God Loves Trailer Trash.

And so, around ten yesterday morning, Richard's parents came and picked us up at the motel.

"How did you get here?" Asked Robert, Richard's plump, bearded father. He looked especially stressed.

"Greyhound." We both said flatly. His mother, Julie, a scrawny dishwater blond with a pinched face, eyed me with the look that something was just not right and answered all my questions with curt short replies.

I was met with coolness and wary distrust. They seemed leery to let me live with them, but since they were God fearing Christians they let me stay anyway. We all piled into their battered SUV and took off to their home.

The O'Herly's live in a town in upstate New York called Oneonta. It's a town in the deep forest of old Indian country that consist of a gas station, a few stores, a Holiday Inn, a Wal-Mart, and hundreds of trailer parks. I do believe the entire population of this town resides in trailers.

The O'Herly's are no exception. Around the skuzzy edges of town, where pine groves and truck gardens bump against roadhouse honky-tonks and low bid developments, there where to be found six or seven house trailers and three or four conventional homes. The O'Herly's trailer lies on the bank of a small, muddy river. We entered the cozy three bedroom mobile home and I was accosted by a barrage of Jesus related objects from every corner! These people are God damned Jesus freaks!!! God peers at you from every empty space and knick-knacks remind you a hundred times that "Jesus loves you." Even in the bedroom where they let me stay; there is this huge poster of Christ staring down at you with such malevolence. It's one of those posters so contrived that the eyes follow you when you move about. At night I'm afraid to masturbate because I thought when I reach down to my privates; sparks would fly out and burn my hands like the Wicked Witch of the West reaching for the ruby slippers.

Well, I settled in and was comforted by the fact that not only that they had a computer with Internet access, which is slower than shit (fucking dial up), but they also had cable. As myself and the Family sat down to a great meal of roasted chicken, steamed broccoli and toasted bread. After saying grace (Creepy), the questions began to fly. What was I doing with Richard? Why was I so far from my home? How did we meet? Where are my parents? Soon the interrogation turned into a screaming match between Father and Son. I slinked back to my room.

I gotta get out of here...and I don't even know where here is. No maps in this place. Staring at some porcelain cat with God Loves Kittens embellished on it. Ech. Perhaps if I can get to New York City I can somehow find transport back to El Paso or Tijuana. First, El Paso, though...my trunk is still there.

Yee haw.

Thelma and Luis.

All right, ya ready? Cause here it goes...

Last weekend I decided to enjoy the tranquility of the small farming community of Norfolk, Nebraska.

Ew.

Norfolk was a little town of mouse holes, lace curtains, Sears catalogs, measles epidemics, baloney sandwiches and men who knew more about the carburetor than they knew about the clitoris.

The song Love Is a Many Splendored Thing was not composed in Norfolk.

There have been cans of dogfood more splendiferous than Norfolk. Land mines more tender.

Norfolk was settled by a race of thin, bony-faced psychopaths. They would sell you anything they had, which was nothing, and kill you over anything they didn't understand, which was everything.

Slackjawed honkies would gaze at you as you walked past their house with animal stupidity. Keith and I took refuge at the house Richard and Todd occupied with that black guy, Cameron. Their shack was in worse disrepair than ours was. The Mexican that lived there drank so much that empty beer cans piled up to the roof in corners. Sunday afternoon a weird occurrence, Cameron got really drunk off of whiskey shots and we were alone in his room. Out of nowhere he asked me to give him head. After he took it out I was very impressed so how could I say no. I can never explain the sheer poetry of having a muscular, handsome, and well endowed black man sitting waving an extremely large penis at you. I slobbered all over that big fucker like a crazed kid in a candystore. What can I say, I love dick. However, I was so paranoid afterwards. I could blow my cover, no pun intended, and get my ass kicked by these country simple assholes.

Anyhoo, during last weekend, The Gang and I meandered around downtown Norfolk. This place resembled all those old photos and t.v. shows of the kind of towns Norman Rockwell would paint. The town really looked rustic. Kind of serene and at peace. It seemed like one of those towns that would never change. On Sunday, we even attended a black gospel service in a small white church with a steeple and a picket fence. Everyone was friendly and said hello. The townsfolk were so whitebread and squeaky clean; even the few paranoid blacks.

