year end realization

I hated it. The relentless uniformity of heartbreak, the cycle which began at age fourteen, the anguish of it, irremediable. This time his name was Cesar and he’s in love with a cunt named Lourdes. I hated that I still hadn’t learned: straight men were the nemesis; when their kindness was brutal, their bodies sinewy, their indulgence disastrous. I despised that sometimes I wished I was straight, or invariably prayed for a vagina. I hated the downtown cruising areas, I knew where they were - all of them - dark alleys and empty lots, abandoned tenements and tracks; seedy corners where I treated my infirmities with meaningless gasps and moans and glistening ejaculate, the heartbreak cure. I hated my lust, even as I attempted to hold out for as long as I could, it never lost, its release exceeded the remedy of alcohol, that the bliss abruptly dissipated the moment after the pants were redone. I hated I did all the work, none of the dark faces ever reciprocating the favor, the loathsome reality was I kept returning anyway. Because it was delicious to feel wanted, to forget that I wasn’t, however briefly. I hated my shame, the bellicose culture which conditioned it, the Church that coddled its vicious gluttony. A misplaced rebellion against a faceless recipient. I was a bottle of self-loathing. The need to hide, the fear of consequences, the crippling muck I couldn’t brave to thaw.

Lalo, he said.

The sky was a harsh, vivid blue and a freezing gust blew over the vast desert. Everything was colorless and dead. Typical panorama of The City this time of year. I elbow my way through the post-Christmas throng in centro and quickly cut in the glass entrance to the cafe. Not quickly enough to not allow a swirl of gritty dust to follow me.

I took my seat and croak my hello toward the staff and regulars. I ordered my usual of ham sandwich on toast with coffee and settled in to my work. Updated corrections to all my published works. I have learned a thing or two since 2006 and I reckoned it was time to throw some professionalism into the old stuff.

As I sat typing, a fairly handsome young man in all black entered. He casually approached the counter and I noticed when he inquired about me. The owner smiled and pointed in my direction.

A myriad of catastrophic images washed through my paranoid mind as I glanced at the lad with a look of aloof suspicion. Did I owe him money? Was he the jealous lover of a past fling? Federale who finally came to collect payment due on that foolish incarceration?

The owner smiled and stated, "This young man is interested in purchasing one of your books!"

Still didn't click. I blankly stated, "Seriously?" Here? In Juarez? In this artistic wasteland?

And indeed he did. He introduced himself as Lalo. He had visited the cafe a week or so before and leafed through the copy which sat on the bookshelf.

"I want to buy a copy, if that's possible?"

"Of course." I blubbered and as I was about to write down the address to the web site which sold them, I remembered I had an extra copy in my laptop bag. I mentioned that and stated I would love to offer him a signed copy. It was the least I could do for acting like a pompous ass at first approach.

He sat and we chatted. He related a bit of his past and his love of cinema. I was in a state of confused shock. Delighted, but in shock, nonetheless. Here was a young man sitting with me, speaking elegant English, relating on subjects I too adored and for once in seven months it wasn't about sex and how much he plotted to pump money out of me. I must admit, it was a relieved breath of fresh air. The exact type of conversation - to simply sit and discuss like-minded passions on art - that I had secretly desired of for months with it not having to result in some intoxicated tumble with the finished product of me attaining a sore ass and empty wallet.

I sincerely didn't wish it to end, yet it did. He gratefully took the book, bid his farewell - offerings to keep in touch from both ends - and he left as quickly as he arrived.

I must say, even after all these years of online praises and positive reviews of my writings, I still confront this mediocre fame as something completely alien. Will I ever get used to it? I do not know. All I do know is, it really made my day...

merry christmas

black coffee

My depression began to escalate. I decided to take a walk and think. The late afternoon streets teemed with life. A skinny fag in pinstriped jeans checked me out as I passed a dusty shoe store. I ignored him. I wasn’t in the mood for anything. I continued down the avenue, lost in the chaos of doubt and hopelessness.

Though I was mired in fits of sadness and anxiety, the pulse of life surrounded me. The sky was a fiery orange as the sun sank behind the mammoth cathedral. Smells wafted from mouthwatering, rotisserie chickens which were displayed in neon blasted, dusty windows as a bum stood and pissed onto the outside wall. Small Indian children, snot caked black on their faces, grabbed my pant leg as I walked by - moanay! moanay! A guy costumed as a circus clown operated a turntable in front of a pharmacy as a cheerful crowd looked on.

My way was clogged by a group of teenage boys in bright, multicolored soccer outfits. They stood laughing and talking as I gawked at them with fractured, limitless lust. Shoeshine boys called out to polish my leathers as I strolled past blue, yellow, pink adobe houses and buildings erected a hundred years ago. Banda music from various shops blasted at deafening volume as the store vendors hawked their wares - vying for my attention. I cut into a deserted café, ordered a black coffee, and scribbled these words out unconsciously onto a napkin: Life is long when you’re lonely…

feeling it

What’s life without flavor? Without taste? Is there anything hotter than a man? All the curves, shadows, affections? Gay men taste better. Know better. They enjoy each other as part of living. The warm feeling of a masculine torso. The harsh lips, the softness and agility of a tong. The pressure of a hardon in tight trousers. Briefs or boxers, you choose. Freeballing even hotter. No clothes at all.

The bound between two males - it’s priceless.

"What are you proudest of in life?"
"I feed the pigeons and the rats when I have extra food."

mental instability

Inside the eating area of the El Paso Psychiatric Hospital the other inpatients waited, sedated on their medication. Depakote. Seroquel. Lithium. Abnormally numb in lieu of my own dope, I stood in line for my breakfast. Toast and scrambled eggs. Milk. Orange Juice. One of the inpatients, a thin man in his early twenties, twitching, caught my eye. His name was Javier. He had been here for three months.

"Do you watch porn?"

"Sometimes."

"You jack off?"

"Sometimes."

"You ever jack other people off?"

"Uh, no."

