Different.

It was morning, like any other, in that I was strewn across my floor, sleeping off my hangover. There came a point in these benders where anything other than the fetal position on a wood floor felt like the spinning teacups on speed. I stared across my room at my digital alarm clock. The numbers were always hard to decipher from this angle. It was either 11, 1 or 7, and even though only two of those answers were acceptable, all of them were entirely possible.

It was in this deja vu of waking up in a panic for the millionth time, that it really hit me. Before the sore back and shooting pain behind my left eye would sink in, I would think; this is the last time. This time is different.

I planned to drink a liter of water, hit the gym and forget this ever happened. But that always never happened. It was simply a sweet reverie I would sing before settling onto the couch, taking a fistful of Motrin and queuing up Netflix. The only place I would go on this day was the corner store for my daily dose of Gatorade. It had become the only thing I could ever guarantee a weekly occurrence of.

It wasn’t ever different. It had never been before and I slowly began to realize that it was never going to be. It was always the same.

Different was the only idea which excited me anymore because it was still an idea. It was far away. It was a dream nestled in a cloud, different was anything I wanted it to be without the suffering of sacrifice or the sober bleakness of reality. Everything thus far to be experienced was so easy to sum up with my small minded fantasies and fears. Everything was something special before I was bored of it. I contemplated extensively regarding how long something special could really last for a guy like me. The entire reason I would find my special something was because I was out searching for it, despondent with my boring nothings.

And so it was made simple in that moment.

Do the right thing, feel smug and be bored or douse myself in gasoline, light the town on fire and shame myself for weeks after the dust had settled.

Loveless and Expired

There is nothing left here. Only the traces of a lost soul. I feel as if the walls are enclosing, like my mind, forever shrinking unto itself. The days gone by and I live as shallowly as the rest of the world. Wandering in a lost city of broken dreams and fractured nightmares. The coffee in the morning tastes stale and the flowers by the window are now a gray yellow. Music is dull and ambitions are dying. Photos are no longer pretty and old post-it notes have lost their humor.

My feet drag me everywhere and nowhere, unwilling to arrive to a happier place. Conversations feel distant and meaningless. Nightmares have become my fantasies. The things which I once loved the most have lost their splendor. I am simply a shell now, counting down the days until my most deserved demise. I’m an outline of my former self, loveless and expired. I am haunted.

Rest in Peace

We lost a person who was for us a hope, an example, a star into the darkness of the world. A simple person who tried to do the best for that one day we will not be victims of prejudice. Today, we lost a brother, a partner, a friend. And our star has gone to heaven for shining. Forever.

mutual

The movie’s sound effects muddled out as I drifted closer and closer toward the magnetized abyss of sleep, slipping deeper and deeper into his arms. Beneath his shirt were the soft palpitations of his heart and the smell of heaven. I felt him shift his body a little and lay his head on top of mine. “I love you,” he murmured softly. His tone inflection did not suggest a mandatory return. He was not expecting a response. It sounded like a dawning truth not meant for me to hear yet. Pure statement and resolve. I could feel my chest melt and turn at the same time. The undeniable, daunting feeling was mutual.

He Sounds Weird

He smashed his cigarette out onto the cracked pavement with the toe of his shoe. Thin, aquiline features seemed pale and ghastly under the throbbing blue and white light of an overhead marquee. He peered at me as I entered the bar. His eyes ascertained a lazy gaze of crimson in them. Was he tired or inebriated? Undoubtedly both. American hustlers have to work long hours to make ends meet.

   I sat at the bar and ordered a beer. The pleasant old hag tending the counter stated that they did not serve Sol, “Only Coors. On tap.”

   For two dollars in a sixteen ounce glass, why not? The shit still tasted like a homeless man’s piss. I glanced around the bar – lost derelicts, antiquated hookers, furtive junkies. As I stared at my reflection in the mirror across from me, the kid at the front door slid onto a stool next to me. In the reflection, his image was sliced in half by the parting of the mirror plates. One pane was slightly higher than the other. The reflection was somewhat off putting. One good, the other bad.

