Junkies and a Drag Queen.

I sat back on the squeaking bed in my hotel room and took a long drag off of my cigarette. I had checked in two friends who were visiting me from Los Angeles at the Gateway Hotel on San Antonio St., a cheap and run down building a few blocks from the international border. The hotel had to date back to the beginning of the twentieth century and it showed. My two friends who so graciously decided to fly out here was Edison Diego, a very intense fellow filmmaker, though straight, he is gay friendly because he had brought Lola La Chata with him, a four hundred pound Filipino drag queen with down syndrome. What a pair. Edison went to the corner market for more booze and I was in his room and waited.

I inhaled another toke, staring at the dusty fan slowly revolving up on the high ceiling. The pink walls were shedding and the toilet leaked constantly, the bottle of Jose Cuervo on the end table was almost empty, and somewhere down the hall the two stout housemaids were blabbing away in Spanish. Rings of Fire by Johnny Cash crackled over the FM station from the radio on the dresser.

At that moment, someone gently knocked at the door.

“Yeah?! It’s open.” I knew who it was.

The door creaked open and Lola LaChata entered the room. She was dressed in a tube dress of black and gray horizontal stripes with red pumps and a bouffant black wig.

I grinned through bloodshot eyes, “Shit, girl! You look like a big fat Mexican whore.”

“Thanks.” Lola said faking a big showgirl smile. She walked over and picked up the bottle of tequila. “I see you’ve been fucking with your buddy Jose Cuervo?” She studied my body sprawled out on his bed. “You’re drunk again, I see.”

“Don’t get any of them queer ideas.” I said sarcastically and tried to get up.

“Don’t flatter yourself, sweets. Anyway, we have to go get Edison.” Lola extended her chunky hand to assist me. I grabbed her forearm and pulled myself off of the bed. “It’s almost time to meet Fat Charlie at the restaurant.”

“Let’s go then.” I said fumbling through my pockets for the car keys. Edison had rented a Sudan, from the airport and I was the designated driver. I had a massive headache and made a mental note to take the Tylenol that I had in the glove compartment.

“Are you okay to drive?” Lola said as she watched me wobble.

“Yeah. Sure…I’m fine.” I said, belching into my fist. I was lying. I was feeling a little sick. It had been at least forty-eight hours since I had taken a hit of cocaine and my muscles ached. It didn’t matter, in a few hours I would make a beautiful score, a veritable mother load, and I would be smoothed out.

“I have a bad feeling.” Lola moaned. “We shouldn’t do this. This doesn’t feel right. I've never been to Mexico and they say this city is really dangerous”

“Oh, stop your whining and let’s go.” I stepped out into the hall and grinned. “Don’t worry, Big Mama, you’re with me.”

“That’s comforting.” Lola said as she closed the door behind her and followed me to the elevator.

We ran into Edison in the hallway, he looks like a thin Jack Nicholson, 40ish and a junky. He wore an olive blazer with a black knit shirt and black slacks. Thinning brown hair slicked back. "Ready, kid?" He said as we came out of the elevator.

"Let's go." I smiled.

We stopped to pick up Fat Charlie, you regular readers will remember he is the guy I sold my Food Stamps to when I was dating Vincent Guzman, before I went to Nebraska.

We met Fat Charlie at the border on the El Paso side. Fat Charlie wanted to go to Juarez City and score for some good coke. Why not? We passed over the International Bridge and drove down to Ave. 16 de Septembre, I had problems finding a parking spot; the traffic was horrible. I parked the car next to the old Guadalupe cathedral; a pile of ancient stone dating back a couple of centuries. From what I remembered, Juarez sprang up around the cathedral like growing fungus, spreading outward. Waiting by the bronze statue on Tin-Tan was Tony, exactly on time and looking grrr-jss in his cholo street clothes. We said hello to each other and the world seemed a little bit better know that I was with him.

The sidewalk was bustling with people; all dashing to and fro in their various affairs. As our group got out of the car we were swarmed over by ten taxi drivers all on the hustle:

“Downtown, Meester?”

“Pussy women? Titty girl?"

“Donkey Show?”

“Best pussy…no like pussy? I got boys…twelve years old!”

Oh God, Edison thought. “I gotta get some smokes.”

He noticed a couple of boys selling cigarettes at the base of the missions’ steps. Good ol’ Mexico, I thought. I looked around; the area favored nothing stateside for sheer filth and poverty. Among the indifferent mass of pedestrians, people shit all over the street and then lie down and sleep in it with flies crawling in and out of their mouths. Entrepreneurs built fires in the street and cooked up hideous, stinking nameless messes of food that they dispense to passers by. Hot and dry like a Turkish Bath, and vultures eating a dead pig off a side street and everywhere you look there is some baboso scratching his balls. Yep, good ol’ Mexico.

At that moment, three little children, two boys and one girl, dressed in rags and dirty bare feet approached Lola and put out their hands and smiled.

“Oh” Lola cooed. “How adorable! Here you go.” Lola smiled, giving each kid a dollar.

“I wouldn’t do that.” I said.

And as if on cue, dozens of kids and men approached her with palms outstretched.

Tony yelled, waving his hands, “Oye! Vete de aqui ya!” (Hey! Get out of here, now!)

The group moved solemnly away.

A few feet away there was a public telephone. Without saying anything, Tony walked up and plugged a few pesos into the machine. He started talking to someone in Spanish.

An old man in a gray dirty jacket, shiny over the dirt, approached Edison with a cardboard box that was full of different brands of cigarettes. Edison pointed at a pack of Lucky Strikes and asked the street vender. “How much?”

“Vente pesos.” The man said.

“What’s that…two dollars?” Edison asked.

“Yeah. More or less.” I interjected.

“Si. Dos dolares.” The old man smiled and took the two crumpled bills. “Gracias.”

“Yeah…grashiass…Hey, Tony, where’s this friend of yours?” Edison asked, ripping open the package of cigarettes. Edison, Fat Charlie, and myself was to buy some cocaine from some shady friend of Tony's.

“I told him to meet us here. We’ll wait in a bar.” Tony said.

“There is one real good one just around the corner. See that row of shoe shine booths? It’s right around there.” I beamed.

