Monday, March 22, 2010

Desolation Angel's

We walked three miles for beer.
Three fucking miles down a dusty stretch of road where all the sad shops were closed on a inhospitable windy Sunday afternoon. Row after row of faded multicolored adobe sante fe style buildings rusted and crumbed that had to date back to the 40's sat baking in that glaring Texan sun under that eye searing baby blue sky that spread forever out in every direction. The wind whipped and we trudged slowly because that's how Gabriel walks...slowly.
Gabriel and I did stop for some grub at the sole diner that was open 24hrs nestled in amongst what seemed to be a million diners that were all closed.
Jaime's Hut - long wooden counter, ratty red booths, metal stools, grill and fryer across from you where you can watch them prepare your food. High white ceiling with old fans and huge plate glass windows like something out of a 1930's gangster film. I had fantastic menudo, Gabe had a cheeseburger with greasy ass fries. Cheap food, but good.
Heading back out into that sandstorm, Gabe and I stumbled into Frontera Bar - our destination for one dollar beers. The joint was packed. This squat building was festering with ratty old men donning fedoras and stetsons, ugly bloated women faces covered in moles and missing teeth. Cholos on the nod drooped by the pool table as con men and junkies huddled in dark corner plotting their next schemes - dirty fingers clentched dirty plastic cups of beer. Gabriel and I took a table and ordered two huge mugs of beer.
A band wailed ranchero music from Sinaloa as on opposite sides two scrawny bitches gyrated to the clinking clanking music - the "dancers" wearing black denim covering their flat asses, cowboy boots, black stetsons, no shirts so you had to gawk at their pancake tits flopping around under the strobing red spot light.
But, that wasn't what caught our attention. Dancing between these two gargoyles was a squat and bloated pig of a woman, her pot belly undulated out from her black tube top, her thighs jiggled in her tight black stirrups, her sweaty back covered in tattoos and hickeys - she definitely thought she was the shit.
Shit...
Gabriel and I nicknamed her Flabasaurus. There was many a joke that night concerning Flabasaurus. Drunk old perverts actually pawed at her unappetizing anatomy.
When the band took a break and the pain from our ravaged eyes wore off, the juke box started to play some weird shit for such a hardcore place - Dancing Queen by Abba, Staying Alive by The Bee Gees, YMCA by The Village People?! There was a drunk guy sitting next to me that would belt out the "YMCA" chorus part to me point blank splattering my face in a fine coat of saliva. Then he would attempt to dance along, but would always spell out "YMUX" with his arms. Then thrusting his crotch into my face. I just sat there grinning - what could I do? I was the sole gringo - this was their territory, I wouldn't dare upset the natives.
Ah, what the hell, just a big drunk lug having a good time I pondered. He would ask one of the drunk old hags dressed in black sitting in the dark against the wall to dance and then on then dance floor he looked like a palm tree in a hurricane. I was embarrassed for him.
I excused my self and went into the men's room. The stall was occupied by some old fart grunting and huffing who hadn't shit in months so I sided up to the urinal. A ruggedly handsome vaquero had his fat uncut dong out - just holding it. I took my piss, right, and he's standing there holding himself, staring into the mirror adjacent to us. I'm done pissing and I notice he's just staring in the mirror at me. He looks like a Mexican Marlboro man and his pecker is growing - inching up and out. I reach over and grab it. Warm and hard. I start stroking it - feeling the skin sliding over the head, the precum at the tip, it getting harder...
The bathroom door slams open and some goofy goober barges in whipping out his dork spraying urine all over the floor up to the urinal and we hurriedly compose ourselves and march out. I return to my table. From my seat, I watch the cowboy walk out into the chilled night.
The band starts up and it is fucking karaoke - Mexican Style. Ugh. I tell Gabriel, let's split. One of Gabe's friends is sitting with us - some guy named Joe. He is wasted and promptly lights up a cigarette. One of the bitter faced, four breasted waitresses stomps over and yells at him, squishes the cigarette out, slaps Joe around and then threw us all out.
Oh well.
So, we all march back downtown drunk off our asses through darkened empty warehouses and lonely train tracks and snoring hobos and barking dogs in the black distance. In the middle of this urban desolation, we find a lone bar still open called Fonzie's! Aaaaaayyy...
Warm yellow light from within, somber oldies drifting from the jukebox into the lonely night. We enter and are the only one's there. The bar is managed by a short fat man named Bruce who serves us our Bud Lite - only beer he's got. We talk and drink, then we go back into that desolate lonely beat night of El Paso.
Strolling and stumbling, cause we three are pretty ripped, you see. I am up front, Gabriel is behind me and Joe is bringing up the rear. The warehouses finally give way to some wood framed houses. Gabriel and I are holding some damn conversation about Socialism and it's effect on Fast Food when we hear a thump! We look back to see Joe's bottom legs and sneakers poking out from some damn rose bushes! After seemingly twenty minutes of some Three Stooges shenanigans, we get Joe back on his feet and continue downtown. Again, before we reach our destination - a 24hr. liquor store - Joe promptly disappears! Oh well, I state. And Gabriel and I stock up on a 30 pack of Schlitz and some tater chips, walk over to alligator park and sit drinking till the sun comes up.
And it does...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

And I'm thinking about moving back to El Paso. The story brings back memories from back in the day when I hung out in Alligator Park and had to get drunk to enter some of the places where I went to drink. I'm currently living in the glamor city of Ciudad Juarez, but I haven't walked the streets of El Paso since the seventies. Yes, El Paso is close, yet so far away. You've certainly captured its charm. But, since I'm living as a moving target in Juarez, El Paso seems a haven of tranquility, security, and obese girls in tight jeans and cowboy boots. But, let's be fair. Not all the studs spray saliva in your face. Even in Juarez, I have better luck than that. And I'm way past the age of being desirable.
Great story, but strikes me as journalism. If memory serves and my current experiences aren't purely illusory, I find no element of fiction in your story. --except that I had no idea that you could buy beer in El Paso after 2 a.m. That's good to know. Or is that the fiction?

LMB said...

Indeed and thank you for your kind comment, Sr. Magno. Yes, if you wish to backtrack and read past postings of when I used to actually live in Juarez (8 yrs!), I think you will enjoy them very much - tales of 'Freegay'' Nebraska''Bar Buen Tiempo''Banos Roma' among many others. And you hit it on the mark why I chose not to return to Juarez - it is a virtual war zone and is much safer on the other side. And, yes to clear it up - I guess I did write it to make it seem later, but we were kicked out of Frontera about 9pm so we had plenty of time to gather our booty for the evening debauchery in Aligator Plaza, forgive me for that...