Desolation Angels

Dressed to the ninths and tenths, Ricardo and I entered the Cafe Central, a 24hr restaurant located on Avenida Revo in downtown Tijuana to meet with Esperanza Robles and others. Esperanza, or Espie, was another long time friend from my old days of living here. A beautiful college girl studying Economics at the University in Tijuana. So smart and so wild.
Espie smiled her smile big under that giant red poster of Che that bore down on us like some communist Big Brother. Clinking coffee cups with her was another chic chick named Maria and Espie's boitoy for the evening, Manuel. A real hottie, sporting one of those pencil thin moustaches that I love so much and jet black hair slicked back. All three looked like models offa runway from some foreign competition. Hugs and kisses and what ever happened to so and so's issued and Espie invited the whole lot to a house party up in the hills, in the Old Colonias -Tijuana style.
From the back of this party taxi the city whizzed past. At the end of San Letran is the last series of bars that end in a ruined mist, fields of broken adobe, no bums hidden, all wood, Downtrodden Dank, with sewers and puddles, ditches in the street five feet deep with oily water in the bottom. Powdery tenements against the yellow light of the nearby city. I watch the final sad bar doors, where flashes of women golden shining lace behind I see and feel like flying in yet like a bird in flight twists on. Kids are in the doorway in hip-hop drag, the band is wailing a chachacha inside, everybody's knee is knocking to bend as they pop and wail with the mad music.
Taxi halts in front of two story teetering onna cliff and folks are coming and going and the music is loud. Espie takes my hand and leads me inside. Gorgeous people stand and pose with drinks and cigarettes in hand. Mostly queer with a splatter of women. But so many good looking people. Even the tough tattooed cholos standing alone - hot. There is a bar and a DJ mixes and mashes several beats of continents smooth and simple. She introduces me to several people who all ohh and aah at the American. Ricardo makes his rounds being suave and adorable. Drinks were non-stop and a handsome Mexican Indian led me out back were he shared some weed. Timid and cute. Behind a crumbling wooden shed we embraced in fumes of ganja, our tongues probing, our souls lusting. The rest are only anecdotes that will become rumors.
A tune by Cafe Tecuba wailed over the stereo, Ricardo found us and slurred, lank black hair falling over big brown eyes, "Damn those crazy Tecubas - don't they sound like the Beach Boys?"
"Yeah, but very much into the Jaraneros sound", answered my secret lover. He squeezes my hand and smiles. I found out his name was Jaime and he stayed by my side the rest of the evening. The music pounded and we danced, we ate, we partied. We smoked more weed. Some cholo covered in interesting tattoos offered me some coke in the bathroom. Snort---wheeee!!!
Through foggy hangover, these are the highlights of that evening:
I made the off kilter comment that Mexicans generally have small penises. I was taken upstairs by an irate hottie and proven wrong - showed the bestest of the mostest ya'll. Espie's wild erotic lezbo dance with Maria and some other drunken girl. The WWF Transvestite Smackdown between two titanic drunk trannies fighting over a vaquero. Made quite a scene. Ricardo pissing in the potted plant in the parent's bedroom. The continuous flow of booze and coke.
The cool people and new friendships that were forged.
Ricardo, Espie, Manuel and myself all retired to my apartment at 3:30 in the morning giddy and drunk. Manuel and Espie sat on the couch sipping martinis made by yours truly while Ricardo browsed through my CD collection. Would you stop playing that damn Rings of Fire over and over again! We sat up a bit and talked about politics, The Jetsons, and Oreo Cookies. All four of us crashed on my queen size bed.
Okay, next morning, I wake up to Ricardo sitting butt-naked on my couch - laughing - and watching Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space. In the other room, Manuel and Espie are obviously auditioning to be porn stars because all I saw was bouncing boobs and balls. So, I blew Ricardo while he watched Plan 9 and after every one was satisfied, Espie cooked us up a big mess of chorizo y juevos. Love that gal!
The gang showered and dressed and we took a Sunday stroll through the Market and ate the best tacos - ever. There was a little rock concert going on and we stopped and jammed to the throbbing tunes. Ricardo still had a roach stashed in his leather coat and we passed it around to the knowing smile of an elderly man. The sun swung through the sky and we all said our goodbyes and parted. I stopped into the Internet Cafe to pound this out. I am so glad to have good friends like these.

Boogy Wunderland

A cab was called and we found the gang outside a large warehouse somewhere south side Tijuana - where the shanty adobes meld into black smoke belching factories. The wind was blowing and dust and debris swirled in little eddies. Music from inside the corrugated iron building resonated and thumped as a hundred catatonic youths dressed in Day-Glo costumes meandered outside drinking cervezas, talking, smoking mota. The new style with the guys is gangsta faggito, I call it. Pink and black, flashy, saggy, baggy frilly clothes with little band-aids on your face and over sized tinted sunglasses, baseball cap sideways. I think it looks cute.

Esperanza looked great in her shiny black tube dress and her hair was fierce. Big smiles from ruby lips and hugs and kisses. Ricardo, already drunk, tottered up looking like a Latin model for Abercrombie and Fitch. I mentioned he really should try his hand at modeling, the boy is strikingly handsome. He laughed and said let’s all just go in. We smacked down our fifty pesos at the door and entered under the watchful glare of some gorilla looking bouncers. I expected machine gun nests and barbed wire.

The warehouse seemed more spacious inside than outside and was a seething mass of gyrating sweating bodies. Scattered throughout the dark cavernous space were several boxes with dancers precariously perched and jerking to the techno and house beats. Glittering multicolored lights played over the candy colored masses.

“I’m thirsty, baby.” Ricardo says to me, the disco lights playing in his big amber eyes. “Let’s get some beverages.”

“Good idea.” I say, hooking Espie’s elbow in with mine and with her, Ricardo, and Oscar follow us through the crowd to the bar. This is the best kind of rave; the beer was only five pesos. But the line was hella long and we had to elbow our way up there. The two beer attendants were a couple of gorgeous guys from Paraguay and seemed to be having the time of their lives.

From behind, I am shoved so hard that I am almost lifted off of my feet and up onto the bar. I look behind me over my shoulder and it is this cowboy in a wife beater, sweaty and puffing from the dance floor, with his crotch well planted firmly against the backside of my black Kenneth Cole pants.

“Excuse me,” I start.

“Hola.” he smiles. Handsome in a rough Mexican Marlboro man kind of way.

“Would you kindly take your cock out of my ass, I’m trying to purchase a beverage?”

He laughs – pop – and returns back into the smoky darkness.

After we attained our drinks, finished them and take in the surroundings, we hit the dance floor. Espie, Ricardo, and I jumped up on a twelve-foot high lime-green box and shook a tail feather as Oscar found some broad and stayed on terra firma. The DJ from Argentina was pretty good and the music selection kept us going for a few hours – techno, trance, house, reggeaton, European disco, local Mexican music and others I haven’t a clue kept the place jumping. Then they let the foam go. Everyone was waist deep in the stuff and knocking beach balls around. From the rafters someone had constructed a couple of swing sets and kids would precariously swing screaming at supersonic speeds through the crowds.

Hours pass and Espie and I are ripped. Somewhere – where? I have no idea – Espie or me, found a television picture frame in the junk that littered the corners of this warehouse. Well, elbows hooked, Espie and I would work the crowd, Wonka glasses and all, with me yelling, “Make way! The television lady! Can’t you see you are in the presence of a Star?!” And Espie would hold the frame up to here face and wave as we walked by. The people applauded, the fags cooed and screeched – “Fabulous!” “Look at her!” “Love the show!” Yeah, two drunk fools.

