all good things

how do i deny that part of my soul?

How do I deny that part of my soul?

Desires to die, to be destroyed, do not grow old.

Do not grow tired, do not grow weary,

Just grow cold.

How do I deny that part of my soul?

long story short

We met, as most do, in a decrepit dive bar called Noa-Noa located on the scuzzy edges of Zona Norte. At the time I enjoyed the joint in lieu it was rarely, if ever, frequented by the homo-sexpat crowd swarming in over the border every weekend. Assholes.

Over beers, he said his name was Fernando. A pleasant personality and quite charming, he didn’t fit the mold of your garden variety rentboy, sulky and aloof. Later that evening, during the obligatory drag show, we drunkenly made out in the piss saturated mensroom against the gray, bare concrete wall. Fondling, groping, our tongues exploring one another’s mouth all the while a curious twink gawked from a urinal with hard on exposed and willing. No time for that pup as Fernando and I rushed over shattered concrete sidewalks to my murky apartment and committed crimes against nature until the next rising dawn.

I expected to never see him again as we shook hands on the sidewalk, hung over and in dulled agony from our all night pounding of each other, nonetheless I was pleasantly surprised when he appeared at my doorstep several days later all smiles and horny.

A friendship blossomed. In post coital reprieve, he confided his love for women and how he desired a wife and kids and I revealed my mad schemes of being a writer and he being delighted on how I was not your typical possessive American fag who usually haunts the bars of the Plaza. Assholes.

Years crawled as Fernando and I became close friends. The adventures we had! His girlfriends came and went as with his loathsome excursions in being snared in the web of various petty queens. Equally tolerating my rampant drug addiction, my liaisons with brief relationships…and yet, all through that, we remained steadfast friends.

As fate would have it, ultimately I left Tijuana to live the life of a hobosexual, documenting my lurid adventures and insane dreams. A decade passed and I found myself wrapped in my borrowed flesh flat on my ass back in Tijuana. I learned that Fernando was married to pleasant woman and supporting his wife and child by working the clown circuit at occasional birthday parties and pumping cash from various old rich queens around town. Through one loathsome character, I ascertained that Fernando was performing in front of the camera for a lecherous sexpat who attempted to corner the gay porn market as far as Tijuana rentboys were concerned. Luckily the venture flopped. Asshole.

Soon after, Fernando and I were re-acquainted at a local café and resumed our friend with benefits relation. I met his family, assisted him with various over-due bills, and even purchased some outlandish if over-priced clown shoes for his payaso act. My stay in Tijuana was cut short in lieu of my personal demons and I once again pulled up my stakes and jet with nary a goodbye to anyone.

Time jump to the present. I am ambling down the bustling street with the crushed personality of one who is dead inside when a cadaver literally pops out of a pile of garbage in an adjacent alley way. Covered in grit and soiled clothes, the emaciated and toothless thing new my name. It was Fernando. I had to do a double take. I looked him over and asked what the fuck happened? Apprehensively, he stated he was addicted to meth, a drug he indulged in heavily while being locked up the last few years on account of a smuggling incident gone wrong. My heart ached as I stood there listening to his tales of woe. His wife long gone, shunned by his daughter. He noticed my eyes were shrink wrapped in tears as I fought my anguish at seeing him in such a dire state. I’m guessing strictly from guilt and embarrassment, he quickly excused himself and disappeared down the sordid alley before I had a chance to offer any sort of assistance.

Two days ago at a café, a shriveled old queen confessed he heard that Fernando was found dead in Zona Rosa behind a bar, stabbed to death by an assailant. They never found his attacker. Asshole.

Rest in peace, old friend. I am so sorry.

hardest hour

He rushed through the days like he was chasing the night. And, indeed, when the night fell into his grasp, he sighed skinny pre-rolled cigarettes into the darkness and slept the heavy, dreamless sleep of the conqueror.

Waking was his hardest hour. In the dawn, where the nights pleasures were washed away in nicotine nausea his heartbeat would begin the chase again before his feet touched tiled and dirty floors.

He deflected inquiries and requests. He was too busy for help, for after work drinks. He never responded to Facebook messages. He carried his phone in his pocket, but he never had time to charge it.

Twilight was my hardest hour. I’d return to an unfamiliar apartment, with shabby furniture and a strange smell – musty clothes and fried onions - a cordial greeting, and stifled silence.

Every time I rang, I’d hear the same pentametric response, “Juan no está aquí, por favor deje un mensaje” and then the measured sounds of his own breath as I forego the voicemail he would never hear.

coffee shop confessional

2pm marks the gentle buzz of coffee shops and the hum of humanity untroubled in light conversation with friends and lovers. Light pattering of rain against the thick glass of the shop’s windows and doors as small and pleasant reminders to not let your thoughts drift too far. The hiss of the milk steamer fully brings me back to reality. I hear people around me laughing at dreary anecdotes, flirting through generic compliments and responding in awkward disbelief. The couple to my left, knees entwined are talking in a hushed tone about how much they love each other over the slowly rising steam of their coffees. Hair twirled in slender fingers and cheeks rise in rouge. I sigh contemptuously; an unconscious decision.  The iced Americano sat before my eyes condensates gently, similarly to the rain outside. The water rolls slowly down the plastic cup onto the deep mahogany countertop, creating a small pool that is sure to dampen my sleeve when I’m not paying attention. I push my glasses further up on the bridge of my nose to readjust my vision, allowing me to focus on the nature outside from the comfort of being inside. That is, assuming being inside the coffee shop is more comforting. I gaze down toward my blank notebook.

I’d rather be at home…

spit variations of a theme

Catch my begger’s reflection in storefront’s window display hawking colognes, cufflinks and cigarette cases. This fuckin culture. A parade of pre-paid promises. Cut your corpse to suit this week’s style, stink of the finest ambergris and penis will swarm like blowflies to fresh excrement. Truth in advertising. Nevermind that this week’s sheik is next week’s antique. Chase that dirty paper down that one-way street. Nevermind how one day your prick will wither and all cocks turn to ugly borrowed flesh. Make yourself inta a mannequin for Mammon. Follow fashion all the way to the ovens, you ignorant pigs.

You blew the scene, pendejo. You think you’re original but you’re a dead brand walking.

Your readers can twist your name inta a brand but you can’t burn me. I’ll give you writing. Feast your lies on this: try and commodify my words when it’s up your ass. Read that, you greedy little queens.

But not much longer. Settle every debt. Outstanding.

Wonder what kinda slop they serve at the psych ward these days.