In a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant I was lectured about using profanity in public after saying the word fuck in front of a lady. The lady's husband was pretty irate about it Gosh darn it!

"A good Christian doesn't use that language!"

"What? The word fuck?"

"Yes! It's very offensive!"

"Well, fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck!"

We were asked to leave.

I couldn't take it anymore. I told Richard that we had to get out of town, since he quit the same day I did. Being the Alpha Males, we decided to ditch Keith and Todd, so while they were at the Meat Plant we planned our departure from Norfolk. We both returned to the plant on Monday morning and got our measly pay for three days. Richard said if I liked I could come to New York State and live with him and his parents. He assured me that his folks wouldn't mind.

Sure...why not?

Richard and I walked over to the Catholic Services to scam them out of money. In Yuma, Arizona, Richard explained that Todd and himself needed bus fare to get to El Paso. They told Catholic Services that their car ran out of gas and the agency gave them $100.00 for gas. He said the folks were suckers and it was an easy mark. Seemed like a good deal to me.

As the nun sat behind her desk, nodding her head, listening intently at our sad quest. We explained with deep heartfelt anguish our financial woes. Richard and I should have won a fucking Oscar for our performance. Oh, such drama! The Sister didn't buy it, got upset, and had us thrown out of the church.

We stood on the corner, bitter with discontent, staring across the street at Smilin' Pete's Car Farm. Old, out dated cars squatted like ugly toads under the buzzing neon sign and tattered lifeless banners. It was an overcast day and a salesman stood at the door of his office, beaming at us with long yellow horse teeth.

We walked across the street and were greeted with a merry "Howzit goin', fellas?!" The salesman, Chuck, wore a cheap blue suit and sported a bad onion hair cut. He sweated profusely, eyes nervous, with an intense joker smile. He had a deep Midwest accent as thick as Wisconsin cheese.

"Hiya, boys! Looking for a car, eh?" Grin. Nod.

Richard looked around. "Yeah. We work for Beef of America and we were interested in a car for work."

"Oh, you betcha! Ya, Beef of America, eh?" Grin. Nod. Walks over to a midnight blue '73 maverick. "Ya, this is a bute! Only $650.00. It'll getcha to where yer going and then some. Oh, ya, you betcha!"

Richard looked the car over. "Can we take it for a test drive?"

"Oh ya, you betcha. But, let's first clear it with my boss, okidokie?" Grin. Nod. Frown. Grin.

In the office sat Mr. Wychk, an ancient relic with quivering hands who held a napkin up to his mouth to catch the saliva dripping out. He was one of those old white haired buzz cuts that still called black people "colored".

Big fucking grin. "Mr. Wychk, these good boys would like to test drive the blue Maverick. These're good boys, boss, oh ya. Local boys from Beef of America. There's good work in Beef of America. Yep." Grin. Sweat beads down forehead because ol' Chuck really needed to make this fucking sale. With the wife and the little ones and the mortgage, you understand.

Senor Droolcup stood up and gave the two-freshfaced college boys the old once over. "Seems to me like they're all right. Chuck, give them the keys and let them take her for a whirl around the block."

We shook hands. Back outside, Richard and I climbed into the car. It smelt like burnt oil. Chuck handed Richard the keys. Richard handed Chuck a fake I.D. "Okay, Buster. Be easy on the girl and just drive her around the corner. Oh, she's a bute, isn't she?" Grin. Thumbs up.

"You betcha." We both returned the gesture. Two thumbs up.

We slowly drove the car out of the lot, leaving Chuck standing there in that rusty car graveyard with the weeds in the cement cracks. Richard and I drove over to our houses to get our bags and then we drove that fucking car through the night and all of the next day until the engine burned out in the town of Binghamton in the state of New York. Straight through, and I am not making this up. I wish I were. Man, I tell you it was exhilarating. I love breaking rules, especially when you get away with it!

When we finally arrived in Binghamton, it was cold and dark. Electricity hummed in the condenser boxes above us. Grey brick buildings lay against the gloom of the overcast sky as factory stacks billowed black smoke. The dead grass around the Greyhound station, which was the only place open and it was a tomb, was spotted with pools of rancid oil. Richard phoned his parents and told them where he was. He confided in me that he ran away from home about seven months ago and they haven't seen or heard from him since. That's fucking great, I thought.

