Friday, April 08, 2005

Black Dogs Run At Night.


Woke up with Saul complaining of lack of sleep. Flojo! I instructed him in the fact and vice versa that I need to contact my friend Carlos. You see, being a sly and crafty faggito, I had made arrangements with Carlos that before my sudden departure to New York I would entrust with him a footlocker containing my private collection of personals: Films I had done, books I had written, art, among other things. (Hence to you two readers out there in bloggieland that are still awaiting my book, well this is the reason you had not received it yet. It was holed up in Tijuana. So, shut yer yaps, it'll be comin' soon.)
And so, after taking care of each other’s morning erections, Saul and I showered and had juevos rancheros and the best coffee in a corner cafe. Went to the house of said Carlos to find to my dismay that the little brown fucker has rolled up and moved.
Crap.
Spent the afternoon in a local bar, Noa-Noa, that transvestite joint just on the fringes of The Red Zone sipping beer and guzzling tequila pining over my streak of sour luck. Saul was drunk and we made out amid piss and shit in the men's room as a naco watched with a hard on. Came up with a cock-eyed plan of renting a taxi libre and hunting down Carlos' brother Erik who lived somewhere up on the mountain. Somewhere.
Sheesh.
Night falls and we, Saul, myself, and several pink elephants stumble back to the hotel, kicking over trash cans and passed out bums when with the screech of breaks and the flash of red lights, Johnny Law--Mexican style--is upon us.
"Uh-oh. Five Oh. Five Oh." I mutter.
Hands on the car, senor. Where are you going, senor? Your amigo does not have identification, senor. That is very bad, senor. We will hafta lock him up for 20 hours, senor. We can take care of this here, senor. Twenty dollars, senor.
Fucking, pigs. Pay the fuzz, light a cigarette and walk back to the hotel with Saul. I take it out on his ass real nasty. With each vicious jab, Saul utters filthy words in Spanish through clenched teeth as I screw him doggy-style to the beat of White Stripes' Hardest Button to Button on the radio. Fall asleep to the sounds of a rattling air conditioner and police sirens and Whitney Houston going on about how she is every woman.
The next day, search for Carlos to no avail. Rent a taxi libre and crawl all over that mountain and just as I was about to give up, Erik, the hoggish and unfortunate-looking brother to my beautiful Carlos, comes careening down the hill on his black Vulcan chopper. With much honking and waving of hands precariously out of the taxi's window, I flag Erik down and smear his ears with my predicament and tales of woe. Paying the driver, I hop onto the back of the chopper and Erik and I rocket off up the mountain to Carlos' house.
Zig zagging up and down on the concrete roller coaster like madmen through cars and rickshaws peddling stinking messes of food, the neighborhood was a mixture of half-built houses perched on ravines and cardboard shacks sprouting up like mushrooms all covered in dust and graffiti. Mangy, sickly dogs prowled the streets with packs of cholos. It was a graveyard of automobiles all rusted under the sheltering sky. A river of last week’s sewage and filthy shit wound its way through the ravine, that little Indian kids splashed and played as obese mothers in sack dresses that said Old Navy or Guess or Fubu hung laundry with weary apathy. Several different styles of Latin music wafted through the putrid air. The motorcycle came to a dusty halt on a dirt road in front of a grey cinder block house with high walls.
"Aqui." Grunted Erik. I debark and the Vulcan tears off down the street.
Ecstatic is the word. But, with reservations. Carlos and I exchange hugs, handshakes, and backslapping under the squinting eyes of his mother. Nothing is more uplifting than being reacquainted with an old friend. Enter the long banal chatter of updating the last four months on both sides of the border. I offer Carlos, and his dear mother, two hundred dollars to rent the back room while looking for work in San Diego. Seeing the state of their living conditions, they agree. Carlos shows me that my footlocker is doing all right and as his mother prepares dinner, he gives my crotch a squeeze. I smile and look deep into those honey-colored eyes. Quick fumble of a kiss and grope, but not why Mother is around. Mother doesn’t tolerate that queer shit in the house, her being a Christian woman. Jesus scorns at me from the wall above the door where he hangs.
I return to the hotel, via taxi, retrieve my bags and settle down into my new digs at Carlos' home; comfortable in the knowledge that all is well in the universe tonight.

3 comments:

rich said...

count that again... 3 people people who wants a copy of that book. damn kid, the imageries you use are so vivid.

glad to read you had an ass-pounding welcome from your previous post.

Walter said...

"....faggito"?

I think I love that word.

LMB said...

I call it as I see it, Norton.