Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree.

Chaos is weird.

Jumping through hoops of the myriad Kafkian regulations at St. Vincent's since obtaining employment, one of the requirements was to get a xerox copy of your schedule with a letterhead of your employer to prove you are working there - easier said than done. The unibrowed boss of mine decided to secrete testosterone and flat out refuse giving me a copy. I explained to this degenerate monkey the dire situation but it fell on deaf ears - having a job or a place to stay was the choice. With his curt no the deal was shut and I quit on the hairy bastard. That's what I get for lowering my standards.

Decided it was time to stop screwing around and take matters into my own hands - after these dreary holidays to attain employment more befitting my stature is in order. I came to San Diego for a purpose and I can not and will not deflect from these goals.

Christmas at the shelter was a joke - crazy assortment of lost angels - angels in hell, broken dirty wings. Half cooked meals served by paranoid vindictive Christians to bestial hostile downtrodden. Well, the apple pie was good. Walking around, reek of vomit and piss in the streets - sun blasting down and what the fuck good deed doers would swoop up in cars and pass out coats, blankets, money - I got nothing. Ho. Ho. Ho.

Ate so much at dinner I walked it off - went up to Balboa Park and meandered the dark paths among the creatures of the night. The cool night air and the navy blue sky soothed my loneliness as I slowly strolled along swaying palm trees - dark shadows lurking in the bushes, the nights cruisers. Here and there was the orange flicker of a cigarette cherry or the tip of a crack pipe.

Approached by a small handsome Mexican in a hoodie, obviously living in the streets, "Hey, man, you got a dollar?"

"No - I do not." I state flatly.

He is with friend, who stands quietly. The little guy smiles, "C'mon! You got some change, man - I just want to get a beer."

I look at him and he is really handsome. I sigh, turn to walk away. He grabs my arm and whispers, "Hey, dude, you like to suck cock?"

I smile and pat him on the shoulder, "You do need another beer, my friend." And walk away.

Sat on a cold concrete bench under the stars and under a bought of depression listening to the highway breathing. Thought about Jeff. Oh yes, Dear Readers - you have no idea who he is yet do you? Well, let's just say that is another blog dedicated solely to him. But, I sat and I thought of him never the less - how I feel about him. How much I love him. How important it was for me to get down to Costa Rica - yes, that is where he is. So many mixed feelings about this - so many...

I got up and walked around to find that hooded Mexican standing on the sidewalk in the shadows with some guy bent over sucking his cock. I stopped a few feet away and watched - wouldn't you? Well the Mystery Man saw me freaked and split leaving little hoody standing there with a glistening erection in the moonlight.

"Didya like the show?" He asked walking up to me sliding said penis back into his well worn baggy jeans. I confided I did and we stood there for a bit and talked. He explained that he really needed a beer but didn't have an I.D. to purchase one. I agreed to buy the booze for him with my identification. After the purchase of two Steel Reserves and two King Cobras, we retired to his spot: a spreading chestnut tree next to an offramp to the 5 freeway.

I guess it was his way of thanking me, but not a second after he popped open a can, he was on his back propped up against the tree with his pants yanked down to his ankles - his long uncut cock pulsating hard. "You know, buddy," He said guzzling the Steel Reserve. "For helping me out, I'm gonna let you go down on me for free."

I looked down onto his hairless copper colored torso - it was thin and muscular. My eyes flickered over his flesh with silent insect lust. I sighed - looking up at the starry sky and focused onto the belt of Orion - wonder if Orion wore panties under that belt?

"Nope." I said. "For two reasons: one - you need a shower and two - there isn't a health clinic nearby."

"Ya sure?" He smiled. "I'm real horny - not asking again."

"Pull your pants up kid." I grinned.

The next hour we sat there under the tree in the dark, lit only by the occasional headlight and drank and talked and laughed. Eventually, I had to leave on account of the shelter's curfew and said goodnight - never even got the boys name. Walking back, I thought how much I have changed this past year - so much. Is it for the good or bad?

A Junky' Christmas.

Merry Christmas - from Interzone.

Night of the Ghouls.

The emotional cancer has been excised from my life - that despicable wormtongue of Raul. He had poisoned my mind and heart and turned me from the One that I love. Poor Raul came to a sticky end - ran into a brick wall in an alleyway; about five times. Queer put up a good fight, though - kicked like a mule and bit like a crocodile - but he now lays broken in the hospital licking his wounds.

Love has conquered once again. All has been forgiven and the blackness has been cleared away. I am once more with The One I Love above All Else. And it feels good - so damn good.

