Burned.

I got lobotomized drunk in Bar Buen Tiempo and then went to a queer bar that stays open till dawn. A skanky little hole in the wall in an alley in the Old Mercado. I don't even think it has a name. Just That Bar. I must have had more drinks at the queer joint, because there was a lapse of time. It was getting light outside when the bar hits one of those sudden pockets of quiet. Quiet is something that does not happen often in a queer joint. I guess most of the fags had left. I was leaning against the bar with a beer I didn’t want in front of me. The noise cleared like smoke and I saw a skin-headed cholo looking straight at me and standing three feet away.

He didn’t come on faggish, so I said, “Howzit going, man?” or something like that.

He said: “Do you want to go to bed with me?”

I said, “Okay, let’s go.”

As we walked out, he grabbed my bottle of beer off the bar and stuck it under his coat. Outside, it was daylight and the sun was just coming up. We staggered through the Old Mercado passing the beer bottle back and forth. He was leading me in the direction of his hotel, so he said. I could feel my stomach knot up like I was about to take a shot after being off the junk a long time. I should have been more alert, of course, but I never could mix vigilance and sex. All this time he was talking on in a sexy southern voice which was not a south Texan accent, and in the daylight he still looked good.

We got to a hotel and he put down some routine why he should go in first alone. I pulled some bills out of my pocket. He looked at them and said, “Better give me ten.”

I gave it to him. He went into the hotel and came right out.

“No rooms there. Let’s try The Milano.”

The Milano was right across the street.

I waited an hour and by then it occurred to me what was wrong with the first hotel. It’d had no back or side door he could walk out of. I was so pissed if I found the bastard I was going to strangle him. I waited around The Milano and looked for the kid all through the Old Mercado. About noon, I got hungry and ate a plate of tacos with a glass of beer, and suddenly felt so tired that when I walked out of the restaurant my legs were folding under me as if someone was clipping me behind the knees.

I took a cab home and fell across the bed without taking off my shoes. I woke up around six in the evening and went to franks. After three quick beers I felt better.

The Greatest Film Ever.

Many have asked what is my favorite film of all time? This one; without question. It is the one that made me want to make films.

Burracho y Loco.

Friday at work all clandestine like I ask him what are his plans and nuthin is the answer. So, Toby Bustamonte happily agrees to spend the evening with me, since the next day was my birthday. He gets offa work before me, so later that after noon, he meets with me on that side and we enjoy the best barbaocoa on this hemisphere at Los Azules and can't finish it all between us who woulda think a kilo of juicy meat would slow us down but slow us it does. We retire to my trap and idle the setting sun away in sixty nine -squirt!squirt!- and a viewing of David Lynch's Wild at Heart. After the DVD, we take a siesta and when we awake in each others arms, I gots the belly ache from said barbaocoa and he is down with some type of flu. I feel his forehead and Toby is quite warm and hacking like a withdrawing junky, but is still up to going out tonight, what a trooper.

We shower and to the throbbing beat of the Party Monster soundtrack we ready for a night of festivities and hit the cool night air in search of my friends. We enter first Bar Buen Tiempo and down a caguama of Carta Blanca, digging the scene. Toby notices that the gay bars are quite different as in more relaxed and not full of with screeching contorting queers. I explain it is just this one. There are others more flamboyant. We finish up and head over to Bar Callitas in the Old Mercado and guzzle another caguama of same concoction. The joint is jumping, the hideous trannies are crooning over Toby and one, who Toby has christened "La Gueda", coos and flirts with him in the most nasty of manners. Enough to turn one to stone. But, still no amigos mio in sight. Tony says he wants to dance, so we finish our beverage and skedaddle over to Freegay, that notorious cholo infested disco on Mariscal Avenue. It is almost empty and stayed that way until we left. However, while we were there, we boogied a little to some reggaeton beats, but as the minutes passed Toby's health began to deteriorate and we returned home, stopping only to joke with the ugliest transvestite hooker known to man.

Once in bed, the poor boy was burning up. I mean practically on fire. I held him in my arms the entire night as he sweated and shook through his illness, coughing and hacking horribly. The farmacias didn't open until eight in the morning and I couldn't buy him anything...I felt so bad.

The following morning, Toby peeled himself outta bed, sheets soaked through, saying he felt a little better and had an appetite. He kissed me and wished me a happy birthday. We walked over to La Nuevo Central for coffee and menudo and talked. He agreed he said at my invitation to move in. I was very jazzed, but hesitant. I still had the sour taste of William Wiggins in my mouth and was afraid of going through the same shit...again, I am Toby's first homosexual relationship and I don't want it to get freaky. I thought I'd play it as cool as possible, be as non-threatening as I can be - just let it take its coarse, right?

