Because we'd like to know.

I received the proof of my novel today in the mail. It looks great!!! Besides some slight grammatical errors - it looks like Just for Kicks will be published on time for early March. I was shooting for late March/beginning April - but I am happily ahead of schedule. Wow! Three years writing has come to fruition - my first novel.
Too bad nobody is going to read it.
Welp, I have started on a second with the title Tweeker. Back in the middle '90's, I had worked graveyard shift at a 24hr porno theater in skid row San Diego - this was before the current urban renewal. This was at the height of my drug addiction. And, O! the wackiness that occurred! So, that's the next novel - just light summer reading, you understand....

One Cigarette?

Rock and roll hoods stand on corner chewing on toothpicks and flicking switchblades. Baggy clothes flutter in the black wind - ghastly clothes colors of almond, peach, florescent blue. "You lookin'?" One jerks head up at me - I walk on under black cold stares.

Trash lined street crawling with obscene prostitutes of both sexes - the women especially nasty under the blue neon on a dark crumbling adobe night. Banda music and hawkers - purveyors of insidious filth - beckon me to enter their traps. I clutch my wallet and move on. Squeeze past the nasty whores shining silver capped teeth and undulating udders and make my way to Bar Kin-kle. Enter the hazy smokey den. The place was crowded with Zona Nortes finest.

Take a table occupied by an old vato. We sit at a dented red metal table with white plastic lawn chairs - he smiles and nods at me - we say nothing else to each other. As a midget cholo and his skank dances in the middle of the room to Jailhouse Rock thumping from the jukebox, I light a cigarette and gaze around the room. Long small bar - rusted aluminum stools line the bar, tables against the wall. Boxes of beer stacked against back wall next to the rockola - that's jukebox to you ignorant pansies that don't speeky spanish.

Saul walked in strung out on goofballs and plopped next to me a greasy giggling mess. I say howdy he says hi. He orders a caguama after finishing one of my cigarettes.

"How's the book coming along?" He asks.

"Fine. Waiting for the proof in the mail - if it's up to standards, will be published in another week." I took a swig from my caguama bottle, that cold charcoal taste filtering down my pipes. "I already started my next book - about my meth addiction. I'm calling it Tweeker."

Saul rolls his eyes over at me, "You would. Speaking of..." He gets up and walks into the men's room. Stale smell of beer piss and shit mixed with the odorous bleach. I wait a cigarette and Saul returns. "Hurry up", he says. "I left something in there for you."

I stride to the toilet - short squat Indian stands there holding the ugliest mop in the world, he gesticulates to the metal encased stall. "Go in, guero - it's for you."

I enter and laid on the empty toilet paper dispenser are three lines - pink powdery stuff. Mechanically I whip out a peso note, roll it into a cylinder bend over and snortsnortsnort!! I jolt up snuffing and hawking. Pop! Crackle! Pow! Stagger out, boy scout salute mop guy and return to the table.

Plop into my seat and Saul takes another cigarette. I gaze at him with sparkly eyes and smile, "You're so good to me. I love you."

He smirks, "I know."

Handsome Indian sits across from us swaggering leaning in his seat. Eyes unfocused, dribble from his handsome mouth. He puts two fingers up to his mouth. "One cigarette." I smile and hand him one.

I ask in Spanish, "You wanna beer?" He nods. I order a cup. When the waiter left after serving the plastic cup and we three salud each other from a fresh caguama bottle the waft of stainky unwashed pussy assaulted my nostrils. I look in the direction of the offending odor and standing there a short hag - I've seen her about, living in the streets, rummaging through trash bins for scraps of food. She stood smiling. "Meester, one cigarette?"

Jesus, I thought, What am I - The Bums Benevolence Society? Gave her one anyway. So, she proceeds to plop next to our new plastered hottie and they go at it like overheated hogs. Saul and I look on in disgust as his tongue devours her rancid toothless hole. "Saul, let's cut."

Outside we stood under an awning as the rain came down in torrents attempting to wash away the filth of The City. Indians and cholos and terrified tourists dash past us in the wet night. We stand in that neon labyrinth speechless feeling the dope and smoking. We both pop and jerk in stylized mechanical movements as the meth starts taking it's full effect. A cigarette goes by and Saul lays his thin hand on my back. "Guero, let's get a room."

I follow my Dark Knight - jumping over incandescent pools and dodging kamikaze taxis to Hotel Coliseo. Wow. Been years. Plunk down the pesos and we stagger up the old wooden stairs to the third floor - hallway smelt of mildew and feces.

Room was just a mattress on the floor and antique brown dresser. I take a piss in the white dingy tiled bathroom and return to find Saul shivering naked under thin pink blanket. Undress and lay next to him - hands glide over bodies, tongues probe, organs stiffen. I'll never get tired of Saul - always up for kicks. Things get hot as Saul places my feet on his shoulders spits into his palm and glides his long penis in me. We rut for half an hour as Saul lunges and thrusts on top of me - he yanks out and splatters his semen onto my heaving chest. We fall into each others arms until our breathing subsides.

