Twilights last Gleaming

Once again, a ticket was bought, a bus was boarded, and a long journey was taken. Tony and I, after the events of random stupidity, sat on opposite ends of the bus, I was so tired, I slept the entire nights journey. Didn´t care of the dead landscape that drifted past, didn´t care of the adobe or the honky hating Indians, staring out from under black Stetsons, eyes burning with hepatitis.

The fiery sun split the night as we rolled into The Great Desert. With a squeal of breaks, we arrived in El Paso, that dead dog Tex-Mex town and I headed straight to the Rescue Mission for I knew that there was a check waiting for me. I get a small trust fund check monthly from my parents. Again, with the help of my check, I was going to stay at the mission, get a job, an apartment and my life back on track. But, seeing the current clients there made me gag, so I decided to rent a room at a hotel in Juarez and bust my bleeding ass finding work and an apartment. Goodbye Tony, you dumbass!

However, Tony talked me into letting him stay with me because he also didn’t care too much for that mission either. But,what about your fucking family!? Man, this goofball is nuttier than squirrel shit. I stood outside the mission and stared at him...so cute...I stupidly agreed and off we went and rented a room at Hotel Chingadera. Actually, that was my name for the hotel. It didn’t have a marquee. The entrance was a metal door that said “Hotel” above it in splashed paint and you reach the reception desk by a flight of well-worn wooden stairs. The receptionist was a fat toothless stinkbomb that sat behind a grated window. The room only consisted of a couple of mattresses on a dirty floor and that was it. The door had no lock. At least we had a door. A luxury some guests did not possess. This fleabag hotel charged twenty dollars a week and had a public bathroom.

Tony confided in me that the reason that he could not go home, now get this, was that car that his brother gave him, well it was actually stolen. From his brother. Why does that not surprise me? Sigh. After settling in, Tony and I decided to go for drinks and toast to our success the next day at finding work. We visited a few bars and got a little drunk. Okay, we got shit-faced. In my intoxication, I guess my true feelings for that boy started to come out. But, when he started coming on to these hideous drag queens at Bar Nebraska, I exploded and belted him across the back of the head. A scuffle ensued between us just outside the bar, okay a drop down fight of WWF Smackdown magnitude. I mean a real roll in the street slugfest. I staggered, bloody and drunk up to my room, threw his clothes out of the third floor window into on coming traffic below and screamed for him to get the fuck outta my life. Tony stormed off into the darkness, leaving his meager belongings in the trash littered street. I was so furious. I hate him. I hate drag queens. I hate this stupid desert town. I sat on the window pane, sobbing, holding a bloody towel to my head, realizing how much of a drama queen I can really be. I gazed out into the vast urban waste.

In the evening, lights from an ever-increasing number of television sets inflict a misleading frostiness to the air. It is said that true albinos produce light of a similar luminescence when they move their bowels.

I sat there and thought of Tony. I know, I’m such an idiot. When it comes to love, I’m such a sloppy romantic. I checked into Hotel Chingadera for three days and spent most of my money on booze and boys. I paid for a dirty room that opened into a companionway that never got any sunlight. The wallpaper in the hall was flaking off because the radiator leaked steam when there was any steam to leak. I had the windows sealed shut against the cold with a caulking of newspapers. The place was full of roaches and occasionally I killed a bedbug. When finally I did arrive at the mission, the manager Juana Ortega was not pleased and put the finger on me to get a job and fast. I landed a waitering gig at the Airport Hilton Hotel and did a pretty good job at making tips.

But, yesterday, Tony paid me a visit. We sat on a steel bench and talked in a cold park nearby under a hideously bright blue Texan sky.. The ground was black and hard, dead leaves blew in the chilled wind. I found it ludicrous sitting there talking to that boy. There was still a lot of hate in my heart, but there was love, too. He asked me why did I come back to El Paso, I could have gone to any city that I wanted. Why El Paso? I meekly admitted that I returned because of him. He sat silent for a minute and answered that with, “Could you buy me a beer?”

What?

Huacala! Those last two hours pretty much killed my affections for that boy and we parted ways.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the stint with the Hilton and with the help of David Shelly, also known as Gordo Bastardo; a disgustingly obese man from Milwaukee that was thrown out of the mission for God knows what, I've acquired a descent apartment in Juarez for $100.00 a month in my old building! He didn't want to rent my apartment so my landlady is going to rent it to me again.

Sigh. Things are back in alignment. For now.

Gentle Reader...The lyrics pretty much sums up the year...