Down but not Out.

Bright sunny morning - layed in bed smoking a Faro empty bottle of Fundador on the endtable - like I said layed there forming a plan, depression weighing on me to much to get out of bed but I gotta. Shower brush up pull a comb through my hair - vision staring back at me from the mirror a disembodied phantom - where has my youth gone? Yup, I am feeling it.

Coffee with Chuck and he flips the bill - for now I am without funds. Jealousy burns in my mind with him - Chuck receives monthly check from the State on account of his depression - he´s happy as a lark. Shoulda stayed in El Paso, me, and waited it out for my SSI benefits. Another if and shoulda in a long history of let downs and bad choices.

The Rentboys can sure smell Chuck´s money because soon there is a table full of these fuckers working the morning circuit. Chuck offers to loan me some cash to pay next weeks rent. I agree only unless my food stamps - in which I plan to apply for this afternoon - do not pull through. I confide in him my plan to sell them and use the money to pay rent until that gig at Petco Park rolls in. Another if.

So I start my cross to the frontera - stop to chat with MS13 hottie covered in innerestin tattoos working a taco stand. Que onda, pelon - que dices? Takes forty five minutes to walk across and another forty five for the red line to San Diego.

The train arrives in downtown Diego just in time to zip over to Vinnie´s for lunch - puke on a plate but it is substance, I reckon. Head over to Human Resources on 9th and Avenue C for my food stamps. Processed quickly - young black queer tries to put the make on handsome sullen Pacific Islander in the lobby, he yawns at the queers blatant advances - I am interviewed by a case worker and given appointment to return Monday for my EBT card. I can work with that. While standing outside waiting on the train back to the border, my name is screeched out - always a bad omen - the squawk belonged to a rotund albeit plump white piece of trailer trash named Krissy. She bounced out of a barber shop and we both greeted each other with a what´s up. Krissy was waiting for her boyfriend - that lanky drunk Raul to get a haircut. Both were acquaintances from my days at St. Vincent de Paul.

As we sat joking and me making witty quips of Raul´s cut, she invited me to dinner with them to the Outback Steakhouse up in Mission Valley mall. Least I´m eating dinner tonight - life is funny, huh?

Raul was already lushed - Puerto Rican rum stashed in a Pepsi bottle - so the dinner was not only delicious (I had a 16oz. prime ribeye steak, steamed broccoli, and clam chowder - best meal in a long time.) but entertaining. After I had hid Raul´s spiked Pepsi bottle under our table when he stepped out to the men´s room - whining and moaning like an alcoholic about his missing bottle - the drunk crawled on his hands and knees under the booth to retrieve it in front of appalled diners. I walked out to smoke as Krissy laughed like a herniated donkey - never a dull moment with these two.

Stuffed, we wobbled back to the trolley line for downtown - saying my thanks and so longs - I returned to the border and sanity of Tijuana. Walking under the navy starry sky over the bridge spanning the polluted Tijuana river - I wondered what other surprises await me in these turbulent days ahead...