Johnny smiled

Johnny and the tourist stumbled out into the bustling streets of a Tijuana Saturday night, rushing over crumbling, trash littered pavement smelling of shit and urine. Shabby, sad taco stands sweltered with the wafting stench of burnt meats and fermented salsas and wilted vegetables. Mangy dogs and small infants played in the black grease pools between the stalls.

Throngs of pedestrians clogged the way as Johnny and the tourist weaved through knots of swaggering hip-hop boys. Their arms draped around waists of their brown, thick-hipped sweethearts with the sad, mascara-painted, brown eyes drooped up to Guadalupe. Street vendors with leprosy and missing limbs called out selling leather belts, key chains, lottery tickets, condoms - as tank like para-military vehicles rumbled down the street sluggishly, slowly past ancient, creaking buses farting black smoke into the muggy night.

Johnny led the wobbling tourist down a dimly-lit side street packed with prostitutes of both sexes who wearily leaned against broken, red-brick and grimy, white-washed facades. Roaming addicts - shifty eyed and alert - hurtled down the way, stopping only to snatch small bags of dope from hidden nooks and crannies in crumbling walls. Groups of catatonic American tourists stumbled with bloated guts and shirts spotted with beer and puke – all under the wary eye of hateful police patrols. A cacophony of car horns and screeches mixed with the smells of seared meat, steaming hotdogs, and festering garbage vomiting up into a crisp, neon splashed night.

Passing a row of tired, fat hookers flashing silver-capped teeth and unappetizing, staunch bodies, Johnny and the tourist arrived at the sordid entrance of a cheap, ten-dollar a night hotel which was reached by climbing a set of worn, wooden stairs. White paint flaked off the Spanish-style, two story structure. Hotel Independencia glowed from a dusty, plastic marquee sagging over the cracked sidewalk.

At the foot of the stairs, the tourist took out his wallet to pay a haggish, ancient woman behind a metal grate. Johnny got a glimpse of the contents of the wallet – it bulged with twenty-dollar bills. The old woman gave the tourist a key attached to a huge, plastic pad.

“Checkout is eleven o’clock, manana.” The receptionist wheezed in broken English.

The tourist paid the fat mamacita behind the black bars and the two dashed up warped, wooden stairs to a room which bore an overpowering stench of mildew.

Johnny flicked on the light and a legion of roaches scattered across the dusty, red-tiled floor. In a corner, sagged a dresser with missing drawers and across from the bed, a rickety, metal folding chair. The walls were a multicolored hue of scrawled graffiti of both black marker and spray paint. A tired, slutty mattress dominated the room supported by a bent, black-metal frame which was draped in a thin, pink blanket - bedbugs and all.

“Hold up, cutie - I gotta pee.” The tourist slurred and entered the grimy, white-tiled bathroom. Johnny heard him take a long, loud piss.

Johnny sat silently on the chair and looked around the squalid space. He overheard the muffled moaning of a whore earning her rent in the next room. From the street emanated the dull pounding of a hundred jukeboxes.

The tourist came out of the bathroom and sat on the bed, which creaked in protest under the weight.

In one lithe movement, Johnny stood up and slid down his jeans and white and blue striped briefs. His long, uncircumcised penis swung free. He sat back in the chair.

“You like this?” Johnny asked coyly as he stroked his stiffening organ.

The old tourist blubbered, “Oh yeah, baby - you got a nice dick.”

Johnny smirked, with a hint of detestation, “What’s so nice about it?”

The tourist fumbled uncomfortably, he didn’t expect that remark. He sat there and stared at the nine inches of erection being swayed in his direction - the smooth shaft, the glistening mushroom tip. Johnny seductively worked the foreskin back and forth over the head, devishly looking up at the tourist who wheezed in mounting excitement.

“I’m so hot, papi.” Johnny sighed. “Why don’t you come over here and do something about it?”

The tourist gawked at the undulating erection - hypnotized by it as Johnny smoothly swung it back and forth. Like a fat kid in a candy store, the tourist dropped to his knees in front of Johnny and gobbled his erection. Loud sucking noises echoed in the spartan room as the tourist slobbered and slurped up and down Johnny’s cock. Though Johnny had his legs spread wide open, he could still feel the tourist’s obscene stomach rubbing against both his inner calves.

