Kafkan Hi-jinks and Tony Baloney.

Wake up and gargle a pot of Joe down, scrub my ass, and hit the dusty teaming streets of Juarez City. J-Town, to the brain damaged locals. I visit the market looking for a new manicure set; found it for fiddy cents. Buy gel, a shirt that says "Puta" with the Puma logo, and sit in front of the Cathedral Guadalupe and sip horchata.

Flashback to the first night in my apartment, short haggish landlady shuffles around in frayed slippers giving me a grand tour of my new trap. I inspect everything like a good American queer, flushing the toilet, checking the tap, bouncing on the bed, I notice a small cockroach skittering across the green tiled floor.

"Uh, is there a bug problem? You did spray when you cleaned the place, right, Maria?" I asked watching the critter scamper under the bureau.

Cough and a cackle, she assured me that I might see a couple roaches this being Juarez and all. So, that night I retire in my bed naked for a night of peaceful slumber. In the pitch black that's when I hear them. Skitter-skitter-skitter. Flicking on the lamp the floor and walls and ceiling are covered by a mass of small cockroaches. Yes, I screamed like a girl. Shaking out my clothes, I hurriedly dressed and ran down to the corner store that is opened 24 hours and purchased two cans of highly toxic Mexican bug spray.

With a bandanna around my mouth and nose and my Mike Teevee white goggles I kick open the front door with a can of spray in each hand. "Prepare to meet your Apocalypse, fuckers!" I growl and enter my pad, guns-ablazin'. After spraying every inch of my apartment, woozy and half blinded by the fumes, I sweep up the carnage and dump them into a large empty mayonnaise jar. Placing the jar in front of my landlady's door with a note that read, "Here are those one or two bugs that you said I'd encounter. Love, #12."

Flashbulb back to now, I chuckle at that and walk around the Plaza browsing the shops. I light up a Lucky Strike and I hear, "Hey, guedo, got a smoke?" I turn around to see a short skinny guy in wife beater, baggy khaki pants, with a skinned head. His brown eyes are large and sparkle with inner youth, brown freckles splashed across his cheeks and nose. He had a smile like a predator, showing small white teeth. Nice toned pecs. I hand him a cigarette.

"Thanks. Where ya going?" He asked, lighting up.

"I was thinking of going to get a bowl of menudo. There is this restaurant that I know and the menudo is quite toothsome."

"For reals! I love menudo. Let me go with you." He smiled that smile again.

"Uhm, what's your name?" I asked.

"Tony Sentimatalis." He said. And I told him mine and we walked the couple of blocks to Cafe Mimi, a ratty joint but has the best menudo in greater Juarez. We sat and talked. He is twenty one years old and he used to live in the States for eleven years, hence his perfect English, but was deported with his illegal parents two years ago. He can live in the States, but prefers to stay with his ailing mother. He then went into a long tirade about how he was hit by a truck while crossing the street and lay in a coma for three months, showing the scars here and there on his lean torso to accent his story. "I'm a little crazy. They took some of my brain out."

"Really." I said, slurping down my menudo. This guy is cute but definitely a strange character. Several cups of coffee later, he asks, "So, watta ya gonna do right now?"

"I was thinking of spending a day at the movies." The porno movies that is. Juarez has a nefarious porno theater that is legendary. It seemed like a nice way to while away the afternoon.

"Can I go with you? I haven't been to the movies forever." He asked, lighting up another of my cigarettes.

"Well, I'm going to the porno theater. You might not like it...a lot of fags go there and suck each others cock." I stated matter of factly putting on my Willy Wonka sunglasses and reaching for my wallet to pay the bill.

"Oh, man," He smiled. "I haven't had a blow job forever. If you don't mind...can I go with you?"

Yes. Why not?

Across the Park and pay the lady the sixty pesos for us both and enter the two theater building. The inside smelled of mildew and semen. Several Mexicans walked out of one theater to the other one, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. Tony and I walked into the cavernous first theater. Once a grand movie palace, now it was in ruins with huge gaping holes in the roof and great cracks rendered the flaking cement walls; it looked as if the building would collapse at any moment. Feeling our way in the darkness, we found the balcony and sat next to each other in old wooden seats. Flickering on the torn screen was an old American porno from the eighties, dubbed in Italian with Spanish subtitles. Scattered around the large theater sat several Mexicans, some in pairs, some alone, others cruising up and down the aisles.

Tony noticed some young guy blowing another a few rows away. "Hey, look! Omigod! Is he sucking that dudes dick?" He whispered.

"No, he's probably looking for his lost contact lens. Of coarse, tonto, what do you think they're doing!" I joked.

"A guebo, that's hot." I heard Tony whisper from the darkness. Suddenly, I felt Tony take my hand and place it onto his crotch. He was very excited. Zip and pull his penis free of his boxers, playing with his foreskin and the little drop of lubricant that formed at the tip. With the wacka wacka wacka music of the porno movie wafting through the stale air, I leaned over and gave Tony a blow job. Hissing "Aie que rico!", emptying his semen into my mouth. "Wow, that was the best head I'd ever had in my life!" He blurts out way too loud. "You need to get out more often." I say. We sit through two movies and five blow jobs later, the young boy is getting comfortable and clings onto me like a little monkey. I look down into his face in the gloom, "You know, when I first met you I never thought you would be gay."

"Everyone is gay." He said flatly and held my chin and gave me the most sweetest of kisses. We sat there, arms rapped around each other until the movie was over. Outside, I invited Tony to dinner and as we ate our burritos al fresco with a Sol cervesa each, we talked of Nike sneakers and science fiction, fat transvestite hookers and the fact that he never has seen the ocean, Mexican wrestling and the latest model of Mustang. Getting late, he had to take the bus back to his barrio which was a million miles away. I walked him to his bus stop.

"Can I see you again? I really like you." He said, eyes looking deep into mine.

We made a date for tomorrow night, to go to the regular movies. He wants to see Sin City, I said I saw it and was really good but wouldn't mind seeing it again. With people bustling around us, shaking hands, he squeezed my fingers, and boarded his bus. As the old bus farted out black smoke and chugged down the bumpy road, I turned and walked away wondering why I am such a sucker for love. Yet, my lust is drowned out by doubt and mistrust from a thousand nameless assholes.

Just the same, I want to see him again.