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".