Well, I stood there staring at the smoking car as Richard told me The Parents said they'd pick us up the next day, so with our last twenty dollars we rented a cheesy room for $17.95. The St. Francis. Real crappy. The Front Desk clerk, who I think is queer, was kind enough to let me pound this shit out on the office computer. Us Front desk agents gotta stick together, reet?

What the fuck next?

Wonders and Woe.

Greetings, Citizens!

As of this writing, I am sitting in the dinky library in downtown Norfolk, Nebraska. Yup! You read right: Norfolk-fucking-Nebraska. And how did I get here? Well, gather 'round kiddos and I will weave you a tale of adventure and misery and heartbreak....

A little over a week ago, rented a small studio apartment and moved in with Juan Holguin under the guise of romantic bliss. But, fate, it seemed, would decree otherwise. On the second day when I returned home from work, Juan had some ditsy blond with pimples and gigantic tits named Sabrina moved in and I had to sleep on the floor. What can I do? He paid for the apartment. That was the last straw. I ranted to Keith, that big fat hick from the Mission and he convinced me to go to Nebraska and work in a slaughterhouse. At the time, since I had a low paying and pathetic job and I was now supporting Juan and Sabrina, it seemed a fantastic idea. So, the next morning bright and early, Keith and I went to the El Paso Unemployment Office, signed up and the following morning we were on a bus to Norfolk, Nebraska.

It seemed Keith had been thrown out of the mission for attacking Big Gay Eddie with a can of Lysol. Big Gay Eddie was in charge of cleaning the dorm. Keith was a gross slob, so Eddie sprayed him down with a can of Lysol and Keith took the can and hit Eddie with it, which in turn, caused Keith to be “eighty-sixed” from the mission property.

So, Kieth revealed where he had been sleeping the last few days; at this little camp under a freeway overpass next to the train tracks. It was a filthy vermin infested area of cardboard shacks and musty sleeping bags inhabited by drug addicts and alcoholics. The mission’s throwaways. The area was nicknamed Fraggle Rock. Keith slept on an old couch that dug the springs into his back. As the day turned into the night I sat there staring into the big bonfire that somebody made out of discarded furniture and Keith went on and on about going to work at this meat processing plant in Nebraska. He really talked me into that stupid scheme of his. So that next morning, Keith, myself and two other guys from under the bridge went and signed up.

One of the young men that went with us was a handsome nineteen-year old Irish kid from New York named Richard O’Herly. He dressed and spoke in the manner of those teen pop boy bands—baggy clothes and ‘Yo yo yo’—a black boy stuck in a lily-white ass. When I first met him he was under a torn and dusty blanket next to Keith’s couch fucking some skanky emaciated Mexican girl. He stopped long enough to say “Hello”. I just nodded and lit a Lucky Strike. From what I gathered he was an aspiring rap artist and a pathological liar. The other younger kid that went with us was a little rat looking hayseed from Illinois named Todd Berch. Basically he was Richards tag along. Along with about forty Mexicans, our little group was interviewed at the unemployment office and then told next morning to be in front of the building at 6:30 a.m. to catch the bus to Nebraska.

I returned home to get my things. Juan was surprised and saddened that I was leaving. I packed my old suitcase, said good bye and left. Asshole.

Of coarse the next morning, the bus didn’t leave until 9:00 or so in the morning. During that time, my new friends and I talked and joked and got to know each other better. Richards estranged girlfriend wanted to go, but they wouldn’t let her. Which was of coarse a blessing, because all she did was whine and complain and my God was she ugly to look at. We also met these two black guys named King and Cameron.

King was an old gray haired man from Alabama, reminded me of Morgan Freeman; Cameron was from Chicago, a young guy with a gold tooth and a muscular build that looked a dead ringer for Mike Tyson and who had a drinking problem. He said he was running from his wife. Right. I had to play it cool with these guys. Most were viciously homophobic, so I had to hide my homosexuality. I accepted the fact that it was going to be a long cold winter, but just concentrated on all the money I was promised by Kieth that I was to make.

At 9:45, the big ass bus finally took off. At first, our spirits were very high. The bus was packed with Mexican migrant workers hoping to make good money to send back to their families. Everyone talked and joked. Myself I just sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the scenery.

