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

the long goodbye

Enveloped by the silent moan of night he took a gulp of beer from a tepid Colt 45, “You say you don’t care about anything, Blasini, and to an extent that may be true. But, you are by far the most kind and intelligent person I have ever met. You always have interesting topics and project a positive attitude. You’re always so calm, nothing I seem to say – no matter how horrible or perverted – seems to faze you one bit. I do enjoy our talks.”

I glanced up toward the imposing San Diego skyline, sniffed the stench of urine from a thousand hobos, “I have a million experiences. I have lived a million lifetimes, it seems. More so than anyone.” I paused, reflecting. Reflecting a dire truth. “I should be dead. God knows almost everyone I knew is…yet, here I am. Damned to some purpose I have yet to grasp.”

He looked at me, smiled, blue eyes glazed in crimson with pupils dilated so big I could see his brain inside, “I believe you are destined to accomplish great things, man. You don’t realize it…but, you are going to accomplish a lot. Especially when you go overseas. But, when you talk to me, though you try to hide it, I sense so much pain in your voice. So much sadness and pain. You’ve told me of all this travelling…What are you running from, anyway?”

“I…I really don’t know, anymore. I suppose I’d rather live than merely exist. I do enjoy travelling. Once an acquaintance wrote that he compared me to an outdoor cat, not an indoor cat. I suppose there is some truth in that. There is a whole world out there and I want to see and feel it…”

“But, what are you running from? I sense the loneliness in you, that yearning to have human contact…” He stops as a scrawny tweeker materializes out of the gloom. He casually asks the tweeker, “Hey, man, can you sell me some meth? I got three dollars.”

The tweeker, an emaciated, toothless and bald man in gym gear, looks at me with canceled  eyes black as night and then him, “I usually don’t sell nothing less than a five, but for you I’ll do it.”

I take two steps back so as not to interfere with the transaction. My friend says, pointing at me with a nod, “You don’t have a problem with this?”

I smile, “Problem? Not at all.” I exclaim in dramatic jest, “I wrote a fucking book on it!”

He turns toward the tweeker who is busy shaking an obscene small amount of powder into a cigarette cellophane wrap, “Yeah, this is my friend, he wrote a book about meth. He’s published ten books.”

It was obvious the tweeker didn’t care. I didn’t mind, it was the usual response I received. After the transaction, the tweeker evaporated into the night. I grabbed the can of Colt and took a swig as passing car headlights caused our shadows to dance across dirty warehouse walls.

“Well,” I stated, “I best be getting back to Tijuana. The last trolley to the border is in twenty minutes. Goodbye, Ray. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

He flung his arms around me in a tight embrace, “You take care of yourself, man. You definitely made an impact on me. Goodbye.”

I didn’t want to let go. It is too far and few in between I meet someone on the same intellectual and emotional frequency as myself. Once again, I hardened my heart, turned it to ice, my face as blank and cold as a poker dealer. I lit a cigarette and left him to his own madness under that dull lamp post in the middle of a dark and dangerous city to return to my own lonesome road…

bitter noches

The night was brisk for November and the boulevard packed. I stood on the corner of Revu and First Street people watching. I had just finished a delicious plate of enchiladas rojo and afterward smoked a joint in the bathroom with the waiter friend of mine, so I was feeling content and smoothed out. I looked up into the sky past the garish neon of Hotel Nelson to a clear star sprinkled sky. Even above the thumping banda from a hundred cantinas, I could still make out the mechanical singing of the Millennial Arche’s support wires.

People ambled by a hundred fold; laughing, chatting, locals and adventurous tourists alike. It was a pleasant night. I reached into my pocket and removed a Lucky, lit up. Down the way on First Street leading towards the Border, there was a loud electronic pop followed by the sounds of arching electricity as a converter box spat out its death throes. People close enough to the light display shrieked and scampered in horror as others laughed and a group of Harley Bikers slowly roared past. I stood immobile as a disembodied phantom enveloped in my own cariogenic effluvia.

“Hey, man, you speak English?” Asked someone behind me.

I turned to the voice and stated, “Fluently.”

He was American. Early twenties. Black hair with steel grey eyes now slightly crimson from alcohol. He definitely was not from California. He had that Midwestern cleanliness to him, that skin texture one doesn’t attain from Southern California sun worship. Tall and athletic in sensible clothing. He stood and tottered a bit, glaring directly at me like an alert dog.

“Do you know this place?” He asked.

“I do. In fact, I live here.”

“That’s fuckin’ awesome, man. You think you can help me out. What’s there to do around here?”

I love that question from tourists. So general yet laced in twisted and sick perversions. I receive this generally when whatever they are looking for, they can’t find on the strip.