Because of this debacle, we had lost Ricardo and Oscar in the mix. Esperanza and I hit the bar tore up from the floor up with the terrifying news that they had run out of beer. Run out! What now? We stumbled around the warehouse and towards the back, standing by one of the huge concrete girders that supported the building was this little cholo. Hidden in half shadows.

“Psst –psst. Hey, you want to buy some beer? I got a case for fifty pesos.” He asked me, putting his hand on my arm. He was one of those little tattooed, shaved head, tank top, khaki types.

“I don’t have any money, man.” And I walked on. Then – ding – an idea hit me and I drunkenly dragged Espie back with me to the little cholo.

“Hey,” I said. “If my girlfriend sucks your cock, can I have the beer.” I mean he wasn’t that bad looking. He looked at me, looked at Esperanza; Espie was splashed and just drunkenly tottered and giggled.His eyes widened, little red tongue licked his lips, “She doesn’t mind?”

“You don’t mind, Espie? I mean, the bar is out of beer and we do need more beer and this gentleman is offering us this case. How about it? Pleeeeez!”

She smiled, “Por que no?” (Why not?)

We walked behind a large trash dumpster that was against the far wall and with the glare of the yellow light above, the cholo pulled out his short fat dick and Espie went to work. I leaned up against the wall and drank a beer and had a cigarette watching. Out of the shadows, like a cockroach, comes this guy’s friend, similarly dressed, except tall and thin – hard and with his wiener out, long and skinny – so, there’s Espie crouched down, taking turns sucking off these two cholos. That was until this big ass security guard showed up waving his flashlight all over the place, snarling “Hey! What’s going on!? You can’t be doing that shit here! Take that bitch out to you’re car!”

Great idea, I thought. Both these guys were kind cute in an I’ll cut you and steal all your money kind of way and Esperanza agreed and by this time was very horny. So we four went outside the warehouse to Hectors car. Hector being the guy with the case of beer and his friend was Francisco. Francisco and I sat in the front seat drinking our cervezas Tecate as Espie and Hector got undressed in the back seat and put on a porn show. Francisco watched wide eyed with crotch throbbing as Hector banged away, what a tight body he had, and a little round brown ass. That turned me on. Ten minutes went by and Hector squirted into Espie. Switcharoo and Francisco jumped in the back. And began rutting Espie like his life depended on it. These guys must’ve felt special getting someone this beautiful – they are lucky indeed. Skinny Francisco finished in a few minutes and pulled his long penis out, hard and still dripping semen. “I think he want some more, Espie.” I breathed.

“Vamanos.” Esperanza moaned, rubbing her red vagina. Francisco rolled back on her and began thrusting and lunging. Sweat rolled down his lean back and off his muscular smooth ass as he pumped furiously. Grunting, he let loose a second orgasm and collapsed on top of her. I raised my beer bottle,"Ole!” Hector laughed and did the same, “Ole, compa!” We all began laughing. Francisco slid out and began dressing; Espie did the same. In the most boyish timid way, Francisco said something to her that made her smile, she leaned over and kissed his cheek, saying, “No import, Mi amor. No importa.”

Saying our good-byes, Esperanza and I walked around front to find Ricardo and Oscar waiting for us. Hailing a taxi, we stopped at Café Central for four in the morning coffee and sweet breads and talked of things that friends talk about. Afterwards, we four crashed on my bed at my house to sleep a contented sleep.

Severed.

Woke up mouthing the word Navajo.
Tried to piece together the last two days. All darkness and confusion.

When Jose found me, I was crouched in an alleyway filled with shit and garbage clinging onto a bottle of Petron tequla. Filthy and a shaking wreck, can't remember the last time I bathed, pants stiff and shiny over the dirt.

I recall:

Jose stooped down next to me. He called my name several times. "What is the matter?"

I wobbled up, leaning against the wall, a passing smile. "Oh, nothing. Slipped gears, crossed wires. Nothing out of the ordinary. And you?"

He looked down at me with those big beautiful brown eyes, "Let's go. Let me get you home."

Tears filled my eyes and I sank back down onto the stinking concrete. "Home? I have no home...I can never go home." I sobbed as that fact hit my heart like a gunshot. "Never go home...never..."

Pulling me back up, Jose whispered, "Come on, guero. First we fix your head and then we fix your life."

White flash bulb of deja vu.

As I said, woke up in the Detox Clinic in downtown San Diego amid the hacking and coughing of thirty or so junkies. Shiny white walls and guerrilla faced interns. Blank and slack stares from resident relics. Old man offered me a cigarette. Was a Lucky Strike. There is a God.

"You're too young, kid." He wheezed. "Too young to be here." Spit protoplasm onto tiled floor.

The rancid smell of hospital filled my nostrils. Wrapped in the flames of devils. Looking into cold dead fish eyes.

I moaned and rolled over in my cot. My stomach felt like it was filled with red hot barbed wire and my head felt worse. And so, there you have it Dear Reader. I will be signing off for awhile until I get my head on straight.
I guess you can't live in madness without going a little mad yourself.

Yeah, I thought to myself, Merry Christmas.

Life imitates art blah blah blah.

For the most part, I have joined the ranks of the Unhappy Waiters and Killers of Time. Oh God, are there so many of them in our land! Students who can't be happy until they've graduated, servicemen who can't be happy until they are discharged, single folks who can't be happy until they've found a mate, workers who can't be happy until they've retired, adolescents who aren't happy until they're grown, ill people who aren't happy until they're well, failures who aren't happy until they succeed, restless who can't wait until they get out of town, and in most cases, vice versa, people waiting, waiting for the world to begin.

Splish splash.

As any warm-blooded homo, I was itchin’ for some action this chilly Mexican morn. So, after a good breakfast of a spicy bowl of menudo and a hot cuppa joe, I made my way over to Banos Roma on the corner of Avenida Mejia and Constitution. Located conveniently across the street from the pile of Spanish adobe masonry that is St. Marks Cathedral – the statuary, I swear glares at you with heavenly scowl.

