Desolation Angel's

We walked three miles for beer.

Three fucking miles down a dusty stretch of road where all the sad shops were closed on a inhospitable windy Sunday afternoon. Row after row of faded multicolored adobe sante fe style buildings rusted and crumbed that had to date back to the 40's sat baking in that glaring Texan sun under that eye searing baby blue sky that spread forever out in every direction. The wind whipped and we trudged slowly because that's how Gabriel walks...slowly.

Gabriel and I did stop for some grub at the sole diner that was open 24hrs nestled in amongst what seemed to be a million diners that were all closed.

Jaime's Hut - long wooden counter, ratty red booths, metal stools, grill and fryer across from you where you can watch them prepare your food. High white ceiling with old fans and huge plate glass windows like something out of a 1930's gangster film. I had fantastic menudo, Gabe had a cheeseburger with greasy ass fries. Cheap food, but good.

Heading back out into that sandstorm, Gabe and I stumbled into Frontera Bar - our destination for one dollar beers. The joint was packed. This squat building was festering with ratty old men donning fedoras and stetsons, ugly bloated women faces covered in moles and missing teeth. Cholos on the nod drooped by the pool table as con men and junkies huddled in dark corner plotting their next schemes - dirty fingers clentched dirty plastic cups of beer. Gabriel and I took a table and ordered two huge mugs of beer.

A band wailed ranchero music from Sinaloa as on opposite sides two scrawny bitches gyrated to the clinking clanking music - the "dancers" wearing black denim covering their flat asses, cowboy boots, black stetsons, no shirts so you had to gawk at their pancake tits flopping around under the strobing red spot light.

But, that wasn't what caught our attention. Dancing between these two gargoyles was a squat and bloated pig of a woman, her pot belly undulated out from her black tube top, her thighs jiggled in her tight black stirrups, her sweaty back covered in tattoos and hickeys - she definitely thought she was the shit.

Shit...

Gabriel and I nicknamed her Flabasaurus. There was many a joke that night concerning Flabasaurus. Drunk old perverts actually pawed at her unappetizing anatomy.

When the band took a break and the pain from our ravaged eyes wore off, the juke box started to play some weird shit for such a hardcore place - Dancing Queen by Abba, Staying Alive by The Bee Gees, YMCA by The Village People?! There was a drunk guy sitting next to me that would belt out the "YMCA" chorus part to me point blank splattering my face in a fine coat of saliva. Then he would attempt to dance along, but would always spell out "YMUX" with his arms. Then thrusting his crotch into my face. I just sat there grinning - what could I do? I was the sole gringo - this was their territory, I wouldn't dare upset the natives.

Ah, what the hell, just a big drunk lug having a good time I pondered. He would ask one of the drunk old hags dressed in black sitting in the dark against the wall to dance and then on then dance floor he looked like a palm tree in a hurricane. I was embarrassed for him.

I excused my self and went into the men's room. The stall was occupied by some old fart grunting and huffing who hadn't shit in months so I sided up to the urinal. A ruggedly handsome vaquero had his fat uncut dong out - just holding it. I took my piss, right, and he's standing there holding himself, staring into the mirror adjacent to us. I'm done pissing and I notice he's just staring in the mirror at me. He looks like a Mexican Marlboro man and his pecker is growing - inching up and out. I reach over and grab it. Warm and hard. I start stroking it - feeling the skin sliding over the head, the precum at the tip, it getting harder...

The bathroom door slams open and some goofy goober barges in whipping out his dork spraying urine all over the floor up to the urinal and we hurriedly compose ourselves and march out. I return to my table. From my seat, I watch the cowboy walk out into the chilled night.

The band starts up and it is fucking karaoke - Mexican Style. Ugh. I tell Gabriel, let's split. One of Gabe's friends is sitting with us - some guy named Joe. He is wasted and promptly lights up a cigarette. One of the bitter faced, four breasted waitresses stomps over and yells at him, squishes the cigarette out, slaps Joe around and then threw us all out.

Oh well.

So, we all march back downtown drunk off our asses through darkened empty warehouses and lonely train tracks and snoring hobos and barking dogs in the black distance. In the middle of this urban desolation, we find a lone bar still open called Fonzie's! Aaaaaayyy...

Warm yellow light from within, somber oldies drifting from the jukebox into the lonely night. We enter and are the only one's there. The bar is managed by a short fat man named Bruce who serves us our Bud Lite - only beer he's got. We talk and drink, then we go back into that desolate lonely beat night of El Paso.

