Scenes from the chaotic, drunken week passed before my eyes. There was a face I did not recognize, a good looking Aztec kid with amber eyes, yellow hair and beautiful straight black eyebrows. I saw myself asking someone I barely knew to buy me a beer in a bar on Insurgentes, and getting a nasty push to the floor. I saw myself pull a knife on someone who followed me out of a fag bar on Coahuilla and tried to rob me. I felt the friendly, steadying hands of people who had helped me home.
"Take it easy, guero." My friend Hector standing there, solid and virile, walking his dog. Carlos running for a taxi libre. Tenoch with his malicious bitch smile. The faces blended together in a nightmare, spoke to me in a strange moaning idiot voice that I could not understand at first and finally could not hear.
I woke up around noon today and sat for a long time on the edge of the bed in this crappy hotel with one shoe dangling from my hand. I dabbed water on my face, put on my coat, grabbed my backpack, lit a Lucky and left.
I am now without funds - and without means. I know what I have to do. I am ready to take any risk, to proceed to any extreme of action. Like a saint or a wanted criminal with nothing to lose, I have now stepped beyond the claims of my nagging, cautious, aging, frightened flesh.
'If you're doin' business with a religious son of a bitch, get it in writing. His word isn't worth shit, not with the Good Lord tellin' him how to fuck you on the deal'.WSB
I look up from my note book, pen ink still fresh on cream paper. The monilith of stone...that Cathedral of Guadalupe looms in front of me and down in front a little man; face contorted red in passionate lust screams doctrine into a megaphone. No one listens. I adjust my Wonka glasses, the sun shifts, light a Lucky. Take a long slow drag. I watch a Mexican Indian guy with dark copper skin in a yellow and green soccer uniform glide by with vibrating lust. I stare at the notebook on my lap. 'There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing ... I am a recording instrument ... I do not pretend to impose 'story' 'plot' 'continuity' ... Insofaras I succeed in Direct recording of certain areas of psychic process I may have a limited function ... I am not an entertainer...' Anybody who can write a sentence such as "She beat on the table with the expression of a masturbating idiot.", knows how to express his thoughts in a powerful manner. Is it conceit? No. My mind whirls and memories swirl like a storm. Hafta write them down. I remember last night at the apartment of Mary's and my pen starts to glide across the paper and I vomit it out... "Room 18 on the top floor I was sitting in the top room rose wall paper smoky sunset across the river. I was new in the game and like all young thieves thought I had a license to steal. It didn't last. Sitting there waiting on the Mexican Indian boy works in the Chink laundry a soft knock and I open the door naked with a hard-on it was the top floor all the way up you understand nobody on that landing. "Ooooh" he says feeling it up to my oysters a drop of lubricant squeezed out and took the smoky sunset on rose wall paper I'd been sitting there naked thinking about what we were going to do in the rocking chair rocks off down the line he could get out of his dry goods faster than a junky can fix when his blood is right so we rocked hot white load like I never feel it wind up is his young brother at the door in his cop suit been watching through the key hole and learn about the birds and the bees some bee I was in those days good looking kid and he knew all the sex currents goose for pimple always made his entrance when your nuts are tight and aching a red haired smoky sunset one bare knee rubbing greasy pink wall paper he was naked with a hard-on waiting on the Mexican boy from Pablo's a pearl of lubricant squeezed slowly out and glittered on the tip of his cock." I falter. The Preacher has become a screaming gesticulating madman. Closing my notebook, I slip it into my book bag, sling over my shoulder and head for La Cabalita Cantina for a beer. Not too crowded, still early. Strike up conversation with my old waiter friend Cholo by name and by decree. Then I saw my junky friend Dupre. I looked at him a long three seconds before I recognized Dupre. He looked older and younger. The deadness had gone from his eyes and he was twenty pounds thinner. His face twitched at intervals like dead matter coming alive, still jerky and mechanical. When he was getting plenty of junk, Dupre looked anonymous and dead, so you could not pick him out of a crowd or recognize him at a distance. Now, his image was clear and sharp. If you walked fast down a crowded street and passed Dupre, his face would be forced on your memory - like in the card trick where the operator fans the cards rapidly, saying, "Take a card, any card," as he forces a certain card into your hand. Dupre was only twenty-three years old and looked pretty good. We stood talking, downing cold Sol cervezas. As I squeezed a lime into my bottle, the steel door to the bar slammed open and a huge rotund woman stomped into the cantina, looked around, walked straight up to Dupre and I and began screaming at Dupre. She menacingly pointed her long fingers at his face like the Wicked Witch of the West. Then with one swoop, this woman grabbed him by the hair and pulled him from the bar, screaming and yelling at him, whopping him on his head. It was his mother. Afterwards, the bar was silent. A silly faggy techno song in Spanish burst forth from the jukebox. The ugly drag queens continued to squawk as nothing strange has happened. I finish my beer and cut. Not before Cholo pinches me for twenty pesos. Why not? He's hung and hot. I stop for a burrito pulpa and a manzana fresca and then to Cafe Internet to pound my thoughts out. Feeling mediocre. Remembering all the loves of my past...nostalgia is a disease!