   The aging bartender placed a styrofoam bowl of popcorn between us. With thin, tattooed covered hands he scooped up a fistful and shoved them into a broad mouth. As I watched, I got a better look at him. He was tall, thin, and wore the expression of annoyed petulance common to all Americans. It was a look designed to project aloof coolness to whomever cared to meet that gaze, but instead it simply reflected on how sad, beat, and completely bitchy a person could be. His torso was draped over by a green t-shirt with a large red star on the chest, loose fitted jeans, and black leather work shoes. His light brown hair was buzz cut and stood out dark against pale skin. His eyes....his eyes, though blood shot, were a light blue when they were blue. He held a face of a young boy, smooth and clean, who seemed to be perpetually pouting.

   I turned to him as he shoveled another handful of popcorn into his mouth. “You hungry?” I asked jokingly.

   He smiled through discolored teeth that he was or to that effect. I offered him a beer.

   “Sure, man. Thanks.” He said sniffing. “You spare a smoke?”

   I fished a cigarette from my pocket and he went to stand outside again and smoked. I sat sipping my beer. When he returned, he drank a gulp and then asked, “You live around here?”

   “I rent a room up on Oracle.” I explained. “I’m waiting for my housing vouchers to clear so I can get an apartment.”

   “Up on Oracle?” He repeated. “You rent a hotel room? Isn’t that fucking expensive?”

   I said nothing and took a gulp of beer.

   “What do you do?” He asked.

   “I’m a writer.”

   “A writer? Really? What do you write?”

   “Garbage apparently.”

   He laughed, I chuckled and ordered another round. It was that time of early evening when the bar was kept very dark and cool from the insidiously dry, one hundred degree weather outside. Even with the sun gone for the day and it being a full moon, the climate was uncomfortably hot. I snatched a paper napkin from a stack on the counter and wiped across my forehead.

   “It’s too fucking hot here.” I expressed to no one in particular.

   “Shit! It ain’t even June yet.” Stated an old man with a huge, cascading beard at the end of the bar. “Wait till yer ass gets stuck outside during August. Fuckin’ shit’s hot then!” It was Buddy, the bar regular. Word has it he has been frequenting the joint since 1967. I simply smiled at him and turned back to the kid.

   As I was about to speak, he slid off of his stool and walked to the mensroom. His jeans were pulled down and hung off a pair of bulbous cheeks hidden under gray boxers. As I watched him disappear into the pissoir, I thought, That’s an ass begging to get fucked.

   Yeah, I was feeling it. I wanted to conquer someone. I was stateside now and did not require to placate some Mexican macho fuck who kept his sphincter clenched the entire time while we had sex. I decided when the hustler returned from the restroom, I was going to casually pop the question to come back to my place. So, I waited...and waited...and waited.

   What the fuck? He fall in? I thought.

   I paid for two more beers and then casually walked into the mensroom. Nice set up. Red light, dim. The crumbling walls were a mass of scrawled graffiti. There was a long, metal piss trough and one toilet stall in which the boy stood. Fine, I’ll take a piss while I’m in here. As I stood at the urinal, for a moment it was silent, then I heard a light rhythmic clanging of a belt buckle and the muted raspy sound of skin sliding against skin. He was jacking off.

   I was already slightly inebriated, so what the fuck I thought and said, “You need help over there?”

   Momentarily he was silent. He then walked out from the stall and stood in the middle of the restroom with jeans unbuttoned. One hand hung limply at his side as the other held his pants up. Pointing out and up from the hole in his boxers was a long, circumcised erection.

   His face was tense and determined as he spoke in the crassest tone, “Yeah, man, I want my cock sucked.”

  I casually walked over to him and placed his erect penis in my hand. I read the callous warts lining the shaft like braille. I jerked my hand away. I looked up at his despairing face and said, “Not today, man. Don’t feel the need.”

   “You don’t want it?” He asked. I saw in his eyes that his affliction disgusted me. Obviously, I wasn’t the first to recoil from his advances today.

   “No.” I left him standing frustrated in that empty bathroom.

   Later, I stumbled out of the bar into the dank alley which smelled like rotted garbage and festering urine. The night was halfway over. While I was in the tavern, it must had rained. The uneven bricks of the back alley were glistening in a translucent reflection. I retrieved a cigarette out of my pocket with intoxicated, numb fingers, lit up. I leaned my head back and blew great plumes of smoke up into a dark and cloudy sky. The volumous clouds parted here and there so the stars could look down and judge me.

