One Cigarette?

Rock and roll hoods stand on corner chewing on toothpicks and flicking switchblades. Baggy clothes flutter in the black wind - ghastly clothes colors of almond, peach, florescent blue. "You lookin'?" One jerks head up at me - I walk on under black cold stares.

Trash lined street crawling with obscene prostitutes of both sexes - the women especially nasty under the blue neon on a dark crumbling adobe night. Banda music and hawkers - purveyors of insidious filth - beckon me to enter their traps. I clutch my wallet and move on. Squeeze past the nasty whores shining silver capped teeth and undulating udders and make my way to Bar Kin-kle. Enter the hazy smokey den. The place was crowded with Zona Nortes finest.

Take a table occupied by an old vato. We sit at a dented red metal table with white plastic lawn chairs - he smiles and nods at me - we say nothing else to each other. As a midget cholo and his skank dances in the middle of the room to Jailhouse Rock thumping from the jukebox, I light a cigarette and gaze around the room. Long small bar - rusted aluminum stools line the bar, tables against the wall. Boxes of beer stacked against back wall next to the rockola - that's jukebox to you ignorant pansies that don't speeky spanish.

Saul walked in strung out on goofballs and plopped next to me a greasy giggling mess. I say howdy he says hi. He orders a caguama after finishing one of my cigarettes.

"How's the book coming along?" He asks.

"Fine. Waiting for the proof in the mail - if it's up to standards, will be published in another week." I took a swig from my caguama bottle, that cold charcoal taste filtering down my pipes. "I already started my next book - about my meth addiction. I'm calling it Tweeker."

Saul rolls his eyes over at me, "You would. Speaking of..." He gets up and walks into the men's room. Stale smell of beer piss and shit mixed with the odorous bleach. I wait a cigarette and Saul returns. "Hurry up", he says. "I left something in there for you."

I stride to the toilet - short squat Indian stands there holding the ugliest mop in the world, he gesticulates to the metal encased stall. "Go in, guero - it's for you."

I enter and laid on the empty toilet paper dispenser are three lines - pink powdery stuff. Mechanically I whip out a peso note, roll it into a cylinder bend over and snortsnortsnort!! I jolt up snuffing and hawking. Pop! Crackle! Pow! Stagger out, boy scout salute mop guy and return to the table.

Plop into my seat and Saul takes another cigarette. I gaze at him with sparkly eyes and smile, "You're so good to me. I love you."

He smirks, "I know."

Handsome Indian sits across from us swaggering leaning in his seat. Eyes unfocused, dribble from his handsome mouth. He puts two fingers up to his mouth. "One cigarette." I smile and hand him one.

I ask in Spanish, "You wanna beer?" He nods. I order a cup. When the waiter left after serving the plastic cup and we three salud each other from a fresh caguama bottle the waft of stainky unwashed pussy assaulted my nostrils. I look in the direction of the offending odor and standing there a short hag - I've seen her about, living in the streets, rummaging through trash bins for scraps of food. She stood smiling. "Meester, one cigarette?"

Jesus, I thought, What am I - The Bums Benevolence Society? Gave her one anyway. So, she proceeds to plop next to our new plastered hottie and they go at it like overheated hogs. Saul and I look on in disgust as his tongue devours her rancid toothless hole. "Saul, let's cut."

Outside we stood under an awning as the rain came down in torrents attempting to wash away the filth of The City. Indians and cholos and terrified tourists dash past us in the wet night. We stand in that neon labyrinth speechless feeling the dope and smoking. We both pop and jerk in stylized mechanical movements as the meth starts taking it's full effect. A cigarette goes by and Saul lays his thin hand on my back. "Guero, let's get a room."

I follow my Dark Knight - jumping over incandescent pools and dodging kamikaze taxis to Hotel Coliseo. Wow. Been years. Plunk down the pesos and we stagger up the old wooden stairs to the third floor - hallway smelt of mildew and feces.

Room was just a mattress on the floor and antique brown dresser. I take a piss in the white dingy tiled bathroom and return to find Saul shivering naked under thin pink blanket. Undress and lay next to him - hands glide over bodies, tongues probe, organs stiffen. I'll never get tired of Saul - always up for kicks. Things get hot as Saul places my feet on his shoulders spits into his palm and glides his long penis in me. We rut for half an hour as Saul lunges and thrusts on top of me - he yanks out and splatters his semen onto my heaving chest. We fall into each others arms until our breathing subsides.

Outside we stand in the mist. Saul hits me up for cien pesos before I hail a cab back to the beach. He slides a small paper - folded into a square - into my palm as we shake hands goodnight.

He always knows how to make a drab night delightful...

Hot Wind through Black Trees.

Old friend visits from Los Angeles. Homophobic but a junky. Play tour guide, whorehouses, seedy bars, a macho goose in the doorway, faces hidden in darkness and confusion, a whore with clown makeup winks so nasty. Smoke. Reggaeton blasts over speakers. Cocaine is bought. Pile into a taxi. Weed is bought. Walk through evil dark barrios. Crystal is bought. Large amounts of liquor is consumed. A sinister midget laughs through silver teeth. Smoke. Flashbulb of light. Mucho machoism. Drunken insults to the natives, fists and knives are present. Whack! Pound. Pound. Pound into someones head. An Angel falls a victim. Crack of bones and a bird screams. My friend is swarmed over, a dark mass of fists and kicking cowboy boots. Smoke. Flashing light. Light flashes on a knife and my friend goes down in a pool of blood and spit. Silver teeth show through snarled lips, "Vamanos, gringo."
Dragged across flagstones, reggaeton wails. Shoved into black car and speed 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 look up to see Saul wiping a wet and bloody hand towel across my forehead with red scraped knuckles. Saul lights a cigarette and places it in my lips, blood trickles out of his nose past his split lip. Looking around, I am back home.
"Damn. That was close." I croak.
Just another night in Tijuana...

Dope Head Be Bop

I gaze up from my beer glass to the scummy concrete stairs leading to the street. We are below ground level. The small bar is a hazy dank room - green velvet pool table, wooden bar warped, a row of wobbly stools, faded luche libre pictures curled at the corners are plastered everywhere. The only color is from the string of red Christmas lights sagging at one end over the bar. A huge rubber dildo attached to panties sit in a cubby hole behind the register with a sign that asks, "Are these yours?"

Outside the rain comes down in black shimmering sheets to wash away all the evil and filth - in vain.

Half a cigarette and I peer to my left as some fat old fucker in a faded stetson is gazing at me through squinting blood shot eyes. He salutes, mouth a black toothless hole, "Hola!"

I turn back to my beer - time passes. Flick a small brown cockroach offa the bar into the ice bin holding the beer bottles. Yawn. I take out a crumpled packet of cigarettes - light one - through grey smoke look at the clock. He's late.

Cigarette - cigarette - cigarette...

He slops down the stairs into the bar - shoes squishing leaving slime pools on the dirty muddy floor. Long wet black hair covers his face, black denim jacket, black tshirt and jeans. His brown square jaw juts out from beneath his shiny mane.

We both asks whutsup and he orders a beer. Black eyes glisten past the shock of limp black hair cascading over Aztec Indian features - he takes a puff from one of my cigarettes and asks through silver capped teeth, "You want?"

We go up and out into the black rain torrents of the shit like some Mickey Spillane pulp - illuminated by passing searchlights of kamikaze taxis dash over incandescent pools and muddy rivers of sewage to a windowless adobe building with red iron bar door. We stand in the down pour and as my dark friend puts his thick lips to a small cut in the door, "Coo! Coo!" He repeats it three times.

The door is opened by a thin young fag in a marine fatigue hat - tall and thin in tight jeans and a brown jacket. "Que queres, Mario?"

