I’m killing myself with this shit

Jose Perez threw a party in honor of his new apartment. Two-room rat hole with a rusted steel balcony and panoramic view of the Red Zone. Nice if you wanted to see smog, criss-cross of wires, and bloated hookers clopping up and down the broken pavement.

But, ah yes, the aforementioned fiesta. All types of sordid junkies and nefarious types lurked in the smoke-filled shadows of Jose’s colonial apartment. Cocaine, marijuana, speed, and booze passed many a hand.

Banda music and the vecinos rushed about like cackling, famished jackals.

Stumbled over Ivan in the bathroom and he sighs, “I’m killing myself with this shit.”

With the mask of the damned on his ravaged face, he looked at me with sick, brown eyes. I took a snoot or two myself and felt it.

“Worthless shit.” He shook his head.

Half a bottle of tequila too soon and effects of the tweek caused me to lose control. I stumbled and swayed and the music - the music was all around me.

Sniffing, I leaned against a chipped, green painted, brick wall and listened to hyped up, drug fueled patter of Jose as he gabbed in shuddering gestures with a ratty, sour-faced whore strung out on goofballs.

“…slammin’ that heroin with no electricity only that red candle, ya know - they turned off all the lights and water months ago. Man, was Chava happy to kick out that asshole roommate. Never take a puta with a monkey, mija. You can’t trust none of them motherfuckers. No bueno.”

Suddenly, I saw a Mexican Indian in sharp spotlight. He was hooked and sick, sniffing and all the bones stood out on his smooth face.

He caught my eye and walked over and leaned on the wobbly metal table and asked, “You wanna be with me?”

Lean, brown hand gently rubbed against my hardening crotch. The guy was short, but handsome with strong Aztec features. In his hazel eyes, there flickered pinpoints of light.

“Let’s get out of here.” I slurred.

Long, mute shadows of a dark, colorless street. Bar. Grocery store. Cable dishes of television sucked the sky like greedy siphons. The boy lived in a dead-end alley. Rats scurried in trash clogged gutters and the cockroaches - the cockroaches were downright arrogant. Ultimately, we entered an old Spanish apartment with rusted, iron balconies.

Dim lightbulb hung from a wire attached to the ceiling. Windowless room of concrete. Reek of mildew and dead bugs.

I tore open a small bag of meth; he ripped open a small packet of lubrication. Undressed quickly and erect penises were oiled up. On all fours, I clenched the thin, brown blanket as the smack-smack-smack of his hips hit my naked ass. The coke exploded behind my closed eyelids like a kaleidoscope of fireworks as he shuddered deep inside of me to some kind of gasping climax.

Through dry lips, we both sighed together, “Muy bueno.”

Alone in the back of a taxi libre, the lights of the city flickered across my face as the driver did a kamikaze race back to my flat. With the window down, the cold night air played in my hair. I grinned behind screwed up eyes.

Ivan

Stood outside Bar Ranchero in the shivering night - the Plaza was pregnant with the twilight people.

The bar adjacent to my frozen form thumped with laughter and merry making. Two old queens celebrated their cumpleaños. And, they graciously were flipping the bill for the posh and swanky fiesta. Complimentary booze and vittles guzzled by nameless, arrogant faces.

I went into the bar for a bit, danced a little – scrawny, attractive boy swirled with lithe movements to the disco beat - what was his name? Who cares? I drank with vague acquaintances - too many bodies that poured out into the street, so I stood outside in that chilled night and feigned interest with these faggoty-assed jerks.

By the entrance, Ivan - rentboy turned waiter, knew him for years – passed and sobbing that someone had stolen his money. I leaned against a lamp post, lit a cigarette, and watched Ivan go on and on with fellow hustlers about being ripped off.

How does it feel when it happens to you? I thought.

Big boobed hooker clopped up to me as I stood there watching Ivan’s scrawny frame tilt and droop in drugged-out grief.

“Whacha looking for?” She asked.

“You don’t got it - plus, I like men.” Puffed on that cigarette like a cock.

“I am a man.” She croaked and it was time to cut.

Before I walked away, Ivan faded in and invited me to his trap - why not?

When I had first met Ivan, he was simply one of the legions of rentboys that hustled the plaza. A young man of slight build, his copper-colored face was oval and almost oriental in appearance. He had high cheek-bones and almond shaped eyes. The thing that appealed to me more than his slim and well-toned physique was his jet-black wavy hair. I’ve always been a sucker for black, wavy hair.

In the dark streets that led up to his shabby hotel, phantoms lurked - offering me junk amid hushed hisses and probing fingers.

“Nope, I’m all right” I muttered, as Ivan copped a paper.

Up worn and wooden staircase, the small room had a bed and a squat bookshelf, dirty clothes wadded and crumpled on the shelves.

He took out a glass pipe and crushed the crystal into it, lit up, and smoked - billowing huge plumes of that gray, tinny smell. Handed me the charred pipe - I faltered, internally reassuring myself that I could quit at any time.

One toke, two, three - we passed it back and forth in junky silence like a religious ritual. Been so long and so much it really didn’t affect me - at first.

Ivan on the flip side, degenerated into a shaking, teeth-grinding wreck - face sunken in skull, eyes open, peeled, raw.

When it was gone, he stashed the blackened tube under his stained mattress, laid back and listened to Banda on his CD Walkman.

I sat on the edge of the bed and glanced around at the bare, dirty pink walls as the tweek set in more on Ivan than myself. That acrid, heavy-metal taste in my mouth the cigarette couldn’t erase.

I sat and studied Ivan in pity as he convulsed in mechanical jerks - he had already dragged the bookshelf (small, black cockroaches scattered) and barricaded the door from paranoiac Dream Police. Ivan retrieved his pipe again – expertly scraping the residue from the stem for another round.