“Well,” I began. “That depends on what you are interested in.”

“Where’s the pussy, man?” He blurted, huge smile across his face.

I smiled back, took a drag, exhaled. “Ah, so you’re horny, are ya?”

“Fuck yeah. I just got off base and I need some pussy!” He said jokingly.

Just got off base? Navy.

“Well, you’re in luck. I so happen to know a locale where you’ll be drowning in pussy.” I stated with chin lifted and the air of a carpet salesman.

“Dude, I’ll pay you!”

“No need.” I protested with flat palm up. “Just buy the beer.”

I told him to follow me and we cut down First toward Coahuila Avenue. I was going to throw him into Adelita’s Bar, drink a few, and then ditch him. Let those she-bitches eat him up. As we made our way over shattered concrete past barking doormen, knotted gangs of drunk locals, and an array of endless prostitutes lined up shoulder to shoulder hissing for our attention, I asked over my shoulder to the kid stumbling behind me, “Say, what’s your name, anyway?”

“Jeffrey.” He answered. (A couple of hookers grabbed his ass and/or crotch as he passed, cooing out Ven, Jeffrey)

I told him mine as we siphoned into a small cantina I thought would wet his appetite. A dilapidated place with long wooden tables and dented metal chairs. The bar was actually a rectangular hole knocked through the cinder block wall so as the back area – an area I am certain entertained a variety of sordid vices – lay in shadowed darkness. The section we occupied was well lit: Mexican paper banners strewn across the ratty roof, dusty bullfight posters, soiled beer boxes stacked in a corner, a wailing jukebox blasting ranchero tunes. No one actually paid any bother as we sat against the wall.

From outside, a man in black soiled clothes and scraggly beard shuffled over to our table and asked in Spanish for a few pesos. He smelled of feces and alcohol. As I was reaching in my pocket for some coins, the waiter, an older man; tall and thin, in white shirt and black bow tie, roared at the tramp to get out. The tramp turned to the waiter and retorted with a raspy, “Fuck you!” or the Spanish equivalent. In one swoop, the waiter dashed from behind the bar – face contorted in rage - with an aluminum baseball bat and began beating the tramp right in front of our table. Two other men appeared and tossed the tramp headlong onto the sidewalk where he lay akimbo and battered, leg out in the street with a missing shoe. His dirty toes poked out from a discolored sock. The waiter turned to us, sliding a long hand across his scalp to straighten his greased hair, and asked, “Now, what can I get you, caballeros?”

Jeffery, visually dismayed, ordered us both a beer. I simply slumped casually into my seat with the glazed eyes of the dead and lit a cigarette. As we sat and drank, the boy really went overboard. As he became comfortable in the bar and loosened up a bit, he began ordering shots of tequila with our beer. Bad combination, my friend.

Eventually, he explained how desperately horny he was and wanted to purchase a hooker. So, we walked around the corner to Adelita’s. The place was a nightmare for me but was pussy heaven for my young friend. He ogled and gawked at the parade of long-legged hoochies who strode back and for enticing each man with their jiggling wares. I stood off to the side as a tall, willowy yet shapely lady approached Jeffrey and with a long slender hand firmly on his crotch, asked him to buy her a drink. He did. Then another and then another…and another. I sighed, inquiring what the tab was. The b-girl ran up a seventy-eight dollar tab. Nonetheless, Jeffrey was determined to snag this big boobed she-bitch and was escorted upstairs for the, most likely, worst sexual experience of his young life.

As I stood nursing my beer, not five minutes passed and Jeffery strode down the stairs leading up to the rented rooms and passed me toward the exit.

This can’t be good, I thought.

Outside, Jeffery bemoaned he had spent all his funds on alcohol and did not have the twenty or so dollars to pay for the hooker and the room. He pulled out a wad of crumpled bills and had me count them. Thirteen dollars.

“Can I get some pussy for thirteen dollars?” He asked.

“Nothing you would live to tell anyone about.” I stated.

Cursing himself, we made our way back to the corner of First and Revolution. Jeffrey drunkenly swayed, hands in pockets, looking up the boulevard at the thumping discos. Somewhat intoxicated also, I actually felt sorry for the kid.

“Look, Jeffery,” I began, “You’re not a bad looking guy. Why don’t you simply make the rounds at the night clubs and try to score for a chick who isn’t going to cost you?”

“They’re all going to cost me.” He said bitterly.

“Not going to argue with that.” I quipped, lighting a smoke. “Okay. Be patient. It’s still early. You are bound to squirt your cum somewhere tonight.” I reached in my pocket and removed a half-smoked joint.