Mario mumbles something in Spanish and the fag smiles at me, "Pasale."

The long white high ceiling washed landing is dark lit by candles - in the corner sits fat old mamacita in red flowered dress picking through frijoles under a multihued alter of Guadalupe. "Buenas noche." We repeat the greeting and follow the fag down the dank hall smell of mildew and old tortillas to a large room filled with twenty Mexicans. In the dim light they are milling about with plastic cups in hand, a stereo blares ranchero music. The guests are a mix of young and old working class - hipsters to be sure in their dark ragged wet clothes. The din echoes with laughter and conversation.

Mario asks to wait as he slinks into the gloom - I look down as a chicken is pecking by my feet. Two guys approach me holding out an extra cup of beer, "Hey, guedo - what's up?" The tall skinny one asks. He is kinda attractive - shabby clothes and shaved head. The shorter Indian smiles, "Who did you come with?"

I take the beer, "A friend - he's over there." I point into the murk.

"Oh, Mario." The tall one smiles asks for a cigarette. "Are you from San Diego?"

I explain that I live in Mexico - they ask what I do. "I write reports for the citizens of the United States."

"You federale? You look like the FBI."

I get that. A lot.

Mario approaches and we both huddle in a corner, "Tie me up, guedo." I pull up his sleeve and take his belt, tighten it search for a vein with cold white fingers. His skin is copper and smooth. Mario produces a syringe and hands it to me - I slide it under his skin into a vein and push the plunger. I watch with curious morbidity as the junk empties into his body - his eyes slack and he grabs the belt. Leaning against the grey crumbling wall, he hands me the syringe, "You want?"

Two flabby latina girls begin dancing to regeaton in the middle of the room - the crowd claps along. In the darkness on the other side of the room I see the flick flickering of lighters; the red cherries of stems.

"Nah - I'll be right back." I leave Mario to his mess and walk across to a smiling lesbian and a short Indian. They are holding a glass pipe and when they see me they both say, "Buenvenidos." holding their pipe up to me. I say thank you cough and take a hit. The current starts at me spine rushes up across the back of my skull to the forehead. I pull out a crumpled cien peso note and hand it to the girl. "Okay...Okay." She smiles and I smoke my fill.

Pop. Crackle. With galvanized jerks I return to Mario leaning against the wall strung out - one hand holding his pants the other his syringe. I gulp my beer - smoke - inquire where the bano is. Find the old wooden door and open to some girl squatting in front of a pacheco leaning against the sink - she is sucking his big cock. I snap perdonami and close the door to wafts of marijuana smoke.

A few couples have started an obscene mambo routine in the middle of the large smoky room as I try to find another door to take a much needed piss - out back on the muddy patio I notice two guys with their cocks out pissing into the rain and join them. One is the tall pelon from inside, "Hey! The writer!" He smiles as rain drips down his lean face, catching on his moustache.

The other is the fag in the Marine cap. I am soon to find out they were in the middle of sizing up each others penis - in the cold rain - I guess when you have to, you have to. The fag motions us to follow him up iron stairs to a room with withered french doors. The room is bare and lit by candle light - a dresser, cot, nails on the wall for jackets. We sit on the bed and pass around a bottle of Petron and a joint.

The tall pelon leans back on the bed and smiles, "What to do? I am in a room with two fags...what to do?" The fag notices the same thing I do - the growing erection in the guys dark khakis. The fag and I look at each other, smile and he says, "Por que no?" Indeed.

Unzipped, the penis is taken from said khakis and the fag and I take turns on that fat long brown fucker. The pelon sighs, lifts up his black tshirt and globs of white semen spurt onto his flat brown stomach. I sit up and watch as the fag slurps and licks up the goo to the smiling satisfaction of the cholo. The pelon hits me up for fifty pesos - why not? He bolts out the door into the gloom.

The fag and I, Ishmael, he says his name is - sit and talk, smoking weed and finishing the bottle of tequila.

"You like the crystal?" He asks looking into my ping ponging eyes.

"No, not really."

"Then why do you take it. It is so bad."

"I don't know." I really don't - still self destructive, I guess. But, is anything self destructive when done in moderation? I think not. So, fuck you.

Ishmael gets up and plays some somber jazz sax on his radio, sits next to me hand on my leg, "I am so hot, guero. You wanna fuck me?"

Take a puff of cigarette, "Uhm...no - no. You are nice, but I gotta get back downstairs. I came with a friend. My friend is lost without me." I stand up and head to the door.

"You seem pretty lost yourself." He says with a worried look.

I mumble thanks and walk out into the black storm...

Literary Outlaw.

Just submitted this to the publishers. It should go hot on Amazon.com in a couple of weeks.

What started as a defecation of my mental state six years ago has culminated into a book that has been called the On The Road for the new millennium. I started this blog as a literary experiment - my own style of secrete confession for no one to hear. How could anyone understand or justify what I what doing? I sure as hell wasn't. Unfortunately - or fortunately - depending on how your snooty ass perceives it, people started reading this excrement of literary soul cleansing. Teeming lonely and fascinated curious seekers the globe over sat snug and comfortable reading and thanking little baby Jesus that their lives were not so bad as what splashed out from my blog on almost a daily basis.

Yes - strange things happen when you leave your lover of four years, quit your job and walk out the door and never look back.

I sat in my borrowed flesh early and typed away anonymously all the horrors that I put myself through - because back then I had a death wish. My prompt demise never occurred. Traveling the hemisphere by the seat of my pants - the strange and perverse sought me out and I was enlightened enough never to say no.

I must admit I had committed acts that would had Caligula screaming like a bitch and running terrified away - but I have no regrets. I am who I am. I answer to no one. Shunned by elite friends, excised by family - I continued and I will continue - just for kicks...

Glad you came along for the ride dear old readers...hold on to your ticket stub...there's more...

Blow Torch Inward

Woke up with a start - with a feeling of putrid angst. Staggered to the shower and as the hot water careened over me and the steam swirled - black sordid images of the night before popped in my mind like the flash of a camera.

In San Diego took the train to Pacific Beach - wanted to leisurely spend the afternoon in the porno theater there, understand? Guess not. Anyway, plunked my seven at the window and entered.

On screen some asian cooch was getting banged in the back seat of an convertible as they drove down the freeway. Porno is scratching the bottom of the barrel if it has to succumb to such cheap thrills.

Speaking of cheap thrills - sat in the back row like a good fag when the small Mexican next to me whipped out a glass pipe and with a small blow torch began smoking crack without reservations. As I sat listening to the crackle and pop of the drugs mixed with the shrieking of the she bitch onscreen, I smelled the aroma of said crack and the tingle of tired old cells began to activate.

The little Mexican - face shimmering in a fine layer of sweat - handed over the pipe, "Hey, man - want some."

"Nah." I croaked. "Nah, I don't do that shit anymore."

"Don't do it anymore?" He said mechanically. "What do you do now?"

"I write. (Cough.) I'm a writer."

"Really?" He takes another obscene drag. "What do you write?"

I smiled inward, "Garbage."

Ah, fuck it, I thought. I looked over to him, reaching, "May I?"

"Sure, man...it's only dope."

klick - fffft - wheeeeeee!!!!

Small white sparks exploded behind my eyes - my body felt that 60 watt current. "Damn." I quivered. Haven't felt this good since I did dope way back when as I was feeling the blues.

"Yup." The Mexican smacked his lips. "Sure fire way to wipe away them blues."

After a few more hits I was a clicking, teeth grinding, jittery mess. I needed beer. The train ride back to the border was a painful ordeal - everything was sharp in focus and amplified. Some American tourists were being exceptionally loud and all I wanted was to kill them. But I digress, I am not a psychopath...

