Score.

Sky is that bright Mexican blue and the air is simmering humid. Mario and I dodge into a filthy alley littered with broken beer bottles, syringes, and shit. Small barefoot children play with a grey mangy mongrel.
We cut into a two story hotel lobby at the dead end of the blind alley. Pass through French doors - fat naco sits behind the reception watching the flickering screen of a small portable television - antennae crooked and ending in aluminum.
The receptionist doesn’t move - head swerves with the look of a masturbating idiot as Mario approaches the counter.
They exchange greetings and the snobbish man mumbles something intelligible to Mario.
He looks at me and nods to the hotel proper, “C’mon, guero.”
Passing through the dusty lobby hung with old Spanish movie posters torn and riddled with graffiti, we walk into the middle of the hotel’s courtyard. The hotel is old - must’ve been built in the forties or fifties. Warped wood railings ring the second floor, white paint curled and pealing. Loud cocaphy of noises from banda music to crying babies permeate the stale air.
Mario and I stride over to a first floor room. The door is open and as we approach an old woman emerges.
“Oh, Mario, it is good to see you again.” She cackles, arms outstretched.
Mario gives her a quick embrace, “Hola, Bertha - is Abel around?”
She gives him a stern look then calls over her shoulder in Spanish, “Abel! You have visitors.”
The frumpy hag stands stern and cold glaring at me. An orange wig tops that shriveled head with arched eyebrows that look like they were put on with a black magic marker.
“This is my friend. He lives here in TJ.” Mario says solemnly.
The old woman smiles like a predatory animal and extends her hand, “Buenvenidos, guero.”
“Hi.” Is all I can say. The sun hurt my eyes and I was tired - I haven’t slept in six days.
A voice quacks out from the back something to the effect that Mario should go there. I stand in the doorway as Mario disappears into the murk of the room. My eyes adjusting, there is an overstuffed bed with ragged cover, clothes and knick-knacks are piled everywhere. A great deal of items are packed in large trash bags and brown paper bags. The old woman sits in a wooden chair - it creaks loudly as she settles in to her novellas. She completely ignores me - the hatred and distrust emitting from her like television waves.
“I’ll be out here smoking a cigarette.” I mutter. She says nothing, fixed on the television set.
I lit a cigarette and looked around. The cobblestone yard was cracked and pools of dirty incandescent water, rusting refrigerators, mop buckets filled with garbage - the air smelt like feces and urine.
“Hey!” Yelled a voice from the second floor in English.
I ignored it.
“Hey, white boy! What the fuck you doin’ here!” Hollered the voice.
I looked up to see a skinny, young Mexican guy leaning over the balcony of the second floor. In his eyes raged white hot hatred.
“What the fuck you doin’ here?!” He screeched again, making his way along the railing to the stairs keeping those ferocious eyes fixed on me. “Get the fuck outta here! Go back to your fucking country!”
“Yeah, I’m gonna do that just cause you told me to!” I yelled back, not flinching - returning his harsh glare.
“What?!” His face contorted in hate. “What?! What the fuck you say, mother fucker?!”
He quickened his decent - reaching into his tattered, stained jacket. My heart raced - this asshole had either a gun or a knife and had every intention of using it.
“I’m gonna kick your fucking ass, cracker!” He bellowed.
I stood, clenching my fists, and retorted, “I’m right here, naco - I’m waitin’!”
As his first step left the stairs and onto the cobblestone, Mario popped out of the hotel room and stood there. My assailant stopped in his tracks.
A tense pause, then Mario said to me glaring at the other guy, “Get inside. Abel wants to talk to you.”
Mario leads me past the unaffected old woman and into a back room. The pink colored walls were stained and flaking, a queen sized bed took up most of the room. The small area consisted of an end table and a dresser drawer - a naked bulb hung from a black cable jutting out of the yellow ceiling.
Sitting on the bed was a young Mexican with a shaved head, white tank top and dirty khakis. This was Abel - on the dresser drawers was an open compact mirror with three lines of crystal on it.
Abel stood up, “Heard Rudy outside, man - don’t worry ‘bout him. That tweeker is just the watchdog, nothing more.”
I croak yeah or it’s okay or some stupid comment.
Abel steps over to the drawer and fingers the compact mirror. “Mario says you wanna buy some crystal? How much?”
“A dime.” I said.
He goes into his pusher spiel, “well, this is some good shit. I don’t sell it to just anybody, you know. Just friends. Since you know Mario, I can cut you a good deal.” He pulls out a twenty peso note from his pant pocket and rolls it into a tube - pointing it at me. “You wanna try some?”
I took the rolled note and stepped up next to the drawer. The crystals were shiny and pure - looked like ground glass. I placed one end of the note to my nostril and vacuumed up a line. Habitually throwing my head back, snorting up the residue. Within seconds, that tingly feeling shot up my upper spine. I handed the note back to Abel.
“Nah.” He protested palms out. “Let Mario go next.”
As Mario snuffed, Abel smiled at me, “Yeaaah. Some good shit, huh?”
Mario gave me the rolled note, Abel continued, “My boy Mario gets all his shit from me.” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a dime bag - handing it to me. I slapped the fifty peso note into his hand. “Right…right. Now, I need you only to buy from me, you hear? If you need any more - just get a hold of Mario and he’ll bring you over here.” He smiled. “Don’t come by yourself - these pendejos that live here will kill your white ass.”
I finished the line, cleaning up the residue on the compact mirror with my finger brushing it into my gums, “Hell yeah. This is some good shit. You got yourself a new client.”
Mario started to the door, “We done? Yeah? ‘Kay, let’s go.”
We said goodbye and walked through the other room to the exit. The old lady pleasantly said farewell to Mario - didn’t say shit to me. Outside, the asshole on the second floor glared silently as we left.
“Okay - now just keep your eyes peeled for cops when we leave.” Mario hissed as we passed through the lobby.