Heavy boots and jingling keys passed the door and Ivan’s schizophrenic paranoia flared - we sat a moment in silence and waited for the stranger to pass. I declined the second dose and enough of this sad, hopeless Fallen Angel - he was once strong and virile but the mind was gone. At least the boy had retained his looks of strong, angular Aztec features. However, I realized, that soon would decay.

I stood - extinguished my cigarette on the filthy, warped, wooded floor.

“I gotta go.”

And, I left that wretch to his personal horror.

Walked the few blocks in that dark, cold night - eyeing for patrols on account my own paranoia was kicking in. I thought of my future and of my plans - I cannot allow those past demons to control me.

Reaching my room - I undressed and got into bed, unable to sleep as the drug took hold. Eventually, I drifted off - horrid nightmares abound. I woke up depressed and the urges of quitting festered in my mind.

I walked through the Plaza - Ivan sat on a stool at the entrance to Villa Garcia - in the flashbulb of paranoia his eyes lit up.

A whiff of meth drifted in the clear night, riding on the Banda music. An old hag muttered over her candles and altars in one corner. A dingy, white cat pulled at my pant leg and ran onto a concrete balcony. The moon ominously floated by.

“Ivan!” Rentboys glanced up from card games, coffee houses, and sullen hooked stances under metal light posts as the name whistled by and slowly faded away. “Ivan! Saul! Diego! Jose!” The rentboy cries echoed on the warm night.

“Need you to do me a favor,” I croaked, wiping away the more obvious signs of distaste with a stained paper napkin, saw the yellow of meth in Ivan’s face, “Don’t ever invite me to do that again.”

His body moved in little overanxious jerks as the junk channels lit up. “Okay - okay. Ya sure?”

“I know what I’m doing.” Breathing the residue of methamphetamine out of my already scarred lungs.

I walked alone down Avenida Revolucion to my room amid the carnival of blaring neon and pounding discos - everyone looked like a drug addict.

Stopped to sit on a metal bench in front of El Torito disco - wanted to sit alone and smoke a cigarette and think. Depression was rising again.

Moments passed and a handsome cholo pelon sat with me on the bench - smell of dirty linens and unwashed bodies - we don’t talk, but he cackled and grinned into his overused Styrofoam coffee cup - he laughed, black insane laughter as patrol after patrol roamed by eyeing us.

This was too tiresome and I drifted home - lost without purpose or meaning.

I lay in my bed, naked, on top of the covers smoking a cigarette, watching a black cockroach scale the faded, baby-blue wall of my room, feelers waving - national sponsored program in Spanish mumbled from the radio about catching crabs from prostitutes - and I thought, I need to quit this shit.

Dark and Dirty Back Kitchen

The streets were still wet when I got off work. The snobbishly rich were out in the blinding, white sun walking their dogs - San Diego being the dog walking capitol of the country.

I darted around the corner and entered Mr. Lee’s Café. A small, hole in the wall diner. The long, high ceiling restaurant was the last of its kind in downtown - all other family owned restaurants had gone out of business, replaced by high-end fusion eateries and condos, all in the name of urban renewal.

Lee’s was owned by an ancient Chinese man and his wife - quite popular with the hobo crowd. A plate of eggs, ham, toast, hash browns, and a coffee still ran you about one-fifty.

I entered the joint with the smell of grease and unwashed bodies that wafted thick through the tight air. The café had a long diner counter that ran the length of the room, it was wood and warped, rusted, steel stools lined the counter and there was a beaver board wall with hooks for hats and coats.

At one end, in front of the dusty, glass-pane window, sat a ragged man - gray hair a tangled mane, bush of beard, layered dirty clothes - he sat sipping his coffee, staring into nothing, listening to the tinny crackle of the small, portable radio attached to his cart that held all his dreams and possessions.

The four others at the counter were sullen, ratty, old phantoms of the night streets - they too, sat solemnly and sipped coffee or shoved yellow messes of breakfast into their slobbering holes. No one looked up as I entered, except a bloated, black man with cataracts in his left eye.

With a loud screech of metal on spotted, dirty linoleum, I sat at the counter as Miss Lee asked for my order with weary apathy.

“Coffee.” I croaked.

In the dark and dirty back kitchen, the fryer and grill worked over time as Mr. Lee prepared various orders.

From a storage room wobbled a massive, squat woman with long, straight brown hair and great, tumbling breasts that over lapped her bloated stomach. As she walked to the back of the counter, her green eyes, that were hidden behind large, oval, horned rimmed glasses, caught my glance.

She smiled genuinely, “Oh muh God! Haven’t seen you in a while!”

“Hey, Darlene.” I wheezed. “I been working and doin’, you know.”

She wiped the counter in front of me, “Well after you eat, why don’t you head over to my apartment for a visit. I got something I wanna show you.”

Ms. Lee placed the coffee in front of me, I said to Darlene as I stirred in sugar and milk, “Sure. When do you get off?”

“At eleven this morning. I hafta take little Bobby for a haircut before our appointment with the CPS tomorrow. You wanna wait for me?”

“Okay. I’ll hang out at the mall and meet you back here at eleven.” I agreed, then pointed at the pen written menu plastered on the wall mixed in with the Buddha shrine. “And I’ll take a number three.” Number three was the cheap breakfast I had mentioned before.

Darlene was a woman whom I had met once as I lay on the slab at a local blood bank. I used to sell my plasma for money to score for my dope. She was a chatterbox, but a good person. I had never seen her mean or angry, just a little worried about her weight. On one of our long tirades at the plasma center, we both confided that we were addicts.

In her apartment on the fringes of skid row, Darlene shacked with her lover - a gangly, snaggle-toothed tweeker named Frank. He would cook up messes of whack shit in their small kitchen as the two kids from a previous, hellish romance played on the floor in the living room.

