dead electricity

What am I doing with my life? The despairing cry shot out of my deadened substance through a decade of empty locker rooms and bath houses, mildewed hotels, and spectral corridors of oppressive sanitariums, the muttering, hawking, grey dishwater smell of shameful men's shelters, great, dusty warehouses full of old army cots - through broken porticoes and smeared clogged, iron urinals worn paper thin by the piss of a million faggots, deserted weed-grown hovels, musty smells of shit turning back to the soil - the way is broken...time is meaningless…existence has become a dead end…

The fag bar was nearly empty. It was that particular time in the afternoon when everything lagged. Vibrating hum of silence as incandescent yellow blades of a setting winter sun slashed across dirty tile – dust dances in the space. Ordered a beer and took a seat to size up the place. Ratty red leather booths, low dark wood ceiling - the long bar boasted tattered stools and the cantina was tended by a hostile looking, fading old whore. Four other cabrones littered the joint - I sat motionless, smoking a cigarette, ordered another beer.

Went to the W.C., the head, the looloo and as I did my business a fag sided up to me at the urine trough brandishing his big and nasty. He was one ugly motherfucker - had a nice body – but possessed a face that could sink a thousand ships.

Nevertheless - for the sake of international democracy - I accepted the invitation to sit with him and his friend for drinks. His pal wasn´t bad looking. We fell into animated conversations and the beer flowed in so much I didn´t notice the mickey slipped into my bottle.

I blacked out and do not recall anything from three in the afternoon until midnight when I groggily woke up.

I sat up in my bed - well, Miguel´s bed - I was back in the room at St. Jorge Hotel. What the fuck?, I thought. I glanced down - I was wearing just a black t-shirt and nothing else. My ass was sore. I looked over and noticed Miguel lying in the closet glaring at me with hostility - his face wet with tears. He had thrown down a few blankets on the closet floor and formed a makeshift bed. This can´t be good, I thought. I sat on the edge of the bed and tentatively asked what had happened - quite befuddled at this point - and between over-dramatic sobs Miguel let loose a tirade of when he returned from work he found me in bed getting screwed by two ugly guys. Apparently, there was some yelling, some fighting - perhaps some bitch slapping - and they left after taking turns on me. Miguel was so distraught, he explained, he ran to a neighbor’s house - when he returned, the two guys had vanished and I was zonked out on my stomach, wouldn´t wake up no matter how hard Miguel tried.

Still didn’t explain why Miguel was hiding in the closet.

After more sobbing by Miguel - I can´t stand whimpering fags - I got dressed, packed my bag and said adios. When will these fools realize I am not boyfriend material? My life is far too chaotic to retain any type of relationship.

I hailed a taxi and rented a room in a cheap hotel - Hotel Quinta. As I sat on the sagging bed in a foul-smelling room, I thought and I thought some more. I do believe it is time to leave Tijuana...forever.

lonely brick walls

The wind carried dust and garbage down the long, dark streets. The gusts were so fierce, the lamp posts shook - causing shadows to play against silent lonely brick walls. We slipped through the cracked glass door of the St. Jorge Hotel, but not fast enough to not let in a blast of gritty wind. The door snapped shut. The lobby was cavernous and empty. Even the receptionist was gone.

We began making our way up the old wooden stairs which creaked under us to the second floor, we walked along the poorly lit halls on faded red carpet that smelled of mildew and bleach. Here and there, small bags of garbage sat neatly tied outside a few doors.

Unlocking the faded, pink door, I switched on the light. Cockroaches scattered. There were two old hotel chairs, an antique bureau with a small television perched on it, a worn bed lay against the wall with the smelly blankets and sheets wadded up into a corner exposing a sagging mattress. The carpeted floor was littered in food containers and cigarette butts and unwashed clothing thrown about. The room smelled of sweat and dried semen mixed with tobacco ash.

Miguel Santiago. He’s stated when we met the day before Christmas, he was the ninth son in a family more broken than the hearts he leaves in his wake. And there had been a lot of hearts. Apparently. Eighteen going on nineteen, Miguel claimed during sips of coffee at the café he did not have anywhere to call home. He used to live with his grandmother. Had his own room in the back of her panaderia, but that old witch gave him the boot when she found out what he did. That he sucked cock. He gave up his last chance to reverse his curse. He gave up his last chance to stay alive.

Ingrata. That’s what she said when he left that shit dimension of windowless, concrete walls of sad back rooms. A world of monsters and unwanted souls and ghosts. A world saved by a girl who will never forgive him. Can he blame her?

But that’s in the past. He’s supposed to keep that in the past. His criminal mother. His brothers and sisters who might as well be dead. But, the girl? She’s the only one Miguel can’t keep in the past, no matter how hard he tries. So, as he reclines on the bed in the run-down room in centro Tijuana, he thinks of her.

Miguel isn’t sure what he feels for me. He doesn’t think its love. I wouldn’t have him, anyway. It’s something else. There was something about me that called out to him. It was as if we are the same kind of lost. It was, after all, his magic that was supposed to save me.

I lit a cigarette and handed it to Miguel, “You hungry? Want something to eat?”