Outside we stand in the mist. Saul hits me up for cien pesos before I hail a cab back to the beach. He slides a small paper - folded into a square - into my palm as we shake hands goodnight.

He always knows how to make a drab night delightful...

Hot Wind through Black Trees.

Old friend visits from Los Angeles. Homophobic but a junky. Play tour guide, whorehouses, seedy bars, a macho goose in the doorway, faces hidden in darkness and confusion, a whore with clown makeup winks so nasty. Smoke. Reggaeton blasts over speakers. Cocaine is bought. Pile into a taxi. Weed is bought. Walk through evil dark barrios. Crystal is bought. Large amounts of liquor is consumed. A sinister midget laughs through silver teeth. Smoke. Flashbulb of light. Mucho machoism. Drunken insults to the natives, fists and knives are present. Whack! Pound. Pound. Pound into someones head. An Angel falls a victim. Crack of bones and a bird screams. My friend is swarmed over, a dark mass of fists and kicking cowboy boots. Smoke. Flashing light. Light flashes on a knife and my friend goes down in a pool of blood and spit. Silver teeth show through snarled lips, "Vamanos, gringo."
Dragged across flagstones, reggaeton wails. Shoved into black car and speed off into the night. Air filled with the smell of burnt oil and marijuana. Coffee is shoved under my nose, pills are put into my mouth and I look up to see Saul wiping a wet and bloody hand towel across my forehead with red scraped knuckles. Saul lights a cigarette and places it in my lips, blood trickles out of his nose past his split lip. Looking around, I am back home.
"Damn. That was close." I croak.
Just another night in Tijuana...

Dope Head Be Bop

I gaze up from my beer glass to the scummy concrete stairs leading to the street. We are below ground level. The small bar is a hazy dank room - green velvet pool table, wooden bar warped, a row of wobbly stools, faded luche libre pictures curled at the corners are plastered everywhere. The only color is from the string of red Christmas lights sagging at one end over the bar. A huge rubber dildo attached to panties sit in a cubby hole behind the register with a sign that asks, "Are these yours?"

Outside the rain comes down in black shimmering sheets to wash away all the evil and filth - in vain.

Half a cigarette and I peer to my left as some fat old fucker in a faded stetson is gazing at me through squinting blood shot eyes. He salutes, mouth a black toothless hole, "Hola!"

I turn back to my beer - time passes. Flick a small brown cockroach offa the bar into the ice bin holding the beer bottles. Yawn. I take out a crumpled packet of cigarettes - light one - through grey smoke look at the clock. He's late.

Cigarette - cigarette - cigarette...

He slops down the stairs into the bar - shoes squishing leaving slime pools on the dirty muddy floor. Long wet black hair covers his face, black denim jacket, black tshirt and jeans. His brown square jaw juts out from beneath his shiny mane.

We both asks whutsup and he orders a beer. Black eyes glisten past the shock of limp black hair cascading over Aztec Indian features - he takes a puff from one of my cigarettes and asks through silver capped teeth, "You want?"

We go up and out into the black rain torrents of the shit like some Mickey Spillane pulp - illuminated by passing searchlights of kamikaze taxis dash over incandescent pools and muddy rivers of sewage to a windowless adobe building with red iron bar door. We stand in the down pour and as my dark friend puts his thick lips to a small cut in the door, "Coo! Coo!" He repeats it three times.

The door is opened by a thin young fag in a marine fatigue hat - tall and thin in tight jeans and a brown jacket. "Que queres, Mario?"

Mario mumbles something in Spanish and the fag smiles at me, "Pasale."

The long white high ceiling washed landing is dark lit by candles - in the corner sits fat old mamacita in red flowered dress picking through frijoles under a multihued alter of Guadalupe. "Buenas noche." We repeat the greeting and follow the fag down the dank hall smell of mildew and old tortillas to a large room filled with twenty Mexicans. In the dim light they are milling about with plastic cups in hand, a stereo blares ranchero music. The guests are a mix of young and old working class - hipsters to be sure in their dark ragged wet clothes. The din echoes with laughter and conversation.

Mario asks to wait as he slinks into the gloom - I look down as a chicken is pecking by my feet. Two guys approach me holding out an extra cup of beer, "Hey, guedo - what's up?" The tall skinny one asks. He is kinda attractive - shabby clothes and shaved head. The shorter Indian smiles, "Who did you come with?"

I take the beer, "A friend - he's over there." I point into the murk.

"Oh, Mario." The tall one smiles asks for a cigarette. "Are you from San Diego?"