After, breakfast, we went to the farmacia and I bought Toby some medicine for his flu and spent the afternoon at me house watching the first three episodes of Star Wars, Toby wanted to relax and get his strength back for the evening. I dozed on and off most of the day. After, Revenge of the Sith, we went for burritos and beer and talked of our relationship and I explained my hesitations. Toby told me not to worry.

As the night progressed, Toby's health returned thanks to the medicine and rest; so we dressed and went out. We met my friends at Bar Callitas and got ripped. The beer flowed. Toby made the mistake of showing them his body tattoos, and those horny bitches began pawing him. But, he seemed to like it. The night went, the caguama bottles emptied and everyone got a good buzz on. We all skipped next door to Elvira's, a bi-sex disco and drank more and danced and had a good time. Around two thirty, Toby said he was tired, so we said our adioses and left for home.

This is when it gets stupid.

Once in bed and with Julee Cruise crooning in the dark, Toby started going on about how horrible my friends are, how he didn't like the fact that they were touching his tattoos, how I was forcing him to do thing that he doesn't like to do, how I am very demanding, how I disrespected him in front of my friends, how I am throwing a bad attitude at him all the time, and other gibberish.

Dear Reader, I need not tell you these things were fabricated for no apparent reason. Was it the booze? Was it how he really felt? Both? I lay there listening to this crap. Every time I tried to speak, his drunk ass would cut me off with another intoxicated accusation. I lept out of bed, flung on my clothes, turned on the lights and growled, "I have shown you nothing but kindness and respect, Toby...But, you wanna see bad attitude? You wanna see the extent of my disrespect? Get your fucking ass outta my bed, get you clothes on and out of my house!"

"But, I's three thirty in the morning!"

"You want sympathy? You have a better chance talking to that cold brick wall. Get out!"

Ah...Alcohol. Well, as he drunkenly dressed, he changed his tune and started in about how much he wanted to love me and wanted to live with me and blah, blah, blah yakkity-smakkity blah blah. I explained to him that he must've expected a simpering passive fairy, something I am not. He must've expected me to cringe and beg him to stay and take his abuse, see how far he could push me. I guess he found out. Slam. He was gone. I do not regret my decision. I felt nothing inside. The problem is, I never feel anything anymore inside. Nothing. Only I have to see this fucker again Monday morning. Sigh. When will I learn? I am such a fool in the romance department.

The Talking Asshole.

And from the word spills forth this work from the work spills forth the word. You have not been forgotten, Bill.

Forbidden Fruit.

All said and done, I do have a set of rules and moral conduct. One of the main commandments I try to abide by is to never get involved with a co-worker. Too dangerous...to many complications at the old office if anything goes awry. How ever, sometimes raging hormones can over ride even the most basic aspects.

Toby Bustamante. Valet. Twenty-three. Tall and athletic. Light skinned and very, very handsome. Shaved headed, tattooed ex-street gangster type cholo just released from state trying to make amends from a shattered and torn past. Flirt to the core with the female of the species. And as I have soon found out a sucker for blonds with blue eyes...no matter what the sex.

He was hired only a week ago and already he has become quite popular with the work crew, you know the type...quick tongue with the girls, talks of sports and cars and pussy with the guys. Brags about how many beers he´s downed at the club and the fist fights that he gets into with the rival gangs...

Well, I took him home and had sex with him after work this afternoon. I mean, he asked. After a bit of flirting and sexual innuendo on the congress of both parts. Not only that, but he took up my invitation to move in with me for the next couple of months before he enlists into the Army. Sigh.

The time spent was so great...we sat and drank beers listening to the Mexican top 40 and then hopped into bed and did the horizontal mambo twice round to a straight porno and it was...fun. Not weird. No attitude. No inhibitions. Just pure simple boyish playful fun. And he kisses really really great.

Afterwards, as he took a shower and I blaster the soundtrack to Party Monster, I sat on the couch, asshole throbbing, wondering if I am doing the right thing. I mean, at work we have to keep this thing under wraps. Walked him to the border, and said I will see him tomorrow at work. He casually says sure and returns to El Paso.

I stood watching him cross the bridge and my heart fluttered.

Crap. Life is wild at heart and weird on top. Well, here I go again...

Zany Zacatecan.

