I sat back on the squeaking bed in my hotel room and took a long drag off of my cigarette. I had checked in two friends who were visiting me from Los Angeles at the Gateway Hotel on San Antonio St., a cheap and run down building a few blocks from the international border. The hotel had to date back to the beginning of the twentieth century and it showed. My two friends who so graciously decided to fly out here was Edison Diego, a very intense fellow filmmaker, though straight, he is gay friendly because he had brought Lola La Chata with him, a four hundred pound Filipino drag queen with down syndrome. What a pair. Edison went to the corner market for more booze and I was in his room and waited.
I inhaled another toke, staring at the dusty fan slowly revolving up on the high ceiling. The pink walls were shedding and the toilet leaked constantly, the bottle of Jose Cuervo on the end table was almost empty, and somewhere down the hall the two stout housemaids were blabbing away in Spanish. Rings of Fire by Johnny Cash crackled over the FM station from the radio on the dresser.
At that moment, someone gently knocked at the door.
“Yeah?! It’s open.” I knew who it was.
The door creaked open and Lola LaChata entered the room. She was dressed in a tube dress of black and gray horizontal stripes with red pumps and a bouffant black wig.
I grinned through bloodshot eyes, “Shit, girl! You look like a big fat Mexican whore.”
“Thanks.” Lola said faking a big showgirl smile. She walked over and picked up the bottle of tequila. “I see you’ve been fucking with your buddy Jose Cuervo?” She studied my body sprawled out on his bed. “You’re drunk again, I see.”
“Don’t get any of them queer ideas.” I said sarcastically and tried to get up.
“Don’t flatter yourself, sweets. Anyway, we have to go get Edison.” Lola extended her chunky hand to assist me. I grabbed her forearm and pulled myself off of the bed. “It’s almost time to meet Fat Charlie at the restaurant.”
“Let’s go then.” I said fumbling through my pockets for the car keys. Edison had rented a Sudan, from the airport and I was the designated driver. I had a massive headache and made a mental note to take the Tylenol that I had in the glove compartment.
“Are you okay to drive?” Lola said as she watched me wobble.
“Yeah. Sure…I’m fine.” I said, belching into my fist. I was lying. I was feeling a little sick. It had been at least forty-eight hours since I had taken a hit of cocaine and my muscles ached. It didn’t matter, in a few hours I would make a beautiful score, a veritable mother load, and I would be smoothed out.
“I have a bad feeling.” Lola moaned. “We shouldn’t do this. This doesn’t feel right. I've never been to Mexico and they say this city is really dangerous”
“Oh, stop your whining and let’s go.” I stepped out into the hall and grinned. “Don’t worry, Big Mama, you’re with me.”
“That’s comforting.” Lola said as she closed the door behind her and followed me to the elevator.
We ran into Edison in the hallway, he looks like a thin Jack Nicholson, 40ish and a junky. He wore an olive blazer with a black knit shirt and black slacks. Thinning brown hair slicked back. "Ready, kid?" He said as we came out of the elevator.
"Let's go." I smiled.
We stopped to pick up Fat Charlie, you regular readers will remember he is the guy I sold my Food Stamps to when I was dating Vincent Guzman, before I went to Nebraska.
We met Fat Charlie at the border on the El Paso side. Fat Charlie wanted to go to Juarez City and score for some good coke. Why not? We passed over the International Bridge and drove down to Ave. 16 de Septembre, I had problems finding a parking spot; the traffic was horrible. I parked the car next to the old Guadalupe cathedral; a pile of ancient stone dating back a couple of centuries. From what I remembered, Juarez sprang up around the cathedral like growing fungus, spreading outward. Waiting by the bronze statue on Tin-Tan was Tony, exactly on time and looking grrr-jss in his cholo street clothes. We said hello to each other and the world seemed a little bit better know that I was with him.
The sidewalk was bustling with people; all dashing to and fro in their various affairs. As our group got out of the car we were swarmed over by ten taxi drivers all on the hustle:
“Downtown, Meester?”
“Pussy women? Titty girl?"
“Donkey Show?”
“Best pussy…no like pussy? I got boys…twelve years old!”
Oh God, Edison thought. “I gotta get some smokes.”
He noticed a couple of boys selling cigarettes at the base of the missions’ steps. Good ol’ Mexico, I thought. I looked around; the area favored nothing stateside for sheer filth and poverty. Among the indifferent mass of pedestrians, people shit all over the street and then lie down and sleep in it with flies crawling in and out of their mouths. Entrepreneurs built fires in the street and cooked up hideous, stinking nameless messes of food that they dispense to passers by. Hot and dry like a Turkish Bath, and vultures eating a dead pig off a side street and everywhere you look there is some baboso scratching his balls. Yep, good ol’ Mexico.
