Either Way - You Lose.

Poor, frustrated, destitute. I entered the ATM kiosk to withdraw my last ten dollars out of my bank account - bitter in the knowledge that I would still be residing in that horrible hellhole for another month and a half. No one was there. I stared at the screen and something was not right. The icon asked if I wanted to finish my transaction or return my card. I hadn't put my bank card in the slot yet. Someone had left their card in the ATM before me. I hit the button that asked withdrawal amount. I typed in $100. Five $20 bills spat out. I snatched them and shoved them in my pocket. My breath quickened - my mind wheeled - all problems seemed to melt away. I hit the icon that displayed the bank account amount. $74,987. I start pushing buttons and twenties spat out. I withdrew the card and walked briskly out of the ATM into the cold morning air. My breath puffing out in front of me as I strode down the gray sidewalk in that bright morning sun.

Then it hit me. What have I done? This is not me! I can't possibly get away with this! I didn't even look at the card and tossed it into a nearby gutter. I knew I had committed some heinous crime and was to serve some long sentence behind bars - so, before returning the money, I guess I should get my thing in order.

I returned to the mish, packed my bags and confessed to my caseworker what happened and asked if he would hold onto my luggage and laptop while I was locked up. He assured me - no, it was as if you had found the money - you didn't steal it, but, the right thing was to return it. So, he drove me to back to the bank. Dropping me off at the corner, I entered and promptly asked for the bank manager but was led to some assistant.

I explained what happened - the assistant listened, took the money ($900) my personal information, said thank you and I went on my way.

This isn't over - though several people have assured me that I did the right thing by returning the money, that I really did not steal anything - I am sure that this will make it's way back and somehow bite me in the ass. That is okay - I am willing and prepared to accept whatever circumstances that ensues from this stupidity on my behalf...

Ironpots

"You ruined my sobriety, you fat pig!" I yelled and slapped him across the face. It didn't matter, the fucker was so drunk he didn't feel anything and Tralala - laughable, lovable, always salacious Tralala threw up into an old tramps lap.

The alley held that distinct pungent stench of old piss common to all bum hangouts all over the world. I took another swig of Old English and slurred, "The problem with ya fuckin' addicts is ya gotta one track mind."

The Indian - Native American, excuse me, you politically correct fucks - that I just tagged, focused on me with his blurred vision, smiled and rumbled in his baritone voice, "Now, let me learn ya something, white boy - for one, I am not an addict." He started in his distinct Chicago accent. Tralala rose up from her prone position next to the old past out tramp and wobbled across the length of the alley to the opposite side. Gabriel, the Native American, took the bottle from my hand and continued, "I just like the drink. And I must admit - a bit on the heavy side. But, as you probably heard - it is in our peoples genetics." He takes a big gulp - Adam's apple bobbing up and down his scarred and bristled throat.

Gabriel passes the bottle to me - side glances down the way for cops. Tralala squats against the wall, yanks down stained torn panties and discharges runny brown shit onto the cracked pavement. I take a big gulp from the bottle and belch into my fist, "Wattaya mean it's in your genes? Alcoholism ain't genetic. That's absurd!"

Tralala starts rummaging for newspaper to wipe her ass. Gabriel shakes his head, "Yeah it is. After generation upon generation of that shit - it is. And it's all your peoples fault."

I start turning red, "Aw c'mon! That's just fukkin stupid! If you're not going to have a realistic conversation - don't even bother opening your mouth!"

Silence. Well, the sound of Tralala on her hands and knees dry heaving -but, silence between Gabriel and I.

"Want to go hang out at Sante Fe? Get some two dollar pitchers?" Gabriel finally suggested.

"Sure." I sighed.

We left Tralala snuggled up under the fire escape with that filthy old tramp with half a bottle of Old English dreaming dreams of nostalgia.

Ready. Set. GO!

Woke up New Years Day. Pretty much like this. Bathroom was down the hall, so we were puking into a pink plastic waste paper basket. And, instead of a woman - it was some damn obnoxious thirty five year old Mexican drunk I had met stumbling somewhere between the Sante Fe Bar and the Greyhound Station. He was taking a piss and said or slurred that he had a room at the Hotel Merlott. Twenty dollar rat trap around the corner that you reached by way of steel stairs in an alley. Sloppy drunken tussle in bed, afterwards shared smoke under smelly sheets by the flickering hotel marquee light - brought in 2010 downing a gallon of fucking Port with this joker until we both passed out with the howl of steam engine trains rumbling by and frozen hobos screaming in the alley below us.
Happy New Year...

Goodbye, 2009

I'm so sorry...

And So It Goes...

A report from within the mish as it is happening while it is happening which is rare. I have to get it out of my system because I am suffering from a rather severe anxiety attack at the moment.

Saturday night. 6:40pm. Just came out of the lavatory. White tiled floor a swampy muddy mess of soiled toilet tissue and gritty black grime. Toilet handle smeared in light brown feces while I tried to use it to urinate. Large thick deposit floating in water. Nice. Just had dinner. It was slop, anyway. Turkey soup. Ever since Thanksgiving - with the abundance of donated turkeys, it has been turkey everything. The heater does not work in the dorm, so there is a constant chill. My feet and hands have been cold all day. I wonder if the folks that donate all their money to the mission ever realize it is pilfered into the pockets of the staff - never ever used for the good of the shelter. Too bad. This building is rotting to pieces. The lavatory is a constant biological hazard, the showers hardly has hot water, winter is halfway over and there has been no heat, and don’t get me started on the bed bug infestation in which the director Blake Barrow seems to care little about. (It’s been a four year problem and counting!)

The building should really be condemned. Recently, the mission sent out a newsletter and I thought how funny and overly exaggerated it was. They really don’t help anyone here. Sure, they give you a bed from the cold - however, it seems the whole point is not to help you up - as at other shelters - but, to keep you down and in a state of medicated submission.

Around me, men eat, talk, yell, fart, sleep, cough, watch their personal DVD’s, listen to their radio’s, stand around staring at nothing, most just lay in their bunks waiting for time to slip away. Most are worthless, filthy, annoying shits.

Seriously…I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

Circle of Manias.

It was bitterly cold and we stood in a circle under silver clouds passing under a dark navy sky full of stars. Two trains roared on either sides - great monsters of steam and metal - one going to Tucson, the other to San Antone. Our stomachs were warm from the thin potato soup that was just served for chow. Near our shivering forms, huddled in knots, men stood in dirty coats - collars turned up in a vain attempt to thwart the vile wind - smoking, spitting, coughing, talking. All black shadows in the dim lamps of the shelter.

In our group stood Gabriel, a Native American from Chicago with a baritone voice, red skin and the classic schnoz common to his race, Phil from New York, stout, portly, and distinct Bronx accent - Gabriel had given him the moniker 'Phil McKraken', funny if you say it fast - myself, shoulders up to my ears, cigarette hanging from lips, hands in coat, tottering from foot to foot in the dry, cold air, Jose, weaselly little Mexican good with card tricks, always craving attention, and Greg - 20 year old ex-Army heartthrob who at meeting him I do realise I must keep my control. Can't go overboard like William Wiggins.

Gabriel pulls out a small flask of whiskey and passes it around. All accepts except Jose. Burns going down, but warms the stomach. We goof and joke and share stories as the trains continue to rumble.

Off to my right and into the shadows a drunk potbellied hobo screams above the cacophony of passing metal, "So, at lunch this old fucker with a walker asks me ta git him some coffee so's I go and gets him some coffee and he pours the coffee out and says to go and gets me some juice and I tells the old fucker to go fuck himself - what am I his fuckin' waiter?!!" Him and his buddies burst into laughter.

I look around at the huddled masses and these people have nothing and the fact is I have nothing but tonight it is the night before Christmas and we are more or less happy because we have the compadreship of each others company and that is something.

I excuse myself and walk into the day room - silent catatonic figures sit watching television, smells of soiled clothes, unwashed bodies, urine, feces, rotten food assault my nostrils - up the hall into the dorm, den of chatter, radios competing with personal DVD players, coughing, spitting, random farting.

At my bunk, I down my psychotropic medications, don my pyjamas and fall into another night of troubled sleep.