Tired. Shagged out was the word I can only describe the state of my body. Sin enerjia. Friday rolls around and I is pooped. Work ends and I drag my ass across el frontera and do the chore I detest the most, laundry, and with that I almost fall asleep at during the final rinse. But, while I am back at my digs hanging my rags I don't wanna stay home being a Friday night and against the protest of my aching cells I shower and dress and decide to take up Esperanzas invite to go to a house party in the hills. It is late I know but jet over to the Plaza in front of the Cathedral to the meet in a one and a million chance that perhaps she and Ricardo are still waiting. An hour late, I chain smoke with stinging lungs, pacing with weary legs.

Two ugly Rent Boys try to make conversation but I shoo them off with that American Imperious attitude. I feel like shit afterwards. I hate doing that. We Americans can be such shits sometimes. Time jumps. No Espie. No Rick. I start to get agitated. A rather tall handsome guy in denim jean jacket and pants; well worn, sits opposite me on the concrete bench. He smiles and starts to talk in broken English. Awesome smile. Thick dark eyelashes. I explain the situation. Very snappily, I might add. Such a bitch I can be...I mean I'm tired. And I tell him that several times. He notes that my friends are not going to show up, all the while casually rubbing his innerestin' crotch, and invites me for a fresca. He goes on and on that his name is Johnny - not Juan, right - but, Johnny, and he's from the state of Zacatecas and his Pop has a ranchero and he is visiting with his cousin to sell land...blah, blah, blah...

I falter. Pensive. He says he has a hotel room close by and we could go there for a little hoodley-hoo. Kinda junpin' the gun, ya know, whatta he take me for? I falter. I'm tired, I says. That's okay. It isn't far. Pesky, this guy...but really hot. Not in the mood, though. My mind races in strange directions. Not your average faggito, I.

No. I say flatly and turn away, lighting my tenth cigarette. He smiles and says goodbye walks off into the cool starry night. Sigh. I loathe myself. I can be so cruel. The guy just wanted a few kicks. I walk through the muggy night to Burrito Row to my friends stand and munch onna coupla burritos mole and shoot the shit with Jose who is working. All muscle and twinkling eyes. A total heart throb. A broken cholo-old school hanging out chats with me about the fuzz problem downtown and then I cut to Freegay cause that Johnny got me horny. Paid the ten pesos to get in and the freaking place was a mausoleum. A few screeching teany-bopper queens whirled on the dance floor and I saw the tranny I clobbered a few weeks back but nothing else. So, I left to go hunt for my other friends. Shit, I thought, where is everybody? I guess it was just one of those nights when nothing happens, you know. A night of Dead Roads.

So I walk into the Old Mercado, past the prowling transvestite hookers and hobos sleeping in putrid vomit and to Callita Bar but it is closed. I stand in front at the cracked and trash filled curb, and light one wondering what the fuck now when Johnny comes walking up smiling that beautiful smile.

"Didn't find your friends, huh?" He asked.

Nope. And he goes into the spiel that his hotel is a block away, room 22, and I can sleep there, since it is so obvious that I am tired and on the verge of collapse. Another street boy approaches and circles us like an overheated Tom Cat, and that guy was fine, too. Johnny's defenses went up and harsh words where exchanged and the other guy whimpered away, cock tucked between his legs. Love it when these fuckers quarrel over me...so macho.

Anyhoo...Johnny talks me into going for a beer at least at the bar of his hotel; The Mayan. Old pile of red brick and adobe from the Revolution Years, must've cost him fifty pesos a night. "Just one beer, guedo. Nice bar, tranquilo." When we get to said bar, I pay the forty pesos each entrance fee and there is a gang of fucking cowboys and bitches in there with a live ranchero band to boot. Tranquilo?! As soon as we get our table and Tecate, Johnny grabs some old fat gash, the band starts tootling like the Star Wars Cantina Band on crack and the whole joint starts bouncing like Mexican jumping beans! Knees are knocking and bodies are swirling and diving, Johnny and his female are doing a waltz from Planet 10 and my backlog of junk starts kicking in and the lights are flashing and I smell colors, man! A guebo...two hours pass, and Johnny is doing some funky can-can with this broad and the crowd is jumpin' and swaying, and waltzing, and jivin' and the band is tootin' and boingin' and honkin' and clankin' and I'm sittin' there freakin' out and I grab my pack of smokes and head for the door. A hand grabs me. It's Johnny.

"Where ya going?"

"I'm going home."

"Why?'

"I need to get some sleep. Life will be much better if I get some sleep, Johnny."

"Can I have some pesos for some beer, at least?"

"I didn't come out for you're pleasure, Johnny. I'm going home."