   “Fuck you.” I mutter and almost fall. I held onto a lamp post covered in flyers to support myself. The beers and tequila shots were taking their toll. I was truly screwed. Truly damned.

   “Hey.” A voice out of the darkness hissed. “You spare a smoke?”

   Goddammit, I don’t want to be bothered. I want to get home. First, I gotta piss.

   I didn’t answer the phantom and wobbled over to the filthy dumpster, whipped out my junk, and relieved myself. Cigarette precariously dangling from numb lips, I zipped up and half-assed a scan for police patrols. On one end of the alley, a group of loud frat boys stumbled by gregariously as they often are.

   “Can I bum a smoke off of you?” The voice asked again.

   I gazed over to a dark corner filled with shadows and dread. He slithered out of the inky blackness in grungy clothes and frayed sneakers. His blond hair was disheveled and he was sniffling. The boy was on something. It was his eyes. His eyes gleamed in the half-light, burning with sadness and despair and evil as hell addiction.

   “What?” I croaked.

   I felt like Fagin all hunched over and bitter and shitty.

   “Do...you...have...an...extra...cigarette?” He asked slow and drawn out as if speaking to a retard. Funny thing, he was.

   I mumbled ‘Oh yeah’ or something like that and handed him one. He took it in slender fingers, dirt under the nails. He was slight of build and I wondered the last time he ate.

   “So, what are you looking for?” He asked coyly.

   Ah yes, the general question of every male prostitute in every alley of the world.

   “Death.” I grunted.

   “Oh don’t say that. Life is good. It is wonderful and full of great times.” He smiled broadly.

   I blearily gazed at him and saw him in a new light. Here standing in front of me was a beautiful, homeless youth and in lieu of all his hardships he currently endured, he remained positive. I was like that once. Before being beaten down by lovers and friends and trust and mishap decisions and misguided circumstance. Before my mind went and became toxic and corrosive in embittered self-loathing.

   “Are you hungry?” I asked, pointing towards the 24 hour cafe open on the opposite end of the alley. “I need to get some food in me to suck up this alcohol.”

   “As a matter of fact, I am hungry.” He stated, smiling. “Been drinking, huh? You drink a lot?”

   “It’s all I have left and even that proclivity is becoming a bore.” I said as I began stomping down the alley; nonchalantly dodging pools of iridescent, oily water.

   We cut into the shop. Ordered food and strong coffee. Took a booth at the wall. The place was empty excluding a lonely hobo with a panting dog and a deranged homosexual on a laptop. My guest and I both sat for some time not speaking.

   “I’m James.” He finally stated.

   I introduced myself the best I could, with the exception I was so drunk and depressed instead of coming across cordial, my words and tone came out loathsome and obscene. I drank my coffee in silence until our sandwiches arrived. The boy ate in gusto.

   “Haven’t eaten in a while?” I asked as I watched him devour his meal.

   “Not good anyway.” He managed between chomps of pre-processed flesh.

   Outside the rain began and late night revelers dashed under awnings and into doorways. I observed James. Rentboy to be sure. Then again, I think it was forced in way of certain living arrangements. Or perhaps he was simply a sex addict. A lot of them are. They won’t admit it. But, they are.

   “I was thrown out of this place today.” I divulged, glancing around the coffee shop.

   “The cafe? Why?”

   “There were a couple of heroin addicts I was chatting with in research of a new book. Because I was in association and, basically because the barista is an imperialistic bitch, I was asked to never come back.”

   “And, yet here you are.” He laughed. “Wait. New novel? You’re a published writer?”

   “Yes.” I croaked. “A curse.”

   “Wow!” James gushed. “I never met a real writer! What do you write?”

   “Garbage.” I grunted.

   “Oh...come on. It can’t be that bad.”

   I sighed. Took a sip of coffee, poked at my sandwich. “You have a place to stay, James? It’s raining outside and it’s late. I need to get some sleep.”

   “Actually, I was couch surfing with some friends over on 4th. A bunch of fucked up tweekers. The bitch who runs the house and I got into an argument. So, as of right now...the rain is my blanket.” He extended an open palm towards the street.

   I looked off into the darkness beyond the grime streaked pane window. The intermittent flash of summer lightning. The glow of yellow lamps igniting sheets of cascading rain. I took a cigarette from my pocket, offered it to James. Removed one for myself, lit both.