Split lips pull away from receding gums in the glass. Teeth feel loose. Why’m I staring at this shit? Time is it? Nine maybe. Gotta eat. Coffee, clear the grog outta my noggin. Seize the day. Focus fucked since I wigged back at Carlos’. No place to sleep. Nothin but sink baths. What’m I doing? Sleeping in alleyways is for dogs. Fine when you’re twenty-nine, but at my age? Crazy.

Okay. Okay. Filch food, find an unbroken smoke somewhere. Get it together. Where’s the nearest Starbuck’s?

Hitting the trolley for downtown SD. You learn, waiting for trains. People stand in specific spaces for particular cars. The rat racers crowd front of the platform because they’ve confused status with speed, like they’ll get there fastest by being firstest. Writer types never sit for fear of pickpocket delinquents, teething to grab the rails nearest the door so they can pretend to read tweets and updates on where and what their friends are eating. Blacks meander, weary waiting for window seats wherewith to eyeball the rest of us in reflection, or they’re teenage peacocks, can’t wait to stride the aisles smooth as hardhats on I-beams, allatime flirting & bullshitting. I wait by the handicap ramp with the Mexicans for the last car. It’s the rear view for me.

When those doors open they always sound like they’re asking the secret word.

Today’s crimson chariot is sparse. Three navy men in dark wool coats. A trio like they’re welded together. Obscure insignias on their caps. The tallest carries an ipad, the shortest an instrument case of some kind. Miniaturized tape recorder maybe. Mister hands-free has a pipe, the prick. Standard-issue Hefners, chiseled expressions and phony cologne. The Mexicans shuffle to the front of the car. Who can blame ‘em?

Just when I think all the variety has been crushed outta this fuckin world in glides this lithe fag in smoked glasses, black turtleneck, would you believe, leading a wolfhound. As I wonder if he’s blind he smiles one of those wiiide, spacy smiles that belongs in the old Hollywood movies but in this moment is all for me. Gauging his mutt’s custardy eyes it’s obvious he’s no guide. His cheeks look slightly hollow and his swooped ebony bangs gained some verdigris but those full lips are the sexiest contemplation I’ve harbored in weeks. At least! Love don’t have an expiration stamp, honey, oh no no. As we push off I decide his kinda class deserves a show.

Thumbing toward the boys. “Hey sailors.” The trio favors me with all the cordial disinterest of French queers. “Must be crusin’ for an invite to the Vulcan Baths?” They stare with the dead eyes of a wounded dog.

The fag has a windchime kinda laugh.

Howbout that. The fag shares my sense of humor. Don’t much dig his mangy alsatian but the solid jaw line remind me of this dude I saw at Ranchero Bar in TJ. Suddenly the fag’s pressing this mildewed purple mag inta my hands. Process Number 5: on the crimson backboard of a pinball machine sits a nekkid guy in full lotus, semen pourin outta his mouth, flowin over his pecs. So he likes porno. Okay. Breathe. Press the advantage. Seize the moment. Make conversation. What to say?

“Y-you like pinball? Me too.” Of all the corny…

As he reaches to spread the mag for me I realize he’s a sink bather as well. Stale. The pages are a collage of freakout imagery: crystal skulls, hell’s angels whipping dragons with tire chains, apocalyptic death kink. My heart caroms in my ribcage like a drunk with the D.T.s. I don’t deserve this. There’s dandruff on the thinning fabric of his sweater like chips of ice right above a jeweled goat’s-head pin. Mary mother of shit.

The short Navy jerk clutches the instrument case to his chest like a solid gold bible. San Diego Trolley people! Don’t you navy boys talk that chivalry balls alla time? Can’t you see this bitch is bad news?

Pressed inta the corner, momentum reminds me of the whalebone propping me up as sooty tile slams past on both sides and I’m calculating the millimeters to full stop. Queen witch transfers the leash to his right and gimmes in my face a brush with ashy, foul-smelling fingers.The routines people put down these days!

“Freely have ye received, freely give. The workman is worthy of his meat…”

The onomatopoeia of sliding doors sighs exeunt: “Ehhh, some other time!” and I fade backward inta the workflow of away. San Diego. Every hour’s a rush.

Toss the freak's rag in a bin. The fag’s still shouting after me about foes and households and who knows what all as I cut the corner toward Horton’s. Nevermind. Pretend he didn’t happen. Hopes are for crushing. Gotta grind 'em with your toes like a dead smoke. Walk head up, stare at all that sky. He wouldn’t of asked me back to his place anyway.

“Freedom Scientology number eleven!  Freedom Scientology number eleven!  An exposé of the weird cult of psychiatry! Sir! Did you know that in 1945 the first director-general of the Doubleyou-Aitch-Oh said 'If the race is to be freed from the crippling burden of good and evil it must be psychiatrists who take responsibility’? It’s true! Miss! A psychiatrist! 'We must accept our responsibility to remodel the world’! A Canadian! These are not my words! Read them yourselves! Freedom Scientology number eleven! Sir! Dr. Brock Chisholm! 'We must root out and destroy the most flourishing parasitical growth in the world: the tree of knowledge of good and evil’! These are not my words! An exposé of the weird cult of psychiatry! Freedom Scientology number eleven! Sir?”

“Fuck outta my face with that, mutherfucker.” How’m I in Diego? When did I…?

So hungry. Should write down so I stop forgetting. Right. The plan. This morning. Dropped the manuscript and saved files with Lee. Worryin over my teeth. So sick of feeling angry. None of that is now. I need bearings. Housing style says I’m adjacent to…

What kinda breakfast they serve in State Psychiatric Center of San Diego? Thought of a cot has me droolin. Not a bedroll, an actual bed. Not a blanket of breezes in a tarry corner of the skyline but an actual bed! Catch my begger’s reflection in the window of a pretty Plymouth.  Should do somethin about my hair. Dip in a sink somewhere. Check pocket for soap chips and feel… a wadded napkin? A peso.

When’d I grab this?

“'God is no longer a useful hypothesis’! These are not my words! 'God broods over our world like the smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat’! These are not isolated views! Freedom Scientology number eleven! Sir! An exposé of the weird cult of psychiatry!”

Pitch like his, what’s left to read? Hunger pangs have me laid across this parking meter like a crutch. Wind from up the block blows an argument with a cop. Barely hear over this bozo barking. Like any other argument except not. What now…“Freedom Scientology number eleven! Anti-Christ and subversive! Psychiatry denies god!”

“Hell it does. Gimme one of those.”