Before, I would hang around every day, scoring and partying with these two hillbilly tweekers. Running errands, keeping Darlene company; while Frank transported his home-made speed all over the southwest.

Things went sour real fast. Unbeknownst to Frank, Darlene had a romantic interest in me and freaked out when she found out I was queer. It hit her hard. And, Frank being the stereotypical, tweeking, red-neck homophobe didn’t help matters much. After a few verbal confrontations with Frank, I dropped out for a few months – though, I missed getting that free dope. That was then and over time; I guess, she held no hard feelings.

So, I met Darlene standing out front of Lee’s Café smoking a cigarette at eleven. We hopped the trolley the few blocks up to her building - an ancient pile of red brick that served as low-rent housing for welfare recipients and ghostly elderly. We slowly crawled up the warped, wooden staircase - six floors - the steps creaked under her titanic weight.

The apartment was cluttered and musty. Overstuffed couches from the Salvation Army clogged the room - various objects laid about that gave the impression that some large beast trampled through. Wadded clothes, dirty dishes piled on every table; crumpled newspapers littered the dirty, green carpeted floor. Everything was worn and second hand, save for the shiny, brand new fifty-two inch flat screen television that dominated the room.

I sat on one of the ratty couches in the corner, contemplating out the window - a warm breeze blew in ruffling the yellowed, laced curtains. “Where’s Frank?”

“He had a delivery job to San Bernardino - he won’t be back for another day or two, I guess.” Darlene said absently as she meandered into the kitchen. “Want some Pepsi?” She hollered back, opening the fridge. Returning back into the room, holding two plastic glasses, Darlene passed me mine and smiled, “You wanna smoke?”

I looked into her plump face, all the junk cells in my body lit up - I felt a lift, like when you met an old lover and you know you are going to have sex again.

I stood up, “Sure, Darlene - whacha got for me?”

“Go into the kitchen.” She smirked, falling into a green recliner that poofed out dust and groaned in disapproval.

I casually walked into the small kitchen and stopped in my tracks. Piles of dirty, greasy plates and utensils mounded up in the corner next to the stained sink.

On the untidy dining table was Frank’s meth lab - an assortment of Sudafed pills, a collection of chemical bottles, hoses, and pressurized cylinders.

One of the major problems with homemade dope was that those crazy kitchen chemists threw in a bunch of fertilizer and No-Doze and Sudafed and gasoline and who knew what the hell else and you ended up with some seriously toxic shit.

As every addict knew, there were a couple of ways to make meth and many common ingredients were used. Believe it or not, most of the ingredients used to make meth could be found right in the home.

Meth could be manufactured from a very easy recipe and be cooked and ready in six to eight hours in makeshift labs where the cookware could be relocated to avoid detection from the law of any fumes or vapors that were associated with the making of the drug. It cost about $50 to $140 to make one ounce that could be sold for as much as $1200.

Some examples of chemicals used to produce meth included, but are not limited to: Ether - Benzene - Methanol - Methylene Chloride - Trichloroethylene - Toluene - Muriatic Acid - Sodium Hydroxide - Table Salt - Ammonia - Pseudoephedrine - Hydrochloric Acid - Drain Cleaner - Battery Acid - Lye - Lantern Fuel - Anti-Freeze - Anhydrous Ammonia - Red Phosphorous - Iodine and whatever other crazy crap that could be thrown in.

Those lingering chemicals caused nausea, headaches, dizziness, skin burns and eye irritation. It could affect soil, ground water, air, furniture, and structure materials, such as flooring, vents, and walls. Many of the contaminants present when making meth were harmful to humans or pets if exposed to them. Cases had been reported that where children and adults lived in a house or other structures that were former meth labs, the inhabitants encountered serious health problems long after the lab had been deconstructed.

Labs were frequently abandoned in paranoid lieu of a bust and the potentially explosive and very toxic chemicals were often left behind.

Chemicals may also be burned or dumped in woods or along roads that caused a deadly hazard to the natural surroundings.

It is a well-known fact, that the most common of chemicals used to start the meth-making process were over-the-counter cold and asthma medications which contained ephedrine or pseudo ephedrine as decongestants or stimulants.

Empty Sudafed boxes overflowed the little, plastic trash can in the kitchen, but that wasn’t what stopped me. Sitting on the filthy counter was a plate that held a big pile of methamphetamine - it resembled a slice of crumbling birthday cake. I had never seen so much tweek at once in my life - I began to shake, felt my heart ping.

“The aluminum foil is in the cupboard, dear - take what you want. Bring me a little, will you?” Darlene called from the living room.

I grabbed the box of foil and placed several large crumbs into a napkin and walked into the living room. Darlene was sitting there with her works out next to her on an end table.

With speed, I hated to snort it - I preferred smoking. I obtained a better rush and it didn’t fuck up my nostrils. That gunky tasting residue lodged in the back of your throat never appealed to me. Yeah, I know - what about your teeth?

It is a long winded, boring fact that the chemicals used in meth production will rot out your teeth - I guess, I had been blessed with strong choppers and unlike many a junky that I know, I do keep up personal hygiene. No meth mouth for me.

However, Darlene was a skin popper. She enjoyed jabbing that needle into her haunches. Claimed there was no rush like it - I just don’t like needles. Injection was a popular method, also known as slamming, but carried quite serious risks.

The hydrochloride salt of meth is soluble in water; injection users may use any dose from 125 mg to over a gram, using a small needle. This dosage range may be fatal to non-addicts. Not so for the experienced addict, who rapidly develops a tolerance to the drug. Injection users often broke out in skin rashes (called ‘speed bumps’) and infections at the site of injection.

Too each their own and at that moment I wasn’t going to categorically analyze the matter, I just wanted to get high.