As we traveled non-stop through New Mexico and climbed up towards Oklahoma, I was interested in the various small towns and Indian pueblos we passed through. The houses and buildings in one nameless town were all in adobe style architecture. Indian crafts and murals. Young handsome Indian boys stared out at the bus silent and immobile, under black Stetsons. In Oklahoma and Kansas it was the vast rolling prairies. For miles around us there was nothing but flat grassy land. The wind causing ripples in the green brown grass as it would the waters of a vast sea. We eventually stopped in the late afternoon at a Golden Corral Buffet Restaurant somewhere in Kansas. It was all paid for and everybody ate until we all waddled back to the bus and slept like gorged hogs.

The bus lumbered through out the night and I rarely slept. In all my journeys I’ve always had problems sleeping on a moving vehicle. The gringos on board laughed and joked and made such a ruckus late into the night that the bus driver actually stopped the bus and screamed at us in Spanish to shut up.

At the crack of dawn we entered Norfolk, Nebraska. It was about two minutes on the tequila side of sunrise. So early the bluebirds hadn’t even brushed their teeth yet. It was the type of morning that Homer referred in The Odyssey as ‘rosy-fingered dawn.” Homer, who was blind and had no editor, referred over and over again to “rosy-fingered dawn.” Pretty soon, dawn began to think of herself as rosy-fingered: the old doctrine of life imitating art.

The surrounding countryside was cattle farms and flat wheat and cornfields. A few old building sprung up here and there. We drove directly to Beef of America, the meat processing plant that was going to be the place of employment for me in the upcoming months. As I gazed at that smelly steel factory, my hopes swelled like the others at all the money we were going to make. As soon as we passed the security gates of this cold, menacing and foul smelling factory, we were told to disembark and all meet in the intake room.

After signing various paperwork, we were assigned our uniforms and briefed by an instructor. This little mustachioed man was all smiles and jokes and was an excellent motivational speaker. Shameless faker. For some reason he thought I possessed a great deal of strength and assigned me as a “Shanker.” At the time I had no idea what that was but he jovially assured me I would find out tomorrow. After all of us were processed through orientation, we were then told we’d be taken to our housing.

So, loaded back up on another bus, we were issued a card with our house number on it. The house that Keith and I were assigned to was a three-bedroom pre-fab unit and it was already occupied with six other Mexicans. Mexicans that didn’t speak a bit of English. And they were very concerned why gringos decided to work at this very stressful and difficult job.

My roommate was an unfortunate little weasel looking guy while Keith was blessed with the cantankerous old fart. The nights spent there were crazy madness. After work the Mexicans would get shit faced on beer and then fight among themselves. Knocking the crap out of each other and smashing several items until crashing to the floor and falling into a sleeping drunken stupor amid the broken furniture and shards of glass.

After a fitful and freezing night of troubled sleep came the first day on the job. Keith and I got dressed in our gear, we both looked like mad scientist with the long white coats, rubber gloves, rubber boots, and goggles, and walked the two blocks to the factory. It was fucking hell. Ten hours of monotonous boredom. It was the smelliest most disgusting job I have ever had! My job was to slice up the ass part of the cow as it came speeding down the conveyor belt, entrails dangling, and dripping blood.

My supervisor was a white guy named Jeff. He was a Nazi drunk on power. If we didn’t work fast enough he would scream abuse constantly in our ears. If you disagreed in anyway you were written up or fired on the spot. The smell was horrendous. Keith puked twice. Each day I would return home covered in gore and cow’s blood. If a cow fell off the belt it was up to me to pick up the carcass, carry it to the washer, cleanse it and then put it back on the belt without it touching the ground. Could you picture anyone carrying around a beheaded, gutted cow by himself with nothing but hooks to help him. I think not.

After the third day, I had to make an appraisal of the situation. I quit.

So, that was this morning and I have to wait until Monday to get my paycheck. Ugh. It looks as if I will be returning to El Paso sooner than I thought. I am going to check out this town and will write the report manana.

By the way, flushed those insidious mindfuck pills down the toilet back in El Paso. I like the way I am. I suit me just fine, cabrones.

And slowly the world spins...

Time goes.