I explain that I live in Mexico - they ask what I do. "I write reports for the citizens of the United States."

"You federale? You look like the FBI."

I get that. A lot.

Mario approaches and we both huddle in a corner, "Tie me up, guedo." I pull up his sleeve and take his belt, tighten it search for a vein with cold white fingers. His skin is copper and smooth. Mario produces a syringe and hands it to me - I slide it under his skin into a vein and push the plunger. I watch with curious morbidity as the junk empties into his body - his eyes slack and he grabs the belt. Leaning against the grey crumbling wall, he hands me the syringe, "You want?"

Two flabby latina girls begin dancing to regeaton in the middle of the room - the crowd claps along. In the darkness on the other side of the room I see the flick flickering of lighters; the red cherries of stems.

"Nah - I'll be right back." I leave Mario to his mess and walk across to a smiling lesbian and a short Indian. They are holding a glass pipe and when they see me they both say, "Buenvenidos." holding their pipe up to me. I say thank you cough and take a hit. The current starts at me spine rushes up across the back of my skull to the forehead. I pull out a crumpled cien peso note and hand it to the girl. "Okay...Okay." She smiles and I smoke my fill.

Pop. Crackle. With galvanized jerks I return to Mario leaning against the wall strung out - one hand holding his pants the other his syringe. I gulp my beer - smoke - inquire where the bano is. Find the old wooden door and open to some girl squatting in front of a pacheco leaning against the sink - she is sucking his big cock. I snap perdonami and close the door to wafts of marijuana smoke.

A few couples have started an obscene mambo routine in the middle of the large smoky room as I try to find another door to take a much needed piss - out back on the muddy patio I notice two guys with their cocks out pissing into the rain and join them. One is the tall pelon from inside, "Hey! The writer!" He smiles as rain drips down his lean face, catching on his moustache.

The other is the fag in the Marine cap. I am soon to find out they were in the middle of sizing up each others penis - in the cold rain - I guess when you have to, you have to. The fag motions us to follow him up iron stairs to a room with withered french doors. The room is bare and lit by candle light - a dresser, cot, nails on the wall for jackets. We sit on the bed and pass around a bottle of Petron and a joint.

The tall pelon leans back on the bed and smiles, "What to do? I am in a room with two fags...what to do?" The fag notices the same thing I do - the growing erection in the guys dark khakis. The fag and I look at each other, smile and he says, "Por que no?" Indeed.

Unzipped, the penis is taken from said khakis and the fag and I take turns on that fat long brown fucker. The pelon sighs, lifts up his black tshirt and globs of white semen spurt onto his flat brown stomach. I sit up and watch as the fag slurps and licks up the goo to the smiling satisfaction of the cholo. The pelon hits me up for fifty pesos - why not? He bolts out the door into the gloom.

The fag and I, Ishmael, he says his name is - sit and talk, smoking weed and finishing the bottle of tequila.

"You like the crystal?" He asks looking into my ping ponging eyes.

"No, not really."

"Then why do you take it. It is so bad."

"I don't know." I really don't - still self destructive, I guess. But, is anything self destructive when done in moderation? I think not. So, fuck you.

Ishmael gets up and plays some somber jazz sax on his radio, sits next to me hand on my leg, "I am so hot, guero. You wanna fuck me?"

Take a puff of cigarette, "Uhm...no - no. You are nice, but I gotta get back downstairs. I came with a friend. My friend is lost without me." I stand up and head to the door.

"You seem pretty lost yourself." He says with a worried look.

I mumble thanks and walk out into the black storm...

Literary Outlaw.

Just submitted this to the publishers. It should go hot on Amazon.com in a couple of weeks.

What started as a defecation of my mental state six years ago has culminated into a book that has been called the On The Road for the new millennium. I started this blog as a literary experiment - my own style of secrete confession for no one to hear. How could anyone understand or justify what I what doing? I sure as hell wasn't. Unfortunately - or fortunately - depending on how your snooty ass perceives it, people started reading this excrement of literary soul cleansing. Teeming lonely and fascinated curious seekers the globe over sat snug and comfortable reading and thanking little baby Jesus that their lives were not so bad as what splashed out from my blog on almost a daily basis.

Yes - strange things happen when you leave your lover of four years, quit your job and walk out the door and never look back.

I sat in my borrowed flesh early and typed away anonymously all the horrors that I put myself through - because back then I had a death wish. My prompt demise never occurred. Traveling the hemisphere by the seat of my pants - the strange and perverse sought me out and I was enlightened enough never to say no.

I must admit I had committed acts that would had Caligula screaming like a bitch and running terrified away - but I have no regrets. I am who I am. I answer to no one. Shunned by elite friends, excised by family - I continued and I will continue - just for kicks...

Glad you came along for the ride dear old readers...hold on to your ticket stub...there's more...