I sit here - black coffee swirls in china cup cream coagulating - staring at the printed manuscript of my 'reports' placed ever so delicately with an almost religious fervor on the slutty table, pocked with cigarette burns and coffee stains. It is almost near. I understand that I have been neglecting this blog - my attention and writing sucked into other directions.
She bent over her religious candles - blues reds greens - the light lit her aged ruinous face like crumpled brown paper. She crooned and whisped away the Dark Spirits, she muttered. Grey mists swirled around matted hair. I don't feel cleansed...
Walking over the bridge to Tijuana centro - the night a blast of navy blue with a tinge of orange at the horizon - gas flares in the hills, stars twinkle like they will, the klaxon of cars and banda down a lonely street like summer wind. He stands at the entrance to his rat trap, slender hips hooked smoking a cigarette eying me as I walk by enraged in vibrating latino lust. I stop at the cafe for pazole and coffee - shoot the shit with the waiter Robert and boy can he ever shoot the shit. "Remember that pinche Americano Ernie? He now lives in a house up on the hill. I went to visit - that pinche pendejo had bout twenty boys living there - all bout 10 to 15 years old."
Yawned and paid the boy plus tip said adios and walked out into the beat sad Mexican night. Flung on a bus and with a black farting blast of soot crawled over that hill to the salty serenity of La Playas. O! Hated spirits! What am I to do with this life?! These questions always pop up in forms of multiple personalities - troublesome little beasts. Down a fifth of bourbon and settle in to witness a fine film - Freeway and I tells ya, Reese Witherspoon got high marks in my book.
Speaking of book - it is now 98% done and Control is happy with the outcome. I was blabbing the other day in a cantina to some doe eyed fucker who didn't give a shit, "Man, I tell ya - hope something comes of it."
But, if you are wondering what the last three months were like - you know, them months I ain't been writin' for your goofy ass - well, sweetie, I tell ya...it was something like this....
Walked into the tienda and smacked down a copy of Gus Van Sant's Mala Noche. Now there's a movie I haven't seen in a coons age and well worth the 25 year wait for the DVD. Bopped past the hungover pedestrians of Greater San Diego - flashy colors and furry dogs - no one talks in this town except via cell phone. San Diego is the dog walking capitol of the world, I reckon. Jumped the red line down to the frontier clikclakclikclak passed the meat grinding turnstiles and into that familiar stench that would knock a vulture offa dung cart.
Sunny day under that blazingly bright blue sky of Mexico so passed all the taxi drivers on the hustle (Taxi meester titty girls?) pass two cutey patootie fags that made sure I was their thing - I lit a Lucky to give those two their B-movie production, turn the corner doing my best and head over to the Park. Park Ingiento Guererro - a hot bed of hustler activity where you can cop a five of meth under the weary eyes of the shoeshine boy. Sat on a bench under swaying palm drinking my horchata and digging the scene as boy and hustler alike parade forever with that all knowing come on look.
