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…

the darkest hour

A man sits alone in a park. The steel bench he's on is covered with a relatively broad canopy of trees. The wind blowing through their branches produces a subtle sweeping noise along the length of the interconnected foliage. The sun slices through in small rays, taking advantage of the few bare spots in order to ignite the pathway in front of him in small pieces. He procures a newspaper and sets it on the bench next to him, sure to be quiet. He extends both arms on the bench and takes a deep breath, allowing his head to loll on his neck, falling back, gentle as the breeze. He can hear the faint bustle of the wind through the leaves before he lets his breath out. There is no one else around. With his eyes still closed the man reaches into the pocket of his overcoat and removes a small revolver which he places to his temple. Calm and smiling, he pulls the trigger. The click of the firing pin against the empty chamber makes a small noise, an absent-minded pen tap on the table as you struggle with a form at the doctor’s office, a nervous finger when they inform you that you are manic-depressive bipolar with schizoid tendencies and that clinic is your best chance at departing in comfort. Medicated. Separated from the world, its guilt, its eradication of happiness and love. The man places the revolver back into his coat, gathers the newspaper, and walks away.