   “You can stay at my place if you wish.” I stated. “No monkey business. Unless you are up to monkey business.” I raised a fay eyebrow, took a drag.

   James leaned over the small table and asked in hushed tones, “Are you gay?”

   I continued to look out the window, slouched against the wall in the booth, “Aren’t we all?”

   We finished our meal and then found ourselves briskly walking over incandescent pools and dribbling rain to my apartment a few blocks away. I opened the door and invited him in. He took in the place, like a good hustler, making certain there were no sinister weapons or weird sex gadgets. I noticed in his face he was relieved the place was somewhat bare - bed, bookshelf, table, a couple of chairs, clothes neatly hung in an open closet. Nothing to hide.

   He turned to me, “You mind if I take a shower? It’s been a few days.”

   I said sure and gathered him a clean towel and an unused bar of soap. I lay on the edge of the bed, smoking a damp cigarette, watching the shadows move across the ceiling from passing cars outside and listening to Miles Davis on the radio. Through my experiences in Mexico, as long as he was in my house, I wasn’t going to let him out of my sight. I could use a shower, too. On the contrary, I believed as soon as I walked out of the bathroom, anything of value I had would had been long gone.

   James walked out of the bathroom with a green towel wrapped around his scrawny torso.

   “Let me see if I can find some pajama bottoms for you.” I offered.

   “Don’t bother.” He quipped. “I like to sleep in the nude.”

   Convenient. I offered him a beer from the small fridge and we chatted a bit as he lay under the thin blanket. He said something of getting enough money for a bus ticket to return to Las Vegas. He had family there. I didn’t bother questioning why he didn’t hit his family up for the fare. After I finished my beer, I peeled off my damp clothes and slid under the blanket. He was shivering and so was I. Wordlessly, he snuggled next to me, briefly muttering that my body was warm. His torso was so boney. In the half-light of the room, he turned towards me and slid his arm across my chest, his erection thumping against my hip.

   “I want to feel you inside of me.” He breathed into my ear.

   We began kissing. The taste of saliva mixed with coffee, beer, and ham swirled in our mouths. James kissed my chest, playing with my erect nipples, making his way down to my own erection. Like a champ, he sucked my dick like something I needed in a long time. It felt as if I was in heaven. He definitely was a professional. I got to the point I couldn’t take it anymore and rolled the blond onto his stomach. I parted his cheeks and rimmed him for a good twenty minutes. He squirmed and gasped as I loosened him up. I flipped James over onto his back, placing his feet up onto my shoulders. Spitting into my palm, I lubed the head of my penis up and slowly pushed it in. He clung to me like a baby monkey as I rapidly rutted and lunged into him. His ass muscles tightened and grasped as I thrust - literally sucking my cock into him. I couldn’t hold back any longer. I yanked out and sprayed him with my semen. A second after, as he masturbated wildly, unloading his pent up frustrations onto his self. It was a work of art. I snatched my cell phone and snapped a pic before he could hide his face.

   “Hey!” James laughed. “You should ask before doing that!”

   “It’s for the archives. Dr. Windom needs it for my reports.”

   “Dr. Windom?”

   “Ford Windom. PhD. Never actually passed the bar exam. Faked various psychoanalyst credentials with Photoshop. He once committed a friend to an asylum because he laughed at his eyebrows. Another nearly overdosed on a prescription from the good doctor when he swapped the patients lithium with Viagra. He called my parents and told them I was a sexual deviant with a bad case of crabs. Crazy fuck needs to be arrested.”

   “He sounds weird.” James chuckled.

   “You have no idea.” I plopped next to him, placing my phone onto the end table. “How about first thing tomorrow morning, we head over to Greyhound and get you that ticket to Vegas?”

   “For reals?!” He beamed, lying next to me, propped up on his elbow. “You’ll do that?”

   “And more.” I said esoterically. “Now, let’s get some sleep.”

   The last thing I noticed before I dozed off was the clock reading 4:34am. Covered in semen and sweat, we both fell into a contented deep sleep...

Fingers in the Dark

I sit at the table. He across from me smiles shyly and sips from his drink. The sound of an empty glass is a trumpet of despair in my ears. The dishes cluttering the table are all empty, each one scraped clean. Yet still we sit, staring.