We cut into the dirty, dusty street under the keen eye of the old taco vendor...

Time/Space Location

Dark is the night and long is the wait. The muffled whispers of cars pass and somewhere in the distance a dog barks....

I sit and I falter - cool breeze blows in from the beach. Sigh. Take a sip of instant coffee - Sanka.

The depression kicks in and it is insidious. I live in fear and distrust of everyone - I have become such a recluse. I realise I have wrote of this in the past, but it has come to be.

I need a different local - I live too comfortable. Nice house, pleasant surroundings. I can't live like this - it's not my time/space location.

Writing? I am not a writer. Never pretended to be. Just a tape recorder of natural events and I report them.

I am utterly alone and being filled with so much guilt, paranoia, and fear - I constantly dwell on those miserable nostalgic events constantly.

I fill these voids of momentary diversions with drugs, alcohol and lifeless romance. But, flying solo even with these insidious diversions makes it even more depressing afterwards.

The main question in my mind is: What am I going to do? My future is blank and unpredictable, the past a vast graveyard of dead meaning, and the present a vacuumous void.

I seriously, honestly, deeply do not want to live...really no point in it...

Crystal Dreams.

Lay wracked in paranoid dementia. I haven’t slept for days - how many? Six, seven? I lost track. As I was saying, I lay in my bed naked - sweating, twitching - sheets rumpled and filthy.
It was unbearable. Though the dark drapes were closed, the sun beamed in through cracks like blinding blades of fire. All the meth that I had was gone and had no money to get any more. Not for two days anyway - I was off the next couple of days. I squirmed in galvanized convulsions.
I jolted to the window - I heard someone out there. Peeking through the musty drapes, the light seared my retina as I scanned rapidly for someone creeping up the metal steps. No one. I faltered - that’s when I heard them. The neighbors was fucking loudly in the adjacent apartment. I leapt onto the bed, crouching at the head of the bed with my ear planted against the cold wall.
Thumpthumpthump.
It was muted and distant - but they were there!
I grabbed my pipe from the end table drawer. Sadly glancing at it, I saw the grey film of residue lining the inside - snatched my lighter and smoked what was left. Trembling, I turned the pipe left and right skillfully not missing a spot - inhaling the acrid smoke - taste of nickel in my mouth - twisting, turning the pipe. When all was done with the bulb end - when all was gone and it was scorched and streaked with black char - I flipped the pipe around and tried to carefully place the hot bulb end to my mouth to smoke what was left in the upper glass stem, searing my lips anyway.
I yelp in pain and wait the few seconds for the bulb to cool - my fingers now dirty from the carbon, shiny over the dirt. I smoked what was left in the stem and lay propped up against the wall on funky sweat smelling pillows.
Glancing over at the black lacquer end table, I saw through fucked up eyes remnants of meth flakes left over. I grabbed the plastic Costco card that I always used to line my dope up - raking it all over the top of the end table until I accumulated a thin line of crystal, dust, hair , and God knows what else.
I place my scrapings into the bulb of the glass pipe and light up - heat popping what wasn’t meth and inhaling all the smoke it emitted.
Thumpthumpthump.
I lay scrunched down against the wall - ear attentive and barely almost inaudibly hearing the sounds of some bitch moaning.
It was coming from the room on the opposite side of my living room!
I leapt out of bed and dashed to the other room. I yanked the futon couch from up against the wall to the middle of the room - snatching the mattress off of the futon and placing it on the floor against the wall. Returning to the bedroom, I grabbed a pillow and flopped down onto the futon mattress.
Ear firmly planted against the wall, I heard muffled squeaking of bed springs and the gasps and moans of lust. I lay for an hour listing to that distant almost inaudible moaning - my mind raced with images of random, broken lust. Sweating and quivering, I began masturbating like an idiot - using the sweat of my palms as lubricant. I must’ve lay there jerking off for hours.
Satiating myself, I licked dry metallic tasting lips and placed my ear back against the wall. It was all quiet - nothing but the echo reverb of passing cars on the street down below.
It was becoming dusk and the room was quiet and gloomy. I rolled over to my other side and lay staring at the dark red carpet - it was covered in ants! Crawling off the mattress on hands and knees - my dripping face inches from the mildew smelling carpet, I saw ants crawling around mixed in the black specks of the red carpet.
First, it was just one, then out of my peripheral vision a few, then millions - millions of red shiny ants skittering to and fro across the carpet.
I stood up - wobbling from lack of food and sleep - and returned to my bed with a sore ear. My body was gummy and felt like rubber - the rush was spiraling down and I knew I had nothing - no money, nothing to sell - to buy anything for the next two days.
I lay in my bed, body cold, shivering from the dried sweat - staring at that dusty immobile ceiling fan until finally, after days and nights, I drifted into a dark, tormented sleep.

Crack is Whack!