Banos Roma, large glass plate windows welcome you into a 1930’s lobby with beaver board reception desk of glass brick and fake marble. Ancient attendant smiles and takes your personals – cheapo watch, Wonka glasses, black leather Tijuana wallet, silver Aztec ring, pack of Lucky Strikes – say ‘Howdy’ to a tall dark and suave cowboy on the way in. He smiles back a beautiful mouthful of pearlies.
Well, down to business. Walk through the moist and grimy halls in search of an unoccupied cubicle. The sounds of slurps, grunts, and growls of broken random lust mixed with Mexican top 40 permeates the humid air. How many times do I hafta hear Daddy Yankee's Rompe? Finding a cubicle in the dim back – just the perfect spot – I set up camp. The white tiled room is covered in mildew and filthy drawn graffiti; there is a small cot and on the wall wooden hooks with a broken mirror. I disrobe, wrap myself in a white towel, slip on flip-flops and start the hunt.
I hit the steam room - sitting on the white tiled bench, relaxing as the hot vapors swirled around me. Not there five minutes and out of the misty mists comes a thin lad wagging his long and nasty at me and it was on like Donkey Kong. After a good bout of gulp-n-slurp, I wondered back to my room to cool off and check out the eye candy prowling the halls. Jumpin’ jigglin’ Jesus! The guys on parade were hot – all this for seven dollars!
Standing outside my room, I hit up a hottie for a cigarette – menthol, yech – and stand there talking a bit. I glance up to the steel girders and wish I hadn’t, a biological nightmare of fungus and mildew. Just as I am about to mention this, said hottie grabs my joint and we repair to his cubical where before I know it I’m on all fours getting the bajeebus pounded outta me. Unfortunately, he blows his wad in a couple of minutes and after gracias I hit the showers and take a sensual bath under the watchful gaze of three guys in jock straps posing by the glass brick wall.
After the shower, I sit on the olive tiled bench opposite the handsome three and take in the surroundings. The air is hazy and humid. Water drips constantly from the grimy fungus covered girders and hissing pipes. The Boy comes by and I order a beer. A cerveza Sol. Relaxing, sipping my beverage, I watch as the three pretty boys in jock straps start up. The skinhead kneels down in front of his friend in the middle and pulls out his cock; it bobs long and hard. He sucks it with gusto. The other jacks off while kissing the guy getting blown. The masturbator squirts his semen all nasty like onto the tile floor, as the skinhead leaves no trace of his friends’ semen to be found. He swallows it all like any good fag should.
Well, that shit made me horny, so with my towel poking out at the crotch, I enter the steam room and sit down. Opening my towel, I let myself swing free. A guy with a shaved head and prison tattoos sits next to me. He has great arms and killer abs and his tongue swirled around my cock like a champ, I couldn’t help myself, I shot off like a ten year old virgin when I touched those rock hard muscles on his back.
I returned to my cubicle and paid The Boy to retrieve from my safety box my Lucky Strikes. God, were they needed. Then outta nowhere – well, not outta nowhere, from the entrance, I guess – came my friend Lazo. By this time, it was early afternoon and the place was packed, so I invited him to keep his things in my cubicle. After changing changing into his towel Lazo lost himself in the mists of the steam room for the next hour or so. May God have mercy on his sphincter.
Close to my room, there was a hallway that led to a shower room that looked like it hadn’t been used in fifty years, This skinny hottie in red boxers meandered that direction and I decided to follow. In the grimy shower room – littered with beer bottles, cigarette butts, and used condoms – there was this large open window over looking an filthy alley. Him standing there, with the lighting and the background, looking like an erotic photograph. What could I do? Not saying a word, I walked up, pulled out his penis and started blowing him. Pulling his boxers down, I turned him around and lubing my penis with saliva, I pushed him against the dirty wall and fucked him standing up. Yanking out, I spilt my semen onto the grimy floor. Smiling and squeezing my hand, he pulled up his boxers and left. I hit the showers again.
I found Lazo lounging on a bench in front of the radio sipping a soda and listening to reggaeton. Ordering a beer for myself, we sat and joked and watched the boys go by. Lazo informs me that he has had his eye on that tall and suave cowboy that I met on my way in. I smile and tell him to go for it. He walks off and does. Lo and behold, when I am returning to my cubicle, tall and suave cowboy’s cubicle is right across from mine and Lazo is sitting in there on the cot with him. For some goofy reason, Lazo invites me in there, and cowboy looks so hot in nothing but his black boxer briefs. Long, long legs. And I am a sucker for long legs. Well, the three of us have a funny and nice chat and Lazo invites the three of us for frescas. When he goes to gets them, cowboy asks me to close the door and the next thing I know those long legs are wrapped around me like tentacles and cowboys tongue is swirling in my mouth. Sorry Lazo. Sliding myself into him, I held onto his ankles and fucked him hard and fast. Shooting what I had left into his tight ass, we lay there sweating and breathless kissing each other for a couple of moments.
I put on my towel and open the door and there is Lazo holding the drinks – oops – he said it was no big thing and we sat in the sauna and talked. It was late and I was with empty scrotum and flaccid penis and I said I had to go. Getting dressed, I said my good-byes and left into the cool night air. Stopping first at Burrito Row for two burritos colorados and a manzana fresca, I walked back to my trap and fell asleep.

Clowning Around.

Was awaken early by the gentle rappings of Chuck the Canuck on my bedroom door. "You have a visitor."

Clock says 9:53am. What is this - a fucking farm? I get dressed and stumble downstairs to find Fernando waiting. For those of you not in the know - Fernando is the stable job holding homebody that has been hounding me for a relationship the past few weeks. Poor slob. I've been a card carrying member of The League of International Playboys since day one, dears - so I have been avoiding him. Slightly. Oh, too be sure he is what you dream of, you lonely bitches - he is smart, well read, funny, handsome, and sensitive, and not the kind that bar hops. A real bore. He has been hounding me because he has the weird notion that we are compatible in some freakish way.

Yes. Uhm - okay.

Well, Fernando sat in the living room smiling pleasant as I made some instant coffee and offered him the same. As a side job, Fernando performs in the park on weekends as a clown to the delight of squealing little uns. A side job that would be scorned in the states but is held as virtuous here - I suppose. Well, ol' Fernie had asked a while back to purchase some clown shoes for him online and I said I would - today he was collecting on that promise.

Being a man of my word, we repaired to the cafe on the beach and I went online and bought said clown shoes - big floppy yellow and orange things that honked when you walked. Dear God...

Wonder what it's like having sex with a clown? When he orgasms does he h'yukh'yuk'y'uk like Krusty? Does he cum silly string? I asked Fernando - he just laughed and stated that I was wonderful. Thanks, Fernando. Then I took his picture - just to be cute.

We sat and talked of things, of how he thinks my solidarity is the reason of my depressed state, Fernando explaining how he can be the ying to my yang - and Fernando explained where he lived and gave me - gave me, mind you - a key to his apartment. Well, don't that take the rag offen the bush? After an hour of laughter and coy comments, Fernando jet to go to work. Myself, made a run to the border.

The Christmas crowd was ghastly. A gajillion damn people clogged the frontier like a freakin' exodus - fat old women as far as the eye could see. After waiting what seemed an eternity, I jumped the trolley and shot off towards downtown San Diego.

Firstly, to check my mail and was delighted in receiving the DVD of the Criterion Collection of Pier Passolini's Salo: 120 Days of Sodom. Also, I received a letter from SSI stating that my pay was to increase in 2009. Yay! I treated myself to a big ass carne asada burrito at El Tapatio's and then checked out the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. What a horrible remake!! I had entered the theater with high hopes and left angry and disappointed. A travesty of the classic!

I returned home only to be clogged at the border going in to Mexico which is unheard of. Thousands of commuters returning from shopping and work jammed the turnstiles into Tijuana. It was a nightmare.

When I dodged traffic and strode through Plaza Santa Cecilia, I stopped at bar Villa Garcia for a quick beer and struck up a conversation with a young lad who just came up from Chiapas. He was quiet funny and we joked for an hour. However, fatigue set in and I said adios and returned home on the city bus - it would have been a nice quiet ride if it weren't for this old fart that got on and belted out mariachi ballads loudly and continuous the entire trip. Asshole.

Got home made a salad and watched Naked Lunch being broadcast on television in Spanish. I sat - thinking of Fernando. Perhaps I should give him a whirl.

"Me no like it, meester."

Oh...Hi!

Sitting here slurping my Frappacino Mocha at the local Starbuck's watching the parade of young lads followed by the old daddies glaring dark and nasty.

