Capone, They Called Him.

I knew him from the Plaza. He ran with a group of dead end kids. The type who would hang around all day bumming cigarettes, loose change, or simply sit on a bench and complain about their dead end life in a dead end town. I suppose like a million other American kids in a million other American towns.

The other Lost Boys he associated with were like all the others, flirting with loose girls who would giggle and coo and eventually spread their scabby legs for that precious moment of emotional acceptance that their parents and siblings failed to give back home. Indeed, several of the regular girls who sat around all day with them for further acceptance while cuddling their bastard children. Their faces sad and bewildered in the fact that they finally had hit rock bottom. Their youth and innocence gone.

He was definitely the Alpha Male of the miss-matched clique in which he hung with. Tall, bulky – not fat – his shoulders wider than his hips. In the uniform of the Mexican-American thug: white wife beater and pressed khaki pants, he paraded around with a muscular body like the macho fuck that he was wooing the girls, teasing the homeless queens, stealing swigs from hidden alcohol containers. His shaven head was round with full, thick lips crescented by a thin, black moustache. He had two tear-drop tattoos below hazel eyes. His eyes, not the masculine physique, was his attraction. He referred to them as ‘his guns’. His pussy magnets.

When I inquired through the park queens his name was Capone, I asked him what his real name was, in which he replied, “Just Capone.”

“Like Cher or Madonna?”

He glared back with macho arrogance, “Nah. Not like that. Just Capone.”

Like all the other queers in the Park, I, too, fantasized many a time having that twenty-two year old fucker ravish me like a coke-spun porn star.

It was on a night before I booked a bus to San Diego. I had had enough of El Paso and decided to move elsewhere. I was feeling anxious and paranoid like I always do before a mindless trip into uncertainty. I decided to deal with it the best way I knew how, to visit the park and attempt to score one of the rentboys or bi-curious thugs who prowled during the twilight hours.

When I arrived, the sun was sinking behind the horizon and long, gray shadows blanketed the few boys and the ancient men who fed on them. I sat on a bench sucking on a Lucky and watched the fractured ballet of cruisers and the cruised. One ancient vampire lounged on a bench near me, rubbing his engorged, Depends girdled member while fanning himself with twenty dollar bills. So much for being subtle, but the geriatric group held no shame in their actions.

The buses had stopped running – one of the reasons I was glad on leaving. How could one live in a city this size and public transportation halted at 7:00pm? Several bewildered commuters dashed around asking if there were any other way out of downtown.

“Nope.” I croaked. “That’s it for the night.”

Cell-phones flipped open, taxis called.

As the Texas stars began to flicker in a dark navy sky, lo and behold, Capone came sauntering up like a caged gorilla.

“W’as up, dawg?! Can’t believe I missed my fuckin’ bus and am stuck down here!” He growled. He bummed a smoke off of me and continued as he lit. Those masculine features accented by the brief yellow flame. “This shit’s fucked up. I need a place to crash the night or get a cab.”

“How much you think a cab costs?” I asked, hiding my inward thrill that this Latin Adonis was even talking to me.

“Shit, homie, I live in Socorro. A taxi is a lot.” He said. He borrowed my cell phone and punched in the digits for Border Cab. Momentarily, he hung up. “Fuckin’-A! They want thirty fuckin’ dollars!”

There are moments in one’s life when one must take a risk, to venture beyond one’s borders and accept the outcome. Whatever fate throws at you. Most prudent faggots would lecture about the disastrous effects and label it as a bad idea. Yet, in my experience, bad ideas are seldom boring.

“You can stay at my house if you want?” I mumbled, then stuttered. “I have beer in the fridge.” Okay, I had one tall boy of 211 from a previous house party. But, bait is bait, right?

On his thick, muscular neck, he swung his shaved head up and down the street, angrily glancing at the vacant bus stations. He sighed in frustration, “Yeah, sure…all right. Fuck it. Where do you live?”

“Just a couple of blocks away. Up on Missouri, behind City Hall.”

We strode the short way to my building. Not saying a word to one another. Each time we passed under a street lamp, I scrutinized his attractive torso in the yellow splash of light. The copper, hairless skin which sported here and there the gaudy prison tattoo.

We entered my place. The joint was a small, studio apartment. Restroom in one room, kitchenette and living area in the main room. A queen sized bed took up most of the space. A bureau which held stacks of my folded clothing which was to be shoved into a suitcase the following day.

Capone flopped onto the bed, “What’s up with no t.v., dawg?”

“Oh. Uh, I sold that two days ago. I’ll be leaving El Paso in a day or so.” I smiled.

“You got that beer?” He asked. He fished into his baggy pants and pulled out a small, metal pipe. “I got some weed. You smoke?”

“Sure.” I lied. I hate weed. I was an adrenaline junkie. Dope that brings me down or ‘relaxes’ me actually pisses me off. I consider weed pointless as a recreational drug. Who wants to hang around a bunch of giggling morons? “On both.” I reached into the small refrigerator under the sink and removed the chilled beer can.

I sat on the foot of the bed and handed him the can. He popped it open, took a swig, and placed it on the end table. He put the pipe to his lips. I noticed that there was really nothing in the filter but charred ash. He lit, inhaled, made an ecstatic sigh and exhaled nothing. “Oh…I’m so high!”

“On life, I hope.” I smirked.

“Then I’m really fucked up.” Capone laughed.