The night continued. Stood making a paper cup of instant coffee. The current movie ended and as I was switching videos in the VCR a wave of unbearable stench filled the small office space - it was a smell of rotting death.
I glanced over to the box office window and saw two bloodshot eyes gleaming at me - black spots in the coronas, like bad marbles. Only the neck up was visible - a bald wrinkled head blotched with liver spots, scabs, and white flaky skin. Grey shadows encircled those predatory eyes, thin hooked nose ending in long greasy white nose hairs. A toothless hole grinned making the whole face wrinkle up.
“Uh…excuse me…” He wheezed in a high pitch voice. His eyes - those fucking eyes - never left mine, no matter how I swayed and fidgeted. “Do you show any homo-erotic films at this theater?” His voice shot up an octave at ‘homoerotic’.
“What?” I snapped trying my best at annoying this fucker so he would just leave. Every time he exhaled, a wave of rotting matter filled the room.
“I asked if you show any homoerotic videos here at your theater.” He scratched his bald head with pudgy dirty fingers - a frayed hospital band on his wrist. I noticed that he was wearing powder blue hospital scrubs over his pudgy body.
“Nah - against city ordinance. We only show straight porn here.” Damn this fucker stank.
His eyes glazed over and stared at my chest as if in a trance, “You see, in Manhattan - that’s New York City - they show homoerotic videos - wonderfully wild gay films with beautiful men having sex with each other…” He paused squeaking out a rapid fire of giggles that pinged in my mind like needles. His face goes blank, “Are there any military men in your theater?”
I pondered, taking a sip of my coffee, “Well, I think there were three navy guys that came in about an hour ago…”
Slap! Clackclack! Slam! Before I could finish my sentence the old perv slapped six dollars down on the box office counter, bolted through the turnstile, and flew in the metal door into the theater.
Not five minutes later, three handsome Navy guys came stumbling out of the theater - hands over noses, waving palms in front of their faces, look of disgust.
“Damn! That fucker stank!”
“See how that fag followed us everywhere?”
“Shit! His fuckin’ intestines must be rottin’!”
They marched into the night back to base.
Standing with my back to the concessions door, I put the straw to my mouth and lit up some more meth from the charred strip of aluminum foil that I stashed behind a pile of empty video porn boxes. My chapped lips stung as the plastic heated - the smell of melting plastic and chemicals assailed my scared nostrils. I stood there facing the wall - mouth ground uncontrollably air whistling loudly through my nose.
“Hey, man.” Rumbled a basso voice behind me.
I whirled around to see a mountain of a sweaty googly eyed black man standing at the concession door. He wore a do-rag on his head and a torn wife beater in a vain attempt to cover an obscene potbelly. His face was slack covered in a fine layer of glistening grease. He smelled of hamburgers and farts.
“Yeah? Wutsup?” I snapped with a gummy mouth - my tongue swirled in my mouth like a writhing slug. My eyes protruded, but I tried to keep my cool. Keeping my gaze on this glaring behemoth, I slipped the foil back behind video boxes.
“Hey, man.” He stated - staring. A long pause.
“Yeah? Watchawant?” I said staring back. Click click click went my tongue on top of my mouth.
“Hey.” He spat - eyes voluminous and yellow with black irises and no color. The man was flying high on some shit. “You by yourself?”
“Uh…” I glanced quickly at the aluminum baseball bat by the cash register.
“Cause you a pretty fine white boy an’ these movies can make ya horny.”
“Glad you like the movies, sir.” Clenched my grinding jaw.
“Hey.” His eyebrows started shooting up and down - fat lips drooping. “You game? Ya wanna? Huh? Ya game? Huh? Ya game? Ya wanna?”
“Well, I can’t…I mean, I’m working.”
“Ya wanna? Hey, boy, ya wanna? Ya game? Huh? You wanna?”
Tired of this shit and wanting to get back to my dope, I stated firmly, “Look, dude, you gotta stop bugging me and return to the theater or I’m gonna hafta ask you to leave.”
He stood there a beat - glaring with that gaze of Hepatitis C - breathing in his sweat stained wife beater then faded back into the murk of the theater.
I sat in the foul smelling easy chair adjacent the two television monitors - one was showing an Asian cooch slobbering on the cocks of three grinning studs sitting on a couch, the other monitor was the security camera with a static black and white view of the sidewalk outside the box office window and the entrance to the theater.
Outside, always like clockwork standing for hours night after night was an old white haired man in lime green pants, sneakers, yellow polo shirt, and baseball cap. His jaw chewed obsessively on a wad of gum - his mouth a glistening wet hole. Squinting gooey eyes darted - but his body never moved. He stood in a position as if he was ready to pounce and whatever victim he deemed worthy. His only movement was his right hand in pants pocket jiggling change - chink, chink, chink, chink - forever.
Darting past him a tall rotund man in khaki shorts, summer shirt, beard strode up to the box office window and pressed his bearded face up to it, condensation formed on the glass.
“Hey, man.” He rumbled with that distinctive southern Californian accent. “I don’t wanna see a movie - I just wanna buy some porn.”
My boss also sold the vast library of accumulated porn that he kept in the office. Occasionally, some jerk would come in off the street or from the theater and purchase one or two videos.
I stood up walked to the window and buzzed the man in from a button next to the register, “Okay, come on in.”
I flopped back into the easy chair. Behind me, taking up the entire wall on a bookshelf was six tiers of porn. All kinds of shit - from your straight-laced crack addicted blond bitches to those gay fisting horrors. All covered in dust and greasy smudged fingerprints on glossy boxes. The bottom shelf contained candies, dried soups, and small bags of popcorn.