"What if I pay you?"

I walked away to the recreation area. Judge Judy was playing.

what's new, pussycat?

We drank caguamas beside a gutter that evening. The insidious reek of decay and piss saturated the black grime imbedded in the drains, the fragrance wafted up and punched me in the nostrils. The beers? Mine was Sol and his was burly, a dark swill called Indio. We set the cervezas on a blue fire hydrant caked in grime and soot, careful not to let the bottles fall. We drank with the brown paper bag still on because we didn’t want to get caught. He used a straw because he’s a sissy, he joked. It is a mark of derided feminism to drink any beverage from a bottle with a straw if you are a man down here. Stupid, if you ask me. But, you didn’t, did you?

We stood under a pamphlet plastered lamppost illuminating a certain street sign. Cars and the occasional taxi cruised by and some honked, probably mistaking us for hookers as it was 11pm. We could’ve settled at this swanky joint they call the Kentucky Bar & Grill but we chose to wander because it was packed with people like us wanting the same thing. Wanting a roasted or almond beer in a big-ass beer holder as people do in Ireland. He was adamant to visit Europe one day, he kept saying. Each time he stated this, I smirked. Impossible dreams crushed by poverty and laziness.

That evening, we wandered because of dismay. We wandered because there were no other places to drink cold beer on a Sunday night. We stopped by this joint and ate tortas bistek, mine was spicy and his was regular. I hated the man on the nearby corner singing off-key but I sympathized because he needed the money. He murdered Tom Jones’ What's New Pussycat, a favorite melody since I’d come of age. He hacked the lyrics to bits and left nothing for me, only the sordid woaah woaaahs which left a nasty taste in my mouth. We drank beers beside a gutter that evening because people are insatiable. My plan to simply sit on a dim corner with cheap beer at hand dissipated. All I desired was the joint’s darkness to swallow me only for a bit. That night was a bitch telling me if you’re late you better not come at all.

a change of mind

The neighbors…the neighbors had become downright obnoxious. I actually went out of my way to be pleasant with these people, and yet the culture clash and machismo attitudes of these thoughtless proletariats began to wear wear my patience this. Who am I kidding, they all got on my fucking last nerve. The ranchero music blasted daily at maximum volume, the gaggle of screaming kids, the adults communicating with one another by screaming from one end of the block to another. It was hopeless, I couldn't concentrate when I wanted to write. Too bad, I actually did like that apartment.

So, I pondered…thought and thought…debated and debated on what to do to the point I couldn’t sleep and attained a debilitating migraine from the ordeal. I planned on leaving Juarez and flying over to Tijuana to reside in a beachfront cottage and wile away my days. However, the truth of the matter is, I am getting tired of pulling up my tent and relocating by the seat of my pants. Setting out on an adventure only for it to blow up in my face. On a whim and mostly from a stroke of luck, I located a pleasant little apartment by Parque Benito Juarez and did the old switcheroo in the still of a frosty night.

For the same rent, it is a far more modern apartment tended by a pleasant landlady. It is fully furnished and secure and quiet. (As of this writing) Two days of normality in these gringos eyes pass as I settle into my new digs. The guard dog barks each time I exit the patio and hit that shattered concrete sidewalk lined with blues and yellows and greens of adobe gated properties. The wafting aroma of freshly baked breads emit from the corner panaderia. Ancient buses fart black soot into the bright blue sky as the beautiful Indian lad pushes a cart of dried fruits down Insurgentes Blvd. Cross a vast, grubby park spotted with dusty palm trees infected with rentboys and the toothless old vampires who hunt them. A towering statue erected of former el presidente Benito Juarez scowls down on them in frustrated contempt.

“Look, Kelvin, you’re not that attractive, your personality is sulky and the only reason people associate with you at all is in lieu of your ten inch penis.”

He turns arrogantly away and flicks ashes from his borrowed cigarette. The ashes float away on a chilled breeze and disappear much like his hopes and aspirations. 

I saunter down the newly constructed Plaza 16^th de Septiembre – nostalgic memories of how once this was once a cobblestone lined street clogged with kamikaze taxis and choking buses emitting enough soot to clog your pores, by God – and I sit on a concrete bench and smoke and watch a band of grungy, teenage hippies wail out old Beatle tunes and other 60’s shtick that has been run into the ground. The sun is setting behind the cathedral in a fiery blast of oranges and yellows as the long shadows of winter cause me to pull my jacket tighter. But it does not stop the merriment of this night. The people still congregate. They still laugh and chat and sing and love. Under incandescent lamps, street vendors of sweet cakes, balloons, and sundries do their stylized ballet through the meandering throng. Unknown music bebops from several store facades and cantina doorways. A pack of cops stroll by wearing black body armor and sporting machine guns slung over their shoulders. One smiles at me and asks is all well?

Yes, at the moment, all is well…

Night falls and I make my way to Café 656. A downright fiesta is in full swing – a band of geriatrics wail out rock-n-roll oldies in both English and Spanish as the bohemian crowd sip aperitifs and claps along. I say hello to the owner Coco and find a seat in a shadowy corner, order a coffee and enjoy the music.

Past the gyrating crowd, I peer out the large pane-glass window and I ponder: Why not? Why not settle here and live out my days? Never mind the derogatory remarks from the faggish/macho aduana every time I cross the border of I shouldn’t be living here. “Your country doesn’t want Mexicans living in your country, we don’t want you living here.” Never mind the evil and danger which lurks in the crumbling shadows of bombed out, vacant buildings left over from the Cartel Wars. Never mind the poverty and dirt and insipid filth. It’s cheap and everything I require is plentiful. On the whole, the people are nice and respectful. It sustains my muse to write and though the city has changed drastically from the first time I arrived decades ago from a wild and woolly anything goes border town to a somewhat progressive district, it has grown on me.

My thoughts are interrupted by the smiling and waving from a passing friend. Enrique stands outside the cafe glaring at me and motions me to join him. I had not seen this cutey in years. I go outside and we shake hands. Brief patter of what-ever-happened-to-so-and-so.