I hopped the border and made my way through those teeming masses - brown bloodshot eyes followed my every move - and entered Bar Villa Garcia in the plaza.

The joint was packed wall to wall with screeching gesticulating fags. I stomped up to the second floor and ordered a beer. Taking a table it was only a matter of seconds before I was accosted by the local 'buy me a beer, meester' boys. Scattah - let me enjoy my beverage. One of three looking mortally wounded.

Tomas enters the stage and sits with me. We sit for a full five minutes without saying a word. I finally croak, "You holdin?"

Under the table he slips me a paper and I hand him cien pesos. I walk into the bathroom - a den of penis peepers, cock suckers, and pervs. I find an empty stall - close the door - next to me I hear the tell tale sign of sniffing and the other side the slurping of some miate making rent. The smell of shit, piss, and chlorine wafting in the air, I empty my package onto the toilet dispenser - chop out three lines with my Cosco card - thank god it now has a purpose. Roll up a 20 peso note into a cylinder and snort-wheeee!snort-whooo!!

I lean back up and ask myself, Why?

Any addict will tell you and that it is a well known fact a tired long winded fact that addiction comes from the course of pain and worry. I scratch my nose - check for residue. I have not touched the stuff in years. Why now? And then it dawned on me - I am paranoid of the out come of this book that I had written. A book that has enveloped my mind the past few months. It is done and is going to be published in a few weeks - I should be happy. But, I am not. Maybe the content has depressed me - all the trauma and degradation that I had put myself through the last 20 years. I don't know.

I return to my table and finish three quick beers. I strike up a conversation with an attractive bespectacled lad named Javier and he being quite literary. Well read. We sit and chat over authors - Kerouac, Shelby, Burkowski, Hemingway.

Around 3am we are in a hotel and doing that which nature doesn't abide and I feel nothing. I just go though the motions. As Javier lay asleep wrapped around me - my mind spins. I think of the new book I had started - this one begins at birth and relates the story of my adolescence. The horrid parents, the sad school days, the ravaged coming of age. I thought the title fit: Fried Chittlins. Gray and disgusting. That put me in an even more frump.

I lay thinking....thinking...thinking....smoking...smoking...smoking. Perhaps I need a bit of road traveling. Maybe a little adventure through Mexico. I have no goal or plan in my life and that still worries me. My life is so open - yet so fitfully alone. I can't seem to connect with this human species.

When Javier rolled over, I silently dressed and left the room. The sun crept over the horizon when I found a hot dog vendor on Revo - stood there munching watching the hung over tourists drag themselves back to the border, watched the patrol cars slowly creep by, the transvestite hookers clomp around...

There has to be more. I hailed a taxi and took the long ride back to la playas. Still feeling the methamphetamine, I sat in my room at my laptop and cranked out a few more antidotes in my new book holding nothing back - wrote raw peeled tales of a horrible past.

I guess I have found my calling....but to what end?

Kind of a Glow.

Scenes from the chaotic, drunken week passed before my eyes. There was a face I did not recognize, a good looking Aztec kid with amber eyes, yellow hair and beautiful straight black eyebrows. I saw myself asking someone I barely knew to buy me a beer in a bar on Insurgentes, and getting a nasty push to the floor. I saw myself pull a knife on someone who followed me out of a fag bar on Coahuilla and tried to rob me. I felt the friendly, steadying hands of people who had helped me home.

"Take it easy, guero." My friend Hector standing there, solid and virile, walking his dog. Carlos running for a taxi libre. Tenoch with his malicious bitch smile. The faces blended together in a nightmare, spoke to me in a strange moaning idiot voice that I could not understand at first and finally could not hear.

I woke up around noon today and sat for a long time on the edge of the bed in this crappy hotel with one shoe dangling from my hand. I dabbed water on my face, put on my coat, grabbed my backpack, lit a Lucky and left.

I am now without funds - and without means. I know what I have to do. I am ready to take any risk, to proceed to any extreme of action. Like a saint or a wanted criminal with nothing to lose, I have now stepped beyond the claims of my nagging, cautious, aging, frightened flesh.

I Don't Mind Saying It...

'If you're doin' business with a religious son of a bitch, get it in writing. His word isn't worth shit, not with the Good Lord tellin' him how to fuck you on the deal'.WSB

I look up from my note book, pen ink still fresh on cream paper. The monilith of stone...that Cathedral of Guadalupe looms in front of me and down in front a little man; face contorted red in passionate lust screams doctrine into a megaphone. No one listens.
I adjust my Wonka glasses, the sun shifts, light a Lucky. Take a long slow drag. I watch a Mexican Indian guy with dark copper skin in a yellow and green soccer uniform glide by with vibrating lust. I stare at the notebook on my lap.
'There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing ... I am a recording instrument ... I do not pretend to impose 'story' 'plot' 'continuity' ... Insofaras I succeed in Direct recording of certain areas of psychic process I may have a limited function ... I am not an entertainer...'
Anybody who can write a sentence such as "She beat on the table with the expression of a masturbating idiot.", knows how to express his thoughts in a powerful manner. Is it conceit? No. My mind whirls and memories swirl like a storm. Hafta write them down. I remember last night at the apartment of Mary's and my pen starts to glide across the paper and I vomit it out...
"Room 18 on the top floor I was sitting in the top room rose wall paper smoky sunset across the river. I was new in the game and like all young thieves thought I had a license to steal. It didn't last. Sitting there waiting on the Mexican Indian boy works in the Chink laundry a soft knock and I open the door naked with a hard-on it was the top floor all the way up you understand nobody on that landing. "Ooooh" he says feeling it up to my oysters a drop of lubricant squeezed out and took the smoky sunset on rose wall paper I'd been sitting there naked thinking about what we were going to do in the rocking chair rocks off down the line he could get out of his dry goods faster than a junky can fix when his blood is right so we rocked hot white load like I never feel it wind up is his young brother at the door in his cop suit been watching through the key hole and learn about the birds and the bees some bee I was in those days good looking kid and he knew all the sex currents goose for pimple always made his entrance when your nuts are tight and aching a red haired smoky sunset one bare knee rubbing greasy pink wall paper he was naked with a hard-on waiting on the Mexican boy from Pablo's a pearl of lubricant squeezed slowly out and glittered on the tip of his cock."
I falter. The Preacher has become a screaming gesticulating madman. Closing my notebook, I slip it into my book bag, sling over my shoulder and head for La Cabalita Cantina for a beer. Not too crowded, still early. Strike up conversation with my old waiter friend Cholo by name and by decree. Then I saw my junky friend Dupre. I looked at him a long three seconds before I recognized Dupre. He looked older and younger. The deadness had gone from his eyes and he was twenty pounds thinner. His face twitched at intervals like dead matter coming alive, still jerky and mechanical. When he was getting plenty of junk, Dupre looked anonymous and dead, so you could not pick him out of a crowd or recognize him at a distance. Now, his image was clear and sharp. If you walked fast down a crowded street and passed Dupre, his face would be forced on your memory - like in the card trick where the operator fans the cards rapidly, saying, "Take a card, any card," as he forces a certain card into your hand. Dupre was only twenty-three years old and looked pretty good. We stood talking, downing cold Sol cervezas.
As I squeezed a lime into my bottle, the steel door to the bar slammed open and a huge rotund woman stomped into the cantina, looked around, walked straight up to Dupre and I and began screaming at Dupre. She menacingly pointed her long fingers at his face like the Wicked Witch of the West. Then with one swoop, this woman grabbed him by the hair and pulled him from the bar, screaming and yelling at him, whopping him on his head. It was his mother.
Afterwards, the bar was silent. A silly faggy techno song in Spanish burst forth from the jukebox. The ugly drag queens continued to squawk as nothing strange has happened. I finish my beer and cut. Not before Cholo pinches me for twenty pesos. Why not? He's hung and hot.
I stop for a burrito pulpa and a manzana fresca and then to Cafe Internet to pound my thoughts out. Feeling mediocre. Remembering all the loves of my past...nostalgia is a disease!