Bury myself in the bullshit. Pretend to be interested in the fanatic’s carny jive how this super-scientific tin can telephone set can cure cancer. Long enough to be certain.

Fuck, the sun. Past noon. Better hoof it.

Goodbye.

shattered choices

The Fall night air wafted in through open windows and bristled my skin. I shivered as the hairs on my arm raised in a subconscious effort to keep me warm. I listened to the muffled sounds of The City street several floors below my apartment, the impatient blaring of taxi horns and the muttering of irritated people. The hell of the night was just beginning.

I could feel the chasm of loneliness widen inside me. It felt so physical I imagined an autopsy being done with the coroner opening me up only to find a yawning black hole where my heart and other vital organs used to be. I smirked at the melodramatic thought.

Checked my phone for signs of life. No emails, no Facebook messages, no Twitter replies or retweets. I checked Google Chat; no-one was online. I thumbed through my Instagram feed, double-tapping some pictures of the summer in Mexico.

I forced myself get up, and paced around the apartment, before turning on the kettle in the crumbling kitchen.

I wanted to coffee, but I realized I would be up all night if I did. I stared at the coffee and at the Milo. This was the crossroads of my night. That notion was depressing enough in so I piled the Milo high, then added two teaspoons of sugar.

With mug in hand, I sat back down in my chair and picked up my phone. No emails, no Facebook messages, no Twitter replies. Nobody on Google Chat. No new Instagram photos.

I opened Vine, in spite of myself. At first I looked at new Vines, watching them loop several times before moving on to the next one. Before long, I had opened my own profile page and was reviewing old posts.

Long gone friends and family looped in front of me on the screen. Birthday parties and the going away speeches of forgotten workmates. And then a single Vine of Saul lying in bed, laughing hysterically. His copper colored lithe form clad in only blue boxers amid glaring white sheets. I watched the Vine on loop and when the screen dimmed, I stroked it, stroked where Saul’s face was, and the screen lit back up.

I fell asleep in the chair, phone in hand, waiting for someone to ask how I was.

creatures

Major depressive disorder is a disease. A malicious cancer that eats up every nice thought in your head, and every moment which should had been enjoyable. All you can do is watch as your world slow burns, grays into ashes that will abruptly burst into vibrant flames for what feels like the second (or third or fourth or fifth) time, only more intense. One day you find yourself unable to get out of bed, strength gone from words and actions. You can’t explain it to other people because you can’t put it into words and they won’t know how to pick up the pieces anyway. They’ll say, “You’ll get better” or “stop being dramatic”. You get angry with them, but you know deep down that doing so is unfair. How could they understand that there is a sickness in your bones, a pestilence which flows like water in your lungs and you can’t breathe, carnage hiding just below your skin and at your center there is a storm so violent you are afraid it will wash you away?

Every day is a fight; a struggle to survive. There are creatures in your dreams with teeth and claws and bile in their mouths that burn away your happiness for no other reason than to watch you writhe inside yourself. Eventually you realize you don’t even dream and you’ve been awake for hundreds of years and you’re just so fucking tired. The creatures, with bits of decaying flesh stuck to their gums and their manic eyes that you see in the mirror every day tear you apart from inside, and all you can do is say “I’m okay, really I’m fine” because your friend is crying and your parents are crying and all you ever do is hurt them. Can’t do that anymore, too painful, too much pain.

So you begin smiling. Everyone thinks you’re picking up your feet. You laugh, and the sound makes you want to vomit. Your smile feels like acid on festering wounds and it’s impossible to change the bandage because if you pull at the gauze you’re afraid you’ll fall apart right there. A cycle has started; the creatures said it would. They were gnawing at the tendons on your ankles as they told you, ripping them out and savoring the taste, gorging themselves on your flesh. You can’t move your feet, all you can do is smile that stupid smile and repeat, “I’m okay” like a record player too stubborn to move on the threads. Everyone believes it, and you feel guilty about lying but you can’t bear to see them share in your sickness. They are beautiful and lovely and bright and deserve more, you are undeserving of their love. That thought process is becoming more frequent and you judge your value on the teeth and claws buried in decaying flesh on your arms, that burned so good and made your heart restart, if only for a bit.

You’ve come to love the beasts in your head, their constant whispers comforting in the overwhelming static of your thoughts. There’s a persistent roar that makes focusing almost impossible, and those around you worry as you daydream for hours on the floor, phone ringing and ringing and ringing but you can’t hear it clearly and you don’t even want to. It’s too hard now, interacting with others who aren’t ill like you. They laugh from the gut and smile and love, and the whole charade is exhausting.

You don’t know when you stopped showering and began skipping meals. Time is something that you can no longer relate to. At some point, you stopped, and if you had answered your phone at some point in the last 4 months you could tell someone when exactly it was you started becoming withdrawn. Those creatures of malice and snarls and snapping teeth have become your only friends. They comfort you and press their misshapen muzzles against the bare skin of your neck, salivating over the life force being pumped in your jugular. Their breath is cold; it smells like sulfur and plague, while their fur is hot and charred. The smell of burning flesh and fur is normal now. You stroke them, not as afraid as you were of them ages ago. They are the only things you know, the only sense you can cling to. Your friends left at some point, you only remember laying on the floor again and hearing the door shut just after some sad words and eyes and faces gazed at your destroyed form, crippled and bloody and broken in more ways than one.

Professional help seems to be brought up every day by someone with good intentions, but they can’t see how far gone you are. You live in your head, unresponsive and drowning in tar that bubbles and sears in your throat and keeps you from uttering your grievances. You couldn’t talk if you wanted to.

There’s pills. They don’t fix you.

There’s the therapist. She only looks at you over her notebook and you sit in silence, staring at the window but only seeing the creatures stalk around you, making unearthly groans and biting at the flesh on their backs. They’re getting restless, you’ve noticed. They stir frequently, take chunks of meat from your body to greedily devour in the blackest corner of your mind and you find yourself unable to remember if you’ve moved in the last week. Everything is a blur, everything is nothing and nothing is everything.

Your sickness progresses further, your body is heavy. It feels as though someone has strapped a planet to your back and told you to march onwards. Your spine can no longer bend to adjust to the weight on your shoulders and your muscles, those that the creatures have kindly left, cannot strain any further.

going through the motions

I began shivering a little in the way I do when I’m talking to someone I’d just met, outside for hours, from the chill of the obsidian shadows of this ominous city, yet also from the intensity of making a connection. I liked him a lot. He seemed to be simultaneously more fucked up but also more like me — smart, sarcastic and self-destructive — than anyone I’d ever met in recent memory.