“I was about to go back home.” I beam. “I’m glad I ran into you, Ricky.”

He slowly states in his newly acquired if broken English, “But, it’s still early. Mind if I join you for a coffee?”

“Well, in that case, I think I will stay.”

no reason. no reason at all

Couldn't sleep and the gin had worn off. I pulled on my clothes and walked out into a still night. The only sound was the distant barking dogs and the thumping of the ranchero music issuing from passing cantinas.

It was chilly. The cold winds of fall had already began to blow grit and tiny swirls of loose garbage into eddies catching in doorways of crumbling adobe masonry. With hands in my black hoodie in a vain attempt to thwart the dirty, cold air, I strode quickly over the smashed sidewalks sidestepping fresh feces and urine puddles. I walked with purpose, I knew exactly where I was going.

The park lay six short blocks from my sordid flat. I had to dash by the Hotel Juarez with its peeling paint and shattered windows, ignoring the catcall whistles from plump hookers. They writhed with tiny hands on obese hips, flashing of silver teeth with intentions that would terrorize any homosexual to the core.

I cross Calle Obregon and the park lay ahead - dark and menacing with island pools of dim yellow light. The trees were all black skeletal hands grasping up into a twinkling navy sky. Already I notice shadows lurking in the night. Silhouettes lumbering between the dim lights of the metal lamp posts and the decaying gazebo which commanded the center of the park. Here and there the red cherry of a cigarette broke the monotony.

I, too, lit a cigarette and exhaled up into the dusty, dark night.

"You gotta smoke?" Was asked in Spanish.

I turned. Standing under a street lamp with hands in pockets and hip hooked stood a wiry, young man. Black, shiny hair parted down the middle hung limply obscuring his face in malevolent shadow. A well worn green t-shirt and frayed, baggy jeans were draped over his bony, copper-colored torso.

I approached him, fishing a cigarette out of the pack, handing it over. He mumbled gracias or something like that and then asked for a light. When he lit up, his face was blasted clear in an orange flash. Young. A somewhat malnourished look with the faint hint of acne scars. It was a moment, but it was enough. I turned to hunt better choices, but he stopped me with a "You live in El Paso?"

"No." I croaked. "I live here."

"I have a room nearby. You want to be with me?"

The desperation in his voice is what lured me. The wanting. Of money for food to be certain. More likely, for a habit. I took a long drag and said sure, He silently began walking. I followed with my hands in my hoodie.

We turned a corner down a dark, quiet street. Accompanying the wind, which caused the flotsam of discarded plastic bags to sing, was the buzzing sound of a monstrous conductor attached to a bent light pole. A myriad of thick power cables webbed outward in every direction. He stopped at a steel door under the conductor and with a jingling of keys and a push of his thin shoulder opened the door.

We silently walked across a small, walled courtyard filled with shadowy heaps of junk to a row of ragged wooden screen doors. He opened one, stepped in and flick on a light. Cockroaches scattered across the bare concrete floor littered with cigarette butts and candy wrappers. A soiled mattress with rumpled bedding took up most of the room. The green walls were grimy and scuffed. A rickety bureau sat in a corner, the drawers half open cascading in waded clothes. There was no bathroom, no kitchen. The room smelled of sour linens and dead bugs.

He stood in the middle of the room. In the light I got a better look at him. He was attractive in a rough way. Full lips and the sparse black hairs of a moustache. His eyes, though. His eyes projected such fierce anger and sadness mixed with insanity.

I stepped closer. He unbuttoned his jeans and slid them to his calves, He wasn't wearing any undershorts. I gawked at his penis. It was...huge. Even flaccid, it hung a good five inches. He took my hand and placed it on his sagging balls.

"You like it?" He smiled with small, stained teeth.

"It's very big." I complimented as his organ swelled in my stroking palm.

I mechanically dropped to my knees and placed the monstrous, uncircumcised fucker in my mouth and began slowly stroking the shaft with my tongue. Finding a rhythm, he thrust in a corkscrew motion as I slobbered and sucked with my mouth, his thin brown hand placed on the back of my head, guiding me. Eventually, his breathing quickened and he yanked his glistening organ out and squirted ropey streams of semen onto the dirty, concrete floor.

I stood and he pulled his jeans up, flinging the residue off his hand and wiping what was left on the tattered blanket.

I lit a cigarette, offered him one. He asked for twenty dollars and I agreed, slapping the folded bill into his scrawny hand with dirt under the nails. We shook hands under the conductor and I made the lonely, silent walk back to my apartment filled with sadness and depression.

The following day, I purchased an airline ticket to San Diego, California. For no reason. No reason at all.

halting on a corner

A vast expanse of dusty, crumbling structures made up of red brick and adobe sprawled out into a smog-choked horizon. Many seemed to still be standing from the early 1900’s, deteriorating slowly under a brutal, desert sun.

Ciudad Juárez definitely was not a tourist attraction. Few curio shops catered to the international visitor. Juárez Avenue was the main drag which began at the international bridge of the Rio Grande and stretched sixteen blocks south, lined on both sides with a few discos, small cantinas, and fly infested restaurants. To the constant tune of a mambo beat, taxi drivers sat inert in the intense sun, shop owners languidly read newspapers, and mangy dogs zigzagged between pedestrians who clogged the cobblestone sidewalks.

I made my way south on Juárez Avenue to the towering Guadalupe Cathedral, a pile of ancient stone which dated back several centuries. From what I gathered, Juárez sprang up around the cathedral like growing fungus and spread outward.

Turning on Avenida 16th de Septiembre, I approached the fortress of worship down a dusty sidewalk. As I crossed towards a crowded plaza in front of the church, my senses were on alert.

Encompassing a large, concrete square - Plaza las Armas, it was called - sat a multitude of people on long, stone benches under sporadically placed trees doing nothing but socializing as they had for countless years.