Strolling and stumbling, cause we three are pretty ripped, you see. I am up front, Gabriel is behind me and Joe is bringing up the rear. The warehouses finally give way to some wood framed houses. Gabriel and I are holding some damn conversation about Socialism and it's effect on Fast Food when we hear a thump! We look back to see Joe's bottom legs and sneakers poking out from some damn rose bushes! After seemingly twenty minutes of some Three Stooges shenanigans, we get Joe back on his feet and continue downtown. Again, before we reach our destination - a 24hr. liquor store - Joe promptly disappears! Oh well, I state. And Gabriel and I stock up on a 30 pack of Schlitz and some tater chips, walk over to alligator park and sit drinking till the sun comes up.

And it does...

A Story If You Want To Hear It Or Not

Sat in Cafe Percolator drinking my coffee listening to the local band line up - when they were good they were good and when they were bad, they were bad. All local young kids. The joint was packed and I felt a little self conscious because I do believe I was the oldest one in the audience. However, I do have to admit, the band playing at that moment was very good.

An old bum shuffled in - his stench preludes him - the wafting smell of urine, vomit, and soiled linens. He shuffled past me (I was sitting by the door, next to the soda refrigerator) and ambled to a group of piss elegant young ladies - all looking appalled at this Lost Street Hipster. Jose, the manager, swiftly approached him - unfortunately - because of the soda refrigerator - I did not see what transpired, but the tramp came back around and sat at my table. Shabby grey beard, squat stature, well worn denim jacket and pants, soiled t-shirt, all smelling foul. The smell of alcohol alone was enough to make an ambulance attendant puke. He gazed at me with blood shot eyes.

"Hi." He slurred.

"Hi."

"You smoke?"

"Smoke what?" I asked.

He sighed in exasperation, "Cigarettes."

"Yes. Of course." I stated matter of factly.

"I thought so." He grinned, winking with one eye. "You look like a smoker."

Really? I thought. What does a smoker look like? Was it my yellowed finger tips? My stained teeth? My rasping voice? Hmmm? What gave it away?

His face went as blank as a card dealers, "I wanna smoke with ya."

"Well, we can't smoke in here."

"I know that!" He gesticulated. "We gotta go outside!"

"I wanna watch the bands."

"Okay." He said, wobbling in the chair. "Okay. Could you spare a smoke, then?"

"Sure." I stood up and reached into my chino pockets and took out a my pack fishing for a cigarette and handed one to him. He grabbed it with calloused red hands - gnarled and worn from a thousand climates.

He stood up - farted and said, "Thanks. Now, I going outside - then I'm coming back and I'm going to tell you a story if you want to hear it or not."

He shuffled outside. The bands wailed on. I drank my coffee. The night winds howled. I look out the large pane window and see the old hobo tottering and wobbling down the dark street against the gusting storm - I guess I'm not going to get to hear that story after all...

Drunken Shinanigans

It was a brisk night outside the bar - you could hear the cars breathing past. Inside was a whole lot of misery and ugly. The jukebox warbled sad Mexican ballads of lost love and wanton burrachos. The dim din was sprinkled with shabby old men in tattered coats huddled over their mugs like vultures staring into nothing wondering how it all went wrong.

Gabriel and I sat at the warped wooden bar doing the same with a bit more levity - our conversations peppered with dark humor, darker than the night. On the opposite side of Gabriel sat a husky pug faced old man - late forties, white hair, solid physique - drunker he got the queerer he became. Started to make his moves, you dig, on my Native American friend and hetero Gabe was not liking it, not liking it at all.

Every time the fool got up to piss, he'd run his hands across Gabriel's back.

"Creepy. Definitely creepy." Gabe muttered to me.

We continued to ignore the old fruit - that is until I look over to converse with my drinking bud and the codger flips me off. I return the gesture. Why not? Wouldn't you?

The randy old fuck stands with a huff, stomps over and whacks me in the back of the head.

"What the fuck?!" I utter and grab the nearest beer bottle - smashing it across the old mans jaw. Next we are doing a macho ballet around swinging fists - powpowpow - until the barmaid yells at us to knock it off. Must've lasted a whole twenty seconds. The old man shouts obscenities in Spanish and walks out of the bar. I am laughing - I can't stop laughing. The beer numbing the pain that I am sure I will feel in the morning. The bastard got off some good licks.

Gabriel is standing there dazed.