Yesterday evening took the city bus down to el centro - with a black fart and squeal of gears the ancient school bus deposited me amid a torrid flow of Christmas shoppers gathering their gifts from various shops all in the hopes that St. Nick will be there. Stopped at a corner stall and downed a Mexican hot dog - one of the greatest culinary delights of the world and I ain't shittin' ya. As I finished my dog and started my descent into The Plaza - my name was called and that froze me in my tracks as it always does - nothing good ever comes out of it. So, I turn around and am delighted to see an old acquaintance of mine - Hector, tall handsome and decked out in fine clothes as usual. He strode up to me arms outstretched, big smile line in pencil moustache, "Luis!! Hola!!! Que dice??!!"

I said 'howdy' he said 'hi' and then the long patter of what-happened-to-so-and-so set in. We found ourselves sitting at a table outside a small cafe and what-ever-happened-to-so-and-so really took off and flew in a kaleidoscope of directions. I have not seen Hector in a coon's age and after that delicious cup of hot chocolate he invited me to El Taurino for drinks.

The chill of dusk set in as we walked down the trash covered sidewalk into the Red Zone and up to the puke green colored building of the bar. The corner was congested with the creatures of the night, the corners spilling into the streets with taco stands steaming the smell of seared meats and spicy salsa into the sooty air. Swatting away pre-teen transvestite hookers at the door, Hector and I sat and ordered a beer each. It was sprinkled with fags and Rentboys and being the only gringo in the joint I was met with several raised eyebrows. The beers flowed and the alcohol took effect and Hector just got better looking - not that he's a bad looking character in the first place.

At the bar, I started flirting and getting into animated discussions with the boys around me - laughing and spewing routines. I felt so alive again - not once thinking of that sapping darkness that puts me in a state of antisocial funk.

I began a dialogue with some lad named Javier - a Mexican Indian with a great smile and smooth copper skin. After a few more drinks and a few more dances Javier asked if I would like to go someplace else. Hector said it was cool - he being occupied with his own victim - and I left him to his own vices, making a dinner date with him two days hence.

Javier and I wobbled down Revo and laughed and gawked at the drunken tourists and crazy Mexicans and flashing neon in the cold winter night. We ducked into El Caliente - the new casino and lost a few pesos on slots. At a bar called Exotics we met up with some of Javier's friends and danced danced danced. Bucket after bucket of booze was bought. Screaming laughter and hoots to passerby from second floor balcony - the smile and confused stare of the straight hot pedestrian. Javier and I sat on the big red velvet couch talking and entwined. We made out under the uncaring sad beat eyes of the midget waiter.

2:35am. Lights flashing past us and we strolled to the end of Revo and up a flight of stairs - down a flight of stairs - darkness over a concrete valley of houses perched on a cliff and into the small apartment of my new friend. In the distance a big dog barked and a siren wailed. He offers me a bottled water as I look around his little flat - old furniture, TV, stereo, books, paintings tacked to an avocado wall. Lived in and comfortable. It smelled good - like him.

He took my hands and glided over to the sagging bed and we lay down. Kissing, probing, licking. Clothes flung onto the dirty tiled floor and sucked each other till we both climaxed. Lay under the blanket shivering in the still night and passed a smoke - the red cherry illuminating his handsome sharp features in the darkness.

The following morning we had a light breakfast at a cafe by his house - sweet bread and coffees - shook hands and I hailed a taxi. As the cab swerved and dodged chaotic traffic on its way to La Playa - I took out the little note that Javier had scribbled down and placed in my palm as we said good bye.

Please call. Number is here 0118557963

I like you alot - please call I want to see you again.

xoxoxo javier mercado

Perhaps it is time - no, it is time - to burst out of this fortress of solitude I have built around me for no fucking reason other than my own radical paranoia. I will live - I will love - I will enjoy. And all you haters that have been recently criticizing me for it - can go fuck yourselves. I like my life and most importantly - I like me!

River of Mud

Like only a junky can understand a junky, an alcoholic can share solice with an alcoholic, a queer can spot another fag in a room full of feelthy breeders can anyone understand the despair in this insidious depression that has wracked my trembling form for the past few days.

I have hit the rock bottom I believe. Nothing interests me. I do not go out. I do not socialise. And if I do attempt this I only stare at these garrulous beings in hateful contempt. I do not write. I do not eat. Rarely do I sleep. All things - all of them - that previously have given me some remembrance of joy, now just give me nothing.

I am completely alone in this world. All friends have severed contact from my loathsome being. After that debacle with the family a couple of months ago - I do not will not ever contact them again. I see no need. They are all strangers to me. No more important than faceless pedestrians walking down a dark street. All past has been atrophied from my emotional being. I am a husk. Or so it seems.

Even where I live - though I had previously herald it as being all that I need - is no more than an island in this poisonous river down I float. I can't stand it. Can't stand the people I live with. I recently received my passport but have no desire to use it. Oh how have I changed! Just a few months ago I had plans to use these monthly benefits to travel as I saw fit. Now, I want to do nothing. Have no goal to do so, anyway.

God!!!??? What is it you want me to do??!!! My patience is far from taxed! I am on that precipice now and am looking into darkness ready to jump...

Just For Kicks.

The dank smell of unwashed penis and bleach assailed my nostrils. Close to me a gray old queen sat tapping his foot - face a worried mask of sadness fretting over his lost youth - watching in the gloom the ballet of sex throughout the theater. On screen an Italian hooch was sucking cock twelve feet long - so it seemed.

Alex - he said his name was - sat next to me motionless as statuary. Skinny, hawk like face with black goatee, red cap turned backwards - sat transfixed on the flickering images dubbed in Italian with Spanish subtitles. I look over at him silhouette outlined against green wall streaked in black goo splattered in other liquids now dried and flaking. Long moment of silence. "Let's get out of here." He finally stated.

Best thing I heard so far.

Out into the chilled night broken sidewalk under our feet apparently going nowhere in particular. He pulled his coat tighter around his lanky frame and I lit a cigarette standing on the corners of the world under that navy sky - dash across street dodging kamikaze taxis and waving away Indians with hands outstretched forever. No word passed both of us - I just followed him.

Under a rusted corrugated awning white florescent light seared my eyes he stopped - pedestrian traffic bumped into us - Alex turned and mumbled, "You wanna coffee?"

Mambo be-bop jazz wailed from the speakers as we sat in the cafe watching the people dash outside. We talked of various subjects from science fiction to the fall of Communism - he was quite literary. Well read - knew of books that I had never had the chance to read. He took a long drag off of his cigarette blew it into the air above his head, "So, tell me of this book of yours - what is it?"

"It's a horror story." I stated flatly.

"Really?"

"No, it's a heart breaking romance."

"Okay."

"Actually, it's a travel book."

"Now, wait a minute --"

"It's a medical report on dealing with schizophrenia and depression."

He smiled, "How many fucking books is it?"

I sipped my coffee, "It's a mess. Like me."

We found ourselves strolling down Revo - the avenue clogged with hipsters in hip hop rags and sad beat whores clomping in plastic their see through pumps and sad brown eyes looking up up up forever to Guadalupe - the Christmas Tree towered above us dwarfed only by the slash of the Millennium Arch.

Somewhere down in Coahuilla the rattle of machine gun fire, screams, a siren wails - typical night. We turn a corner past the fag bar where they spill out onto the pavement screeching and shrilling as only fags can - Alex walks with hands in coat pocket. Me - I am here just for kicks. Down a dark street, lamp post out and furtive shadows lurk in the cracks. Alex cops some weed from ratty old fuck coat dirty - shiny over the dirt - and we retire to Alex's one room flat.