The coffee shop closed, and I invited him back to my place. We sat on my ratty couch and talked awkwardly for a while, attempting not to wake up my neighbor. (When it is quiet in my building, the slightest sounds are amplified.) He told me it was too late for him to find somewhere else to stay for the night, and that we could have sex so he'd have an excuse to stay over. We kissed, showing off our technique to one another. He pulled off his clothes and his belly was hard and brown. I snapped a picture with my cellphone. He reprimanded that I should had asked first.

As attracted to him as I’d been before, in that moment, it seemed as if we were both going through the motions. He said his dick was always shy the first time with someone, but he could go down on me.

The following morning as we shook hands on the corner, he said he didn't find it necessary to meet again. I nodded, looked down at the dirt as he jumped into an approaching taxi. I didn't watch as it pulled away, I stood there looking at the dirt.

taking the day off from writing

i like to live in hell

Fall has arrived. The temperatures are finally beginning to cool. I dress smartly and head out into a night full of shadows and a clear, navy sky abundant with stars. Luckily my apartment is walking distance from The Plaza, so I jet straight toward it over shattered sidewalks to get a drink and check out the scene.

Along Coahuila, the Amazonian sized transvestite hookers are out in force. I mumble a buenas noche as I briskly pass these titans and they squawk something back I do not catch. Past the neon arabesques of the whore district, I shoot by immobile con men sizing up the scene, stumbling sexpats, and barking doormen. Turn a corner south on Constitution, an old hag in rags squats taking a shit amid a mountain of festering garbage as the sewer vents emit a hundred years’ worth of backed up decay. I visibly gag at the assault on my nostrils. A leaning taxi driver chuckles at my dismay. Fuck you.

The Plaza is lit up and pregnant with early evening revilers: weary families drag their screaming toddlers past silent Indians vending tourist trinkets only a sucker would purchase, brassy bands from Sinaloa wail in front of open cafés to drunken friends applauding their off-key efforts, rentboys lurk in shadowy overhangs and arches patiently waiting for the wayward gringo to shuffle over from the Border and buy them that last drink, others stand with hips hooked smoking cheap cigarettes and fiending for the next fix. Glassy eyes brimming with hate and lust scrutinize me as I make my way toward the Boys Café to sit with a cup of coffee and dissect this carnival.

I position myself next to a table occupied with aging old queens. Mostly bloated Americans with a sprinkling of petulant pretty boys. They hoot and coo, smashing one another with gay double entedre as the boys who patiently wait to rob these festering vampires for every peso they have. It is apparently one of the old dinosaurs birthday and they dish out crumbling slices of dried cake to all sitting in the café. Your Reporter’s slice goes in the garbage untouched a bit later…so.

I sit through three more cups of coffee as, comparable to aroused tom cats, the hustlers prowl flashing smiles and rubbing engorged crotch. One stands next to a flier plastered light pole and glares with intense eyes. Tall and lean like a shriveled tree, his clothes are well worn and a bit grimy. He attains dark, hawk-like features on a masculine face. He curtly nods while at the same time unconsciously pulling up the sleeve of his sweater to scratch an arm riddled with track marks. I light a smoke and look away.

Far from being entertained, I pay my bill and amble over to the Patio Bar, bypassing hordes of people out window shopping, looking for restaurants and clubs, arm in arm, dressed up, sauntering along. I wanted to push and shove them out of their hand holding dreams. I bump into several people, using my shoulder to butt them as I walk in a straight line herding people out of my way. I envy and despise the unquestioning little cacoon of their lives. They’ve chosen to be drugged into needing and acquiring status and money and beauty, and at the same time pretend to fight against the demands imposed by status and money and beauty. I prefer to live in hell.

Luckily it is not too crowded in the bar and I sit at the long wooden counter under a row of red Christmas lights and order a Sol. Rapidly, I down three icy beers and regarded the knots of men in their finery and watched their mouths move, listening to the blare of cha-cha music and the surging despair in my head.

I bought two joints from a shabby young man who slinked out of the decayed mensroom. He disclosed they were indeed hash. I assumed he was lying. He wanted one hundred pesos. I hesitated, he said sixty, I agreed. He seemed like he needed the money. I felt like I needed the joints.

I notice a short, thin man, about twenty-one, jet black hair and small symmetrical features, wearing a black button-down shirt and blue jeans, standing alone. He was cute. He stood out because he was alone and because of his face and compact body, I saw several queens looking him up and down. He didn’t look at anyone, but stared out over the mingling groups of people. One of those. I smiled and decided to go over and interfere with his fake composure and see what would come of it. I stood right in front of him so he had to step back and look up at me, his back against a brick column.

I gave him a big, friendly smile, “Hi. How are you tonight?”

He returned a small smile and I carried on with the usual questions and comments, watching him relax a little and answer more thoroughly each time.

I knew age difference always came up in the minds of nearly all homosexual men. Most of them desire men their age or younger and were not open to someone older. Old was not attractive and even though I looked five years younger than my actual age and although I attain a body which was what the market demanded, I was old. I refuse to be intimidated by sexist typecasting and knew, with persistence, I could usually get any man I wanted. Sometimes it was more difficult to get men my age to come around because they preferred youth more than many young men did.

I could see the little person with black hair change from thinking he was being cornered by a troll, to noticing I was attractive.

“I’ve seen you before.” He stated.

“Have you?”

“I am a waiter at the restaurant across from the Arch. I’ve seen you pass by. You visit TJ a lot?”

“No. Actually, I live here.”

He smiled. Dimples forming on his dark, smooth cheeks. I liked him. He seemed low maintenance. No gel in his mop of shiny black hair, no manicured eyebrows. There was dirt under the nails. He had a certain charm about him, a youthful naiveté. I believe that’s what turned me on.

He introduced himself as Rudy and was one of those types who preferred speaking in broken English rather than Spanish so as several times I needed to ask him to repeat what he said. Mostly, I simply nodded and agreed even if I did not care.

I invited him to sit at the bar and during a round of drinks, we fell into the ‘How do you like Mexico’ routine and on me being a writer. Amid one of my spiels, he received a text and promptly began tapping onto his scratched, dinged-up blackberry. I inquired who it was and he stated with a smile it was his girlfriend.

“Girlfriend?” I asked.

Rudy smiled timidly, “Yes. She’s over there.” He casually points toward the border.

“San Diego? Then why are you here?” I jokingly asked.

He shrugged and gave me a ‘you know why’ glance.