The man came to the concessions window, “May I come in?”
“Yeah, sure.” I said not looking at him my gaze focused on the flickering image on the monitor. I wanted to get him out quick cause my high was cranking down.
“Lessee lessee lessee…” He breathed as he perused the selection. He would occasional pick up a box scan the back replace it with a “Hmmm. Oh. Hmmmm…”
Ding! Someone was at the box office, I got up to see a quivering meth junkie standing eyes sunken in skull, jaw chewing.
“How much, man? How much ta git in?” He spasmodically spat.
“Six dollars. You can stay until six in the morning - I shut down for an hour to clean up.” I stated mechanically.
He looks side to side, “Right. Right. Gimmee a ticket.” Slaps the bills on the counter.
I hand him his ticket and buzz him in. I return to the easy chair and flop back down. Then the guy who was looking at the porn - this fucking pervert - stood in front over me swaying his bloated hairy pale belly in my face. I grimaced as I noticed a small lump moving in his shorts. Fucker thought I’d just have sex with anybody - fuck that, I thought, I got standards!
I waved my hand in front of his gut; he smelled of cheap lotion and sweat, “Hey, man - cut that shit out! You wanna buy a tape or what?”
He backs up - eyes scanning the selection of videos, “Nah…nothing’ really here. Just gimme a ticket for the theater.”
I jolt up exasperated, snatch the bills from his hand and give him a ticket. Nonchalantly he passes through the rose colored velvet curtains in to the cinema. Shake my head in disgust as a black guy pops up in front of the concession stand.
“Hey, dude - you workin’ all night, again?” He smiles which was a weird thing to see. His eyes where popping out of their sockets, the small skull could hardly contain the distortions of withered skin. His volumous lips were white and chapped - deeply grooved like a corpse. His face was comical - nothing but eyes and lips.
I had seen this cat before - a regular costumer. He usually shows up before my shift and stays all night doing his dope. He never caused any problem, kept to himself.
“Hey, man - how’s the theater?” I smiled back, putting the money from the previous person into the register.
“Sheeeet - it getting’ crazy in there.” He rolled those egg sized eyes. “Fags suckin’ da dick and pipes flickin’ all ovuh.” We chucked and he continued. “You hungry?”
Before I could answer, the box office dinged and on the monitor was a pizza delivery boy. I glanced at screen then back to the guy at the concessions widow, “You order pizza?
“Yeah! It here?” He slobbered.
I buzzed the delivery guy in and the junkie paid. I grabbed a folding chair from the office and sat with the junkie at the door entrance to the main cinema. There was an extra folding chair already there and he sat there. There are usually - and to this day do not know why - one or two patrons that like to sit or stand at the entrance. I guess it gives them privacy or allows them to scam on potential victims sitting in the theater.
We placed the pizza box on the floor and began chomping. He then pulled a small glass pipe from his shirt pocket, held it up to his lips - flick! Inhaled the smoke - the cherry making a popping sound as he smoked.
I smiled at him, cocking my head inquisitively, “Hey, what’s that? Meth?”
He exhaled, shivered. “Nah, white boy, dis crack. You ever try it?”
“Nah.” I replied dreamily.
“You wanna?” He asked.
“Sure, why not?” I said taking the filthy charred glass pipe from his gnarled chapped hands.
I put the end to my lips and he ignited his lighter. Popping from the crack as I sucked in the grey smoke.
“Hold it in…hold it in.” He coaxed. Master and student.
The effect was much like meth - but faster. My heartbeat tripled, short of breath. I could feel blood rush to my face.
He leaned close, taking the pipe from my limp hand, smirked. “Now don’t go on and hava heart attack, boy.”
I sat feeling the drug bounce around in my system - I felt fucking great. A rush of heat flushed through my body, clicking and twitching in galvanized movements. On the large screen in front of me - a black stud slid in and out of a blond bimbo with rapid ferocity. She screamed and squealed in amped up cracked induced orgasms. Her face was contorted her eyes bugged and gleamed in smeared eyeliner - hair cascading across her face with each viscous lunge. His body wet with sweat - the intense concentration of a maniacal killer on his masculine face. The theater smelled of chlorine, farts, and dried semen. All colors and smells where crisp and differential.
I felt better than I had in recent memory - a chaotic warm glow enveloped me as nostalgic images raced through my frying mind. Then it sputtered and stopped.
What the fuck? I thought. What happened?
“It supposed to switch off like that?” I asked, face forward eyes sweeping in his direction.
He passed over the pipe, “Yeah, that’s why you take another hit, white boy.”
I did. As he devoured his pizza like a veracious animal - I sucked on that glass pipe so nasty. Again, the hot pinging buzz enveloped me on a cellular level. I sat taking it all in - then a few minutes later it putted out like on old generator.
“Goddamit!” I muttered. I started to put the pipe back at my mouth.
He stopped me with a foul smelling hand, “Hey, hey, boy - this shit ain’t free. You want some more, slip me twenty I’ll give ya and yer good to go.”
Fuck that shit! Twenty dollars for a rock? That gives me - what? Two, three hits? Shit - for twenty dollars I can get three or four good lines of meth and be ‘good to go’ for eight hours straight. I stood up and wiped the grease from the pizza from my hands onto my pants.
“I gotta get back to work.” I mumbled.
“You gonna leave me like dat? You ain’t gonna buy shit o’ wut?”
“Nah - uh, thanks. I’ll be in the office.” I said with my back to him, folding the metal chair.
I got back to the office and reached behind the pile of porn boxes for my aluminum strip. As I took a hit, I glanced at the security monitor - there was the old man there. Chink chink chink.