It was near mid-afternoon and the sun beat down in shimmering heat upon the concrete thoroughfare. A legion of shoeshine boys fluttered through the masses as vendors sold flavored ice and sunglasses. Two young men did a clown act at the base of the cathedral stairs to an applauding and laughing audience. The stalls were an arabesque of multihues selling all types of candy colored curious. The air wafted with smells of spoiled garbage, automobile exhaust, and seared taco meat. Local families strolled with their giggling children, bewildered tourists gawked, and in cooling shadows a band tootled and twanged music indigenous to Sinaloa. I stood for a moment and appreciated this idyllic scenario of Mexican life which took place against a backdrop of the cathedral’s mammoth, twin-spires topped by neon crosses.

Interwoven among this picturesque scenery was the clandestine hum of rentboy activity and the old farts in Stetsons who loved them, squatting in the roasting shade, shivering with lust. I knew this type of place all too well.

As on cue, I was swarmed over by guides strictly on the hustle:

“Taxi, Meester?”

“Pussy women? Titty girl?"

“Massage?”

A group of stern and rugged campesinos peered down at me from a rustic, graffiti splattered gazebo in the middle of the plaza with far away eyes filled with curiosity for the wandering foreigner.

Covered in grungy clothes, the gaggle of stoic men waited silently and patiently for the sun to set and make the run across the border. At the base of the gazebo, lonely queens idly sat and lingered for the chance to snag one of those studs as countless, cheap hotels lay nearby.

I stood there taking it all in when a young man hobbled on crutches up to me. As he approached, he wore a forced smile upon his face.

He introduced himself and said his name was Edgar. He was a young man with shaggy, brown hair. His face was handsome yet held a visage of some unknown and long suffering. He was dressed nicer than the other beggars, so I assumed he wasn’t. The crutches were fairly new and gave me the idea his malady was recent.

“Hello there, Edgar.” I grinned, attempting to be cordial. “What happened, man? What’s with the crutches?”

His face grimaced in pain and mumbled something about having a hard time standing. After purchasing us both a soda, I invited him over to a vacant spot on the concrete benches.

Again, I lightheartedly inquired what was wrong with his legs. He stared at the passing multitude, took a sip of his drink for dramatic effect, and began his tale of woe.

With a determined look deep into my eyes he said, “I was walking home from work two days ago - you know, out by Parque Independencia. A squad car pulled up and two officers began harassing me. They had me sit on the curb as they began going through my backpack. I had nothing in there but my uniform, right? They asked for my ID - which I had. It was current - but, this one pendejo accused it as being fake.” He took another sip of his soda. “They started all kinds of shit that I looked like some runner for the cartel they had been looking for and right in front of me cut my ID up with a knife. Then, they threw me into the back of the squad car.”

“Damn. What happened next?” I asked.

His eyes became misty, “They drove me out to the middle of nowhere, man. Still cuffed, they dragged me out behind this building and had me take my shoes off. I was sitting in the dirt when they took their batons and began beating my feet.”

He lifted one pant leg and his skin was mottled with large purple and blue bruises. His tan skin ashy from scratch marks.

I scowled. “Goddam!”

Edgar rolled his pants back down and continued, “They threw me in the back of the car again and drove me out to my neighborhood and dumped me about six blocks from my house.

With the utmost contempt peppered with fear, Edgar eyed two police patrols meandering through the Plaza - one a hulking, apish looking man and the other a stone faced, dumpy woman. At that moment I could not help feeling Edgar’s emotions. I loathed them, too.

“Wow…that’s tough.” I mumbled. I mean, what could I say?

“That’s not all of it.” He spat, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “As I was walking home - the best I could - another patrol car cruises up and they started their shit. I explained what happened, right? They laughed, accused me of not having an ID after I had told them what happened - threw me in the back of the car and drove me around awhile - all along not saying a word. Once at a substation, they put me in a cell and beat my legs as other prisoners silently looked on. It was horrible!”

As tears began to trickle down his brown cheeks, I asked, “Then what did they do?”

“They let me go.” He stated flatly. “They drove me a block to my place and let me go.”

Edgar sat there for a moment, silently reminiscing the terrible ordeal. He gulped another mouthful of coke, “The next day, I told my neighbor and she gave me these crutches. I took a taxi over to the police station on 8th and tried to explain what happened. The receptionist just said it was my word against the cops. And they would believe the cops - since I had no ID. After that, I went to the Human Rights building and tried to explain it to them - but, I got the same response. Man, I tell you, amigo - you gringos have no idea how fucked up it is for us here.”

Indeed.

He stuttered out the words, “I was hoping…since I’d lost my job because of this, if you could help me with any pesos? I haven’t got anything and,” He jerked his chin down to his legs, “I don’t think I’ll be working anytime soon.”

I stood up and took out my wallet. Removing two twenty dollar bills, I placed them into Edgar’s hands.

Edgar’s eyes misted up again, “Gracias, amigo. Mucho gracias.”

He excused himself to return to his apartment and use the money to pay rent. As I watched Edgar hobble away, it was my first taste of the dire circumstances in which the cartels and the local police were suffering onto the people of this city.

The sun ultimately boiled away into night and I walked out of the plaza. As twilight fell, the downtown area burst into a carnival atmosphere. All types of crazy hipsters assembled wearing woolen, Peruvian ski caps and hip-hop paraphernalia and pacheco haircuts in every doorway and on every corner.

I strolled down Avenida 16th de Septiembre and passed tiny, sweltering carts where they prepared churros and cut them for me from sizzling grease baskets. I crunched voraciously from a bag I purchased as I planned to cover the Mexican night ahead on the cracked and trash strewn sidewalk.

Wandering aimlessly, I rambled down the crazy hooker infested street of Calle Mariscal and pushed and dodged through the phantom night of activity.

