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…