I have been sitting on this bench without moving for seven hours straight. I try to think how I started today, but my mind is in a think fog and I don't have the abilities nowadays to do anything, much less think. Everything has been burned out...I falter. Five days have passed since I have started...It took a Herculean effort just to go downtown to the library and type this shit. So, I remember five days ago...

I awoke with a start of fear, gasping for air, about an hour before the lights went on in the dorm. I lay there thinking of the nightmare I had until the lights blink on at 5:30. A grating voice booms out over the hacking and farting of the waking men.

Good morning, Rescue Mission. For the guests and clients who slept in the dayroom and the chapel, please strip your mats and place them in the bin provided in the dorm. breakfast will be at 6:00 a.m....

And so on and on it goes. My lithe torso feels as if I had been beaten with a rubber club and my eyes are crusty and tingling with pain. I reach by my bunk and grab my old plastic water bottle and guzzle the liquid greedily. It hurts going down. Grabbing my pajama pants from the end of the bed, I tend to sleep in my boxers and t-shirt, I place my feet into plastic shower shoes and clop through the wooden maze to the men's bathroom. It is already crowded. Stale clothes, dirty backpacks, white tiled floor smeared with water, mud, and shit. The odor is enough to make an ambulance attendant puke. The filthy mirrors over the sink are positioned so you are forced to watch some old dirty bum squatting on the toilet behind you. Loud sound of grunting and farting produces toxic steaming shit. Ker-plop.

I shuffle down the hall to the main office, not hearing the various Good Mornings chirped at me from the natives. Today I start my medications as prescribed by Dr. Guzman. One Welbutrin XL in the morning taken with six Seroquel, beautiful little darlings. I plop them into my mouth and wash them down at the chrome water fountain losing the battle against algae and grime.

Then the call for breakfast. Burnt grey oatmeal. Try to eat it but the drugs began to take hold. My speech is slurred, my body seems to be made of a hardening plastic. I can't concentrate...like being drunk, but not being drunk. A couple of friends and Juan sit at my table. Juan looks worried, "What's wrong?" I tell him I started my medication today. After chewing on some horrid stale toast, I return to my bunk. Head spinning, legs twitching, terrible cotton mouth.

I fall into a deep, deep sleep.

Woke up with the fear of suffocation. I swing my legs out and sit at my bunk. Staring slack jawed at the dusty brown tile on the floor. It takes me twenty minutes to get up the energy to stand up. What fucking time is it, I thought, swirling my dry tongue around me sticky and gooey mouth. 3:53 p.m. Okay. Need to take a shower. I enter the white tiled shower, tiles covered in orange and green and black fungus. It smells like bleach and shit. Letting the hot water flow over my torso, I stand there swaying. Time goes.

Dressing, I walk as if in a dream through the dayroom, always a chess game and television blaring a football game, and to out doors. The sun burns my eyes and I don my huge Willy Wonkaish sunglasses that I had purchased downtown for three dollars. The Bench is quite full. Old and worn smooth from the rub of a million hobo asses; warped from the elements, it now seats the heroes of the underworld and forgotten. I sit among these fools, smoking my last Lucky Strike, playing chess, staring. The sky is a big bright Texas blue and gives everything a blue hue. A swarm of flies, the quantity of biblical proportions, dance and fuck on us. I sit as immobile as an iguana in the sun, staring at nothing, thinking about nothing. The sun swings across the cloudless sky and time goes.

Trucks arrive with donations. "Attention men in the shelter! We need a few volunteers to help unload these donations. If we don't get any help, the television in the day room will be shut off!" The Voice blares from a loudspeaker. The mission gets all kinds of great donations, but we never see it. Good food is donated, yet we eat crap...where does it all go? Two or three brown nosers rush to help, I sit and let my cigarette smoldering down to my fingers. Time goes.

"Well, you look thoroughly medicated." Quips someone at me beyond my grey screen.

Three four hours pass and I get up to take my afternoon meds. One more seroquel. Plunk a pill into my mouth and down it with water from that foul fountain. Even the water tastes foul. The hallway begins to spin and I return to the bench and listen down into myself. It is time for dinner and not really hungry, I poke through the Victory stew and just eat a bruised apple.