Mariachis stood on lamp lit corners or in front of closet-sized cantinas and blew beautifully into shiny trumpets. Taxis crawled along pot-holed pavement, sweaty American perverts from El Paso aimed for their Dark Prey as children huddled hungry in the shadows with wary eyes. Transvestite prostitutes minced through the night with their coiling fingers of Come On as young, heterosexual Aztec men passed. The youthful drunks stumbled with flashing smiles and gave the trannies the once over.

Ranchero Music drummed from a thousand neon-splashed cantinas. Down mysterious side streets, antique and crippled buses built in the 1950’s waddled in mud holes, flashes of fiery-yellow transvestite whoredress in the dark, in shadowed alcoves assembled pimps and pushers of flesh and junk who leaned against walls of naked mortar. Pretty boys passed, every age. I turned to watch them, far too beautiful, my God - they smiled back a smile that was a siren which could sink any ship, cabron.

Macho men dressed in flashy vaquero gear or grimy rags with huge, floppy straw hats entered and exited smokey bars occupied with howling people, drinking Indio from tall water glasses, coolly smoking mota in crumbling alcoves, shamelessly pissing into open sewage ditches along dark alleys. Whores by the hundreds lined along the adobe walls of Orizaba Street and in front of their dank, sweet scented cells of disease, beckoning coyly as I passed.

A scrawny prostitute with long, straight raven hair approaches and flashed me a smile of silver-capped teeth.

“Oye, baby, want to fuck?” She beams.

I look down and noticed she was several months pregnant.

“Oh, mami, it looks like someone beat me to it.” I smiled as I passed her.

She laughed heartily and calls at me, caressing her stomach with petite, brown hands, “For you, one price for two, papi.”

Arm in arm, packs of young Mexican men recklessly strolled down the main whorestreet of Mariscal, black hair hung limply over their eyes - borracho – as long legged women of calling in tight yellow-blue-red dresses grabbed at them and cocked their pelvises in, pulling at their shirts and pleading. The boys drunkenly wobbled and smiled shyly away as blank-faced cops patrolled the thoroughfare on little bicycles, rolling invisibly over broken sidewalks.

I eventually stopped on a corner under a flickering marquee and lit a cigarette, soaking all this wonderful madness in. With an optimistic grin, I realized with certainty that Juárez would make a mighty fine home for a while.

Sissy Boy Slap Party

"...Boys, boys, boys...I turn my back, and there you are...slapping each other again. I couldn't trust any of you for a minute..." 

Write on!

Writer. Homosexual. Junkie. Murderer. This will be my next novel. I might have not begun writing it, yet...but at least I have a cover! (Still working on a title, too.) I'm quite excited, this will be my first work that isn't based on my personal biographical material.
It's all set and I am ready. I have accumulated scores of notes and references. The angle is, it will be related as a dramatic story and not simply a dry, documentary account. I hope I do Joan and old Bill justice...

Don’t people write bestsellers on napkins?

I’m beginning to think he stood me up. Again. I made a reservation for two and I paid for it. It wasn’t cheap, either, not on a writer’s salary. I’ve been waiting here in this lobby for three days straight now, in the only suit I own – which I purchased at a second hand store, anyway - notebook open, waiting. Waiting for my Muse. I think perhaps I should change. I think perhaps I should check out of this place (and into a different kind of place)

It’s not like it’s anything spectacular, anyway. My room overlooks Highway 10. I’ve got a balcony over Highway 10 with a view of a vast New Mexican prairie. Discarded plastic trash bags play among the yellowed brush as a row of biscuit-colored mountains lay against an azure horizon.That’s not right. But I could live with that, if he’d only show up! I could draw the curtains and forget about the balcony! I don’t know if he’s coming, but I’ll give it another day or two. Call me naïve, but he will come, he always comes, just not when it’s convenient for me or in accordance with our pre-arranged plans.

I’m sitting in the lobby of a chain hotel. Patrons laze around with magazines and pastries as if they have nothing better to do. Not me, I’m tending to serious business. The concierges (two glorious old queens) keep asking me about him, since I’d told them what I’m up to. I state I’m waiting for a man. That’s all I said at first. Howerever they keep asking, as if it’s twenty questions. As if it’s the most fun they'd had in weeks. It’s fun for them because they’re making fun of me, at my expense. I think they think he’s either a prostitute or an imaginary friend because yesterday, when they asked me his name, I said I didn’t know. Well, I don’t. But hey! Lots of people have sex with people they don’t know the names of so I don’t see why it’s so different to be in a long-term (if somewhat erratic) relationship with a man whose name you don’t know. Go on, judge me.

I haven’t written anything in weeks. I keep trying. My own imagery bores me. My conceits bore me. They’re stale, they’re moldy, they stink. They beg to be composted. I keep comparing seashells to fists when really they’re nothing alike. I keep making religious pronouncements. Those don’t belong in stories (unless you’re Rimbaud, and even then) It’s this thirst for grandiosity. It’s exhausting. I’ve been feeling hollow, dissociated, like I’m out of my body but I’m not anywhere else. And my Muse, who knows where he is? Perhaps he’s found another writer. Maybe even a painter! Maybe he’s posing for his portrait right now and that’s why he’s so late for our date. Or maybe he’s a musician and they’re in the middle of a duet. Composing together. Perhaps he’s his muse, too.

Perhaps he simply desires me when I’m unavailable. Isn’t it clear to him, though? I’m always available. I could be dying. I could be on the brink of death, about to consummate my union with God once and for all and I’d hear his voice and tell the Almighty to fuck off, I'm busy.

The concierge I dislike the least is a small old queer with gray waves and gray troublemaker’s eyes. He’s mopping the putrid green linoleum diamond-shaped floor tiles and doesn’t seem to notice how putrid they are. The shape, the color, clichés, clichés.

“And how did the young man sleep?”

“Badly,” I reply, hospitably.

“Nightmares?” He asks, sort of conspiratorially, like it’s an inside joke or something. I haven’t told him anything about my dreams. “Because it couldn’t have been the pillows. I arranged them myself!”

“It was the pillows,” I jab. “My dreams were excellent.” At least this last part is true.

