Happy Halloween!

Coffee Talk.

We’re all rocked by the waves of struggle when it comes down to those circumstances that change us from within. Whether you’re hurt, angry, jealous, or longing from afar, they prompt you to keep on fighting.

You’re carried on such currents from somewhere that was once near-perfect in a moment, and permanently tattoos every moved thought and emotion that traverses through the delicate fibers of which you are composed. Your downfalls are brought about by the hesitance to loosen the grip and let things be as they may. Returning to an existence that is uninspired is feared, and so you try to run from it by holding on to that short time when reality seemingly dissolved away.

You do whatever we can to chase down a fond memory, and in doing so, you bring out the worst in yourself. Your own emotions dig craters that go bone deep, and you’re left as cold and hollow as a winter’s night lacking even the slightest breeze. You begin to loathe time itself and the cavernous distance it creates between the past and present.

The moment you realize that it will only continue you corrode you from the inside out is the moment when you stop putting up a fight. Like even the best of times, the worst can be carried off with every stroke of the second hand as long as you make amends with what is, here and now.

The fondest moments will always bring longing bubbling to the surface, but loosening ties with it and accepting where you are is the only way to keep being and moving on up. Perhaps if time is on your side, such moments will reoccur.

Only the rise and fall of the passing days hold that answer.

Rotting Away in Grey

His eyes were sad and grey when I met him. They reminded me of a stormy Sunday morning. I asked him about it and he said they’re green and grey, hazel, or rather something in between. I never saw them green though, always sad and grey. There were days when they were little less grey, and when they looked black almost. Days when he’d come with fresh cuts on his thighs and wrists, still leaking small spots of blood. Days when he’d come with his skin blistered from the scorching hot metal he’d press on it until it boiled and hurt. Those days he’d come and his eyes were empty like used shotgun shells, just a hollow space where life used to be.

Some do. Some don't.

“There are two types of people in the world,” he said, without looking up from his glass. “People who go to bars alone and people who don’t.”

I wouldn’t have known he was talking to me if it weren’t for the fact that there was no one else around. Maybe he wasn’t talking to me, maybe he was thinking out loud. But I was lonely and he was handsome and it was just me and him and the sad half-empty bottles of liquor lining the wall in front of us, so I said, “There are two types of people in the world, people who drink before noon and people who don’t.”

He smiled, turning to look at me and then tilting his head towards the window, where drops were sliding down the pane.

“There are two types of people in the world. People who like to walk in the rain, and people who don’t.”

This morning I had wandered the damp streets for an hour, with no sense of purpose or direction, eventually winding up here. I wondered if he could smell the rain rising from my skin.

“People who drive to get somewhere, and people who drive to find somewhere.”

He nodded in approval, took a sip of his drink. I wondered what it was. Gin, perhaps.

“People who want to go everywhere, and people who want to stay in one place.”

“The settlers and the restless.”

“The lovers and the losers.”

 “The left and the leaving.”

“People who kiss strangers…” He leant across the space between us and pressed his lips to mine. It was vodka he was drinking.

He slipped away, settling back on his barstool. I saw his sad eyes and his alcoholic lips and his smile like a riptide in the ocean, like a crack in a frozen-over lake. Outside, the rain got a little harder.

“There are two types of people,” I said. “People who understand, and people who don’t.”

Pinche Puta.

I have been re-editing Puta. What a headache. It is driving me crazy! Crazier. Let me explain a bit about that novel. It was originally a chapter from my first attempt at writing a novel. Basically the book was a watered down version of this blog and a vain attempt to produce a travel story arc thing. Seriously, squishing a decade into 300 pages was a headache. Well, eventually the character winds up in Mexico during a very long chapter entitled Juarez City Blues. It slowed the story down - while the rest of the book was about traveling, this show stopper was about a fractured romance. So, before I sent the MS in for publication, I edited the entire chapter out. Flash forward to after Tweeker was published. The company was badgering me for another book, so I pulled out Juarez City Blues and re-titled it Puta. I never thought it would sell...but it is.

So, I am streamlining it to make it more readable in a professionally written sense. Names are being changed, some chapters are being swapped around. There are entire paragraphs that i used in Tweeker, so those will have to be re-written. It's a mess. But, the story is interesting enough to keep.

And, so it goes...

In Dreams I Walk With You.

Dreams. Dreams are the glue of life. Without them, we have no hopes, no ambitions, no reason to even get out of bed in the morning. The point is, how can we make our dreams into reality? And, I am talking about real dreams - not fantasies of high wealth, the perfect soul mate, or even world domination. Even though those three are dreams to some. Not I.

This life of mine - this life that I have lived of madness, adventure, and wondrous mystery is halfway done. I have done things in which many deem repugnant or insane or reckless. I have no regrets. Not one.

And because of my life in which I enjoyed, during the previous three years, I have been lectured and suggested and downright scolded upon that I need to "settle down", "get comfortable" and the most dreaded "be more stable". Well, Dear Reader, I've tried it and to tell you the truth, I fucking hate it. How dull. How maudlin. How outright insidious. I realize I have harped on this before. And, here it is again. Only with a difference.

Everything has a reason. There are no accidents. I was completely depressed and bewildered that I had returned to El Paso. How I loathe this town and it's small mindedness. The local "hipsters" in who I tried to connect with are a boring and self pretentious lot. Gossipy and un-inspiring. The gay ones are not even interesting and I am not speaking on a sexual level. They are simply boring. In conversation, artistically and too wrapped up in their cookie cutter lifestyle  of being accepted by their peers.

No, my time/space location is not here. Even though I had been rewarded with a means to live a sedate and comfortable existence here. That is all it is...existence. I want to live.

