Racial Profiling.

"So, what do you consider yourself? White or Hispanic?" She asked sitting across from me holding the completed application.

"Well." I said, palm up and out - typical junky con gesture. "I am the result of interracial breeding." What I wanted to say - look at me! This is what happens when one of you spics fucks an Anglo, you deformed chilango! Get on with the interview!

She acted a little uneasy, "We have to pick either or, Mr. Blasini."

I sat and I thought. That is the story of my life - my very existence - I don't fit into any category or check box. Just gotta make it up as I go along. "Hispanic." I flatly stated, maybe can get some freebies working that minority route.

Within an hour I had received my food stamp card and jetted out of the office to stand in whipping winds and chilled rain for a bus. As we lumbered down Alameda Blvd. - past block houses and crumbling adobe facades left over from the 1940's - I sat in the back watching a heavy and highly intoxicated cholo tag up the back of the bus with bleary eyed abandon. As the colorless vista chugged past I sank deeper in my frump, El Paso is not my Time/Place location. I have not found it yet. I do believe I have come close, but to no avail. As stated previously, I will purchase the bare essentials for this new apartment all the while cranking out two novels and come next winter it's off to where ever. And why not? I have nothing else.