He took a puff, stared at the stained ceiling. The gloom of the room caused the sparks of electricity in his eyes to go out. He continued to stare and stated, “Do you realize, cells in your body die and new ones are created all the time? About every seven years pretty much all the cells in your body are new. Which means you are not who you used to be. You’re a brand new person. You’ve completely changed and you will again. Basically, you’re already dead…. someone else took over, and it’ll happen again…”

I glanced at the empty tequila bottle on the ratty end table, sighed, “So…no? Not even a taco?”

He smiled, “Make love to me.”

“I rather get a taco. I’m hungry.”

He smiled a wide smile of careless youth, outstretched his arms, “Come here…I’m hungry, too.”

There was a loud pop as a conductor on a lamp post outside exploded and the light in the room flickered and went out. Enveloped in cold darkness, without any trace of emotion, I did it just the same…

totality

We are our own duality

the sectionalism we pursue

and the divisionism we leave behind

the decisions we make

and those we don’t

we embody the gradient of choices

good, bad, accidental

We are complete in that totality,

or not

blast of silence

I was so fucked up in the head today. No money. No nothing. Gabriel came over with some Valium tablets. He told me over two Sol beers if I sucked his cock he'd give me the tablets. Why not?, I mumbled lighting up a Lucky Strike. His penis was long and skinny like him, and uncut...like him. However it smelled like rotten shit and garbage and tasted even worse. And yet, I did it just the same. Such a fucking cockjunkie.

Desperate skeleton grin of chronic junk lack glazed over with codeine and goofballs... cigarette holes in his bathrobe...coffee stains on the floor...rusty orange flame...Wanna hit?

Nah. No more for me, Gabriel...

His head slumped to one side and his tongue fell out. The pesos dropped from his hand, one after the other, and lay crumpled on the red tile floor. A gust of chilled wind blew dirty pink curtains into the room.

Washing the acrid taste out of my mouth with beer, I sat there downing the tablets, staring at Gabriel nodding off and thanking God in his wisdom I will not return there. Eyes flicker up his bony arms trace long bluish trails of addiction.

I do believe it is time to make tracks for other parts of the world.

when up comes down

Experiencing such a profound depression - the worst of my life. I have an absolute conviction I cannot write anymore; my talent - such as it is - has given out. I sit for hours in a catatonic state glaring at a blank page - and there is no one I can talk to. I shouldn't be hung up here in Tijuana. Of course take more on account of depression - I should have remained in San Diego.

I don't know what is wrong with me, but it is bad. Every idea outlandish and repulsive - like the presidency ordeal. And everything I write disgusts me. I really feel awful. A feeling of complete desolation.

Around nine I head straight to the whore zone – the Zone takes care of its own, you dig?

With a sigh of relief I found myself sitting in a cheap cantina off Avenida Coahuila – bar Premier. The place was suffused with a subdued blue light – luridly gloomy - concealing the fat and nasty hooker being finger banged by the ancient cowboy in the corner, her silver teeth reflecting the sad bulbs. A moldy looking bullhead mounted on a plaque hung over the mahogany bar. Pictures of luche libre decorated grimy walls along with strings of Christmas lights – most burnt out. The word pendejo was etched in the frosted-glass swinging door. I found myself reading the word pendejo over and over.

Apparently syphoned by phantom hands, I found myself sitting in a vomit reeking booth with two Mexicans, drinking tequila. The Mexicans were dressed in standard hip-hop gear. One spoke English - they were the 'So how do you like Mexico variety'. A middle-aged, heavy set Mexican with a sad, sweaty face sang songs and played a guitar. He sat at the end of the booth in a chair. I was glad the singing made conversation with him impossible.

Two cops ambled in - assumed I might get a shake, so I slipped my stash of weed in my Lucky Strike cigarette package under the table. The cops had a quick conversation with the bartender and then took off.

The two hip-hop Mexicans took off straightway. When I reached under the table, my weed was gone but the cigarette package was still there.

Pendejos.

I sat there staring into my warming cerveza Sol when two guys walked into the cantina and sat next to me. I said Howdy; they said Hola; and introduced themselves - Juan was tall and thin with a shaven head, goatee, blue football jersey, and green army fatigue pants. The other guy was a little younger, about 21, with black slick back hair and wore a black t-shirt with dark cargo pants and looked vaguely oriental. After bumming a cigarro, he said his name was Ignacio. Ignacio? What kind of name is that, I asked – the flirting engine began to rev up. I understood full well of the name Ignacio – had several friends named Ignacio – but I thought I’d play the cutesy-pie gringo. And he went into this long tirade about Aztec culture and that Ignacio was a name based in Aztec tradition. Whatever. I flicked a cockroach offa the bar with indifference. Two girls arrived and they sat with the guys. I excused myself and left.

Walking through these dark cracked streets huddled in someone else's coat. I stop under a poster covered street lamp and light a cigarette. The buzzing from the condenser above me fills my head. Banda music waivers down among the shadows intermittent like black wind through dead trees. I look up and the wires criss cross the starry night. I close my eyes and sigh.

In a town of ten million people, why do I feel so alone?

zona norte melancholy

I sit here – tepid black coffee swirling in a chipped china cup; cream coagulating - analyzing the hand scribbled notes of my 'reports' placed ever so delicately with an almost religious fervor on the slutty table pockmarked with cigarette burns and coffee stains. I realize I have been neglecting this blog - my attention and writing syphoned into other directions odd and inexplicable.

