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.