Literary Queer and Tijuana Cops.

After work, I decided to go to Downtown San Diego and to Borders Books to buy a copy of William S. Burrough's Queer. I had read it before, but after lending a copy to a friend, I never got it back. So, I needed to purchase another and it is definitely worth the re-read.

Walking through the hipster Gaslamp District at dusk, the Christmas season is definitely in full swing. From every upscale department store widow and high-brow trendy restaurant, Santa Claus glares at you with such malevolence that is quite unnerving. Clean happy college kids and florescent colored polyester-clad tourist glide along the antiseptic and spotless trash-free sidewalks as Christmas jingles filled the brisk air. Candy-colored skylights swoosh through the clear night in the hopes that St. Nicholas soon will be there.

I entered the bookstore on the corner of G St. and 5th Ave. and went straight to the fiction department. I always liked this bookstore. Always have the books that I require and a hotbed of really cute literary fags and military guys. I purchased my edition of Queer under the raised eyebrow of the cashier that rang up my transaction. He was rocking queer. So queer it rocked you. Pleasing to the eyes as well. I smiled, said "Thank you" and exited the store.

Walking down Broadway I bumped into an old friend of mine named Steve G. I haven't seen this guy in about two years and the reason for that was that he confided in me that he was in County Jail for the last year and a half. He was incarcerated for possession of marijuana and was released just this afternoon. Steve told me that he was staying at the local homeless shelter. He still looked good, a poor man’s version of Leonardo DiCaprio, with faded torn jeans, green flannel shirt, scraggly blond goatee, and shaggy blond hair. He was standing outside a convenience store waiting for his friend, Tom. When Tom came out he screamed thief and thug! A short, muscular brute in baggy blue jeans. Despite the cold air, he wore a wife beater that exposed his arms covered in a mass of prison tattoos. His dirty blond hair was cropped short and his well-worn clothes reeked of cigarettes. His face was very ugly and his mouth was home to a forest of rotted-out teeth. After introductions, Steve said that Tom and he were cellmates and now just hang out with each other.

"Would you guys like a beer? There's a cool bar near here." I suggested. "We can play some pool and the pitchers are quite cheap."

Both of their faces lit up like Christmas lights. "Yeah! Shit yeah!"

Two blocks away was a bar called "Star Bar" and the place was going full swing. This bar is the last of it's kind for the Downtown District. A dive bar that caters to junkies, queers, thieves, and the mentally insane. The joint is serviced by two extremely ancient Japanese and Vietnam war brides. At any moment I expect one of them to jump up on the bar and start shooting ping-pong balls out of their pussies. I really like that place and try to stop for a drink whenever I am in the area. I ordered a pitcher of beer and got a pool table and we three had a fairly good time. The gay double entendre flowed as easily as the brew. Obviously, Tom had the hots for Steve, but I think Steve was put off by it. Getting drunker and drunker, I suggested that we should go drinking in Tijuana because the price of the tab was starting to skyrocket.

So, a thirty-minute train ride later, and a drunken dash across international lines; we piled into the back of a Taxi Libre and sped to the Red Zone. We slinked into a little bar called Fausto's that had beer by the bucket and Go-go girls for my two bisexual friends. The bar was packed with air thick with cigarette smoke and the smell of spilled beer and piss. A short Indian Mexican showed us our table and I ordered a bucket of Corona beer. We sat there as two slightly obese girls on two opposite stages jiggled and grinded in all the wrong places under the multicolored light show. As the boys watched the show, I got off watching all the other men stare lustfully at those coozes on stage.

Tom said he was going outside to buy a pack of smokes and would return in about five minutes.

That five minutes crawled into an hour as Steve and I sat there and waited for Tom to return.

When the bucket of beer was depleted I stated, "Look, we gotta go find your friend. He's probably lying in an alley with an ice pick in his spine."

Extremely intoxicated and a little pissed off, Steve and I exited Fausto's and walked to the corner. Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced into a pool hall that we stood in front of and there was that ugly mother fucker Tom inside playing pool. Steve and I went in and asked what the fuck was going on.

"I wanted to play pool."

I looked at the other three Mexican cholo scumbags that he was playing billiards with, "Look, Steve, it's late. I have to go to work tomorrow. I know a cheap hotel near here and I'll get you and Tom a bed there, okay?"

They both agreed and we stomped down the sidewalk, drunk as shit, bumping into cholos and stepping on dogs. That's when a police car pulled up and the two officers inside told us face against the wall, with hands up. I was in the middle and Tom and Steve were on either side. The big fat cop started to frisk me first.

"I've seen you around, guedo." He stated, going through my pockets. "You live here, correct?"

"Yes." I said calmly. "I have been here for a few years, officer. I like it."

He opened my wallet and saw the three twenty-dollar bills and change. He looked at my I.D. and then folded my wallet and placed it back in my pocket. "Do you have any drugs on you?"

"No, official." I stated. "I do not do drugs."

"This is a bad part of town. A lot of drugs are sold here. What are you doing on this street." Hissed the skinny cop.

I related that I was showing my two friends around Tijuana and enjoying the low-priced booze and women that the Red Zone has to offer. They began to check Steve. Incarcerated in the States and raised on the program Cops, he started to angrily utter obscenities. I told him to be cool and act respectful and we may have a chance with these two.

The fat cop frisked down Steve, checking his wallet, I.D., noticing the ten-dollar bill. "Do you do drugs, amigo?" He asked.

"No, sir. I am not a habitual user." The two cops smiled at that. Obviously, they understood English. They placed Steve's wallet back into his pocket.

They began to search Tom. He stood there glazed-eyed. Then the fat cop pulled out his wallet and noticed the two one hundred dollar bills. "Do you have any drugs on you, Senor?" He asked looking at the mass of tattoos on Tom’s arms.

"No, officer. I do not do drugs."

The skinny cop then pulled a syringe and a foil of cocaine out of a hidden pocket from the back of Tom’s pants. That is when the bottom fell out of my mind. I thought, great, I’m gonna be locked up for years in a Tijuana prison with the inmates passing me around and using me for currency!

The two officers chatted among themselves and turned to me. During this whole time, they treated me like I was the leader of these guys. I guess I was the one who kept my cool and acted with complete respect. The fat cop smiled at me and said in Spanish, "Look. We have a problem. This is your countryman and you need to help him out. We saw the money he has (About $200 American!) but...uh, we might have to take him to jail. This is very serious."

The fat bastard was interested in the money. I thought quick, "Officer, not only can you take this asshole's money. You have my permission to take him to jail. I just met him a couple of hours ago and I don't need to associate with his kind."

"I understand." The two cops cuffed Tom and placed him in the back of the squad car. I approached the Fat Cop and placed a twenty-dollar bill in his palm. "Thank you, officer, for a good job."

"You are welcome. Go home now, this is a dangerous part of town." With that, they drove off with Tom in the back seat looking beat and forlorn.

I whirled around at Steve, "You thoughtless fucker! Why didn't you tell me he was a fucking junkie? I was just looking at 15 fucking years in a Tijuana jail!"

"I didn't know." Steve pleaded, palms out.

I pointed east, "The border's that way." I turned around and went home leaving Steve on that corner under the buzzing neon sign of a whorehouse. With any luck, he will be gang raped by a pack of roving cholos