And I have attained employment to boot. At a national chain convenience store. I will be working graveyard with all the wacky ghouls that permeate the lower downtown district. Should be a hoot. God the things I can and will write about that job as time crawls on.

Life at Vinnies this whirl around is quite pat - no crazies. Sure there's the loony bitch that looks like Phyllis Diller that screams at the lamp post or the quivering crack junky that drools as the elementary school kids walk by - but not like last time. Maybe it's the meds I'm on - perhaps it has taken the edge offa me? Oh well.

Save the money I will. That is my goal - bank it all. Six months from now I will be in Costa Rica. Funny thing is - what the hell am I gonna do when I get there?

Wings of Icarus.

This Mortal Coil.

How I am right now? I am lost. I feel cold - dislocated. Severed. Cheated. Once again I opened my heart to someone and once again I was deceived. So cold inside - so dark and empty...again I am standing on the edge of that precipice and looking out into a empty insidious void. However, I think it is better that I should travel this world alone. Happy with just a small circle of intercontinental friends - content in my freedom and not locked into someone else's web of deceit.

How Can They Keep Going?

The sun beat down hard as I stood in the chow line - here it is the middle of December and I'm sweatin'. Some black spade - hair a poofy mess, face dirty in the grease, clothes black shiny over the dirt - keeps staring at me with savage yellow eyes - eyes void of life or death or a soul. The sixth tramp bums me for a smoke. Everywhere crowds ragged savage angels.

A dwarf of an Asian woman - her face ravaged by decades of junk howls obscenities to her phantoms - fat Jew hairy and nasty and smelling of decay commands for her to shut up - cigarette swirls in his crusted purple lips. I look up at the sun and I sigh. That is when I hear my name called, makes me cringe. I ignore it. But it is repeated and putting on my Hollywood Mask, I whirl around - big smile.

It is Tim S., an acquaintance of mine from my previous stay at Vinnies before my exile to El Paso. After pleasantries, he confides that he is sleeping in the streets. A month prior he was bunking at Vinnies but lushing pretty hard and one night he came in drunk and violent and was tossed out. He is waiting to get into the Rescue Mission's rehab program. Wow - young and handsome before and now he is falling apart - he looks old and tired.

After lunch, I stand with Raul across from the Neal Good day center. Raul pulls out a joint and shares it with me and then a forty of Bud concealed in his jacket. Guess Raul is taking this street shit serious. We joke and talk among the junkies and crackheads. As a police car drives by with apathy 'Po-po' is muttered by several derelicts.

I walk solo through downtown San Diego and gather my thoughts. Guess it is time to settle down and look for work. Have a few good leads - see where it takes me...

Hobo Be-bop

So it seems fate smiled on me and I had acquired a bed at St. Vincent de Paul's via some old chink working with The Salvation Army. Being processed was a blur - I was in a fugue state from exhaustion. Rounded up into hobo central and packed in among three hundred sour feet, unwashed linens, and rancid reek of feces. The stench was unbearable - but I guess in time you can get used to anything.

Wasn't issued a bunk yet - so had to sleep on a cot in the main television room with one young hipster named Wesley fresh outta the clink. Finally I got some down time and slept long and hard. Woken up at 4am by the hired goons to be told I have a bunk, #23B. Couldn't it wait until morning ferthecrissakes? Gotta get my beauty sleep! Lights switch on at 5:30am and the joint is alive with the bleary eyed zombies racing around getting ready for the day. Young Wes woke with quite the impressive morning wood and wasn't too shy about it. Showered, washed up and clank down four flights of metal stairs into coughs of tuberculosis and morning gloom - air thick with cigarette smoke, the ritual transient standing around in groups with stiff collars turned up hacking in the cold morning dawn. Breakfast a tasteless mess, swig it down with a cup of scolding Victory coffee.

Gorilla faced guards shoo everyone offa property at 7am - so I trudge the two blocks over to the Neal Good Center and hob-nob with my fellow hob-nobbers. Crazy wild eyed crack phantoms prowl the sidewalks looking for their next fix - the stench of stale piss and farts is overpowering, the gutter of the world. A dozen shopping carts overloaded with the lives of fallen angels line the yard as old pete men sit basking in the sun chain sucking on stale rollies - whithered fingers yellow from the tobacco.

Met a couple of old friends from the last time around. Made the transition smoother - one was a black cat named RJ, a notorious faggito by the act of congress, used to stomp around Tijuana together. And then Raul - one crazy ass bitch on wheels, no one can get sluttier than that minx. Again, Raul was another pal from the Tijuana days.