Time crawls past 2am - out in the dark musty halls crazed drug-addicted female screams hatred and malice into the uncaring night. Annoying cunt. I eventually lay down and toss in fits of anxiety and nostalgia at the latest of predicaments entirely of my own design. I nod off into a distressing, dreamless sleep.

Awoke with a gasping jolt from nightmares of suffocating in a black metal box - taste of contaminated metal clung to my tongue. I lay in my sagging bed, staring at the discolored ceiling in my dusky room. The screams inside like crashing surf against rocks and Control really taking control.

I get up out of bed shivering in the predawn light of night and splash water on my unfocused face, brush the pearlies, shake the roaches from my clothes and take the rickety croaking beat hotel elevator five flights down into those sleeping mad streets. Finances run slow like an old man's bowels. Unable to pay at this overpriced American roach motel - a melancholy hobo hacks into a filthy wadded napkin in rickety elevator, carpets smell and smell rotten - I swallow my pride, pack my shit and split.

A gray mist drapes forebodingly through concrete canyons as I dart into a 7-11 and buy a paper cup of hideous overpriced java from a snarling Hindi. Keeping an eye out for trolley cops, I jump a train down ol' Mexico way. Clakclakclak. I am affected with paranoid fits of nostalgia or perhaps just feeling my age. Fuck it, I mumble and forty minutes later, I tromp across the Mexican border, lugging my gear toward a sea of parked taxis.

The fat taxi driver sat wordless - hating me (the foreigner) or his life in general as we hurtled toward the Strip. The cold wind blew in my face as I sat deep in the back chair when the cab abruptly screeched to a jarring halt at the corner of 5^th and Madero. I pay the scowling bastard and rent another room at the guesthouse, this one was windowless and smelled like cunt. I showered and, afterward, as I lay to rest, I pass out and awaken eight hours later. Fuck it. I dress and go for a beer.

I weave my way through roaming groups of mariachi and the relentless legion of hawkers who could and do work your last goddamn nerve. Pass Hotel Nelson wafting in the smell of cerveza and seared meat when I am approached at the base of the millennium arch by a handsome ghost. My mind whirls in the direction of where do I know this character - so many, so many - thousands of faces pass my mind’s eye; nevertheless I can't catalog the fucker.

He seems all smiles and quite familiar with Your Reporter - I immediately judge him as another sticky fingered rentboy lost in the puzzle.

“Hey!” he says, “Soy, Hugo!”

Ah, yes…Hugo. Big cock but dumb as a rock. He at one time attempted to swindle me out of two hundred dollars to pay for a passport or so he claimed. He’s great to look at, but one of the dullest fucks this side of Trump’s Wall.

“Oh, hi, Hugo. Howzit goin’?” I croak going out of my way to reveal my disinterest.

He mumbled he was on his way to see his brother of friend or some such bullshit but spoke crystal clear when the topic of borrowing pesos came up. One hundred, to be exact.

“I’m broke, but if I had it, you understand…” I lied. Even if I had it, in which I did, I wouldn’t.

Like a nameless trick in the night, he waved bye and disappeared toward the clubs located closer to the border. I turned toward Plaza Santa Cecilia. Myates stood on corner chewing on toothpicks and flicking fidget spinners. Baggy clothes flutter in the gloomy wind - ghastly clothes colors of almond, peach, florescent blue. "You lookin'?" One jerks his head up at me - I walk on under black cold stares.

The chill of the night shivered my already frozen form. At the mouth of the Plaza, in front of a stage next to the statue of the saint who the Plaza suffers her name, an assortment of Tijuana fags cooed and guffawed and made shrill comments to one another. More to the rentboys who prowled the shadows of the Plaza than to one another. Transvestites clopped back and forth, languidly groping whatever drunken macho receiving the unfortunate luck to pass within range. I continued down Calle Primera.

Trash lined street lurking with prostitutes of both sexes - women especially nasty under blue neon on a dark crumbling adobe night - purveyors of insidious filth - beckon me to enter their traps. I clutch my wallet and move on. Squeeze past nasty whores brandishing silver capped teeth and undulating udders; made my way to Bar Noa Noa.

Entered the hazy, smoky den. The place was crowded with Zona Norte’s finest - perverts and dikes, pedophiles and junkies. Male prostitutes performed their stylized ballet around gray haired American vampires who preyed on them – sucking their youth and vitality. A fat cop stood at the entrance waiting to do something. The queens swirled and cackled and jerked in galvanized movements as faggots often have a tendency to do. Cooing and pawing at the waiters who wearily served beverages in sullen apathy.

I stood propped against the old wooden bar pulling a James Dean routine watching the smoky debauchery churn around me - flicked a cockroach off the counter like playing finger football - it flew into the ice bin. Took a long drag off my Lucky. Some fat tranny like Fred Flintstone in drag stood with her sweaty, mole covered back to me - with chubby, clip-on nailed fingers, pulled the panties outta her obese ass.

The rockola - jukebox, ya goddamn gringo! - banged out ranchero mixed with Mexican Top 40. The waft of beer, piss, and puke issued outta the water closet from the use of a million faggots. I grabbed my warming beer took a swig followed by a puff on my smoke.