"But, they won't let me stay if I don't buy a beer."

"I'm going home."

And I walk out.

I don't remember much but I do remember unlocking my door, pealing off my clothes and falling on my queen size. Sleep. Ah, sleep...those little slices of death. How I love them.

The following morning, I awake refreshed and after a good hot shower, dress and head for Cafe Central for a bowl of menudo and cuppa joe. There must be some freaking festival going on because the Plaza was so full of people and the streets where blocked off. Carnival rides were erected, an army of vendors selling namless messes from makeshift carts and there were a shitload of cops everywhere. At least five on each corner. Damn, it looked like German occupied France during WW II. So, I went to Bar Cabalitas and downed a caguama and yapped with my waiter friend Cholo, got a good buzz on. Thought of spending the afternoon at Banos Roma. Left the bar and as I was walking through the Plaza I ran into Johnny, whose eyes were as bloodshot as mine. We chatted. He apologized for last night. I invited him for a beer into Bar Buen Tiempo that was adjacent to the Plaza, but that didn't last long. He asked what I was my plans this afternoon and my answer was exactly this:

"Well, I'm going to finish my beer, then you and I are going to go back to my apartment and have hot fucking sex all afternoon."

We didn't finish our beers. Literally running to my place, only stopping for a hamburger and a coke, unlatched the key door flung open - slam - clothes flung off. Damn! What a hot body! Tall, thin, muscular, smooth and very dark. His cock was so thick and damn nice! No foreplay with this guy, Johnny flung me onto my bed onto my stomach, spit onto his hand and slammed - yeah, slammed is the right word - his cock up into me. I felt the shock straight up my spine. Thrusting and lunging, grabbing me under my shoulders thrusting wildly, Johnny fucked for a good thirty minutes before yanking his erection out and squirting his thick semen across my ass and back. I lay there for a bit gasping like a asphyxiating fish, dazed, eyes glazed...telling him and honestly meaning it that that had to be one of the best fucks I've gotten in a while. He gentle kissed my cheek, stroking my hair. Kissed my forehead, "Gracias." We then took a hot shower together, kissing as the steam swirled around us.

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching DVD's. We viewed The Fifth Element and Motorcycle Diaries. Hungry, we dressed and had rotisserie chicken at a corner restaurant. Only to return to the apartment to do it all over again. That boy really knows how to fuck. Wow. After the second round, Johnny explained he had to split and showered. I did the same and dressed, we walked to his street to his hotel. Tomorrow, unfortunately, he will be returning to Zacatecas. Figures...I finally meet someone that really turns me on and is not a junky, thief or weirdo and he's not going to hang around. Life is cruel. Well, we said our goodbyes and I watched as he walked down the street and I felt that ache in my heart that I haven't felt in a long time.

When will I meet that special someone? My other half? When will my time come? How many assholes must I wade through until I that point is reached. Will it ever be reached?

The Theater of Noise.

I look up from my note book, pen ink still fresh on cream paper. The monilith of stone...that Cathedral of Guadalupe looms in front of me and down in front a little man; face contorted red in passionate lust screams doctrine into a megaphone. No one listens.

I adjust my Wonka glasses, the sun shifts, light a Lucky. Take a long slow drag. I watch a Mexican Indian guy with dark copper skin in a yellow and green soccer uniform glide by with vibrating lust. I stare at the notebook on my lap.

Anybody who can write a sentence such as "She beat on the table with the expression of a masturbating idiot.", knows how to express his thoughts in a powerful manner. Is it conceit? No. My mind whirls and memories swirl like a storm. Hafta write them down. I remember last night at the apartment of Mary's and my pen starts to glide across the paper and I vomit it out...

I falter. The Preacher has become a screaming gesticulating madman. Closing my notebook, I slip it into my book bag, sling over my shoulder and head for La Cabalita Cantina for a beer. Not too crowded, still early. Strike up conversation with my old waiter friend Cholo by name and by decree. Then I saw my junky friend Dupre. I looked at him a long three seconds before I recognized Dupre. He looked older and younger. The deadness had gone from his eyes and he was twenty pounds thinner. His face twitched at intervals like dead matter coming alive, still jerky and mechanical. When he was getting plenty of junk, Dupre looked anonymous and dead, so you could not pick him out of a crowd or recognize him at a distance. Now, his image was clear and sharp. If you walked fast down a crowded street and passed Dupre, his face would be forced on your memory - like in the card trick where the operator fans the cards rapidly, saying, "Take a card, any card," as he forces a certain card into your hand. Dupre was only twenty-three years old and looked pretty good. We stood talking, downing cold Sol cervezas.