"I want to, meester"

I sit here - black coffee swirls in china cup cream coagulating - staring at the printed manuscript of my 'reports' placed ever so delicately with an almost religious fervor on the slutty table, pocked with cigarette burns and coffee stains. It is almost near. I understand that I have been neglecting this blog - my attention and writing sucked into other directions.

She bent over her religious candles - blues reds greens - the light lit her aged ruinous face like crumpled brown paper. She crooned and whisped away the Dark Spirits, she muttered. Grey mists swirled around matted hair. I don't feel cleansed...

Walking over the bridge to Tijuana centro - the night a blast of navy blue with a tinge of orange at the horizon - gas flares in the hills, stars twinkle like they will, the klaxon of cars and banda down a lonely street like summer wind. He stands at the entrance to his rat trap, slender hips hooked smoking a cigarette eying me as I walk by enraged in vibrating latino lust. I stop at the cafe for pazole and coffee - shoot the shit with the waiter Robert and boy can he ever shoot the shit. "Remember that pinche Americano Ernie? He now lives in a house up on the hill. I went to visit - that pinche pendejo had bout twenty boys living there - all bout 10 to 15 years old."

Yawned and paid the boy plus tip said adios and walked out into the beat sad Mexican night. Flung on a bus and with a black farting blast of soot crawled over that hill to the salty serenity of La Playas. O! Hated spirits! What am I to do with this life?! These questions always pop up in forms of multiple personalities - troublesome little beasts. Down a fifth of bourbon and settle in to witness a fine film - Freeway and I tells ya, Reese Witherspoon got high marks in my book.

Speaking of book - it is now 98% done and Control is happy with the outcome. I was blabbing the other day in a cantina to some doe eyed fucker who didn't give a shit, "Man, I tell ya - hope something comes of it."

But, if you are wondering what the last three months were like - you know, them months I ain't been writin' for your goofy ass - well, sweetie, I tell ya...it was something like this....

Black and White Be-Bop

Walked into the tienda and smacked down a copy of Gus Van Sant's Mala Noche. Now there's a movie I haven't seen in a coons age and well worth the 25 year wait for the DVD. Bopped past the hungover pedestrians of Greater San Diego - flashy colors and furry dogs - no one talks in this town except via cell phone. San Diego is the dog walking capitol of the world, I reckon. Jumped the red line down to the frontier clikclakclikclak passed the meat grinding turnstiles and into that familiar stench that would knock a vulture offa dung cart.

Sunny day under that blazingly bright blue sky of Mexico so passed all the taxi drivers on the hustle (Taxi meester titty girls?) pass two cutey patootie fags that made sure I was their thing - I lit a Lucky to give those two their B-movie production, turn the corner doing my best and head over to the Park. Park Ingiento Guererro - a hot bed of hustler activity where you can cop a five of meth under the weary eyes of the shoeshine boy. Sat on a bench under swaying palm drinking my horchata and digging the scene as boy and hustler alike parade forever with that all knowing come on look.

Ran into Saul - haven't seen that fucker since the Dark Times and the what ever happened to so and so started and as we all know Saul is the first and foremost in what ever happened to so and so. He states that he is hungry and I could use a bite so we find ourselves chomping delicious tacos of chopped meat and fiery salsas as the banda music wailed. Kind gentle old man - face as brown and withered as a crumpled paper bag - gave me his tattered straw cowboy hat after a lengthy display of chatter and jokes.

Sat and guzzled cold frescas on a chilled day and the thought never occurred to me cause I'm not that kind of guy - but Saul suggested with a raised fey eyebrow to come and check out his new digs. Who am I to say no, Dear Reader - like I said had an obligation him being an old friend and all.

Into the old mercado dodging crockery and weary women passed the come hither whores all nasty with disease - rotted adobe crashes from the shattered sky colors of blue and yellow - climb worn concrete stairs and enter Saul's studio flat. Blasted reggeaton on the hi-fi and sparked a joint just to celebrate the occasion - and I am telling you, fat that fucker rolls 'em! Lit and getting laughing jags - he whips out some coke and - snortwheee!! - and it was on like Donkey Kong, cabrones.

There is nothing more fulfilling - in the world! O! In all of God's heaven! - to be reunited with an old lover and you know, just know, you are going to make it again. Tounges probed, fingers stroked, and clothes where thrown about. Crashing onto the sagging squeaking mattress - the bed boinged and thoinged and binged as Saul and I commited crimes against nature. Like political candidates we switched positions frequent as Saul hissed dirty Spanish through clenched teeth. We fell in a fluid plop into each others embrace - spent, covered in sweat and semen - lying there listening to each others breathing subside.

We passed a smoke back and forth and Saul mentioned that he needed some bread for...well, bread. Slapped cien pesos into those spindly fingers and stepped out into the cool night as a police truck wailed down the boulevard - lights flashing. Hailed a taxi and dashed over the mountain to my beachside Fortress of Solitude to snuggle down and watch Mala Noche.

Under construction.

I realize I haven't been blogging much, but I have been focusing on my book. This is a little jumping the gun - but this book - a work that I have been maniacally obsessing over for three years will finally be published this April. Click on the image to see a larger version of the cover.

Madcap festive.

The old queen cackled and rocked back and forth on the noisy bed like a galvanized puppet putting on his B movie production to impress the guero. I sat in the easy chair in appalled temperance watching this old fruit - sipping the vino and being pawed by Fernando. Outside the fireworks popped over the hazy chilled city - two hours until the New Year.

Lasciviously I was being eyed by this ancient queen - why must he continuously rub his drooping crotch? Distasteful. Took another sip of wine - starting to feel warm. Even the time with Fernando seemed pleasant.

Time slurred and it was time to cut - wishing the aging old man a happy new year - pecks on quivering cheeks, yours truly gets the goose - Fernando and I stumble down the wet steps into the foggy streets.

Hail a taxi libre and zip up to cinco escinas to a party being thrown by little Fernando's best friends. All loud and piss ass elegant fairies to be sure - but I had a good time. Always do. Bacardi flowed like water and the music pumped and the small apartment filled up with New Years revelers - all festive yakkers and sociable. An impromptu dance floor was constructed and a boogy frenzy started - hindered by the nonstop alcohol.

Dashed around the room me and conversed and drank and ate. Fernando said there was another party down the hill and if I wanna go. Sure. Wouldn't you?

Another taxi and kamakazied in the crazy night to the grand apartment ran by two lezbos - nice and friendly them. The radio spun CD's and the walls clonked with happy red faced drunks and laughter and all that makes a social event memorable. 12am rolled around and the eventual count down - much shouting, handshakes, back slapping, hugging, crying.

Another taxi and Fernando and I found ourselves barhopping in Plaza Santa Cecilia. Ranchero, Villa Garcia, Bar Hawaii (Ugly mad blithering tranny show), Blue Sky on Revo - so packed you get crushed like cacauates. Had it out with a drunk and arrogant lez - nearly smashed the bitches head in with a beer bottle but her passive lover intervened. Fag drama - ugh.

'Round 5:30am stumble bleary eyed and dangerous out into the shivering packed streets of Tijuana - gave Fernando the big goodbye and took a weary taxi home. Goodbye 2008.

