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.