As I squeezed a lime into my bottle, the steel door to the bar slammed open and a huge rotund woman stomped into the cantina, looked around, walked straight up to Dupre and I and began screaming at Dupre. She menacingly pointed her long fingers at his face like the Wicked Witch of the West. Then with one swoop, this woman grabbed him by the hair and pulled him from the bar, screaming and yelling at him, whopping him on his head. It was his mother.

Afterwards, the bar was silent. A silly faggy techno song in Spanish burst forth from the jukebox. The ugly drag queens continued to squawk as nothing strange has happened. I finish my beer and cut. Not before Cholo pinches me for twenty pesos. Why not? He's hung and hot.

I stop for a burrito pulpa and a manzana fresca and then to Cafe Internet to pound my thoughts out. Feeling mediocre. Remembering all the loves of my past...nostalgia is a disease!

Jungle Rot.

The following morning, I was awaken by my Aunt Carmen and fed a delicious breakfast with great coffee, some flavor indigenous to the Island, with her old friend George we were driven to my Grandfather's house to meet with him and my Father, Mother, and Sister. With mixed feelings I sat in the back seat of the rattling burgundy Lincoln Continental as Aunt Carmen narrated with gusto between puffs of her cigarette the passing countryside, telling me of how and why the streets are raised above the neighborhoods because of the constant carjackings. It is an epidemic here, it seems. Jungle passed, swaying palms, floral gardens...paradise. We pull up to the day-glo blue one story house with decorative bars, corrugated iron roof, Grandfather, tall, thin tanned and bald stands smiling outside. Next to him, tall and grim like a corpse with a stick up his ass is my Father, dressed in black slacks and white dress shirt. He isn't smiling. Ten years have passed and no warmth from that man.

With Grandfather hands are shook hugs are given cheeks are kissed. "My you are so tall and thin, just like your father." I look over at him and he just looks down. "Hello, Son. I trust your trip was a pleasant one."

"Yeah..." Was all I could muster.

"And, so it would seem." He said tightly. "Mother is inside. Come in and say hello."

How I hate him. Well, go through the motions, kiddo. Put on your poker face, you've conned pimps, junkies, bookies, hustlers, crooks, and worst...you can deal with the folks. Mother was not how I remembered her. Ten years of cancer has taken its toll. She was a withered grey phantom and it took all my strength to hold back the tears and keep my cool as I walked in the room and saw her sitting on the couch with that pinch faced bitch Sister of mine. Mother smiled and with outstretched arms stood and embraced me. As Father and Grandfather stood in the backyard drinking coconut milk from coconut husks (as did I, thanks Grandfather.), I sat in with my Mother and we talked of things. I had to be so vague with her concerning my life. I just kept repeating, "My life is so crazy, Mother. So surreal."

Well, I was informed that a huge family reunion was going to take place that evening and so it did. The party was pretty good, every one got drunk. There was good music provided by a live cumbia band. A huge bon fire was lit, they buried a pig which was devoured by the guests and the party goers were polite yet festive. Being half Puerto Rican (My Father.) and half German (My Mother.) has it's advantages...especially if the German half is dominant. These Latins really dig the white folk! It seems that half that freaking Island were relatives of ours and they all were interested in meeting me and the mothers or aunts kept trying to pawn their daughters off on me. Nigguh, please!

There were some awesomely hot guys there. I became a close friend with one of the translators. A tall thin guy named Fernando. He was a handsome man with a good physique; I liked the way his little ears poked out. With him, I really got to know the island. Fernando was a bi-sexual and who had married his girlfriend because he got her pregnant. Same old heterosexual bullshit. With him we cruised the straight bars and discos of San Juan and the neighboring towns. The times with Fernando were pretty hot, though it was very few in between. When he found out that I was homosexual, it didn't seem to phase him. But, he said he wasn't interested in sex with men.

The following morning, I attended the funeral procession and that was beautiful. It started in the main cathedral in Bayamon and then Grandfather, Father, and a few other family members carried her casket from the Cathedral down two blocks to the cemetery where the funeral took place. Flowers were everywhere and I stood with Aunt Carmen as she cried and placed incense and roses on Grandmothers casket.

There was this other translator named Paco, a short balding young guy who all he talked about was sex. I do believe that boy would fuck anything. I found him as sexually appealing as a wet mop. After the funeral, he took the whole group up into the rain forest to hike around. The rain forest, also referred to as El Yunque, was a state park located on the center right of the island. Acres and acres of steaming jungle and swamps spread as far as the eye could see. It was breathtaking! The path we followed meandered next to a stream that eventually exited into a majestic waterfall. All of us brought swimtrunks and splashed around in the lake below. It was beautiful.