Desolation Angels

Dressed to the ninths and tenths, Ricardo and I entered the Cafe Central, a 24hr restaurant located on Avenida Revo in downtown Tijuana to meet with Esperanza Robles and others. Esperanza, or Espie, was another long time friend from my old days of living here. A beautiful college girl studying Economics at the University in Tijuana. So smart and so wild.
Espie smiled her smile big under that giant red poster of Che that bore down on us like some communist Big Brother. Clinking coffee cups with her was another chic chick named Maria and Espie's boitoy for the evening, Manuel. A real hottie, sporting one of those pencil thin moustaches that I love so much and jet black hair slicked back. All three looked like models offa runway from some foreign competition. Hugs and kisses and what ever happened to so and so's issued and Espie invited the whole lot to a house party up in the hills, in the Old Colonias -Tijuana style.
From the back of this party taxi the city whizzed past. At the end of San Letran is the last series of bars that end in a ruined mist, fields of broken adobe, no bums hidden, all wood, Downtrodden Dank, with sewers and puddles, ditches in the street five feet deep with oily water in the bottom. Powdery tenements against the yellow light of the nearby city. I watch the final sad bar doors, where flashes of women golden shining lace behind I see and feel like flying in yet like a bird in flight twists on. Kids are in the doorway in hip-hop drag, the band is wailing a chachacha inside, everybody's knee is knocking to bend as they pop and wail with the mad music.
Taxi halts in front of two story teetering onna cliff and folks are coming and going and the music is loud. Espie takes my hand and leads me inside. Gorgeous people stand and pose with drinks and cigarettes in hand. Mostly queer with a splatter of women. But so many good looking people. Even the tough tattooed cholos standing alone - hot. There is a bar and a DJ mixes and mashes several beats of continents smooth and simple. She introduces me to several people who all ohh and aah at the American. Ricardo makes his rounds being suave and adorable. Drinks were non-stop and a handsome Mexican Indian led me out back were he shared some weed. Timid and cute. Behind a crumbling wooden shed we embraced in fumes of ganja, our tongues probing, our souls lusting. The rest are only anecdotes that will become rumors.
A tune by Cafe Tecuba wailed over the stereo, Ricardo found us and slurred, lank black hair falling over big brown eyes, "Damn those crazy Tecubas - don't they sound like the Beach Boys?"
"Yeah, but very much into the Jaraneros sound", answered my secret lover. He squeezes my hand and smiles. I found out his name was Jaime and he stayed by my side the rest of the evening. The music pounded and we danced, we ate, we partied. We smoked more weed. Some cholo covered in interesting tattoos offered me some coke in the bathroom. Snort---wheeee!!!
Through foggy hangover, these are the highlights of that evening:
I made the off kilter comment that Mexicans generally have small penises. I was taken upstairs by an irate hottie and proven wrong - showed the bestest of the mostest ya'll. Espie's wild erotic lezbo dance with Maria and some other drunken girl. The WWF Transvestite Smackdown between two titanic drunk trannies fighting over a vaquero. Made quite a scene. Ricardo pissing in the potted plant in the parent's bedroom. The continuous flow of booze and coke.
The cool people and new friendships that were forged.
Ricardo, Espie, Manuel and myself all retired to my apartment at 3:30 in the morning giddy and drunk. Manuel and Espie sat on the couch sipping martinis made by yours truly while Ricardo browsed through my CD collection. Would you stop playing that damn Rings of Fire over and over again! We sat up a bit and talked about politics, The Jetsons, and Oreo Cookies. All four of us crashed on my queen size bed.
Okay, next morning, I wake up to Ricardo sitting butt-naked on my couch - laughing - and watching Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space. In the other room, Manuel and Espie are obviously auditioning to be porn stars because all I saw was bouncing boobs and balls. So, I blew Ricardo while he watched Plan 9 and after every one was satisfied, Espie cooked us up a big mess of chorizo y juevos. Love that gal!
The gang showered and dressed and we took a Sunday stroll through the Market and ate the best tacos - ever. There was a little rock concert going on and we stopped and jammed to the throbbing tunes. Ricardo still had a roach stashed in his leather coat and we passed it around to the knowing smile of an elderly man. The sun swung through the sky and we all said our goodbyes and parted. I stopped into the Internet Cafe to pound this out. I am so glad to have good friends like these.

Boogy Wunderland

A cab was called and we found the gang outside a large warehouse somewhere south side Tijuana - where the shanty adobes meld into black smoke belching factories. The wind was blowing and dust and debris swirled in little eddies. Music from inside the corrugated iron building resonated and thumped as a hundred catatonic youths dressed in Day-Glo costumes meandered outside drinking cervezas, talking, smoking mota. The new style with the guys is gangsta faggito, I call it. Pink and black, flashy, saggy, baggy frilly clothes with little band-aids on your face and over sized tinted sunglasses, baseball cap sideways. I think it looks cute.

Esperanza looked great in her shiny black tube dress and her hair was fierce. Big smiles from ruby lips and hugs and kisses. Ricardo, already drunk, tottered up looking like a Latin model for Abercrombie and Fitch. I mentioned he really should try his hand at modeling, the boy is strikingly handsome. He laughed and said let’s all just go in. We smacked down our fifty pesos at the door and entered under the watchful glare of some gorilla looking bouncers. I expected machine gun nests and barbed wire.

The warehouse seemed more spacious inside than outside and was a seething mass of gyrating sweating bodies. Scattered throughout the dark cavernous space were several boxes with dancers precariously perched and jerking to the techno and house beats. Glittering multicolored lights played over the candy colored masses.

“I’m thirsty, baby.” Ricardo says to me, the disco lights playing in his big amber eyes. “Let’s get some beverages.”

“Good idea.” I say, hooking Espie’s elbow in with mine and with her, Ricardo, and Oscar follow us through the crowd to the bar. This is the best kind of rave; the beer was only five pesos. But the line was hella long and we had to elbow our way up there. The two beer attendants were a couple of gorgeous guys from Paraguay and seemed to be having the time of their lives.

From behind, I am shoved so hard that I am almost lifted off of my feet and up onto the bar. I look behind me over my shoulder and it is this cowboy in a wife beater, sweaty and puffing from the dance floor, with his crotch well planted firmly against the backside of my black Kenneth Cole pants.

“Excuse me,” I start.

“Hola.” he smiles. Handsome in a rough Mexican Marlboro man kind of way.

“Would you kindly take your cock out of my ass, I’m trying to purchase a beverage?”

He laughs – pop – and returns back into the smoky darkness.

After we attained our drinks, finished them and take in the surroundings, we hit the dance floor. Espie, Ricardo, and I jumped up on a twelve-foot high lime-green box and shook a tail feather as Oscar found some broad and stayed on terra firma. The DJ from Argentina was pretty good and the music selection kept us going for a few hours – techno, trance, house, reggeaton, European disco, local Mexican music and others I haven’t a clue kept the place jumping. Then they let the foam go. Everyone was waist deep in the stuff and knocking beach balls around. From the rafters someone had constructed a couple of swing sets and kids would precariously swing screaming at supersonic speeds through the crowds.

Hours pass and Espie and I are ripped. Somewhere – where? I have no idea – Espie or me, found a television picture frame in the junk that littered the corners of this warehouse. Well, elbows hooked, Espie and I would work the crowd, Wonka glasses and all, with me yelling, “Make way! The television lady! Can’t you see you are in the presence of a Star?!” And Espie would hold the frame up to here face and wave as we walked by. The people applauded, the fags cooed and screeched – “Fabulous!” “Look at her!” “Love the show!” Yeah, two drunk fools.