Tony continued for a couple of minutes on the phone in Spanish and then hung up the receiver. “Okay, I told him to meet us at Buen Tiempo. It’ll be about thirty minutes. Let’s go.”

We crossed the busy plaza in front of the church, I new this place well. On weekends the plaza was packed with hustlers cruising for a few bucks. This was the meeting place for all the local men who wanted an afternoon diversion. Under the blazing sun, the teeming flesh eyed one another with unbridled macho lust. After the sun went down, the hustlers were a bit seasoned and more professional.

I looked at a young Mexican boy that looked back and smiled, I confided in Edison, “You know, when I moved to Juarez, the thought of paying for sex appalled me. My attitude was that I was looking for love and not sex. Guys should love me for who I am and not for what I have. This is a vulgar lie. In this gay life, there is no love…only sex. And for the most part that’s a disappointment. So, over the years I have come to look at the sex act as a commodity of necessity that can be purchased like a pair of shoes or a pack of cigarettes.”

“I wish you knew my old lady.” Edison said, taking a drag off of his cigarette.

Next to the gazebo in the middle of the plaza a group of performers dressed as Aztec Indians danced to a tribal beat. They were surrounded by locals and a scattering of curious tourists.

“Oh, why didn’t I bring my camera?” Lola moaned.

Across the plaza at the corner, the group led by me came upon a pair of old swinging wooden doors painted yellow.

I stopped and turned to the bunch, palm outward, “Well, here it is! Bar Buen Tiempo!”

“Ahh…booze.” Edison said stepping in the door, removing his shades. The rest filtered in after him.

The interior was a dark low ceiling room. There where but a few patrons in the cantina; solemnly hunched over their beers, not saying anything. On one side was a long bar tended by two tough lesbians. On the other side of the bar were old booths where sex and drugs were bought over the table. There was a big jukebox that played the same tunes over and over again. And in the middle, the main floor where two hustlers stood and posed gazing out with probing insect lust.

We all filtered to the back of the bar and sat on stools. One of the ladies that tended the bar approached them was a heavily made up old woman with short blond hair. She looked far younger than her actual years and came to Tony with an outstretched palm and a smile. They greeted each other in Spanish; each with a peck on the cheek.

“Oh,” Lola complimented, “She is so pretty. I love her shoes. Are those cha-cha heels?”

Tony looked at everyone and said, “This is Sylvia. She wants to know what you want to drink.”

“Just order five caguamas.” I suggested.

“What’s a caguama?”, asked Edison.

“See those big bottles that look like forty-ouncers?” I said pointing at the other patrons’ large brown bottles around the bar. “Those are called caguamas. It’s what you want to drink if you want to save money. Single beers cost about the same. The locals order them to save money.”

“And trust, we all look like tourists.” Lola twittered.

Edison watched nervously at the door. The door swung open and an old man in black tattered clothing shuffled into the cantina. He wobbled while he walked, obviously intoxicated. As he passed Lola, he gave her a wink and a toothless smile. Though he stank of putrid urine, Lola smiled and said, “Hi.”

The old man continued shuffling on into the men’s room that was adjacent to where the group sat.

The bartender named Sylvia returned with our bottles and glasses. Serving them with lemons and salt.

“Hmm, I feel right at home.” I said with a perk. “This is my old stomping ground. I used to come here and pick up all the time. This place can get pretty festive. I just love the romance of Mexico.” Like the others, I began pouring his beer into his glass.

Edison glanced over to the men’s room. From his vantage point he could see right into the restroom with an unobstructed view of the urinal trough. "Typical gay bar set up", mumbled Edison. "Freakin’ penis peepers."

The old drunken street tramp smiled his toothless smile, a black hole surrounded by a wild mane of frizzy white hair. His grin fixed on Edison; in one motion the drunk pulled down his trousers and loudly and abundantly plopped a big shit in the urinal trough.

“Lovely.” Edison said, face blank as a poker dealers. He took a big gulp of his beer.

Ignoring the crap show that Edison was witnessing, I spoke to both Lola and Fat Charlie, but loud enough for Edison to pick up what I was saying. “Yeah. The people down here are so cool…I’ve never had a problem with them. Unlike Americans. You know, I have so many friends in Juarez…and I mean friends for life! Americans themselves are a defensive culture…Mexicans I think are more open and friendly.”

“Speakin’ of friendly,” Fat Charlie smiled at me and said, “Follow me into the restroom, young man. I want to talk to you.”

I new exactly what this conversation was going to be about. I followed Fat Charlie into the men’s room. The old tramp wobbled out, patting me on the shoulder on the way, cackling. The room smelled unbelievably foul.

Fat Charlie entered the only stall, “Just a minute, young man, I’ll be right out.”

I waited outside the metal stall for a minute. I heard the distinct sniffing and snorting from Fat Charlie that could only mean one thing. I shifted from one foot to another as my junk cells snapped into overdrive. I glanced down at the urinal trough that lined the opposite wall with the mound of feces piled in the middle; a putrid brown stream flowing down to the drain trap at the end. The steel door to the stall swung open with a resounding clang.

As Fat Charlie exited the metal cubical, he winked at me, his face distorted in a silly grin, said: “Please, step in my office, senor. First…do I have anything showing?” He lifted his head so I could see full view of his hairy nostrils; they were caked in meth and dried mucus.

“No,” I said. “You can’t tell anything.”

“Righty-oh!” Fat Charlie breathed.

As Fat Charlie returned to the bar, I entered the stall and noticed that there were two extremely fat lines of white crystal methedrine lying across the top of the graffitied toilet paper dispenser. With one fluid motion, I whipped out a single twenty peso bill from my wallet, rolled it into a tube and sniffed the meth up. I stood straight up and habitually leaned my head back and snorted the drug into my sinuses. I wiped the residue off of the dispenser with my index finger and casually massaged it across my gums. The junk circuits in my mind began to pop and crackle to life as the drug began to take hold. With twitching galvanized movements I returned to the bar.

Lola and Fat Charlie where whispering secrets to each other and giggling as I took his seat. I looked at the two, croaked, “What?”