"Hey." I heard him hiss in a thick accent. "Hey, guero - you like beeg one?"

I swerved my stare in the direction of the accusation and noticed a scrawny rentboy stooped over in baggy, dirty clothes. His squinting eyes fading in and out of focus, sided up next to me, sliding his hand across my back. "One beer for me?" He asked, holding up his finger as if I didn't understand.

I sighed and made a swooping gesture with my hand, "There are about thirty other desperate motherfuckers here who would absolutely love to buy you one, man - why bother me with your alcoholic woes?"

"Aw c'mon, guero...just one." He slurred, putting on the little hurt boy act.

"Beat it." I growled, turning towards the bar, noticing his angry glare momentarily reflected in the warped mirror behind the counter, then shuffle off to locate more sympathizing prey.

Someone grabbed my ass, I turn to see it is Cesar (Juan’s older brother) and some friend. He says Hola, I says Howdy and several beers are eagerly downed. Cesar introduces his friend as Fernando and he is quite the looker.

Us three cut from the bar and march through Coahuila down past doe-eyed preteen looking hookers lined up elbow to elbow - sliver capped teeth flashing neon of blues and red. Old haggish one yanks at my sleeve, I keep walking.

The street is packed with prostitutes of both sexes (well, in these enlightened times, twenty-six sexes. Ain’t that some shit?) leaning against ruined red brick and adobe, roving addicts - shifty eyed and vigilant - hasten down the way, stopping to grab bags of dope from hidden nooks and crannies of crumbling walls, weaving through catatonic American tourists - bloated and shirts spotted with beer and puke - under the wary eye of police patrols. A cacophony of car horns and screeches mixed with the smells of seared meat, steaming hotdogs, and festering garbage steaming into the crisp chilly night.

Why all this bother? All this ruckus to flounder about waving handful of cash in front of thieves and shysters, Dear Tourist, don't you realize you'll be eaten alive - and the bones won't even remain.

We hit Bar Kin-kle, a tacky queer joint in the Red Zone with a big over stuffed bullhead above red metal double swinging doors where guys would show you their erections for a beer - enter through dingy red curtains from the street and sized up by two towering trannies who goose you coming in - just preliminaries. Happens to everyone, don't take it so personal. Flop onto a dented metal table and down three caguamas. Old cholo who seems to take a liking for 'mericans - invites me into the mensroom for a few snoots of the old meth-a-roonie on the filthiest toilet paper dispenser in the world. Snooort-hack-snort! I lean back and look over to the next stall and wish I hadn't – a festering toilet overflowed in thick muddy feces. Lines of brown over the rim like a boiling pot of beans.

Return to my colleagues who are now drunker than a skunk – we go into mucho ha-ha and heart-to-heart about Tijuana. (The Happiest Place on Earth).

Fernando begins to feel it and becomes all clingy and shit, but I don't mind cause he's so sweet. In the dark alcove of Kin-kle, drunk and horny, Fernando and I make out under the bloodshot stare of my other buddy and the watchful eye of a waiter with a hard on.

You understand I can resist anything but temptation and when Fernando asked to 'Go Somewhere' I didn't hesitate. I decided to gamble with it, "I know of a cheap hotel nearby. Just a few blocks that away." He bit his bottom lip and mumbled something positive. Say adios to a grinning and understanding Cesar, money slapped on the bar, door flung open and we slipped out into the brisk night air.

I follow my Dark Knight - jumping over incandescent pools and dodging kamikaze taxis to Hotel Coliseo. Wow. Been years. Pay the fat mamacita behind the black bars and we stagger up the old wooden stairs to the third floor - hallway smelt of mildew and feces.

Room was just a mattress on the floor and antique brown dresser. The walls multicolored hues of scrabbled graffiti of both marker and spray paint and included a tired, slutty mattress sprawled on the floor. Fernando smiles and whispers some dirty shit and playfully flops onto the mattress - bedbugs and all.

I take a piss in the dingy porcelain tiled bathroom and return to find Fernando shivering naked under thin pink blanket. Undress and lay next to him - hands glide over bodies, tongues probe, organs stiffen. Fernando - this short shit - flings my legs up over his shoulders, spits on his palm, lubes his erection and whammo - begins rutting like his sad poor beat life depended on it.

He held my feet as I played with his nipples. Legs stroked, toes sucked. The sweat began running down his chest as he rapidly drew in breath after breath. I started moaning through clenched teeth. The boy was surprisingly pneumatic in the hips. Thrusting harder; his forehead touched mine and our wet hair stuck together. Gasped Oh God Oh God as I could feel the semen rush up through his penis into me - he yanks out and splatters his semen onto my heaving chest. After he squirts, I giggle 'Again!' and he does. Flopped around with me on my stomach with Fernando on top thrusting - boy did I get the better end of the deal - slapslapslap - his brown hips against my white ass with lean arms wrapped around my torso and neck. My back is bitten passionately. My face pressed against the pillow - I feel Fernando’s hot breath against my left ear as he gets closer to his climax. Closed my eyes and with clenched teeth felt hot semen squirt up into me. Afterwards, Fernando confides that his fantasy was to screw a gringo and I was his first. Awwww, I smile inward.

