Punch Drunk Shinanigans.

Have fallen for a new beau. His name is Carlos and he's drop dead grrjus! Met him at the Plaza las Armas two nights ago while I sat there sucking on an horchata. Walked by and eyes met two aware connections of mutual alert souls that clickclickclick - his eyes are glittering smile of beat saint, you dig? So, after hilarious chit-chat under the neon glare of the crimson cross a top the Guadalupe Cathedral we strolled over to Bar Buen Tiempo and got scorching drunk. At closing we stood outside the bar in the warm night of phosphorescent glow he asked if I lived near and I said, "Very near."

Back at my pad a little mutual kissing, groping and standard sixty-nining. Damn! The guy is so beautiful - dark brown hairless torso, well toned, shaved head and goatee with full lips and great smile and those eyes, those hypnotic kick you in the heart eyes! Carlos stays the night and next morning we munch on juevos rancheros at the corner cafe before he returns home to his abuela.

Last night I get dressed to the nines and tens to do a little disco dancing with the local faggitos when I enter a farmacia to buy a bottle of water. To my gleeful surprise, Carlos is in the shop and I notice he is checking out baby bottles. We greet with enthusiasm and I ask what's up with the baby bottles? He confides that not only he has a one year old son but a wifey to boot! I question his motives about last night and his simple answer is he digs both genders. Okay, I guess I can live with that because ten minutes later we are both back at my flat doing that which are crimes against nature. Afterwards Carlos showers and sadly states he's gotta return home to the wife and kid. With baby bottle and pampers in hand he leaves saying with the sweetest of kisses that he will visit on Sunday.

Well hell - it was still early and I returned alone to Buen Tiempo and the place was packed. Met an old boyfriend from times past and secretly was thrilled that he has become an obese wreck. I'm not bitter, though.

Unfortunately, the bars close at 11:30 here on accounta city ordnance 666 of the No Borrochos en el Calle Code, but the discos are open till whenever. I had become quite chatty with one of the barmaids named Rosie the two weeks spending my evenings drinking at the bar - great gal and fag hag to the core - she giddily explains that there was this joint called Noa in the Old Mercado and it is always jumping.

Rosie and I strolled through the dark walkways of trash littered cobblestone of the Old Mercado to Noa and she wasn't lying - the place was sizzling. Packed so that the fags spilled out onto the broken sidewalk. Young twinks in their Ambercrombie and Fitch drag, cowboys, gangsters, snarling lesbians, drunken staggering street kids and horrendous Amazonian drag queens packed corner to corner of the spacious hall. The music bopped and thumped as patrons swirled and dipped to musica ranchero. Rosie introduced me to her circle of friends - all aging queens of class and stature - and we stood at our table downing caguama after caguama. I was pleased to be reacquainted with two old buddies from my previous stay - Lalo and Arturo - and after the obvious what-ever-happened-to-so-and-so routine I was the social butterfly ping ponging back and forth between the two groups sputtering comedy and trivial antidotes.

But, alas the place closed for the night - all wished all a good night and I began my trek home. Passing quite drunkenly through Plaza las Armas I was hit up for a cigarette by a hot guy that claimed his name was Miguel standing in the shadows with his hiphop attire draped over skinny bowed frame - we yapped a few minutes when he upped the ante and flat out said he'd screw the bajeesus outta me for twenty dollars. Yeah, why not? Wouldn't you?

Hopped in a taxi - safer from the predatory eyes of police patrols - and sped to my flat. Miguel wasted no time - being the pro that he is - and my bed and I wheezed and popped as Miguel lunged and thrusted on top of me. Spewing his goo, this late night gigolo cleaned up took the twenty shook hands and was out the door.

I returned to the bathroom and as I washed the sweat off of my face at the sink I gaze at the visage staring back, hoping these hickeys will be gone by Sunday...

120 Days of Sodomy.

Crossed la linea into El Paso and took in Indiana Jones - not bad, but I guess I am one of those millions that have outgrown that shit. Or maybe it is just me and my cold robot personality that I have morphed into over the years.

Whatever.

Went shopping and bought clothes and a shitload of DVD's. One I was lucky to find was Passolini's Salo. There was a film I had not seen in over a decade back in my all or nothing film school days.