As I mentioned, the reason has revealed itself since I returned to this God awful hell hole. I am now saving every penny I have to relocate to my dream of living in Puerto Rico. The dream I had three years ago before I got stuck in this town. I will go. In six months. I've calculated, analyzed, and studied all options and I don't mind telling you they are all possible to attain.

I have acquired a very reasonable apartment, however, instead of filling it with awesome furnishings as I had done in the past, I have only bought a bed, television and the basic staples of comfort. To save money, I bought an xbox 360 and am addict (harrharr) to Fallout 3. A super huge game that is taking up most of my time - instead of squandering my royalties on fluff like things for said apartment, booze, and fine dining.

I had also laid off of that virtual showboat Facebook. Damn the people on there bore me to fucking tears. I'd deleted it once, but had received several emails by concerned associates on my where abouts, so I reactivated it only to be mired in the same mundane shit. Anyway, I rather have real world conversation than virtual, any day.

I will only focus on this blog from now on. And, my writing. I have been updating all the grammatical errors that I have been finding and updating prose, adding subtracting dialogue (I had previously edited them myself and recently hired a professional editor) and I am happy with the results. I just finished with Tweeker and have now began with Puta. Damned if my work will be read on the same literary level as 50 Shades of Gray!

I really am looking forward to moving to Puerto Rico - new adventures, new people, a wonderful climate and just seedy enough for my tastes. And I gather there is a huge writing colony there. (It doesn't exist in my present location)

And so, the dream and the second half of this blog continues...

Crazy?

Crazy? I was crazy once. My parents locked me in a round room and told me to sit in the corner. Corner? I couldn’t find a corner! That bugged me. Bugs? I hate bugs. They drive me crazy! Crazy? I was crazy once...

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Psychiatric Hospital...

It finally happened and I mean really happened. I flew over the cuckoo's nest.

After I returned to El Paso from Tijuana, I was mired in such abject depression I realized I needed some help or I would had ended this turmoil then and there. I had attempted to seek a psychiatrist to administer a prescription to my meds to no avail. I was finally referred to the 1-800 number on the back of my medicaid card for references.

I called and out of the five doctors - one did not accept medicaid, four were not currently taking patients - I was finally told over the phone to try UBH. I had never heard of the place and after googling it, I found it was a brand spanking new nut house located near my apartment.

The following day, I walked the few blocks to the blue-painted hospital and inquired about making an appointment to see a doctor. Please fill out these forms and have a seat. I did and filled them out. Eventually, I was led into another waiting area. Filled with some seriously mentally ill individuals. One old man sat on a couch continuously sobbing about how he looked like Frankenstein.

Okay.

Anyways, I was finally seen by a polite nurse who escorted me into a private room and asked me a list of usual questions. I answered truthfully all until one:

HER: Have you ever had thoughts of suicide?

ME: All the time. I mean really, who wants to live a life like this? (I was referring to my personal hell the previous decades.)

She continued to ask questions, smiling, and then excused herself from the room. She quickly returned with another lady who also was smiling moronically.

"What brought you here today?" She asked.

"Well, I'd like to make an appointment to see a doctor. If that is possible. I recently returned to El Paso and I need someone to write my prescriptions." I explained.

"Well, what we can do is ask you to stay the night, then you will see a doctor first thing tomorrow morning instead of having to wait up to a month." She beamed.

At first, I said no. As a matter of fact, I said no several times.

"But it's only for one night. Plus, we have a pool, workout room...it'll be like a vacation."

"Ugh. Fine." I rationalized, I live down the street and I know sometimes you had to kiss ass to get things in these joints. I've dealt with them before.

I was escorted - after relinquishing my belt, shoes, and wallet (for protection from other guests. What?) out of the office and through a gated, steel door. clang! Two huge motherfucking black orderlies appeared and I was taken to a tiny office were another nurse informed me I was to be held up to ten days on suicide watch.

"This is bullshit!" I stated. "You can't do this!"

"Under Texas law, we can. You said in your screening that you had suicidal tendencies."

"I thought about it! I wasn't going to do it!"

"Same thing, sir. Now strip."

Several doctors came in and out of the room, jiggling me up there, jiggling me down here, probing and poking. Then I was shown to my room that reeked of vomit and bleach. A sparse room with three cots. My "roomies" consisted of a guy I nicknamed Clompy on account of he would clop up and down the hall loudly all the while yelling how he was going to sue the hospital for malpractice. He looked like Sloth from The Goonies. My other bunky I awarded the moniker Senor Fartabulous - more on that later.

Throughout the rest of the day, I kept being asked to sign this, initial that and they took uncounted blood samples. It was madness. The place was literally Bedlam - like the places you saw in the movies. Catatonic retards played at the air, smelly old bastards giggled at everything and nothing, people yelled, moaned and hollered. And it was co-ed!! Women were mixed in with the men! And I am sure not a sexual deviant among them.

I simply kept in my room and lay in a fetal position on my bed wondering how my day turned out like this.

Night fell, everyone was issued meds - except me - and put to bed. In the dark room, amid long shadows clop-clop-clop until 11 at night when the Thorazine kicked in. Then, Senor Fartabulous began to issue trumpeting farts that would had shamed tuba players around the globe. Long, loud burst! In all my years of staying in slums, shelters, flop houses, and grotto, I had never encountered anyone with the forcing blasts of that mans flatulence. How could his sphincter take that abuse?

Well, being literally farted out of the room, I was granted by the snickering security guards in the hall that I could change rooms. I found one, but I couldn't sleep - fears of leaving that place lobotomized swam too much in my head.

The following days were of course uneventful, but unpleasant. My new roomies consisted an old heroin junkie and an 19 yr old half mex/jap named Jason. A real cutie with a beautiful ass and at least I had him to keep me from really going under. Too bad he was nuttier than squirrel shit.