Late that evening, after Fernando dropped me off at Aunt Carmen's house, I was walking up to the gate and I was met by Omar. Omar was wearing nothing but a pair of black speedoes and sandals and it was so hot his ripped torso was glistening with sweat. I had the keys to the garage and we went in there to talk. He had gotten into an argument with his wife. Well, one thing led to another and we had very hot sex. It was so wild. Sweating in the tropic heat, Omar had my shorts down around my knees, we both were standing up, he screwed me from behind. Grunting and huffing, Omar pushed me up against the garage wall as he squirted up into me. Unfortunately, I do believe my Aunt was eavesdropping. The following day, when I woke up, she started screaming at me in Spanish, so I really didn’t understand her. But, I knew what the problem was. She kicked me out.

Here I was, stuck on the streets, on a foreign island, and not much cash. I went to the hotel where my Mother and Father were staying in San Juan, explained what happened and as long as I didn’t mind sleeping on the couch they agreed I could stay the night. Their plane left the following morning.

Conversation with Dad. 12:22 a.m.

Father: And if you want to go to bed with a member of your own sex, of which I certainly disapprove, I should think you could at least show a little more discretion. And why son...I don't understand. It's a sin...a sin...

Me: It's passive and feminine.

Father: A provocation. Look what happened. You end up getting poked by a middle aged married man...maybe he was just probing you for your money. Thees gringo, he got it somewhere. Well...I don't understand you, Son. I don't approve of you and I never will. And speaking of money, I guess you're broke, as usual. Here's two hundred dollars. That's the best I can do for you. I wish you would do some thing with your life, Son and stop this wondering around.

The following morning, I saw my parents off at the airport. I knew as we said good bye and I watched them walk up the ramp that this would be the last time I would ever see them for the rest of my life. My feelings for them? Well...nothing. Cold. Empty. Nothing.

My plane didn’t leave for a couple of days so I shacked up with Fernando and his wife. The cool part was his wife went to the city of Ponce to visit her family for a day and so Fernando and I spent it mostly in bed. How? Straight guys are so easy. Saturday afternoon in San Juan we visited this bar on the beach with his friend and got pretty toasted. Returning to Fernando's house we smoked a couple of joints as we played his PS2, and the conversation of sex popped up. The boy can fuck and fuck good. There is something erotic about getting screwed on the same bed by a man where he bangs his wife every night. I need not write what happened here, suffice to say, twice 'round and we both broke a sweat.

The next morning, when my swallows had finished Capistranoing, Fernando and I said our good-byes and I boarded my plane back to El Paso, Texas. Fernando, with two fingers and pucked lips, tossed off a kiss and was gone.

A sneeze travels at a peak velocity of two hundred miles per hour. A burp, more slowly; a fart, slower yet. But a kiss thrown by fingers—its departure sudden, its arrival ambiguous, and there is no source that can state with authority what speeds are reached in its flight.

El Paso: Death is absence of life. Wherever life withdraws, death and rot moves in. Whatever it is - orgones, life force - that we all have to score fore all the time, there is not much of it in El Paso. Your food rots before you get it home. Milk sours before you finish the meal. El Paso is a place where the anti-life force is breaking through. Death hangs over El Paso like an invisible smog. The place exerts a curious magnetism on the moribund. It is a dead museum.

Yes, Father, I will do as you ask...starting now.

And The Hippos Where Boiled In their Tanks...

After a raucous night out with Alfredo and the Juarez Irregulars, I had a hangover me but nothing a black cuppa joe and a steaming bowl of menudo couldn't fix. To wear my troubles away, I took in a Sunday afternoon once again, solo, at Banos Romas for a spot of unclean fun. One dark skinned lad in cubicle across from me enticing with hard on so I was stretched like taffy in all sorta inneresting positions. Steam and semen and sweat were the order of the day well into the late afternoon until I stumbled outta that concrete structure with an empty scrotum and throbbing asshole. Home I must return, rest, I thought, for tomorrow I take flight to Puerto Rico for a week and my Grandmothers funeral.