We went to work - I found an ink pen, popped out the ink reservoir and discarded it, using the casing for a straw. Ripping off a two inch wide strip of aluminum, I creased it length-wise to get that preferred groove down the middle. Placing a nice sized rock in the middle of the groove, I put the pen casing to my mouth, lit the underside of the aluminum strip with my lighter.

Heated, the speck dissolved into mercury like liquid, spewing gray resinous smoke - I tilted the strip downward, letting the liquid ooze along the groove, following with my straw, inhaling the smoke as it crept.

Instantly, I felt that static charge as it rushed and pulsed up from my lungs, up the spine, across the back of the head, to my forehead - I could feel my hairs prickling. My heart pounded and my sweat-filmed body quivered as I flicked the lighter over and over and over again under the strip, mechanically following the liquid dope up and down, up and down, up and down.

Darlene put some dope in a blackened spoon - held a lighter under the spoon until the meth dissolved. Grabbing a syringe, she sucked the liquid up with a needle. Leaning to her side, she pulled down her black sweatpants, exposing her unappetizing person to my fucked up gleam. A mass of white skin glowed, pockmarked by acne and red puncture sores - the smell of dirty ass and vagina punched me in the nostrils.

She somehow found a vein in that plateau of rippled dimples and jabbed the syringe in, pushing down the plunger.

She pulled up her pants, sat back and sighed, “So, this some good shit or what?”

I was shaking, hunched over my aluminum strip, feeling like a fat kid in a candy store. I glanced at her and curtly nodded.

Darlene chuckled, “Frank left me a lot - so do what ya want.”

Oh shit, I thought.

When I finished the dope that I had first brought out, I quickly returned to the kitchen and got more - and more and more.

All day, Darlene and I smoked and shot that shit like there was no tomorrow. Eyes wide and aware, mouths grinding and chewing, bodies tweeked in jittering jerks - Darlene and I sat and joked and laughed, spun out on all that dope.

She looked at me and realized I looked haggard. “When was the last time you slept, sweetie?”

“I don’t know – days?” I sighed.

“Why don’t you go into my room and lay down - try to get some sleep.” Her motherly instincts apparently coming through.

I stood up and agreed - made my way to the bed room. A queen-size mattress lay in the middle of the room covered in rumpled, musty blankets. I took my shoes off and lay down.

Every tweeker will tell you they have a distinctive habit when they are spun. This varied from individual to individual - hearing voices, seeing shadows; whatever - mine was hearing fucking.

I lay in the bed and on the other side of the grimy, plaster walls; I distinctly heard the muffled sounds of someone having sex. Thumpthumpthump went a bed against the wall. I rolled over; put my ear against the cold wall.

“Yeah! Oh God, yeah! Fuck me, baby!” Moaned some bitch.

Between gasps and lunges, a young sounding man grunted, “Yeah! Take…all…that…dick, baby!”

I lay against the cold wall, twitching and sweating, listened to the moans from the adjacent apartment.

Didn’t even think of pleasuring myself - on this much tweek, my dick was shriveled to a useless nub. It must’ve been two hours I laid prone and listened with an attentive ear at that couple - funny thing was, in reality, on the other side of the wall, there was nothing, six floors down to a parking lot.

It became quiet and I adjusted myself into a more comfortable position. My mouth chewed and teeth ground, I looked out the window.

The sky was a harsh, bright blue - the trees a vibrant green swaying slowly in a breeze. Then, they began morphing into Disney characters - a duck, a mouse, a dog.

I smiled, thinking, Damn, this is some good shit.

Hours passed and I wasn’t sleeping. I popped up off of the bed and returned to the living room. Darlene was sitting there twitching, holding a cup of coffee in one hand - her syringe rested on the arm of the chair.

“Did you get any sleep?” She asked.

I sat on the couch, grabbed the strip of aluminum, “Nope.”

Flickwhoosh!

“You gonna work tonight?” She croaked.

“No.” I said, exhaling smoke. “As a matter of fact, I’m off.”

Leering, she smiled coyly, “So, you wanna stay the night here?”

I continued smoking dope, not looking up, “I can’t. I have to get back to Tijuana. I hafta do something.”

She looked at me hurt. Took a sip of her coffee as I inhaled the rest of the dope. I put the aluminum strip on the end-table and sat listening down into myself.

I needed to get some sleep - my body felt doughy, gummy, exhausted - blanketed by the electrical charge from the drug coursing through my muscles. My eyes stung and my mouth tasted foul and evil.

A few moments passed, I blurted, “Darlene, can I take a bag with me. I’ll get you back in a couple of days when I get paid.”

“Of course.” She sighed. She handed me a small zip-lock bag. “Here. Go in the kitchen and get what you want. But, I need you to pay me - Frank will get pissed if you don’t.”

In the kitchen, I filled the bag to the point of bursting. I gleaned the rim of the plate with a finger and brushed my gums with it - a tingling feeling washed over them.

I stood a moment, pondered the idea of shoving the rest of the dope on the plate into my pants pocket. Nah. I returned to the living room.

Darlene and I said our goodbyes and I walked the six flights down into the cool night. The stars twinkled and the traffic breathed. Jumping a trolley - I headed back to Mexico. I stood there in the back of the car, keeping an eye out for security.

Eyes shifted as the trolley rumbled, I glanced at the other passengers. I knew they were staring at me - what did they see? Was I that spun out that I didn’t fade into the shadows? Standing there in oversized, dirty jeans, wrinkled sports shirt, greasy, sweaty, pale face behind black, horn rimmed glasses - I twitched and swung my head back and forth in mechanical clicks.

Obviously, I didn’t care. All I thought was, I need to get some sleep.

Dirty, Velvet Curtains

He looked like a pedophile. Ashen gray in colorless shirt and pants. White hair, paunch, and squinting, shifty eyes. That predatory stare at your person that always ended at your crotch.