Because of this debacle, we had lost Ricardo and Oscar in the mix. Esperanza and I hit the bar tore up from the floor up with the terrifying news that they had run out of beer. Run out! What now? We stumbled around the warehouse and towards the back, standing by one of the huge concrete girders that supported the building was this little cholo. Hidden in half shadows.

“Psst –psst. Hey, you want to buy some beer? I got a case for fifty pesos.” He asked me, putting his hand on my arm. He was one of those little tattooed, shaved head, tank top, khaki types.

“I don’t have any money, man.” And I walked on. Then – ding – an idea hit me and I drunkenly dragged Espie back with me to the little cholo.

“Hey,” I said. “If my girlfriend sucks your cock, can I have the beer.” I mean he wasn’t that bad looking. He looked at me, looked at Esperanza; Espie was splashed and just drunkenly tottered and giggled.His eyes widened, little red tongue licked his lips, “She doesn’t mind?”

“You don’t mind, Espie? I mean, the bar is out of beer and we do need more beer and this gentleman is offering us this case. How about it? Pleeeeez!”

She smiled, “Por que no?” (Why not?)

We walked behind a large trash dumpster that was against the far wall and with the glare of the yellow light above, the cholo pulled out his short fat dick and Espie went to work. I leaned up against the wall and drank a beer and had a cigarette watching. Out of the shadows, like a cockroach, comes this guy’s friend, similarly dressed, except tall and thin – hard and with his wiener out, long and skinny – so, there’s Espie crouched down, taking turns sucking off these two cholos. That was until this big ass security guard showed up waving his flashlight all over the place, snarling “Hey! What’s going on!? You can’t be doing that shit here! Take that bitch out to you’re car!”

Great idea, I thought. Both these guys were kind cute in an I’ll cut you and steal all your money kind of way and Esperanza agreed and by this time was very horny. So we four went outside the warehouse to Hectors car. Hector being the guy with the case of beer and his friend was Francisco. Francisco and I sat in the front seat drinking our cervezas Tecate as Espie and Hector got undressed in the back seat and put on a porn show. Francisco watched wide eyed with crotch throbbing as Hector banged away, what a tight body he had, and a little round brown ass. That turned me on. Ten minutes went by and Hector squirted into Espie. Switcharoo and Francisco jumped in the back. And began rutting Espie like his life depended on it. These guys must’ve felt special getting someone this beautiful – they are lucky indeed. Skinny Francisco finished in a few minutes and pulled his long penis out, hard and still dripping semen. “I think he want some more, Espie.” I breathed.

“Vamanos.” Esperanza moaned, rubbing her red vagina. Francisco rolled back on her and began thrusting and lunging. Sweat rolled down his lean back and off his muscular smooth ass as he pumped furiously. Grunting, he let loose a second orgasm and collapsed on top of her. I raised my beer bottle,"Ole!” Hector laughed and did the same, “Ole, compa!” We all began laughing. Francisco slid out and began dressing; Espie did the same. In the most boyish timid way, Francisco said something to her that made her smile, she leaned over and kissed his cheek, saying, “No import, Mi amor. No importa.”

Saying our good-byes, Esperanza and I walked around front to find Ricardo and Oscar waiting for us. Hailing a taxi, we stopped at Café Central for four in the morning coffee and sweet breads and talked of things that friends talk about. Afterwards, we four crashed on my bed at my house to sleep a contented sleep.

Severed.

Woke up mouthing the word Navajo.
Tried to piece together the last two days. All darkness and confusion.

When Jose found me, I was crouched in an alleyway filled with shit and garbage clinging onto a bottle of Petron tequla. Filthy and a shaking wreck, can't remember the last time I bathed, pants stiff and shiny over the dirt.

I recall:

Jose stooped down next to me. He called my name several times. "What is the matter?"

I wobbled up, leaning against the wall, a passing smile. "Oh, nothing. Slipped gears, crossed wires. Nothing out of the ordinary. And you?"

He looked down at me with those big beautiful brown eyes, "Let's go. Let me get you home."

Tears filled my eyes and I sank back down onto the stinking concrete. "Home? I have no home...I can never go home." I sobbed as that fact hit my heart like a gunshot. "Never go home...never..."

Pulling me back up, Jose whispered, "Come on, guero. First we fix your head and then we fix your life."

White flash bulb of deja vu.

As I said, woke up in the Detox Clinic in downtown San Diego amid the hacking and coughing of thirty or so junkies. Shiny white walls and guerrilla faced interns. Blank and slack stares from resident relics. Old man offered me a cigarette. Was a Lucky Strike. There is a God.

"You're too young, kid." He wheezed. "Too young to be here." Spit protoplasm onto tiled floor.

The rancid smell of hospital filled my nostrils. Wrapped in the flames of devils. Looking into cold dead fish eyes.

I moaned and rolled over in my cot. My stomach felt like it was filled with red hot barbed wire and my head felt worse. And so, there you have it Dear Reader. I will be signing off for awhile until I get my head on straight.
I guess you can't live in madness without going a little mad yourself.

Yeah, I thought to myself, Merry Christmas.

Life imitates art blah blah blah.

For the most part, I have joined the ranks of the Unhappy Waiters and Killers of Time. Oh God, are there so many of them in our land! Students who can't be happy until they've graduated, servicemen who can't be happy until they are discharged, single folks who can't be happy until they've found a mate, workers who can't be happy until they've retired, adolescents who aren't happy until they're grown, ill people who aren't happy until they're well, failures who aren't happy until they succeed, restless who can't wait until they get out of town, and in most cases, vice versa, people waiting, waiting for the world to begin.

Splish splash.

As any warm-blooded homo, I was itchin’ for some action this chilly Mexican morn. So, after a good breakfast of a spicy bowl of menudo and a hot cuppa joe, I made my way over to Banos Roma on the corner of Avenida Mejia and Constitution. Located conveniently across the street from the pile of Spanish adobe masonry that is St. Marks Cathedral – the statuary, I swear glares at you with heavenly scowl.