Edison lit another cigarette and turned to me, ignoring Tony, who was having an animated conversation with the bartender, Sylvia. Edison said looking around, “You know, I bet it wouldn’t cost us that much to open a bar here. How much do you think? Three? Four thou?”

“Would it be a gay bar?” I said, tensely.

“Ah fuck no! I’d make it a swanky joint and fill it full of slot machines and teenage hookers! Ya know, fifteen, sixteen years old. Of coarse they’d all have to sleep with me to get the job.” Edison took a puff from his cigarette.

“You’d have to pay the cops off. Especially for something that crooked.” I said and grabbed a lemon and squeezed a few drops into his beer. Lola and Charlie started laughing and both got up and went into the restroom.

At that moment two men entered the cantina. The obvious leader of the twosome was in his early fifties. He was tall with salt and pepper hair. The thick mustache was also gray. He was in good health and handsome for his age; not a wrinkle on his solid masculine latino face with black slits for eyes. He was well groomed and dressed, sporting a mustard suit with a white t-shirt under the buttoned blazer. He wore a solid gold chain around his muscular neck that read Hector. His black shiny boots clacked as he walked with confident deliberation flanked by his lackey; a short stocky Mexican in a white tank top and dark brown chinos. His body was a mass of scars and tattoos. These were Tony's friends and our connections.

Tony introduced the older guy as Hector and I forgot his name. Hector asked edison into the men's room and a deal was made. Momentarily, Hector and his lackey left. For the next six hours it was a pi-snorting good time of a drunken coke fueled party. My two friends, along with Fat Charlie had a good time. As the hours passed the small bar began to fill with a multitude of local fags. They went nuts over Lola. We all got pretty ripped. La Tortura by Shakira blared and an old man in a cowboy suit and silver teeth danced alone to the reggaeton that blared. At two, we crawled across the border, smuggling the dope with us without a hitch. The following morning, I went to the El Paso airport and saw them off. Taking the bus back to the border, I thought of the possibility of maybe returning to Los Angeles.

Nah.

Candy Shop.

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Martian War Machines are go!

This is the coolest thing ever! EVER!!!

http://www.waroftheworldsonline.com/movies/movies%20images/JeffWayne/mfm_latest.mov

H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds is one of my favorite books. Steven Spielberg's take on it was okay, it could of been better and the one that came out in 1953 is still awesome. Anyway, I hear some company is making a movie that IS the book, meaning it takes place in 1899 London. Suppose to come out next summer on either the Sci-Fi Channel or direct to DVD. It is said to have everything: Big black tentacled slugs for Martians, the cylinders that fall from the sky with the war machines in them, Heat Rays that burst folks into fire and not poofs of dust that leaves your britches floating around, the black smoke, and the Red Weed. I now have a reason to stay alive.

Kafkan Hi-jinks and Tony Baloney.

Wake up and gargle a pot of Joe down, scrub my ass, and hit the dusty teaming streets of Juarez City. J-Town, to the brain damaged locals. I visit the market looking for a new manicure set; found it for fiddy cents. Buy gel, a shirt that says "Puta" with the Puma logo, and sit in front of the Cathedral Guadalupe and sip horchata.

Flashback to the first night in my apartment, short haggish landlady shuffles around in frayed slippers giving me a grand tour of my new trap. I inspect everything like a good American queer, flushing the toilet, checking the tap, bouncing on the bed, I notice a small cockroach skittering across the green tiled floor.

"Uh, is there a bug problem? You did spray when you cleaned the place, right, Maria?" I asked watching the critter scamper under the bureau.

Cough and a cackle, she assured me that I might see a couple roaches this being Juarez and all. So, that night I retire in my bed naked for a night of peaceful slumber. In the pitch black that's when I hear them. Skitter-skitter-skitter. Flicking on the lamp the floor and walls and ceiling are covered by a mass of small cockroaches. Yes, I screamed like a girl. Shaking out my clothes, I hurriedly dressed and ran down to the corner store that is opened 24 hours and purchased two cans of highly toxic Mexican bug spray.

With a bandanna around my mouth and nose and my Mike Teevee white goggles I kick open the front door with a can of spray in each hand. "Prepare to meet your Apocalypse, fuckers!" I growl and enter my pad, guns-ablazin'. After spraying every inch of my apartment, woozy and half blinded by the fumes, I sweep up the carnage and dump them into a large empty mayonnaise jar. Placing the jar in front of my landlady's door with a note that read, "Here are those one or two bugs that you said I'd encounter. Love, #12."

Flashbulb back to now, I chuckle at that and walk around the Plaza browsing the shops. I light up a Lucky Strike and I hear, "Hey, guedo, got a smoke?" I turn around to see a short skinny guy in wife beater, baggy khaki pants, with a skinned head. His brown eyes are large and sparkle with inner youth, brown freckles splashed across his cheeks and nose. He had a smile like a predator, showing small white teeth. Nice toned pecs. I hand him a cigarette.

"Thanks. Where ya going?" He asked, lighting up.

"I was thinking of going to get a bowl of menudo. There is this restaurant that I know and the menudo is quite toothsome."

"For reals! I love menudo. Let me go with you." He smiled that smile again.

"Uhm, what's your name?" I asked.

"Tony Sentimatalis." He said. And I told him mine and we walked the couple of blocks to Cafe Mimi, a ratty joint but has the best menudo in greater Juarez. We sat and talked. He is twenty one years old and he used to live in the States for eleven years, hence his perfect English, but was deported with his illegal parents two years ago. He can live in the States, but prefers to stay with his ailing mother. He then went into a long tirade about how he was hit by a truck while crossing the street and lay in a coma for three months, showing the scars here and there on his lean torso to accent his story. "I'm a little crazy. They took some of my brain out."

"Really." I said, slurping down my menudo. This guy is cute but definitely a strange character. Several cups of coffee later, he asks, "So, watta ya gonna do right now?"

"I was thinking of spending a day at the movies." The porno movies that is. Juarez has a nefarious porno theater that is legendary. It seemed like a nice way to while away the afternoon.

"Can I go with you? I haven't been to the movies forever." He asked, lighting up another of my cigarettes.