Outside the sun is going down and the sky is so clean you can count the stars. The loudspeaker, that Voice of Big Brother bulldozes through the tranquility. "Attention in the mission! It is time for Chapel services. Everyone is encouraged to attend! The television will be shut off all night if we do not get a big turnout!" The television is apparently shut off. Various men stomp out of the dayroom into fresh air and grumble,"Damn! There's a football game on!" "We can't watch it 'cause they haven church."

I look up, "Yeah, God don't like football."

Time goes. The dog rolls around in the dry grass. The flies swarm and cluster. Up the hill, the I-10 is breathing. Across the Rio Grande, the yellow lights begin flickering in the white shanty houses. Juan comes back from a day at Labor Ready, that temp work joint. He holds my head in his hands and peers into the Nothing.

"Man, they got you fucked up." He mumbles at me. I want to hold him but it is to much an effort to move. "Help me to my bunk", I ask. Like an invalid, I cling to his muscles as I am escorted inside.

"Better to see you on junk, than this shit, babe." Juan whispers as he lays me onto my cot. "I hate seeing you like this. There is nothing in there." He puts gentle hands over my eyes.

Within seconds, I am asleep.

Emotions Emerged.

Last night, Juan and I visited El Paso’s only drive in Porno Theater, Fiesta Drive In. For $300 dollars Juan had aquirred an old clunker and we aimed to celebrate. Far out in the edges of town we parked in the dark and watched the ‘70’s porn flickering in front of us. We shared a bottle of tequila and got really plastered. Juan started kissing me. Very passionately. This was a shock, because he never kissed me before, he thinking that kissing was faggy.

Kissing is mans greatest invention.

All animals copulate, but only humans kiss.

Kissing is the supreme achievement in the Western world.

Orientals, including those who tended the North American continent before the ravagement, rubbed noses, and thousands still do. Yet despite the golden fruit of their millennia—they gave us yoga and gunpowder, Buddha and corn on the cob—they, their multitudes, their saints and sages, never produced a kiss.

The greatest discovery of civilized man is kissing and I do cherish it.

It was fantastic. I had no doubts; Juan cared for me too. All the past relationships, those depressing failures crept through my mind. I was in deepest despair. I have survived the junky sickness and poured a lot of drugs down the old vein to stop the pain. But, I was in love…honest love. If love can’t re-create lovers, what good is it? Love? What is it? The most natural painkiller there is.

LOVE.

The Third Mind.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Job.

The grating voice of Jim Ross, resident novel writer and alcoholic, whines over the intercom at 5:30 in the morning-every morning- that it was time to wake up and wishing everyone a good day. Juan and I ate breakfast together pretending nothing went on that first night we had met. We had decided that it was time to get off our rusty dusty and find some work. We saw in the local newspaper The El Paso Times that a factory was hiring for merchandise handlers and promised a good salary. Juan and I thought we’d try it out.

Eventually, we found the offices and to our dismay it was actually a job of selling novelty merchandise to local companies: calculators, daily organizers, pens, and the such. Basically, a fucking door to door salesmen. The little pudgy dwarf of a manager, a short Mexican by the name Salvador Revas interviewed us and explained the job. Juan and I were a little skeptic at first, but, Salvador persuaded us to join him for a day of whirlwind excitement in the art of door to door sales and at least give it a chance.

We spent the entire blazingly hot afternoon zipping around in Salvador’s broken down van trying to sell this crap door to door. I hated it and Juan just thought it was funny. Salvador, who insisted on us calling him ‘Juicy’, explained to us the potential of making all of this money. I thought it was a bunch of worthless shite and wound up not selling anything to those assholes we came in contact with. At the end of the day with tired feet, Juan and I said our good-byes to Juicy and returned to the Mish.

The following day, Juan talked me into going to this old wood and concrete factory across from the Rescue Mission. He heard that they were hiring and since he enjoyed hard labor it was right up his alley. The owner was a crusty cantankerous old man named Jenkins. He disliked me from the start. Jenkins would talk to Juan but stared at me with his one good eye like I just finger fucked his virgin daughter. He had Juan and I doing all sorts of menial jobs to test our endurance.

Out back Jenkins had us picking up shards of tile and placing them in this wooden bin. After about five minutes of this, I quit and walked away. An hour later, Office Depot called and hired me. I had put in an application a few days ago and after the interview they gave me the copier position. That was fine with me.

