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...