"Well, I'm going to the porno theater. You might not like it...a lot of fags go there and suck each others cock." I stated matter of factly putting on my Willy Wonka sunglasses and reaching for my wallet to pay the bill.

"Oh, man," He smiled. "I haven't had a blow job forever. If you don't mind...can I go with you?"

Yes. Why not?

Across the Park and pay the lady the sixty pesos for us both and enter the two theater building. The inside smelled of mildew and semen. Several Mexicans walked out of one theater to the other one, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. Tony and I walked into the cavernous first theater. Once a grand movie palace, now it was in ruins with huge gaping holes in the roof and great cracks rendered the flaking cement walls; it looked as if the building would collapse at any moment. Feeling our way in the darkness, we found the balcony and sat next to each other in old wooden seats. Flickering on the torn screen was an old American porno from the eighties, dubbed in Italian with Spanish subtitles. Scattered around the large theater sat several Mexicans, some in pairs, some alone, others cruising up and down the aisles.

Tony noticed some young guy blowing another a few rows away. "Hey, look! Omigod! Is he sucking that dudes dick?" He whispered.

"No, he's probably looking for his lost contact lens. Of coarse, tonto, what do you think they're doing!" I joked.

"A guebo, that's hot." I heard Tony whisper from the darkness. Suddenly, I felt Tony take my hand and place it onto his crotch. He was very excited. Zip and pull his penis free of his boxers, playing with his foreskin and the little drop of lubricant that formed at the tip. With the wacka wacka wacka music of the porno movie wafting through the stale air, I leaned over and gave Tony a blow job. Hissing "Aie que rico!", emptying his semen into my mouth. "Wow, that was the best head I'd ever had in my life!" He blurts out way too loud. "You need to get out more often." I say. We sit through two movies and five blow jobs later, the young boy is getting comfortable and clings onto me like a little monkey. I look down into his face in the gloom, "You know, when I first met you I never thought you would be gay."

"Everyone is gay." He said flatly and held my chin and gave me the most sweetest of kisses. We sat there, arms rapped around each other until the movie was over. Outside, I invited Tony to dinner and as we ate our burritos al fresco with a Sol cervesa each, we talked of Nike sneakers and science fiction, fat transvestite hookers and the fact that he never has seen the ocean, Mexican wrestling and the latest model of Mustang. Getting late, he had to take the bus back to his barrio which was a million miles away. I walked him to his bus stop.

"Can I see you again? I really like you." He said, eyes looking deep into mine.

We made a date for tomorrow night, to go to the regular movies. He wants to see Sin City, I said I saw it and was really good but wouldn't mind seeing it again. With people bustling around us, shaking hands, he squeezed my fingers, and boarded his bus. As the old bus farted out black smoke and chugged down the bumpy road, I turned and walked away wondering why I am such a sucker for love. Yet, my lust is drowned out by doubt and mistrust from a thousand nameless assholes.

Just the same, I want to see him again.

Home, happiness, and hookers.

“Afterwards a man finds pleasure in his pains, when he has suffered long and wondered long.”
--Homer, The Odyssey

A ticket was bought, a bus boarded, and headed west.

The bus ride back to El Paso was mired in deep depression and loathing.

Through the custom checks and police patrols, through Eagle Pass and down in a blast of desert breeze, warm wind in the face and three armadillos ran across the road, down into the sound of running water (Brown sludge of the Rio Bravo, cabrone.) Everybody on the bus seemed high, laughing and talking at once, swinging around curves over a misty void, and the driver pointed out the white crosses with little brays of laughter and sipped aguardiente from a bottle proffered by a shy Indian cop.

“Veinte y dos muertos.”

“Dos jovenes quemados vivo.”

“Viva la sport!” Ejaculates an American queen, two cameras dangle on his great bosom, extension and light filters across his breast, seeking the succulent young subject with a dead tinted eye…he leans back into the seat and squeeze the light filters...leering at my succulent crotch.

Shift of gears, squeal of brakes, we roll into El Paso, Texas. Here the dream is suffocating, more real than real, the past actually, incredibly, invading the present. It's like you can reach out and have your youth all over again so solid, nostalgia taking solid form and face... but the fraud is immediately apparent. And the horror, the fear of stasis and decay closes around your heart. Down to the end of the road town of El Paso. Black Stetsons and the grey malaria faces color of dirty paper, muzzle loading shotguns and vultures pecking in the streets…

El Paso. Black winds of hate blew through dead colorless trees. On a bleak day, rolled into town broke and stomach ached from doubt and hunger. Stumbled to the Rescue Mission, newly painted puke yellow, water tower torn down, trees uprooted, old Mexican man passed out in mud and piss near the doorway…

Met with viscous hostilities from Juana Ortega. The whole town seemed to scream:

Get out! You are no longer welcome! Go home!

Home? I have no home.

During my absence, my craftiness pay off as I received my last paycheck from the Wal-mart job that I held in Cooperstown. I lucked out again and attained a room at the old apartment building I lived in before in Juarez City over the border in Mexico. Even my old neighbor, an ancient black man who has lived in Juarez since day before one commented, “Damn, white boy! Cain’t you ever stay put in one place?” Other neighbors of dim past, the Amazonian transvestite Lupe LaChata and next door my queeny little friend Rene Nunoz.

The apartment is a clean studio, fully furnished, in a dead end alley behind a whore hotel. Rent's $120.00 a month American. Will get my ass out and hustle up a job. Things are going to get cool.

Ah, Juarez! There is something there you never see or find, in a silk stocking thrown over a rotten teak wood balcony, secret police in a black suit and black glasses, the dull liver sick hate congested in his eyes like toad poison…

The smooth brown loin of the pimp swells and rots in syphilis, albinos blink in the sun, boys sit in long rows under cool arcades reading manga comic books—they do not move their legs as people walk by…

Yesterday, afternoon I was shopping in Wal-Mart in El Paso when I ran into Juan Holguin and his wife. Juan just passed his wife and daughter over the border two weeks ago. After saying hellos and being very cordial, Juan offered to first take his wife home and then to drop me off at me apartment in Juarez. His wife, Maribel, eyed me with contempt and distrust. How was I to blame her after her finding out that I’d been banging her husband.

