Somewhat Homosexual.

How many cigarettes does it take to wait? How many cups of coffee? I sit in the dead end diner with napkin firmly under coffee cup - I was told in that style, you can tell when someone is waiting - watching nothing out of the big dust streaked pane window.

Outside, it is cold and colorless. Gritty wind whips eddies of trash down a lonely street. A long cry from the sunny, warm surf crashing against the beach just two weeks ago. Here the sky is a harsh cold blue - though dazzling bright, gives no warmth - only a bitter cold, you can feel it in your marrow.

I sip more coffee, take another drag.

Across the street, a bum the same colorless shade of everything else stands in front of the Roman Deco post office hitting passerby for change. I look around the cafe - a cavernous room and only I occupy it. Every sound is amplified.

This is to much. I pay my bill and wander out into the dead desolate streets. The sun is harsh and bright - in the shadows of a few dead trees,it is frightfully cold - you can't win. Meander over to the library, it opens in an hour - so I sit and I smoke some more.

Same faces - same sad, weary faces from two years ago squat in the brilliant sun with forlorn beat looks waiting also. A group of homeless fag kids squat nearby - smoking and squealing about porn.

At that moment, lumbers up an acquaintance from the mission, Isaac - a tall, lanky red-neck with the gift of gab. Not bad looking in a yuk-yuk hee-haw kinda way. He pulls out a book of poetry and knocks off a few riffs -I am astonished that a couple were quite good.

Out of the blue, he states that I seem somewhat homosexual. I laugh and give him no comment - just blew more smoke up into that piercing blue Texan sky. He goes into a psychotropic medication induced soliloquy about his long circumcised penis and how - in exact detail - he uses it on the women he had conquered, all with a coy look in my direction and the occasional grab at his crotch.

I ain't feeling it. The mood that is. I say goodbye or the equivalent and shuffle the few blocks to the Tap Bar.

It is dank and occupied by a few barflies. A bloated faerie in a Stetson waves at me with squinting bloodshot eyes - swaying on his stool. I ignore the repulsive fat fuck. A few beers later, I sit staring at my ravaged reflexion in the mirror and I wonder what the fuck I'm gonna do. El Paso is a drag. My gut is telling me Juarez is far too dangerous. I can't leave the country to far or to long or I'll loose my benefits. This fat old hobo - Carl from the mission, who has the most disgusting gun shot wound on his bulbous nose from some conflict south of the border - has been talking of Acuna, MX on the border of Texas south of here,about how quiet and peaceful it is - that is another option. And the saddest part still is Puerto Rico is an enigma. I can't seem to find a website with local rent prices - only with bloated overpriced gringo prices.

I need to wait. I sip my beer - order a shot of whiskey,down it and as the warm rush affects this cold corpse,I realize I must wait and see where the cards lay...