Behind Pillars of Smoke.

Standing outside in the shivering night - the Plaza was pregnant with the twilight people - the bar adjacent to my frozen form thumped with laughter and merry making. Two old negro queens cumpleanos. And they flipping the bill for this swanky fiesta. Complimentary booze and vittles guzzled by nameless arrogant faces. I danced a little - scrawny attractive boy swirled with lithe movements - what was his name? Who cares. I drank a little with RJ and Derrick and Miguel - too many bodies that poured into the street so I stood outside in the shivering night.

Ivan, Rentboy turned waiter knew him for years passed sobbing that someone had stolen his money as Miguel sucked some stranger up in a cheap hotel. Big boobed hooker clops up to me as I stood there "Whacha looking for?" She asked.

"You don´t got it - plus I like men." Puffed on that Faro like a cock.

"I am a man." She croaked and it was time to cut.

Ivan fades in and invites me to his trap - why not? Old friend knew him for years you understand. In the dark streets leading up to his shabby hotel phantoms lurk offer me junk - Nope, I´m all right as Ivan cops a paper. Up worn wooden staircase the room had a bed and a squat bookshelf wadded with crumpled clothes.

He takes out a glass pipe and crushes the crystal into it lights up and smokes - billowing out huge plumes of that grey tinny smell. Hands me the charred pipe - I falter, promised myself never again. One inhale, two, three - we pass it back in forth in junky silence like a galvanized ritual. Been so long and so much it really doesn´t effect me - at first.

Ivan on the flipside degenerates into a shaking teeth grinding wreck - face sunken in skull like eyes open peeled and raw. When it is gone, he stashes the blackened tube under his stained mattress lies back and listens to banda on his CD walkman. I sit on the edge of the bed glancing around at the bare dirty pink walls as the tweek sets in more on Ivan than myself. That acrid heavy metal taste in my mouth the cigarettes don´t erase.

I sit and study Ivan in pity as he convulses in mechanical galvanized jerks - he had already dragged the book shelf barricading the door from paranoia Dream Police. Ivan retrieves his pipe again - scraping the residue from the stem for another round. Heavy boots and jingling keys pass the door and Ivan's schizophrenia flares - we sit a moment in silence, waiting for the stranger to pass. I decline the second dose and enough of this sad hopeless Fallen Angel - he was once strong and virile. At least the boy has retained his looks of strong angular Aztec features. But that soon will decay.

I stand - extinguishing my cigarette on the filthy warped wooded floor. "I gotta go." - and leave that wretch to his horror.

Walking the few blocks in that dark cold night - eyeing for patrols for my own paranoia is kicking in. I think of my future and of my plans - I cannot allow those past demons to control me. Reaching my room - I undress and get into bed unable to sleep as the drug tacks hold. Eventually I drift off, horrid nightmares abound. I wake up depressed and disappointed that I even committed the act - yes, I have changed in my exile to El Paso, TX and the way is clear.

I will never travel that Lost Highway again.