"Thanks for the back up." I snap, grabbing my mug and taking a swig.

"Damn, dude, you were really holding your own." He stated, sheepishly.

Honestly, all that hardcore talk of prison and bikers and gangster living, he could of jumped in - I would have.

I finished my beer, slammed the mug down, now consumed by anger by what just happened, "Man, that old queer was jealous that I was talking to you. Don't you get it? He was fighting over you. Your not fucking worth it as far as I'm concerned - you could have watched my back instead of just watching!" I mean, if Gabriel was handsome, I'd understand - but, he's not. About as attractive as a wet mop.

"Oh, you sayin' it's my fault?" He puffed up.

"Ugh!" I just walked out and went home.

Yeah, next morning - things hurt...

Mexico Lament

My room on the garbage cliff overlooking the Juarez poor barrio, tin shacks and white roofs of crumbling adobe, and little dirty gardens down below bounded by the uptown hip cliff and superhighway nightmare 20th century I-10. To stand on my garbage cliff and see I am at the end of Mexico - the longing pulls at me, depression of a million nostalgic images flood my withering mind.

The town is so noisy - dirty, streetfulls of wild boys all night, drunken nacos in yellow Stetsons and sagging pot bellies, restaurants, nasty whore hotels, musicians, half American stores, jumping beans and tortilla concessions, Chinese Masonic lodges & barbers too. Big halls for hip-hop discos and ranchero music, painted crudely with monolithic donkeys. A portrait of a Chihuahua glares down at me donning Sante Fe style kerchief and bejeweled vaquero hat.

I walked through the border at night back to my sad, lonely apartment, a dead silent fairyland of U.S. dusk - deserted ghost streets and sad quiet aircooled diners with white capped waitresses joking softly and no one on the streets.

One more month and I am going back to live.

It's a Matter of Economics, You Understand...

Well, it seems that fate - my bitter enemy - has forced my hand and I will be returning to the land of doe-eyed sexually charged pickpockets and cooing Amazonian transvestite hookers.

After dredging through four long arduous months of self debasement - it now comes to pass that I can not afford to live in this country - I got high standards, you nosey bitches, just try to follow me on this, okay?

I received a transmission from the Lords Of Social Security that they will be decreasing my benefits to 666.00 a month in lieu of paying for Medicare - something I don't even use. So, the wheels are set, Wednesday I will hop over the border and see if old Maria - that beautiful hag - has any digs for rent in my old building. It doesn't really matter - though it is a virtual warzone over there - I will file a report from the frontlines for your flabby asses. I guess I can continue there in this novel writing fiasco that I have been suckered in to, also. If not...well, hey....I'll just go on living, I guess....

Double Threat.

Stood outside the Sante Fe Bar smoking so close to the streets the passing buses chugging by almost knocked me down. The sun just dropped below the horizon and the cool sky still had a light orange glow. I was feeling pretty lit after downing three quick beers.

I looked down the colorless street and saw my old friend Patrick stumbling my way - as soon as his eyes focused on who I was was he bound and lept towards me like a giggling school boy. Much handshaking and backslapping and whatever-happened-to-so-and-so's.

I'd known Pat for going on six years now from my various stays at the mish - handsome little boy look to his face gone rugged from too much drink and harsh climates. He wore a denim blue jacket with a racing emblem on the back, blue jeans, sneakers, baseball cap - your usual hobo attire. He was still handsome, but his black goatee had specks of gray in it as did his short cropped hair.

He was Mexican, but born and raised in Kansas and like much of the residence of this town drifted down here on that insidious current of bad luck and bring downs. He was a loser just trying to make it by, just like me.

He stated in his thick country drawl that he had just gotten jumped by three young hoods and his back was hurtin' somthin' fierce. I invited him in for a drink.

We sat at the bar - populated by the dredged and forlorn regulars, all alkies like me, now I suppose. Pat slurped his drink and went into a tale of how a few days back him and some girl were holed up in a hotel living, drinking, arguing like so many heterosexual fuck ups. The police were somehow involved and his girl, Jennifer obviously was a wild cat - she drunken off her mind - beat up a cop. Swarmed by the other cops, as cops do, clubbed and beat the shit out of her and tossed her in the back of a squad car screaming and kicking. Pat was hauled off too by associated proximity. He continued on how he and her didn't really give a fuck about the situation and even made out on the way to the precinct.

Pat was released after 24hrs in the drunk tank but, as we both agreed, Jennifer will be in a little bit longer.