Banos Roma, large glass plate windows welcome you into a 1930’s lobby with beaver board reception desk of glass brick and fake marble. Ancient attendant smiles and takes your personals – cheapo watch, Wonka glasses, black leather Tijuana wallet, silver Aztec ring, pack of Lucky Strikes – say ‘Howdy’ to a tall dark and suave cowboy on the way in. He smiles back a beautiful mouthful of pearlies.
Well, down to business. Walk through the moist and grimy halls in search of an unoccupied cubicle. The sounds of slurps, grunts, and growls of broken random lust mixed with Mexican top 40 permeates the humid air. How many times do I hafta hear Daddy Yankee's Rompe? Finding a cubicle in the dim back – just the perfect spot – I set up camp. The white tiled room is covered in mildew and filthy drawn graffiti; there is a small cot and on the wall wooden hooks with a broken mirror. I disrobe, wrap myself in a white towel, slip on flip-flops and start the hunt.
I hit the steam room - sitting on the white tiled bench, relaxing as the hot vapors swirled around me. Not there five minutes and out of the misty mists comes a thin lad wagging his long and nasty at me and it was on like Donkey Kong. After a good bout of gulp-n-slurp, I wondered back to my room to cool off and check out the eye candy prowling the halls. Jumpin’ jigglin’ Jesus! The guys on parade were hot – all this for seven dollars!
Standing outside my room, I hit up a hottie for a cigarette – menthol, yech – and stand there talking a bit. I glance up to the steel girders and wish I hadn’t, a biological nightmare of fungus and mildew. Just as I am about to mention this, said hottie grabs my joint and we repair to his cubical where before I know it I’m on all fours getting the bajeebus pounded outta me. Unfortunately, he blows his wad in a couple of minutes and after gracias I hit the showers and take a sensual bath under the watchful gaze of three guys in jock straps posing by the glass brick wall.
After the shower, I sit on the olive tiled bench opposite the handsome three and take in the surroundings. The air is hazy and humid. Water drips constantly from the grimy fungus covered girders and hissing pipes. The Boy comes by and I order a beer. A cerveza Sol. Relaxing, sipping my beverage, I watch as the three pretty boys in jock straps start up. The skinhead kneels down in front of his friend in the middle and pulls out his cock; it bobs long and hard. He sucks it with gusto. The other jacks off while kissing the guy getting blown. The masturbator squirts his semen all nasty like onto the tile floor, as the skinhead leaves no trace of his friends’ semen to be found. He swallows it all like any good fag should.
Well, that shit made me horny, so with my towel poking out at the crotch, I enter the steam room and sit down. Opening my towel, I let myself swing free. A guy with a shaved head and prison tattoos sits next to me. He has great arms and killer abs and his tongue swirled around my cock like a champ, I couldn’t help myself, I shot off like a ten year old virgin when I touched those rock hard muscles on his back.
I returned to my cubicle and paid The Boy to retrieve from my safety box my Lucky Strikes. God, were they needed. Then outta nowhere – well, not outta nowhere, from the entrance, I guess – came my friend Lazo. By this time, it was early afternoon and the place was packed, so I invited him to keep his things in my cubicle. After changing changing into his towel Lazo lost himself in the mists of the steam room for the next hour or so. May God have mercy on his sphincter.
Close to my room, there was a hallway that led to a shower room that looked like it hadn’t been used in fifty years, This skinny hottie in red boxers meandered that direction and I decided to follow. In the grimy shower room – littered with beer bottles, cigarette butts, and used condoms – there was this large open window over looking an filthy alley. Him standing there, with the lighting and the background, looking like an erotic photograph. What could I do? Not saying a word, I walked up, pulled out his penis and started blowing him. Pulling his boxers down, I turned him around and lubing my penis with saliva, I pushed him against the dirty wall and fucked him standing up. Yanking out, I spilt my semen onto the grimy floor. Smiling and squeezing my hand, he pulled up his boxers and left. I hit the showers again.
I found Lazo lounging on a bench in front of the radio sipping a soda and listening to reggaeton. Ordering a beer for myself, we sat and joked and watched the boys go by. Lazo informs me that he has had his eye on that tall and suave cowboy that I met on my way in. I smile and tell him to go for it. He walks off and does. Lo and behold, when I am returning to my cubicle, tall and suave cowboy’s cubicle is right across from mine and Lazo is sitting in there on the cot with him. For some goofy reason, Lazo invites me in there, and cowboy looks so hot in nothing but his black boxer briefs. Long, long legs. And I am a sucker for long legs. Well, the three of us have a funny and nice chat and Lazo invites the three of us for frescas. When he goes to gets them, cowboy asks me to close the door and the next thing I know those long legs are wrapped around me like tentacles and cowboys tongue is swirling in my mouth. Sorry Lazo. Sliding myself into him, I held onto his ankles and fucked him hard and fast. Shooting what I had left into his tight ass, we lay there sweating and breathless kissing each other for a couple of moments.
I put on my towel and open the door and there is Lazo holding the drinks – oops – he said it was no big thing and we sat in the sauna and talked. It was late and I was with empty scrotum and flaccid penis and I said I had to go. Getting dressed, I said my good-byes and left into the cool night air. Stopping first at Burrito Row for two burritos colorados and a manzana fresca, I walked back to my trap and fell asleep.

Clowning Around.

Was awaken early by the gentle rappings of Chuck the Canuck on my bedroom door. "You have a visitor."

Clock says 9:53am. What is this - a fucking farm? I get dressed and stumble downstairs to find Fernando waiting. For those of you not in the know - Fernando is the stable job holding homebody that has been hounding me for a relationship the past few weeks. Poor slob. I've been a card carrying member of The League of International Playboys since day one, dears - so I have been avoiding him. Slightly. Oh, too be sure he is what you dream of, you lonely bitches - he is smart, well read, funny, handsome, and sensitive, and not the kind that bar hops. A real bore. He has been hounding me because he has the weird notion that we are compatible in some freakish way.

Yes. Uhm - okay.

Well, Fernando sat in the living room smiling pleasant as I made some instant coffee and offered him the same. As a side job, Fernando performs in the park on weekends as a clown to the delight of squealing little uns. A side job that would be scorned in the states but is held as virtuous here - I suppose. Well, ol' Fernie had asked a while back to purchase some clown shoes for him online and I said I would - today he was collecting on that promise.

Being a man of my word, we repaired to the cafe on the beach and I went online and bought said clown shoes - big floppy yellow and orange things that honked when you walked. Dear God...

Wonder what it's like having sex with a clown? When he orgasms does he h'yukh'yuk'y'uk like Krusty? Does he cum silly string? I asked Fernando - he just laughed and stated that I was wonderful. Thanks, Fernando. Then I took his picture - just to be cute.

We sat and talked of things, of how he thinks my solidarity is the reason of my depressed state, Fernando explaining how he can be the ying to my yang - and Fernando explained where he lived and gave me - gave me, mind you - a key to his apartment. Well, don't that take the rag offen the bush? After an hour of laughter and coy comments, Fernando jet to go to work. Myself, made a run to the border.

The Christmas crowd was ghastly. A gajillion damn people clogged the frontier like a freakin' exodus - fat old women as far as the eye could see. After waiting what seemed an eternity, I jumped the trolley and shot off towards downtown San Diego.

Firstly, to check my mail and was delighted in receiving the DVD of the Criterion Collection of Pier Passolini's Salo: 120 Days of Sodom. Also, I received a letter from SSI stating that my pay was to increase in 2009. Yay! I treated myself to a big ass carne asada burrito at El Tapatio's and then checked out the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. What a horrible remake!! I had entered the theater with high hopes and left angry and disappointed. A travesty of the classic!

I returned home only to be clogged at the border going in to Mexico which is unheard of. Thousands of commuters returning from shopping and work jammed the turnstiles into Tijuana. It was a nightmare.

When I dodged traffic and strode through Plaza Santa Cecilia, I stopped at bar Villa Garcia for a quick beer and struck up a conversation with a young lad who just came up from Chiapas. He was quiet funny and we joked for an hour. However, fatigue set in and I said adios and returned home on the city bus - it would have been a nice quiet ride if it weren't for this old fart that got on and belted out mariachi ballads loudly and continuous the entire trip. Asshole.

Got home made a salad and watched Naked Lunch being broadcast on television in Spanish. I sat - thinking of Fernando. Perhaps I should give him a whirl.

"Me no like it, meester."

Oh...Hi!

Sitting here slurping my Frappacino Mocha at the local Starbuck's watching the parade of young lads followed by the old daddies glaring dark and nasty.

Yesterday evening took the city bus down to el centro - with a black fart and squeal of gears the ancient school bus deposited me amid a torrid flow of Christmas shoppers gathering their gifts from various shops all in the hopes that St. Nick will be there. Stopped at a corner stall and downed a Mexican hot dog - one of the greatest culinary delights of the world and I ain't shittin' ya. As I finished my dog and started my descent into The Plaza - my name was called and that froze me in my tracks as it always does - nothing good ever comes out of it. So, I turn around and am delighted to see an old acquaintance of mine - Hector, tall handsome and decked out in fine clothes as usual. He strode up to me arms outstretched, big smile line in pencil moustache, "Luis!! Hola!!! Que dice??!!"