Merry Christmas, Dear Reader -

From the Darkness of Despair

From the Insidiousness of Insanity

Merry Christmas...

Dark Is The Night, Cold Is The Ground

Sitting in the bright ass Texan sun with a hangover trying to patch together the kaleidoscope of images from last night. I squat on a low brick wall in an alley downtown - Camel Wide in one hand, tall boy in the other - the small menudo gurgling in my stomach. Lying nearby, Robert snores in the shade of a saguaro bush. I lean over - bleeech! I stare down at my steaming vomit. Oh yeah, now I remember...

For being good trustees at the mish, Robert and I scored night passes and hit the bars. All dolled up we, we jumped the bus and headed downtown. The first place we hit was Po-Po's - an old joint with the bathroom downstairs where you could smell shit and piss and vomit wafting up through the floor boards from the past fifty years. We got ourselves a booth and ordered two pitchers and scoped out the place. Jukebox wailed country and ranchero, crowded with bikers, cholos, excons, drunks, junkies, b-girls, barflies - all you'd expect from a dive of this sort and I was eating it up.

Robert and I talked and laughed and had two more pitchers each - he was smiling at this fat bitch and I was making eye contact with this Mexican farm worker, all was going great.

I excused myself and took a leak. The bathroom was rancid. A large brown turd floated in the toilet as I pissed and no matter how I closed my eyes and turned away, the smell punched me in the nostrils. Even when I flushed, that disgusting fucker wouldn't go down!

When I got back to our booth, Robert was in some animated confrontation with a scrawny tattooed cholo - there was some shouting, some shoving then whack! The cholo went skidding across the filthy bar floor. He jumped up like a jack rabbit, but a friend held him back.

Robert roared, "C'mon, motherfucker, start some more shit!"

The owner asked us to leave. Out we went, both drunk - one crazily excited and one Mexican behemoth madder'n hell. So, we hit the Tap and relaxed with beer and a game of pool until screwy yet handsome rentboy Stevie shows up. Eating all my nachos and in the john teasing me with his flaccid penis. In the stall see, says I can have my way with him. And I do. Right through mid suck he pulls out and scampers out back to the pool game leaving me leaning aginst tiled wall laughing and frustrated.

After more beer, us three decide to stumble over to bar Sante Fe for more kicks in this no where night. On the corner of Stanton and Mills stood Tralala and her fairies in the dark cold like a brood of vultures. She took a shine to Robert, so I invited her along.

Tralala - how to describe that? If you took Marilyn Monroe and shoved her under a fountain for ten minutes, what came gasping up for air would be Tralala.

With it's sagging asbestos roof, and spotted mildew carpet, and the smell of a thousand beer farts, the Sante Fe at least had good music on the Juke Box. And the clientele just don't give a shit.

We drank and drank and talked and laughed. The alcohol really started taking effect. Talala met this short old man with one arm named Roy that started buying whiskey shots for our table. Robert - that titanic Mexican pig fucker fell out of his chair and was a bitch to pick up again, Tralala was sitting next to Roy cooing and giggling, playing with his hair, Stevie was popping boners at me left and right, going outside smoking my smokes - us sneaking in the toilet stall - standing behind him, jacked him off twice - damn you, Stevie - and us closed down the bar.

We all - and I mean all - pile into Roy's Fiat and spin out to a Waffle House and made a drunken ass scene that upset old Roy and I don't blame him especially when Robert grabbed the waitress' ass, I asked the busboy if he had a big cock and literally goosing him, Stevie stealing shit off the table, and Tralala kept standing up pulling the panties out of her ass, and at one point his penis flips out.

Roy excused himself to the bathroom and never came back. Robert and I did the same. As the sun crept over the frosty El Paso Franklin mountains, we stumbled down Mesa Avenue for breakfast of good menudo hoping Stevie and Tralala had funds to pay that outrageous bill...

Faded Postcard

Went to Juarez yesterday. Old boy had changed. It was like once long ago you had a sexy lover - had a lot of good kicks, you separate and after a few years you meet up again and that person had degenerated into a disgusting obese slob hard on the eyes.

Well, crossed the bridge that spanned the Rio and first thing noticed the bomberos were missing (The old fire station - use to stand and watch the hot firemen play soccer) walked down Juarez Ave. military solders stood four deep AK-47 strapped to the hip on every corner - looked like Nazi occupied France. Not one taxi asked me for a lift, not one vendor called me to enter their shop - it was...weird. The streets were teeming with pedestrians - life was continuing, but, the tension was there - fear was there.

Made my way to Plaza las Armas and sat on the cathedral's steps a good two hours smoking and bombarded by millions and millions of memories. Had a lot of good kicks in this town - but, not anymore. The vibes are gone - it's just not the same. It's all moved on.

Crossed the Plaza, around the corner and sat unbearably alone in the emptiness of Bar Buen Tiempo. Sipping my caguama Sol, I recollected when this place was jumping with rentboys and the men that chased them. Now, I sat alone in the darkened bar with the bored fat waitress picking her nose, staring at the clock.

I finish my beer and cut. I buy my contact lenses and make my way stateside. Standing in the cue at customs, I think, Juarez - how sad. It has truly become like it's sister city El Paso. A dead museum.

Barfly

Woke up at 3am amid farting and snoring of one hundred sleeping hobos. I slipped my feet into my plastic shower shoes and put on my coat and shuffled outside to smoke a non filtered Camel. The sky - the sky was fulla stars! Beautiful! Finished, shivered and came back inside.

I sat in the lobby - suffering from insomnia that I was - and and chatted with Carlos,who was the graveyard reception - a retard, but pleasant.

Speaking of retards, resident wingnut (one of them) named Jackie Young came clopping up to reception. He asked to me in his distinctive country twang, "You know all thar is about that thar Medicare, don'tcha?"

"Yes."

"Yer all smartalleckey about it ain'tcha?"

"Yes."

"Well, I don't want nuthin tadoo bout no Medicare till they cover these particulars..."

He held up four Vienna sausage fingers.

"Okay."

"Ice cream"

"They don't cover that."

"Dr. Pepper."

"They don't cover that."

"Chocolate chip cookies."

"They don't cover that."

"And women!"

"Definitely not them!"

He turns on his heels and walks away as if the conversation never happened. I recalled a few months ago, receiving a notice on how Medicare stopped covering optics and dental. I looked up at Carlos.

"You know, Carlos, I wish I took advantage of Medicare when they still covered eye..." I stumbled on the word.

"Ice cream?" Carlos stated.

I chuckled, "Shut up!"

5:30am eventually rolls around and the mission woke its lazy ass up. I trudge to the filthy mildew crusted shower splattered with phlegm and feces and half ass wash myself the best I can. However, I am feeling it today. The good doctor has put me on some new medication and I am slightly over medicated. Feeling pretty warm and fuzzy. So, I invited an acquaintance of mine for a bowl of menudo downtown.

However, he had other motives, which were fine by me.

The guy's name was Robert - a huge brute that I had known off and on over the years from the mission. He was thirsty and decided to go bar hopping.

After a great bowl of menudo at a restaurant called cafe Mimi's, we hit the bar Rafa's down by the border. A local dive - packed with an assortment of local barfly's, losers, drunks - we fit in. Met some goofy goober named Larry, kept saying I looked liked the comedian Drew Carey. I don't see it.

On the way to the next bar, ran into fucking William Wiggins and family. Saw his newborn son - cute. Got his ears. Joked that I could throw the kid like a football across the Rio Grande, he'd do a loopdeloop and come giggling back. I thought it was funny, William did not.

Next up, bar Sante Fe. I found that if you are in a redneck hillbilly shitkicker bar and right after a string of country ass ranchero songs had just played, you do not - I repeat do not - play Queen's Flash. Did not go over well. And I am talking pool cue waving anger. But, played Santana's Oye Como Va afterwards, so the natives calmed downed.

Speaking of natives, was joined by an Indian named Gabriel and us three got shit faced - pretty much stumbled to every fucking back alley dive in downtown El Paso.

At Popo's - a certain bar of insidious reputation where young toughs con old men out of their pensions - this goddamn cholo got uppity during a game of pool and Robert smacked him across the back of the head with a pool cue. Well, the cops were called and we were asked to leave and actually barred from one of the scummiest dives in El Paso. Fuck it. We stumbled down the darkening streets with much backslapping and hooting and howling, knowing at that moment, we were kings of the world...