I walked into the office as he stood by the register, munching on a sandwich. The room reeked of garlic and raw onion.

“Howzit goin’, Bill?” I asked.

I couldn’t care less for the old fucks mood - truth was, I couldn’t stand him. I’m sure he felt the same about me.

He grunted something to the fact that he was okay and returned staring blankly out the box office window into the blackness, slowly chewing like a cow with anthrax.

I sat in the old, blue easy-chair and quietly watched porn until the forty-five minutes was up and ended his shift. Bill mechanically went over his notes - he had a paranoid habit of jotting long lists of trivial notes to pass off onto me every night at the beginning of my shift. I stood and listened with bored apathy.

After ten minutes of that shit, Bill grabbed his backpack and shuffled out the door to go where ever Bill goes at night.

I sat at the box office window on the rickety stool for a solid hour before I grabbed my notebook. I jotted down thoughts interrupted by perverts and junkies paying to enter the theater.

I thought about my insidious life - a morbidly, depressing, solitary life that I had fallen into. Ever since my move to Tijuana from Los Angeles, it had been one romantic let down after the next. All crashing and burning from paranoid actions of my own design.

Too be sure, I have had my run of romantic relationships - however, I had always found some way of screwing them up. And the drugs didn’t help. Sure, they gave me that thrill, they filled that void - but, I always came back to the same point of originality. Depressed and alone.

And yet, at the moment of contact - the exact moment when some fool finally opened up to me - I became vicious and brutal. An arrogant monster, twisted in contempt and hatred. Was it because I had built up an impenetrable, emotional wall that had shielded me from that heart-shattering separation that I ran from in Los Angeles? The old ‘I’ll hurt you before you hurt me’ routine? Or that I wanted everyone that revealed the slightest interest in my well-being to feel the same vacuous pain that I was burdened with?

I lit a cigarette and stared out the window.

Fuck it, I thought. Leave that shit for the psychoanalysts.

I got up, locked the office and headed to the bathroom.

Passing through dirty, velvet curtains, I entered the main theater and marched towards the short hall just to the right of the large screen. Passing the coughing, slurping, yawning, farting - I heard an old man gasp through a toothless mouth, “Itha cumin’!”

Quickly, I turned the corner behind the screen into a well-lit hall with red walls. A candy machine hummed as I noticed, leaning up against the side, was little Mario - glass pipe up to mouth and blowtorch lighter blasting away.

He mocked surprise at seeing me, blowing huge plumes of gray smoke into the dank air.

“Hey, white boy! How’s things?”

“Mario.” I barely nodded.

“You look all sad.” He grimaced as he handed the pipe over to me. “Here, man - something to get this night going.”

I took the pipe - still warm, and placed it to my mouth.

I stopped, eyeing him, “How much you got, Mario? I don’t wanna bogart your shit.”

“Ah, dude.” Mario said, as he flicked the lighter in front of me. “It’s just dope.”

Three hits later between the two of us and I didn’t even have to piss anymore. Mario followed me back to the office and sat in the recliner. I took the stool.

Mario pointed at my open notebook next to him, “Watcha writing?”

I sighed, “Crap.”

Reaching into the folds of his black, denim jacket, Mario stated, “Well, when you’re a famous writer - remember me.”

Why does every one say that to me? I cannot - actually do not - want to associate with any of these characters if and when I am a successful writer. And no junk for me! Lounging on some veranda in a silk suit, sipping a martini, being tended by some dark skinned, exotic youth while I read my reviews in literary journals. Yep, I’ll show them all!

But, that was the fantasy of a near future - now was now. And now, Mario was pinching more meth into his pipe. He held it to his mouth, took a big hit and passed it to me.

Thirty minutes later; we were spun. Twitching, shaking, sweaty messes. Mario sat hunched over in the chair - his dark eyes transfix on the monitor that displayed a blond bimbo that yanked beads out of her butt by two sweaty Mexicans.

Mario leaned back and with the concession door wide open, unzipped his black jeans and pulled out his erection. And completely erect - never had I ever seen this junkies junk that hard before.

“Damn,” He quacked through trembling lips, “This makin’ me hornier’n shit.” His sparkling eyes darted at me. “You wanna?”

I hung the BACK IN 10 MINUTES sign on the concession door and closed it. Kneeling in front of Mario, I slobbered up and down on his long, dark penis until, with pointing of toes and quickness of breath; he squirted his semen into my mouth. I leaned over and - splat! - spit a wad of semen, saliva, and blood into the wastepaper basket.

I stood up and silently returned to the box office window. Mario zipped up his pants, fumbled with the front button - I looked at him, feeling so cold and void.

Mario jumped up, “Whelp, I’m going back into the theater. Here.” He placed a tiny plastic bag in my wet hand. “This should keep you for a while. Laterz.”

I said thanks and later back as the short Mexican darted out of the office and into the theater.

At that moment, the phone rang. Picking up the receiver, I heard the distinctive, labored breathing of obesity and knew exactly who it was before anyone answered.

“Is everything well?” The basso voice lisped.

It was Bob - the owner of the theater. He would occasionally call at odd hours throughout the night to make sure I was still there and not robbing him. He stated that openly a few times.

Bob also called in lieu of his missing boyfriend. He and his lover - a potbellied, mustachioed queen named Keith - ran the theater with such totalitarian authority as only haughty fags could. Keith was prone to leave him and go on drinking binges for days - or just hole up in some bathhouse screwing his blues away. It was one of the missing Keith calls.

“Yeah, Bob - how’s everything on your end?”

There was a pause, static, then the wheeze of someone that was suffocating under their own weight, “I want you to tell me - and remember, choose your words wisely…”

Choose my words wisely? What the fuck does that mean?, I thought. Fuck this fat bastard - why does he have to annoy me with his woes concerning his infidel boyfriend.