Once at my apartment it didn’t take us long to get the bedsprings to start squeaking. Man, I am such a fool for that boy! I don't need to go into the sordid positions that I was flung into, I was never the type to kiss and tell, sweethearts. However, after that little interlude of homosexual hankypanky, Juan and I decided to go play pool and have some beers. It was a pretty calm afternoon, until this guy walked into the pool hall wearing a white goddamn doctor’s coat and offered to sell Juan some cocaine. Juan, being his usual suave self, conned me out of thirty dollars and bought the coke. Like a greedy kid with candy, Juan raced me back to my apartment. He promptly pulled out a syringe that he bought from God knows where and shot the coke into his arm. I went ape shit! I called Juan all types of sordid names and threw him out in a rampaging fit of rage. My nerves a wreck from the long trip I just endured, I stood on my balcony crying, Rene, that little Mayan hero, at least came out of his apartment to comfort me. My heart sank and I became bitter and depressed. Why the ones we love are always the ones that hurt us.

What else was there to do? I blasted Girls Are Doing It For Themselves by Annie Lennox and Rene and I, with beers in hand, danced wildly until the sun set over the grimy landscape...

Two Chinese Guys.

Trouble sleeping? Go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=XX_9Krs9T_Y&search=chineseboys%20funny%20music%20crazy

Underground Heroes.

Last night the storm passed over The City and washed away the filth leaving lakes of smelly garbage. Old Indian women wrapped in grey rags against adobe wall. The rain fell in buckets. Into a dirty muddy taxi. Pablo and I raced through puddles of sewage to several small nightspots until we reached El Mansion. Small but obviously the spot. Rent Boys poised with hooked hips by the jukebox. Sugar Daddies flutter around them in a stylised ballet. Towering Drag Queens in The Darkness. Smokey with the red fireflies of cigarette cherries. Purple and red and yellow flashes fill the air sparkling off of the walled mirrors. Bodies gyrate and simulate fucking on the small dance floor. Danced and swirled and drank. Several heroes sided up to me and asked a million questions in a foreign language. I nodded and smiled with brown hands touching my arm, my leg, my face. Guapo. Mumbled several times like natives around a fire.

Beer flowed, conversations stuttered, words found and then lost in a disco beat. Entered the men's pissoir, was cruised only as Mexicans can. A foreign tongue hit its mark and was pushed against the white tiled wall and kissed with passion and hatred. Pablo enters and stopped the luche amor.

Drunk I was, tittering, dropping my beer, knocking over a chair. Still more alcohol was bought for me, seems I was the Guest of Honor. El Primo Faggito. Macho Rent Boy, hot with square jaw and Poncho Villa moustache the eyes alive with cocaine fire tapping my chest hard, "What ya want, gringo? Want my beeg dick, joto?" Only straight men say dick, fags say cock. Funny. I am jerked away by four hands onto the dance floor and showed 'em my moves. Doin' The Elaine--Ha! My pack of Lucky Strikes are emptied by begging hands and the beer flowed.

Stumbled out into the night, Pablo and some other wrapped around me giggling and talking in the dialect as we stomp through the rushing water. Flop into a booth in an all night food joint--neon arabesques flicking in purple-- and I slouch down zonked into the booth, eyes fuck'd up, held up by Pablo. Or maybe his friend, who cares. Coffee is ordered for me and can I get a fucking cigarette, please? Chatting. Blah. Blah. I look at Pablo and Pablo looks at me and I place my hand behind his head and brings him near and our tongues touch. Tastes like coffee and cigarettes. Warm and wet. Pablo's friend--what the fuck ya say yer name was, cutie? Ah, yes, Manuel--Thank you. Wanna take turns on Pablo, I say in English, Manuel just shrugs and shakes his head, no intiendo. I like Nintendo, I say in English and Pablo tongue wrassles me some more and the waiter comes over and tells us to knock it off. Putos.

With a grunt of stripped gears the taxi (Driver mumbles pinche jotos) whirls away into the night, the three of us in the back seat. Me in the middle, Pablo embraces me and we kiss, as my wondering hand gropes Manuel's well endowment. Screech of old fucking tires in front of my hotel. A debate of what to do with this gringo. Manuel sinks into the seat, arms folded stare into the back of the driver seat, the cab is paid and takes off into the downpour with one sad Mexican.

Up three flights of tiled stairs, shoes sloshing, and slamming the door behind us. I pull my shirt off and lean on the wall as my pants are yanked down and I say, Fuck yeah. Pablo sucks my American cock like a champ. He stands and undresses his self, hard on poking out straight and free, I wrap my arms around his thin brown torso and we plop onto the bed. A rubber is applied as I rip open a small packet of lubricant. Lay onto my stomach. Pablo glides on top of me. Little bites on the back, fingers sucked. I grab the pillows as Pablo grabs my shoulders and lunges and thrusts. I grunt through clenched teeth as Pablo jacks me off from behind. Si, tu gusto, baby? The bed creaks and squeeks and boings and thumps, pillows fall onto the tiled floor and sheets and blankets are twisted as much as my body. Thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap his brown hips smack against my ass doggy-style and then Aiiiieee! He squirts his semen and lays there ontop of me kissing my back with his penis still in me for a long time. I roll over, still a little tipsy and we kiss and fall asleep, ass throbbing and sore.

Morning. Coffee in the corner shop and he goes to work. I sit in the Internet cafe and I watch him work. He keeps smiling. "What are you writing", he asks in Spanish, smiling his smile. "All is lost. All is lost. That is all I ever write", I say in English. No intiendo. Afterwards, I go to my feelthy hotel room and sleep.

Mexico is a dream.

Port of Pobres.

"There are opportunities in life for gathering knowledge and experience. In order to do this, one must take a risk."

---Jeffrey Boumont (Blue Velvet)

As of this writing, I am sitting in a small internet cafe, The Cafe Metropol, in Matamoros, Mexico, sipping a Pepsi Light and staring at the extremely handsome guy running the cafe. He glances at me with those big brown eyes and smiles his smile that melts hearts of man, woman, or beast. It is so freakin' great to be back in ol' Meh-hee-co! Let me report the last two days, okay?