All you lookers looking, living vicariously through me. Gaze over to the Paypal button and donate something, ya cheap bahstads...I'm destitute!

Tarantula.

He sat out back with that look of bewildered lost so common to young hobos. That What The Fuck? face. I sat on the bench next to him - wood worn smooth as China plates from the asses of a million tramps offering a cigarette to this lost angel. He refused, don't smoke.

He wore your basic hip hop gear over a well built frame - his torso long and slightly lanky. A masculine jaw with classic movie star looks. But, his hair - that jet black mop atop his asymmetrical head - was styled into some goth quaff that resembled a dead tarantula. I was stunned by his looks, because he was so stunning - that is until he opened his mouth. Poor lad was nuttier than squirrel shit.

But, we hit it off - chatted the afternoon away. Walked the nearby park in the frozen night talking of pleasant things.

He confided how he was shacking up with some old troll and how he loathed said pervert. I nodded at intervals, agreeing, and giving advice of common sense in which the boy lacked. We walked to the convenience store and bought a few beers - returning to the park and guzzling that bounty.

A couple of hobo's sniffed out the booze and invited themselves to drink. Why not - more the merrier, right?

However, after finishing our beers (okay, the beers that I bought) we were asked by the two intruders if we wanted to go party at their camp. I said nah.Tarantula walks off into the night to El Stinko's and Old Squinty's camp under the freeway leaving me under that ominous moon.

Oh well, I thought, no big whoop. I just returned to the mish and lay on my bunk editing poems amid the cacophony of yelping obnoxious transients.

Two hours pass and down the hall there is all this commotion and yelling. Gossip spread that someone was stabbed.

I walked down the hall pass the back entrance, following drops of fresh vivid red blood to the front reception offices. Sitting in a chair was Tarantula - his face split on the right cheek -actually dangling off, exposing teeth and gore - he held his left side, a large red blotch under his white and yellow polo shirt.

"They fuckin' stabbed me!" He kept sobbing - his eyes bloodshot and shrink wrapped in tears.

I stare in cool apathy as moments later EMS and a shit load of cops arrive. Tarantula is whisked away - catatonic, in stupefied shock - as thuggish cops comb area and neighboring tramp camps.

I returned to my bunk and continued my editing...

We Do It Sometimes Because It Is What It Is.

Gasping up from troubling, insidious nightmare. Suffocating in a black steel box. The charred walls of my iron tomb were pitted with pock marks and scratches. Woke with the putrid taste of metal on my tongue. Put me straight into a funk.

I roll out of my bug infested bunk and shuffle bleary eyed to the mensroom. Already full with seven or eight terminally addicted hobos washing, shitting, pissing. The room smelled of farts and soiled socks as I stood in piss at the urinal taking a piss.

Showered, dressed and ate a nameless slop served for breakfast under the glare of the snarling kitchen staff. Even the Victory Coffee tasted especially rancid this morning.

Gulped that down, walked out back into the early morning chill - and holy fuck was it bitingly cold. Amid coughing and hacking tramps - those dark beat Angels of The World - I chatted and smoked my first of many cigarettes of the day. I look down and the cracked asphalt is glistening with phlegm blossoms. Old Mikey smiles and hits me up for a coupla bucks for a Hurricane.

I tell him, "I'm broke, Mikey."

He shuffles off smiling and mumbling stumbling fumbling back to his hole.

I cut this depressing shit and take a stroll downtown. Walking across the ridge of Sunset Heights - rustic urban area of the El Paso snooty - looking out across a panorama of the city - colorless buildings claw a bright blue sky silhouetted from a dazzling white sun.

Our eyes met as we passed. He was thin, long brown hair combed back in greaser style, black wrinkled dusty clothes over a scrawny stooped frame. His big puffy Dallas Cowboys jacket too large for his size. His face was hawk like with copper skin and piercingly intense green eyes.

"Wassup?"

"Wassup?"

Was uttered by both parties, our breathe wafting in the cold and bitter air. He started walking down the hill towards centro. I followed at a distance. He stops and I catch up to him.

He asks in the most dead, toneless voice, "You wanna party?"

Sure. Why not?

I follow him down a dead alley and behind a dumpster - above thick black powerlines buzz and pop - he stands and pulls out his erection. It pulses and bobs as I grab it and it is hard - thick, short, uncircumcised. Two strokes and I look down and notice - and feel - his penis is peppered in white course protruding warts. I yank my hand away.

"You don't want to?" He asks, obviously use to this response.

I turn and walk away leaving that disease carrying hood alone on that hard black ground shivering in the early morning frost. Poor angel - poor, lost, lost angel...

I buy a cheap cup of coffee from Cafe Tejas and sit at The Park in front of the alligator statue. I think and stare at the pigeons and early morning old monsters trolling for borrowed flesh for a couple of hours. I read a discarded newspaper.

Too dull, I say to my self. I hit the Tap Bar and sit sipping a beer with three other losers as Free As A Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd wails from the jukebox.

After four more quick beers with a mescal chaser, I head back to the mission for some rest - but my bunky won't have it. As soon as I doze off, the junky bastard goes into some sort of spastic convulsions and flops around on the floor like short circuited robot. I apathetically console him as an ambulance is called and said scumbag is carted away by a few good men - a couple of the medics were down right sexified!

Then, not twenty minutes later - a pungent smell of pine fills the room. The fucking director of the mission - that goddamn Jesus freak - barges into the dorm wearing a black business suit with red tie and a gas mask. He is holding some kind of 1950's science fiction like insecticide canon and promptly starts gassing the whole fucking dorm for bedbugs. I jump up and careen down the hall - looking back and see an impenetrable fog issuing out of the dorm - the silhouettes of gagging hobos and elderly on walkers attempting escape clutching their throats within the thick cloud of pesticide - and all this right before dinner.

In My Head

I remember having a dream, that in some sense might be considered a nightmare - though they usually coincide with each other and vice versa. I was within this large apartment building - it was dark, very dark - and I made my way to the top by walking on very narrow stairs. Long dark shadows. The hissing of a radiator, the gurgling of old pipes. The further up I went the more stressed I got, since it was all dark and I swore I heard things looming in the shadow. The interior of the building was very shabby and decrepit, with walls scraped for paint, and I had the inexplicable feeling of being chased. Made me think alot about Eraserhead when I woke up.

Abilify Doldrums.

"My knight takes your bishop." He softy utters.

I look into his sparkling blue eyes surrounded by a mane of white hair. His beard extends down to his chest, hair knotted into greasy smelling dreads stuffed into a ratty baseball cap. What face he shows is lined and in the lines are dust. Yet, even though his body is thin and stooped and worn, his eyes glitter with youth and energy.

As I make my move, I take his rook. He stares at the board in serious contemplation. Around us a cacophony of noisy shits, hobos coughing and chattering, the television blares far too loud some tacky ass game show. The smell of the room is old foul linens and halitosis.

He starts to spin, "Now if I move there, you get me here. If I move there, you got that one. You got me if I move there. Damn." The old man strokes his Gandalfian beard.

Suddenly, it is the call for chow. All shuffle into the cafeteria and grab trays of gastronomical atrocities. As I sit sullen at my table, spooning the brown vomit looking stew into my mouth - the taste of pepper and lard - there is a donation of fine steaks and some new clothing. I realize they will never make it to the intended homeless - more often than not, the donations will be embezzled by staff and never seen again.

After dinner, I walk outside for a cigarette - like a brood of brooding vultures, several knots of tramps huddle together in dark overcoats smoking and spitting on the ground. The inane chatter I cannot take this evening - so I walk around the building through the graveyard of derelict cars. I pass silently as two men smoke crack in the front seat of one vehicle and slowly trudge by a darken van that is being used as a mobile whorehouse. I tell you, over the years coming to this mission, it has not gotten better, but progressively worse.

But, I digress.

I retire reading and am bothered by the onslaught of bedbugs. So, following morning I am dog tired. However, I have an appointment with PATH, the local nut ward to see what is what. Seems I am nuttier than squirrel shit.

I don't really feel like writing, plus my space key is sticking on my laptop and that is annoying the fuck outta me - so, really must cut this short.

