are you there, francisco?

The sky was a mottled grey from the drizzling rain. The wailing of an ambulance below, distant rumble of air hammers, always building and repairing in The City.

I sat naked in the rickety hotel chair and watched the boy sleep. 1:47pm the clock read. Could be wrong, felt later. Lighting a cigarette, I sat transfixed as his erection melted away in the early afternoon. Francisco, he said his name was and looked enough like a Latino Leonardo DiCaprio from Gangs of New York to pass as his brother, floppy light brown hair and scraggy goatee. He lay naked on his back amid rumpled yellow sheets in this ratty hotel embraced in the arms of Morpheus and content as a nodding junky. I took another drag and scoped him out, hairless thin frame, eyes shut, pouty lips parted in sleep breathing.

We met last night at a dive bar on Broadway called Chee Chee's and struck up a conversation amid the thieves and the dykes and the just released cons and Atomic by Blondie blasting over the juke box. Next day had brunch with him at a local Chinese restaurant - afterwards we walked over to a bar. Chit-chat ensued over drinks and then walking drunkenly to the Hotel Pickwick, a flop that by American standards can't get any shittier. Looking at me and smiling, Francisco said he needed to score for some meth and would I front the twenty? Sure, why not? Walking down several alleyways covered in shit, bums, and abandon shopping carts, copping his dope from a slick black with gold caps, we soon entered the dank hotel lobby. Flaming old withered fag with bad purple-tinted permed wig at reception.

"How much for a room?" I croak.

"Two Queens?" The receptionist asked.

"Nah, just two boys that need some sleep." Quipped Francisco. 
I laughed with cigarette between my lips and the warm glow of five whiskey sours in my gut. The room was occupied by large black roaches and bad tattered furniture. Yellowed walls stained by second hand smoke. The pillow casings had the faded tell-tale blood spots of bed bugs. The television got three channels; English, Spanish, and soft core porn.

I lay on the bed and watched Francisco take a shower, water running down his long thin smooth frame, over an ass that was like a peach. He sits naked on the bed and asked if I wanted to try a bang. Nah, not in any condition. Needle clogged twice, thin line of blood from inner elbow to wrist. I look away, always freak me out watching someone probe for a vein. He sighs as it goes in sweet and pure. I sure can pick 'em.

The sex was much needed - hostile, violent, hot - the bed creaked and rattled with our fucking. Your basic crimes against nature. Several nasty positions later, covered in sweat and semen we lay embraced as the rain pounded down outside our fifth floor window.

Like I said, sat there and watched the boy sleep. Finished my cigarette, gargled with what was left of a can of Steel Reserve, got dressed and left twenty dollars on the nightstand. Sweet dreams, kid.

I dart out of the hotel onto wet sidewalks and incandescent lagoons. Shifting through time and The Long Wait. Cigarette smoldered down to a butt - the cries and shouts and hacking of a hundred hobos echo in my mind. I stand and I wait. Waiting for the world to turn.

I am up to speed with the necessities of my quest - that long walk to Nowhere. But I am doing it anyway, you dig? The natives are getting hostile and I am quite drained from their antics - I don't wanna here of your pathetic problems, got my own.

Nothing to write - cause nothing’s going on.

- handwritten journal entry, 
San Diego, September 12, 1993