I saw a doctor during that time who came to the conclusion that not only was I sane, but he had plans to take my pension away and return me to the work force like a common peasant. Fuck that!

Things with the patients got worse. There were several fights, an old hag kept going on about how she was raped everywhere she went, Senor Fartabulous would walk up and down the hall with a sheet over him like a Halloween ghost and yelling, "Pinche putos!!" Then there of course "the Wackers". God!!!

We were let out every three hours to a small quad with a mesh roof to smoke. Jason and I chatted and met a kid named Greg who was locked up for ramming his car through his parents house. I thought, Why doesn't the news ever report these stories instead of mindless fluff and the weather every two minutes?

People go to the mental hospital for different reasons, ranging from self-mutilation to homicidal thoughts to eating disorders.

For some people the mental hospital will help them, but for others like me, it only makes them worse.

I absolutely despise mental hospitals. You are deprived from your reality, and they don’t really help you with your problems. They are very dreary and boring as well. They literally just make you sit in a room, where you watch t.v. most of the day. I feel like they don’t actually try to help you, they just lock you away so you won’t hurt yourself or anyone else until you can convince them you’re ‘better’.

The bathrooms have no locks, so you are constantly worrying about someone walking in on you. The showers turn off every 30 seconds so you have to keep turning it back on, and you cannot change the temperature so sometimes it will be too hot or too cold. The staff also does night checks, so they will shine a flashlight on your face every 15 minutes throughout the night to make sure you are still alive. They wake you up very early as well, and you have to go to sleep at 10 every night. The food is alright, I think they are trying to make everyone fat though. Make sure you eat every meal too, because if they suspect you have an eating disorder life there gets worse.

And if you make disturbances to the other inpatients or if you are deemed a threat they will stick a needle in you that makes you fall asleep immediately. They also put on antidepressants if you aren’t already on them. Antidepressants are horrible for your brain. They will dull your mind and you will feel like a zombie. That’s what it did to me at least.

Finally, days later, I was released - fully medicated and pissed off. When I was being processed, the offices up front were closed and I was informed that they had no way of opening the safe which held my affects I gave them when I was committed.

"My keys are in there. How am I going to get into my apartment?" I asked calmly.

The intern left to the front of the offices and returned with, I kid you not, fucking Nurse Ratchet!

"Sir, what we can do, is order you a cab - we will totally pay for it - and we will take you home. You can then return later for your affects. Someone is on their way right now to open the safe."

I wanted to punch that bitch in the face.

She looked at me. I looked at her.

"Don't be like that." She chirped. "Can I see a smile?"

"You have my house keys in that safe." I said calmly. "Going home would be irrelevant." No use being a raving lunatic, I'd be taken back to the ward.

She said she'd see what she could do and walked out. Moments later, she walks out with my stuff. Was that a test? Or were they just fucking with me?

I got out of that crazy-ass place as fast as I could and walked home.

Never again...

Stupid Prick.

I woke up one day with a fear. I was absolutely positive that my cock’s gonna fall off. It wasn’t pain, it wasn’t itchy, just an irrational fear that it’s just going to dry off, wither away and crumble, like chips in your clenched fist. My cock is a late fall leaf that fell off some sad old tree eons ago. I held my cock for three hours non-stop for the first time without beating it. Just held it as if it were a newborn baby that’s bound to die due to some unspecified disease. And unspecified indeed it was. I put on the tightest underpants my drawer was harboring, slowly and carefully got dressed and walked out into the world.

The world was terrible. A foul, filthy place filled with terrible creatures, rushing through me as if I were transparent. Everyone is in a hurry and I don’t let them even brush against my dick in the bus. I rush out of it as soon as I reach my doctor’s office. My GP is a middle-aged fat woman that I’ve never met before in my life. The queue is almost nonexistent, and yet I am sweating like a wild boar in a forest fire. They call out my name and I am in the office in a matter seconds. She looks at me and I presume my face is a chill pepper. You can almost cut through the smoke coming out of my ears. She giggles like a teenage girl and invites me to sit.

“My cock’s gonna fall off!”

Excuse me, she says.

“My fucking penis is going to fall off, I know it.”

Did I cut it, she enquires with a tone of ridicule.

“No, I didn’t fucking cut it, it’s gonna wither and die and I fucking know it.”

Before she could protest, my pants are down and her eyes are locked onto my private parts. I have no time to be ashamed, my dick is gonna fall off.

She stands up, kneels down, looks at it for nothing more than I tiny bit of time and tells me to pull up my goddamn pants.

“Pull up my pants? What the hell is wrong with me?”

Two drops trickle down my face disfigured with terror and I can’t tell which is which, tears, or sweat. I breathe heavily and she deduces that I oughta visit a shrink.

“A fucking shrink? I need a fucking operation! You need to scan my cock, MRI, or some shit!”

Call in the boys, everyone’s gotta see this freak.

She is writing me a referral to a very dear neurologist friend of hers, she says, if he can’t help you, no one can, she says, just calm down, she says.

“Calm down?” I say, ‘Calm the fuck down?”, I say, “I need my cock for future endeavors, don’t tell me to calm down!”

Moments later two guys are carrying my screaming body through the hallway, moments after that I am on my ass outside.

I start running.

What does a man do when he is lost? He starts running. And he runs and runs as the stars go by in the sky or right before his eyes. I’m talking about the white dots when one completely and utterly exhausts himself. When one’s knees start shaking and his arms start aching in exhaustion. When his own mind starts a failsafe procedure of firing up the fuel reserves of rage, when the images of him start flashing before his eyes only to shovel the coal of rage into the big oven.