"Wow, that's some heavy Jerry Springer shit." I stated gulping another throat full of beer.

He went all gooey and cooed, "I luv er, man - she's muh life."

The night continued and watched Pat whip the ass in billiards this drunken macho who just crossed over from Chihuahua - kept thumping my chest, swaying with his mug, "I'm from Chihuahua, cabrone." Getting real tired of that stupid macho bullshit.

Pat got real wasted - falling asleep and stumbling in his chair. The bartender threw us both out.

"I got no where to go." He said as we stood on the side walk outside Sante Fe.

I sighed and said, "Come on."

I latched the key to my lock and opened the door with my shoulder. We stepped into the room bathed in shadows. I turned on a lamp, put on some music. Pat flopped onto my bed with a groan. I went to the refrigerator and pulled out two cans of beer, handing him one all the while staring at his cock poking up out of his jeans. It wasn't hard - it just did that all the time. I mentioned that last we took a shower together at the mish, I must admit he did have a sexy dick. He just smiled and casually brushed his hand over his groin saying, "Man, shut up with that shit."

"You look tired, let's get some sleep." I said.

We finished our beers and got undressed and crawled under the gray comforter. I heard him softly snore as I lay there watching the lights from passing cars crawl across the ceiling. He turned and threw a leg over mine. My hand slowly inched up to his shorts and felt his already stiff cock. He stirred and sighed. I continued to slowly stroke his organ - thick, long, uncut - a pearl of precum formed at the tip. His breathing got heavier as he kept his eyes closed. I slid under the blanket and took the hard on in my mouth and started stroking up and down. It stiffened more, his hips moving slightly.

pat pulled me back up and turned me on my side with my back to him. He slid my boxers off as with his and with slow force, slid his cock into me. Hugging me firmly from behind, he thrust and lunged until I felt his penis stiffen and swell spurting his semen deep into me.

We lay there for a while in silence. I got up to wash in the bathroom and when I returned, Pat was curled up snoring softly away.

Next morning, the hot yellow rays burst through the blinds of my apartment that I am sure smelled of dirty denim and soiled socks and stale beer. I put on my shorts, got out of bed and prepared instant pancakes for us both. Pat woke - stretched his short torso and said "Mornin'" With a devilish grin.

I handed him a cup of coffee, "What are you going to do today?"

"I gotta go to the city jail and visit, Jen. I hafta find a way of gettin' our shit outta the hotel room." He takes a sip of coffee and scowls, "damn, why do women gotta bring along so much shit? I gotta back pack - that's it. She's got like five huge bags."

I grabbed his soft penis, "Women are not a necessity in this world anymore. Not now that we have cloning technology."

He gently pushes my hand away and goes to the bathroom. :After breakfast, I gotta go." I hear as he relieves his bladder.

After breakfast, we part on the corner shaking hands and telling each other laterz. I turn and stare at the vista of Juarez across from the Rio Grande, the mountain range, the harsh blue sky and wonder why I am still here.

Racial Profiling.

"So, what do you consider yourself? White or Hispanic?" She asked sitting across from me holding the completed application.

"Well." I said, palm up and out - typical junky con gesture. "I am the result of interracial breeding." What I wanted to say - look at me! This is what happens when one of you spics fucks an Anglo, you deformed chilango! Get on with the interview!

She acted a little uneasy, "We have to pick either or, Mr. Blasini."

I sat and I thought. That is the story of my life - my very existence - I don't fit into any category or check box. Just gotta make it up as I go along. "Hispanic." I flatly stated, maybe can get some freebies working that minority route.

Within an hour I had received my food stamp card and jetted out of the office to stand in whipping winds and chilled rain for a bus. As we lumbered down Alameda Blvd. - past block houses and crumbling adobe facades left over from the 1940's - I sat in the back watching a heavy and highly intoxicated cholo tag up the back of the bus with bleary eyed abandon. As the colorless vista chugged past I sank deeper in my frump, El Paso is not my Time/Place location. I have not found it yet. I do believe I have come close, but to no avail. As stated previously, I will purchase the bare essentials for this new apartment all the while cranking out two novels and come next winter it's off to where ever. And why not? I have nothing else.

Screaming Monkeys.

Shuffling intoxicated and fully loaded past forgotten friends at dark crosswalks as the traffic screams bye and city buses shnuff and groan. Gabriel and I stop at the Liquor Barn for a 30 case of Schlitz. The night was warm and hazy dark. I had his duffel bag strapped across my shoulder from a previous stop at the seediest of downtown dive hotels - The Merlot, thank you - and was helping my Native American friend into his new digs across the street from my humble flat.