Somewhat Homosexual.

How many cigarettes does it take to wait? How many cups of coffee? I sit in the dead end diner with napkin firmly under coffee cup - I was told in that style, you can tell when someone is waiting - watching nothing out of the big dust streaked pane window.

Outside, it is cold and colorless. Gritty wind whips eddies of trash down a lonely street. A long cry from the sunny, warm surf crashing against the beach just two weeks ago. Here the sky is a harsh cold blue - though dazzling bright, gives no warmth - only a bitter cold, you can feel it in your marrow.

I sip more coffee, take another drag.

Across the street, a bum the same colorless shade of everything else stands in front of the Roman Deco post office hitting passerby for change. I look around the cafe - a cavernous room and only I occupy it. Every sound is amplified.

This is to much. I pay my bill and wander out into the dead desolate streets. The sun is harsh and bright - in the shadows of a few dead trees,it is frightfully cold - you can't win. Meander over to the library, it opens in an hour - so I sit and I smoke some more.

Same faces - same sad, weary faces from two years ago squat in the brilliant sun with forlorn beat looks waiting also. A group of homeless fag kids squat nearby - smoking and squealing about porn.

At that moment, lumbers up an acquaintance from the mission, Isaac - a tall, lanky red-neck with the gift of gab. Not bad looking in a yuk-yuk hee-haw kinda way. He pulls out a book of poetry and knocks off a few riffs -I am astonished that a couple were quite good.

Out of the blue, he states that I seem somewhat homosexual. I laugh and give him no comment - just blew more smoke up into that piercing blue Texan sky. He goes into a psychotropic medication induced soliloquy about his long circumcised penis and how - in exact detail - he uses it on the women he had conquered, all with a coy look in my direction and the occasional grab at his crotch.

I ain't feeling it. The mood that is. I say goodbye or the equivalent and shuffle the few blocks to the Tap Bar.

It is dank and occupied by a few barflies. A bloated faerie in a Stetson waves at me with squinting bloodshot eyes - swaying on his stool. I ignore the repulsive fat fuck. A few beers later, I sit staring at my ravaged reflexion in the mirror and I wonder what the fuck I'm gonna do. El Paso is a drag. My gut is telling me Juarez is far too dangerous. I can't leave the country to far or to long or I'll loose my benefits. This fat old hobo - Carl from the mission, who has the most disgusting gun shot wound on his bulbous nose from some conflict south of the border - has been talking of Acuna, MX on the border of Texas south of here,about how quiet and peaceful it is - that is another option. And the saddest part still is Puerto Rico is an enigma. I can't seem to find a website with local rent prices - only with bloated overpriced gringo prices.

I need to wait. I sip my beer - order a shot of whiskey,down it and as the warm rush affects this cold corpse,I realize I must wait and see where the cards lay...

And Mikey Smiles.

It's biting cold as cold as it can be in the high desert this time of year. 6am and I am shivering in my black Dickies coat back from the convenience store with a cup of warm coffee. Walking along the train tracks as the sun raises it's lazy ass over the horizon bathing all and sundry in a gleaming yellow glow - I step off the tracks as a train blasting it's horn deafening towards heaven rumbles pass. I stand and watch, sucking on a cig and sipping my cinnamon flavored java.

Car after car clickclacked by, with hundreds of black military tanks harnessed to the beds. I stand among frosted shrubs and crushed beer cans and used crack pipes all covered in a fine layer of black soot, thinking This war must be going worse than the news had previously reported. Row after row of shiny black metal machines of pointless sad war.

After the train passed, I crossed the track - hearing my name called - faintly, weakly. I turn and see a scrawny shape shuffling up the dust towards me. Shriveled with skin looking like dried wood, a string of snot dangling from red ravaged hooked nose, it was an old hobo acquaintance name Mikey. He was recently cast out of the mission for some reason and now - at the age of 58 - lives in a freezing storm drain nearby.

"Hey, buddy" He wheezed, barely audible. His face wrinkled into a ruddy smile. "Where ya goin'?"

"Just back to the mish, Mikey. What's up?"

"Was wonderin' if you can spot me two dollars to get a couple of forties. Gotta keep warm." He timidly said, quivering.

I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out two crumpled notes, said jokingly,"A little early, ain't it? Guess it's happy hour in France?" I placed the bills into calloused wiry hands.

He said thanks or something like that, smiled and shot off to the convenience store. I walked with head low and striding gait back to the shelter.

Opening the side door to the lounging room, the warm air was thick with the stench of urine and fungus smelling feet. On rickety wooden chairs sat several spectral men, wrapped in soiled black garb from the previous nights cold - looked like giant black larvae, staring at me as I strode by. They sat there silent and furtive - bloodshot eyes following.

Entering the men's dorm, I sit on my bunk- sheet spotted with dried blood from the nightly assault of bedbugs - and drink my coffee. Around me the snoring of men too lazy to get up and face what the world will hurl at them - others joke and yell and laugh - others dart back and forth to the mensroom to shower, wash up, shit, piss.

Pretty much laid around- read or should I say re-read, my copy of Kerouac's Desolation Angels. Sinking deeper into depressed madness at the stasis of my situation. Why, I thought, is it wrong at what I do? I don't harm anyone - I just can't stay in one place so long. And old Thomas Wolfe was right - It is not enough to simply exist, a man needs to live. And there is a whole world out there that I want to know and see and touch.

Slept, smoke, talked with several tramps on not much matters of the world - all depressed patter, anyways. False dreams and faded nostalgia. Dinner was a gastronomical mess. And, I almost got into an argument with a religious zealot woman that stays over in the women's section.

Table next to me she says to equally obese hag, "You really should say grace before you eat."

They both glance at me for righteous approval. I stare down at the foul smelling slop on the tray and yell out in disgust, "JESUS CHRIST!"

"Don't say thuh lourds name in vain!" The pinch faced sea cow retorts.

I just eat in peace - fuck her, I said grace.

Outside, the day had burned away and it was cold, again. After dinner, I strolled around the mission past mongrel cats and rotting Pontiacs and derilict Fords. The stars splashed and twinkled amid the dark navy sky, the Interstate 10 breathed and moaned. Across the street, determined Border Patrol flashed and beamed searchlights in a vacant, crumbling warehouse for even more determined imigrants in a vain attempt to catch their prey.

All was still on this chilly night.

"Hey, Buddy."

I turn to see a withered hee-haw scarecrow figure silhouetted in the darkness. It is Mikey.

"Hey, Mikey." I chirp, handing him a cigarette. "What's up?"

He shifts from one ratty sneaker to the other, boney hands in tattered jean pockets. "I was wonderin' if you could spot me two more for the night - it's gonna be mighty cold."

"Sure, Mikey." I fished a five from my wallet and placed it into shivering calloused wiry hands. "Don't spend it all at once."

He folded the bill, slipped it in his jacket. "You a good man, Louie, a good man." And shuffled back into his night of madness.

I turned back and stared at the yellow lights of Juarez across the freeway and I smoked and I thought...and I thought some more...

Same-o, Same-o

It seems that fate is once again fuckin' with me - mettlesome bitch! I have been offered to rent - at $100 less than last time - this house in Juarez that I occupied a few years ago. I guess the war against the cartels and police have scared away all the expat scumbag losers dwelling in that mad, beat desert metropolis.

The gossip and hushed whispers about the city across the border is bleak and bloody to say the least. Two nights ago as I trudged back to the mish after squatting in a park downing a Hurricane with two hobo cohorts Red and Dumpster Dave, I heard the ratatat of machine gun fire echoing in the slums just past the 10 Freeway and Rio Grande. The mission and it's road run parallel to these - you could spit west at Juarez from El Paso and hit it.

It doesn't faze me, of course. Last night, news reported that there were no less than 17 deaths related to this skirmish last week, if you ask me - which you haven't, but I'm telling ya anyways, you jerk - the battling warlords are slacking in their death quotas.

So, I guess the planned trip to New Orleans and Puerto Rico is gonna be put on hold. I am looking forward to spending the winter - though it gets nut shattering cold here - finishing the novel I started, writing my next (Fried Chittlins) and putting that book of poetry out. So, I'm going to be a busy little beaver, I reckon.