Moping more around - I returned home with my accumilated booty and sat down to witness the horrors of Salo - this notorious film banned for so many countries for so many years.

Eh...I guess I have become jaded with life imitating art and all. I do not mean to say my life reflects that film. I deplore fascism, eating barrels of human feces, and beating kids to the consistancy of Alpo - though the guys in it were way hot in a shaggy haired Greg Brady kind of way. I just found, this time round, the film quite boring. Oh well, I guess it will just become another date movie for visiting guests..

Plaza las Armas.

Hot and dusty the sun beats down on my drenched flesh as truckload of Mayan faced black uniformed military roar by - uzis slung at hip and they the look of predatory dogs. Cross the street into Plaza las Armas - cry of sellers of trinkets and paletas, cry of shoe shine boys, cry of religious fanatics, cry of babies under that unrelenting Mexican sun.

I find some shade beneath a dusty poplar tree and suck down a cigarette so nasty watching a demonstration in progress against the fascist take over of Juarez City - or so it seems. Youths in red bandannas and black shirts shrill their opinions to a catatonic crowd. The pedophiles do their stylized ballet around the youthful boys - giggling and shrieking. Others gaze at the demostrators with animal apathy.

Drunken Indio shambles over and bums a smoke and start up conversation. A real funny guy - in his pigeon English he weaves his tale of woe from Michigan to Riverside to Idaho and the eventual deportation by our snarling la migra.

Home of the free...

So, this Indio and I - ah, yes Eduardo, thank you - Eduardo and I cut down Avenida Mariscal to some hooch joint and it was dull by God - a regular house of ill repuke. Some hippopotamus in bikini and stilettos swirled and gyrated on the tiny stage to a Caribbean beat. I flat out spat at Eduardo that I am queer by act of congress and let's scram. Smiled he did at this revelation - that look in his bloodshot eyes I had seen before in the eyes of a rabid dog in heat.

We cut next door to some other joint - just a bar this go round - nudes on black velvet adorned the beaver board walls of the tiny joint. But, the waitresses were funny and the music was The King.

Maybe it was the beer talking or perhaps the fact that I was just horny - but I gazed at this Eduardo for the first time - it being a well lit joint - and not bad. Tall, dark and well intoxicated. He had a handsome face and well toned body under those shabby clothes - kept flashing a tattoo at me on his left chest. The crazy Indian drank the booze like it was water. I asked him why their was blood on his khaki pants in which the reply was, "Life is hard." Smile behind twinkling red eyes of the beat Fallen Angel of Lost Night.

Look over and up and some lanky scumbag with preditory black shiny spider eyes leers at me and enters water closet - keeps the door open so I can get good look at him wagging that obscene pickle in my general direction. Turns straight at me and flounders that fucker like a bruja's scepter and that puts an idea in my head - I lean to Eduardo next to me and whisper a rather filthy invitation in his ear and his copper face lights up. He drunkenly nods and we are out the swinging doors and walking briskly down the cracked pavement in the warm early night. Cars honk and hookers hook as we both stride to my pad.

Key shoved in hole, black metal door banged open and as I stand in the middle of my room, Eduardo grabs me by the arms tight, leans down and slips his thick tongue between my lips. Laughingly quickly we peel our clothes off flung onto red tile and plop onto my bed - hands and fingers probe and stroke, lips kissed in drunken passion, stiffening organs rub and grind against copper flesh white flesh. I am pushed on my back and stare at the whirling ceiling fan as this boy sucks cock like a champ. I return the favor - both in sixty-nine that favorite position of mine - we squirm and grunt pleasing each other. Boy goes loco - grabs my ankles and places over his shoulders, licks his hand and smears the saliva on his throbbing cock. Slowly he slips into me, I gasp behind clenched teeth as the rhythm mounts. Bed sings in squeaks and boings as Eduardo fucks me like a porn star. I feel his organ stiffen more and his eyes glaze over as he yanks his cock out and white hot spurts splatter against my heaving chest. With a fluid plop he lays next to me and we share a cigarette under that slow spinning fan. Fall asleep in that mess, wake up shower and both walk around the corner for juevos ranchero, menudo and damn good coffee. Outside three trucks of black uniformed rifle toting military youths roar by in a cloud of tan dust...

Why would I want to live anywhere else?

Gaze a Gazeless Stare.