"So." He slurs as we parous the tight isles; picking out sweet cakes for tomorrows breakfast with instant coffee. "You gonna help me Saturday."

"I said I would." I grinned with the strap digging into my shoulder.

As we made the few blocks - he carrying the beer case and stinking blankets smelling of monkey feces and I the his bag - stumbling back to our street of rustic red bricked buildings - we discussed the matter of how a friend had blessed him with a whole bedroom set this coming Saturday.

I, on the other hand, my mind was churning on more sordid adventures - on how I would while my time here through the summer in El Paso and to finish these two books I had in mind - Hobosexual and Fried Chittlin's - and then off to New Orleans to squander and explore to finally end up on the isle of Puerto Rico. And so it goes...that I will use as fodder for more fresh writing materiel. And why not, the life of stability and comfort...it ain't me, Dear Reader, you know that as well as I do. So, why bother even discussing it?

Beer Spit and Mindless Anticipation.

When you are homeless - beat and on your ass without a penny - you get a lot of free shit in this fair police state of ours. Take my apartment, free rent for six months. However, once you leave that state of bewildered anticipation of a transient state - everything goes sour. Your hand is forced to be a responsible citizen. Fuck that.

For years coming to El Paso and playing - I mean working the system - on the state of getting food stamps (Cause once again I am flat broke.) I have always went to the office on Yandell Ave. Easy. Simple. You walk in at eight in the morning and walk out two hours later with a card a-rarin' to go.

But, the times have changed, Dear Reader. Once again the high muckity-mucks that run this fair land had put a stop to that and made everything a long, tired, worn out dredge. I entered the office at appropriate time - waited in line for an hour to be told to fill out an application. Before they handed it to you at the kiosk and signed your name to see a caseworker and you waited. Nope. Filled out app and waited in line another forty minutes to be explained that I am at the wrong office - change of procedure in lieu of my residing zip code. Okay. Fine. Hop on the bus and clunk halfway across town to the "New Office". Entered - not more than four people waiting, not bad, I thought. Walked straight up to the kiosk and was told by the caseworker - without batting an eye - that I would be mailed an appointment. "But, I got no food in the house.", I plea. Bitch don't care. So, I walk out.

On the way back downtown, I stop at the halfway house called the Opportunity Center - a foul and rancid place filled with piss covered bums and grime crusted lunatics - to ask for a food voucher to the Food Bank. Got it. High tailed it to said Food Bank to be issued one measly bag of groceries. In the past - years ago - they would hook you up with all kinds of shit, so much it was near impossible to carry back home. But, no mas. Ugh.

I carried my pathetic bundle back home and prepared poor mans macaronis - macaroni sauteed in tomato sauce. With the a can of the last of my Pabst.

Was trudging down the street afterwards - staring at the ugly and fat denizens of this town - when I ran into Gabriel, my Native American friend. A few days earlier he was thrown out of the mish for coming in drunk - no fault of mine - and was sleeping on the streets. He looked rough. We sat in Plaza San Jacinto gawking at the alligator statue under a bright blue sky and talking of both our predicaments.

Gabriel was already lit. Pigeons would waddle near and he would extend his fingers cooing, "Here kitty, kitty."

"Wanna go drink?" Gabriel finally asked.

"Sure as shit." I said, dragging on a smoke.

When we approached the Bar Sante Fe, it was closed for remodelling. The roof had caved in - but a sign stated that it would be open for business at 5pm. It was 5:30. So, with a handful of other alkies we stood outside and joked on how thirsty we were. I struck up a conversation with a handsome Mexican named Jesus - struck me as a young Erik Estrada from the CHIPS days. He, too was a regular. And there was a collective sigh of relief when the owners wife showed up with the keys to the bar.

Several minutes later, we all took our places at the bar with a big mug of draft in front of us. "Ah," I sighed to Gabriel and Jesus who flanked me. "All is back to the way it supposed to be."

The night progressed and we three joked and sang to songs warbling on the jukebox getting more ripped as time passed.

Jesus started to degenerate into quite the queer and I was reciprocating. At one point he startled me and all that had non-blurry vision by grabbing me by the head and planting a kiss smack on the lips. Nobody cared. Gabriel continued to flirt with the plump bartender gal as sexual innuendo flew between Jesus and I.