So, I am waiting. And wait I will...

Clem and Gino.

Wind blew fierce and cold - little eddies of dust swirled in the ever so bright Texas sun. I stood outside the mission's perimeter - smoking and pacing and smoking and pacing. Wandering what's next - what's the score - staring down at the broken gravel littered with shattered bottles and crack pipes.

It was a bitter afternoon - the hobo exodus from lunch had dispersed and the time of day was lonely and silent under that big brilliant blue sky. The shanties of Juarez were to my right and the rusted and crumbling warehouses were to my left.

They walked out from around a corner from a massive broken wall next to the train tracks, sprouting from withered shrubs and garbage - huddled in dusty, dirty jackets, worn jeans, and torn sneakers. One was skinny of average height, blond with Aryan features. His blue eyes sparkled. The other was a slightly husky Mexican, with a shock of fine black hair cascading over his forehead covering thick straight eyebrows. Handsome with a boyish face. Both appeared to be in their mid-twenties.

"Hey,man - gotta smoke?" The blond one smiled.

Here it goes, I thought.

I handed him a cigarette and he lit it with dirty fingers. The Mexican asked for one, too.

"You stay here?" The blond asked, nodding towards the mission. I said yes and he followed up with,"Can't stand it, dude - the place is infested with bedbugs."

I agreed or something like that. The blond, Clem, he says, invited me to smoke some weed with him and his friend - Gino, is how he introduced himself.

"Sure." I smiled. "But, first - let's go up to the Circle K and get some beer."

"You got money?" Gino grinned.

"Yeah...more than I need."

After purchasing a case of Steel Reserve (That shit will fuck you up!) I followed the two down to their camp underneath the Interstate 10. Hidden under a massive concrete pylon, it was just a tent -small, smelled of old clothes and open beer bottles.

We three entered and sat across from each other on ratty sleeping bags. They explained as we drank that they were on their way up north to Oregon and just passing through. Gino sat quietly, mostly, rolling huge fat Cuban cigars of joints. They made sure I was compensated for me buying the beer.

The sun swerved in the sky as we drank and laughed and smoked weed - all three of us red eyed and goofy. I commented that it was some mighty fine weed.

"Hey." Gino slurred. "Do you know that bar Chiquita's? If you buy a beer they have a buffet. We can go get something to eat there."

"Isn't that bar a gay bar?" I asked, testing the waters with these two.

Clem grinned, "Yeah - but straight people go there too, ya know. Dudes are always buying us beer."

"Yeah, I said, "Them fags will do anything to get into your pants."

They laughed it boyishly off, shaking their heads no.

"Gino's gotta big dick, he's our money maker." Clem joked.

"Fuck you, man." Gino retorted, throwing a bottle cap at him.

"Ha! I pimp that bitch out!"

The two started wrestling each other. Clem pinned Gino down and started dry humping him from behind.

I laughed,"Now, boys - don't start anything you can't finish."

They slid off of each other, swigged more beer and I passed them the joint I was holding.

"Nah," Said Clem. "It's all cool. We got plenty of gay friends - it ain't no big deal."

I pondered and decided to drop the bomb."Well" Took a gulp of beer. "I don't want to alarm any of you boys but, I am somewhat queer, myself."

"Really?" They both said.

Jokingly, Clem slithers his scrawny frame up to me and slurs,"Wanna sucky my wiener?"

I rolled my eyes, "Whatever." But I saw that long lump in his faded jeans. "Okay - take it out."

With a little giggling, Clem leans back and unzips his pants brandishes a long circumcised erection. "Well." He nods down to it with glazed, red eyes - just faintly blue. "There it is."

Lean over and start sucking in long strokes, placing my hand on his white flat stomach, feeling the trail of soft hairs. I am laying on my stomach, sucking this cock, when I feel my pants being yanked down. I look over and Gino is kneeling behind me wearing only his shirt and coat - he had flung his pants off to the side. I continue to suck and lick as Gino spits into his hand and greases up his short fat uncut cock. Hissing through teeth, he slides it in and begins banging fast and hard.

"Damn!" I grunt. "This fucking boy is horny!"

Clem pushes my head back down onto his cock while whispering, "Suck it. Yeah - just like that - suck it."

Not five minutes pass, and Gino is lunging and thrusting furiously - I am seeing stars - and the big boy squirts a good load up into me. As he slides off, I deep throat Clem, working with my tongue and his cock stiffens - I feel the hot spurts gush across my tongue.

Fumbling and without words, we three dress and drink the rest of our beer,passing the roach around.

I break the uncomfortable silence, "Another episode like that and I'll be ready for the old folks home."

We laugh.

I say, "Look, it's getting late and I need a shower." They agree jokingly as I rub my ass. Unzipping the tent, I say before I leave,"Maybe I'll see you boys for breakfast?"

"Fer sure." They say. Then they both hit me up for some cash. I pull two twenties from my wallet and hand it to them. "Here ya go. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

I walk out into the night - the silence of the big moon and sea of stars is destroyed by the blast of the passing freight train rumbling. I stumble back past the foreboding dark warehouses, downing gulps of beer. I turn the corner and see the yellow lights of the mission - hear the sighing of the freeway - I light a cigarette. I stand and wonder what I truly am going to do. Scrunching the butt into the sand with the toe of my shoe, I sigh and walk back to that foul smelling madness...

There Really Is None...

Night filled with anxiety and fear like out of shadowy Kafka novel - that wacky bitch ain't got shit on my mental state. Whisperings down deep in the dark, phantasmagorical silhouettes out of eyes reach - and that train blasts by every fifteen minutes with a roaring like a steel Titan onto distant remote horizons.

Pull myself up at the crack of fucking dawn to the inane chatter and squeals of one hundred hobos - the stench alone is enough to make an coroner puke. Shuffle to the bathroom that had deteriorated over years into a biohazard and shower in tepid water under the darting eyes of the local pervert.

Eat breakfast. Oatmeal. Warm mug of Victory Coffee. Burps and farts and slurps around me from diseased rotted mouths. I sink deeper down, wishing I was anywhere else. The cobbler was good, though.

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait for a caseworker - or whatever his position is - from PATH, the rival to the nuthouse that I used to attend. Just past lunch, the agent makes his grend entrance and after flexing he gives me a lowdown that not only can I recall; but much less care about. Something along the lines during my last whirl with them, I didn't keep my appointments with the shrink and other two year old discrepancies. All the while I am thinking, 'Well, gee -if that is part of my mental sickness, shouldn't there be a concern instead of reprimanding me like a kid caught skipping school?' These fools just don't get it. They hear me - they just don't listen.

After that, (Oh gee wilickers, I hope the caseworker's manager accepts my case so I can praise and adore them for saving me!!) ran into an old acquaintance of mine by the name of Mike McCabe -still hot as shit and still hooked on coke. But, I guess you can't have it all. We chatted a bit - he talked of his wife and fucked up junky life, (We skirted around the sexual tryst a few years back) afterwards he bid adios and got up and git.

So. What to do? I have three major choices and at this writing I cannot decide, so I will let time judge for me. One: At the first of the month, I can continue on my trek to Puerto Rico and whoop it up there. Fear is, I will be going in blind. Can't find a decent online site describing apartment prices. Two: Stay in El Paso; (Ugh. You can not comprehend the society here - slack jawed, arrogant, morons that hate anything they can't understand. Typical backwater mentality.) receive and continue my mental treatment and in a few years, be a fat hipped sedated old queer tending his garden outback of his small yet comfortable apartment, attending small social parties with other bitter old failures, or Three: I could just die. I mean, really, what is the point of all this? I have bleated on and on how nothing not only interests me and generally I find loathing and fear in all things I come in contact with. Death really does sound yummy.

I don't know - I really don't. So, I will wait and see the outcome - if it outcome. However, my main concern is - why are we always so programed to be cautious, to play it safe? I have no family, no siblings, no children, no wife - why is everyone always telling me to settle down, become stable? Why? From my point of view is "What's the point?" There really is none...

Huh?

And so, the story so far...