But, no. Fate had different ideas. I staggered into Bar Buen Tiempo and the joint was rockin' with Sunday afternoon revilers, young hipster queer boys and old sugar daddies vying for their attention, laughing, talking drinking under the red and blue neon and the bouncing jukebox. I ran into both Ricardo and Esperanza, two I have not seen in a while and both were drunk offa their asses. After three caguamas I soon caught up to them and the night was a blast of drunken partying. We three soon hit the cracked pavement and skipped over to the nearest fag disco and boogied down to the latest tribal and local beats. Soon though, the festivities came to a screeching halt with an impromptu Erotic Girl Dance contest. Ech...what an eyesore. Bloated bitches swung their lungs and pansas at you in an vain attempt for thunderous approval. I liked the girl that looked like Morticia Addams with the mosquito bites on her ankles.

Walking around the darkness, I was accosted by Tralala who attempted to put makeup on my face. Funky bitch. I somehow found myself tongue wrestling with some skinheaded cholo by the backwall, short thick hardon pressed against my hip, all going well until he asked for twenty dollars. Moved on. Danced with crazy laughable, lovable Esparanza. Around two thirty, the disco closed, and we three drunkenly exited and stumbled to the corner hamburger stand and gobbled down a few. I was hit on by a rather handsome cowboy in a white hat, all legs and jeans so tight you could see his circumcision. Well, making his move, I threw up offa the curb, which didn't impress the vaquero that much and saying adios to Ricardo and Tralala, Esperanza walked me to my house. I flipped a Lucky Strike to the cowboy and said I'd see him when I get back to ol' Mexico. He smiled that smile.

Outside my door a car pulls up with two young Mexican guys, the passenger asks me, "Do you speak English?"
"Fluently." I slurred.
"We are kinda lost...which way back to El Paso?"
I leaned down to the passenger window, "Well, you drive that way two blocks and take a right on Ignacio Mejia, then a left at Avenida Juarez..."
"Qeres Mamar? (Want a blowjob?)" The passenger blurted.
"No." I said. "You take Juarez Avenue to the bridge then to El Paso."
"You don't wanna fuck me?" He asked meekly.
"Look, yer drunk, I'm drunk...and I gotta plane to catch in two hours. Go home and get some sleep." The car pulled off. I said good night to Esperanza and crashed on my couch.

The next morning in a frosty rosy fingered March dawn; I ran for the border and took a taxi to the airport; boarded the plane. It was exciting. I couldn't remember the last time that I'd flown anywhere. The flight to Puerto Rico took seven. But, the view was fantastic. Several thousand feet below us the ocean was a bright turquoise and as calm as a lake. Up ahead I saw an island, bright green in the mid-morning sun. There were white beaches along the edge of it and brown swamps further inland. The plane started down and the stewardess announced that we should all buckle our safety belts. Moments later we swept in over acres of palm trees and taxied to a halt in front of the big terminal. Once we landed I telephoned my father to hear if he called my Aunt Carmen to see if she knew if I was coming. He said he didn't so I called her myself. I was to stay with Aunt Carmen for the week of my stay. My parents were not to arrive until Tuesday. Aunt Carmen was surprised to hear from me. I got the directions to Bayamon, a small suburb five miles south of San Juan. I told her that I'd take a city bus and be at her house in about an hour, she being a feeble old woman. Plus I wanted to see the sights.

The airport in San Juan is a fine, modern thing. Full of bright colors and sun tanned people and Latin rhythms blaring from speakers hung on naked girders above the lobby. I walked up a long ramp, carrying my coat and a small leather satchel slung over one shoulder. As I left the airport, I saw myself in the mirror, looking dirty and disreputable, a pale vagrant with red eyes.

Outside, the airport glistened in the sun. Beyond it a thick palm jungle stood between the ocean and me. Several miles out to sea a sailboat moved slowly across the horizon. I stared for several moments and fell into a trance. It looked so peaceful out there, peaceful and hot. I wanted to go into the palms and sleep, take a few chunks of pineapple and wonder into the jungle and pass out.

Instead, I continued to the baggage room. The baggage room was empty. I found my duffel bag and had a porter carry it out to the airports loading zones for cabs and buses. All the way through the lobby the porter favored me with a steady grin and kept saying: "Si, Puerto Rico esta bueno, ah, si, muy bueno..mucho Ha-Ha, si..."

I told him I needed to get to Bayamon by city bus, because a taxi would cost fifty dollars. He gave me some arcane directions and sent me into the center of Old San Juan.

