Scoring In A Tijuana Slum.

Jose Perez and I walked briskly through the old Mercado in central Tijuana. The Mercado was a section of small streets all lined on both sides with bazaars. Merchandise and Mexican curios overflowed onto the cobblestone lanes. We dodged crockery and washtubs and trays of combs and pencils and soaps dishes and cheap electronics. A train of burros loaded with goods blocked our way. I pushed through, twisting my body sideways, squeezing past people. The hot desert wind blew little eddies of dust and trash into the side doorways.

A native of Ciudad Juarez in the Chihuahua Desert, Jose was a tall thin boy in his early twenties. Coffee-colored skin and a smile that melted hearts, he was the type that literary fags would write poems about. With curly black hair that he kept shortly cropped and penetrating hazel eyes, he was strikingly handsome and at one point wanted to be a model. But, it seemed his guardian angel fell asleep at the watch. With a little help from his friends, Jose was a full-blown junky. Since the death of his parents, he worked for his uncle who was connected with one of the major drug cartels of Northern Baja. He helped his uncle many times to smuggle a fair amount of illegal drugs across the border, and since he was never caught, Jose carried the air of unstoppable youthful arrogance.

In the bustling market, Jose and I passed the many stalls that sold all types of curios and toiletries and weaved through the throng of people until we came upon a worn-out metal gate. Six tired looking and slightly obese Mexican whores stood at the white-washed entrance with bored looks upon their heavily painted faces. Above the door a sign read in English: Hotel Paris: nice girls, clean rooms.

A scrawny prostitute grabbed at me and said, "Pst, pst. You wanna fuck me, gringo?"

"Not today, Esperanza." Jose smiled, pushing her away from me, and we continued rapidly walking down the clammy hallway into the decrepit hotel.

The lobby of the hotel was old, dank, and filthy. The furniture was tattered and the foyer always stank of cigarettes and urine. The paint was flaking off of the yellow walls as a radio blared La Serinita by Plastilina Mosh. The view from the window from the registration desk was of a canal that was backed up with last month's sewage; yellow feces slowly swirled in the sun.

Four spandex-clad whores sat in the corner on an overstuffed blue couch with the stuffing bursting out, waiting under the red glow of Christmas lights strung up in the corner. A prehistoric hag sat behind the desk. She was in a flowered old frock and her face was plastered with so much make up that it took on the characteristics of a kabuki mask. She lit a dark brown cigarette in trembling gnarled hands. Her fingers were yellow from the nicotine. She eyed me with suspicion like I just raped her virgin daughter. To her left was a big husky Mexican named El Chivo. A human tank, El Chivo stood motionless in dirty t-shirt and jeans with arms folded. His bloodshot eyes watched us enter the lobby from behind wrap-around shades. El Chivo's faded red t-shirt read Where's the Beef?

Jose stopped and hugged the old lady, "Hola, Senora Alma."

"Hola, Pepe, is everything good?" The old woman croaked.

"Si, Senora Alma." Jose gave a curt nod to El Chivo and exchanged a street-wise handshake. Jose motioned to me. "This is my friend, ****. He is an American living in T.J."

Alma extended her hand and I shook it. Her bones rattled. "You are always welcome here, gringuito."

"Thank you." I smiled.

Jose looked around. "Have you seen Gabriel?"

Alma took along heavy drag from her cigarette pointing up with her thick black lashed eyes. "He is in his room."

Both of us climbed the rusted spiral staircase into the dilapidated dank corridor littered with garbage and dog shit. Somewhere from down the hall music was blaring No Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones. From one cubical the loud moaning of a whore earning her rent.

At room twenty-six Jose tapped on the eroded green wooden door.

With a series of clicks a scrawny whore named Maria answered by cracking the door open. Her hair was a wild matted black frenzy and her skull like face was painted up with red lipstick smeared; front teeth stained and capped with silver. She stood there looking at Jose; eyes unfocused.

"Hola, Maria." Jose said, trying to look past her ratted hair. "I'm here to see Gabriel." Without waiting, Jose pushed past Maria into the room.

The hotel room was small with flaking, graffitied walls painted avovado green. The room contained a black chest of drawers, two old wooden chairs with their black leather seats cracked and full of slashes, blue milk crates with a small black and white television that never worked, a large stained black iron framed bed with a small wooden table next to the bed painted yellow. The neon light bulb flickered with the death throws of moths within. As with the rest of the hotel, it smelled of feces and cigarettes.