Tweeker

Generally being hopped up on meth by the time I get home from work, I rarely go straight to bed unlike normal people that work a graveyard shift. Today was no exception.
I got undressed and lay on my bed completely naked - staring at the orange stains on the ceiling paint from a leaky roof. I grabbed the meth that I had received from Carl earlier that morning.
“Dis is some special shit. Don’t do it all.” He warned. Heh.
I grabbed my glass pipe from the end table - such a small thing capable of giving vast incalculable ambivalence and indulgence. The pipe was nearly charred black from so much use - black and silver.
I pinched a rock from the little baggie and went to work. For hours I lay on my bed propped up against the cold dingy wall smoking smoking smoking until it was all gone. After the pipe cooled - I smoked the residue left on the inside shaft and bulb. Shaking, sweating, twittering, I tear open the little bag like a skilled surgeon and extract the dusty remnants of white and pink flecks nestled in the creases and folds of the plastic and greedily I smoke them, too.
I was a tweeking shivering tongue clicking jaw grinding mess. I tried to get up from the bed - my head swirled and the room spun into a vortex. Plop! I fell onto the musty carpet. Tried to prop myself up onto one elbow - couldn’t get up. I lay on my side elbow digging into the red carpet time spun by like a sped up film.
I realized that I had to work that evening - couldn’t be late - that thought pounded in my fried brain. I kept track of time from the television programs fading in and out from the living room from the set I forgot to turn off.
“Today on Oprah Winfrey!” It’s 3pm - no worries - I don’t hafta be at work until eleven. I look out the unbearably bright window - the tree morphs into obscene Disney characters. I look on transfixed in terrified paranoiac fascination.
“Live from San Diego - It’s Chanel 5 news at five!” Okay, it’s 5pm. Eyes darting uncontrollably around the room - shortness of breath - still unable to move.
The Star Trek theme starts - it’s six. I feel as if I am about to pass out - twitch and shudder in an attempt to at least sit up from this fixed position.
The boinging tune of The Simpson’s pops on - it’s seven. I really need to get up and get ready for work. As The Simpson’s back to back comedy hour draws to a close - I thrust my torso upward. Standing fully erect - naked, wind rushing in my ears, blood pounding in my head - I swirl and crash onto my bed falling straight and solid as a board. I lay akimbo for a moment and burst into laughter.
If only this was filmed, I thought.
As the Law and Order theme drums on I realize it is 9 o’clock and I gotta get my ass in gear. Popping up once again - body tingling and head swirling - I walk to the small bathroom and take a quick shower. Not in there long - that water hurt.
Dressing, I dart out of my apartment into the cool night and hail a cab at the corner. Reaching downtown Tijuana, I walk to the border. As I power march through the masses, I feel fantastic - everything is in sharp focus, sounds crisp and clear. Rapidly crossing the bridge that spans that sewage crusted Tijuana river, I look up and smile as the dark clouds are outlined in bright neon purple with flashes of blue.
I pass two Mexican tweekers - dirty and furtive - on the bridge rushing the opposite direction at supersonic speeds.
“Wooh! White boy’s tweeeeeekin’!” One smiles.
I smile, exhale, and continue my power walk up to customs. Pass through customs without a hitch and jump the trolley to downtown San Diego. I glance at my watch - 9:45pm. Enough time for a quick beer before work.
Trash lined streets with old liquor stores and porno shops and cut rate hotels. The throng of deviants that prowled the night were out in full force. Junkies squealed and meth addicts howled at the yella moon as prostitutes of both sexes did their stylized ballet back in forth of the Foxxy Theater. Florescent shadows played along cracked walls.

"Hey, man - ya lookin'?" White boy hip hop asks through bent teeth.

Dark street packed with hobos lying in piss and hip blacks on the hustle crack rocks in quivering cold hands - liquor stores and blue red purple neon of porno shops show it real nasty all night - and all kinda sick junkies screaming in the alley.
I hit the cracked pavement and find a bar full of hip kids and fags - sit there savoring my beer when black man rail thin barges in and sizes me up as an easy mark, I reckon.
“Now what you need is a safistamacated woman.” He breathes liquor and halitosis into my face.
I smile and say what.
“A safistamacated woman, boy. One’ll fuck ya all night.” When he says ‘all’ his yellow eyes roll around his lined scarred head.
I tell ‘em scattah and he stares me down but jets, anyhow - leaving me to my beer. Finished up, paid the man, and headed to work.

Ghost of a Chance.

“Why do we always do this shit at night?” He grinned as he reached for the charred light bulb with one hand and the flecked remnants of methamphetamine with the other.
I shrugged. What can I say - he was philosophically right. Why do we always do this shit at night? It’s not as if we sleep during the day. Sleep - those little slices of death. How I loathe them.
I glance out the window moon swings round at supersonic speed - in the distance fat man calls out “Tamales! Tamales!” up in the hills.
Jose places the lighter under the bulb, open copper end to his mouth - flick! Gray smoke warps around inside like a Texas tornado swirling contortions of Blank Death. I see the dope hit and his eyes light up like florescent lamps. I take the bulb and repeat his actions. The metallic taste flows down to my lungs activating junk sick cells. The shock of what seems 60 watts tingle up my spine back of skull hair stands and pow to the forehead. I began to jerk in mechanical galvanized movements - vibrating like a tuning fork. Tongue clicks, teeth grind.
Jose was lying back on the tattered futon - blue basketball tank top with matching shorts. My lascivious eye wondered to his limp but long cock resting on those sagging balls. I wanted to reach over and grope that fucker - but, alas he being helplessly hopelessly heterosexual. No - this fucker was here only for my dope however he was not only eye candy but also a good conversationalist.
“You hear about Ivan?” Jose spat small balls of white spittle slowly flinging through the air. Clik-clik went his movements. A spastic robot. “Cops raided his place. Took everything.”
I don’t give a fuck - my thoughts wondered into last night. After an evening at a straight club with Jose, he picks up a chunky American girl and we three drunkenly return to my sordid flat. She wasn’t ugly - big boobs, big hips - the kind I guess straight guys jack off about. On the other hand, maybe it was just easy pussy.
Feigning sleep, I repair to my room only to peer through the cracked door to see in the blue light of the flickering television set Jose screwing that hooch. Didn’t give a rat’s ass about the girl, my bloodshot eye held it’s gaze on his long cock sliding rapidly in and out of her wet hole, his balls slapping against her vaginal lips the sighing grunt Jose made after five minutes of this and took care of myself - fell asleep in that mess.
Next morning, they both were gone. Jose returned in the afternoon and we went to score.
Standing in that alleyway of garbage and shit under a blinding yellow sun and dazzling blue Mexican sky - paranoia as white sedan with darkened windows roll up.
“Cartel” Jose mutters hands in pocket looking down.
The watchful eye of the taco vendor on the corner scrutinizing our every move.
After copping from Thing, broken sidewalk rushes under our feet back to my joint for a blast. Nothing on the tele, only orange juice in the fridge, filthy bathroom over run with ants. My carpet was covered in marijuana stems, food containers, meth papers…it’s amazing what you notice when you’re tweeking.
Jose wanted to watch porn.
Fine, I thought, torture me.
As the video progressed he got half a hard on. Nothing sexier than watching a cock grow in shorts unaided by hand. Inching upward, pulsing once, inching outward…
I digress…
In the most wicked sleazy perverted way, I leered at him and asked, “Hey, Jose, you wanna blow job?”
“Dude, you know I’m not a fag.” He retorts all the while groping his semi-stiff organ. “You’re cool and all, man, but don’t fucking ask me again.”
I sank deep in the futon - anywhere I wanted to be but there right now. I took the light bulb - flickwhooshweeee! I glance over to him - long and lean his body was, amber eyes encircled by thick dark lashes, copper skin, short shaggy hair. I lay there broken and in pain - vibrating in torrid lust amplified by methamphetamine.
“That girl I met last night?” He finally said, white tongue licking thick lips. “I got a date with her again tonight - we supposed to meet outside Las Pulgas.” Las Pulgas was a straight dance club on Avenida Revo - been there once. Groped drunk boys passing in the crowd. “So, I gotta jet. Gonna go home and get ready.”
After taking two more hits, we shook hands and said later to each other. I watched his skinny frame walk out the door. Why am I such a fool for these types of boys? Why am I addicted to this chaos and not only that but lustfully revel in it?
At that time I hated myself for it, worried of the outcome if it out come. Mortified by my addiction and sordid homosexuality. The conflicts that raged in me drove me literally insane. I care about nothing and no one. So jaded I have become - and antisocial. I loathe most faggots to this day - I see through all their amateurish attempts at deceit and seduction. I should know, I have tried them all. Trying to attain all that I have accomplished in the past and finally realizing, as it had done to me, leaving them bitter and empty. And like me, they always do this shit at night.
Two days later, Jose was found shot to death behind Hotel Coliseo off of Avenida Coahuila. I didn’t care.