Lying in my trap round midnite and all silent. Sudden burst of rapid pops - like the sound of a string of firecrackers - but then the pingpingping of ricochet bullets careening of the side of my apartment building. Screams - shouts - silence. Black wind howls through dead trees.The screech and wailing of cop cars and Federale trucks pulling up. I get dressed and walk onto the balcony to a post war zone - taxi riddled with bullets issuing black smoke, six bodies slumped on the dirty pavement with a stream of blood flowing to the gutter. No ambulance for these narcos. No firetrucks like in the good ol' USA. Nothing for them. Bodies are holstered up and thrown in the back of a pick up like dirty laundry. Young M-16 welding black uniformed military look on with cold animal hate.

I light a Lucky and grin, Goddamn - back in Juarez.

A Letter to Starbucks

Dear Starbucks,

Hey, is there anywhere to get a decent cup of coffee around here?

Oh, come on. Don't look so sad. When we're in the mood for a twenty-four-ounce cup of pumpkin-pie-flavored Cool Whip, a Feist CD covered in mocha fingerprints, a possibly exaggerated memoir by a former child soldier, and some customer “service” that denies our essential humanity, we still head straight to our corner Starbucks. Or the one across from that one. Or the one that will have opened farther down the block by the time we finish typing this sentence.

Here's the thing, though: We're never, ever in that mood.

What we do like is coffee. If coffee were smack, we'd be Pete Doherty and we'd refuse to give it up, even if it cost us our career and our supermodel girlfriend. And we'll tank up anywhere: the neighborhood joint with the womyn-friendly breast-feeding policy and the couches composed entirely of rusty springs; the swill dispenser down the hall; an AA meeting. Anywhere, that is, but Starbucks.

In this we're not alone. America is a caffeine nation, perpetually jacked up on gallons of magma-hot fuck-yeah juice, and logically you guys should still be making more money than Halliburton and Hannah Montana combined. Instead your market share is crumbling, and so is your cultural primacy. Snooty people have moved on to snootier coffee—shade-grown, fair-trade, artisanal, brought down the mountain by mules that have good dental coverage. Everybody else went back to Dunkin' Donuts. You're still part of the fabric of American life—think of Mary-Kate Olsen's ever present Venti cup, proof despite massive evidence to the contrary that she's Just Like Us—but so is soul-crushing corporate suckitude. Your new ads spotlight a straight-down-the-middle brew called Pike Place Roast. We're glad you're getting back into the coffee business—seriously, is there anything you haven't put in a latte yet? Courvoisier? DayQuil? Unicorn tears?—but we've tried this stuff, and it should come with an Egg McMuffin on the side. It's a rich, complex blend of desperation and mediocrity.

The real problem is that there used to be something about you, Starbucks, and now there isn't. You were a quintessentially '90s company. You were from Seattle, the same rainy cradle of anticorporate corporateness that gave us Microsoft and major-label grunge. Young dreamers camped out in your stores all day like the cast of Friends, filling napkins with business plans for e-commerce Web sites.(“It's like Pets. com for Wiccans!”) We were all going to get crazy rich and wear ironic sexy grandpa T-shirts to offices where we'd play Frisbee golf instead of working. A $4 latte wasn't an extravagance; it was a little rehearsal for the cushy life that was about to be ours. Even your stupid fake-Italian language made us feel sophisticated. The 7-Eleven crowd could have their week-old bubblin' crude; we'd be over here, talking like Marcello Mastroianni, because we knew better. Even back then, you seemed a little evil-empire-ish. But man, your chairs were comfy. So we drank your overpriced espresso-shakes.

We drank them up!

You know the rest. Cobain died. We got Dubya, war, a recession, and our workplace doesn't have a Centipede machine. We're living in an era of diminished expectations, and if things aren't going so well for you, maybe it isn't because people resent your McDonald's-esque omnipresence, those cups adorned with quotes from deep thinkers like Josh Groban and David Copperfield, or the fact that you roast your beans under the space shuttle. Maybe it's because your neither-luxurious-nor-particularly-affordable idea of affordable luxury now seems like a nonfat, half-caf, quadruple-grande bad joke. With extra foam.