Sagging bed, dresser loaded with folded clothes, a small radio that played fucking ranchero. We sat on the bed - our conversation animated and Alex was a good roller, though - fat he makes 'em. Watched in lustful silence as his thin tongue glided over the paper. We lit up and both fell into laughing jags. Passed a beer battle back and forth, too. I sucked his cock just for kicks.

Slapped cien pesos in his cold hand as we said our goodbyes on the corner. A gray dog covered in soot and mange trotted past and Alex disappeared into the chilly fog laden night - his tall lanky body dematerialized into mist. A pain stabbed my heart as it did every time I saw a guy I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world. I lit a cigarette and hailed a taxi - sitting in the back, yellow lights flashing across my face, I took a deep breathe and thought, My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.

Another night, just for kicks.

High on Blue Tomorrows.

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Voyueristic intensions.

Cold and around 3am. I stand at the window of my room and look out into the sleeping neighborhood. From my second story vantage point I can see the black waves crashing in silver lining - hear their sighing. I take a long drag from my cigarette and pull the robe closer to my body. I hate night's like this - wallowing in fits of insomnia. It is so quiet. I glance down into the vacant rubbly lot adjacent to the house. I wouldn't have noticed him if he hadn't moved.

He lay in the shadows on a tattered Mexican blanket - legs crossed, hands clasped across his chest as if lying in state. He reached slowly over to a green plastic bottle and took a swig of whatever liquid was inside. Long moments pass - I watch him. I watch - slowly smoking.

He gets up slightly stretching - I know, I think, that concrete can get mighty cold - he is tall and lanky with long black hair in waves, the obligatory goatee. His clothes are old and well worn. Dark skin that soak in the shadows. I watch. He slowly meanders around the lot - in and out of the shadows of the crumbling red brick walls that encircle the lot. He stops and then - as I watch - he creeps so slowly over to the window of another house facing the lot. Fingertips placed on stucco wall, he creeps up to the window and peers in - his shadow extending stretching and reaching the window before he does. He stands there - moments pass. I watch and I slowly take another drag.

Quickly he ducks down - pause - then slowly back up to the window. Moments pass and I watch as he peers into the pitch black window.

Slowly he turns and slinks back to his camp and takes another gulp of whatever is in that green plastic bottle. Then he slowly creeps back to the window and peers in. Moments pass. He tip-toes over to a part of the brick wall that is a meter high and straddles it - like a horse. He sits staring at the black window a few meters away. I watch. He peers at the window then unbuttons his pants and in the half light pulls out his erection. Slowly he caresses it, slowly his fingers glide around the head. He silently lifts himself off of the wall and with his erection swinging out in front of him he returns to the window. What does he see? A couple sleeping? A couple fucking? A small child snoring safely in her/his room? What is he looking at? I take another drag as he slinks up to the windows edge and peers in, one hand on the window sill the other messaging his cock.

Sirens wail and dogs bark as three police patrols hurl down the street and pass red and blue lights blasting and exploding across the lot. He ducks from the window and scampers over to his camp - in one swoop, he collects his little plastic bottle, a bag and blanket and escapes into the shadows of the night...

Brainpootin

The crumbling concrete boardwalk sloped downward into a distant misty haze. Seagulls swooped and dived, a lone figure - black and furtive against the setting sun - walked a small dog at the surfs edge. Huddle next to the bluff out of the all seeing eye of the patrols, a group of six guys huddled and sipped Tecate's and talked and laughed.
I sat on the weathered limestone bench - hypnotized by the crashing of the waves, the silver forever expanse of sea that spread before me. The fiery red ball of sun boiling away beyond the horizon - then yellow, orange, and the stars began to twinkle as I pulled my coat around me shivering and took a long drag offa my cigarette.
I thought of the previous months, last few years, the last couple of weeks and the lonesome kicks started to drift in. People I miss passed in my mind - people I know that I would never see again - they being spread all over my adventures, my travels, pointless wanderings.
A rolling stone gathers no moss, they say. Who wants to be covered in moss, I'd retort. But, I see where they are coming from - I think it has caught up to me - and it is time. Time to gather moss.
I was sitting on the balcony with Chuck the 'Canuck' sipping coffee and chain smoking cigarettes coughing in the dawn - when said I, "You know, what I need to do is - instead of selling all my personals, leaving my place, traveling and then picking up all over again - I should just use this house as my base. Pay you a couple of months rent and go down tom Peru or somewhere next time I get the traveling itch. Then I just come back and relax until the next bout."
"Sounds like a plan to me." He wheezed then falling into a fit of coughing.
Thing is - I am starting to get antsy. Always happens around the holidays - I just wanna go-go-go! But, I am tired - tired of all this seat of the pants wondering. 2700 miles in a week? That's even wacky for me. I am back home though - TJ will always be home - so I guess I need to make the best of it.
Working on my book - it has a definite title now, Just for Kicks - and it horrors me to read it. Seems like a different person. I have changed so much in the last year or so - so much. I even pondered stopping this blog - for what is left to write about? I really don't do anything anymore - and when I do it is the same old shit. And as I've said - I'm even tired of it.
The black waves crashed in the yellow moonlight and I sat on the limestone bench staring off into my abyss - pondering the realities and vindication of my thoughts and immediate goals. Cold crept in amid the swooshing of the surf and I headed back up the dirt road to the house - happy, happy for the first time in a long time at the direction of my life...

Way back then - when I started this mess, this literary experiment - it was all based on some joker long forgotten by now. For years I roamed looking for that taste of sweet lovin' I had lost - mm'mm and that was some good eatin' boy I tell ya!
So from town to town, shack to adobe, trailer to homeless shelter across America the beautiful I rocked and I rolled kissing the lips of mysterious strangers under a big round orange moon so close you could just reach up and goose it, you know what I'm saying?
And I was getting it good and plenty I tell ya brother - strutting around with my ass in the air like some cat bitch in heat with nary a worry of only one thing - that black fear of loneliness. The dark cold emptiness of being solo. Comprende, hombre?
But the more I loved someone - or the facsimile thereof - the more I became emotionally wounded. Like dead leaves falling the years passed and I metamorphosized into what many a faggot becomes in this fair land of ours: Embittered with resentment and untrustful of anyone. Pinch faced old bitches! After some time - deep down inside, you unnerstan - I just wanted to be left alone and listen to the hollow nothing inside. As my Father dully noted via the last telephone communique, "Son, it sounds like you gave up." Fuck you, old man...
So the farting winds of fate blew me to El Paso - snore capitol of Texas, where the horny toad yawns in the shimmering heat of the slow burn of desert hell fire. I nestled down into a numb cocoon existence well knowing in the fact that I was born alone, lived alone, and I will die alone. Kinda an absolute - needed to face up to it.
Also smacked me in the kisser that this love crap was a myth - that emotion had been long crushed squeezed pulverized burned hacked out of me. Like the Tin Man - he of Oz - empty, void, and cold became I. There had been numerous attempts by several callers to win over my heart - poor jerks! I need a heart first, fellas...
I said it once and I'll say it again and I'll say it slow and country simple: I am not boyfriend material.
First off, I'm nuts - nuttier than squirel shit! Mood swings, manic depression, random fits of hilarious wackiness - and besides that, your Reporter has some rather peculiar habits that are best left unsaid.
I do not play well with others.
So content in my misery I mired - until one day I was being pestered via Internet by some foreign kid who one way or another got my wheels going - he somehow pushed all the right buttons and started the old love machine pumping again. Before you know it, your Reporter is dancing and singing in the streets, kissing babies and hugging bunnies.
Star struck - love sick - or just plain retarded, I roll up tent and head west back to California to earn just enough - just enough mind you - loot to get down to this magical land where my Prince Charming dwelt. Hell or high water, no holes barred - love will conquer all kind of shit! Man, everything was outta whack! All my premade plans of setting up shop were thrown askew because it was rush, rush, rush, him, him, him....
Sigh. Basta.
But reality set in. On top of the stress of the squalid living conditions I was in, on top of the strain of attaining employment - I started to think...El Paso was a vacuum and that Internet Kid filled a void. But now that I am back in the land of milk and boy whores I have no need to travel half way across the globe for companionship - there are 27 thousand pretty boys in my own back yard: Tijuana!
All said - that raging fire of passion I held in El Paso has dimmed down to a flickering flame. Quite honestly - I feel almost nothing for the kid now. And I have come to this final conclusion after years of searching:
Love is not worth the time nor effort. It is a hindrance and a bother. I deem it unnecessary in my life. To accomplish my goals in life, a relationship or that silly love concept does not fit into the equation.
However - however! (Banging my fist on the desk for emphasis) - after ping ponging 2700 miles in two months and just tired and over it, dearies, I have found my Shangri-la, my home of happiness. The place I have pitched tent is - at the moment for my forever wandering mind - is a tranquil tree lined hacienda on the playas of Tijuana. Gay owned and operated - not by the simpering, screechy fairies that send shivers up and down my spine - but quiet nonaddicted sane folks with goals and purposes in thier lives. An influence that Your Reporter desperately needed.
And so, at this writing, I will be here a while and do what I deem necassary.