I walked through downtown San Juan looking for the bus route to Bayamon. All manner of fearful deviations thrived in that muggy air. A legion of pederasts wandered the narrow sidewalks of the Old City of San Juan, giggling at every crotch. The bars, the beaches, and even the best sections of town crawled with rapists and crab dykes and muggers and people with no sex or sanity at all. They lurked in the shadows and foamed through the streets, grasping and grabbing like crazed shoplifters driven mad by the Tropic Rot. San Juan was a strange combination of old and new. As I weaved my way through the teeming throng of locals and tourists there was a fine, lusty tension in the air, a meeting and gripping of eyes at every corner. The local men were fabulously trim and tan. No fat on these guys, not like the Mexicans. Everyone seemed to be fit and healthy.

I found the bus route and was soon on my way to Bayamon. The scenery was beautiful. Such lush greenery of palm and banana trees. Wild flowers of exuberant mesmerizing colors grew everywhere. Bayamon was built along a river with many parks squares and statues. The parks are full of tropical trees and shrubs and vines. A tree that fans out like an umbrella, as wide as it is tall, shades the stone benches. The people do a great deal of sitting. The river looked as if nameless monsters might rise from the brown-green waters. I saw a lizard two feet long run up the opposite bank. Many of the houses were rusted corrugated iron. But, the neighborhood my Aunt lived in was made of squat concrete buildings covered in security gates.

Once entering the bus terminal, I meandered my way up the main streets to the side cull de sac my Aunt lived. I located her house on a quite street lined with palm and banana trees. It was a time warp. The house looked exactly like I remembered it so long ago lost in those fuzzy dim memories of my childhood. As I walked up the flower lined sidewalk my Aunt peeped out of the gated entrance and gave me a toothless warm smile. This short old lady still had her shock of red kinky hair. Hugging me she uttered in bad English, "Aye, you smell good. And you are so tall."

She showed me to my room and after I unpacked, we sat on the veranda and talked, drinking coffee.

"Where did you learn your Spanish, mijo?" She asked.

"Why? Is it really bad?"

"No. It is just that you talk like a Mexican."

I had to laugh at that one.

We talked about simple things, about my life, hers, Grandmother. Aunt Carmen introduced me to a friend that was visiting; an elderly man named George that I guess sort of took care of her.

A neighbor that lived next door came over to visit, a man named Omar. He was a tall, thin man in his early thirties. He had a black goatee and short cropped black shiny hair, green eyes and a killer smile. His stomach muscles rippled when he breathed. His torso was completely hairless and copper colored. Like most men on the island, he had almost no body fat. And the fact that he was wearing nothing but sandals and Speedo's just made my imagination run wild. Omar would visit my Aunt and help her with yardwork. He was tasty. He said hello and joked with my Aunt and then he left. Maybe it was my imagination, but I do believe that hottie was flirting with me.

Oh well, to the business at hand. Mother and Father and that wretched Sister of mine will be arriving tomorrow, so after a delicious meal of red beans, rice and chicken, I went to sleep early to prepare myself for tomorrow...

Midnight Passions.

News Flash!

Four lost hikers saved in Franklin Mountains

Jake RollowEl Paso TimesThursday, March 2, 2006

Four people were rescued from the Franklin Mountains on Wednesday morning after losing their way on a hike, fire officials said.The hikers -- three males and one female -- were between the ages of 17 and 24. Fire Department Lt. George Cortez said the group began hiking about 5 p.m. Tuesday but lost the trail. They continued until about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, when, while stuck on a ledge overlooking a road, they signaled for help by burning some of their clothing. Fire officials said one hiker had a sprained knee and another had an injured lower leg. None were taken to a hospital. Their names were not released.

Okay. Where to begin. Firstly, let me start by saying flat out that the quick thinking cub scout that burned his clothing which signaled the Fire Officials was none other than that asshole about town William Jackson Wiggins. When I saw his dirty and skivvy clad form on the televised news I laughed so hard I nearly pissed my pants. I mean, Franklin Mountains, people! It is ONE MOUNTAIN RANGE! YOU CAN NOT GET LOST! You go left or you go right and there is fucking city sprawl! What a fucking idiot! Visiones flashed through my mind of him falling to the jagged rocks below and his scrawny corpes being picked clean by vultures and wolverines. An iguana skittering of with his blood splattered underwear...

Worthless loser.

No Muy Sympatico.

Spring is upon us and the boys are wearing less. But, that is not what I want to write about.
I recieved an e-mail from my Father. My grandmother in Puerto Rico has passed and I have been ordered to attened the services in Bayamon, P.R. next Thursday. I will be leaving Monday morning. I at first refused, but being the only grandson, I must attend and plus my trust fund was threatened to be taken away. I hear Puerto Rico is nice this time of year.

I do not want to go. Not with that horrid clan that I so much tried to distant myself from.

Death...where is thy sting?