In other words, you've brought this on yourself. If we learned one thing from The Wire, it's that you can only control all the corner real estate in town and pay disenfranchised young people to sling an addictive product for so long before you lose your grip on the game. But we're not mad at you, Starbucks. Give us a call sometime. We'll grab a coffee. It's on us—we just shorted your stock.

Yours with shaky hands,

Another Bleary Eyed Coffee Whore

Flash Gordon

One of the greatest classics ever made. This animated movie was produced by Filmation before the 1979 Flash Gordon cartoon series and of course before Dino De Laurentiis' version in 1980, but this animated film did not actually air until 1982. It is considered the best film version of Flash Gordon, though it would never be broadcasted again following its premiere because the story is associated with Hitler's Third Reich. It was written by Star Trek writer Samuel A. Peeples, directed by Gwen Wetzler and more or less faithfully follows the early Alex Raymond comic strip adventures.

I am a huge Flash Gordon fan and have been looking for this for decades! Sit back and enjoy - I can only hope the new live action version being produced for next year will be this good...

Millions of Tiny Images.

I really don’t know why I expect things to be different with each passing day, nothing ever is. The same old crap day in and day out, sometimes I feel as though I am living on auto-pilot. Like someone else is living this so called life of mine. I really can’t even complain because I chose it and choose to continue living it.

I went to the west side of Juarez - dirt roads and crumbling adobe shacks shored up with balks of timber and card board, sewage flows stagnant in bubbling grey green ditches, a dog runs by covered in disease, old fuck with brown paper bag wrinkled skin and grand drooping mustache eyes me menacingly - so, like I was saying I went with a friend, young and virile but the mental capacity of a fern - light brown skinned youth with big doe eyes and scrawny physique (I seem to be attracting a lot of them lately.), everything thing is cool until we get about half a block from the spot, now he wants to tell me that one of those nacos claimed that he stole some bags from their little hiding spot and he is not quite sure what is going to happen. Fuck, I got so pissed off why couldn't he have related this to me sooner, I don’t want those guys to start fucking with me by association. I told him to get away from me and NOT to walk or talk to me over there. Of course the idiot doesn’t listen, he wants to start asking for rigs, lighters, cookers, you name it.

I am trying to tell this guy to slow down and go first. I do not want any problems. Well of course the gym-shoe boy making these ludicrous accusations he's out there and telling my friend he better pay for those bags. They took his money and chased him off the spot. He is so lucky that is all they did - I half expected a Tarantino ordeal to go down. I went and copped my dope, bought some loose squares and went to the taxi stop. Now here comes my friend no money no dope, he somehow expects me to give him one of my bags. No way! #1 he lied, he didn’t tell me what was up. #2 I only bought two bags and I do two at a time, I was not going to leave myself sick because of his blatant random stupidity. I felt kinda bad, but I just couldn’t do it this time.

Ahhh - fuckem all, squares on both sides.

Mash Taters.

Today is like any other day: Get up, get off, and go look for more . I stood in the alley for about 45 minutes - smell of sewage and feces and urine - me and nine others waiting for the pack-man to show up with all the goodies, the whole time telling myself how stupid I am standing there waiting - waiting cause the man is never on time. The dope isn’t even really worth waiting for this just happens to be the best garbage around. But there I am me and nine other shriveled quivering wrecks standing in the alley of a known drug spot in a shitty cartel neighborhood waiting to cop dope wishing this little Motherfucker would hurry up. It is cold the spot is hot and I am not feeling very well even though I did a wake up. I don’t know - things are not the same - it becomes harder and harder to cop. The dope all over is garbage when you do get lucky and find a decent spot some idiot junky comes along and tells them how good their dope is and they start cutting it more than it already is. I don’t really want to stop getting high I love it too much. I just hate the process of getting high. Traveling 45 minutes on the bus, standing around waiting, and trying to get out of there as soon as possible. I am looking forward to summer it won’t be so bad. I hope.