There was another deep gasp for air on the other end, “Have you seen Keith? Is he there?”

Shit! I don’t know, much less care where that potbellied fucker was spreading his gonorrhea - let me get back to my dope!

“No, Bob - I’m sorry. I haven’t seen him since yesterday when he was here with you.”

Long pause - I heard wheezing. I waited, examining the grime under my fingernails.

“If he does decide to come by,” Bob rumbled, “Call me, let me know.”

I looked at the wall clock - 2:38am. “Sure thing.”

Click. Ugh - I hung up the phone as two, drunken Navy men approached the box office window.

One was a tall, thin Filipino - his eyes glazed and red from hitting the bars.

His short friend, a tattooed blonde - put his lips up to the hole in the window and slurred, “How much to get in, cowboy?”

I told them, took the admission, and buzzed them in. I sat in the recliner and watched the porn drone on and on. I grabbed the now tattered strip of aluminum foil, and the meth that Mario had given me, and lit up.

Points in the room came into sharp focus. For the next hour, I dodged around the room meticulously inspecting every crack, every fleck of dust that lay about. Plopping back in the chair, I smoked more.

“Hey!” Called a voice from the box office window. “Hey!”

It was a short, shriveled junky - face sunken and unkempt. His scraggly beard partially hid the mass of festering acne on his neck. I noticed in those sparking eyes, he was lit up.

“How much, man?”

“Six dollars.”

“Aw shit, dude - I ain’t got six dollars.” He whined dramatically.

I thought of my own nightly supply and stated, “Right. You gimme a bump and I’ll let you in.”

He started with the stupidity routine, “Bump? Watchu mean by that, man?”

We stared at each other for a moment, he saw the raw sparks of tweek bursting in my eyes.

The junkie’s face lit up with the flashbulb of addiction, “Yeah? Yeah! Awright.”

I buzzed him in and he came around to the concession door. “You ain’t no cop, right?”

“A cop working graveyard at a porno theater? You are suffering from paranoid delusions, man.”

He reached down and dug into the crotch of his stained, corduroy pants, “Fuck - can’t be too sure. How long can I stay?”

“Till six o’clock when I close for clean-up. And, if you’re nice - I may let you stay so you can kick it all day tomorrow.” I said, watching him pull out a fat baggie of white powder.

He started that junky swaying con, “Well, don’t you worry, homie - I’m gonna hook you up.”

And, indeed he did.

As he disappeared behind the musty, velvet curtains into the theater, I held the small, plastic baggie that he had given me between thumb and forefinger. It was a fatty.

Without hesitation, I snatched my tattered aluminum strip and went to work - inhaled that sweet, metallic vapor through the melting straw. My lips began to burn - I smoked so much, so fast - but, I didn’t care. My eyes stung and my breath quickened as I flopped into the easy chair.

Then, the damn phone rang. It was Bob, again. Same question - same answer. Through chattering, grinding teeth, I again assured him if Keith showed up, I would call. He hung up.

I sat trembling back into that overstuffed blue recliner - transfixed, immobilized on the image of a black woman that loudly slobbered all up and down some bald stud’s cock. Then, to my left - taptaptap.

Looking up, it was the Filipino Navy officer. He swayed - eyes shifted from me to the porn on the monitor.

“Hey, man. Is there any strip clubs around here?”

I twitched, “Nope - not open this late.”

“Really? Shit - what time is it?”

I didn’t answer - just swung my arm up and pointed at the wall clock. He stood there, leaning over the counter on his elbows, mouth ajar and staring at the porn flickering. A full minute passed.

He snapped back into focus, pulled a small bottle of whiskey out of his pant pocket, took a gulp.

He breathed liquor and stale peanuts into the office, “Wanna sip?”

“Sure.” I said, coyly.

He handed me the bottle - the liquid burnt going down my gullet, warmed my stomach. He stood staring at the video on the monitor - fazing in and out.

I simply wanted to get back to my dope. I darted my eyes up to him - not bad. Tall, thin, thick black hair, full lips, bloodshot eyes. He stood there, slack-jawed, pouty mouth hung open, shiny and moist.

Drunkenly, he blurted out, “Damn we need some bitches here - I want a blow job.”

“Well - it’s real late, no one here but me. Sorry.”

There was a long, uncomfortable pause as we silently stared at the porn on the monitor.

“Damn, I need some head.”

Mechanically, I stated, “Drop your boxers and I’ll do it if you want it that bad, shipmate.”

“What?!” He stuttered.

“Your last chance.” I droned.

“Shit. Don’t hafta ask me twice.”, he entered the office - closing the concession door behind him.

He glared at me with the look of a guilty boy about to do something bad. The shorts came down and I gave him the bestest of the mostest. Shooting his cum - he gave me the old Don’t Tell Anybody Speech before he darted back into the theater.

Don’t worry, kid - I won’t tell anyone.

Strobing Purple Neon

Generally being hopped up on speed by the time I arrived home from work, I rarely went straight to bed, unlike normal people who worked a graveyard shift. Today was no exception.

I got undressed and lay on my bed completely naked - staring at the orange stains on the ceiling paint from a leaky roof. I grabbed the meth that I had received from Carl earlier that morning.

“Don’t do it all.” He had warned.

I grabbed my glass pipe from the end table - held it in thumb and forefinger, pondering that such a small thing was capable of giving so much insidious indulgence. The pipe was nearly charred black from so much use - black and silver.

I pinched a rock from the little baggie and went to work. Kerpow! On that first hit, I realized that shit from old Carl was special. The rush was orgasmic. For hours, I lay on my bed propped up against the cold, dingy wall smoking smoking smoking until it was all gone.

After the pipe cooled - I smoked the residue left on the inside shaft and bulb. I tore open the little bag like a skilled surgeon and extracted the dusty remnants of white and pink flecks nestled in the creases and folds of the plastic and I smoked them, too.