Round 11, Jesus, Gabriel, and I stumbled the few blocks back to my flat for no particular reason. We sat on the hardwood floor passing around a forty of Steel Reserve and a joint Jesus miraculously pulled out of his blue denim jacket. The wind up is, Gabriel crashed snoring like a bear on the floor as Jesus and I lay in the bed talking in the shadow splattered room. Hands started to caress and stroke, erections were exposed and this handsome man found his way on top of me as I lay on my stomach. Jesus viciously lunged and thrusted until he climaxed. We lay silently until our breathing subsided.

Next morning, like a good host, I prepared instant hotcakes for the frazzled guests. Gabriel left for work and Jesus and I shook hands and new we would see each other again at the bar.

I sat at my desk, staring out at the hazy vista of Juarez, Mexico spread out across the horizon as the sounds of gunshots and explosions echoed across the Rio Grande.

I thought, "I like this new apartment, it's exciting."

How Long this Shit Gonna last?

"So, you're not gonna let Lalo stay with you?" He asked. The cold air enveloped us under that fucking bright Texan sun.

I took a drag from my cigarette - looked off to Juarez twinkling on the horizon. "Nah. He's survived 30 years without my help - he can go 30 more, I reckon. Plus, it will force him to get his shit together on his own."

Earlier, I latched the key to my door and pushed it open with my shoulder placing the plastic bags of purchased sundries onto the tiled floor. My new apartment was small - studio, kitchenette, bathroom with side french doors opening to a vista of Juarez City choked in smog and random gunfire. I took off my shoes and laid on my queensize as a few rounds popped off across the border. I took a nap in the comfort of once again my own place and without the bother of 100 hobos mucking up the place.

I awoke at dusk and headed to the local cafe for coffee. Walked by that shit hole Santa Fe Bar and noticed the Indian Gabriel through cracked and dusty windows stooped up against the bar. Walked in and was met with smiles, back slapping and good cheer. Lalo was with him. A lanky Mexican we had known from the mish - a good looking guy but acted like a fucking twelve year old when left to his own devices. Both were already lit. I ordered a mug of brew and hunkered down to shoot the shit with them.

The place was relatively empty - save for a couple of alcoholic old regulars and a little hottie on the far end.

Us three spent the time talking, laughing and playing goofy tunes on the jukebox. The drunker Lalo became the more touchy-feely the bastard became - goosing me at once right there in front of this hard nosed straight clientele and God. Had to spat to cut that crap out. As a fact - after I had played Star Wars by Mecco, that tacky 70's disco ear sore for kicks - for some reason we were told that the bar was closed and we given the boot - and it only 9:30!

No prob, we stumbled the two blocks over to that equally shitty shit hole dive called Po-po's. passing a ragged hobo dumpster diving with mean quips by Lalo. Fuck, some people just got no tact, know what I mean?

So, at said bar - we sit with our long necks and I bum the shit outta all and sundry by finding and playing Sycamore Trees by The Pointy Shoe Factory over the internet juckbox. That'll teach them Ranchero lovin' locals!

Across from us on the rectangular shaped bar was a drunken construction worker uttering drunken nothings to anyone who cared and for some weird reason Gabriel got on the warpath with this fucker and started glaring and insulting him. I mentioned that he needs to calm the fuck down and the red face took a Goddamn swing at me! Fuck these drunks, I thought and walked out the door and back home - drunk and irate.

Why did I stay in this fucked up town. Let me tell you the sad truth about these El Pasokins - they hate anything they can't understand, which is everything, and want to destroy everything they hate. Ignorant fucks. But, I guess that's moot since Gabriel just came from Chicago and all. Oh well - I was pissed. So, I storm down the darkened streets with Lalo bounding after me screaming "What's wrong? Whya leavin'?" I just walked on until he fell away.

Stopped at a store and bought a packet of smokes being eyed lasciviously by a young Mexican tramp shivering in a huge tattered overcoat sipping coffee from a styrofoam cup - yes, thought of inviting him back to my trap, but wasn't really up for it.

Next morning, I get a call not seconds outta the shower from Lalo that he and Gabriel were spit tested at the mish and given the boot. Lalo pleaded to stay at my apartment crackling empathy over the phone. Nah - don't think so. Sure, he's sexy nekkid and got some wang on him, but he too much a wild card for my taste.

Afterwards, I had met Gabriel in a cafe looking well beat and hungover - we discussed Lalo and his plans. Gabriel will return to Chicago - maybe - and that was that. We shook hands on a corner and said goodbye.