Coming undone at the lines of stitching, back for more, the insignia transforms into burgundy, I stomach your latest barrier, this one that divides my mind…the beauty of it all, the splendor of some unpaid amphetamines…Junkie he… This slit in my neckline, how did it happen upon me? My imprint is on the raw term paper, it hemorrhages onto the floorboards…My heart is drenched…Thought we both needed a companion to scurry to…

Have you ever longed to lead a transient life? Kerouac-esque - hitching rides, immersing yourself in the scenes and sights of a new town completely and totally only to wake the next day and start anew. A different trip each day and a different kick every night. Here is the problem that lies with-in: where would one be able to hag ones hat? Where would home be? Would it be possible to, at some point, transition back to every day life?
Maybe a Drugstore Cowboy sorta approach would be an alternative. Get a crew of close friends together, to do what you need to survive. That may also rectify the home problem. If you were with those that made you feel comfortable.
Maybe I'm just dreaming of an escape from the mundane today.
Ahhhh, yes I've missed the sweet lolling of miss poppies special tea. She has come to visit me today just in time, too. The Trivial was becoming much to worrisome. The others I live with not speaking unless my oh so very horrible behavior is troubling them. Its a shitty situation but it seems I must deal with the criticisms and lack of trust to attain my goal in all of this. I don't really know what that goal is just yet but, I’ll just keep telling myself that I'm working vigilantly toward it. Maybe I am, maybe not. Time will tell.
Its off to another sleepless night, for me…..

Tweek.

“I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion” Jack Kerouac.

He took the strip of aluminum foil and folded a crease down the middle. Pinching a few small rocks out of the Chinese rice paper - sprinkled the yellow substance onto the crease. With sweaty brown hands trembling as if it were his last, Oscar lit the bottom of the foil strip with his lighter. He jury rigged a straw from an empty ink pen tube - placed in mouth, grimaced downward eyes intent - the heat melted the small yellowish rocks into a liquid of Mercury like jelly. The thick gray smoke - smell of burnt metal - snaked up into the pen - deep inhale to charred lungs. Oscar tilted the strip with care, letting the heavy metal fluid run down the course of the strip - sucking the fumes as he went. His face lit up like a pinball machine with esoteric results.
"Orale." He exhaled - passing the strip to me.

I sat poised on the edge of the rickety brown chair and followed his lead. The meth entered my lungs - like a 240 volt circuit the rush sped up my spine through the back brain and tingled my forehead. Lay back and listened down into myself. Outside in the early afternoon Mexican street, cars honked and kids shouted in play. The avocado painted room in which we sat was sparsely furnished - smell of dust, soiled socks, and dried semen.

Tongue clicking against grinding teeth, my mouth tasted of aluminum - I exhaled and wondered how much of this shit had we done. I was covered in a fine film of sweat - fingers twitching and twiddling uncontrollably when I passed back the strip to Oscar - my eyes bounced around like the Cookie Monsters.

He sat across from me - black straight hair hung limp over his brown eyes, thin face and his slight but muscular copper frame was shirtless from the heat.

"She cooks it herself." He said and, yes, Esperanza did a good job. The piece that she brought was a good size and got it free on account that she liked me. I knew the score - get us hooked and we will be loyal customers. It's working, I smiled to myself.

The worst porn in the world flickered on his small television set as Oscar rocked back and forth eyes diluted and red transfixed on the outdated imagery of some bouffanted skank getting pounded in the butt by an equally gelled and blow dried stud. I blearily glance out the window - the trees and bushes take on Disney cartoon shapes - Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy - we both sat there in silence save for the wackawacka wairn nairn music from the 80's porn. Oscar slid a thin hand down his ravaged face.

We did another hit. Then another. And then some more.

Last night when we started these shenanigans, Oscar joked philosophically, "Why do we always do this shit at night?"

Why not indeed?

Oscar phased out into Tweekerland and I went into the other room and lay down. Hyperventilating on the bed - I heard fucking sounds (The sounds of fucking, you understand.) inside the walls, I always do. Take all this dick, bitch! Bed against wall - thumpthumpthumpthump. My teeth ground and my tongue clicked as I twitched like a short circuited robot on the bed clothes clung to my wet body like a used condom.

I thought, So this is what it has come to.

Monkey Business.

After spending two plus hours at the cineplex with a boat load of screaming kids and their beat plump mothers taking in Ironman, I thought it was time for a drink. On the City bus ran into an old friend - well, an acquaintance really - and we hit a few bars downtown. All were sad dead museums - except for this one small local pub with the odd moniker of Po-po's.