We shared a joint, our shoulders touching under the thin covers. Fernando mumbled he had to go and I watched as he covered his smooth brown frame with well-worn clothes. I dressed, listening to the whore earning her rent down the hall. Outside we stand in the mist. Fernando hits me up for cien pesos before I make my way back home. He slides a small paper - folded into a square - into my palm as we shake hands goodnight.

When I reach my room, I open the folded paper and written in the uneven scribbling of the illiterate reads: no estas solo

Writer. Homosexual. Junkie. Murderer.

In 1951, during a party one evening in Mexico City, writer William S. Burroughs drunkenly convinced his wife Joan Vollmer into standing against a wall with a shot glass on her head while he fired a gun at her.

Blew The Shot weaves up to this appalling incident, drifting back and forth in time, examining the reasons and keystones behind Burroughs' murder of Vollmer, creating a story part biography, part horror tale, and part touchingly emotional psycho-drama.
#williamburroughs #mexico #joanvollmer #beats #murder #novel #book

followed by a hasty exit

Pervert can be a verb or a noun. When we pervert something, we alter it from its intended course - we distort or corrupt - while a pervert is the thing distorted or corrupted.

As a noun, pervert has both a strong and weak form. The weak is often self-applied. For example, I often refer to myself as a pervert, which is true. The strong form is usually screamed and followed by a hasty exit.

Some people think homosexuality is a perversion. Some people think masturbating to hentai is as well, or coprophilia.

The disgust is (for the most part) understandable, although probably best kept to yourself. That is, not everyone has to like what you like. They are free to find it distasteful. They are not free to discriminate.

But bigotry does not come from disgust. It comes from fear. People fear the perverted, but rarely because of the perversion. Rather, it comes from our implicit binary division of the world.

We each live at the center of a circle. Inside that circle is everything we find rational and reasonable. Outside that circle is everything else.

When someone admits to being aroused by human excrement, or animals, first there is disgust, then aversion, because if that person can indulge in such a thing, if they are actually capable of that, then they are outside the circle and who knows what else they might do?

It’s a cliché that we fear the unknown because it's a truism. And anything outside the circle is not just unknown, it's irrational, unpredictable. Hence bigots often see perverts as subhuman, something closer to a lion, where you're afraid because you're never quite sure what the beast will do.

Disgust also implies contamination and therefore contagion: corruption spread by contact. And then we're back to fear.

I am a pervert. That I am aroused by the genuinely obscene does not make me any less rational. I am no more likely to steal or commit murder or run around covered in peanut butter than you.

In fact, in my experience - and Jung’s - those who are aware of their demons, who acknowledge them, are in control. It is all you fools who pretend to have none that worry me.

Normal people are outside my circle.

I seriously do not know how much more I can take. This depression is kicking my ass. I am having trouble determining what is reality and what is not. I am slipping away.

existentialism 101

I feel like I'm somewhere else. Have you ever had that feeling? Like I'm somewhere else and like I'm somebody else. Have you ever felt that? Well, I'm not sure who I am, but I'm not me. Who am I supposed to trust but myself? And I don't even know who I am.

voices

The pristine towers of downtown San Diego swallowed me up. Clean people in neatly pressed clothes darted past, purposefully making a wide berth as if not to catch any virus or the chance the occasional tick would leap off my ratty form and nestle in their expensive attire.

I made no attempt at eye contact. How I loathed these assholes who held a job, an apartment, friends, loves. My hatred rooted in their false conformity. What kind of existence was there in forcing oneself to get up every morning at 5:30am, forced to shit, shower, and shave then scuffle to a job where not only did you have to pretend to enjoy it, but constantly remark on the fact of how pleased you were to be employed every time your asshole of a manager was within earshot. If I was ever required to attain employment, I would purposely do the minimum amount required and constantly complain on how bitter I was. And why not? Why drudge through a damn job which paid next to nothing only to make others rich?

Bitterly, I continued my way down a side street. To my far right lay the shimmering skyscrapers of downtown where the rich frolicked and sipped their over-priced cappuccinos and walked their well-groomed dogs, caring only on sports figures and social standing. Not on this street, though. The sidewalks were cracked, the houses sagged and covered in faded graffiti with bars on the windows and doors. Garbage and dried feces mingled with bums who lay propped against light posts next to shopping carts over-filled with malicious memories and disoriented hopes.

The desolate angels of skid row howled and moaned towards the unforgiving Californian sky. The reek of stale piss and unwashed linens overpowered the chilled breeze which blew in from the nearby sea giving the putrid smell a salty tang. A bloated woman scavenged through an over-flowing trash can as a black man faced a wall rapidly masturbating under discolored sweat pants.

I arrived at God’s Extended Hand for tepid coffee and stale donuts. Outside, lined along its peeling, stucco walls, loitered a hundred men and women smoking, sniffing, and hacking phlegm onto the already snot plastered sidewalk. Most stood somber and vacant, gaping out into a life of maudlin bring downs and disappointments while a few chatted or complained or outright cursed into the deaf world. Hip blacks congregated in knots slinging dope and drinking from brown paper bags as their women cackled and screeched sexual innuendos toward one another. Mexicans stood silent, red eyes glaring from sad coffee colored faces and glanced towards bearded, white hobos who guffawed and leaned, smoking rolled cigarettes.