I Know What I'm Doing

Standing outside in the shivering night - the Plaza was pregnant with the twilight people. The bar adjacent to my frozen form thumped with laughter and merry making. Two old Negro queens’ cumpleanos. And they flipping the bill for this swanky fiesta. Complimentary booze and vittles guzzled by nameless arrogant faces. I danced a little - scrawny attractive boy swirled with lithe movements - what was his name? Who cares? I drank a little with RJ and Derrick and Miguel - too many bodies that poured in from the street so I stood outside in the shivering night.
Ivan, rentboy turned waiter knew him for years passed sobbing that someone had stolen his money as Miguel sucked some stranger up in a cheap hotel. Big boobed hooker clops up to me as I stood there watching Ivan’s scrawny frame tilt and droop in drugged out grief.
“Whacha looking for?” She asked.
“You don’t got it - plus I like men.” Puffed on that cigarette like a cock.
“I am a man.” She croaked and it was time to cut.
Ivan fades in and invites me to his trap - why not? Old friend knew him for years you understand. In the dark streets leading up to his shabby hotel phantoms lurk offer me junk - “Nope, I’m all right” I mutter as Ivan cops a paper. Up worn wooden staircase the small room had a bed and a squat bookshelf wadded with crumpled dirty clothes.
He takes out a glass pipe and crushes the crystal into it lights up and smokes - billowing out huge plumes of that grey tinny smell. Hands me the charred pipe - I falter, reassuring myself I can quit at any time.
One inhale, two, three - we pass it back and forth in junky silence like a galvanized ritual. Been so long and so much it really doesn’t affect me - at first.
Ivan on the flipside degenerates into a shaking teeth grinding wreck - face sunken in skull like eyes open peeled raw. When it is gone, he stashes the blackened tube under his stained mattress lies back and listens to banda on his CD walkman. I sit on the edge of the bed glancing around at the bare dirty pink walls as the tweek sets in more on Ivan than myself. That acrid heavy metal taste in my mouth the cigarettes don’t erase.
I sit and study Ivan in pity as he convulses in mechanical galvanized jerks - he had already dragged the bookshelf barricading the door from paranoia Dream Police. Ivan retrieves his pipe again - scraping the residue from the stem for another round. Heavy boots and jingling keys pass the door and Ivan's schizophrenia flares - we sit a moment in silence, waiting for the stranger to pass. I decline the second dose and enough of this sad hopeless Fallen Angel - he was once strong and virile. At least the boy has retained his looks of strong angular Aztec features. However, that soon will decay.
I stand - extinguishing my cigarette on the filthy warped wooded floor. “I gotta go.” And leave that wretch to his horror.
Walking the few blocks in that dark cold night - eyeing for patrols on account my own paranoia is kicking in. I think of my future and of my plans - I cannot allow those past demons to control me. Reaching my room - I undress and get into bed unable to sleep as the drug takes hold. Eventually I drift off, horrid nightmares abound. I wake up depressed and disappointed that I even committed the act.
I walk through the Plaza - Ivan sits on the steps - in the flashbulb of urgency his eyes went out. A whiff of meth drifted in the clear night riding on the banda music. An old hag muttered over her candles and alters in one corner. A dingy white cat pulls at my pant leg and runs onto a concrete balcony. The moon ominously floats by.
“Ivan!” Rentboys look up from card games, coffee houses, and sullen hooked stances under metal light posts as the name whistles by and slowly fades away. “Ivan!! Saul!! Diego!! Jose!!” The rentboy cries drift in on the warm night.
“Need you to do me a favor,” I croaked, wiping away the more obvious signs of distaste with a stained paper napkin, seeing the yellow of meth in Ivan's face, “Don't ever invite me to do that again.”
His body moved in little galvanized jerks as the junk channels lit up. “Okay - okay. Ya sure?”
“I know what I’m doing.” Breathing the residue of methamphetamine out of my already scarred lungs.
I walk alone down Avenida Revolucion to my room amid the carnival of blaring neon and pounding discos - everyone looks like a drug addict.
Stopping to sit on a metal bench in front of El Torito disco - wanna sit alone and smoke a cigarette and think. Depression rising again. Moments pass and handsome cholo pelon sits with me - smell of dirty linens and unwashed bodies - we don't talk but he cackles and grins into his Styrofoam coffee cup - he laughed, black insane laughter as patrol after patrol roamed by eyeing us.
This is too tiresome, and I drift home lost without purpose or meaning.
So I lay in my bed, naked, on top of the covers smoking a cigarette watching a black cockroach scale the faded baby blue wall of my room - national sponsored program in Spanish mumbles from the radio - and I think I need to change.
But do I want to?