Oh-oh, here I go...

Time clicks on and Time runs up. Finances run slow like old man's bowels. Unable to pay a month at that roach motel - hacking of tramp in rickety elevator, carpets smell and smell rotten - I swallow my pride, pack my shit and jump train down ol' Mexico way. Clakclakclak and I have paranoid fits of nostalgia or perhaps just feeling my age. Fuck it, I mumble and tromp across border, lugging my gear.

I head towards Cafe Norteno and look up patient and understanding friends. I inquire to weary ears about renting a room but get shrugs and no intiendos instead. Wonder aimlessly all over centro in vain attempt to set up camp under weary eye of cholo who wants nothing but to rob and murder me, I reckon.

Back at the cafe, I rap with timid and soft spoken waiter named Samuel and offer a hundred bucks to sleep on a couch for a month and by way he is I see in his sad beat eyes it is a small fortune I offer. He agrees but with reservations, cause he knows next to nothing of this wild eyed be-bop talking gringo that chains smokes so nasty.

Up in the mountain that surrounds Tijuana proper where adobe houses perch precariously over trash filled ravines prowled by vicious dogs and tattooed gun toting gangsters so handsome makes me blush, Mary. But, something wrong with my host - bitch is having second thoughts. And when I am returning from Market with articulos I bought - mop, broom, bucket, and cleaning supplies - I run into old friend from shadowy past who is so burrocho it is the stench of stale beer wafting from his bowels that I notice first outta the dark. Made bad impression on my host as said friend pulls out a half empty bottle of Cognac and loudly proclaims that we must get drunk for old times sake. I say nah and after the fifth time this drunken fool pesters us from out of the night, I reckon Samuel had just about had it. For after a night of me sleeping on the concrete floor with nothing but a sheet between me and the dust, Samuel wakes me up at 7am to say he don't need no roommate. Returns the cash I gave him - good lad - and I make dramatic exit back down to centro.

Stirring in anger and cursing my bad luck, I hardly taste the delicious menudo I am slurping down, when outta heaven comes my savior. Old Chuck, the Canuck - old time resident queer of Tijuana, been here since day one, dearie - listens to my wails of woe and informs yours truly that he has a room to rent at his swanky two story Spanish hacienda on the beach of Tijuana. Oh happy day!

We spend the evening on the balcony of said palacio sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes and talking of trivialities as his servant boy sees to our needs, the waves crash black under a big yaller moon and all I can say is I really wouldn't trade my wondrous, fantastic, cool life with any of yahs!

Really truly, I am happy of the outcome...

Optomistic Patriotics.

The 44th President of the United States has been elected by a landslide vote. And I couldn't be happier of this countries decision. In other news, Mexico is once again treating me quite well...Not too sure about the locals, though.

Loosey-goosy.

So I'm sitting on a curb wallerin' in my own sadness stirring a puddle of black iridescent water with a stick when a little fat ass cherub hurls itself outta a fuckin' cloud, flutters up all buttery like and whispers in my ear, "Go check your mail, dumb ass."

Trudge over to the Neal Goode Center - habitual flocking ground of San Diego's homeless elite wafting in that pungent smell of urine and rolled stale tobacco, and am surprised that I have received that IRS stimulus check just in the nick of time. As I open it the clouds part and a ray of light hits me with ethereal chorus in back ground and I hear a whispering soothing voice say, "I'll always look over you."

"Shaddap!" I retort, cash the check and rent a room for a month at the swanky ever so skanky beat hotel, The Plaza. Love the corner room, great view, writing desk, and just right to do my work. Now I can settle in and finish editing my book.

Ride the rickety elevator down and buy some new clothes, unpawn my laptop, and take in a viewing of Max Payne which of course was absolutely hideous. Jolted afterwards round the block to Borders' and bought a copy of William Burroughs's Jr.s biography Cursed from Birth - I had always wanted to read it and it is bout time I got literary, cabrones.

Night fell and Halloween was full swing in The City - streets swarming with costumed revelers, some quite impressive - bought a cheap trashy hooker outfit and clomped around 5th Ave. like a drugged up Courtney Love. Dropped a few beers at the Star Bar and camped it up (flicking cigarette ashes at the unwary tourist) with some hot guys dressed as cheerleaders they of the straight Navy inclinations and unknowing of my dastardly intentions. But, I was feeling it and around 1am I stumble all loosey-goosy back to my flat and crash watching Herschel Gordon Lewis' Blood Feast on cable.

Yes, all is well again in the Universe....

Cursed from Birth.

Lying in my hotel room time crawls past 2am - out in the dark musty halls crazed woman screams hatred and malice into uncaring night. Annoying cunt! I toss in fits of angst and nostalgia at the latest of predicaments that are of no faults but my own.

Not having enough for a room two days ago - I pawned my laptop after spending half the night resided to sleep in Balboa Park and I tell you right now them junkies and fags cruising nonstop can really tax a guy, you know. So, fed up with that shit and it just plain cold - round one in the morning, I slinked down to centro San Diego to take out the last of my last funds to pay one night. I was caught short but the queen at the reception took a liking to me and let me slide. Slept in a foul room that appeared not to been rented in decades - dust poofs out from between mattress when Your Reporter plops his weary carcass down for the night.

Next day, shivering in the China Blue morning and in contempt for my bad luck - I marched a block to the Pawn Shop and hawked my laptop - no worries, I tell myself, will be receiving first of three check this Friday. I pay the room, buy some smokes and munch on toast and sip good coffee at Lee's Cafe.

I figure should keep my options open just in case I get the full Wrath of God shoved up my ass - so I jump the trolley down Mexico way and check out the scene. Same old shit. I trudge along garbage covered streets as Indian women wrapped in burlap arms out for money holding dirty fat babies block my way, taxi drivers all on the hustle, pimps, junkies and whores of both sexes clog the teeming sad weary streets under that blasting unrelenting Mexican sky. I decide to look up some old friends and get the bum kicks when I find out through due process that they are all gone. At Cafe Patio only Daniel remains and he and I chatted it up. Thinking of moving back - but I really don't wanna.