I took my place at the end of the sinuous line. Wheezing and grunting, feeling my age, as I propped myself against the wall, the high was wearing off and the discomfort creeped across my already scowling face.

“Fuck it.” I mumbled to myself or was it someone else? “Boxcar selling some weak shit. That motherfucker better step up his game.” I paused, pursed my gummy lips. “Shit, I gotta take a shit.”

I glanced over to a graffiti splattered, blue port-a-potty stationed at the side of the building. I turned to a wizened, old coot who stood directly behind me.

“Hey, man, can you hold my place? I gotta use the shitter.” I stated with open palm, jerking my head toward the portable toilet, “I’ll be just a minute.”

The ashen, old hobo glanced at me and grunted, exhaling a plume of gray smoke from a rolled cigarette. “Yeah. Go on, I'll watch yer spot.”

I made my way to the toilet. The scuffed door read occupied, so silently I stood in the gravel next to a foul smelling dumpster cascading with tattered trash bags. The smell of rotting garbage and the stink from the toilet made it unbearable. I glanced at the line, back at the door - my insides felt as if they were going to burst. I arrogantly kicked the plastic door to the booth.

“Hurry the fuck up! There're people waitin'!” I hollered.

A muffled female voice stated from within, “Hold your fucking horses!”

“Hurry the fuck up! I gotta take a motherfuckin' shit!” I spat.

The door flung open and a squat woman burst out. Hispanic with black hair teased into a high rats nest. Worry lines creased a face heavily made up. She wore a dirty blue halter top and yellow, spandex stirrups. Her chaffed feet were adorned in frayed sandals exposing cracked and molded toenails painted a vivid red. Though she was in her mid-twenties, her face and lumpy body made her appear older. Much older.

“Fucking asshole.” She glared at me with crimson eyes as she exited the toilet. “I should kick your white ass in front of all these...” She halted when she recognized who was standing there. Her inebriated mind snapped back to this dimension’s frequency. Her volumous red lips parted into a smile of large, yellowed teeth. “Oh...hey, how you doin' this morning?”

I glanced down onto the oil blackened gravel. Shifting uncomfortably in my sneakers. “Hey, Gracie. I'm good. Just need to use the toilet.”

She smiled at me, “Look, baby-doll, why don't you meet me up at Balboa Park this afternoon? We can have some drinks, maybe fuck a little?”

I flushed crimson and mumbled, “Maybe. I might have other things to do.”

She stepped up to me and laid a dirty, brown palm on my chest, “I'll ride the gay right out of you, baby boy. Make that dick feel all kinda good in this juicy, wet pussy.” Her breath smelled like rancid smegma.

I began stepping into the toilet, a muted voice surfaced in my head and spat “I got an STD just hearing that shit!”

Gracie whirled and screeched into the open door, “Fuck you, you worthless piece of shit! My ass is cleaner than your whole cracker body!”

Bored with this dialog, I quickly stepped into the toilet, slamming the door shut.

The inside of the port-a-potty was a biological hazard. Shit stained toilet paper lay scattered around the urine soaked floor. In the cramped space, I made the mistake of glancing into the toilet hole. Mounds of discolored feces, soda cans, toilet paper, and cigarette butts piled up almost to the rim of the seat. In the morning humidity, flies buzzed and the wafting aroma almost caused me to projectile vomit.

I yanked down my pants. The voices remained silent amid the fetid stench of my tortured grunting and raspy farting. The dankness of the toilet booth had become mind-dizzyingly unbearable.

I reached into my pocket and removed a small plastic baggie of bluish, powdery methamphetamine. With thumb and forefinger, I took a pinch of the dope and placed it casually into a small opening at the bulbous end of the pipe. The remaining film of meth left on my finger I slid across my red gums.

“C'mon, boy, light that shit up!” Voices pleaded in annoyed frustration.

I chuckled, “Gimme a minute, you fucking junkies.” I placed the stem end of the pipe up to my chapped and discolored lips.

“Fuck you!” The voices snapped as I hungrily sucked on the stem as if it were a cock.

I stepped out of the port-a-potty and noticed the line of bums had already entered the soup kitchen and the entrance firmly shut. I wasn't hungry, anyway. I muttered under my breath and stepped to the side of the building toward the opening to an alley.

As others nonchalantly passed to go about their daily drudgery, I flicked a lighter under the already charred bulb and slowly rotated it. The crystals inside melted into a mercury-like consistency as the gray smoke swirled around the bulb and into the stem. I inhaled greedily, twitching and fidgeting in robotic spasms of addiction. My very cells tingled in anticipation. I glanced across the alley. There was a lone drag queen squatting against the brick wall. Smeared in vomit and urine, the drag held a look of utter desperation on his makeup streaked face.

“Hey, sweetie, can I have a hit?” The drag queen croaked in a voice roughened from years of cigarette smoke.

“Naw!” I spat. “I ain't got enough for you faggoty-ass mooches!”