So, now I am stuck flat on my ass in a town I really don't like and my only two friends are lost out in the cold streets.

I really think I am just going to finish these two novels (It seems that the only inspiration I get to write these horrid prose is when I am suffering - if I become too comfortable, I don't write. Just wanna drink and masturbate.) and set my sights to Puerto Rico via New Orleans like I had originally planned.

The future seems so fukkin dark right now - so fukkin depressed....

Shotgun Thoughts on the Matter.

And at 4:35am Tralala was hit and killed by a careening ambulance crossing the street loaded on goofballs and a fifth of Port wine.

The police have disbanded in vicious force the tent city by the mish - health hazard they say - something of City Ordinance 666 as ten squad cars beat and pound the squealing hobos from their ratty tents and cardboard igloos and old Mikey smiles under an overpass downing 211 and waving his shriveled penis at passing cars.

Laying in my bunk and the fucking goddamn roof caved in - spent half an hour sweeping up great grey globs of wet plaster and mold. I am certain I will get infected by something. Pent up and frustrated - sensing the end is near - end to this predicament, you understand, but I forget, you can't understand cause your retarded ass doesn't have a clue all safe and secure in your metabolic mental womb of normal conformity.

Young Miguel sleeps in the dirty dayroom - feet propped up on plastic blue chair - hard on throbbing up and out from his stained and faded khaki chinos as many a queer and curious walk by with eyebrow raised. Out back late at night downing rum and coke in a plastic 20oz Pepsi bottle spitting and hacking on the dust like a good junkie hobo and he admits with a cadaverous smile, "I like the crystal."

"Got any?" I ask - anything to keep his sexy lanky ass near me and talking - yes, that desperate I have become or is this normal corting? His long muscular neck a map of hickies from the horny ass bloated she bitch that he screwed behind some dumpster earlier that day. Sigh and swoon when he's near.

My patience has all but shriveled like a geriatric cock in a retirement center - no, wait, they got pills now, those old fucks can fuck like rabbits till they roll in the casket. A ver! There are - as reported in the El Paso Times and I quote - three toilets for one hundred men. They failed to chronicle that two are always smeared in feces at any given time and you are ankle deep in mud and urine - what happened to spot on journalism, the lazy fucks! So, days away from getting my apartment and I stomp around the hive with a pensive scowl.

Anyway, getting sidetracked - where was I - oh yeah, let's talk of Miguel, okay? Tall, handsome Honduran living here all illegal like but sexy as shit. And a hugger. Always hugging everyone, that boy. Not faggy, you see - just a touchy feely guy with the most hottest of Latin accents - must cut this short or will get my blood up.

So, we were out back of the warehouses yapping and drinking and enjoying ourselves under that dark navy sky and blanket of stars with that big full, yaller moon so close you just wanna reach up and goose it with I-10 breathing softly nearby - I am hell bent on Miguel's every word because I am interested in this character albeit he is a meth junky and alcoholic, but, no one's perfect right? You judgmental drama queens. So, I am laughing at his jokes and drinking when he whips out a picture of his girlfriend - a fucking corpulent cow of titanic proportions, dearie. My heart sinks. This modelish looking hobo can get any girl he wants and he picks a pig? I got jealous, yeah - but, wouldn't you?

So, I run long cold fingers across his bristled neck along the length of his hickies from this bitch - anything just to touch his person. And my head swoons. He smiles big and laughs at my blatant advances on his anatomy.

So, I tell him of Tralala and my drunk ass friends and my adventures and shit and he says in a joking manner that I have really earned that damn crazy check I get monthly. Yep.

He scoots closer on the concrete wall we are sitting right next to me and puts a lanky grey flanneled arm around my shoulders, "You are all right, mang. A little weird, but you cool."

And we sit silently in the cold holding our booze as Cheap Trick's Surrender plays over his little plastic transistor.

Things are okay.

It's The Last One To The Left.

I, like Phil, went with the promise of free steak.

The building sat squat and ugly on that dusty corner in the outskirts of the low end section of this no-where tex-mex town. Outside, about ten shabby bums in military jackets leaned against crumbling adobe walls puffing on rollies squinting under the glare of that fucking bright blue morning sky.

With a whine of gears, the city bus pulled away, and Gabriel, Phil, and I walked across the wind swept street - little eddies of gritty dust swirled around us - up to the aforementioned adobe wall and took our place along the line of bent and shivering men. Handshakes and howdies to a guy named Joe that Gabriel knew from the bar Sante Fe.