Checked outta that ratty hotel and shuffled down to the spanking, brand new bus terminal that the taxes of this backwards ass town forked out - never saw so many slack-jawed sullen citizens, never saw so many flat asses and pot bellies (Two years prior, El Paso was voted the fattest city in Texas - now, there's an award!). Took the chugging bus over that hill and walked from the stop down that Walk of Shame to the El Paso Rescue Mission. Once again. Sigh.

Still there, still sad , that beat, squat puke colored dilapidated structure frying in the oh so bright desert sun. In the back, still the rugged, frazzled assortment of bearded gaggle of transients common to this region. Drunks, junkies, insane screaming up into that brilliant blue sky so vast it knocks you on your ass.

Sat smoking and was confronted by handsome teen beat looking blond boy until he opened his mouth and issued forth a stream of crazed unintelligible gibberish. His wires have been pulled, that brain has been short circuited beyond repair.

Ate the slop during chow and chatted with fellow hobo's and a couple of known faces from that fallen past. Around eight that evening, issued ratty blanket, pillow, and sheet and spent the night on the chapel floor swatting bed bugs and mosquitoes amid farting and snoring of about six stainky assed bums. Didn't sleep.

Next morning, interviewed in process by old caseworker friend Diego - knew him since whenever, ya know - and from tattered nerves I bust out in fatigued tears confessing and admitting I am truly fucked up in the mental department. In hushed tones that one speaks in when talking with the insane, Diego said he would contact the local nut house and I would receive any assistance I required. (The previous night, for some stupid reason, I contacted that asshole father of mine - assistance denied and decided that evil, bitter old monster is dead to me. Really, no need for him any longer from now on out)

So, wasted the afternoon walking around Nacotown and I swear,if I receive a 'Huh?' as the answer to any more simple questions I pop at the population here, I'll spit bile.

Example: Standing outside the mission, a Ford truck pulls up and a snaggle-toothed yet pleasant woman notified me that she had wanted to donate some food and clothing. I march into the building and say to the burnt simpleton hag working the reception, "Excuse me, there is a person here that would like to deliver donations."

"Huh?" She hissed, eyes unfocused.

Thinking quick, I replied, "Thar be a donation out front yonder."

"Oh!" She perked up, reaching for a mike attached to the mission's PA system. "Let me call for volunteers to help unloading that."

You see, in my travels it is necessary to know how to speak with the natives in their regional dialect.

This stupidity continued seven other times throughout the day in different locations through out downtown. Seriously, there are some dumb fucks here.

Ran into my old friend Bubba - a notorious black queen, he was accompanied by a rentboy, they both there for dinner - and I gave him a signed copy of my book, since he is in it.

That evening, I was assigned a bunk in the dorm - quite comfortable - and slept from seven that evening until the mandatory wake up at 5:30am the following morning.

Yeah, I guess I can mope around until the third of next month until I head off to New Orleans or just settle for a while in an apartment here in El Paso. I just hope my patience can hold out with these locals...

Hobo's Lament

Forgot how utterly dead downtown El Paso truly is. Spent the mild day literally doing nothing - sitting in Plaza San Jocinto staring at the huge porcelain statues of the alligators. Thinking thinking thinking smoking smoking smoking...

Returned to my hotel room and edited a small book of poetry that I have been working on. The working title for the tome is Class Conscious Poetry but may change to A Mad Hobo's Lament. What you think?

Shuffled over to the library to see what was up and ran into an old friend named Joe. Crazy mad slothful brute like a big Baby Huey in torn, dirty blue jeans. Stood trying to get a decent conversation out of this insane blob - but, it was futile. However, through him met little twink Blondie named Ray just dropped in from Illinois and lost in this mad world of hate and torment. And so it goes.

Related my illogical plight to this doe eyed youth that I plan to reside at that tried and true hobo hotel for a month or so to sort my deranged scattered thoughts a bit. The place in reference being The El Paso Rescue Mission. Of course...

Anyhoo, kiddo was flat on his ass broke, starving, mad, desperate, alone in the dusty desert streets and after treating him to dinner at Burger King, I escorted said waif to bus route 10 and paid the dollar for him to get to the Mish. Stating that I would see him manana, being I paid two nights at my hotel.

Pleased with my good dead, I returned to my hotel beat from pure boredom and fell asleep on that foul squeaky bed at 6 that evening. I woke at 9 - thirsty, parched, dry - showered, dressed and hit the corner bar for some booze.

The Tap Bar is an El Paso institution - been hanging around since 1956, understand, and that rickity old hag ain't going no where. Sat sipping my cold beer with about six others in the bar. On the far end four fags in Dallas Cowboy jerseys whooped and hollered as the game roared on TV. The inevitable stumbling drunk - Rene was his name, cause the shrewish bar whench shrieked out his name at glass rattling intervals. The chubby cook - a smiling pleasant bespectacled cutey in his own right - made coy conversation with me and that made the time whirl by. Jose he says his name was.

Until the hippies showed up.

About ten young scraggly hippies on bicycles pull up in front of the bar - debark with much noise and back slapping. I talk with these scrawny fuzzies out front smoking weed (They offered - real friendly folks, these) and that made the beer much yummier. Sat with them and discussed the art scene in El Paso, writing, art in general. Jose kept smiling and batting his eyes at me...hmmmm...

A few hours pass, and me and my gaggle of hip hippie kids were well lit, I tells ya. But, being El Paso, they had to leave early for tomorrows school, work, loafing and we bid our good nights. i waited a beer and chatted with flirty Jose before stumbling drunk back up to my room to ready for the weirdness of the mission the next day...

Chuco Town Bound

Woke up at the crack of dawn to catch that El Paso bus. Checked out of the hotel and hailed a cab to the station only to find that it was closed! Closed? Under the impression that greyhound was open 24/7 - shows ya how much I know. So, sat flat on my ass for three hours. (I had missed my 8:15 departure.)

Talk with a pleasant lady traveling The Great Southwest from New Zealand. We both agreed that Lonely Planet is full of shit on account of them stating that San Diego has a mysterious underground network of tunnels underneath the city. If it exist, I would know, right?

11:15 rolls around and the long arduous trip to El Paso - had taken this trip so many times. Flat arid desert passed under a hazy sky speckled with clouds. Rusted rancheros and gas stations housing bloated middle Americans and shifty eyed locals. And the passengers I was with? A busload of lunatics! Mad, crazed people - small Asian lady that scowled at all she surveyed, mumbling obscenities under her breathe, a white woman grinning maniacally at all who met her gaze, and the young, skinny black guy that had a pink sweater wrapped around his head like a turban with only one eye visible. he'd sit in his seat next to his appalled constituent (shivering little old Mexican lady) On occasion he would go into spastic gesticulations all ending with the pantomime of holding a pistol and firing gangster style.

I shared a seat with a hillbilly we picked up in Wilcox, AZ - a habitual tweeker, he even went as far as showing me a mouthful of his black rotted teeth at a stop at McDonalds.

Slept, snapped pictures of passing scenery and eventually rolled into Pachuco Town. I could already feel the life being sucked out of me from the lowbrow arrogant inhabitants. I vowed never to return to this sordid burg, but here I am.

Departed at the station, grabbed my gear and checked into The gateway Hotel (Where else?).

Found a cafe that was still open (Downtown usually shuts down at 7 every night) yet, as I sit here typing this out, there is an impromptu poetry slam going on...and it is quite good...

Dead Wind Blows.

Though middle of the afternoon, the dank little hotel room was dark and smelled of smoke from a thousand hobos. I lay in my bed - head foggy from such a dreadful trip - wondered about what the hell I was exactly doing. I formulated a plan to stay at Primavera Men's shelter and save a few checks, mingle with the local transients, write about it. Yet, when I called, I was told that I needed a bonefied TB test before entry. Well, it's Friday - I am not going to waste my time trying to find some damn clinic and then muddle about the weekend blowing money without the insurance that I could get a bunk there come Monday. So, I just bought a ticket to El Paso and I leave tomorrow.
Hopped a bus to downtown Tucson. It has changed so much. It seemed a city wide ordinance of anti-homelessness is in effect. I sat around in front of the library and watched what little people dashed by. But, feeling them bum kicks cause I know no one here. Ate at a diner I liked called The Grill - walls splashed with 50's ketch served by nice tattooed girl. Probably lesbian.
I strolled over and had a beer at the Iguana Bar. Snaggle-toothed Vietnam vet looking oldster served me a frosty Carona as I sat sizing up the joint. A sprinkle of hustlers, hoods, thieves, junkies - some things never change. Tear In My Beer warbled over the speaker.
Struck up a conversation with a native American - he of the Tohono O'odha m. Scrawny twenty-something in faded well worn jeans, and black t-shirt with straight stringy hair. Face copper with long hooked nose.Not a bad looker - but decided to play it cool. Can't fag out just yet, heap big trouble for white man.