I deteriorated into a tweeking, shivering, tongue-clicking, jaw-grinding mess. I tried to get up from the bed - my head swirled and the room spun into a vortex. Plop! I fell onto the musty carpet. I tried to prop myself onto one elbow - I couldn’t get up. I lay there as time spun by like a sped up film.

I realized that I had to work that evening - couldn’t be late - that thought pounded in my fried brain. I kept track of time from the television programs fading in and out from the living room on the set I forgot to turn off.

“Today on Oprah Winfrey!” It’s 3pm - no worries - I didn’t have to be at work until eleven. I squinted out the unbearably bright window - the tree morphed into obscene Disney characters. I looked on, transfixed in terrified, paranoid, fascination.

“Live from San Diego - It’s Chanel 5 news at five!” Okay, it was 5pm. Eyes darted uncontrollably around the room - shortness of breath - still unable to move.

The Star Trek theme began - it was six. I felt as if I was about to pass out. I twitched and shuddered in a vain attempt to at least sit up from that fixed position.

The boinging tune of The Simpsons popped on - it was seven. I really needed to get up and get ready for work. As The Simpsons back to back comedy hour drew to a close - I thrust my torso upward. I stood fully erect - naked - then swirled and crashed onto my bed, falling straight and solid as a board. I lay akimbo for a moment and burst into laughter.

If only this was filmed, I thought.

As the Law and Order theme drummed on, I realized it was 9 o’clock and I had to get my ass in gear. Popping up once again - body tingling and head swirling - I walked into the small bathroom and splashed water on my greasy face. Not in there long - that water hurt.

Dressed, I darted out of my apartment into the cool night and hailed a cab at the corner. Reaching downtown Tijuana, I walked to the border.

I felt fantastic - everything in sharp focus, sounds crisp and clear. Rapidly crossing the bridge that spanned the sewage crusted Tijuana River; I looked up and smiled as the dark, pendulous clouds were outlined in strobing, purple neon.

I passed two Mexican tweekers - dirty and furtive - on the bridge as they rushed in the opposite direction at supersonic speeds.

“Wooh! White boy’s tweeeeeekin’!” One smiled.

I grinned, exhaled, and continued my power walk up to customs. Passed through the Sentry without a hitch and jumped the trolley to downtown San Diego. I glanced at my watch - 9:45pm. Enough time for a quick beer before work.

Trash lined streets with old liquor stores and porno shops and cut rate hotels. The throng of deviants that prowled the night were out in full force. Junkies squealed and meth addicts howled at the yellow moon as prostitutes of both sexes did their stylized ballet back and forth in front of the Rialto Theater. Florescent shadows played along cracked walls.

“Hey, man - ya lookin’?” White boy hip-hop asks through bent teeth.

Dark street packed with hobos lying in piss and hip blacks on the hustle, clenching crack rocks in quivering, cold hands - liquor stores and blue red purple neon of porno shops that peddled it real nasty all night - and all kind of sick junkies screaming in the alleyways of the world.

I hit the cracked pavement and found a bar full of hip kids and fags - sat there savoring my beer when a black man, rail thin, barged in and sized me up as an easy mark, I reckon.

“Now, what you need is a safistamacated woman.” He breathed liquor and halitosis into my face.

I smiled and croaked, “What?”

“A safistamacated woman, boy. One’ll fuck ya all night.” When he said ‘all’ his yellow eyes rolled around his lined, scarred head.

I told him to scattah and he stared me down all gangsta and shit, but jets, anyhow - leaving me to my beer. Finished up, paid the man, and headed to work.

my Tijuana

All the broken streets sloped downward between deepening canyons to a vast, rectangular-shaped plaza full of shadows. Faded, candy-colored adobe walls of the plaza were perforated by debilitated dwelling cubicles and cafes, some a few feet deep, others extending out of sight into a network of dank rooms and graffitied corridors, hidden by rank mist and steam - smells of beans, seared meat, mota, and shit. Catatonic, emaciated whores stood gray and withered in their doorless, diseased cubicles of Viral Death – beckoning with flashes of silver teeth.

Salsa music wailed – cops stood with ominous sneer and truckloads of them rumbled by kicking up dust with the screams of the prey that wailed in anguish – drunk, loud, Americans stumbled in turn groped by transsexual deviants of all sorts - Americans needed it special.

Nevertheless, there was tequila induced vomiting in the streets - the moans under a neon heaven, spattered angel wings covered with soot – angels in Hell they, their broken wings huge in the dark.

Entering an apartment building dark and sinister like you don’t know, we traveled down feces ranked hallways - the green walls flaked like sclerosis. We came into a garden in the middle of the building with an opening to the sky.

Then I saw eight, maybe ten other people who milled around the corners with charred glass pipes and flicking lighters – all of them junkies, rugged and suffering features, covered terminal sick, slick faces with beaded sweat – the eyes alert, the mouth alert - sports cap, jeans, cell phone, glass pipe, meth, worked swiftly on pipe hits, orange flame sparked in the smokey gloom. Everybody was lighting up.

Smoked my fill and faded out, back into the streets.

Old man draped in filthy rags blinked in the unrelenting Mexican sun. His face creased the color of a brown, paper bag and sporting a dingy, yellow cowboy hat. He watched out of tired and rheumy eyes as three, white Ford trucks - Tijuana paddy wagons - hurtled down a broad street, kicking up dust. The dust stung his eyes, yet he stood immobile. Several police clung to the sides as they raced by - dark eyes filled with fear, hatred; caramel-colored faces hidden in black masks - one stared at the old man back, fingering his shiny, black AK-47. The old man stood glaring in apathy - seconds later and blocks away, gunfire and rumbling explosion. Five more trucks careened past, followed by monstrous paramilitary vehicles - street teemed with pedestrians casually going about their affairs.