I looked across the way at our destination this morning - The Bar Frontera. Gabriel knew of the joint - all day Sundays dollar beers and all you can eat steaks and tortillas. I was in. Made the pilgrimage just for the steaks alone - fuck the beer.

As I stood shivering in the bright morning sun, I watched as along side the dirty white washed cantina, stooped two old Mexican Indians in tattered overcoats preparing a gas stove and huge steel woks filled with grease. Then the doors to the bar open and there was a literal bum's rush.

The bar was packed and smelled of soiled linens and locker room sweat. Much pushing and shoving at the long mahogany bar as the ravenous alcoholics shook their huge plastic cups at the barmaids to fill them up at the tap - waving dollar bills in the air like racing tickets. The bar maids whisked too and fro at supersonic speed.

Eventually, Gabriel, Phil, and I got our cup and settled down to a table. The cantina was a dark den - filled with old beer drinkers, wise men, con artists, a couple of sagging boobed hookers and closeted homosexuals. A pretty average stateside Mexican cantina.

And I tell ya, there is nothing better than that first gulp of beer in the morning - it hits you in the gullet lick a judo chop. Gabriel - my native American friend - and I were guzzling our stein sized glasses like water as Phil was daintily sipping his with pinky out as some fucking southern fop.

So, we sat and drank and laughed and watched the football game. There were a couple of wing-nuts - old faerie that would stand in the middle of the scuffed black and white tiled floor and karaoke with whatever song was warbling over the jukebox at that moment. As the beer flowed - the men became more intoxicated and the mood in the joint more relaxed. Phil was disappointed that instead of steak they were serving carnitas.

Stood in the freezing wind outside in line with the other schmucks - mouths watering - as they served up great greasy cracking messes of pork with a chili and tortilla - all scarfed down with voracious speed. Went back for seconds and even thirds.

There were a lot of closeted faggitos in that bar, I had noticed - gotta love that macho gay culture of Mexico - a lot of penis peeping in el bano, also.

Well, after the tacos - which were also served up free and gratis and devoured by fatty Phil like no tomorrow - he complaining they shoulda had at least salsa! - I bid the boy's a goodbye cause I wasn't really feeling it, you know. Still fighting this bought of insidious depression.

So, I took the bus back downtown and return to the mish - wondering when - when?! - will this housing ever kick in?

All Good Things...

It's funny. When I want to write, I am never around my laptop and when I don't want to write - I am sitting in front of the infernal machine.

Yeah - I have been neglecting this blog of late. I understand that I have just been a lazy ass and have not been typing out all those sordid little tidbits that your fat ass waits and sits to mentally masturbate about reading and guffawing about "What da fuck dis loser gonna do next, Joe Hawhawhaw" And I don't write about everything, oh no. Like blowing Lalo in the stairwell of the library on Christmas Day out of sheer boredom and believe me it was no big whoop he being a minute man and all or getting stone cold drunk and stealing that Nintendo Wii flat ass out of that store with Gabriel the day after New Years and returning it the next day spending the refund loot holed up in the bar Sante Fe with about six other alkees drunker than shit having a ball. Or having that three way in a broken down van behind the warehouses with that cuter than fuck Jose and his fresh outta the clink cohort Frank and that fucker being real pneumatic in the hips and a ceiling squirter in the middle of the afternoon in broad daylight and I think that old bum saw us but we didn't care. Yessiree!! Yeah, folks - tell ya the truth, I just get bored writing the same shit down all the time. My life hasn't really changed - it's just repetitive and maybe I'm just getting bored with writing in this blog or perhaps I need to slow down a little.

I tell you whats going on though - I know you didn't ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Since I am basically playing the homeless card - and believe you me - you get all kinda free shit when your smack flat on your ass on the street! Example - there is this government housing that I am waiting on that is an extension of HUD, which if you are an American you know about - if you are not an American, sucks to be you - they are paying my rent for a year, see and after that, since I am on SSDI, I pay only 30% of whatever the rent of the apartment rent is which will come to about $100 - for the rest of my life. I have already picked out the digs, see - the Warren apartments (swell place!) - I had lived there before. I reckon I could settle down there and write about ten more horrid novels that no one will want to read and grow old and wither away.

So, there you have it, my fellow pervs - I will continue writing, but not as much and I guess not as avid...cause I'm turning it all down a notch...settling down...finally...so to speak...

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...