My life was cursed from birth and to live up to that fact, no money today. SSI says won't be deposited till Sunday and Monday and that three hundred from the IRS is freefall in the mail - seems I am always caught a day short. Well, I guess another free for all blood guts or nothing night in Balboa Park seems to be in order...

Right foot - Left foot.

6am and the phone on the wall loudly buzzes till it falls crashing to the stained littered carpet. I leap out of bed shivering in the predawn light of night and splash water on my face, brush the pearlies, shake the roaches from my clothes and take the rickety croaking moaning beat hotel elevator five flights down into those sleeping mad streets. The gray mist hangs malevolent through that concrete canyon as some hobo hacks into the filthy wadded napkin lying next to the entrance - dart into a 7-11 and buy a paper cup of hideous overpriced java fom the giggling Hindi. Jump the trolley and clakclakclak over to Vinnies to see about getting a bunk. I am grudging this, you see. I really want to stop this insidious cycle I have been spinning in the last decade - but am flat broke and the first is still five days away and I'll probably hafta pawn my laptop - again.

But I am getting sidetracked - so onward. I bop up to the Niel Goode Center tucked away from rich and snooty eyes of the San Diego well to do and a wave of funk hits my nostrils of unwashed bodies, sour feet and that rancid nicotine residue as the place is wall to wall with crazy hobo action. I walk through the gates of Moloch and am greeted by Bruce - a geriatric hobosexual that has been living on the mean streets since day one, Mary - and pumps my numb noggin with all types of transient information.

8am rolls round and wait in line to see about getting a bed - any professional bum knows all about waiting in line - will wait in line for hours spittin' on the pavement and puffin' them rollies if the shit is free. Anyway, had a stare down with some hard looking black guy that wanted to prove what a badass he was - told the flabby jerk 'shaddap'.

So, no beds which was no surprise seeing that the economy is crap and the recession is swingin' like a boywhores balls and I twiddle my fingers at Bruce and say toodl-loo and stride over to the main building two blocks away amid sidewalks of urine and shit and the rotting cadavers lying in it. Waiting in line again to get a 'homeless ID' I strike up conversation with old friend Raul who I hadn't seen since the Outback Steakhouse incident. He lookin' hella fine in his suit ready to look for a job. It's all a shame though, you see - he just playing good cause they are going to throw his cute ass out on accounta he was written up three times for intoxication.

Well, says my adios to Raul, get my ID and jet over to Lee's Cafe for a good cheap plate of eggs and hash. And some decent coffee.

After resting at the hotel a bit, I dig that new movie Quarrantine and man it will creep the crap outcha. I sat at a cafe basking in the warm sun sucking on that cigarette so nasty wondering what I am going to do the proximity of time. Move into Vinnies and save a few checks or relocate back to Tijuana and live there or rent a room at my current hotel and write that book. I tell you - all these decisions make a faggito crazy....

Home again Home again - Jiggity jig.

Like a David Lynch sitcom everything wrapped up in the end. Made all good - okay somewhat and it's gonna take some time - with my Father. Uneasy truce at the moment. Had a long calm passionate discussion and for once I made sense to him - maybe he decided to be a Father and not a Badass this go round. The last two days they was quite pleasant and would have left on an upbeat note if it wasn't for a hostile call by an over opinionated gossipy sibling. Some people just don't know when to shut up. Don't give a crap about this siblings life - why can't the favor be returned?

Father flipped the bill and I hopped the next bus outta there. The five hours passed fast for I met a lad from Guanaguato and we talked of innerestin' things. He being a migrant worker working in the Olive Groves of Northern Cali. In San Francisco, jumped the BART onto the airport flinging my frayed ass down to San Diego all the while wedged between the grinding hips of a massive black couple. But they were sweet and made the flight fun.

San Diego. The whale's vagina. To pick up where I left off a year ago. To stabilize. To realize. To organize. And to finally finish that book. Seems Tijuana will be home for a bit more - we will see.

Checked a week into the Plaza Hotel - a twenty five dollar a night roach coach in downtown SD. Will figure out what needs to be figurin'....

Wind through Black Trees.

I stumble out of the Eureka Rescue Mission - guttural coughs and hacks of halitosis from the hobo populace - old man stares with glassen eyes into the cold grey. Just had dinner - puke on a plate - after the obligatory speech from Jeeeeeeesus. The store shed was supposed to be secure, I guess not. I was rolled for my luggage - almost everything I own. Well, clothes wise anyway. I still have my laptop and satchel with the essentials.

I curse God - I curse him for me coming here, I curse him for the weather, I curse him that there were no beds, I curse and I curse.

The black void in my mind opened and I stumbled through the Norman Rockwell scenery - happy white people dash laughing to and fro getting into the holiday spirit. I gaze up into the sky with the color of a dead television channel and I wonder. I wonder out and down through these mad streets engulfed in my seething anger. Walking through the edge of night and it gets dark I can tell you here - the stars a blanket of glittering glitter across a black velvet sky. I wonder till I have no road left - until I reach Highway 101 and I wonder onto that.

Somehow I come across an overpass - a lonesome fog horn blows.

"Mr. Blasini, why did you abandon us?" Hissed a voice out of the darkness. I whirl and it is an agent from Control. "All agents defect and all resisters sell out? Isn't that right?"

"And a writer lives the sad truth like anybody else - the only difference is - he files a report on it." I whisper over looking the over pass - below me the cars roar by. There is no safety rail on the bridge.

"You lost everything now." The agent hissed. "You're family, your possessions, your mind. You have finally hit - how do they say? Rock bottom. You know what you have to do - you are no longer any use to us."

I stare down at the concrete thirty feet bellow - that swirling vortex hits me.

"Do it! Do it! Do it!" Started the chanting like some obscene game show. I burst into uncontrolled hyperventilation, sobbing, screaming. Nothing made sense. I howled in despair at the empty lonely uncaring sky. "Do it!! Do it now!!"

"No!! You are not real! Don't make me do this!" I scream into the night.

"All that pain all the madness will end with one step - do it!"

Screaming, howling like an animal my mind overloaded with millions of tiny images, chest hurting from lack of air, eyes stinging from tears and sweat. I stumble to the far end of the bridge repeating no,no,no. I see in the near distance a grocery store shrouded in fog and reach the pay phone dial 911.

Sobbing I stutter out that I have attempted suicide and try to explain why. The lady on the other line pleaded, "It will be all right, sweetie. Help is on the way - it will be all right."

Behind me I hear the agent and we both state simultaneously, "No it won't It will never be all right."

A rush of black wind and I pass out. I awaken in the Eureka Psychiatric Ward with the night nurse standing over me. I am lying in some cot. Smell of chlorine and unwashed feet - some cadaver hacks phlegm into a filthy napkin - the moans of demented anguish and confusion echo in the halls. She feeds me pills and checks my vitals and I sleep some more.

Next morning, I am right as rain. See the shrink and fill him in on what's what and where. He releases me. I come out of the institute refreshed and vitalised - not physically but mentally. I have metamorphosed into something else. No more will I dwell in the past and let it haunt me. No more will I care for those who do not - no more will I placate worthless shits who do not like me for me. I am on my own from here on out till the end of my years and I will definitely live them the way I see fit. It is my life, it is my struggle and it is my adventure.

And I like it.

Hate upon Hate upon Hate...

