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…