I don’t know where I’m going. There is a river on my left side, and I can’t bear to think about that which is between my legs. I cannot bear to look at it, I can’t bear to touch it. I already start feeling that it is not a part of my body. A dire need flashes before my eyes. Scenes of gruesome violence embroidered with white dots randomly appearing all over my gaze. I scream and yell and scream. Then I fall down, tormented by exhaustion, filled with irrational fears. I feel somebody clenching my bicep, but I shake off and jog on.

It is cold and dark and my skin is steaming. Everywhere across my body I can see the steam. I have no time to stop and investigate this occurrence.

Pictures of him, carpet-bombing my memory more and more often.

I am my own worst enemy. I am literally my own worst enemy.

I imagine breaking his nose. I imagine him thin and bloody on the dance floor. I imagine him dried up and I think of my dick.

Out of my mind I start strolling back to my place. I stroll back because I cannot run. I cannot run and I will never ever run again. My cock is being separated from my body, and in some other universe, in some other body, I laugh at the irony of it. I am rolling on the floor and this is a comedy.

I feel the gaze of every and anyone I come across. I feel I look like seven different kinds of shit. I am going to end up a dickless beggar on the slimy streets of this dear city of mine. My dick is no longer a part of me. My hand feels its soft skin but my mind tells me it’s dry, almost crumbling into the inner parts of my underpants. Crumbs of my penis.

It has gotta go. This madness has to stop. It’s either him, or both of us.

The knife is sharp. Give it a few moments and it’ll be hot. Like hot knife through butter. I feel my cock with my hand and it is shriveled up. It won’t give up. It’ll never give up. It runs back into his cave, but he can’t fit entirely.

“What a prick.” I giggle.

My dick is on the table and this looks like a terribly low-budget pornographic picture. Somebody kicks my door in.

This is the police, don’t move, they say

“What you gonna do?” I laugh madly.

There is help, they can help me, they will take me to a place with white walls and my prick’s gonna be perfectly fine there. Words, words, words.

A man dismembers his penis in a satanic ritual, I can already see it in the papers. Fuck Satan, this ain’t about him. I gotta do this. I know you don’t understand. Neither do I, but I have to. There are no voices in my head. No voices but mine. And I am reasoning with myself. I have patiently waited for any other solution, but there isn’t. I cannot be one with my penis anymore. It’s either him or the both of us.

It is fine, the policeman says. He will help me, he begs. If it were a woman she wouldn’t care. They never care. They just welcome it for a hot party and then throw it out all drunk on juice and flabby. They never care, he never cared.

Let me help you, his words come as shocks springing me into the reality, but only for brief moments. I am my heart and they are blowing pulse into it. Every word of his is just a spike. A spike that doesn’t support another one. There is no spike after spike. Only a spike. One. One is not enough.

His gun is away and he is approaching me. His right hand directed towards the knife and left one slowly moving towards my dick. Now it really looks like a stupid porno.

Then I smile and say: “Sorry for the future nightmares”, and thrust the knife downward.

Mysterious Skin

A teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions cross paths, together discovering a horrible, liberating truth.

Directed by Gregg Araki. Starring Brady Corbet, Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Nothing.

Lately I’ve been feeling like lemon rinds left over from squeezing out lemonade. I don’t have enough in me left to make things, to give. I can only take. There is nothing left to open up about, because there’s nothing left. I’ve been completely hollowed out, and now blank pages taunt me with their emptiness. Why can’t I remember how to do this anymore?

Junky Talk.

"In the City Market is the Meet Café. Followers of obsolete, unthinkable trades doodling in Etruscan, addicts of drugs not yet synthesized, pushers of souped-up harmine, junk reduced to pure habit offering precarious vegetable serenity, liquids to induce Latah, Tithonian longevity serums, black marketeers of World War III, excusers of telepathic sensitivity, osteopaths of the spirit, investigators of infractions denounced by bland paranoid chess players, servers of fragmentary warrants taken down in hebephrenic shorthand charging unspeakable mutilations of the spirit, bureaucrats of spectral departments, officials of unconstituted police states, a Lesbian dwarf who has perfected operation Bang-utot, the lung erection that strangles a sleeping enemy, sellers of orgone tanks and relaxing machines, brokers of exquisite dreams and memories tested on the sensitized cells of junk sickness and bartered for raw materials of the will, doctors skilled in the treatment of diseases dormant in the black dust of ruined cities, gathering virulence in the white blood of eyeless worms feeling slowly to the surface and the human host, maladies of the ocean floor and the stratosphere, maladies of the laboratory and atomic war… A place where the unknown past and the emergent future meet in a vibrating soundless hum… Larval entities waiting for a Live One…"

- Naked Lunch

The Cage.

Before Captain Archer...before Captain Janeway or Sisko...before Captain Picard...and even before Captain Kirk, there was Captain Christopher R. Pike.

The original Star Trek series aired in 1966, however a pilot was made in 1964 and was passed over by the studio suits. "Too cerebral" They said. "Too erotic" They said. "Get rid of the broad in command and the guy with the ears."

Another pilot was filmed with the now famous cast and the rest was history.

This will always be my favorite episode of Star Trek. I present to you The Cage in it's entirety. Enjoy.

Why can’t you love me like I love you?

After work and crossing the border, I took a rattling old Mexican bus to my trap (Thanking God, I didn’t have hemorrhoids) and rested for an hour. Showered, dressed, gulped down a shot of Jack, smoked a stick of ganja whilst I listened to Blue Spanish Sky by Chris Isaak.

When 6:45pm rolled around, I jetted out into the cold night to the Plaza and my meet with Oscar at seven.