Shifting in fits of insomnia. The middle of the night was cold and dark and damp. Lay in my bed listening to the whispers in my head - then: "Goddamit?! You pissed the bed again?" A shrill weakened voice cried, "I can't help it!" It was my parents in the other room. Tried to ignore it. Then more yelling from that foul little man - then a great crash and my mother screaming, "Get off me! Get off me!" Voice reaches a crescendo in terror.

I bolt out of my bed and into their room and freeze at this image - mother akimbo on the bed half naked fear across ashen face kicking with horror at that monster that bent over her. "Get your fucking hands off of my mother!" I roar with hatred and fury I have not felt since...

He lunges at me and I stand fully erect and nose to nose I warn, "You lay one fucking hand on me I'll knock the rest of those rotted teeth outcher mouth!" Fear is in those ashen eyes - no longer am I that boy he can abuse, no longer that boy that he can control. I look at my mother - she withered and shivering in pain across the bed from him.

I have never hit a woman. I have never hit a child. I have never struck the elderly - these flashed across my mind at the instant that I was going to lay the old monster flat on his back and unconscious.

I walked out - grab my smokes and headed for the patio. I will not lower myself to that fiendish assholes level. A moment passes and that monster drags me inside. Pointing at the scratches on his arm and neck he goes into a futile attempt at telling me that it was a seizure on her account - pointing at those marks like a guilty child. "Looks like marks of someone trying to feign off an attack to me." I stated cold - so fucking cold inside. "Just go to bed!", he roars, "You don't know what you're talking about!" No -perhaps not - but I know what I'd seen.

A day pass and no words are said. As I was washing dishes, I explained that I am expecting a check in the mail in a few days and I will leave. Fine. It is for the best we both agreed.

Now, this morning the old fuck drags me to the living room for another one sided discussion. For the fourth time he asked what was my plan - for the fourth time I explained it. He then went on - thanks to the over exaggerated reports from a self righteous sibling - he expressed that I was basically evil. Yeah - I know.

More petty accusations spilled forth from him and that was it. He said it was time for me to leave. I was already packed - saw this shit on the horizon. At the door I calmly stated, "You know, I came up here to see my mother before she died and perhaps to make amends with you. You fought it all the way. After mom dies - who the fuck is going to visit you?" And I walked out.

The second day in that house I made my intentions very clear - I needed time to think things out with myself. I wanted to see my mother one last time and make good with my father. During the course of two weeks I was especially gracious - helping my invalid mother while my father worked, cleaning the house, hardly eating their food, trying to stay out of the way. Never did I complain - never did I ask for anything. However, I was - on a daily basis confronted by nothing but sheer arrogance and hostile derogatory remarks on his behalf. I tried to talk to him in a sane compassionate way - I usually got a sneering grunt if anything.

No more. No mas. Don't need these people - don't care for them. I have lived twenty years without their over judgemental idiotic nosing into my affairs - I can and will go twenty more. My emotions for my family - however frayed they be - are now completely severed.

And so, I am now utterly alone in this world and you know what? That's okay. I am now free...

Positives React.

To every negative there is a positive. Any fool knows that. No matter how bad you think things are going - at it's worse it can only get better. In my life I have learned it all depends on how you deal with the situation and the choices that you make of the out come.

I spent the weekend at my sister's house. An idyllic peaceful time. We talked, drank a few beers, threw a little bar-b-que, tended to some errands that needed to be tended. Enjoyed each others time immensely. Twenty year hiatus was cause of much catching up - and caught up we did. And her positive outlook was what I really needed, you know. Not just with her, I spoke with another sister via cell phone - her located in South Carolina enjoying the beer drenched debauchery of country lesbiandom - and a heated discussion of prementioned father.

Roll with it. That's what I know - that's how I live. I realize the Old Man will never change - he being one set firmly in his ways - so, just roll with it.

You long time readers understand, I have bitched long windily enough of the situation, that I want peace. To settle down and live a sedate lifestyle. Over the weekend I have pondered even staying here in Eureka - has everything I want, vital artist colony, a writers colony, modern cinema and an art house, good coffee shops and a Border's books. What else could I want. They have one gay bar here, however you understand American queer bars give me the jitters. Bu, perhaps that prejudice will change in time.

All things shall pass, they say. I guess it's time to put those old farts to the test...

Fractured Dark.

In an last moment attempt to work out my psychological trauma - which in itself is an insidious monster - I thought it would be a good thing to come back to the source and a try to rectify the matter. For more than twenty years I have held a burden on my shoulders - the pure hatred that I hold for my father.

My childhood was a never ending parade of physical and mental abuse from him. Millions of painful images burn my mind like fire. He was not and is not a drunk - that would justify it, I guess - no, that old monster was simply a sadistic control freak. Sadistic in that he actually attained enjoyment from terrorizing the entire family. Why? I haven't a clue - he just did.

The crux - the turning point in my young years happened at this moment - when I was eleven or so, the old monster storms into my room beating me savagely. Screaming abuse and pummeling me with fists - it continued for a long time. I tried to induce myself to pass out but fate had me endure it. I saw in my father's eyes that he was actually enjoying it - watching my writhe in pain and cry out to stop. It was at that moment that I actually hated the man - purely hated the evil fucker - feelings that had not lessened but grew as the years crawled by.

This is just one of hundreds of incidences.

For years I had roamed not wishing ever to speak with him again - occasionally a relative would contact me and ask how I was and when someone would casually ask where are my parents. "They're dead." Was my usual response. Until recently some smart ass smiled and quipped, "Yeah, I use that excuse, too. Where they at?"

I purposefully distanced myself from my family - not because in fear of them finding out about my self destructive lifestyle - but because they are truly evil, as far as I am concerned.

The years passed and I had changed - into a cold, empty robot. All I want to do is die - nothing on this planet excites me anymore. And that is not being over dramatic - I literally mean nothing!

Lately I was contacted again by a relative to see how I was and it got me to thinking that I really need to deal with this and over come it. So, four days ago I arrived at their house and it has been crippling insidiously depressing. I sit in the living room ignored, answers to my questions are usually given by grudgingly guttural remarks. I have tried to stay pleasant with him - I helped clean, cook - nothing seems to please him. Driving home that I am not wanted - never wanted - in this household. Hundreds of pictures line the wall - sisters, cousins, uncles, grandparents - but, not one of me. Not one.

It is not my custom to stay where I am not wanted - so I am leaving. Where? Haven't a clue. And I guess it does not matter either. Staying here has clinched the finality that I am completely alone - no love, no compassion, nothing.

Like a super imposed photograph, I can easily fade away...

Home.

The bus careened up through the northern lands of upper California - nauseatingly fast and breakneck speeds. My seat mate - massive bulk of a native American stock in a jock like football player kind of way - shook and tweaked next to me handsome as can be. He didn't show any qualms of lying all over me - back of bus was crowded with noisy kids on their way to teenage concentration camp.
Night fell as we entered Sasquatch country and the aim of my quest - home. Well, the house of my parents, anyway. They say you can never go home, again. Well, they are wrong. Debarking the bus, surprise call to my dad with nervous trepidations.

Enter Home. I remember nothing - stare at pictures on the wall of people I do not know, do not recognize. Fifteen years was the last time I walked through that door, you understand.

Mother is there - ashen gray of old age and deteriorating from ill health but still has a smile for me. Her damn dog leaps up and licks me - I guess that was the official welcome.

I hunker down in my old room - dusty musty and used as storage of late - to find out and deliberate and think. I need to find out what the hell I am going to do - and that is the scariest most mind shaking thing at all...