Lying on the worn-out bed with tattered discolored sheets, lay Gabriel Fonseca, an emaciated junky in his mid-forties. His forearms a mass of scar tissue covered in crude tattoos. His white tank top was spotted with blood and mucus and his khaki chino pants stiff from not being changed for months, shiny over the dirt. A thick mustache covered his full lips that were drawn down in a grimace of petulant annoyance. The brown eyes were sparkling with an inner fire. On the rickety table next to Gabriel lay his works: a hypo, glass of tepid water, cotton, a blackened spoon, and a pack of black tar heroin. He swung his legs off of the sagging bed and sat up; looking past Jose.

"Maria, go get some flautas. I want to talk to Jose for a moment." Gabriel hung their for a few seconds stroking the long black shiny hairs that drooped over his insipid lips and then said, "It is about time you got here, Pepe, I have a new job for you ."

"For reals?" Jose said to Gabriel. He sat down on a chair next to Gabriel and lit a joint that sat festering in an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts.

"I just got off the phone with Gordo Bastardo, that pinche gringo wants to buy some shit offa us. I thought you might entertain the idea of taking it to him." Gabriel took the joint from Jose and inhaled a long drag.

"Hell, yeah." Jose said coughing up the smoke and waving it away with his hand. "My friend wants to buy a dime of mota."

Gabriel stared directly at my chest and whispered as if asleep. "Mota. Wants to buy some mota." He snapped back in focus. "How much you want to get, amigo."

"A dime will be fine." I said. This guy creeped me out.

Gabriel reached into the small yellow endtable next to the bed and pulled out a plastic bag with marijuana in it. It was wrapped closed with a rubber band. Gabriel took my money and handed me the bag.

"Thanks." I said.

Gabriel smiled, front teeth missing. He took out a blue bandanna from his back pocket and wiped sweat from the back of his neck. "Jose, be careful with these gringos, I don't trust them."

Jose took another hit off of the joint. "Hey, compa, it's me...remember?"

"For reals, ese." Gabriel reached over and fingered the heroin in the aluminum foil package. He gave a sly glance at Jose. "Wanna take a hit?"

Jose's eyes took on a dreamy gaze. "Yeah."

"But, be careful...this is some strong shit." Gabriel said as he reached for the blackened spoon. He placed the heroin in the spoon and cooked it down. Drawing the solution through the cotton with the hypo, he got up and looked in the frosted mirror on the wall. The mirror had several soccer team stickers surrounding it. With a jab, he plunged the needle into a vein in his neck. His breath hissed through clinched teeth. Gabriel stared at his reflection in the mirror. death looking back at him as he slid the needle out of his vein. His face went slack as the heroin coursed through his junk hungry cells. Gabriel staggered back and handed the syringe to Jose.

"Some good shit, huh?" Jose whispered.

As Gabriel lay back on the bed and exhaling his breath in a warm cocoon of comfort. Jose cooked up his shot. With galvanized movements, he took a bandanna from the table and tied up his right arm for a shot. After probing for a vein with his left hand, Jose jabbed the needle into his flesh and pushed the plunger down, watching the solution drain into his arm. A soft blow hit his heart and then spread through his body.

"Odale." Jose muttered as he too staggered to the bed and lay next to Gabriel. Though his body was slack and immobile as a lizard resting on a rock, his mind raced with images of a brightly lit tableau.

Jose looked at me with a distant dreamy look, held out the syringe. "Hey, handsome, want some?"

No, I said sitting at the rickety table to roll up a fresh joint. "Not into needles, kiddo. Shoot your way to freedom."

Jose glanced over to his friend Gabriel and noticed that he too was off in some nostalgic reverie. Jose stood up, but the gravity pull of junk overtook his weakened body and he slumped into the chair opposite the bed. He tied up for another shot. He had a problem hitting a vein and the needle clogged twice. A line of blood ran down his arm. The dream was gone. Jose looked down at the blood that ran from the elbow to wrist and felt pity for the violated veins and tissue. Tenderly he wiped the blood from his arm. He slid the needle in and pushed the bulb down and felt the junk hit him all over.

Suddenly his head drooped to one side and his tongue fell out. The syringe fell from his hand and rolled across the red-tiled floor. A gust of hot wind blew dirty pink curtains into the room.

I sat back and took a long toke on my joint. Looked over at Jose. Sweet dreams, Jose. Sweet dreams.