“My, dear, young man....” His mop stops moving and he’s looking at me and I’m looking at the floor because I’d rather look down at the putrid green diamonds then up at those blazing gray circles. “You look exhausted. Maybe you should take a nap. And put on something more comfortable. Do you have pajamas?”

That does it. Like I’m going to meet my Muse—the love of my life—in fucking jammies. Of course sometimes I can’t help it like when he shows up unexpected at two in the morning and I’m sleeping. That’s the thing about writing. Every time you sleep you’re sleeping on the job. I need a cup of coffee. Then I’m going to tell this bitch exactly what...

outlaw queen

The cold and equally bitter winds of fall wash over The City. The sky is a crisp, midnight blue speckled with pinpoint lights of long dead stars. My hands in my black jacket pockets and my shoulders hunched up to my ears, I dart around the corner of an adobe building with exposed yellow brick in a vain attempt to thwart the offending gusts.

Fucking desert, I mumble. Spitting grit from my dry mouth, squinting watery eyes. Loose trash swirls in eddies as I stride past a blue tiled wall of a whorehouse. The neon sign of the marquee had given up decades ago and the building is lit in ghastly yellow from the towering street lamp.

A gaggle of plump hookers stand leaning by the entrance. Their tight, spandex attire fail to cover their protruding love-handles, sagging guts, and cottage cheese thighs. I walk by, they smile through silver capped teeth, mutter lascivious offerings. One grabs my arm, I stop, look Imperiously down on her.

Her face is a heavily made up face of a woman of sixty five or more. The make up is applied to allude the impression she is younger. It doesn't work.

"You wanna fuck me, baby?" She quacks.

I grin, "Why would I want to that?"

"You wanna fuck me, baby?" She repeats.

I then understand that is the extent of her English, so I simply mumble no and turn to continue on my way.

"Yo no gusta." (I don't like it) I say calmly.

She glances into my bloodshot, dry eyes and smiles, asking in Spanish, "You don't like women?"

"I simply do not like prostitutes," I answer in Spanish.

"Why? We are people, you know, earning a living." She states with mounting anger. "You are no better than us."

I realize by her defensive stance on the topic, it was not her first time having this discussion with an American. Most likely with a stereotypical ugly American. However, as with me, she was missing the point entirely.

I began, smiling warmly, "I have complete respect for you and all the ladies of your ilk. With that said, my reason being, you sell a fantasy. However, every time I am propositioned by a working lady.."

At that moment, an obese slob of fifty shuffled out of the whorehouse entrance. His buttoned shirt hanging out of stained, filthy trousers. His sagging face unkempt and covered in a fine layer of grease. His salt and pepper hair receding over a large, misshapen head. He smelled like a compost heap. He actually snorted and spat a huge loogie onto the sidewalk.

I look at the old whore, then nod at the slob shuffling away down the sidewalk, "...for me, the fantasy you sell is destroyed because I know...no matter how beautiful and pleasant said girl is...someone like him just fucked her before I did."

She cackled, placing a small, wrinkled hand on my chest, "Oh, mijo, we are all clean!" Her witch-like laughing echoed against the surrounding buildings.

I smiled broad at her and said, "And I prefer men, anyway."

She actually hugged me, "Oh...I knew it! My son is un joto (is gay). Maybe you can meet him?"

I stuttered and laughed, "Maybe another time?" The very fact that an old prostitute was attempting to fix me up with her son in the middle of a Mexican slum struck me as completely and utterly surreal. I had to dodge this woman, most likely her son was a simpering, sullen drag queen who performed in some dive bar nearby. Nope.

I bid her goodnight and continued through the gathering dirt storm towards the cantina I haunt. I sat nursing a cold caguama amid cackling queens and preening vaqueros. As I lit a cigarette, a drag show on the tiny stage in the corner began. A frail thing of about twenty-two years old dressed in a black and silver glittery gown came out from behind grimy, red velvet curtains and began belting out a forlorn Mexican love ballad. I watched and mused, I wonder if that is her son? Their faces look similar. I thought sadly how rough these peoples lives are compared to our privileged existence on the opposite side of the border.

That train of thought was broken as I felt a hand slide softly across my back. I turned to see a handsome, young man smiling holding a beer glass. Clean and well dressed, he leaned over and whispered into my ear, "Mind if I join you?"

"Not at all." I replied.

Outside, the wind howled and The City continued...

brave little cells

We are both under the influence.

The effects are perhaps slightly different but we are heavily drugged none the less. It’s the city and this is what happens to people who were meant to live like vermin.

Grow up.

Your heart is a fluorescent pink and your skin is worn and see-through, like rice paper wrapped tight around your rib case, pretty boy breaking, you are so intelligent, and now you look like a terrifying lantern, your emotions lighting up the concrete walls like warped little creatures in a shadow puppet play.

And my heart goes on and off like a siren, either dead silent, cynical bitch with a second hand attitude, didn’t they love you when you were little?, or roaring like an engine out of control, the screws coming loose, and there are tears under my finger nails and the chap stick doesn’t last nearly eight hours even though it said so on the tube.

And the old naco continues to stand on the corner wailing a sad Mexican ballad that no one wants to hear…

notes

Even after I told myself to take a break from writing, I find myself jotting down detailed notes on that science fiction piece. Though I am equally passionate about the work on the Joan Vollmer story, this science fiction thing is really becoming an obsession. One angle is, I want it to be rich in history and detail, kind of like Herbert's Dune but written in the quick, action soaked cliff-hanger style of E.R. Burroughs A Princess of Mars. It's coming along nicely...

Sarkova.

Sarkota.

Sarkobba.

Sarkojaa.

Attempting to find the right sounding (and in print, look interesting) name for a primitive tribe of seven-foot tall aliens native to the planet Karkoon who resemble diamond back gorillas with four arms...basing their culture on the Yanomami People who reside in South America...