Ran into Saul - haven't seen that fucker since the Dark Times and the what ever happened to so and so started and as we all know Saul is the first and foremost in what ever happened to so and so. He states that he is hungry and I could use a bite so we find ourselves chomping delicious tacos of chopped meat and fiery salsas as the banda music wailed. Kind gentle old man - face as brown and withered as a crumpled paper bag - gave me his tattered straw cowboy hat after a lengthy display of chatter and jokes.
Sat and guzzled cold frescas on a chilled day and the thought never occurred to me cause I'm not that kind of guy - but Saul suggested with a raised fey eyebrow to come and check out his new digs. Who am I to say no, Dear Reader - like I said had an obligation him being an old friend and all.
Into the old mercado dodging crockery and weary women passed the come hither whores all nasty with disease - rotted adobe crashes from the shattered sky colors of blue and yellow - climb worn concrete stairs and enter Saul's studio flat. Blasted reggeaton on the hi-fi and sparked a joint just to celebrate the occasion - and I am telling you, fat that fucker rolls 'em! Lit and getting laughing jags - he whips out some coke and - snortwheee!! - and it was on like Donkey Kong, cabrones.
There is nothing more fulfilling - in the world! O! In all of God's heaven! - to be reunited with an old lover and you know, just know, you are going to make it again. Tounges probed, fingers stroked, and clothes where thrown about. Crashing onto the sagging squeaking mattress - the bed boinged and thoinged and binged as Saul and I commited crimes against nature. Like political candidates we switched positions frequent as Saul hissed dirty Spanish through clenched teeth. We fell in a fluid plop into each others embrace - spent, covered in sweat and semen - lying there listening to each others breathing subside.
We passed a smoke back and forth and Saul mentioned that he needed some bread for...well, bread. Slapped cien pesos into those spindly fingers and stepped out into the cool night as a police truck wailed down the boulevard - lights flashing. Hailed a taxi and dashed over the mountain to my beachside Fortress of Solitude to snuggle down and watch Mala Noche.
I realize I haven't been blogging much, but I have been focusing on my book. This is a little jumping the gun - but this book - a work that I have been maniacally obsessing over for three years will finally be published this April. Click on the image to see a larger version of the cover.
The old queen cackled and rocked back and forth on the noisy bed like a galvanized puppet putting on his B movie production to impress the guero. I sat in the easy chair in appalled temperance watching this old fruit - sipping the vino and being pawed by Fernando. Outside the fireworks popped over the hazy chilled city - two hours until the New Year.
Lasciviously I was being eyed by this ancient queen - why must he continuously rub his drooping crotch? Distasteful. Took another sip of wine - starting to feel warm. Even the time with Fernando seemed pleasant.
Time slurred and it was time to cut - wishing the aging old man a happy new year - pecks on quivering cheeks, yours truly gets the goose - Fernando and I stumble down the wet steps into the foggy streets.
Hail a taxi libre and zip up to cinco escinas to a party being thrown by little Fernando's best friends. All loud and piss ass elegant fairies to be sure - but I had a good time. Always do. Bacardi flowed like water and the music pumped and the small apartment filled up with New Years revelers - all festive yakkers and sociable. An impromptu dance floor was constructed and a boogy frenzy started - hindered by the nonstop alcohol.
Dashed around the room me and conversed and drank and ate. Fernando said there was another party down the hill and if I wanna go. Sure. Wouldn't you?
Another taxi and kamakazied in the crazy night to the grand apartment ran by two lezbos - nice and friendly them. The radio spun CD's and the walls clonked with happy red faced drunks and laughter and all that makes a social event memorable. 12am rolled around and the eventual count down - much shouting, handshakes, back slapping, hugging, crying.
Another taxi and Fernando and I found ourselves barhopping in Plaza Santa Cecilia. Ranchero, Villa Garcia, Bar Hawaii (Ugly mad blithering tranny show), Blue Sky on Revo - so packed you get crushed like cacauates. Had it out with a drunk and arrogant lez - nearly smashed the bitches head in with a beer bottle but her passive lover intervened. Fag drama - ugh.
'Round 5:30am stumble bleary eyed and dangerous out into the shivering packed streets of Tijuana - gave Fernando the big goodbye and took a weary taxi home. Goodbye 2008.