Oscar was punctual and as handsome as ever. And glad he wasn’t late; there was an impromptu Christian band that wailed on the gazebo and, mien Gott, they sounded like crossing the sounds of mating moose and chorus of strangling clowns. Horrid noise.

We both plowed through the teeming masses of Saturday night revelry, past packs of drunken kids in hip-hop gear, junkie’s furtive and aware, hipsters on the hustle, dodged zipping cars and kamikaze buses to a secluded taco shop of Oscar’s choice. Except for a sullen paraplegic in a wheelchair, we were the only clientele.

Ordering two plates of mouth-watering tacos carne asada, Oscar and I laughed and talked of past experiences, his failed attempts to jump the border, his work, my work, Hollywood, and Heavy Metal.

After dinner, Oscar asked, “You want to drink? You pick the bar.”

“Sure.” I agreed. “I know the perfect spot.”

I paid the bill and we hit La Cruda, a hole I’d frequented.

I ordered two caguamas of Carta Blanca’s and we took a table. La Cruda was the bar el primo I stumbled into when I first hit Juárez and had enjoyed it ever since. A non-attitude place of non-interference.

On one end of the small bar, several fags shrieked and posed, in the middle, working class machos gesticulated and roared in animated discussions about futbol scores and pussy and at the other end, two fat whores, bloated and sordid in purple and pink spandex cooing and swaying around a drunken, old American. Alone on the other side against the wall, under a dusty portrait of Marilyn Monroe, was a handsome and sad, lonely man singing into his glass to the tunes vibrating off of the green, cracked and flaking plaster walls. All this under the garish, yellow and red neon of the blasting jukebox that played American Rock and Mexican Pop.

Raul, one of the waiters whom I’d known since day one, sat at our table and drank and joked with Oscar and me.

After a couple of caguamas and a few good jokes, Oscar said, “Let’s go” and we hit the concrete.

A little buzzed, Oscar stated, “Since you picked the last bar, I’m choosing the next.”

“Lead the way.” I said, as I lit a cigarette.

Stumbling down Juárez Avenue, we cut into a cavernous hall.

“You like cholos,” Oscar said, “You’ll like this bar.”

We sat at a table in the gloomy darkness and in this hangar-sized cantina were about seven people at the blue lit bar and all were lined up in this order: Two young queers, one overtly fem in black slacks and black turtleneck, the other macho and would yell the grito de los vaqueros every time a ranchero song would play on el Rockola (Jukebox), a fat, glassy-eyed drunk in a gray suit, one size too small, kept eyeing everyone with contempt and suspicion over his fizzing beer, a handsome cowboy in tight, white jeans with the best ass I’d ever seen - ever!

He would nod and smile, tipping his white cowboy hat at the macho fag who would let loose with the yell and his partner would squirm and coo.

Next to the cowboy were two sleazy looking women, one appeared as if she was pregnant with her belly plopped out between her skirt and her halter top. But, no, it was only her flab. Ew. Next to the women, was a well-dressed, elderly couple who danced a slow waltz to anything that played. It was like a Fellini movie.

“So,” I grinned to Oscar. “Where are these elusive cholos?”

He took a swig of beer, “They’ll be around.”

Excusing myself to the men’s room was a mistake. The smell nearly knocked me on my ass. When I approached the urinal, the stench of decaying feces was too much and of course, I had to look over the porcelain wall to find that both toilets were filled to the brim with rotting shit. An inch of urine covered the floor. Lovely.

The chemistry between Oscar and I began to flow and crackle and the next thing, we were striding over the broken sidewalks and garbage - past Indians with outward palms up, past blue and yellow colored adobe houses, past smells of seared meat and dried vomit, back to my trap.

We sat on my couch, sipping coca-colas and Oscar looked through my photo album, coyly grinning as he kept returning to the two photographs I had taken of him from around the first time we had met.

He would smile as I pointed out the pictures, “Remember that night? Seemed so long ago, Oscar. Look, how handsome.”

Oscar politely laughed.

The night progressed as we casually chatted and gazed into each other’s eyes.

Oscar asked, “Can I stay the night? The buses have stopped running and I live kinda far.”

How could I refuse?

Indeed.

The lights went out and we were in my bed, lying next to each other. Oscar had thrown his thin, muscular arm across my chest and his leg across my leg and then...we talked.

He confided, “I really want to cross the border. I want to make good money, you know? The life here in Mexico is so hard.”

“Where do you want to go?” I asked.

“I have family in Denver, Colorado. I want to go there.”

In the darkness, I said, “Well, I can try to help you anyway I can, Oscar.”

He thanked me by kissing me on the cheek.

A few moments of silence. Our foreheads met, then our noses, automatically tongues flicked at each other. Oscar slid on top of me, kissing and biting my neck, while grinding and thrusting his hips into mine. He was as hard and excited as I was.

I stroked the back of his neck, whispered into his ear, “I want you...I want you inside of me.”

Getting onto his knees, Oscar put my feet up onto his shoulders. Cupping his hand over his mouth, he spit into his palm and lubed his thick uncut penis. With grinding hips, he slid into me - my breath hissed through clenched teeth - our bodies contracted and writhed, as Oscar thrust and lunged into me, softly grunting and whispering words in Spanish. I grabbed his slender, smooth ass as he thrust into me, I closed my eyes and all seemed so good. He bent down and began biting up my neck - I felt his cock stiffen even more and as he pounded harder and with a final, loud sigh, Oscar shot his hot semen into me. Collapsing on top of me, I was shaking as he kissed my neck, and rubbed his fingers through my hair.

“That was so fucking good!” I breathed in English.

“Bueno...muy bueno.” Oscar whispered, licking his dry lips.