It’s obvious. There was no longer any pretense. No rolls to coat with butter. No last noodle to chase with a fork. No last drop of chocolate to wipe from a plate. Nothing remains but the melting ice in the last of our drinks, and that for only so much longer. And yet we sit, staring.

“I don’t want to go.” I say. Pathetic. You can’t just say that.

“We could go somewhere else.” He now appears just as disappointed.

“I don’t think I could eat any more anyway.” An awkward chuckle. I shouldn’t have said that… “Uh… I think there’s a park nearby.” I have no idea really but how far could one be?

“Yes!” A smile. “I mean…” A shy glance to the side “Sure.” Looking again at my eyes. No, into my eyes, into my soul. Another smile.

The flutters in my chest lift me to my feet. Do I help him from her chair? What do I do? I stand, arms by my side as he grabs his cellphone and joins me. The flutters which had not ever actually paused the entire dinner, redouble their intensity. The bill had long since been paid. And paid again upon ordering a second desert.

Willing my hand not to sweat, I place a palm on his shoulder as I walk with him out of the restaurant. We wander aimlessly on the streets for only a few minutes before stopping to simply stare into each other’s eyes. We never found a park.

Problems in Paradise

I stood under the shade of a tree in front of my slum dwelling. The dusty, sagging tree did it's best to provide shade however it failed miserably. I glanced down the street - crumbling flats of multicolors tenements lined a simmering concrete which lost the war of time.

At first, I thought it was an old man shuffling with his daughter. He wore a straw fedora, blue checked shirt, jeans over a scrawny form. As he and the girl neared, the man called out, "Hola, coma esta?'

I had to do a mental double take. It was Oscar strolling home with his daughter. A wave of both exhilaration and anger enveloped me. On Oscar's last visit we had an argument:

"I'm not like that anymore. You making a joto out of me." He bleated on that ill night. Too much alcohol had long converted his brown eyes crimson.

I wasn't going to take any of his Macho Mexican bullshit and snapped, "Did you not confess that you haven't had 'sexual relations' with your wife in over six months? That you couldn't stand being in the same room as her. The nagging, the condescension? You know why, Oscar? Because you are gay yet you fall into this latino mythos that every man south of the border needs to attain some type of normal relation with a woman so as not to incur the suspicions and wrath of friends and family. You realize that is utter bullshit! You are gay, man! Accept it!"

He stood up and strode to the restroom, he hollered back as he took a piss, "You are wrong! I am not like that!"

"When we first met years ago," I continued, lighting a smoke and blowing huge plumes toward the stained ceiling. "It was you who approached me. It was you who pressed me into bringing you home. It was you and only you who made an effort to visit my house everyday to get your rocks off! I never forced you into doing anything you did not want to and now with me back and you married, you are confused. You are split right down the middle on the way your life is and the way it should be."

He quickly walked out of the bathroom and in anger chucked his empty beer bottle at me. It missed my head and smashed against the wall behind. "No!" He roared. "I am no pinche puto!" His red eyes were shrink wrapped in tears. Before I could retaliate from his physical onslaught, he stormed out the front door and down the dark street.

I gulped another swig of my beer and simply shook my head. I wasn't angry, more sad than anything. What an emotional torment he must be going through. And with my surprise appearance back into his heterosexual relation with his wife, I really must of thrown a wrench into his machinery.

So, where was I? Ah yes...Oscar approached me in the heat and asked if everything was okay.

"Everything with me is fine. It's you who I am worried about." I stated.

He shot me a glance of anger and then glanced at his daughter. He mumbled that he had more shopping to do and perhaps will be over later in the evening for drinks. I looked him dead in his eyes and stated with utmost sincerity, "My door is always open for you, old friend. You take care of your family first, I will be here waiting."

As I watched him and his daughter shuffle down the cracked street, I hope he understood my meaning...

The Battle.

This morning, I took a stand against the full-scale incursion of the dust bunny horde. For too long, I stood idly by as they amassed their forces along the outskirts of my room. For too long, I shrugged and ignored their ever-encroaching encampments.

But no longer.

