Wednesday, February 20, 2013

In Dreams You're Mine, All the Time...

Tossed and turned in fits of nostalgic dreams last night. Particularly disturbing was the subject matter. The entire venture was focused on one Juan Holguin. Who's that? An old romance from days gone by. Actually, an off and on, sporadic, one sided romance which lasted for six fractured years.
Let me get you up to speed: I had first met Juan when I bunked at the Rescue Mission during my first run in El Paso. I was smitten the moment we had met. Tall, exotic looking, dark skin, beautiful eyes, and that naturally toned physique which no gym could produce. One of The Wild Boys who ran the crazy back streets and dusty alleys of El Paso cavorting brazenly with gangsters, drunks, hobos, and addicts. Leveled headed and non-judgemental, Juan was. A lost Angel doomed to self destruction. And the best part, not a queer acting bone in his sturdy torso.
We eventually moved into an apartment together.
Juan and I both acquired jobs and when we weren't working, we busied ourselves fucking all over the apartment in a myriad of interesting positions. It was gay heaven. Our own private passion pit. Until one day when I returned home from work and found his wife of two years and one year old daughter sitting on my couch. In an overly dramatic act which only a scorned queen could understand, I booted the entire clan out into the streets within a matter of minutes.
Six months later, I was renting an apartment in Juarez and while visiting El Paso, I ran into the Holguin family in Park San Jacinto in downtown. He excuses himself from his wife because "I want to see what his apartment is like in Juarez, babe". The wife dutifully returns home. We run to my place across the border and fuck till we passed out from exhaustion....
Another three months pass and I am invited to rent a room in Juan's house stateside. Sure, why not? For an entire year, whenever wife was out shopping or at church or attending evening classes with kid in tow, Juan and I received innerestin rug burns or back sprains from sexing like the two horn dogs we were. It went well until the inevitable day the wife walked in on us. Sigh. I was asked to leave. Karma is a bitch.
So, time passed and after more wacky adventures, I returned to Tijuana and receive a phone call from Juan with him stating work was scarce in El Paso and can't make ends meet with la familia. We discussed the possibility of him coming out to the west coast and getting a job in construction since at that time buildings were sprouting up like mushrooms in central San Diego. He agreed. I asked - while staring at the full bar I had set up in the kitchen of my new Tijuana home - if his alcoholism was still a problem. (During the last batch of time with him, he was rapidly and sadly deteriorating into a sloppy alcoholic) He said he was clean and  the following morning I purchased him a bus ticket to San Diego. Two days later, I met him at the Greyhound station. He debarked drunk off his ass and declared his penitence by banging me well into the wee hours of the morning.
But, I had changed. So had Juan. He suffered from constant shakes, nervous ticks, and his body had begun to deteriorate. I couldn't stand coming home everyday and he lying on the floor of the living room clutching another empty bottle pilfered from my bar. A week had passed when I returned home with a one way bus ticket to El Paso and sent him on his way.
Years crawled by and I had not seen nor heard from him. When I returned to El Paso, I inquired about Juan. One day as I entered the Rescue Mission to chat with a caseworker who was an old time friend, he was kicked out for being caught smoking crack in the men's room. My heart sank at that news. I really did, and guess I still do, care for him. Hell, my novel Of Men and Maggots is an account our futile attempt to move to San Diego together. The novel's incidents are all true. I simply changed the names. John Poston being me and Juan Holguin was changed to Rocko Tapia. 
Last nights dream had effected me. The entire day left me in a maudlin mood. Do I miss him? No. Not really. But, I do wonder how he is doing and if he is all right. The dream last night, though the particular incidents are vague, the emotions were soaked in sadness and concern. It put me in a pensive funk. So much that I thought I'd write about him here. My life is so amazingly crazy and unpredictable, I am certain that one day Juan and I will run into each other again...

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