The night continued, the beer flowed and Rudy and I became well intoxicated. Eventually the lights in the bar clicked on and the festive mob was ushered out. Nothing more gloomy than closing time.

Rudy and I stood out front of the cantina, wobbling and passing a cigarette back and forth to one another amid inebriated drunks, squawking drag queens, and garrulous fags.

“Want me to walk you to your taxi?” I slurred.

He paused, slowly leaning to his right. Rudy actually seemed as if he was going to fall down. He flashed blurred and crimson eyes toward me and mumbled, “You live near?”

“Yes.”

“I want to go home with you”

Emitting a long sigh, I said okay.

In the long shadows of my dark room, I ran my hands over his soft back and copper-colored ass. I felt my cock bunch up beneath his. He roamed completely over me and in about two minutes he came in my mouth and then watched me pump myself to orgasm. Afterwards, Rudy lay on me, half beside me, and confided how he’d had a crush on me as I held his bony body close, rocking us gently in the dark, under the covers.

The following morning, after a good cup of French pressed coffee and sweet cakes, Rudy and I showered, sliding our soapy bodies over one another. All rinsed and shiny, I carried him soaking wet to the bed and we sucked and fucked until we were raw and exhausted. We giggled our kisses and he came on my chest and lay on me and fell asleep. I kept my arms around his slender, relaxed manboy body and stared at the ceiling, slowly smoking a joint.

Sexual matters are filled with fantasy and contradiction. I wanted his desire for me to remain as constant and delirious as it was right then. I wanted to be right there surrounded by the covers of safety and see us laughing and cuming and sleeping with no awareness of tomorrow.

Eventually, he left. To his job. To his girlfriend. To his life and I returned to the cold, impassionate keys of my laptop.

candy colored memories 4.0

I was fifteen when I first had sex with another boy. He was a school friend and often we'd hike together along the creek on the weekends. I’d seen him in the shower at school and I knew I liked his body. I had a crush on. He was also one of the few boys I was friends with, one of the few who didn’t shun me on account I wasn’t athletic.

One weekend we were sitting under a cottonwood, watching the muddy creek go by and smoking and we got to horsing around and wrestling, as usual, and soon enough I had him pinned down by sitting on his chest. My crotch was just above his face and he made some goofy remark about what’s that lump in there? I bet mine is bigger than yours. I flipped out my cock and he grabbed at it pretending to yank it off, or something to that effect, and it became instantly erect. More seriously, he squeezed and pumped it and suddenly it was in his mouth. My hips thrust as that hot, wet sensation filled my reeling brain. Within seconds my cum filled his mouth.

Laughing he spit it out and pushed me off him. I noticed afterwards, at home, my penis had dried mud on it from when I’d rolled off him and dragged it in the dirt. He stated it was his turn and pulled his jeans down to his knees and pushed his cock into my mouth.

For weeks afterwards we’d return to the creek hidden among some secret place in the dense foliage and immediately begin sucking cock. No pretense of wrestling anymore. We went skinny dipping in the creek even though we’d been told all our lives to stay out of it in lieu of snakes. We’d be soaked and begin wrestling, rolling in the silt, laughing and attempting to hold each other down, then back into the water to get clean. Then back to our blanket in the hot sun where we’d do everything to our bodies we could think of until we were exhausted and sweaty. Afterwards, we’d clean off in the creek and sit naked in the shade, smoking and talking about other boys at school we’d like to suck off.

It only lasted that one short summer.

a spot of color

Either you are or you aren’t. You have or have not. You can or cannot. You’re either high or low, light or dark, you’re either sleeping or awake. This is the way we assume that life goes - and either you accept and survive; or decline and wither. The idea that the world is black and white is the platter that society and the culture we’ve created for ourselves serves our futures on. Yet we still suffer depression, anxiety, and hear cries of resounding unhappiness from all around us all but drowning out the persuasively strong declarations of the colorblind. We created a society in the image of how simple we wanted to be, and in doing so created one that will never understand human nature, therefore giving us no room to grow - only plaster molds to shape ourselves to.

fear

It was a warm night with a thin crescent slice of moon and thick cloud cover - so very dark.

Away from the streetlights and illuminated signs, the prowling taxi headlights their reflections in the shiny surfaces (ubiquitous in any urban setting permeated with the reek of stale feces and festering garbage) the darkness seemed so much more intense. Off in the distance a dog barked.

Oppressive, even, as Carlos walked along the barely discernible broken sidewalk pavement.

The little boy, struggling to keep pace, momentarily lost his footing and stumbled into Carlos. Quickly, he voiced an informal mild apology and fixed his eyes at Carlos's blank face.

Carlos grunted an acknowledgement but never made eye contact and the little boy shuddered as he felt feelings that were new to him.

Fear...? Unmistakable. But no threats or shouting, no dark looks or even tones of voice had occurred. He couldn't understand his own emotions and he forced himself to dismiss them. Seconds later the same feeling sprang back into the pit of his stomach - stronger than ever. It even caused him to experience a type of acid reflux.

He didn't realize it but his feelings were the creation of his intuition. The remaining bits of our pre-civilized defense mechanisms were triggered. They were as unmissable as klaxons, sirens and flashing red lights but the little boy knew of no reason for them, so he used the refinements that we humans developed during a hundred thousand years of detaching ourselves from nature or, as it's more commonly known, from civilization.

They walked around a bend in the meandering path of the barrio hillside. One could see distant lights of Tijuana twinkling in the windows of flat-board shacks and adobe homesteads for every direction. He realized they were miles away from every possible destination.

"Senor...Senor..." Said the little boy. "I'm frightened".

Carlos finally fixed eye contact with the child.

"How do you think I feel?" he said. "I have to walk back alone".

no regrets

We never returned to the small cantina where we met, where you drank tequila shots and I drank highballs. It was spring and the rain came down in torrents. You ordered small plates to foster our thirst, and you ate the ones which were too foreign for me while I kept to the raw tomatoes. The bar was full and the other queer patrons shoved against me and I made a brash joke about jumping onto your lap. Sitting there, handsome and lanky in worn clothes one size to big. You made a sort of come hither motion and the bartender laughed. She was sweet, that bartender, and talked a lot and wore dark purple lipstick. I do not recall her name.