So, several beers later we are walking along dusty train tracks behind dead warehouses and graffitied wooden fences. Seems my new friend, Horace he tells me, is on the lookout to cop some weed. In front of a crumbling liquor store with 1930's sign rusting in the sun, Horace scores for a dimebag from a black kid and we march over more tracks to find a spot to smoke that shit, right?

Next to a sewage outlet under a squat shady tree hidden from the street, we sit on discarted milk crates and light up. And Horace rolls 'em fat. Puffpuffpuff - hitting silly laughing jags and talking of old Heavy Metal bands and how Tijuana (me.) has become a war zone.

Up comes gorilla looking cholo outta no where in baggy football jersey, shorts meeting sox at the knees, skin head type and plops next to us. Horace knows this mooch and introduces him as Vato.

Vato produces a fifth of cheap whiskey from the hidden recesses of his person. We all smoke laugh talk. Unfortunately, Horace can't hang and starts puking chunky stew onto the yellow dead grass. Heaving and coughing. Vato and I laughed reassuringly which just seemed to piss Horace off more. Acting like a little bitch, the Indian stomped off - okay, staggered off - leaving Vato and me alone as that sun set in fiery purple like only a desert sunset can.

Vato took a swig from his bottle, passing it to me. "Hey, white boy - I got some coke. You like to party?"

I was tore up - swerving stooped over staring at the black dirt, "I don't think you party like I party, Vato."

He smiled, his thick lips showing white row of teeth, "Why you say that? How you party?"

And there in front of God and a damn chipmonk I spat, "I wanna do a line of coke offa yer dick."

"Whoa! Dammit!" He hollered leaning back, fist up to mouth. "No you didn't just say that."

"I told you - you don't party like I do. So, don't ask again." I slurred.

Vato got up and walked off down the tracks. He motioned curtly with his head, saying over his shoulder, "C'mon. Let's go, white boy - c'mon."

With a grunt, I stood swayed and followed. We walked a bit to a large red brick warehouse and he huddled into an alcove with shut steel shutter doors rusted from years on nonuse. I stood in front of him, leaning against the red brick.

"My bitch never wants to do shit like that, so now's your chance." He said pulling out a small bag of white powder.

"My chance?" I asked.

"Yeah. But, let me get it hard first." He casually reached down into his jean shorts and started playing in his nether regions.

Long moments pass. "Need help?" I quip, feigning my impatience.

"Nah." Vato breathed. "I got it."

He pulls out his very short but thick penis. I glance down at it in disappointment. Ah, what the hell. Kneel in front, pull the foreskin back (Bitter taste of sweat) and after a few rhythmic movements, he pushes my head back, grabs his erection and spurts globs of semen onto the oil saturated gravel.

"Sorry." He says meekly.

"I didn't get to use the coke."

"Dude, I wasn't gonna waste my coke on that shit." He stated placing his dick back in his shorts.

I quip, "You woulda last longer."

"Hey now..." He says then starts walking towards the main street.

When we both reach the Ronstadt bus station Vato hits me up for twenty bills and I decline. It wasn't worth it, was my reason. We separate with nary a handshake and I return to my hotel to rest for the long ride to El Paso...

There Never is Really a Way Out.

Woke up with a gasping start from nightmares of suffocating in a metal box - taste of metal clung to my tongue. I lay in my comfortable bed, staring at the white ceiling in my comfortable room. The screams inside like the Bronx Cheer and Control really taking control.

Like a catatonic zombie, I shower, dress, then pack a small bag of possessions and head out the door. Not even saying goodbye to my roommates - the evil perverts.

Bumpy, dusty bus to the border teeming with sweaty and desperate hopefuls - I pass without hesitation from the cancerous INS and walk through.

I found myself standing outside a Mexican bus-line station, stateside. The red train that took you to San Diego idled nearby - waiting to deliver me to the station across the street from the Greyhound in downtown SD. I decided not to travel that route - anybody that has gone by Greyhound knows the age old story of the long, grueling routes stopping at every little shithole town and usually taking twice the time than with the Mexican bus lines that are a straight shot nonstop. And, more often than not, the Mexican lines are usually cheaper and a hell of a lot cleaner.
The Tres Estrellas Bus Line was just across the border in San Ysidro - I stood smoking smoking smoking - watching with apathy the somnolent, exasperated throng exit the monstrous Customs Building with the relieved look of just escaping the mouth of Moloch.

On the dusty sidewalk next to me squat my black duffel bag overstuffed with clothes, notebooks, and other personal items that I just couldn’t live without.
A few feet away, the massive silver and mauve bus lay idling. The other passengers - all Mexican citizens - stood silent and pensive just like me. Mostly stooped elderly - the old men wearing tattered yellow Stetsons and faraway looks holding cardboard boxes tied with nylon string. I mulled over what they were thinking about.

Then it dawned on me what I should have been thinking about and the thoughts were this - I had just wasted a year of my life in a numbing existence of relatively comfort of normality. And my mind screamed, "How can people live like that? Doing the same thing day in and day out - year after year. The same friends, the same conversations - polite patter over warm cappuccinos on a frosty morning by the sea - How can people go on?" Without hesitation I had forced myself out of that early death - Change is Life. Chaos is Change. Live to experience and not to just exist. I had made the decision to turn this stale life up a notch. Plan? Eh? A couple of weeks in Tucson, a few in El Paso, maybe San Antonio via Laredo then onward to New Orleans to finish and settle for a bit in La Perla, Puerto Rico. No time limit - just travel and write. Sounded good to me.
At the bus station, I took another long drag from my cigarette. Glanced at my watch - the bus was running twenty minutes late. I struck up a conversation with an elderly mother in yellow granny dress with red wicker purse waiting silently next to me, “I hope this bus gets going.”
Her face wrinkled into a smile - skin the color of a rumpled paper bag - and nodded, looking out into nothing.
In her tinkling voice she said, “You will get to where you are going, joven. Not only that, you will come back and then go someplace else.”
The words of a Guardian Angel.
The fat, mustachioed steward poked his head out of the reception window and announced in Spanish that it was time to board and with ten other passengers, we were herded onto the bus. Taking my seat in the middle - as I always do, right side - pleased in the fact that the bus was not packed and that all the passengers, including myself, had a seat to themselves. I stowed my overhead luggage and hunkered down to the long, unknown future.
With a blasting fart of black soot and whining of gears, the bus shuttered and slowly rolled its way through congested street traffic to the on ramp of the 5 freeway north.
Out my tinted window, the spires of San Diego faded - up along monstrous concrete ribbons of freeway viewed through a bug splattered windshield. Twice checked by Border Patrol - determined immigrant caught in the lavatory and escorted out in biting cuffs - the terrain eventually changed from green brush to arid desert. We passed old, rotted gas stations, frames of crumbling buildings sprouting brush. Motel Westward - R.V. Park - concrete dinosaur - brief stop at roadside convenience store where sexy, shirtless boys skateboarded on a black top parking lot - mountainous formations of purple and blues so majestic it was almost tear inducing - row upon row upon row of lifeless, colorless tract houses that destroy all individuality. Vast vistas of biscuit colored buttes and coffee tainted mountains - all under a panorama of sky a harsh, bright baby blue.
Continuing through one no-where town after another - almost completely void of human life - we stopped at a café diner on a long stretch of solitary highway out past Yuma for a meal break.
The over excited bus driver, a potbellied Mexican Indian with a smooth red face, related, “You like the food at this place, guero. Best hamburgers in the world.”
Because, we all know how much us Americans love our hamburgers, right?
The weary passengers filed out of the bus into the waiting lonely café - a squat, dusty, yellow building with faded red retro swoop awnings rusting in that unrelentless sun under one dark, gnarled walnut tree. As the passengers sat quietly slurping and chomping on their messes of food, I ate alone a hamburger with fries and a coke. I had to admit, it was a damn good burger.
Back on the bus and chugged onward, passing isolated rotting farmhouses locked in an ocean of dirt. Flickering on the tiny television monitors spaced throughout the bus above the passengers at intervals was the Spanish dubbed Troll 3 - and it was an eyesore, by God.
The sun, a golden ball of flame inching down that lonely path behind a craggy mountainous western horizon. I sat watching the serene scenery, with nothing but the soft rumble of the bus and the humming or the air-conditioning to soothe me.
A fellow passenger on the opposite isle started asking questions out of pure boredom, I guess.
A sickly, thin young man with intense eyes. Stringy brown hair fell over his forehead. He was dressed in blue jeans, blue jean jacket, and white shirt - all emitting a whiff of musty sweat.
“So, where ya headed?” He croaked.
“Vegas.” I lied. “I’ve never been there. Wanna see what it’s like.”
When I mentioned that I had never been to Vegas before, his eyes lit up with sheer con glee.
“Oh really?” He breathed. “Well, look, I gotta deal for ya.”
He lept in the chair next to me. “When we reach Vegas - I know this casino where the poker is damn good. You ever play poker? No? Shit…you’re lucky to find me, man. I got a system. Can beat all them odds, I tell ya. How much money ya got? No matter - I tell ya what, spot me forty and I guarantee - guarantee - that you will come out with four hundred, take. Whataya say, huh? Ya in?”
I sat and shook my head and agreed at intervals - biding my time to ditch this fucker as soon as the bus turned into the Phoenix station.
“Why don’t you use your own money?” I smiled. I saw this fucker as the fake he was.
“Fuck - I ain’t got shit, right now.” He spat. “But, seriously - you spot me that cash and I can make us both some easy bread.”
When I finally stated firmly that not only am I not a gambler but have no intention in helping him - no matter how the stakes were in my favor - he looked like a wounded animal and slithered back to his seat, not saying a word to me the duration of the trip.

