War of the Worms.

The Old Queer squirms on a lime stone bench in Plaza las Armas, Ciudad Juarez. That being in Mexico, cabron. (Indian adolescents walk by, arms around each other’s neck and ribs); strain his dying flesh to occupy young ass and thighs, tight balls and hard spurting cocks. A boy walking past, turns, grins at him and yell "Que tal, chief?", their boy innocence achingly whip across his sagging buttocks and drooping loins. He screams, an enigmatic Sybil with dark glasses and grey face. Piss blood warm on his withered thighs.

I set my pen down on my notebook and look at the clock on the cafe wall. There was a vato at the counter giving me the eye and I delineated a vague good impression like something half seen from a bus window - back from the screaming, shuddering sickness, everything so sharp and clear it hurts, suddenly smeared with grey smoke - the clock had jumped ahead like the time will after 2pm even for a sick junky - and I don't want to know about him or anybody...

"Hector." I mouth the name silently, finish my coffee and cigarette – we fought and argued over same silly shit. He wants me to stay in Juarez for the sole benefit of my finances. Out of the nine billion fucked up souls on this planet, he picks me to support him and his ma. No, I whisper.

The night prior, his cousin had visited from Tabasco – by name of Adrian, a sultry, walking hard on with the air that no one, and I mean no one, will refuse his glare when he pin-points your ass to pummel in unbridled macho-lust. We had sat on the roof of Hector’s one story, adobe trap drinking beers and listening to cha-cha reggeaton as out in the paranoid City, citizens partied, fucked, and died. Gunshots in the distance mixed with jukeboxes and car horns. I blew smoke from a joint up into a dark sky blanketed in a swath of twinkling stars. After the beer began to flow, Hector began the same old-same old and it pissed me off, or should I say, irritated the fuck out of me because I was held in the trance of Adrian’s hypnotic spell and all I wanted was that sultry motherfucker to screw me into the dirt.

“You’re being a letdown, boy and an all-around drag.” I drearily said to Hector.

He then went into full bitch mode: Droning on about his financial woes and the cold, imperious nature of your common American homosexual that, if I didn’t know better, was aimed at me. I retorted that if he cared for me as much as my bank account, he would have so much to complain about.

Hector flew into a tizzy (macho homo that I first met two years ago is really declining into a full, fledged fag) and stomped downstairs to warrant sympathy from his mother because he wasn’t gonna get shit from my gringo ass. I sat there a moment, holding my caguama – silently contemplating the conundrum. Adrian had other ideas. He got up off the milk crate he was stooped on, silently walked over to me, gently pushed my head back and stood over me, shoving his tongue into my mouth. I sat there – all quite around us except for the occasional smack or slurp – when all of a sudden Adrian is violently hurled away from me from a rather pissed off Hector who silently slunk back up onto the roof. Hector roared at the well-inebriated Adrian to get the fuck offa me or something like that as the two did a short ballet around the roof swinging blows. I sat there, watching this stupid mess and as I light a cigarette, Mother of Hector swoops up and puts an end to these faggoty-ass shenanigans.

A few words are exchanged and I utter I’m going to get a hotel room to think this silly shit through. And, I do.

As I began this post: Sitting in this café thinking. No one here but me – syphoned inna booth. I do care for Hector. Physically. Mentally. Not too much emotionally. However, after a decade in dealing with this culture, I am befuddled that I still carry that snotty ass attitude of West Hollywood with me when dealing with these gay fuckers. Of course it will be a financial boon to him and his mother - they have nothing. What do I get out of it? A few kicks? I want more. I want what every red-blooded homosexual wants. I want to be loved back. Unconditionally and without strings. But, that seems an impossibility in this land of Mexico. Unless I hook up with some simpering, fey faggot and that truly sickens me.

Fuck it. I leave the cafe stroll through dusty near empty streets. A mangy, yellow dog stares at me from a mountain of garbage. Happy fat Mexican waves at my white ass from his shop. A group of chattering Indian women hush up as I walk by on the smashed sidewalk. I stop in an internet cafe and type this shit out. Yeah, I'm going back to Hector's house. I think I love him.