The sky was a mottled grey from the drizzling rain. The wailing of an ambulance below, distant rumble of air hammers, always building and repairing in The City.

I sat naked in the rickety hotel chair and watched the boy sleep. 1:47 p.m. the clock said. Could be wrong, felt later. Lighting a cigarette, I sat transfixed as his erection melted away in the early afternoon. Fransisco, he said his name was and looked enough like a Latino Leonardo DeCaprio from Gangs of New York to pass as his brother, floppy light brown hair and scraggy goatee. He lay naked on his back amid rumpled yellow sheets in this ratty hotel embraced in the arms of Morpheus and content as a nodding junky. I took another drag and scoped him out, hairless thin frame, eyes shut, pouty lips parted in sleep breathing.

We met last night at a dive bar on Broadway called Chee Chee's and struck up a conversation amid the thieves and the dykes and the just released cons with Black Eyed Peas blasting over the juke box. Next day had brunch with him at a local Chinese resturaunt - afterwards we walked over to a bar. Chit-chat ensued over many drinks and then walking drunkenly to the Hotel Pickwick, a flop that by American standards can't get any shittier. Looking at me and smiling, Fransisco said he needed to score for some meth and would I front the twenty? Sure, why not? Walking down several alleyways covered in shit, bums, and abandon shopping carts, copping his dope from a slick coon with gold caps, we soon entered the dank hotel lobby. Flaming old withered fag with bad purple-tinted permed wig at reception.

"How much for a room?" I croak.

"Two Queens?" The receptionist asked.

"Nah, just two boys that need some sleep." Quipped Fransisco. I laughed with cigarette between my lips and the warm glow of five whiskey sours in my gut.The room was occupied by large black roaches and bad tattered furniture. The television got three channels; English, Spanish, and soft core porn.

I lay on the bed and watched Fransisco take a shower, water running down his long thin smooth frame, over an ass that was like a peach. He sits naked on the bed and asked if I wanted to try a bang. Nah, not in any condition. Needle clogged twice, thin line of blood from inner elbow to wrist. I look away, always freak me out watching someone probe for a vein. He sighs as it goes in sweet and pure. I sure can pick 'em.
The sex was much needed - hostile, violent, hot - the bed banged and binged with our fucking. Your basic crimes against nature. Several nasty positions later, covered in sweat and semen we lay embraced as the rain pounded down outside our fifth floor window.

Like I said, sat there and watched the boy sleep. Finished my cigarette, gargled with what was left of a can of Steel Reserve, got dressed and left twenty dollars on the nightstand. Sweet dreams, kid.

Walk out into the world and find cheap hole in the wall 24hr diner, Lee's Cafe I think and eat a mess of grub all served by faceless Chinese man. Decide to take in a movie, see The Golden Compass. Ho-hum. A little disappointed. Being one of my favorite books, the movie did not do it justice in my fuck'd opinion. I remember the first time I had read the book. Way back when I was in High School, living in Long Beach, California and after the daily beating from my loving Father I decided to run away to Hollywood to live a life of glamour. Hanging out all night in a 7-11, I had found a copy of the book and it all kept me up all night. Read it cover to cover, slurping on my Slurpee. The next day I returned home. To more abuse. To more beatings.

Sigh.

No time to recollect those Wonder Years, I am strong and defiant now and have made peace with said Old Man.
So, I'm walking down the street in the rain with ciggy dangling doing my best Kerouac production and I come across another old friend, Tommy, he of Native American decent and as fucking handsome and sexy as all get out and we fall into whatever happened to so-and-so. So? Tommy understands that I am a wily faggito so the conversation wonders into wacky sexual innuendo and offers me to come up to his room in a low rent apartment for a nightcap and a little humpity-hump, but I refuse and after saying adios, I return to Vinnie's to see what the hell's going on. Stand out on the balcony alone and star gaze as I light up a Lucky Strike. 'Round 10:30, turn in for a little shut eye.

Was asked today by a grinning and freaky bible thumping street minister if I am happy with my life. I grinned, yeah. I'm happy.Wouldn't you?