Wall to wall bums, ex-cons, junkies, illegal aliens, skanks, bull dykes, burrocho's and hustlers filled the dingy low ceiling tavern. Goddam! I liked it. After taking a seat at the rickety metal tables with plastic lawn chairs downed several pitchers of cerveza, feelin' pretty good I walked next door and ordered two mouthwatering burritos puerco. Sitting in a booth waiting for his order was a fine Mexican man in tight black clothes showing off his innerestin' physique that I had noticed swaggering in the bar earlier. Struck up a conversation and since he was shit faced drunk - man hit me up for paid sex after he gave me a slobbery kiss on the cheek. I told him I'd consider it while he smiled rubbing his engorged organ. I was impressed enough to buy the guy a beer, though and returned to the bar with two sizzling burritos that my friend and I consumed voraciously.

After that freak show, we wobbled the two blocks to the bar San Antonio Mining Company and were shocked to find that we were the only patrons. It was only 5:30 in the afternoon ferthecrissakes!! Then this paraplegic stumbled in with his short muscular boy in tow. The midget began talking too me in slurred paragraphs of intoxication from countless coke and rums going on and on about how fine he was and even had the audacity to curl up his arm make a muscle and kiss it. Jeez! After that I became catty with him and he shut up.

Feeling the alcohol ten fold I began chatting with another drunk - a red eyed shiny faced Mexican that kept smiling at me, cute Indian type - and he wound up sucking my cock in the mensroom - my friend, who I guess thought we were an item - became irate and split. Like I never had any interest in his unappetizing person. Fucking fags.

Fuck 'em all, squares on all sides.

Trudged back to J-Town and relaxed the rest of the afternoon at Banos Roma. Lounging seductively in my cubicle smoking a cigarette amid the grunts and squeals of random broken lust and the smell of semen sweat and mildew, I had the opportunity at a three way with two locals. One skinny guy stood at my door - naked - holding a conversation about this fantastically amazing taco shop that he owned and how I should visit it. To shut him up I sucked his cock. With the door still open, the handsome beefy guy across from me sat there and watched until his angst got the best of him - he shyly crossed over to us. With both in my cubicle, door closed and the 'funfest' began. Beefy guy shot his ass up on tippy toes like an aroused cat as skinny slapped on a jimmy and plowed that fucker. Grunting and panting, Beefy came to a climax as I jacked him off - splattering white goo all over me hand. Beefy cleaned up and left but skinny - well he wasn't finished and turned that fucker in my direction. Changing condoms, skinny pressed me standing against the stained green tiled wall and jabbed his fucker in deep - drilling like a jack hammer biting up my back delicate brown hands caress my torso. Skinny squirted in deep and we sat there butt naked smoking a Lucky.

Shaking hands I bid him adios - got dressed - and walked over to Bar Buen Tiempo for three quick beers. Ran into an old friend I haven't seen in a coon's age - Rene - and we chatted it up for a couple of hours. Exhausted from the heat and the bath house, I got Rene's number and returned home to sleep and dream of merry melodies with Cab Calloway...

"You have given me many anxious moments, Mr. Blasini."

I looked up - as if coming out of a deep nightmare - my mind sluggish - like I was in a stupor from far too many psychotropic medications. But I remember I threw them all away moments after getting them. I did, didn't I?

"Many anxious moments." He said. The balding man in the wrinkled cotton suit who claimed to be my Case Officer sat across from me behind a mahogany desk littered with files and typed reports reaching far above him. His face was bright pink and glistened in a fine layer of sweat. The small office was ill lit - the smell of dust, old paper and dead bugs. Behind him in the darkness stood two men on either side - I couldn't make out there faces but wore bright white lab coats. My Case Officer continued hissing harshly, "I knew you would fuck me around! Just knew it!"

"What? Huh?" I slurred, still in my stasis - background sounds of popping electricity.

"Your reports are very unsatisfactory! Boring crap - if I may say so." He yelled slamming a file three inches thick onto the desk. He tapped a pudgy finger on the file to the rhythm of his words. "You forget to report many things. All kinds of shit. We must know everything!"

"Everything!" Said the man to his left and he had no face - a slide projection of an old mans pale seamed face would flicker across blank skin when he spoke. His voice was a bass rumble.

My Case Officer continued, "Why didn't you write about the fist fight in the alley over your coke transaction with that cholo (glances at typed sheet from my folder.) ...uhm..Shadow?"