We never returned to the sea west of the city. Where I confided I’d lost my mind. I forgot about it right away because being with you was enough. It was summer and it wasn’t quite warm enough to swim yet. We took photos of just our feet in the water instead. Yours and mine were the same size. Our hands were also the same size. We figured that out that day, too. Perhaps that’s why they fit together so well. I glanced through those old pictures yesterday. I got to one of you and me reclining on the sand and said, “Oh, what could have been.” I remember what you said the night before that picture was taken. And I hate myself for fucking us up. A week after we got back from that beach you stopped holding my hand.

I want to go back there and drown.  

life of a writer

Spending pleasant, sunny days indoors. Collating notes, cross checking references, typing out draft ideas. Utterly ignoring the world outside (and online). Not really in the mood to associate with anyone or imbue the abundance of life which lies just outside my door. Isolation and infatuous concentration. I haven't shaved in days. I barely recall bathing. I ate something yesterday late-afternoon. My overused coffee mug streaked in brown film and tepid liquid. Ash tray over-flowing with smoldering butts. Hours slowly pass with my mind reeling in thought as I sit staring at a blank Word Doc screen. This is the 'glamorous' life of a writer.

cafe

You are tucked inside yourself, barely visible by your own design, and still I can carve you out of a crowded room, a swarming mass, a dark café. Tattered paperback cupped gently in your hands, flipping to a passage you’d read when you were 17, nursed by words your father never offered you. And you are softly sharing your seeded vacancy and here I am drenched in you, drunk off your familiar tongue, the warm rush of your thoughts mirroring my own tangled understanding, and I am licking at every word that’s ever touched your lips and you are scribbling them into hull I ache to embody. Raw longing etched into my membrane; intimate speech you’d kept tucked behind your teeth so long it felt foreign on your tongue. Chewing at pieces of my own conversation, and echoing back to you. The craving never leaves, only dulls transiently, until the next time I feel your haunting presence linger, until the next time your silhouette dissects itself its setting and hollows out my hungry eyes again.

moe and lou

I wondered where all of my friends went. They simply vanished out of nowhere. What could had happened? I wondered if they were ever my real friends.

One night I randomly called several friends and they pretended I wasn’t there. They didn’t know who I was. I felt a dagger stab me in the stomach. It was brutal. Being alone was tragic. “You sell a good lie” is what I always used to tell myself.

Lou and Moe jumped onto a portal bus and sailed to New Vegas.

“Hey, Lou, wanna help me move this crate.”

"Sure thing, Moe."

The duo pushed the crate over into the corner and then opened the hatch that was underneath the crate.

You need not worry, kind sir. The heart of home is always there. It honors you with wisdom and gives you courage. Only time will tell, but the light will shine as long as you do not dwell in the belly of hell; for the beast lurks there and that beast is evil, that beast don’t care.

You see, I play a writer who is coming off a string of bad novels and I know that I’m losing respect with my peers, so, I change up my style one more time. I find a way to beat the goal and drive home the rebound hatchet. The match is scored at a double card and the point goes to one team. The man was inside of the machine. I was on the outside looking inside looking out. I was reversed; inside and out. Understand? I forgot, you do not understand.

Moe bake a force and waddle the seventh basic vs. and convert the fourth sum with the adjective pronoun. This means nothing to the eyes of those unfamiliar but those who are pale of life both near and far understand the adjective pronoun cannot be equalized if the adjective adverb isn’t reduced to the fourth decimal sum average. Swig of tequila before the ceremony and felt a little faint. Supposed the heart meant something to you, so we decide to create a robotic heart for you. Lou smacks Moe’s hand. He goes like why did you do that? Lou goes like he doesn’t deserve it. Right, then tell me what does deserve because from what I’m looking for is something better; something explained. Clean and narrow just like the arrow from my bow. Moe ties the in around the out and throws back with rage. The arrow erupts in flames and scatters the ragged old owl citizen.

In this game of ours they call me bullseye. I hit every moving target with accuracy. With that the subject places the bow on the storm drain and ponders a day dream via stormy window. The fog will help me see through. And if not? How will I undo what is owed if peace isn’t an option, you ignorant fuck?

The dice rolled across the table. Moe jumped to collect the roll before the lookers would see. Lou lit a a cigarette and rolled his eyes. Unfortunately, Moe wasn’t fast enough. The lookers saw he rolled a twelve-forty on a clock that didn’t tell his time. Bond shock 47 and tell me the result. Looks to be a 96 vs. 48 + durable atom sequence and the end result is 1367.

That was my math as well. The water swim wear the naked moon bares fable. The crumbling city is comprised of sex warrens and borrowed flesh. Smell of polite belches and powdered old woman vagina. Every move had to be known. To configure every possible move is to configure senses where the senses fail. Would certainly let one see what isn’t there. Five campesinos wonder why the virtue of solitude has been banned from the kingdom of ours? The hour-glass delivers the sands of time. The waves kept roaring against the rocks, splashing water across a vast, littered beach and collecting shells both to and from the beach…I got close enough to understand what it was like to experience gravity in all forms. I wanted to understand the divinity.

Mellow Emerald was like a song for the wounded fortune.

Lou said it was a decimal sum of a quarter noun negative preferred and minus the negative + plus noun.

Moe walked into the broom closet and retrieved a solo jacket. He hadn’t any idea why he wore the solo jacket but it didn’t matter none now that it was on his back.

Find the source and bleed them dry. The only way to draw a smile from the sky. Moe snails his way toward the front door but not before stopping in front of a mirror and fixing his hair. He licked his finger tips and pinched his bangs together. He smiled and winked at himself. Tonight was gonna be a good night.

'L' is for libido

This interesting and well-made short by Timo Tjahjanto is a prime example of pushing sexual tolerance to the limits. Enjoy.

lost in a million stories of this ominous city

I entered my apartment after a long morning shopping to find Manny reclining on my bed wearing only his boxers. He was watching a Mexican novella. I paused and smiled at him before placing my bundles onto the white tiled floor.

“What did you do today?”

“I’m doing it.” He stated, not turning his glare from the television.

“Are you hungry?”

“A little.”

I plopped onto the bed, lying next to him perpendicular with my legs hanging off the side. I semi-consciously planned it because my face was at the level of his crotch.

“Well, what do you feel like eating?” I breathed as my hand slinked along his dark legs, bristling the black, shiny hairs. My eyes focused on the thick lump at his crotch.

“I don’t know.” Manny said. “Chicken?”

“Chicken?” I repeated as my hand slid over his boxers. “You want chicken? Well, I know what I want…” I continued as my wayward hand found its mark. The thick and flaccid organ lay dormant on a bed of course, black hairs. I also noticed that the area was quite moist. My hand paused. Did he recently masturbate?