I looked up at him as the old emotions washed over me. My heart pounded at the intense feeling of love and admiration consumed me once again. My mind began to flashback to all the various let downs that had occurred with him in the prior months. I began to spiral down in depression.

Why can’t you love me like I love you?

Our heavy breathing subsided and wrapped in each other’s arms, we fell into a deep sleep.

I woke Oscar up with a kiss on the forehead. He looked up at me and blinked, like a sluggish turtle.

He grinned, “Buenas dias.”

We showered, dressed and went to a corner cafe for a delicious breakfast of huevos con chorizo, frijoles y colorado rojo. With a cup of strong coffee.

During our conversations, I asked, “Oscar, are you satisfied with your life. I mean, are you happy?”

He said, “Sometimes. Sometimes, it is very hard.”

I don’t know why, but at that moment, I asked Oscar to move in with me.

I explained, “You can keep your job and save up to pay for your passport and Visa. I’ll take care of rent.”

He looked at me, glanced outside, then said, “Okay. But, not until next weekend.”

After breakfast, Oscar and I walked back to the Plaza in front of the cathedral, so as he could catch his bus home.

I made the appointment to meet with him the following Friday evening. When his bus pulled away with the sound of screeching gears, I stood in the Plaza and watched Indian kids perform a religious dance in garish pink and white silk outfits.

I thought, This time, I will be m.ore patient with him. Let things run its course and not force a lifestyle on him that would cause grief and sadness. No, this time I will truly love him.

Under the great blast of blue Mexican sky, I stood there with the natives and tourists, smoking a Lucky Strike.

I never saw Oscar again...

A Million, Romantic Memories of Nostalgia

I was in one of my pensive moods - you have had them, those dark, little moments, those moody little spells. Times when you want to be alone, take a stroll and think and think hard.

Your Reporter found himself sitting on one of the stone benches in Plaza las Armas in front of the cathedral in Zona Central and enjoying the crisp night air. I sat under twinkling stars, some finger snapping, old Mexican cha-cha music squawked from hidden speakers, and I chain smoking my Luckies, when out of the dark walked a nostalgic phantom gliding up the alameda like a specter. It was Oscar.

I know this person, I thought as a surge of excitement swelled up in me.

“Hola!” He smiled as he walked towards me, palm opened.

We shook hands and updated each other on our lives the past few months.

Oscar stated, “I have a new job in a maquiladora. I work for Clorox. With the money, I have rented a small apartment near the factory. I make enough to buy clothes and food. I don’t run in the plaza anymore. I guess, I have been living a responsible life – like you had wanted for so long for me.”

He chuckled. Oscar did look healthier and the clothing that he wore was new. I felt truly relieved for him.

I explained, “It is so good to hear a success story for once.”

Oscar smiled and said, “I am so happy to see you, again.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, those stilted moments when you meet an old lover and realize that there was still something there and perhaps a chance of rekindling a spark from ashen gray heartache.

I blurted, “Can I invite you to dinner tomorrow night?”

“I’d like that.” He grinned, nervously.

After a few moments of pat, tense chatter, Oscar stated he needed to return home. We both briskly, nervously, hugged, and he was gone - lost in the night’s heat.

I returned home with the thoughts of a million, romantic memories of nostalgia spun in my head. I realized then, how much I truly did miss him.

What is it that you want?

Things have their way of sorting themselves out - am I right? Karma can be so insidiously delicious in its dealing of poetic justice.

Saturday - woke up in a puddle of my own sweat, it being so freakishly hot and that worthless fan being worthless and all - showered, dressed and walked down to Café Central for my Saturday morning regulation breakfast of menudo and a taza de café.

Trumped around in front of the Cathedral for a while and scored for a nice fella named Ruben. He of nineteen and willing. Smiling eyes and thin build.

“Hey, guero - you looking’? I got some coke.” He said.

“Nah.” I leered. “Dope is not what I want.”

He laughed, “For reals? What is it that you want?”

“I’m looking to spend this twenty dollars on something else.”

So, it was back it my trap for a couple of hours of crimes against nature. And, that wiry kid was very pneumatic in the hips - if’n ya take my meaning.

Afterwards, we munched out at a corner grease pit on hamburgers and burritos served by hideous, transsexual half men that giggled and cooed at our every word - flashing silver-capped teeth and their post-ops, if you asked.

Ruben and I shook hands at the corner and I went back to my lair and snoozed a couple of hours to meet the Juárez Irregulars at nine o’clock that evening.

We all had made a date to be in front of the Cathedral to attend and whoop it up at the Chihuahua State Fair. Never had been - should be interesting.

Awakened to Kumbia King’s Pachuco, I readied and hit the burnt and cracked streets to wait at the Plaza las Armas adjacent to said Cathedral. The first to arrive was my good friend Erik. He sat next to me on the concrete bench.

“Been waiting long?” Erik smiled.

“No, not long. Just waiting for everyone to show up so we can hit the Fair.” I said, lighting my umpteenth cigarette.

We sat and watched a group of gay guys walk through the Plaza on their way to a bar. Erik stood up and shook my hand.

“Excuse me, guero - I have to go take a leak.” He said and never came back.

So, I waited. And waited. And waited. Like a fucking idiot for two goddamn hours I waited – however, some interesting people came and went on the way:

First was beautiful Ricardo. Handsome beyond words. He invited me to drinks, I declined - had to wait for the gang - loyalties and all. However, hottie said he would visit me at my place manana, and I swooned as he walked away into the humid night.

Then, a walking wall of sweaty muscle that was just released from prison with a face like a bulldog - introduced himself as Hugo.

After hitting me up for five pesos; asked, “Hey, man - can I say something and hope it won’t offend you?”

“Sure, go for it.” I croaked.