Ah, yes. Office Depot. My first day there I had made a bad impression on the orientation director, a screaming swishy fag named Dale Torres. I would constantly rib him about his sissy acting nature. He didn’t like it. And the fact he was popular with the rest of the crew, they didn’t like it either. When I started working my regular shift, my schedule Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Though the days were short, the pay was good. I guess.

The drugs that Dr. Guzman prescribed to me, in my opinion, were not working. They make me acutely agitated. I would become unusually hostile and yell and throw things for no apparent reason. Guzman assured me that it was just my systems way of adjusting to the balancing effect of the Prozac. I told him to go fuck himself and I stopped my sessions with him. I came to the conclusion that nothing was wrong with me. Why, I’m the sanest guy I know.

The time I spent with Juan Holguin was becoming somewhat of a romance. This young dark skinned straight acting cholo seems to have taken a liking to me. We take romantic strolls out behind the cement factory at night and I would blow him. He is a good companion; caring, smart, and has a great sense of humor. My attraction with Juan is growing. We went and saw The Brothers Grimm (Kitty puree!) and had lunch together and sat at a bar downtown and over beers and tequila shots talked of intimate things. We even had sex a couple of times at the mission. That being both scary and exciting in the fact that we might get caught and be asked to leave.

I think when I move into my apartment I will invite Juan to live with me.

The Wild Boys.

I was working the intake desk at The Mish. I glanced at the clock, it said ten o’clock. Thirty more minutes and I can close up the desk and go to bed. There was a crackle over the intercom. Sergio Herreras voice bleated, “Oh, ****…could you come to the front desk please?” There was a pause, “NOW!”

I got up and stomped down the hallway to the front desk, “Man, what the hell do you want?”

Whoa.

Standing at the front desk was a young handsome Mexican boy. He wore a white T-shirt, blue jeans and a black baseball cap. He had high cheekbones and a round full mouth. Thick black eyelashes framed his brown eyes. He was very good looking with a hint of orient in his face. He was tall, lean, his shoulders wider than his waist, with good natural muscletone. No body fat. The young man smiled and said, “Hi.”

“Mr. ****…this is Juan Holguin, he just came across the border." Grinned Sergio and with a wide theatrical sweep with his arm, pointed to the dorm. "Would you mind giving him a bed?”

“Sure.” I chirped. “I’d be happy to. Follow me.”

Juan walked in front of me as we went down the hall to the intake room. I glanced at Sergio and mouthed, “Look at that ass!” Sergio just cackled like a bitter queen as I ran after Juan and sat back at my desk. I gave Juan a goofy grin. “Hi. Have you ever been here before?”

“Um…no. Not for a long time.”

I looked down at his hands, the boy was missing several fingers and his forearms were a mass of scars.

Wow, what happened?

“What’s your name again…I’m sorry.” I asked.

“Juan Holguin.”

I wrote it down on the intake sheet saying it slowly as I wrote. “J-u-a-n-H-o-l-g-u-in. Can I ask you a question if you don’t mind?”

“My hands? People ask about them all the time. Well, you see this scar?” Juan circled his left wrist with a finger showing a jagged scar that went all around the circumference of the wrist. “I was fishing down in Puerto Villarta and my hand was bitten off by a shark. They managed to get the hand back and sew it on. I was reaching into the sharks mouth and that’s how I lost these fingers here.” He showed me his hands and on his left hand was missing the two middle fingers and part of the pinkie. The right hand was pretty much intact but the fingers were slightly deformed. “It’s no big deal.”

You’re still pretty hot, I thought.

I stared into his handsome brown eyes. There was a spark there; a mutual understanding that this person thought on the same wavelength. It wasn’t love at first sight. I knew it wasn’t something that petty, but an understanding that I may have found that person that you look for all your life. It is a thing that goes beyond love or friendship. An almost telepathic symbiosis. You can’t explain it you just know when it happens.

“Here is your ticket for your bed, Juan.” I told him about the shower before bed. When the boy left for the dormitory, I sat there very puzzled. My emotions were running wild. I hadn’t felt like this towards anybody in years, never this quick. There was something special about this person…I didn’t know what and that is what confused me.