“No.” Manny mumbled, taking my hand gently away.

“Why not? I promise I’ll make you feel good…” I cooed as my hand returned to that fleshy pulp and began lasciviously massaging it.

“No!” He barked.

I continued playfully.

“I said no!” He snapped pushing my hand away.

I lay there a moment propped up on one elbow letting the sting of his refusal ebb away. Finally, “So, you want to get dressed and go eat? We can hang around downtown until your bus leaves.”

Manny petulantly dressed and we headed out into the late-afternoon sun. We walked toward Zona Norte and into the whore district because for some reason prostitutes really like chicken. Or so I am guessing, because there are a shit load of fried chicken joints to choose from.

Coahuila was bustling with pedestrians, foreign sexpats, and an assortment of scantily clad hookers tottering on high heels situated on every grimy, trash littered corner. Quacking at us “Ven…ven” as we passed. Various musical styles blasted from a hundred whorehouses bathed in a kaleidoscope of flickering neon as the congested streets were clogged with orange and white taxis delivering horny clients ready for a Friday night’s fucking.

Manny and I located a small restaurant near the corner of Constitution and Coahuila. We sat at the grease filmed wooden tables and ordered. I casually flicked a scurrying cockroach off the table’s edge and hurdled it out the door into the blackened gutter. Bull’s eye.

I sat and watched the passing throng of pedestrians. Mostly conning locals, a few street dogs, very little bewildered tourists. An old hag dressed in urine soaked rags dug through a mound of garbage for scraps to eat. I turned my stare towards Manny.

“Excited about going home?” There was not the least hint of concern in my voice.

“Yeah. Thank you for the ticket, man.”

“Well, you are welcome. It’s not every day that I do this for people. Most of the times I am cold and dispassionate toward anyone’s problems.”

“Then why did you help me?”

Good question. I decided to keep the conversation light. I smiled, “I can never refuse a pretty face.”

Manny laughed, “I’m not pretty!”

“No…you are definitely handsome. And you know how to use that dick.”

He nervously chuckled, scanning around the eatery to see if anyone was listening to my faggoty shit. The weary mesera served us our order and we tore into that fried chicken like famished jackals.

Afterwards we ambled over to the bus station on the east side of Revolucion, close to the Arch. The place was crowded. Single men with backpacks, families with suitcases and bundles tied with rope, and Manny with nothing but the clothes he was wearing. Mexican or Stateside, bus stations always brought me down. The waiting place of the world pregnant with folk who are not happy in their time/space location pining to get anywhere else but where they are at that moment. Just like me, I suppose.

I purchased the ticket and handed it to Manny. He mumbled thanks or something equivalent. We stood mostly silent watching the carnival around us. Great buses belching black smoke arrived and departed, vendors weaved through the throng crying out their wares: blankets, pillows, pizza, tamales…

It was finally time for Manny to return to Sinaloa. We bumped fists and gave one another a man hug, mumbled adios. I stood there like a fool watching his raggedy bus pull out of the station and with a great fart of black smoke, rumbled away eastward...

I walked out of the station and lit a cigarette. With a deep sigh filled with anxiety and loneliness, I lost myself in a million stories of this ominous city…

you’re driving me crazy…

I awake in a bright Mexican morning and French press myself a good cup of coffee. I sit out on the patio and feel spending the day taking in some local flavor and by local flavor I mean I want to suck cock.

I dress and walk over shattered concrete to the corner and jump a taxi downtown. I am thrilled to find that Cinema Latino is still there – Tijuana’s premier porno theater. I hike up the ramp and slap my pesos down in front of the pinch-faced hag in the box office and enter the foul smelling den. Groping my way up the stairs toward the balcony seats, when my eyes become adjusted to the gloom, I notice the theater hadn’t changed much – a little more rank, a little worse for wear. But what does one expect in these tough economic times?

On screen, a brunette bimbo hopped up on meth bounced on the rigid erection of a bored looking stud as in the theater proper, several silhouettes roamed along the aisles hunting for prey. Ahead of me, more than a few men sat immobile as shadowy movements rhythmically bobbed at their crotch.

It wasn’t long before a slender Aztec youth plopped next to me, grabbing at my crotch. Erection was exposed and he gave me what for. After I ejaculated, the kid slithered into the darkness replaced by a quivering old fuck smacking his toothless, moist hole at me. I rose and made my way toward the bathroom. A row of masturbating penis peepers stood aloof along the urinal trough as someone was getting butt fucked in the single toilet stall. I stood leaning casually against the grimy wall, lit a cigarette and watched the watchers.

Bored of their shit, I sat back in the theater and actually paid attention to the movie.

“Got a smoke?” Was asked out of the darkness in perfect English.

“Yeah.” I mumbled and fished a cigarette from my pack of Luckies.

A thick, brown hand reached over and in the dim blue flame of my butane lighter, I noticed he had a square, masculine face and drooping, black mustache. I glanced at him, squinting in the murk: muscular tattooed arms in a white wife-beater, black baseball cap on a square head. He was in his mid-twenties carrying the prison sculpted physic of a strong upper torso and thin legs in khaki pants.

We chatted. Why not? He revealed he was recently released from federal prison – for deportation or drug trafficking, I really wasn’t listening – and he was attempting to return to his hometown in the state of Senora. When he confessed he hadn’t eaten in over a day, I invited him to lunch.

We exited the theater in the blinding light of afternoon and made our way to a local taco stand. I introduced myself and he said his name was Manny. In the searing light, he was even more attractive. Tear drop tattoo and all.

Again, he pressed he had nowhere to go and knew no one in Tijuana.

“If you’d like, you can crash at my house.” I offered.

“You live here?” He asked with a hint of disbelief.

“I do. Want to go?”

“Sure.”

We hop a taxi and on the walk from the corner to my building, he tells the tale of how he lived in the state of Washington and was shacking up with his ‘girl’ before everything fell to pot. Once in my place, we lounged on my bed and I dropped the fag bomb.

“You’re gay?” He asked.

“Well, I’ve never been gay a day in my life, but I do like men.”

He went quiet. Then, “You think you can help me get a bus ticket to Senora? I can stay with my mom once I get there.”

“Maybe. How much does it cost?”

“Not much. You think you can help me?”

“Sure.”

At that moment, Manny leaned over and began kissing me. Roughly pressing me down to the bed and began unbuttoning my pants. Removing my erection, he leered up at me and hissed, “Just because I’m going to suck your dick, don’t think I’m queer, okay?”

Yeah. Sure. Not at all.