Blow Torch Inward

Woke up with a start - with a feeling of putrid angst. Staggered to the shower and as the hot water careened over me and the steam swirled - black sordid images of the night before popped in my mind like the flash of a camera.

In San Diego took the train to Pacific Beach - wanted to leisurely spend the afternoon in the porno theater there, understand? Guess not. Anyway, plunked my seven at the window and entered.

On screen some asian cooch was getting banged in the back seat of an convertible as they drove down the freeway. Porno is scratching the bottom of the barrel if it has to succumb to such cheap thrills.

Speaking of cheap thrills - sat in the back row like a good fag when the small Mexican next to me whipped out a glass pipe and with a small blow torch began smoking crack without reservations. As I sat listening to the crackle and pop of the drugs mixed with the shrieking of the she bitch onscreen, I smelled the aroma of said crack and the tingle of tired old cells began to activate.

The little Mexican - face shimmering in a fine layer of sweat - handed over the pipe, "Hey, man - want some."

"Nah." I croaked. "Nah, I don't do that shit anymore."

"Don't do it anymore?" He said mechanically. "What do you do now?"

"I write. (Cough.) I'm a writer."

"Really?" He takes another obscene drag. "What do you write?"

I smiled inward, "Garbage."

Ah, fuck it, I thought. I looked over to him, reaching, "May I?"

"Sure, man...it's only dope."

klick - fffft - wheeeeeee!!!!

Small white sparks exploded behind my eyes - my body felt that 60 watt current. "Damn." I quivered. Haven't felt this good since I did dope way back when as I was feeling the blues.

"Yup." The Mexican smacked his lips. "Sure fire way to wipe away them blues."

After a few more hits I was a clicking, teeth grinding, jittery mess. I needed beer. The train ride back to the border was a painful ordeal - everything was sharp in focus and amplified. Some American tourists were being exceptionally loud and all I wanted was to kill them. But I digress, I am not a psychopath...

I hopped the border and made my way through those teeming masses - brown bloodshot eyes followed my every move - and entered Bar Villa Garcia in the plaza.

The joint was packed wall to wall with screeching gesticulating fags. I stomped up to the second floor and ordered a beer. Taking a table it was only a matter of seconds before I was accosted by the local 'buy me a beer, meester' boys. Scattah - let me enjoy my beverage. One of three looking mortally wounded.

Tomas enters the stage and sits with me. We sit for a full five minutes without saying a word. I finally croak, "You holdin?"

Under the table he slips me a paper and I hand him cien pesos. I walk into the bathroom - a den of penis peepers, cock suckers, and pervs. I find an empty stall - close the door - next to me I hear the tell tale sign of sniffing and the other side the slurping of some miate making rent. The smell of shit, piss, and chlorine wafting in the air, I empty my package onto the toilet dispenser - chop out three lines with my Cosco card - thank god it now has a purpose. Roll up a 20 peso note into a cylinder and snort-wheeee!snort-whooo!!

I lean back up and ask myself, Why?

Any addict will tell you and that it is a well known fact a tired long winded fact that addiction comes from the course of pain and worry. I scratch my nose - check for residue. I have not touched the stuff in years. Why now? And then it dawned on me - I am paranoid of the out come of this book that I had written. A book that has enveloped my mind the past few months. It is done and is going to be published in a few weeks - I should be happy. But, I am not. Maybe the content has depressed me - all the trauma and degradation that I had put myself through the last 20 years. I don't know.

I return to my table and finish three quick beers. I strike up a conversation with an attractive bespectacled lad named Javier and he being quite literary. Well read. We sit and chat over authors - Kerouac, Shelby, Burkowski, Hemingway.

Around 3am we are in a hotel and doing that which nature doesn't abide and I feel nothing. I just go though the motions. As Javier lay asleep wrapped around me - my mind spins. I think of the new book I had started - this one begins at birth and relates the story of my adolescence. The horrid parents, the sad school days, the ravaged coming of age. I thought the title fit: Fried Chittlins. Gray and disgusting. That put me in an even more frump.

I lay thinking....thinking...thinking....smoking...smoking...smoking. Perhaps I need a bit of road traveling. Maybe a little adventure through Mexico. I have no goal or plan in my life and that still worries me. My life is so open - yet so fitfully alone. I can't seem to connect with this human species.

When Javier rolled over, I silently dressed and left the room. The sun crept over the horizon when I found a hot dog vendor on Revo - stood there munching watching the hung over tourists drag themselves back to the border, watched the patrol cars slowly creep by, the transvestite hookers clomp around...

There has to be more. I hailed a taxi and took the long ride back to la playas. Still feeling the methamphetamine, I sat in my room at my laptop and cranked out a few more antidotes in my new book holding nothing back - wrote raw peeled tales of a horrible past.

I guess I have found my calling....but to what end?