Ah, what am I thinking? He’s just another piece of trash that’s staying here…Wait! He may need shampoo!

I got up, grabbed the bottle of shampoo off of the desk and walked briskly to the showers. Luckily there was nobody in there except Juan. He stood there lathering up his body. I studied his smooth hairless torso. He wasn’t dark, but he had a good tan. I noticed the tattoos on his chest and back. His body was very tight and muscular. His penis was fat and uncircumcised with black shiny pubic hairs. With his cap off, I saw that Juan had long wavy hair.

Juan saw me standing there and didn’t react. I held the bottle out for him. “Here. I know they’re out of shampoo…you can use some of mine.”

“Hey, thanks.” Juan said taking the bottle. I glanced at Juan’s hairless ass…very nice.

I returned to the intake room and switched the television off informing the men in there it was time to go to bed. I closed up my desk and went into the dormitory to go to sleep. Within the next five minutes or so they would be shutting the lights out for the night. Since I was the one that made the bed selections for the clients, I took care in putting Juan in a bunk right in front of mine. And there the boy lay when I got to my bed, wearing only a pair of red briefs. A lump rose in my throat.

“Well, it seems you’re all ready turned in for the night.” I said to Juan.

“I don’t think I’ll be getting any sleep. I have trouble sleeping in a strange place.”

I shook my head. “I know what you mean. All the farting, stinky feet and all night masturbating. I tell the guy next to me if he don’t like the way I am he can get a hotel.”

Juan chuckled, then went quiet. “Is it hard to get a job around here?”

“Not really…you just have to go out and find one. Maybe tomorrow we can go together to the employment office and find some work. You wanna go?”

“Sure, that’ll be cool.”

At that moment the lights went out.

“Well, guess the party’s over.” I said leaping into my bunk. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see ya.” Juan said.

I laid there in the dark. The snoring of the other transients started. I looked over to Juan and could make out his silhouette against the soft red light of the exit sign. Time passed. I rolled in my bunk overtaken by savage lust. Time crawled and I couldn’t sleep. I glanced back at Juan’s shadow. At the crotch, under the covers, there was a rhythmic movement.

Oh, shit! He’s jacking off! Gotta think fast!

I jumped out of bed and motioned Juan to follow me into the bathroom. I whispered, “Dude, I can’t sleep. Let’s go into the bathroom and talk.”

Juan got out of bed and followed me into the restroom. In the shower area there was an old fungus covered wooden bench and we both sat on it. People kept coming in and out of the restroom to use the toilet. The sound of pissing and shitting was mixed with the whirring of the huge antique fan in the wall of the showers and that drowned out our conversation to anyone who was in the dorm.

“So, tell me…how did you wind up in El Paso?” I asked. It was a good a question as any.

As Juan talked, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of those alien looking hands. “I was living in Tucson before I wound up in Mexico. They have several shelters in Tucson and I managed to get kicked out of all of them.” He brushed a hand across his smooth muscular chest. “I met this one black guy there and we became friends. He was a cool guy, like you, and he helped me out with a lot of stuff. But, he kept asking for sex in return.”

Nothings for free, kid.

“At first I used to charge him and he’d pay me money to suck my dick, they always pay.” He flashed me a knowing look. “But, when I moved in and we lived in an apartment together he became possessive and I left. I moved in with this one couple where the husband liked to watch me fuck his wife. I should have charged him too.” He smiled at that.

I knew it! The boy’s a prostitute!

I gave Juan a devilish grin and then said presently, “You know, Juan. I saw you jacking off in your bunk.”

“Yeah? ...I’m really horny.”

I glanced at his growing crotch in his red briefs. “So…um…you wanna jack off?”

“Sure.” Juan said and pulled out his stiff organ and started slowly to stroke it.

I was very excited. This was just what I needed. This boy was incredible and I was going to enjoy every moment. The moment was right, all things seem to fit into space. I pulled out my own penis, but as soon as Juan said, “How much you gonna give me?” I sprayed my semen all over the moldy tile floor of the shower. I was so embarrassed that I stood up, mumbled a few unintelligent syllables and left the shower with Juan sitting there still holding his erection.

I got to my bunk and fell asleep. Troubled by my emotions for this boy and the fumble that just happened, how would I face this Juan tomorrow.