With timid masculinity, he blows me. Clothes are peeled off. I am thrilled at his chiseled torso covered in amateur prison tattoos. Sliding on top, he breathes into my ear, “Damn, you’re driving me crazy…”

I bet you said that to all your cellies.

He places my feet onto his hard shoulders, spits into his palm, and lubricates his thick, uncut erection. Sliding it in, he lunges and ruts, eventually grunting to some sort of climax. In the humid heat, the closed blinds create yellow bars across our naked, perspiring torsos, we lay side by side sharing a cigarette, blowing great plumes toward the stained ceiling.

I prop myself up on one elbow, “How bout we shower and go get you that ticket?”

“For reals?”

“For reals.”

and so it begins

During the previous month’s stay at my first location in Tijuana, it was a long thirty days mired in loathing and disgust. The ordeal was definitely not what I planned upon my triumphant return to this festering city south of the border. Then again, life seldom is.
I had made acquaintance with a fellow tenant and ex-marine named Frank. A ruggedly handsome Filipino raised in New York City. Unquestionably a surreal encounter listening to that harsh Brooklyn accent being emitted from his dark Asiatic features. Good-looking to who enjoy those Asian types, but he is hopelessly heterosexual. I do not understand what ordeal he went through during his time in the Gulf War, but it had noticeably affected him. He came across as slightly touched. Pleasant and a great conversationalist, yet somewhat bonkers.

Frank, too, was dismayed at the living situations and we spent the following weeks attempting to locate an apartment on la playa. (That’s beach to you knuckleheads who haven’t mastered Spanish) Together, we located several flats at reasonable rates which suited our rather uppity tastes.

I obtained a rather spacious and relatively cheap apartment near the beach for only $275 a month whereas Frank took a room in a large house in lieu that I enjoy my privacy and he being the more sociable type.

Oh the horrors those first two days entailed. After moving in, I cleaned the place up (even though I was asked to hand over a one hundred dollar deposit, I still had to clean the place myself because, you know, Mexico). My first afternoon was spent meeting the ‘characters’ who rented the other fifteen apartments. By characters, I mean stark raving loons. All American expats – filthy, insane motherfuckers who washed up over the border because no one else would take their shit stateside. The complex is managed by a bald-headed geriatric named Daniel who’s only way to get his point across is by angrily barking and yelling his point and the only point being that he literally hates all his tenants. The compound is well maintained by an elderly matron named Maria who somehow tolerates his abusive shit.

That evening after the screaming carnival settled down into quiet, I was utterly burned out and retired around eleven thirty. Tok Tok Tok! Someone was knocking at my front door. I crept to the window and peered through the blinds to see who it was. No one was on the landing. It was a long time falling back asleep. I had no idea what wingnut was out there. But fall asleep I did. Tok! Tok! Tok! At three in the morning there was knocking again. I threw on some pajama bottoms – I always sleep nude, wouldn’t have it any other way – and flung the door open. A man in his mid-twenties – filthy, bearded and smelling of unwashed clothes – stood on my landing peering at me with eyes full of unbridled insanity.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Hey, man. You got any stuff?”

“Stuff?” I repeated half asleep.

“Yeah, you know…stuff.” He places forefinger and thumb to his chapped lips, quick inhale. “Ganja.”

“No, man…no, I don’t.”

He shrugs, “Okay.” And leaves.

Infuriated at being woken in the middle of the night, I fling myself back onto my bed and after a long time, fall back to sleep. Tok! Tok! Tok! I glimpse at my cellphone. 6:35. However, before I can get to the door, I hear beardo outside nearby in the patio asking another tenant if they have a lighter he can use. Motherfucker.

Later that morning after a cold shower (my hot water was to be turned on sometimes in the afternoon) and walking to the corner Oxxo for a much needed coffee, I meet Daniel at the front of the apartment building screaming abuse at an elderly tenant who rented a room with fifty or so cats (Daniel actually grabbed a cat and began forcibly throttling it when it came too close all the while calling the old woman a smelly piece of shit. Appalling behavior.) After I casually mentioned the previous night concerning beardo, Daniel immediately hurled over toward his apartment door nearby, screaming obscenities and banging on the door with his meaty fist. The bearded guy flung the door open and all hell broke loose. Daniel commenced screaming beardo had two hours to pack his shit and vacate the room. Beardo didn’t go quietly.

I had to get away from this madness. I text Frank to meet me at a coffee shop downtown. At Praga Café on Revolucion, I sat bitter watching flabby tourists amble past as Frank went on about a senorita he met online. I kept mumbling ‘Good for you’ or ‘That’s sounds nice’ and other placating comments when in reality I couldn’t care less.

Frank and I strolled around Revolucion digging the great sounds emitted from the massive discos and checking out the local citizens. No matter how dire the situation, the casual glance from a handsome Mexican guy could brighten any malady. It affected me so much, I casually escorted Frank over to Plaza Santa Cecilia. The Plaza has been gentrified, by God. Instead of a legion of wild boys, it is now littered with weary families towing screaming babies. Ghastly. We sat at a table at The Boys café and Frank was amusingly dismayed by the flagrant advances of a corpulent queen. I don’t blame the fat fag, Frank is a looker. He became too uncomfortable and it was getting late, so we called it a night. Bumping fists on the corners of 5^th and Madero, we took our separate taxis home.

I spent the remainder of the evening watching that film Moon. It was a decent science fiction movie. I enjoyed it. Afterwards, I finally ended that long anxiety ridden day.

Tok! Tok! Tok! At three thirty in the morning, I fling the door open to see beardo standing in the half light.

“What the fuck?!” I snarled. “Didn’t I ask you not to come to my door again?!”

“Nah, man…don’t remember that. Got any weed?”

“Get the fuck outta here before I bust your knee caps!”

“Go ahead and try it, motherfucker!”

I slam the door, get dressed and grab a bat. I step outside and like a dissipating phantom, he is nowhere to be seen. I stomp down the steps to his supposedly vacant apartment and wild with rage, bang on the door with the bat.

He opens it a crack, “Yes?”

“Motherfucker! Why you banging on my door waking me up in the middle of the night?!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Like a black demon bursting from the pits of Hades, Daniel appears screaming. His bald head crimson like a red rubber ball. Beardo and Daniel take at slinging blows. Daniel may be old, but he held his own. After an hour of yelling, banging of doors, and eventual appearance of Mexican cops, beardo is taken away, cuffed and beaten.

I return to my room and lay in the dim coolness, thinking. In a strange way, I think I’m going to like it hear…