“You seem like you’re somewhat gay.”

I laughed, “Somewhat!”

When I confessed I was, his cold eyes went all dreamy and he began slurring, “If you need any help, man - anything man, just let me know. I know this city...I’ll help you, anything you need…”

I smiled and said, “Okay, Hugo...sure.”

With that, Hugo walked away. As he crossed the street, a platoon of cops swarmed around the brute and beat the living crap out of him, threw him in the back of a paddy wagon, and drove off.

The best by far was a short, blond Honduran. He walked by slowly, with hands in pockets, as he stared at me.

“You mind if I cross?” He asked, meekly.

“Cross what?” I said.

“El Frontera. You look like a federale - I want to know if I have your permission to go to your country.”

I laughed, “You can go anywhere you want. It’s a free country. Or, at least, it used to be. And, no - I’m not INS. I live here.”

“Can I sit with you a minute?” He sat without me answering.

He went on and on and on about crossing el frontera. If he wasn’t so gosh darn cute, I would’ve told his ass to cut. But, he was a lamb.

We sat and watched a lecherous, ancient faggot as he trolled the plaza. The withered, old thing would saddle up - uninvited - and asked blatantly any guy that met his polluted gaze if they wanted to have sex for money.

While I was talking with my new Honduran friend, old troll sat next to him and popped his insidious question point blank. He leaned in and we could smell the foul stench of a million unwashed cocks waft from his dry hole.

“Hey, baby boy, wanna earn some quick cash?” The troll hissed. “I gotta room nearby and I would love for you to lay back and let me suck the come out of you.”

The Honduran and I looked at each other and had about enough.

I spat at the grotesque vampire, “Look, if you don’t leave this Plaza, I’ll break your fucking arm!”

He slinked away into the dark, scowling.

The rest of the evening was blah. Only Isidro and his new boyfriend, Arturo eventually showed up. No State Fair for me, I finally accepted.

For something different, we decided to go to a twink disco called Madelon - tweens gyrated to Brittney Spears and Daddy Yankee - Ugh. After two beers, I said good night, went home and slept.

Sat in darkness and thought of my state of mind and the weekly chat sessions with a caseworker at a mental aid clinic in El Paso. The depressive tales that I confessed to the crazed psychoanalyst and the loathing of the galaxy of psychotropic mood stabilizers that I was prescribed were beginning to wear thin with me.

The meds that the psychiatric hospital had me on had some curious side effects. I didn’t care about anything anymore. I mean, not in a snotty vicious way - in a bland simple, uncaring way. I kind of missed the chaos back in Tijuana - then again I didn’t.

However, one thing I distinctly noticed was that the medication had taken away my artistic spark - and it was noticeable - I had no drive towards any direction for anything. I was totally happy being by myself - rather than the screaming center of attention I was - isn’t that odd?

As a fact, I loathed the contact with other people, I didn’t enjoy bars as much, conversation dried up, and I just wanted to sit and be alone - and think.

I hoped this was a phase.

Welcome to Mexico, gringos!

The stars were out and the moon was full and I decided to take a stroll through the plaza in front of the Guadalupe Cathedral.

There was a crowd that watched a group of youths dressed as Aztec Indians that danced to a tribal beat.

While I was playing spectator, two American tourists approached me. Young, early twenties and obviously lost.

“Hey man.” Said the tall, blond one. “Do you speak English?”

I took a drag on my cigarette and croaked, “Fluently.”

“Do you know of any hotels?” Asked the other blond one with a scraggily, yellow goatee.

I smiled, “Well, I know of several. There is one nearby for fifty pesos.”

“How much is that in dollars?” Asked the taller one.

“Oh, about five dollars. But, you pay extra if you want a door or not.”

“What?!” The shorter retorted. “Is it safe?”

“Well, you didn’t say anything about that.” I said heartily. “That’s going to jump the price up to twenty dollars.” I asked them to follow me to Hotel Bombin - a shabby, whore hotel near the frontier. “You’ll like it. It’s clean and it has three channels on the TV – English, Spanish, and porn.”

As we walked through the dark and bustling streets of the red-light district, the two tourists blabbed on nervously that they were travelling from California on their way to Florida and stopped over to enjoy Mexico for the first time. I also caught on that they were meth junkies. Could tell that the first time laying my eyes on them.

Got to Hotel Bombin and crawled up the grimy, white porcelain stairs to the reception where a queer bodybuilder with a ponytail checked them in.

They stashed their bags in the dingy, double-bed room and after asking me several times if their shit was safe, we hit the streets.

Walking down the dark lit Calle Mariscal, it was bound to happen - like barracudas on bikes - three cops rolled up on us.

“Please senor against car please senor hands against car step up to car.”

We all knew the position and spread out on the hood of a nearby parked vehicle. Our pockets were emptied and I was lucky enough to get the intelligent cop.

As my two new friends were being picked over, my interrogator and I had a hearty discussion on my literary interests and love of Mexico. The officer was quite pleased and interested. I didn’t have centavo one in my wallet - “I live in Mexico, Senor, I’m poor!”

The cop laughed at that.

Unfortunately, my two comrades were rolled for sixty dollars.

The two other officers continually pulled items out of the Americans pockets - pens, papers, keys, wallets, condoms, and then a small plastic bag of methamphetamines.

El Capitan looked at me with pursed lips. “Oh, this is very bad, senor.”

I feigned shock and stated in Spanish, “Look, officer - I don’t even know these ding-dongs. I just met them and they asked if I could show them around since I lived in Juárez. I had no idea they were junkies.”

The officer smiled, placed his hand on my shoulder and said, “Do not worry, amigo - why don’t you go home. We will take care of these two.”