The drag queen clopped away muttering obscenities under his breath leaving a coiling effluvia of foul smells in his wake.
My bloodshot and crusted eyes lit up. I threw his head back and exhaled a great plume of smoke up into the bright, blue sky.

the world is a café

Juan’s two room rat hole with a rusted steel balcony and panoramic view of the Zona Norte. Pleasant if you wanta witness sooty smog, criss-cross of humming, crackling power cables, and bloated hookers clopping up and down the shattered, garbage littered pavement. Diverse categories of sordid junkies and nefarious types lurk in the smoke filled shadows of the colonial apartment’s ill-smelling lobby. Cocaine, marijuana, and booze passed many a hand.

Banda music and squealing and the vecinos rush in like jackals.

There was a sudden knock at the door. When I pulled the flimsy doorway open (it sticks in the frame), a kid stood there; introduced himself as Cesar and inquired if he could speak to Juan. I invited him in and after casual chatter; found out this was Juan's older brother. He resembled Juan very much, except for the macho moustache and receding hairline. Both lads of copper, smooth skin and distinct South American attributes…they actually almost looked Japanese.

We all eased into the cramped bedroom, littered with used Kleenex from the earlier afternoon’s fuck fest. The fragrance of stale semen and anxiety in the tight air. Juan promptly ambled toward the dresser, pulled out a syringe, a foil of heroin, a blackened spoon, and a lighter. Juan sat on the sagging and messed bed like an immobile lizard and I stared in wonderment at the situation. I opened the drawer in the nightstand and pulled out a joint.

Cesar cooked down the shot and, gazing in the mirror on the drawer, thrusted the syringe deep into his neck. Hissing through stained teeth, Cesar pushed the plunger and the solution drained into his waiting veins. Muscles become slack and with a vacant look, he passed the needle over to his brother who did the same. Eyes squeezed shut and with a shuttering sigh of junky orgasm, Juan lay back on his bed and dreamed of dark and troubling things.

I sat there scrutinizing this ritual, legs crossed, sucking on that reefer so nasty.

Later, we hit those fucking insidious streets of a forever opaque Mexican night - whorehouses, seedy bars, a macho goose in the doorway, searching faces hidden in darkness and confusion, an aged whore with clown makeup winks so nasty. Smoke. Reggeaton blasts over speakers. Cocaine is bought. Pile into a taxi. Weed is bought. Walk through evil gloomy barrios. Crystal is bought. Large amounts of cheap liquor consumed. Tequila is the drink of choice. A sinister midget laughs through silver teeth. Smoke. Flashbulb of light. Mucho machismos. Drunken insults to the natives, fists and knives are presented. Whack! Pound. Pound. Pound into someone’s head. The flashing of light and arching of electricity. An Angel falls a victim. Crack of bones and a bird screams. Cesar is swarmed over, a dark mass of fists and kicking cowboy boots. Smoke. Glinting light on a knife and Cesar goes down in a pool of blood and spit. Silver teeth show through snarled lips, “Vamanos, gringo.”

Dragged across wet flagstones, reggeaton wails. Shoved into a taxi and sped off into the night. Air filled with the smell of burnt oil and marijuana. Coffee is shoved under my nose, pills are put into my mouth and I glimpse up to see Juan wiping a wet and bloody hand towel across my forehead with red scraped knuckles. Juan lights a cigarette and places it between my lips, blood trickles out of his nose past his split lip. Looking around, we are in some café. The room is empty. A long counter with metal stools extend toward a glass door inviting no one in.

“The world is a café.” I croak.

Just another night in Tijuana...I stand - extinguishing my cigarette on the filthy warped tile floor. “I gotta go.” And leave that wretch to his horror.

Walking the few blocks back to the guesthouse in that dark cold night - eyeing for police patrols on account my own paranoia is kicking in. I think of my future and of my plans - I cannot allow those past demons to control me. Reaching my room - I undress and climb into bed unable to sleep as the drugs take hold.

Eventually I drift off, horrid nightmares abound. I wake up depressed and disappointed I even committed the act.

borrowed flesh

that which is below

Roar through streets dodging buses, kamikaze taxis and mad dashing pedestrians. We pass Avenida Revolucion - el Revo, to the locals - all is what you expect: petulant flabby tourists shuffle in the beating sun ignoring the barking of the pitchmen squinting under that bright blue Mexican sky. Young pacheco kids in their funky hip-hop clothes walk by arm in arm around a tired whore clop-clopping in her cha-cha heels brown eyes drooping and looking forever up at Guadalupe. The shop venders selling gold, silver, leather, liquor, sex - they scream unrelentlessly into the deaf ear of the sweaty tourist. Overpriced restaurants, massive discos, and farmacias vending Viagra with enough potency to kill an elephant, lost among fading whorehouses crumbling into time reflected in the sad eyes of the weary Zonky.

Blocks are splashed with the primary colors of restaurants and consumer store facades of any other Mexican metropolitan city - the dust rises, the trash burns, police patrol by with young cops hanging off the sides of white trucks - black rifles glistening and the mothers sprinting across the traffic with young flailing and babies wailing. Cervezas and guacamole - no matter how diluted with sour cream - still bring in the Mexican culture of memory to the old and young. Culture is life. Life is change. Change is culture - and change is the beauty of Tijuana, no matter how desperate - no matter how congested and overflowing, omnipresent as a McDonald’s baño.