Changed buses in Phoenix and that was a three hour bore, I tell you. Sullen pinch-faced people sitting around, smoking cigarettes they didn't want to smoke, watching TV programs that made no sense.

Entered the bus to Tucson and two hours later hit that town that had eluded me for a few years. It was late and it was hot - cicadas buzzing in the Socorro bushes, gnats swarming flickering lights.
Grabbing my luggage, I entered the small station. I had to find a room for the night. Any traveler will tell you that almost every Greyhound in this country has a kiosk located inside displaying a list of the cheapest hotels available. This one was no exception.
I found the display board and to my luck an inexpensive Best Western within my budget. I picked up the receiver and entered the code.
A sassy female voice answered, “Best Western Motel, can I help ya?”
“Yeah - hi. I’m at the Greyhound and just arrived. You have any rooms?”
“Sure, shug - if ya walk out the entrance and look to yer right, you’ll see the hotel right there. And be sure to bring your bus ticket for a twenty percent discount, ‘K?”
I crossed the busy intersection and entered the hotel. The cigarette smoking receptionist was pleasant and asked polite questions. A thin, flat breasted old girl with the classic brown bun on her head. Perhaps a former showgirl on the skids? I started filling out the registration cards. I retired to my comfortable room, popped open the fifth of Jack I had purchased and sat down to bang this shit out.

You See What You Get

The chill of the night shivered this already frozen form. Around me an assortment of Tijuana fags cooed and guffawed and made shrill comments to each other. More to the rentboys that prowled the center than to each other. Transvestites clopped back and forth and groped whatever drunken macho that had the unfortunate luck to pass within range.

The rockola - jukebox, ya goddamn gringo! - banged out ranchero mixed with Mexican Top 40. The waft of beer, piss, and puke issued outta the water closet from the use of a million fairies.

I grabbed my warming beer took a swig followed by a puff on my smoke. Stood propped against the old wooden bar pulling a James Dean routine watching the smokey debauchery swirl around me.

"Hey." I heard him hiss in a thick accent. "Hey, guero - you like beeg one?"

I swerved my stare in the direction of the accusation and saw a scrawny rentboy stooped over in baggy, dirty clothes. His squinting eyes fading in and out of focus.

He sided up next to me sliding his hand across my back. "One beer for me?" He asked, holding up his finger as if I didn't understand.

I sighed and made a swooping gesture with my hand, "There are about thirty other desperate motherfuckers here that would buy you one, man - why bother me with your alcoholic problems?"

"Aw c'mon, guero...just one." He slurred, putting on the little hurt boy act.

"Beat it." I growled, turning towards the bar, seeing his reflection glare for a moment, then shuffle off to find more sympathising prey.

Daniel - the bartender, young hotshot, knew him for years, you understand - started up and we went into detailed conversation over a list of new movies that were out in the cinemas.

"Hands down, ya gotta see Bastardos Sin Gloria." I croaked.

Someone grabbed my ass, I turn to see it is Diego and some friend. He says hola, I says Howdy and several beers are fivorlessly downed. Diego introduces his friend as Rudy and he is grrjuss as all get out.

And get out we do. Us three cut from the bar and march through Cohuilla down past doe-eyed preteen looking hookers lined up elbow to elbow - sliver capped teeth flashing neon of blues and red. Old haggish one yanks at my sleeve, I keep walking.

The street is packed with prostitutes of both sexes leaning against broken red brick and adobe, roaming addicts - shifty eyed and alert - hurtle down the way, stopping to grab bags of dope from hidden nooks and crannies of crumbling walls, catatonic American tourists - bloated and shirts spotted with beer and puke - under the wary eye of police patrols. A cacophony of car horns and screeches mixed with the smells of seared meat, steaming hotdogs, and festering garbage steaming into the crisp chilly night.

Why all this bother? All this ruckus to flounder about waving handful of cash in front of thieves and shysters, Dear Tourist, don't you realize you'll be eaten alive - and the bones won't even remain.

We hit Kin-kle - enter through dingy red curtains from the street and sized up by two towering trannies who goose you coming in - just preliminaries. Happens to everyone, don't take it so personal. Flop onto a dented metal table and down our three caguamas. Old cholo, seems to take a liking for 'mericans - invites me into the mensroom for a few snoots of the old cocaine on the filthiest toilet paper dispenser in the world. Snooort-hack-snort!

I lean back and look over to the next stall and wish I hadn't. Stout hooker in frayed blue dress squatting down and blowing some old fucker in a yellow Stetson. But, that didn't offend me - it was the festering toilet next to them that was almost overflowing in thick muddy feces. Lines of brown over the rim like a boiling pot of beans.

Return to my colleagues and they are drunker than a skunk - mucho ha-ha and drabble about Tijuana. (The Happiest Place on Earth).

Rudy starts to feel it and becomes all clingy and shit, but I don't mind cause he's so sweet. We kiss and paw under the bloodshot stare of my other buddy. You know I can resist anything but temptation and when Rudy asked to 'Go Somewhere' I didn't hesitate.

Say adios to a grinning Diego, Rudy and I cut out of the bar and swing next door to a $5 a night hotel. Pay the fat mamacita behind the black bars and dash up warped wooden stairs to a room that had an overpowering stench of mildew. The walls were multicolored hues of scrabbled graffiti of both markers and spray paint and had a tired, slutty mattress sprawled on the floor. Rudy smiles and whispers some dirty shit as we peel off our duds and flop onto the mattress - bedbugs and all.

Rudy - this short shit - flings my legs up over his shoulders, spits on his palm, lubs his erection and whammo - starts rutting like his sad poor beat life depended on it. After a bit, he squirts and I giggle 'Again!' and he does with me flopped around lying on my stomach. Afterwards, said Rudy confides that his fantasy was to screw a gringo and I was his first. Awwww, I smile inward.

With the sun breaking the navy star spackled horizon, Rudy and I stood on that wet trash covered corner and shook hands as I hopped in a cruising taxi and jet back to the beach.

The fat taxi driver sat wordless - hating me (the foreigner) or his life in general as we hurtled over the hills toward the ocean. The cold wind blew in my face as I sat deep in the back chair and I thought, Fuck - I'm not going anywhere...I live in the coolest place in the world!