I was at the cafe yesterday and my friend Omar was thumbing through my notebooks. Reading the twenty or so pages of hand scribbled ideas, he stopped and pointed out the title "The Adventures of Colt Corrigan: Book One: Across the Galactic Lens". He asked, "This is a lot of intense stuff, do you have any ideas for sequels?"

"No." I laughed. "It began as a joke. Years ago, a friend and I were stumbling down the street drunk, talking about books and a writer's life work, and I said of all the books I pen, my most famous would probably be some cheesy take on old pulp serials. It's title will be Colt Corrigan and his Adventures Across the Galactic Lens! A mashup of Buck Rogers and 70's chop sockey kung fu movies."

I seriously believe I was foretelling my future in hindsight...

Unlike my previous work which was based on true events and I required only to transcribe from memory, writing science fiction is daunting. The work going into creating everything from names to back history to random objects and how they function...I am actually enjoying it. I realize to some, if not all of you, that this sounds naive and perhaps tripe, but this is my first attempt at pure fiction and I am seeing it as an adventure. The true battle is to not make it overtly cliche. And that is where the frustration sets in...

I rather be depressed and feel that than be hopped up on meds that suppress all emotions.

like magic

I spend my nights hunched over the keys of my laptop, tap, tap, tapping away. Words flow out of me faster than I can type them, but I try to keep up.

Tap, tap, slide to a new line.

With every new page comes a new adventure, new sights and experiences that only I can bring. Page after page, I write. Year after year, I excel.

Tap, tap, slide to a new line.

I weave my stories layer by layer, twist after tragedy, tragedy by twist. Casts a spell. Images spill from my mind onto the page. Ink envelops white in a warm embrace.

Tap, tap, slide to a new line.

The images lie in wait on the pale screen until eyes slide over them like warm butter on toast, then explode in the mind’s eye like fireworks. Vivid and bright. Altered, yet intact.

Tap, tap, slide to a new line.

Bringing with them sound, taste, smell, and touch. Maybe even confusing those senses in favor of a better picture. That’s what it’s all about. Brilliant and pure. Like magic.

flash

As her voice rang through my ears I couldn’t concentrate on just one thing. My mind drifted from where I stood, in the bright room, to a place I hadn’t been in years. I looked back throughout my life and every single choice I’ve ever made. My childhood was relived in a few short seconds; I thought of my future and what I would become.  Her voice was reverberating off my ear drums, until I finally came to continuousness, “I’ll have a medium coffee.”

happy halloween, readers!

Doorbell rings. Opens door...

With quivering hand gives out tiny Mars bar. Slowly closes door.

happy halloween?

life imitates art

I was interviewed recently by a magazine based in New York City. They were kind enough to take the time and effort to grant me attention. Here is an excerpt:

You can read the interview here in it's entirety:

http://www.roundupzine.com/featured-author/

depression

This world is not what it seems. There are layers that you haven’t seen, that you’ll hopefully never experience. I am one of the unlucky ones, who has to live with the knowledge that the monsters are real. I envy you and your simple life. Some days it is hard for me to get out of bed, to face a world full of people who don’t have to think about the things I know. You can just smile and walk away from the truth, because my truths are just fairy tales to you. The monsters don’t lurk around a corner for you. Well, at least you don’t see it lurking. I have to face the evil of this world. Creatures only alive to torture us. There is no place for sympathy, those things are pure evil. I don’t care about humans and their strange wars and fights. Nothing compares to the horrors that creep around at night. Be glad you’re able to live in your world, mine is a never ending nightmare. I envy your blindness, your problems and your fears. Seeing you walk around your world without noticing mine, makes me wish I had the strength to finally end it, but I still have a job to do. Someone has to be the nightmare of your horror. Look at me! Take a close look and you’ll see the one thing your fears are afraid of. I’ll fight for you, so you’re able to live your lives. So please, make it count.

and so it goes

In reality, I want to take a break. I had just spent a year and a half culminating "the trilogy" with the completion of borrowed flesh. With that said, I am already getting excited about my next work. A quirky story based on the event of William S. Burroughs shooting his wife Joan Vollmer in Mexico City. I had wanted to cool my mind and "play the fuck out of Fallout 3" through the winter to flush my mind of all that clutter, yet it seems I had already began jotting down notes and plot points. Haven't thought of a title yet and I don't want to go the hack route by using some Burroughsian term or word title. It will come to me. The working title I slashed across the first note page was Beat. How pedestrian is that?

phantoms in the park

One of the small quirks of my apartment is that it does not have a walk-in closet. I have been actually living out of my suitcase since I moved in. So, today I decided to go buy one. Here in Mexico, most apartments do not offer walk-in closets, so the furniture stores offer quite a large selection.

It was around noon when I headed out and wished to eat lunch before pounding the pavement in my quest. On Juarez Ave., I nabbed two burritos with diced weenies and beans from a tiny shop I frequented. The food is cheap and the people who run it are exceptionally friendly. I made my way through swirling dust and coughing, antiquated buses to a vast park which held a massive monument of former presidente Bonito Juarez. To me, the statue always seemed as if he was flipping off the city. I don't blame him.

As I walked over the dying grass, dodging massive pools of drying, black muck, a tall and quite handsome hustler dashed up to me with the worn-out ice breaker, "Hey, you remember me?"

Actually, I did remember him. The last time I drank at bar Buen Tiempo, he popped his head in the swinging doors, smiled at me with a curt nod of the head, and then disappeared back out into the night.

He introduced himself and stated he was from Honduras. Tall, athletically built, and masculinly handsome. His neck was spotted with an array of hickeys. His voice was stern and deep. I said hello and attempted to continue on my way to locate a bench to eat my lunch but it was too late, he latched on, following me and babbling with questions on what I was doing today in his broken English.

We began chatting about his wish to cross the border and him being reunited with his family in Los Angeles until the hustler's point turned towards sex. He watched a plump female waddle to the nearby bus stop.

"You like the womens?" He asked.

"Nope." I stated.

"You like the boys?" He smirked.

"Nope."

"You crazy. You like nothing?" He laughed.