The Greyhound bus departed Gotham City with a blast of black sooty fart and grinding of gears around 2 a.m. I waved adios to New York and hoping never to see that ominous city again. I slept all the way to Washington, D.C. There wasn’t much to see on the way except trees and rural farmlands. But in Washington...man! We rolled in around thirty minutes after the sun rose it's lazy shiny ass over the horizon. The monuments were very impressive. The bus station was around the corner from the Capitol Building and you better believe my digital camera was working overtime. I remembered all those sci-fi movies I had seen of Martians blowing up these time-honored monuments. I stood there gazing across Pennsylvania Avenue and I felt proud to be an American hoping a flying saucer would buzz by. A quick bite to eat at Micky Deez and it was back on the bus.

The rest of the trip was relaxing; the bus wasn’t crowded and I had two seats to myself. The country side was idyllic, it being the beginning of Fall; the colors in the trees were beautiful…oranges, reds, copper, rust. The cities were impressive. Atlanta. Mobile. New Orleans. Dallas. Corpus Christi.

Past Corpus Christi the greenery changed to flat oil fields. Silver refineries belched flame into the blue cloudless sky. Armadillos zigzagged out of dead bushes and islands of trash. All the way down to Brownsville. I started up a conversation with this one kid named Juan Carlos, a street wise cholo of about eighteen years old and told him my intentions in Matamorros. He agreed to help me out once we reached there. He said he knew Matamorros well. We chatted all the way into Brownsville and he could tell that I was queer, for he kept giving me a coy look and joked several times laced with gay sexual innuendos.

Around seven in the evening, we arrived in Brownsville, Juan Carlos rushed me across the bridge that separated Brownsville from Matamorros, whisked me into a taxi, and took me to a real cheap hotel. The Hotel Don Felix. He said he was going to stay with friends so after I checked in and got to my room, he took off. The room was dirty and there was graffiti on the chipped blue walls, but I was tired. So I unpacked and then fell asleep on the squeaky sagging bed; pleased with the fact that I was back in Mexico.

A whorish-looking landlady ran the hotel. Her husband was a man of about forty, powerful and vigorous, but there was a beat look in his eyes. They had seven daughters and you can tell by looking at him he would never have a son. At least not by that woman. This giggling brood of daughters kept coming into my room (there was no door, only a thin curtain) to watch me dress and shave and brush my teeth. It was a bum kick. And I was the victim of idiotic pilfering—a catheter tube from my medical kit, underwear, vitamin B tablets.

The following morning, I was awoken by knocks and when I answered the door it was the kid, Juan Carlos giving me some lame story about being robbed and that he needed money. I gave him ten dollars and he shot out of there. I never saw him again. Shoulda fucked 'em first.

I spent the day checking out the city. It was a beautiful coastal town. Much better and cleaner than Tijuana or Juarez. Cobblestone, muddy streets, one-story buildings mostly shops.

I walked up to the main square. There was a statue of Bonito Juarez, "The Liberating Fool" as I call him, shaking hands with someone else. Both of them looked tired and disgusted and rocking queer, so queer it rocked you. I stood looking at the statue. Then I sat down on a stone bench facing the Rio Grande. Everyone looked at me when I sat down. I looked back. I don’t have the American reluctance to meet the gaze of a stranger. The others looked away, lit cigarettes, resumed conversations.

The town looked old, dirty saloons crowded with sailors and dockworkers. A shoeshine boy asked me if I wanted a "nice girl." I looked at the boy and said in English, "No, and I don't want you either."

I got up and walked around, taking pictures and smoking a good pack of Lucky Strikes. I passed a bar, a large colonial looking building of concrete and teak wood, and decided to go in for a drink. The split bamboo walls shook with noise. Two middle-aged wiry little men were doing an obscene mambo routine opposite each other, their leathery faces creased in toothless smiles. The waiter came up and smiled at me. He didn't have any front teeth either. I ordered a cognac.

A boy of sixteen, who said his name was Paolo, came over and sat down with me and smiled an open, friendly smile. I smiled back and ordered a refresco for the boy. He dropped a hand onto my thigh and squeezed it in thanks for the drink. I looked at him speculatively; I couldn't figure the score. Was the boy giving me a come on, or was he just friendly? I know that people in Latin American countries were not as self-conscious about physical contact. Boys walked around with their arms around each other's necks. I decided to play it cool. I finished my drink, shook hands with the boy, and walked out into the bustling streets.

A hunchback with withered legs was playing crude bamboo panpipes, a mournful Oriental music with sadness of the high mountains. In deep sadness their is no place for sentimentality. people crowded around the musician, listened a few minutes, and walked on. The musician coughed from time to time. Once he snarled when someone touched his hump, showing his black rotten teeth.

The city produced a curiously baffling impression. I feel there is something going on here, some undercurrent of life that is hidden from me. This is the area of the ancient Chimu pottery, where saltshakers and water pitchers were nameless obscenities: two men on all fours engaged in sodomy formed the handle top of a kitchen pot. What happens when there is no limit? What is the fate of the Land Where Anything Goes? Men changing into huge centipedes...a man tied to a couch and a centipede ten feet long rearing up over him. Is this literal? Did some hideous metamorphosis occur? What is the meaning of the centipede symbol?

I walked down the main drag. a pimp seized my arm. "I gotta fourteen-year-old-girl, Jack. Puerto Rican. How about it?"

"She's middle aged already, "I told him. "I want a six year old virgin that loves takin' it up the ass...don't try palming your fourteen-year-old bats off on me." I left him there with his mouth open.

I walked around the local shops and sat in the main park lined with palm trees watching the parade of guys go by, sipping on my jamaica. There was a large gazebo in the middle of the park where a huge band played Ranchero and Salsa tunes all day. At night, I prowled the park for some unclean fun. Was cruised by a couple of fags, but they were a little ugly. Sitting under the stars with a warm breeze blowing I want to move here. I returned to the Hotel Don Felix and checking my wallet ($653.28 American) I decided to move to a better hotel and got a room for a week. It was the Hotel Mexico in the main shopping plaza. Not bad, but at night I had to keep swatting palm size cockroaches off of my bed.