Jose Hallaballoo

Jose Perez threw a party in honor of his new apartment. Two room rat hole with a rusted steel balcony and panoramic view of the Red Zone. Nice if you wanta see smog, criss-cross of wires, and bloated hookers clop up and down the broken pavement. But, ah yes, the aforementioned fiesta. All types of sordid junkies and nefarious types lurked in the smoke filled shadows of Jose's colonial apartment. Cocaine, marijuana, and booze passed many a hand.
Banda music and screaming and the vecinos rush in like jackals.
Stumbled over Javier in the bathroom and he said “I'm killing myself with this shit.” And looked at me with sick brown eyes. I take a snoot or two myself and feel it.
“Worthless shit.”
Half a bottle of tequila too soon and effects of cocaine cause me to lose control. I stumble and sway and the music - the music was all around me. Sniffing, I lean against chipped green painted wall and listen to hyped up drug fueled patter of Jose gab in galvanized gestures at some ratty whore strung out on goofballs. “…slammin’ that heroin with no electricity only that red candle, ya know - they turned off the lights and water. Man, was Chava happy to kick out that asshole roommate. Never take a puta with a monkey, mija. You can’t trust none of them motherfuckers. No bueno.”
Suddenly, I see this Mexican Indian boy in sharp spotlight. He is hooked and sick, sniffing and all the bones stand out on his face. He catches my look and walks over and leans on the green metal table and says: “You wanna be with me?”
Lean brown hand gently rubs against my hardening crotch. The guy is short, but handsome with strong Aztec features. In his hazel eyes flicker pinpoints of light.
Get out of here. Bar. Grocery store. Cable dish of television suck the sky like greedy siphons. The boy lived in a dead end alley. Rats scurry in gutters and the cockroaches...the cockroaches were downright arrogant. Old Spanish apartment with rusted iron balconies.
Dim light hangs from wire attached to the ceiling. Windowless room of concrete. Smell of mildew and unwashed linens. I tear open a small bag of cocaine; he rips open a packet of lubrication. Undress quickly and erect penis is oiled up. On all fours, I clench the thin brown blanket as the smack-smack-smack of his hips hit my naked ass. The coke explodes behind my closed eyelids like fireworks as he shudders deep inside of me to some kind of climax.
Through dry lips we both sigh together, “Muy bueno.”
In the back of a taxi libre, the lights of the city flicker across my face as we do a kamikaze race back to my flat. With the window down, the cold night air plays in my hair. I grin behind screwed up eyes.

Tijuana 2.0

Old man draped in filthy rags blinks in the unrelenting Mexican sun. His face creased the color of a brown paper bag sporting dingy yellow cowboy hat. He watches out of tired rheumy eyes three white Ford trucks - Tijuana paddy wagons - hurtling down a broad street kicking up dust. The dust stings his eyes yet he stands immobile. Several police cling to the sides as it races by - dark eyes filled with fear hatred faces covered in black masks - one stares at the old man back, fingering his shiny black AK-47. The old man stands glaring in apathy...seconds later and blocks away are gunfire and rumbling explosion. Five more trucks careen past followed by monstrous paramilitary vehicles - street teeming with pedestrians casually go about their affairs.
I stand in the coolness of an awning sucking on a cigarette backdrop of dusty greenery of park Tiente Guerrero - three squad cars roar by - sirens squealing scaring the mother clutching baby in breast five kids race behind crossing the street of kamakazi taxis and rickety buses belching black smoke. Several shifty and dubious characters turn and hide their faces from the barreling convoy. The police always travel by car in threes, now - ever since the local cartel executed 46 of them the week prior. Their faces cold and featureless masks of fear and suspicion...
I remember two nights ago in my room and hearing the ratatat of machine gun fire in the distance - last night the symphony repeated itself down on the corner. Seven bodies lay akimbo in the darkened lamppost splashed streets blood oozing onto black concrete and vecinos didn't care. Thirty minutes later fat cop chews cigar stump surveying the scene...

In the rural hills of Independencia where you can score for meth, H, coke, crack - anything your junky heart desires - fires run rampant in the shanty adobes across from the school were the five year old boy timidly scuttles home clutching his textbook past roving gangs of cholos faces vicious in hate prowl brandishing pistols to deter the inquiring placas...
Yet, down on Revo - the arrogant tourist still lurks, still drinks, still dances, still buys that one-tequila, two-tequila, three-tequila...floor! t-shirt that they must have for the folks back home unaware of the slaughter occurring a few blocks from their reverie. This is Tijuana - my Tijuana - a place that I call home...