I only wanted to eat my lunch. As I took a bite of my burrito, he looked at me and leered, "Let's go to your house?"

"That's okay," I said. "I've grown attached to the things in my house." I really didn't feel like being robbed, either.

There was a long pause and I stated, "I never thought you were homosexual."

"I'm not homosexual!" He blurted.

"You have sex with men. And obviously like it."

"Only for the money!"

"Then why don't you have sex with women for money?"

"They not pay!"

"Why? Are you bad at sex? You have a small dick? You cum too fast?"

The disdained look on his face stated he obviously had enough of my shit. Mumbling something I couldn't understand, he dramatically rose and walked away.

Finishing my lunch. I made my way to the markets where they sold used furniture and perused the outlets. I did notice several objects I wanted for my house but I couldn't shake the doubting urge to just pack my shit and get the hell out of Juarez. The thought looms constantly over me like a thick fog.

To alleviate that frump, as I was exiting the market district and making my way to the cathedral, I ran into someone I hadn't seen in almost a decade, my old friend Enrique.

We stood a bit under dusty awnings and shot the shit going over the what-ever-happened-to-so-and-so routine. We eventually wound up in a booth at Cafe Central sipping coffee and pleasantly chatting of days gone past. In the early days, I had such a crush on Enrique when I used to sit on humid nights with my friends in Plaza las Armas and he would saunter by all handsome and full of boyish smiles. He was and still is a great conversationalist as we whiled away the afternoon dunking cake and casually catching up. It was refreshing to talk to someone without the constant dread of it becoming a financial play.

We shook hands on the corner of Ave. Francisco Villa and 16th de Septiembre under the glaring light of a baneful moon making plans to meet for drinks.

As I returned home, my depression elevated as I thought, that is what I want. Not romance or love or recognition, but just good friends to hang with and talk and have a few kicks. Maybe Juarez isn't so bad after all...

A lucid, shattering portrait of a life going down the tubes. Luis Blasini frankly reveals the exhilarating true story of restless years wandering south of the border in the slums of Mexico and across the United States from flop house to seedy hotel.

Blasini brings out the junkies, hoodlums, prostitutes, sexual deviants, and thieves crawling in the back alleys of the world. Transcribed from the notebooks he kept while on the road and written in a distinct, hard boiled style, Borrowed Flesh composes a tough, yet funny narrative of his adventures with drugs, homelessness and lifeless romance.

Borrowed Flesh is derisive, inventive, frankly homoerotic, comical, serious, poetic, and ineradicably American - a fast paced quirky work in which you are not permitted to laugh and yet, at times, will find yourself doing so.

My new novel titled Borrowed Flesh has just went into publication. It is a novelization of the blog and I think it turned out very well. It is written in a very beat centric style on which was a heavy influence. If you would like to own a copy, simply click the icon on the book listings to the right on this blog and enjoy!

Juarez City Blues 2.0

Night blanketed the City and I was in a foul mood. I strode quickly as I usually do over broken sidewalks of tin cans and shattered beer bottles. Ranchero music drifted from a hundred cantinas as I darted past a foul smelling alley way that hosted a grungy hotel nestled in a block of vacant, gloomy buildings. A fat prostitute stood tottering on the corner blocking my way. I attempted to dash past her without incident. Nope. She wouldn't have it.

"Psst...psst. Fucky-sucky?" She croaked.

Normally I ignored these working girls, but as I previously stated, I was in a foul mood. I shot back, "Not my type, ya hippopotamus!" The retort was lost in translation because she kept up with the psst-psst as I darted around the next corner.

The reason for my nasty disposition was that through a series of ignorant circumstances, I had decide to stay in Juarez for another month. I was angry at my situation and regretted my decision. I sighed inward. Well, no use crying over spilled milk...

Walking towards the neon blasted cathedral, I thought of the outcome. My neighbors are down right idiots. Obnoxious, self-serving animals who care for nothing but their self gratification. Example: the building I rent is old. Obviously constructed in the late 1800's. With that said, the walls are thick stone made of adobe brick. In the summer, it acts as an oven, in the winter, a freezer unit. There are no luxuries like central gas or air. On the positive side, it is unique and has old style charm. However, on the right, resides an old fuck who blasts his ranchero music at full volume. It's so powerful, it comes right through those thick walls and drowns out anything I am attempting to listen too. I had asked him nicely once to please lower it in lieu I wished to watch and hear a program on television. Since then, he continues to do it only for attention. He'll sit out front waiting for me to burst out in a hostile rage. I never do, I simply leave and return much later. Machisimo fuck.

On the left side resides an ugly as fuck woman with four screaming kids. School of any kind is not free here, so the little darlings are at home 24/7 banging and hollering and crying all day long. Sigh.

The only time I have any peace to write or time to myself is when these retards are asleep. They all crash around ten at night and wake up - loudly - at 5am. The old fuck sits out front literally yelling good morning to everyone, even dogs.

My nerves have had it. I may or may not, but I have been checking out relocating to Boulder, Colorado. From what I hear, there is a large writer colony there and the Jack Kerouac School of Poets is nearby. I don't know. As of right now, I am one forlorn cowboy...

gone

That night, I have a vision. It comes to me at three in the morning, as I’m lying awake on Carlos’ (that’s what he said his name was at the bar. It could had been Wilhelm for all I cared) anyway, I’m lying awake on his crappy pink futon, trying to figure out how to get my arm out from under his head without waking him. I see an endless string of Carloses stretching out before me, receding into the distance, getting smaller and wrinklier, saggier, until at last they shrink down to an invisible point and disappear. And when they disappear, so do I, dropping like a pebble into the black pool of eternity without making so much as a ripple.

The Carlos I just bedded snorts, coughs a spray of hot spittle onto my chest, and rolls away. New blood surges into my arm as I pull it back across my chest. Outside his window, a dog howls. I slip out of bed and dress in the darkness, silently, as if I were already a ghost. Soon enough, I’ll be gone.