I stood in the coolness of an awning sucking on a cigarette; backdrop of dusty greenery of park Teniente Guerrero - three squad cars roared by - sirens squealed, scaring the mother clutching baby to her breast, five kids raced behind her crossing the street of kamikaze taxis and rickety buses belching black smoke. Several shifty and dubious milandros turned and hid their faces from the barreling convoy. The police always traveled by car in threes, now - ever since the local cartel executed 46 of them the week prior. Their faces cold and featureless masks of fear and suspicion.

I remembered two nights ago in my room, hearing the ratatat of machine gun fire in the distance - last night the symphony repeated itself down on the corner. Seven bodies lay akimbo in the darkened lamppost splashed streets; blood oozed onto black concrete and vecinos didn’t care. Thirty minutes later, fat cop chewed cigar stump surveying the scene...

In the rural hills of Independencia where you could score for mota, speed, heroin, coke, crack - anything your junky heart desired - fires ran rampant in the shanty adobes across from the school where a five year old boy timidly scuttled home clutching his textbook past roving gangs of cholos, faces vicious in hate, prowled and brandished pistols to deter the inquiring placas.

Yet, down on Avenida Revolucion - the arrogant tourist still lurked, still drank, still danced, still bought that one-tequila, two-tequila, three-tequila...floor! t-shirt that they must have for the folks back home, unaware of the slaughter occurring a few blocks from their reverie. This was Tijuana - my Tijuana - a place that I called home.

dazzling midday sky

The train ride back to the border was a painful ordeal - everything seemed to be in sharp focus and amplified.

A group of American tourists were being exceptionally loud and all I wanted was to kill them. But I digress, I am not a psychopath.

I needed a beer. I hopped the border and made my way through those teeming masses - brown, bloodshot eyes followed my every move - and entered Bar Ranchero in the plaza. Gotta love Tijuana - bars were open almost 24/7.

Of the time of the morning, the joint was mostly empty, save for a small knot of screeching, gesticulating fags and drag queens at the bar. I stomped in and ordered a beer. Taking a table, it was only a matter of seconds before I was accosted by the local ‘buy me a beer, meester’ boys.

“Scattah - let me enjoy my beverage.” I spat.

One of three looking mortally wounded.

Mario entered the stage and sat with me. We sat for a full five minutes without saying a word.

I finally croaked, “You holdin’?”

Under the table, he slipped me a paper and I handed him 100 pesos. I walked into the bathroom - a den of penis peepers, cock suckers, and pervs.

I found an empty stall - closed the door.

Next to me, I heard the telltale sign of sniffing and on the adjacent side, the slurping of some rentboy making rent. The smell of shit, piss, and chlorine wafted in the air.

I emptied my package onto the toilet paper dispenser - chopped out three lines with an old credit card - thanking God it now had a purpose. Rolled up a 20 peso note into a cylinder and snort-wheeee! snort-whooo!!

I leaned back up and asked myself, Why?

Any addict will tell you that it is a well known fact - a tired, long-winded, over-stated fact - that addiction comes from the course of pain and worry.

I scratched my nose - checked for residue.

I returned to my table to find Mario had gone and I finished three quick beers. I struck up a conversation with an attractive, bespectacled lad named Javier and he being quite literary. Well read. We sat and chatted over authors - Kerouac, Selby, Bukowski, Vonnegut, Kafka.

Around 11am, we found ourselves in a hotel and doing that which nature doesn’t abide and I felt nothing. I just went through the motions.

As Javier lay asleep, wrapped around me - my mind spun. I thought of the new book I had begun - this one started at birth and related the story of my adolescence. The horrid parents, the sad school days, the ravaged coming of age. I thought the title fit: Fried Chittlins. Gray and disgusting. That put me into an even more frump.

I lay thinking thinking thinking - smoking smoking smoking. Perhaps I needed a bit of road traveling. Maybe a little adventure through Mexico. I had no goal or plan for my life and that seriously concerned me. My life was so open, so free - yet, so fitfully alone. I couldn’t seem to connect with this human species.

When Javier rolled over, I silently dressed and left the room.

The sun swung high overhead when I found a hotdog vendor on Revolucion Avenue - stood there munching; watching the hung over tourists drag themselves back to the border, watched the patrol cars slowly creep by, the transvestite hookers clomp around.

I stood there under that dazzling midday sky and thought, There has to be more to this life. Is this all there is? I hailed a taxi and went home.

Home. The apartment was near the end of a blind alley that hardly received any sun. I slid the key into the metal door and stepped into the dank.

The air was stagnant and the particles danced in the beams of yellow sun light through the drawn curtains. The two-room apartment was small and grimy. Movie posters of underground directors such as David Lynch and John Waters cluttered the walls and dirty laundry and empty fast food containers littered the carpet.

The bed room itself contained a well-worn queen sized bed with black oak headboard and matching nightstand.

The living room was occupied by a black futon, a small table and a window that looked out into a filthy, garbage littered alley. A dusty ceiling fan wobbled above.

The bathroom was wall to wall to floor white tiles, porcelain sink, and a toilet. The old kind that had a latch you pulled from above. There was no shower - that was downstairs and shared by the tenants. Luckily having hot water. The kitchen had an old, mint-colored refrigerator from the ‘50’s that still ran, sink area, stove, and metal table with two metal chairs. All furnishings could be considered antiques. Slightly worn.

Not a bad place, near Zona Rosa and close enough to the border, so I could walk or make a hasty exit.

Still feeling the methamphetamine, I sat in my room with my notebook and scribbled out a few more anecdotes in my new book holding nothing back - wrote raw, peeled tales of a horrible past.

After a few hours, as I sat in the dim room smoking my umpteenth cigarette, I concluded I had found my calling - but to what end?

Who am I to judge?

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