I dined on mouthwatering tacos al carbon and found this Internet cafe. I think I'm going to ask the guy that works here to show me around. He is rather hot and I wouldn't mind a little Mexican in me.

8 Hours in Manhattan.

So.

Seven hours later, after leaving Cooperstown, in upstate New York; here I find myself in a three story McDonald's on 42nd Street in the ominous metropolis of Manhattan. Only here in this urban sprawl would they have free Internet services at each table of Mickey Dee's. I feel like such a damn Rube. Chicken McNuggets are perty damn tasty, though. With a medium Dr. Pepper. Ahhh. Listening to Danny Elfman's version of I am the Walrus on my iPod. Fucking genius. Looking out the gynormous plate window watching the river of people bustling to and fro amid their million of concerns. The city is one big fucking parking lot, car traffic seems to be at a standstill. Oh, I guess yer wondering what happened from then until now. Okay, let me relate the journey...

The trip was long but interesting. Passing farmlands and rural vistas of gold, orange, burgundy. Fall is here. Stopped in one small town and talked with a cute dark haired farm boy, he wanted to leave the farm and go to New York City and be a big country singer. He'd make a good Rent Boy. Poor chap. Bought my Dr. Pepper and a Snickers and got back on that bus. There was an eight-hour stop over in New York City. Entering Manhattan was weird. For hours you’re traveling through the woods. You then drive around a bend and WHAM; there is this god damn gigantic city skyline stretching from horizon to horizon. Buildings stretching up out of the shit and concrete, clawing at the moon. The Greyhound bus thrusting through Lincoln Tunnel like a penis up Manhattans ass all the way to the Port of Authority; a multilevel structure in the middle of Lower Manhattan. Once there I put my bags in storage and tried to do as much as possible in eight hours. First, stopped off in a tea room...er, public restroom in the long corridors of this underground labyrinth, man there was some heavy cruising going on. But, no time for random orgasms, I have some touring to do. Checking myself in the mirror, a Cuban guy complimented me on my Toxic Boy T-shirt. "Thanks." I smiled and hit the town.

The streets were teeming with a mass of rapidly walking bodies all going somewhere...nowhere. I zipped down, down, down the spiraling staircase under the 42nd Street Station. Some scrawny hip black cat was tootling on a saxophone. Pretty good, tipped him a five. I rode on a subway over to Times Square and got hit up for drugs on every corner. The sky filled with glowing flickering billboards the size of football fields, the smell of sewage and car exhaust caused them to be hazy and overbearing.

I walked down Broadway and gawked at the billboards for the various plays in the theaters. There was a gigantic poster of David Hasselhoff and one of Mike Teevee, my digital camera was snapping overtime. I hit the porno theaters and paid a dollar to watch this couple fuck behind a glass window. Man, did that ugly fucker have a hairy ass and the girls hooters were floppy like puppy ears. Ew. It was in a circular room and I think the fat little pervo opposite me was more interested in me than the show. After the dude came to some sorta climax, I walked back out into the night and found the NBC building. I had a hot dog from a cart and ate pretzels and hot chestnuts.

I asked this fat old queer in purple tight sweats and a fake permed wig walking a chihuahua on a leash where the fuck the Empire State Building was. He pointed it out and said "There the fuck it is." But, again I wasn’t impressed; I thought it would be bigger. Last time I was here I saw it from afar. It was all decked out in Christmas colors...red, green, yellow. He asked me, this titanic homo with an imperious and fay glance; if I would come to his house for a drink. Nope. Waved goodbye and I took the smelliest cab in the world back to Port of Authority and stood at the entrance people watching. And, yes, the thought did cross my mind to stay in this metropolis, but I have this Homer Simpson hatred to this town. I was even cruised by this cute black guy outside the Port of Authority terminal. He wanted me to go to his apartment but there wasn’t time. Instead, I found this McDonald's and thought I would grab a bite and type this shit out for posterity.

Oh! I went into the Mega-Virgin Bookstore and bought the Edgar Rice Burrough's anthology of his first three Martian Novels all in one volume. Neet-o.

Issued Black Winds of Hate.

I am one depressed cowboy, buckaroos.

Now understand, during this whole period in Nebraska and New York I have had to hide my homosexuality. Skippy and his family are pretty nice people, good and wholesome, a family unit that I am envious to have; but I think they’d frown on having a faggot in the house. And the random blow jobs with Jason have come to a complete halt. He acts really weird when I come into the room or try to talk to him. I have given up on the little creep. Well, with any luck I screwed him up for life. Now, every time his big brother brings some stranger home; he’ll probably cower in his room like a neurotic cat fearing that he may be violated.

Last night, the little toad supervisor at Wal-Mart fired me because I rang up and paid for a candy bar. I could understand if I stole the damn thing, but I paid for it. It was obviously against company policy to ring up your own items, a little tidbit of training they forgot to mention in orientation. I think the little shit had it out for me because he was just jealous of my good looks and positive outlook on life. Fucking worthless asshole. I was exiled from Wal-mart at three in the fucking morning and I hung out in a diner across the street gulping coffee until Skippy got off of work and we drove back to his house.

I explained the incident to Skippy’s mother, but she didn’t believe it for a second. Now I am branded a thief. It's over a week until my next paycheck and I promised to leave when I get it. Well, for a Christmas present (Her words.) this morning, she bought me my Greyhound ticket to Brownsville, Texas departing tomorrow morning. She said since I kept going on and on about how I wanted to live in Matamorros, Mexico, I should just go ahead and go. When I get to where ever I am going, I should call Wal-mart and have them forward my pay check, she suggested firmly. I'm getting the Big Goodbye.

So, this afternoon, I packed my bags and got ready for my trip. Skippy is working tonight and said he would meet us at the bus station when he got off from work the following morning. Well, good thing is, in a couple of days I shall be back in Mexico. So, I have barricaded myself in Skippy's room until tomorrow and the hostile vibrations in this old three story Victorian house are giving me the jitters. I shall snuggle here and finish reading Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn.

Son cosas de la vida, cabrones.

Queer.