At that moment, three little children, two boys and one girl, dressed in rags and dirty bare feet approached Lola and put out their hands and smiled.
“Oh” Lola cooed. “How adorable! Here you go.” Lola smiled, giving each kid a dollar.
“I wouldn’t do that.” I said.
And as if on cue, dozens of kids and men approached her with palms outstretched.
Tony yelled, waving his hands, “Oye! Vete de aqui ya!” (Hey! Get out of here, now!)
The group moved solemnly away.
A few feet away there was a public telephone. Without saying anything, Tony walked up and plugged a few pesos into the machine. He started talking to someone in Spanish.
An old man in a gray dirty jacket, shiny over the dirt, approached Edison with a cardboard box that was full of different brands of cigarettes. Edison pointed at a pack of Lucky Strikes and asked the street vender. “How much?”
“Vente pesos.” The man said.
“What’s that…two dollars?” Edison asked.
“Yeah. More or less.” I interjected.
“Si. Dos dolares.” The old man smiled and took the two crumpled bills. “Gracias.”
“Yeah…grashiass…Hey, Tony, where’s this friend of yours?” Edison asked, ripping open the package of cigarettes. Edison, Fat Charlie, and myself was to buy some cocaine from some shady friend of Tony's.
“I told him to meet us here. We’ll wait in a bar.” Tony said.
“There is one real good one just around the corner. See that row of shoe shine booths? It’s right around there.” I beamed.
Tony continued for a couple of minutes on the phone in Spanish and then hung up the receiver. “Okay, I told him to meet us at Buen Tiempo. It’ll be about thirty minutes. Let’s go.”
We crossed the busy plaza in front of the church, I new this place well. On weekends the plaza was packed with hustlers cruising for a few bucks. This was the meeting place for all the local men who wanted an afternoon diversion. Under the blazing sun, the teeming flesh eyed one another with unbridled macho lust. After the sun went down, the hustlers were a bit seasoned and more professional.
I looked at a young Mexican boy that looked back and smiled, I confided in Edison, “You know, when I moved to Juarez, the thought of paying for sex appalled me. My attitude was that I was looking for love and not sex. Guys should love me for who I am and not for what I have. This is a vulgar lie. In this gay life, there is no love…only sex. And for the most part that’s a disappointment. So, over the years I have come to look at the sex act as a commodity of necessity that can be purchased like a pair of shoes or a pack of cigarettes.”
“I wish you knew my old lady.” Edison said, taking a drag off of his cigarette.
Next to the gazebo in the middle of the plaza a group of performers dressed as Aztec Indians danced to a tribal beat. They were surrounded by locals and a scattering of curious tourists.
“Oh, why didn’t I bring my camera?” Lola moaned.
Across the plaza at the corner, the group led by me came upon a pair of old swinging wooden doors painted yellow.
I stopped and turned to the bunch, palm outward, “Well, here it is! Bar Buen Tiempo!”
“Ahh…booze.” Edison said stepping in the door, removing his shades. The rest filtered in after him.
The interior was a dark low ceiling room. There where but a few patrons in the cantina; solemnly hunched over their beers, not saying anything. On one side was a long bar tended by two tough lesbians. On the other side of the bar were old booths where sex and drugs were bought over the table. There was a big jukebox that played the same tunes over and over again. And in the middle, the main floor where two hustlers stood and posed gazing out with probing insect lust.
We all filtered to the back of the bar and sat on stools. One of the ladies that tended the bar approached them was a heavily made up old woman with short blond hair. She looked far younger than her actual years and came to Tony with an outstretched palm and a smile. They greeted each other in Spanish; each with a peck on the cheek.
“Oh,” Lola complimented, “She is so pretty. I love her shoes. Are those cha-cha heels?”
Tony looked at everyone and said, “This is Sylvia. She wants to know what you want to drink.”
“Just order five caguamas.” I suggested.
“What’s a caguama?”, asked Edison.
“See those big bottles that look like forty-ouncers?” I said pointing at the other patrons’ large brown bottles around the bar. “Those are called caguamas. It’s what you want to drink if you want to save money. Single beers cost about the same. The locals order them to save money.”
“And trust, we all look like tourists.” Lola twittered.
Edison watched nervously at the door. The door swung open and an old man in black tattered clothing shuffled into the cantina. He wobbled while he walked, obviously intoxicated. As he passed Lola, he gave her a wink and a toothless smile. Though he stank of putrid urine, Lola smiled and said, “Hi.”
The old man continued shuffling on into the men’s room that was adjacent to where the group sat.
The bartender named Sylvia returned with our bottles and glasses. Serving them with lemons and salt.
“Hmm, I feel right at home.” I said with a perk. “This is my old stomping ground. I used to come here and pick up all the time. This place can get pretty festive. I just love the romance of Mexico.” Like the others, I began pouring his beer into his glass.
