlins. Gray and disgusting. That put me in an even more frump.

I lay thinking....thinking...thinking....smoking...smoking...smoking. Perhaps I need a bit of road traveling. Maybe a little adventure through Mexico. I have no goal or plan in my life and that still worries me. My life is so open - yet so fitfully alone. I can't seem to connect with this human species.

When Javier rolled over, I silently dressed and left the room. The sun crept over the horizon when I found a hot dog vendor on Revo - stood there munching watching the hung over tourists drag themselves back to the border, watched the patrol cars slowly creep by, the transvestite hookers clomp around...

There has to be more. I hailed a taxi and took the long ride back to la playas. Still feeling the methamphetamine, I sat in my room at my laptop and cranked out a few more antidotes in my new book holding nothing back - wrote raw peeled tales of a horrible past.

I guess I have found my calling....but to what end?