All I keep saying to myself is, "It has happened. It has happened at last."

Flashback: Three days.

I was down in the basement doing my laundry at the house that I am a guest in. By myself. Torn and ravaged by pent up homosexual lust. Then that teenage boy slinked down the stairs, Skippy's sixteen year old brother Jason. He had his blond hair slicked forward and crested at the bangs, his straight black eyebrows and green eyes alive with energy. Face pale with a hint of flush on the cheeks. His body is thin and athletic, smooth and hairless. What I like most is that straight Aryan nose, flared at the nostrils. Like Buster Crabbe's back in the Flash Gordon days. We talked and chided away the time as the washing machine clunked and gurgled, mutilating my fine fabrics.

The boy looked hot in the wife beater and dark blue basketball shorts. Somehow, the topic of pornography came up and I did mention to him that I had contacts in Los Angeles (Myself doing a couple of flicks to pay my way through college, unnerstand?) He kept grabbing his crotch as he discussed in the most vivid and filthy ways he would fuck a girl on camera. I turned and pressed my growing erection away from him, pressing it against the vibrating washing machine. Hands shaking, I lit a cigarette, "Ya sure ain't shy about yer sex life." I said.

"Yeah", He smiled, stretching out on the blue couch, "I fucked a whole lotta girls before. And if you promise you won't tell another soul, I'll let you in on a secrete. I leta guy suck me off before."

My back to him, facing the brick wall with the machine masturbating me I rasped through clenched teeth, "Really." I turned on him, leering at his crotch; my eyes glazed like Nasferatu at Renfields cut blood dripping finger when:

"Jason! It's Stacey on the phone!"

"In a minute, Mom!" He raced up stairs. "Laters!" He calls back at me. The machine beep long and loud, I put my clothes in the dryer, and sat alone on the couch, smoking, the cushions still warm from his body.

Later that night, I was off from Wal-mart and Skippy had to work, so's Jason and I sat up on the back balcony under a full moon and talked of the porn industry.

"I wanna move to New York City and become an escort." He said, staring at the big white moon.

"They are called Rent Boys, nowadays." I corrected. "But, you have to be able to perform at the drop of a hat."

"Oh, I can do that." Jason gloated. "Once I fucked this girl for six full hours and my shit never went limp."

"I doubt that." I chided.

"No shit. I like when people watch. Plus I got a big dick."

"Really? Get it hard right now."

"What?!" He laughed, faking disbelief at what was being said.

"Get it hard. If it's all that you say it is what do you have to be a shamed of?"

He said something to the effect that he couldn't get it up in front of a guy, yet proceeded to stick his hands down his shorts and rub him self. The sex talk continued and he started to beat it faster. He whipped it out and showed it to me. Gotta be at least seven inches, perfectly straight, circumcised, but beautiful balls. It was going limp again. He apologized.

"Do you need a helping hand?" I joked, twiddling my fingers.

"Sure." He whispered, face blank and when I touched his dick he jumped a little but then relaxed. I stroked it for awhile, but he stayed only semi-erect. "If you suck it, I will get really hard." He said dreamily, looking out into the darkness.

I put his warm penis into my mouth and began blowing him. His penis got rock hard. His breathing began to rise, he asked me to stop. "Hey, dude, let me jack it off for a bit." He started masturbating wildly and after a few minutes he grunted, "Where do ya want me to cum." I put my lips to his ear and whispered, "In my mouth." He stroked crazily for a little more then breathed, "I'm really close." I slid his penis' head between my lips and then deepthroated the whole shaft as his hot spurts flowed into the back of my throat. His breathed rapidly.

As I sat back up, he smiled, "So, ya think I got what it takes to be a Rent Boy?" I agreed and we laughed and talked of other things and then went to bed. Not together, unfortunately.

The following day, Jason got up early and said that he had to run some errands for his mother downtown and if I'd like to come. I said sure and we went to the mall. Words can not do justice at how beautiful this boy is and the fact that many a girls wanted to talk to him and smiled as he walked by. Some of his girls tried to scam on me but I just looked at them like they weren't there. Out on the main street, we walked and looked into some shops and I was happily amazed that they had a Porno Theater. A freakin' Pussycat Theater, at that! I asked Jason if he'd ever been in one and he said, "Shit no, I'm too young. But I'd like to. I bet there are all kinda bitches finger bangin' each other in there, right?"

"Right." I said walking across the street to it. With the greatest luck in the world, without batting an eye, the guy in the box office sold me two tickets and let us in. (Thank you, Baby Jesus!) Except for one old black guy and a middle aged Mexican, we were the only others in the large theater. And of all movies they were playing Cafe Flesh, one of my favorites. We sat in the back row, next to each other. As soon as I sex scene started, Jason looked down and smiled, "I'm awake."

Unzipping his jeans, digging through his basketball shorts, then his boxers, I began stroking his erection. He stretched his legs out and said, "Why don'tcha blow me." Dropping to my knees, I sucked that boy like a champ and within a few minutes I was swallowing his semen. I sat back up next to him, stroking the back of his neck and ears. Fingering that young and tender flesh. "Does that bother you?"

"No. If it did, I'd tell you."

Another sex scene started and I asked if he wanted another one. "It's asleep." He whispered, but when I put my hand on it, his penis sprung to life. This time he dropped his pants and shorts to his ankles and gave me full reign. I kneeled in front of him and looking into his eyes and that made his cock rock hard as I sucked it. He liked being deep throated while squeezing his balls and as this old man sat on the other end of the aisle to watch us, Jason squirmed and moaned as I blew him. He moaned a little louder as he shot a second load into me.

As soon as he fastened his belt, he said let's go. Typical straight boy, I joked, you get your nut and your out the door. He chuckled. Once out side, his cell phone rang and it was his girlfriend Stacey. Jason told me that he had to go meet her at school.

"Right now?" I asked.

"Yeah. I can't hang with you all day. I not queer." He said as he walked away.

Ever got punched in the stomach? That's what it felt like. Sad and depressed, I returned to the house and typed this shit out. I think I am in love with him. Is it wrong? I'm only twenty-eight. Am I a pervert? But it is so good and consensual.

Queer life sucks.