I glanced over at the two sullen boys. The look of desperate finality on their faces. Welcome to Mexico, gringos!

While the police officers continued to harass the two tourists, I shook my cops hand, offered him a Lucky Strike, smiled and said in Spanish, “Well, enough of this circus. If that is all, officer, I’m going home.”

“Good night, gabacho.” He smiled.

I wished those two guys good luck, waved goodbye to the cops and walked the few blocks back home.

He Faded into the Darkness.

Felt quite drowsy after work, so I dragged myself to bed and took a snooze before I decided to go out. Out. The word itself held notorious implications. I was in a party mood. The week was weird and I had to let off steam. I showered, had a small toke of ganja, gulped a shot of tequila and bolted out the door.

I first hit Burrito Row to yak a bit with Beto - the eye candy that worked at one of the stalls.

As I munched burritos mole and smoked a Lucky, we chatted and chortled about cars and cocaine, in which Beto swindled me out of fifty pesos to purchase said narcotic.

Both of us stood in a filthy back room, amid the pungent reek of old cooking grease and rotting vegetables - snortwheee! Took off like a rocket, daddy-oh!

Feelin’ it, I walked down the strip, checking out the chilangos in their goof suits and dashed into Bar Buen Tiempo for a caguama.

However, the place was devoid of any acquaintance of mine. Three chilled caguamas later and one mean buzz, I decided to call it quits, after talking to an interesting character in the toilet.

The handsome little shit stood next to me in the urinal. Obviously, he drunk as I was.

He looked over at me with glazed eyes, “Hey, chief - welcome to my country.”

He extended his hand in friendship - the same hand that was holding his pecker while he pissed.

I looked down at it, smiled, “Dude, some folks just do not need to shake hands when they are taking a leak.”

Don’t care how your cock looks, you know?, I thought.

I must of insulted his virtue about cleanliness, he snarled, “Man, take my hand and shake it!”

I finished up and silently left him mumbling obscenities.

I walked out and into the cobblestone maze of the Old Mercado and over to bar Caletilla.

Let in the steel door by a grinning dyke; the place was packed and after being served by a tattooed and well scared cholo named, well...Cholo - I was finally reunited with my good pal Erik. Next to him, perched on stools like two vultures, squat the Isidios.

Much gay faggotry commenced and a good time was had. Hit on by some hot hotties, but I was coming down with a flu or some kind of cold virus. I wasn’t in the mood for no homosexual hanky-panky, so I simply played it cool with these characters.

Never saw so many horrendous transvestites outside of New Orleans before - it was a goddamn freak show. Amazonian half men in multicolored spandex that many resembled Neanderthals in drag, paraded around in flowers, furs, and fluff. The screeching and squawking! Ech!

Erik, the Ignacio’s, and I stumbled next door, over cracked and garbage covered pavement, to a shabby, barn-sized disco.

The joint was called Elvira’s - reminded me much of Freegay. Many a gay cholo and bi curious men strolled through the dank, smoke-choked darkness. Mexican Ranchero music mixed with Reggeaton kept the small dance floor packed in which Erik and I would frequent often. Still gotta learn that mambo!

This one skin-headed shorty asked me to dance, I obliged and we boogied. Next thing I knew, we were tongue wrestling up against the wall and he kissed so hot, I could feel his stiff organ through his khakis.

Nevertheless, his friends had to go and he left with them...oh, well.

Another skinny cholo with a scraggy, black goatee sided up to me, smiled, “Hey, guero, buy one beer for me?”

I blearily looked at him and smirked, “Sure, if you kiss me with your tongue.”

Shaking his head curtly, he mumbled something to the effect that he wasn’t queer.

I drunkenly stated, “Well, that’s my price.”

He faded into the darkness.

Eventually, Erik and I decided to split...I felt tired from a head cold that I had been nursing a few days. We said good night to the Ignacio’s and took off.

I walked Erik to his bus stop. However, since we both were hungry, Erik and I stopped to get a bite to eat at an all-night chicken joint, Pollo Feliz.

Erik asked, “Hey, you want to go to Baños Roma with me tomorrow?”

“Sure, why not?”

Baños Roma was the city’s notorious bath house. I had never been there, only hearing of it from embarrassed friends and old American perverts.

After the late dinner, I said goodbye to Erik and went home and crashed.

Waking up with a slight hangover, I downed a shot of tequila and showered, dressed and clomped up to a small cafe to eat breakfast of huevos rancheros.

At ten in the morning, I met Erik in front of the Cathedral to start our day of wicked debauchery at Baños Roma.

We briskly walked the short blocks to the corners of Mejia and Constitution and entered the old, dilapidated building.

In the lobby, an old man took our personals and placed them in a lock box. We paid him 76 pesos each and then entered the baths proper.

The interior was overtly dingy. There was black mold in the cracks of the pink and white tiles and the paint peeled off of the moist, green walls. We found a little cubicle that was covered in obscene graffiti, had rusted hooks on the walls, and a small cot. The attendant issued us each a ragged, brown towel.

Erik and I both undressed and split up. I eyed several good-looking men walking around naked. I felt kind of self-conscious, everyone was dark brown and my skin was so pasty and white...but that was soon to become an advantage.

I found the steam room and was quite the popular one in there. I was fucked fore and aft. Over and over and over and over - Dear Reader, I lost count. There was so much good cock.

Around the middle of the afternoon, I confessed to Erik that I had to leave. I was worn out. There were hickeys all on my back, between my legs, on my ass...I had no sperm left, cock didn’t work no more...ass sore...

Erik and I dressed, tipped the towel guy, and left. I wobbled with my good friend to his bus stop and said my goodbyes. Returning home and to a deep sleep. I realized, I now had a new place to while away my Sunday afternoons.