He smiled leeringly, glancing at a group of teenage American girls strutting under the Hotel Nelson marquee. “My balls hurt, they’re so fucking full.” I handed him the joint. “What’s this? Weed? Won’t they say anything about smoking it here?”

“Not if you don’t get all goofy about it. Relax.” I said, flicking my zippo up at him.

He took a couple of long drags, coughed, “What about you? You know any Mexican girls that are down to fuck?”

“Me? Ha. No. Not me.” I said and decided to drop the g-bomb. Maybe it would scare him back to the border and I could go home. “I don’t know any girls. In fact, I don’t even like them that much.”

“Wait. You a fag?”

“Fag? I wouldn’t say fag.”

“Gay?”

“I haven’t been gay a day in my life.” I sneered.

He laughed, “What are you then? What do you do?”

“Me? Well, I’m pretty good at sucking dick. Kinda became a pro at it over the years.”

He took the joint and inhaled a couple of more tokes, blew heady plumes into the noisy night air. The weird silence between us began to become downright unbearable. He began to speak and I hoped it was the I’ll see ya ‘round speech.

“You know where we can go so you can suck my cock?”

Well. That was from left field.

I mumbled come on or something like it and lead him across the street to the Hotel Alaska. We brazingly made our way into the hallway past the reception. The fat and greasy bastard behind the desk didn’t even bother looking up.

As we walked down a dark and dank hall, Jeffrey asked, “You got a room here? Is this where you live?” The sound of his voice revealed he wasn’t comfortable, the smell of mildew and dead bugs permeated the dismal hall.

I turned a corner and the hallway ended in an alcove bordered by two doors. I turned and began unbuttoning his jeans.

“Here?” He protested, moving my hands away.

“No other place like it.” I hissed as I undid his jeans and zipped down his fly. A semi-erection flopped out from trimmed black pubic hairs. His penis was circumcised and smelled like alcohol. I plopped the now rigid cock into my mouth and began to suck and stroke the shaft. In the dimness of the hall under low lights amid the reek of stale hooker vagina and stopped up lavatories, I pumped and slobbered as he held the back of my head, guiding the strokes. Behind us, down the hall, someone moved in the gloom. I caught the fat bastard from the front desk lurking in the shadows at the corner of the hall, face blank, fat lips parted with mouth juicy and glistening, watching. In due course, Jeffrey’s cock sprung up, the head of his penis swole, and he let loose gobs of hot semen into my mouth with a shuddering sigh.

I leaned over and spat the matter of semen and saliva onto the dirty tiled floor with a resounding splat.

“Hey! You no stay here you need leave!” It was the fat bastard receptionist, evidently bitter he wasn’t invited to the gathering.

Jeffery embarrassingly fumbled; fastening his jeans and darted out without a word. I followed giving the receptionist a discerning smirk.
Outside, as I was about to console Jeffrey, he quickly said Later or something equivalent over his shoulder and marched promptly back to the border. Not even a thank you? A goodbye? Fuck it. I lit another smoke and coolly made my way down Revolution Boulevard, lost among a thousand revelers and taxi drivers and venders and junkies under a brisk, yellow moon…

on the same frequency

The park Teniente Guerrero spread out a full block around me. I sat on a bench munching on a mango raspa and checking the scene. Hasn’t changed much. More trees and more families occupy the park during the daylight hours, which I suppose is a positive aspect. In the center rests a large gazebo where local artists from painters to musicians exhibit their talents.

The gazebo is enclosed by iron-rod benches offering shade to the locals and a chance to talk with friends and people watch. To one side is the chess club were you will find the intellects and the not so intellects convening and pondering their next move. Ringing the outside of the park proper under towering palm trees is a sidewalk offering shoe shine booths and various snack carts. On the east side, workers loll on their day off, children play as their parents prepare lunch, vendors hawk various sundries; while in contrast on the west side…well, on the west side lies the hustlers and the predators who stalk them. All day and into the night. That was the side in which I camped. However, being the sole gringo in the park and on the undesirable side at that, I was surprisingly accosted by a fat and bitter faced cop on the mooch.

“What are you doing here?” He hissed in despondent tones. One hand on his piece, the other on his ample hip.

“Doing here?” I stated flatly. “I am resting. I found this park just walking around touring your lovely city and thought I’d have a sit and rest.”

“Resting?” He gazed at me with bloodshot eyes filled with manipulating hate. “We have had a problem with Americans coming to this park and taking pictures of children. Pedófilos. You are not one of them, senor?”

“I should say not!” I said defiantly. “There is no need for insults, senor.”

“Well, rest up and move along.” He sneered as he wobbled away to harass a sickly old queen who sat as immobile as statuary behind a pair of cheap sunglasses.