"Or when you and your friend were thrown out of that fag bar for doing all kinds of arcane nasty shit, what was the name...Chiquitas?" Said the bass voice.

"Or when you were blowing little Stevie in the men's room at The Tool Box Bar? That was tasty!" Lisped the other white coat, a face of a thin pinch faced old man flickers across his blank flesh screen. "You squealed like a bitch when he corn holed ya!"

I sat up and squinted, "Look - it's just I don't feel like writing everyday. It's all the same over and over - like a moebius loop. It breaks the monotony."

"It breaks the monotony." Mimicked my Case Officer in a little girl voice. "Mr. Blasini, we chose you for this assignment on account of your sly perseverance, your cold character, your cryptic demeanor - your chutzpa!' He stood up and began pacing the room with one hand in his wrinkled white cotton blazer waving his other hand in the air. "However, Control is satisfied - you did accomplish one job for us. An important job"

"Yes." Said pinch face - drawing out the 's' like a serpent.

"Control has been trying to locate an agent defector for sometime." My Case Officer was behind me now, massaging my shoulders with delicate cold old woman fingers. "And you led us right to him. Thank you, my boy, thank you."

"Yesss, thank you." The others repeated in unison.

"Who?"

"Ah-ha!" His finger shot up, "So sublime of you to pretend to be his friend and then crushing his ego only like you can." The Case Worker offered me a Lucky Strike.

"Pure genius." Said bass voice.

"Superb." Cooed pinch face.

"And now, thanks to you, Control will step in and liquidate him." The Case Officer smiled, lighting my cigarette. "Didn't you notice how he is reacting now? Depressed, non sociable. A feeling of utter defeat. You crushed his spirit, kiddo!" His face goes livid in hate. "The fucking perverted junky beaner deserved it, too!" He goes quiet - pauses thoughtfully. "Ahem - but I digress. We have another job for you, my lad - one that I think you are again perfect for."

"Really? I am attentive to the news." I said crossing my legs taking a drag slowly blowing the fumes out my nostrils.

The Case Officer returned behind his desk with a squeak of springs from his chair, folding his fingers, face blank and business like, "You will go to Juarez City in Mexico, there you will locate a notorious enemy agent that has eluded Control for some years. We know only that he is located in the Red Light District the area is diabolical and fill with purposeful agents swarming in their own diseases, after you have made contact and gained his trust - it will be up to you to fuck...I mean heheh, pump vital information from him and then file us a complete report. Sabe?"

A flashbulb of clearness wave of paranoia fills my head - I took a puff, "Who the fuck are you people?"

Lights flickered with the sound of arcing electricity. The Case Officer looked passed over my head with fear, his face washed in blue from the light - then down to me and smiled, "I can say no more. Control will contact you once you have settled in Mexico." The Case Officer stands grinning, walks across the office and opens a broom closet, "Now..up and at 'em, my boy, no times a wastin'"

Slowly, I stand and sluggishly walk towards the open door. The Case Officer pats me on the back, whispers in my ear, "You'll be okay, kid - Control's got your back. But, just remember - write everything...okay? Leave out nothing." With a push I go in the enveloping darkness with the Case Worker patting me on the ass. Quickly I look back and all three are waving at me like departing queer tourists.

"Break a leg, kid!"

"Trust no one!"

"Adios!"

"Bon voyage!"

"Kick ass!"

"See yahs!"

Just before the door slammed shut I heard the bass voice whisper, "Stupid faggot."

Cold darkness. A feeling of falling - a tremendous rush of wind and bright light. I close my eyes a second and when I open them I am standing on a cracked sidewalk next to a crumbling blue washed adobe building - sounds of Latin music down a windy street. Wires criss cross the air with popping conduits and the smell of fried meat, burnt beans and urine fills the air. A group of dirty preteen Mexican Indian kids swarm me - hands outstretched - I reach in my pocket and pull out a few peso coins along with a key. After I pass out the pesos to the kids and they giggle away - I look around and grunt. Cuidad Juarez! I am back in Juarez! I study the key on a pink key chain. Engraved into the key it reads "NO. 12". I know that place. As the winds and dirt howl around me under the stern glare of ancient Indian Mexican with white drooping moustache - I trudge over the blistering concrete to my apartment two blocks away...determined to continue without fail my destiny.