Spitting heat upon pale skin. Dust swirls, thick and ominous like mountainous fog, yet there is little silence among this thumping surge of sprawling land and sea convergence. It's bright and it’s hot, alighting the nonexistent patterns as people and their many motors crush upon humanity and culture - their culture.

It is their land; their noise and debris, the rising dust - clouds into the eternal heat, the rapturous signals, the stoplights and padding feet across cracked pavement before the next race of exhaust pipes flood the streets. The young boys standing in a 1950s truck bed and the workingmen folding leathery hands in deep cooling shadows. Coronas, Pacificos, Dos XX and Sol bottles crushed down dirt side-alleys. Pass peeling paints of white, green and orange. As I sat in the back of the taxi, heat and the accompanying dust drew into the interior through the open windows that sucked like a famished mule.

A dangling faded CD flashed in my eyes, as Jesus and Mother Mary spun from the driver's rear view mirror. Through the dirty window, I watched my beloved Mexico and its culture, passing high-walled penitentiaries and catching the drafts of burning trash and piles of rubber. I breathed in, deeper than the previous, and as rusted tin and red brick turned to unfinished concrete with spikes of rebar, the city-center approached.

Burnt paper and smoky chemicals infused into the sea air until the salt purified the wastes. Suddenly, it froze. A culture - historic in its patternless flow of work, family, tradition, rice, beans, corn tortillas and cerveza, with mother dodging traffic as she interlinks her arms throughout her five children, and the federales rolling in their crisp black '06 GMC pickup trucks and Ford Mustangs, fat signs and stripped lands of acres of sweating asphalt surrounded by cheap simplicities of blue and white, and orange and white swallows its environment.

Then the abominable. Things and their monsters. They let loose to dilute the beauty of this original style of living and culture. Gorging, the corporations find their way as Mexico expands with the born faces of Wal-Mart and Home Depot. My heart pinged. It skipped a beat. Nevertheless, I drew another inhale, observed the life around, and continued to witness an unburdened Mexico thrive. Dust tickled my nose. I sneezed. It reached my throat. I coughed. How unburdened can a culture remain? I was about to find out.

Taxi screeched to a halt in front of the Hotel Coliseo. Old man sat on wood chair by the door focused on me with cataract eyes and junky stoop as I paid the driver and enter the crumbling whitewashed building. The smell of sewage and feces filled the lobby. An obese transvestite sat on an overstuffed green velvet couch sucking a silver tooth as I paid the front desk cien pesos and made my way up to the third floor - old well-worn wooden stairs creaking.

My room was painted olive green, paint flaking. Bed sagged to one side with graffiti scratched above wooden headboard, the toilet ran, and I had roaches for roommates. The distant moan of a whore earning her rent mixed with the banda music wafting through the pungent, dark halls.

I showered in tepid water, got dressed, and left my key with the front desk. Walking sideways through the group of six Amazonian transvestite hookers that guarded the lobby door; avoiding catcalls and grabbing at my crotch.

I strode through the choking night air, the klaxon of car horns and high decimal banda, the cries of cigarette vendors, the smell of scorched meat and sewage, vicious cops patrol and gave me a sour eye. Queers passed staring and giggling and pointed at every bulging groin. Dogs sifted through trash next to their masters.

A few blocks from my hotel was park Teniente Guerrero - by day an idyllic spot for lounging families amid the sounds of playing children among swaying palms and colorful flowers. You look around and see happy smiling faces, the absorbed cancerous faces of police officers, you hear cantina music from across the park of balloons and popsicles and shoeshine stands. In the middle of the park is a gazebo for concerts - generations of mariachi playing Mexican anthems to honor El Gobernador.

By night, the park takes on its sluttish reputation - a notorious hotbed of male prostitution and drug pedaling with sex being acted in the midst of darkened bushes and shadowy corners. When the day boils away and the shoe stands close-up, the boys come out. Every bench is occupied - the trees lining the sidewalk host someone leaning with hip hooked and hands in pockets. Silent shadows beckon and the smell of sex vibrates through the park mixed with the whispering lusty grunts and sighs under a baneful moon.

so you want to be a writer?

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you

in spite of everything,

don’t do it.

unless it comes unasked out of your

heart and your mind and your mouth

and your gut,

don’t do it.

if you have to sit for hours

staring at your computer screen

or hunched over your

typewriter

searching for words,

don’t do it.

if you’re doing it for money or

fame,

don’t do it.

if you’re doing it because you want

women in your bed,

don’t do it.

if you have to sit there and

rewrite it again and again,

don’t do it.

if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,

don’t do it.

if you’re trying to write like somebody

else,

forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of

you,

then wait patiently.

if it never does roar out of you,

do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife

or your girlfriend or your boyfriend

or your parents or to anybody at all,

you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,

don’t be like so many thousands of

people who call themselves writers,

don’t be dull and boring and

pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-

love.

the libraries of the world have

yawned themselves to

sleep

over your kind.

don’t add to that.

don’t do it.

unless it comes out of

your soul like a rocket,

unless being still would

drive you to madness or

suicide or murder,

don’t do it.

unless the sun inside you is

burning your gut,

don’t do it.

when it is truly time,

and if you have been chosen,

it will do it by

itself and it will keep on doing it

until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

- Charles Bukowski