Long pause of silence. That moment of Okay, we have nothing in common. What the fuck are we going to do now?

“I need to get home.” He stated as he took a long swig from the beer. “Loan me thirty bucks, dawg. I’ll get ya back.”

I’ll get you back. Yeah, and I’m Cybil Shepard. I leaned in close. “Look, Capone…I’m leaving for Tucson. There is no way I’m just giving you thirty dollars.” Here it goes. Blood and guts time. “You can earn it, though.”

His face goes slack. He knew where this was leading. “What you mean ‘Earn it’?”

I explained with an open palm, “You know I’m gay, right?”

“So, you like it in the booty? I don’t giva fuck.”

“Well, let me give you head and I’ll give you your taxi money.” I said calmly.

“What?” He barked. “Wait? What?! You wanna suck my dick? You saying I’m a fucking whore?”

That’s it. Visions of me curled up on my floor in a fetal position covered in blood and bones shattered flashed in my mind. Folly!

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever.” He said. “Just wanna warn ya, I got a pearl on my dick.”

“A what?”

“I had a pearl put in the shaft of my dick when I was locked up. Fuck a bitch with it, drives her pussy crazy.” He stated.

Okay. Whatever arcane fag shit that went on in prison didn’t interest me. The idea of some pot-belly, bearded and tattooed biker named Axel holding Capone’s joint and surgically inserting a pearl in his penis didn’t faze me. I was more interested in the hunger I had in the here and now. I leaned in towards his crotch like Nosferatu lurking Harker’s cut finger, “That won’t put a damper on my mood, kiddo.”

Capone put a powerful hand on my forehead, “Hold up. Let me use your cellphone, first. I wanna talk to call my ruca. Tell her I’ll be home soon.”

Sighing in reining frustration, I whipped out my phone and sat patiently as he punched in the numbers. “Hey babe, it’s me. Yeah, I’m still in downtown. I’ll see you soon. I gotta dude that’s gonna gimme taxi money. Yeah. I love you, too.”

Yadda-yadda-yadda. What the hell was he pulling? The deal was struck. It was a simple business transaction. Was his ploy to defer me with words of heterosexual machismo so as to get pity from me and to simply hand over the cash in the name of God fearing morality? As he continued the cooing dialog with his female, I nonchalantly reached over, unzipped his pants, dug into his boxers and pulled out his penis. Yes! Score! Even flaccid, that uncircumcised fucker was thick and long. While he chatted, I leaned over and placed the glorious prize in my mouth. I felt the erection grow in my gullet. Stroking up and down with moistening lips and swirling tongue, I felt the odd, solid bump of the inserted pearl. I pulled the stiff organ out and held it at the base – there was enough penis jutting up for two more hands – on the underside, halfway down, there was the solid bump protruding underneath the thin sheath of skin. There’s always a first time for everything, I rationed.

He snapped the cell phone closed and gazed down, “You gonna stare at it or you gonna get to work?”

“You want to take your clothes off?” I offered. “You are on the clock.”

He chuckled and undressed down to his boxers. He refused to remove those. He obviously had limits. Oh well, I had to work with what was offered. And, work I did.

Halfway through, he breathed, “I wonder if you’d get really nasty and get between my legs. I want to watch why you suck me off."

Who was I to argue? Two blow jobs later and we lay next to each other smoking my cigarettes. He looks over to the digital clock on the end table.

“Fuck. It’s already 11:30.” He said.

“Why don’t you just sleep here? You can take the bus home tomorrow and use the thirty for weed.” I offered.

“You sure you gonna pay me?” He said.

“And take the risk you beating the shit out of me? Yes, I’m going to pay you.” I chided.

We spent the next hour talking. Alone, he dropped the thug act and I found him a very funny and intelligent person. He had and still held a hard life, but he kept a positive outlook on his future. Capone had dreams and ambitions like any other young man.

He soon fell asleep. I did not. I lay there in the half-dark listening to him breath steadily. At least he didn’t snore. Even in the dark, he was so handsome. Then the unthinkable. Halfway through the night, he flings a concrete hard arm across my chest, snuggling up next to me lost in the power of Morpheus. I lay on my back, arms at my side, unmoving, torn with uncontrolled phantom lust.

Morning. I feel his erection pressed against my leg. Reaching down, I removed his penis from his boxers and began massaging the foreskin around the head. The tips of my fingers sticky with precum. I glance at his immobile face, notice the sound of crescending breathing through his nostrils. Spurt-spurt-spurt. He ejaculates onto my comforter.

His eyes pop open, “What’s for breakfast?”

I laugh, “Take a shower and get dressed. We’ll go downtown to get something to eat. I have to make a stop at the ATM, anyway.”

We shower – separately, thank you – and afterwards, he leaves a fair amount of shavings in my sink (he uses my razor to shave his head. I hate when they use my razor or toothbrush.) we journeyed downtown and grub on a mess of huevos rancheros at Tejas Café. Slapping the money in his hand, he mumbles thanks or adios or good looking out or something and darts to the nearest bus station. That night, I boarded a bus and headed west...

Years later, when I returned to El Paso, I heard that Capone overdosed on heroin and was found dead near the plaza downtown. Upon hearing the news, I sat in the park under that harsh Texas sun and wondered, How many more in my life? How much more death must I encounter on a personal basis? My life is a poisoned river and I bring death and bad luck to everyone I meet...