Life is Death

My hand jerks in galvanized movements to the small strip of blackened aluminum foil being passed to me. The fingers holding the strip are blackened and dirty, shiny over the dirt. The windowless room in this hellhole building is lit only by the three white candles on the trash littered table. The walls are grimy yellow from years of tobacco; tar drips from the corners and collects in pools of orange grease. Our shadows dance across the vast left wall like disembodied ghosts. Banda music blares from the outdated hi-fi. It garbles and sputters static.
Pedro sits on the floor jabbing the syringe into his neck with hissing through his silver capped teeth. Slumps into dark and strange dreams. Jose takes said syringe, cooks up the tar clear and sweet and injects the solution into his junk thirsty veins. Xavier quivers on that milk crate starring at darkness wrapped in the flames of devils. Somebody is lying on the blackened cracked concrete floor facing the wall strung out on goofballs. The tattoo on his back reads Life is Death. The air is thick with smoke from cigarettes and marijuana and methamphetamine.
An old whore sits next to fat old fucker on the nod. Whore glares into the darkness, “I'm so horny, Johnny. I'm so horny.” She falls to a whisper mouthing the words over and over. Slowly rubbing her scabby thighs. The smell of shit and vomit are strong.
As I said, I take the strip of aluminum as Javier places the filthy straw into my mouth and ignites a lighter under the foil. I watch as the white rock melts into a syrupy metal fluid and casually inhale the silver smoke deep into my lungs. The smoke takes on a living liquid like consistency as I trail it down the groove on the aluminum strip.
It hits you in the spine first and like an electric current traveling along your column up into the brain to the forehead. I can feel my hair pricking as it rushes across my scalp. My teeth are grinding and my tongue clicks obsessively on the top of my sticky dry mouth. I exhale the fumes and pass the aluminum strip to Old Chuck sitting next to me on the overstuffed tattered couch. He smiles a toothless old woman smile and the wrinkles stand out in the shadows.
Javier slides his hand under my dirty t-shirt and caresses my back that is soaked in sweat, clinging to my quivering frame like a wet condom. He whispers in my ear sexual perversions but I tell him that I am in no condition.
I down the warm orange juice and vodka on the table and wait impatiently for my turn to come again. And again. And again. How long has it been since I had slept? Four...five days? When the dope finally ran out, we stumble out into the darkness and a shit smeared alleyway of a crappy hotel in a crappy part of town. The air is sweet and fresh. Stars shine bright and the moon is a huge hideous orange.
Money gone. Dope gone. I tell Javier come with me. I find an ATM and the party resumes full force. For the second time in my life I try heroin. This time I do not puke. The needle slid in silent and I feel the junk writhing up into my vein. A soft blow to the heart. My body goes slack and I feel all warm and relaxed. Javier, Jose and I go into spun conversations of Mexican politics and 1950's science fiction.
Jose looked at Old Chuck and spread his hands in the junky shrug.
"What, cabrone?"
I get eager and walk out with Javier in tow. I light a Lucky Strike hand one to Javier and head downtown. Everything is sharp and in focus. The lights stand out. The people alien and insect like. I get the horrors and Javier calms me. He is so sweet.
Smells hang over the City, haze of mota, the resinous grey smoke of meth, smell of the sea and salt water and the rotting canal and dried feces and sweat and genitals. Country western banda, jazz and be-bop, one-stringed instruments, Caribbean xylophones, Brazilian drums, reggeaton...
The city of Tijuana is infested by epidemics of violence between snarling cartels and macho cops, and the untended dead are eaten by dogs in the streets. Tourists blink in the sun. People devoured by unknown diseases watch the passing tourist with evil, knowing eyes.
My feet feel sluggish as I walk and I stumble into the 24hr Internet cafe on 2nd and Constitution to write this crap. I mean, file a report on these sinister goings on. Upstairs in a cubical, curtain drawn, Javier sits next to me like an immobile lizard, waiting for the next fix. We both smell like shit and covered in a layer of greasy sweat. He kisses me as I try to type and his mouth taste like diseased metal.
I type faster and more frantic. Sweat dripping, short of breath, horny boy at my side. Fuck it. I return to the Red Zone because I want more. And more I get...

Severed.

I walk through the masses in Tijuana Centro shuffling along those time worn blackened sidewalks and I receive hostile glances sniffs of disdain heads turn the other way - it's like those nacos can tell when I am broke. Fuck 'em all - squares on both sides.
I have been suffering from the most crippling depression of late. I wonder how I can feel this terrible and keep on living. There are so few people I want to come in contact when I am in this state of insidious human despondency. I find myself catatonic - sitting in a depressed stupor. I feel so sad - so severed. The most trivial things annoy me so I go well out of my way not to be exposed to daily routines. Sure, publicly I am being social - the brief times that they are - but inside the voices are screaming, “Go away! Leave me alone!”
It is time to get offa my rusty dusty and handle my business - I have spoken with a fellow hobo and he had hired a firm to handle his SSI claim. Said they are the best of the best - expensive to say the least but the wait is a fraction of time it usually takes. There's a thought - living off $1000 more or less in another country - sounds real tasty.
Had to be curt with one of the rentboys - Diego is his name and a mooch to the bone. Followed me for two blocks for one dollar in which he continually pressured.
Finally, I stopped in my tracks and spat, “Diego, you are by far the most annoying prostituto in the Plaza! You got nothing I want - scattah!”
“But, I'm hungry.” He said hurt.
“That's the way I like to see you.” I lost myself in the midday rush. I stopped to give a few pesos to a payaso performing with his little son - funny act.
I cannot shake my feeling of apartness from the rest of the human race. I lay here blasting some 30 Seconds to Mars and I wanted to relax - but the retard of a vecino of mine is blaring his television seeping through the walls. Why are Mexicans like that? Televisions, radios, cell phones - they must insist on setting it to maximum volume with no concern or respect of those around them. Fucking third worlders.
Perhaps I can climb up on the roof and cut his power - nah, too much trouble for the likes of him. I just put in my earplugs and go to sleep.