Fuck you, I thought toward the cop. The Tijuana of old is a dead museum. Impregnated with the viral infection of the United States and its pogrom of hate filled intrusive interference into a citizens every waking thought and action.

My mind began to drift onto nostalgic memories concerning this park. Especially the chain of friends and acquaintances who had met their end in it. Juan Carlos, hustler found face down in feces behind a row of bushes from an overdose, Saul who hung himself rather than dwindle away in pain from acute symptoms of HIV, Ignacio who was beaten to death in lieu of a dope deal gone sour, Enrique found stabbed to death behind the public bathrooms, lying face down in the mud, pockets turned inside out and shoes stolen…no one remembers them anymore. They had become forgotten phantoms in a long line of dead funneling towards the fiery mouth of Moloch.

I walked around the outer perimeter of the park. Passing a covered police paddy wagon, a voice barked out from the small, square slit in the side of the steel canopy of the back.

“Hey! Hey you, gringo!”

I stopped and squinted into the inky black hole.

“Help me get out of here!”

“Help you get out?” I smiled. “How? I can’t do that.”

“Fuck you, then!”

I fished my cigarette pack from my pocket, removed one, lit up.

“Fuck me?” I stated. “No, it is quite obvious which one of us is the fucked one.”

“Fuck you. Gimme a cigarette.” Two grimy, emaciated brown fingers with black soot under the nails probed out from the inky dark.

I expelled smoke at the hole. “No.” Walked away with the muffled sounds of obscenities in two languages being launched at me.

I stopped at a stall and ate some beef tacos with a manzanita fresca. Around me, kids laughed and played, balloon sellers and ice cream vendors egged them on under a obscenely bright blue Mexican sky. As the sun began to sink behind the horizon, the shoe stands snapped close and the sweets vendors closed their candy-colored parasols. I slinked to another bench to have a cigarette and wait, to wait and see if the park had changed significantly during the twilight hours.

So much change. So much tedious uninteresting consequences nowadays…

The overhead lamps of the streetlights snapped on (buzzing like an angry wasp on this clear night) and the Cruisers began their stylized ballet around the park. Within two hours of sundown, shadowy figures moved like somnambulist through the nocturnal fête of anonymous sex and abject degradation. Two bushes over behind me, I overheard whispers followed by slurping and heavy breathing, resulting in a single, drawn out grunt as the two parted ways never to touch nor speak again.

Illuminated under the amber spotlight of an overhead lamp, a lanky hustler in dirty pants and wrinkled summer shirt lounges across a bench like an awaiting puma. His slitted eyes slowly survey from a face frozen in macho lust. A brown hand languidly strokes a long and full erection bulging down the side of his immobile leg. A fat and ancient queen halts and offers him a cigarette. The hustler takes it, not looking at the beaming queen or even acknowledging his presence. The queen reaches down and casually brushes the hard cock with a perfumed and manicured hand. The long and engorged cock jumps up in approval. The two slink quietly into the darkness.

“Are you alone?” Husks a voice in Spanish from the shadows.

I glance over and out of the darkness ambles a short guy, but handsome. As he silently waits my reply, a warm wind rustles through the trees.

“Not as such, no.” I say.

“Can I sit with you?” He asks, face plain and without emotion or warmth.

“Of course.”

Like a video jump-cut, he is next to me scrutinizing out into the shadowed darkness of the park. We sit quietly for a moment, listening to the faded music coming in on the same frequency.

“Do you have a cigarette?”

“Of course.” I hand him a Lucky. “What’s your name?”

“They call me vampiro. (Vampire) My friends here in the park…they call me vampiro.” He said, lighting up.

“Really? Vampiro? Is it because you suck?”

He didn’t respond to the stupid joke and quite frankly I kinda felt like shit saying it.

He sniffed and then looked at me with eyes all pupil. The lights glittered in those unblinking orbs. He was tweeking his ass off. He began moving in small, galvanized jerks gesticulating in that common meth junky movements. “I run this park, you know? Whatever I dictate, my people do.”

“Your people?” I ask, getting bored already.

 “Si, my people. All the hustlers, jotos, y los viejo verdes. They obey my wishes.”

To answer his absolute sovereignty, a shriveled old thing shuffled past, stopped, and glanced at Vampiro. The old coot licked thin dry lips with a tiny white tongue. Their eyes met and the old man gestured with a nod for Vampiro to follow. The boy rose on command and walked with the ancient pervert into the dark, chattering endlessly of things both sexual and insane.

Surrounded by arcane rituals of perverse acts that would make a Baptist preacher squeal in glee, I rose and made my way back to my guestroom. I simply wasn’t feeling it. And with what has begun to become the norm, I really didn’t feel anything. Anything at all.