I said 'howdy' he said 'hi' and then the long patter of what-happened-to-so-and-so set in. We found ourselves sitting at a table outside a small cafe and what-ever-happened-to-so-and-so really took off and flew in a kaleidoscope of directions. I have not seen Hector in a coon's age and after that delicious cup of hot chocolate he invited me to El Taurino for drinks.

The chill of dusk set in as we walked down the trash covered sidewalk into the Red Zone and up to the puke green colored building of the bar. The corner was congested with the creatures of the night, the corners spilling into the streets with taco stands steaming the smell of seared meats and spicy salsa into the sooty air. Swatting away pre-teen transvestite hookers at the door, Hector and I sat and ordered a beer each. It was sprinkled with fags and Rentboys and being the only gringo in the joint I was met with several raised eyebrows. The beers flowed and the alcohol took effect and Hector just got better looking - not that he's a bad looking character in the first place.

At the bar, I started flirting and getting into animated discussions with the boys around me - laughing and spewing routines. I felt so alive again - not once thinking of that sapping darkness that puts me in a state of antisocial funk.

I began a dialogue with some lad named Javier - a Mexican Indian with a great smile and smooth copper skin. After a few more drinks and a few more dances Javier asked if I would like to go someplace else. Hector said it was cool - he being occupied with his own victim - and I left him to his own vices, making a dinner date with him two days hence.

Javier and I wobbled down Revo and laughed and gawked at the drunken tourists and crazy Mexicans and flashing neon in the cold winter night. We ducked into El Caliente - the new casino and lost a few pesos on slots. At a bar called Exotics we met up with some of Javier's friends and danced danced danced. Bucket after bucket of booze was bought. Screaming laughter and hoots to passerby from second floor balcony - the smile and confused stare of the straight hot pedestrian. Javier and I sat on the big red velvet couch talking and entwined. We made out under the uncaring sad beat eyes of the midget waiter.

2:35am. Lights flashing past us and we strolled to the end of Revo and up a flight of stairs - down a flight of stairs - darkness over a concrete valley of houses perched on a cliff and into the small apartment of my new friend. In the distance a big dog barked and a siren wailed. He offers me a bottled water as I look around his little flat - old furniture, TV, stereo, books, paintings tacked to an avocado wall. Lived in and comfortable. It smelled good - like him.

He took my hands and glided over to the sagging bed and we lay down. Kissing, probing, licking. Clothes flung onto the dirty tiled floor and sucked each other till we both climaxed. Lay under the blanket shivering in the still night and passed a smoke - the red cherry illuminating his handsome sharp features in the darkness.

The following morning we had a light breakfast at a cafe by his house - sweet bread and coffees - shook hands and I hailed a taxi. As the cab swerved and dodged chaotic traffic on its way to La Playa - I took out the little note that Javier had scribbled down and placed in my palm as we said good bye.

Please call. Number is here 0118557963

I like you alot - please call I want to see you again.

xoxoxo javier mercado

Perhaps it is time - no, it is time - to burst out of this fortress of solitude I have built around me for no fucking reason other than my own radical paranoia. I will live - I will love - I will enjoy. And all you haters that have been recently criticizing me for it - can go fuck yourselves. I like my life and most importantly - I like me!

River of Mud

Like only a junky can understand a junky, an alcoholic can share solice with an alcoholic, a queer can spot another fag in a room full of feelthy breeders can anyone understand the despair in this insidious depression that has wracked my trembling form for the past few days.

I have hit the rock bottom I believe. Nothing interests me. I do not go out. I do not socialise. And if I do attempt this I only stare at these garrulous beings in hateful contempt. I do not write. I do not eat. Rarely do I sleep. All things - all of them - that previously have given me some remembrance of joy, now just give me nothing.

I am completely alone in this world. All friends have severed contact from my loathsome being. After that debacle with the family a couple of months ago - I do not will not ever contact them again. I see no need. They are all strangers to me. No more important than faceless pedestrians walking down a dark street. All past has been atrophied from my emotional being. I am a husk. Or so it seems.

Even where I live - though I had previously herald it as being all that I need - is no more than an island in this poisonous river down I float. I can't stand it. Can't stand the people I live with. I recently received my passport but have no desire to use it. Oh how have I changed! Just a few months ago I had plans to use these monthly benefits to travel as I saw fit. Now, I want to do nothing. Have no goal to do so, anyway.

God!!!??? What is it you want me to do??!!! My patience is far from taxed! I am on that precipice now and am looking into darkness ready to jump...

Just For Kicks.

The dank smell of unwashed penis and bleach assailed my nostrils. Close to me a gray old queen sat tapping his foot - face a worried mask of sadness fretting over his lost youth - watching in the gloom the ballet of sex throughout the theater. On screen an Italian hooch was sucking cock twelve feet long - so it seemed.

Alex - he said his name was - sat next to me motionless as statuary. Skinny, hawk like face with black goatee, red cap turned backwards - sat transfixed on the flickering images dubbed in Italian with Spanish subtitles. I look over at him silhouette outlined against green wall streaked in black goo splattered in other liquids now dried and flaking. Long moment of silence. "Let's get out of here." He finally stated.

Best thing I heard so far.

Out into the chilled night broken sidewalk under our feet apparently going nowhere in particular. He pulled his coat tighter around his lanky frame and I lit a cigarette standing on the corners of the world under that navy sky - dash across street dodging kamikaze taxis and waving away Indians with hands outstretched forever. No word passed both of us - I just followed him.

Under a rusted corrugated awning white florescent light seared my eyes he stopped - pedestrian traffic bumped into us - Alex turned and mumbled, "You wanna coffee?"

Mambo be-bop jazz wailed from the speakers as we sat in the cafe watching the people dash outside. We talked of various subjects from science fiction to the fall of Communism - he was quite literary. Well read - knew of books that I had never had the chance to read. He took a long drag off of his cigarette blew it into the air above his head, "So, tell me of this book of yours - what is it?"

"It's a horror story." I stated flatly.

"Really?"

"No, it's a heart breaking romance."

"Okay."

"Actually, it's a travel book."

"Now, wait a minute --"

"It's a medical report on dealing with schizophrenia and depression."

He smiled, "How many fucking books is it?"

I sipped my coffee, "It's a mess. Like me."

We found ourselves strolling down Revo - the avenue clogged with hipsters in hip hop rags and sad beat whores clomping in plastic their see through pumps and sad brown eyes looking up up up forever to Guadalupe - the Christmas Tree towered above us dwarfed only by the slash of the Millennium Arch.

Somewhere down in Coahuilla the rattle of machine gun fire, screams, a siren wails - typical night. We turn a corner past the fag bar where they spill out onto the pavement screeching and shrilling as only fags can - Alex walks with hands in coat pocket. Me - I am here just for kicks. Down a dark street, lamp post out and furtive shadows lurk in the cracks. Alex cops some weed from ratty old fuck coat dirty - shiny over the dirt - and we retire to Alex's one room flat.

Sagging bed, dresser loaded with folded clothes, a small radio that played fucking ranchero. We sat on the bed - our conversation animated and Alex was a good roller, though - fat he makes 'em. Watched in lustful silence as his thin tongue glided over the paper. We lit up and both fell into laughing jags. Passed a beer battle back and forth, too. I sucked his cock just for kicks.

Slapped cien pesos in his cold hand as we said our goodbyes on the corner. A gray dog covered in soot and mange trotted past and Alex disappeared into the chilly fog laden night - his tall lanky body dematerialized into mist. A pain stabbed my heart as it did every time I saw a guy I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world. I lit a cigarette and hailed a taxi - sitting in the back, yellow lights flashing across my face, I took a deep breathe and thought, My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.

Another night, just for kicks.

High on Blue Tomorrows.

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