I grabbed my ancient weapon of suction and rose up against my grimy foe. I laid waste to their fortifications and battlements. Their cries of anguish were lost to my weapon’s whine until, at long last, I looked out over a dust-free expanse and breathed in the clean air.

The surfaces of my room show no evidence of this morning’s carnage and though there were some allied casualties, the day was ours. We will remember the fallen and drink toasts in their honor. It was a hard-fought battle and the war will wage on long after the sweet taste of today’s victory fades.

I will be ready.

Novel Writing

Came into acquaintance with several young hipster train jumpers loitering down at a local coffee house near the tracks. I wanted to size up some local citizens, get real, and write. Along a tattered, wooden counter were a sprinkle of prostitutes displaying itchy scabs and violet scars of purposeful addictions, convicts sat hunched spitting nervous furtive glances, and drab hobos sat dunking pound cake emitting a bouquet of sour feet and unwashed genitals which permeated the dusty, high ceiling room. Faded Sante Fe art hung on paint peeled walls. Good taste in music. Johnny Cash.

   I meet this one cat, Billy he says – sandy blond hair, skin crimson and toughened and wrinkled from years of exposure from the elements, not an old guy...but handsome in his early thirties. Whiff of locker rooms and flop houses. I found him in the mensroom shooting up with an old, flabby Indian and asked “Wanna bang?”

   He stands next to the grimy sink and casually offers the syringe to me in long, dirty fingers.

   “Naw. Cut that crap eons ago.”

   Pinpoints sparkle in his eyes and he slumps against the wall, shoulder slowly descending against white grimy tile, t-shirt clinging to a skinny torso. Dragged down by the pull of junk. The Indian, toothless old woman smile, takes the spike and jabs it into brown, rigid flesh. The Indian, he is down for the count. I stood there with the cooler system clacking in a foul smelling bathroom, slowly toking my joint as I watched Billy and the Indian go on the nod pervaded with dreamful nostalgia.

   Ted, tall and could be a model with raven hair and jagged looks, enters in swishing of long black trench coat and searches through Billy’s pockets for the stash.

   He looks up towards me with steel blue eyes, “That greedy fucker shot it all?”

   I shrug, watching a large cockroach skitter across a drain pipe. Beer got warm and strictly from boredom I return to the bar. Savage Charlie, a man of the grossest dimensions, sidles up to me and puts down the faggot patter. Compliments. Free booze.

   “I gots lots of cash.” He grins with a cherub smile.

   Lose 150lbs. and we’ll talk. Silence between us after that. Song changes. Sunday Morning, by Pat Boone. What asshole played that? Oh, yeah...me.

   An Indian from the Rez enters the fray. Tall and lean and a face so smooth and pure. Jet black hair and warm brown eyes. Torn black jeans and black t-shirt with a white wolf emblazoned on it. Goes by the moniker Lester. Guess you can’t win them all. Still striking and lovely at the same time for a guy of twenty one.

   “You new here?” He asks, ordering his Bud Lite.

   I drank Corona. I go into my spiel and we jibber-jabber of Mexico, the Rez (Indian reservation, for you uneducated.), and the glories of marijuana.

   “You like good weed? I got some back at the Rez. We can take my car.”

    I see where this is leading.

   Flop into his brown Hyundai, rattling fender and coughing muffler, we shoot south to Injun territory. He lives with his uncle and little brother in a disintegrating trailer surrounded by dirt and dusty cactus and old rusted cars. Out back of the blue and white mobile home, we sit next to a shed on crates and scrap and smoke the sweetest herb I had ever enjoyed.

   Discussing literature and the decline of Western Civilization, the sun set crimson behind jagged mountains in a glorious blast of fury. As the stars twinkle in a dark navy Tucson sky, Lester steals a kiss and it doesn’t go farther than that. We talk more and giggle and joke and toke. Chatter concerning science fiction and homosexuality. He discloses he likes white boys and if I would like to “do it”.

   In the shed, fumble, kiss, casually masturbate. Blowing Lester, penis was short and circumcised, he quickly ejaculates in great hot spurts and timidly apologizes. Don’t worry, handsome, I smile. Long ride back to town, we share a hamburger and fries I buy from a roadside stall. Just Breathe croons Melissa Etheridge from the car stereo, and I do.

- excerpt from novel in process Borrowed Flesh, chapter three Pigs in the weeds