Edison glanced over to the men’s room. From his vantage point he could see right into the restroom with an unobstructed view of the urinal trough. "Typical gay bar set up", mumbled Edison. "Freakin’ penis peepers."
The old drunken street tramp smiled his toothless smile, a black hole surrounded by a wild mane of frizzy white hair. His grin fixed on Edison; in one motion the drunk pulled down his trousers and loudly and abundantly plopped a big shit in the urinal trough.
“Lovely.” Edison said, face blank as a poker dealers. He took a big gulp of his beer.
Ignoring the crap show that Edison was witnessing, I spoke to both Lola and Fat Charlie, but loud enough for Edison to pick up what I was saying. “Yeah. The people down here are so cool…I’ve never had a problem with them. Unlike Americans. You know, I have so many friends in Juarez…and I mean friends for life! Americans themselves are a defensive culture…Mexicans I think are more open and friendly.”
“Speakin’ of friendly,” Fat Charlie smiled at me and said, “Follow me into the restroom, young man. I want to talk to you.”
I new exactly what this conversation was going to be about. I followed Fat Charlie into the men’s room. The old tramp wobbled out, patting me on the shoulder on the way, cackling. The room smelled unbelievably foul.
Fat Charlie entered the only stall, “Just a minute, young man, I’ll be right out.”
I waited outside the metal stall for a minute. I heard the distinct sniffing and snorting from Fat Charlie that could only mean one thing. I shifted from one foot to another as my junk cells snapped into overdrive. I glanced down at the urinal trough that lined the opposite wall with the mound of feces piled in the middle; a putrid brown stream flowing down to the drain trap at the end. The steel door to the stall swung open with a resounding clang.
As Fat Charlie exited the metal cubical, he winked at me, his face distorted in a silly grin, said: “Please, step in my office, senor. First…do I have anything showing?” He lifted his head so I could see full view of his hairy nostrils; they were caked in meth and dried mucus.
“No,” I said. “You can’t tell anything.”
“Righty-oh!” Fat Charlie breathed.
As Fat Charlie returned to the bar, I entered the stall and noticed that there were two extremely fat lines of white crystal methedrine lying across the top of the graffitied toilet paper dispenser. With one fluid motion, I whipped out a single twenty peso bill from my wallet, rolled it into a tube and sniffed the meth up. I stood straight up and habitually leaned my head back and snorted the drug into my sinuses. I wiped the residue off of the dispenser with my index finger and casually massaged it across my gums. The junk circuits in my mind began to pop and crackle to life as the drug began to take hold. With twitching galvanized movements I returned to the bar.
Lola and Fat Charlie where whispering secrets to each other and giggling as I took his seat. I looked at the two, croaked, “What?”
Edison lit another cigarette and turned to me, ignoring Tony, who was having an animated conversation with the bartender, Sylvia. Edison said looking around, “You know, I bet it wouldn’t cost us that much to open a bar here. How much do you think? Three? Four thou?”
“Would it be a gay bar?” I said, tensely.
“Ah fuck no! I’d make it a swanky joint and fill it full of slot machines and teenage hookers! Ya know, fifteen, sixteen years old. Of coarse they’d all have to sleep with me to get the job.” Edison took a puff from his cigarette.
“You’d have to pay the cops off. Especially for something that crooked.” I said and grabbed a lemon and squeezed a few drops into his beer. Lola and Charlie started laughing and both got up and went into the restroom.
At that moment two men entered the cantina. The obvious leader of the twosome was in his early fifties. He was tall with salt and pepper hair. The thick mustache was also gray. He was in good health and handsome for his age; not a wrinkle on his solid masculine latino face with black slits for eyes. He was well groomed and dressed, sporting a mustard suit with a white t-shirt under the buttoned blazer. He wore a solid gold chain around his muscular neck that read Hector. His black shiny boots clacked as he walked with confident deliberation flanked by his lackey; a short stocky Mexican in a white tank top and dark brown chinos. His body was a mass of scars and tattoos. These were Tony's friends and our connections.
Tony introduced the older guy as Hector and I forgot his name. Hector asked edison into the men's room and a deal was made. Momentarily, Hector and his lackey left. For the next six hours it was a pi-snorting good time of a drunken coke fueled party. My two friends, along with Fat Charlie had a good time. As the hours passed the small bar began to fill with a multitude of local fags. They went nuts over Lola. We all got pretty ripped. La Tortura by Shakira blared and an old man in a cowboy suit and silver teeth danced alone to the reggaeton that blared. At two, we crawled across the border, smuggling the dope with us without a hitch. The following morning, I went to the El Paso airport and saw them off. Taking the bus back to the border, I thought of the possibility of maybe returning to Los Angeles.
Nah.