Spent my last five bucks and saw Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. Mel Gibson obviously has some major demons but maybe that is what makes him such a masterful storyteller. Apocalypto is his latest and in my opinion his greatest film, this film plays out like the bastard freak brother of The Fugitive, it is wildly entertaining and violently sick, it also is an allegory of todays society. The images in this film are breathtaking, shot with the genesis digital cameras this is the best looking digital film out to date, the cinematography is superb, the costumes, make up and art direction are top notch. The acting is a real surprise since Gibson casted actors with no experience at all, yet they are convincing. What Mel Gibson has directed here is like an ultra violent yet very entertaining action/adventure chase film, the best one in years, this is a must see, and for people worrying about subtitles, do not worry, they are simple and brisk. I give this film my highest mark, its one of the best films of 2006 - and after leaving the theater, I had no urge to get drunk harass Jews or call female cops 'Sugartits'.

The last couple of days have been just settling into my environs - walking around town with Raul wasting time. One funny note from yesterday: Raul and I were cruising around centro San Diego on our way to Border's Books when we noticed the back door to the Edward's Movie Theater was ajar. I suggested let's sneak in - in which we did. Climbing up several flights of stairs we entered the top floor of the multiplex only to find it not open yet. So, after using the restroom, Raul and I took the elevator to the lobby where when the doors opened two ushers where standing there, before they could say anything I blurted, "Y'know, your back door is open!" And we started walking towards the entrance to the movie theater - where the manager was standing looking quite perplexed. "Your backdoor is open - you might want to check on that." I said to him as I walked out, Raul sheepishly behind me.

Fade out to Merry Go Round Broke Down.

Midnite Monsters.

No sleep for two days onna counta the bus trip and then losing out on that bunk at Vinnies to that fucking wingnut - I had some time to kill.

First some fattening hobo quisine at Vinnies soup kitchen - puke onna plate goddammit I tell ya but some spade lazy eyed fuck that sat at the table across from me agreed that the fat-back in brown lard was just like momma used to make. Damn.

Off to the Central Library to toss off a few emails to the one I love and to the ones that gives a shit - but the computer nazi running the joint stood over me drumming her fingers and looking at the clock on the wall making sure and proper I was done in an hour.

Trudged up to Balboa Park when the sun went down knowing full well that I must now sleep under the stars tonight and after having dirt clog your snout for a year what an aromatic pleasure to smell all that good greenery again. The night crawling fags were out in legion this night and no cock went unsucked - under the glorious pale full moon, they did thier stylized ballet through the foilage hunting manflesh.

I sat there on that concrete bench sucking on a Lucky Strike so nasty for hours contemplating my delihma. Then it began to get cold and COLDER - unbearably cold. I treked downtown to hobo central - first stopping off at a 7-11 for coffee and a pack of doughnuts, sitting in the Gaslamp District watching the clean white happy kids get drunk and act like assholes. Assholes. Bored with that I headed to Vinnies and my kind of peeps and the tweekers were all aglow - and as any good tramp I stretched out onto the frozen hard concrete. That too - unbearable. My only course of action was to stay awake and walk it out - to wait and see if the next day would grant me shelter from this turmoil.

Dark Shadows on the Wall.

My first night in the mean streets of downtown San Diego.

Only it was colder, drunker, and a wee bit worse.

I, Robot

Was on Yahoo Messenger when popped outta no where my sister Marie. Had not spoken to her in years - decades it seems. I have went out of my way to distance myself from that family of mine - uncaring, viscious, gossipy, backstabbing, brutal vipers. Nothing but bad memories - faded double exposed photographs rather forgotten.

And so it went something like this:
HER: Hello? Hello, Luis, are you online?
ME: What is it?
HER:Hi, little brother, it's been so long! I haven't heard from you, Father said you are in Texas. Is that true?
ME: No.
HER: Well, Scott (Her husband)had a stroke and has retired from the military and we have relocated to Texas. Mother has been worried that she hasn't heard from you in such a while. What are you doing for the holidays?
ME:Sorry to hear about Scott. Uhm...not to be curt, but I need to finish a transaction online and you interrupted.
HER:Well, maybe we can talk another time?
ME: Perhaps. I have to go.
HER: Well, I love you and Merry Christmas.
ME: Good bye.
And I ended the transmission.

I hold no emotions for these people. I don't know them anymore. That person that grew up with them is dead - he does not exist. I have no family. I have come to the final conclusion that I will live on this world alone and die alone. As all old gay men - bitter with resentment.