God, please hurry up and cum, Johnny thought, I need to get the fuck away from this gross-ass gringo.

Johnny reluctantly held the back of the tourist’s greasy head as in a matter of short, merciful minutes, felt the surge of an orgasm and squirted his semen into the tourist’s mouth. The fat, old man leaned over and spat the matter - a mix of bubbly sperm, saliva, and blood - onto the scuffed floor.

Gasping, the tourist looked glaze-eyed up to Johnny and breathed, “Oh, baby - that was good.”

“It was hot, papi.” Johnny stated mechanically, pulling up and fastening his pants.

With much effort and a series of dramatic grunts, the tourist rose to his feet. He sighed and exhaled an embarrassed chuckle.

Johnny stood also, and blurted, “Hey, you think you can help me with twenty dollars? I need to pay my electric bill and I am low on money this week.”

“Don’t you work?” The tourist asked, snidely.

“Yes. But, you know, this is Mexico and they don’t pay much and I just paid rent.” Johnny stated as a matter of fact.

The tourist grimaced as he reached and pulled out his wallet, placing a twenty dollar bill in Johnny’s thin hand.

The tourist saw the young man in a new light - the lines around the mouth, the dark circles under the eyes, the black grime under the uneven, chewed fingernails.

“Can I have ten more? I have no food.” Johnny smiled that smile.

The tourist dramatically sighed. Bitchily acting irritated, he faltered at putting his wallet away. Johnny noticed the glint of fear and distrust, the uncertainty of being in a foreign locale in the sobering eyes of the tourist. Johnny actually hoped the fat motherfucker would be knifed by some demented junky on his way out.

Johnny glared with just the right amount of sexiness and intimidation, “Please?”

“Oh, all right. But, that’s it! I have to get back to the States tomorrow and I can’t spare anymore.” The tourist frowned, placed a ten dollar bill in the young man’s hand and then quickly slipped the wallet into his back pocket.

Johnny made for the door, stopped, “You sleeping here tonight?” He pointed abstractly around the squalid room. “It’s a very dangerous area. A lot of muggings.”

Fear now flamed in the darting eyes of the tourist, “No. No, I have a room somewhere else. I’m going there now.”

“Orale. I’ll walk you out.” Johnny yanked on the thin door which wobbled a bit from sticking in the frame.

Once downstairs, they separated at the corner with a handshake. The tourist quickly strode toward the safety of the nearest waiting taxi as Johnny returned to the shadows of the corner. Several thugs stood in a knot under a leaflet plastered, iron street lamp which emitted no light.

A squat, frog-faced Mexican stood in white athletic gear and croaked as Johnny approached, “Que pasa, Juanito?”

They swapped a street-wise handshake.

Johnny’s gaze swept up and down the sidewalk, “Not much, man. Gimme a paper.”

From a sagging fannypack, the frog-faced Mexican slapped into Johnny’s palm a tiny, cellophane envelope folded into a small square as Johnny passed a wadded, ten dollar bill into the pusher’s chubby fingers.

With that, Johnny returned to the still congested Patio Bar and made a direct line to the bathroom. In a grimy, white-tiled stall, he cut three lines of methamphetamine out onto the flat, steel-top of the filthiest toilet paper dispenser in the world and with a rolled peso note, he loudly sniffled the lines up. Johnny leaned back, snorted the residue into the back of his throat and casually glanced over into the next stall and wish he hadn’t. A chunky hooker in a frayed, blue dress squatted down and was blowing some prehistoric fucker in a grey-felt Stetson. However, that didn’t offend Johnny - it was the festering toilet next to them which overflowed in thick, muddy feces. Lines of dark brown cascaded over the rim like a boiling pot of beans. The smell of putrid shit punched him in the face. Feeling the effects of the meth, he returned to the bar and stood next to an ancient and tall American tourist who leaned casually against the counter. Johnny ordered a beer for himself.

Johnny took a quick swig and smiled at the old relic, “Hola!”

The old man raised his bottle, clinking it with Johnny’s. “Hello, there. What’s your name?”

“My name’s Johnny. Ask anyone. They’ll tell you.” Johnny smiled.