Drunk Stumble Love?

I was drunk. I knew. I could feel how the walls I had self-imposed on myself were growing thinner. Then again, I was not as drunk as I seemed to.

He smiled to himself. In a way, he had me just like he had wanted. But the truth was that in all his plotting he hadn’t count on him drinking as much as he had. So he was drunk too. On the other hand, he was faking to be more sober than he was.

So there we were, walking the distance between that place and his car. I asked him for his arm as I mumbled something about my balance and he wondered if that was a good idea. He was more prone to losing his balance than myself so in the even that he’d fall; he’d take me with him. Still, he kept his “normal mode” on and managed to walk as straight as he could, reveling in the strong grip I held over him.

Suddenly, a legitimate tumble from my drunk ass were indeed a complicated thing to manage as I walked over the stony surface of the street - made my body turn completely to him and his protective self-grabbed me by the arms with all his might. As it turned out, once the fall threat was over, his arms were completely around me and it only took a change of concepts to go from keeping me from falling to him hugging me.

We both felt something for the other. We were just too scared and too shy to admit it, but now that we were so close and the red wine that pumped through our veins not only clouded our self-consciousness but became the perfect alibi for us to show our true feelings, it only took a moment and locking our eyes to forget everything and kiss.

Our relationship might still be awkward in the morning and we may not know how to address what had happened the night before but for now, it just didn’t matter. We were where we had so longed to be, in each other’s arms. We were doing what they had so dreamt of doing, dwelling in the awesome feeling of kissing and finally giving into all we felt for each other.

That night we were not as drunk as we claimed to be but we were as in love as we could ever be.

Lust and Cigarettes.

He traps the cylinder between his pout. Gently gripping the filter the way you would hold a lover’s earlobe between your teeth, applying just enough pressure to communicate your desire. The flame of the lighter teases the end of the cigarette to life, like the tip of a quivering tongue, tracing the lines of a lover’s lips to stimulate a hungry response. He inhales sharply, with a sexy little hiss. Smoke fills his lungs, like tiny whimpers of pleasure echoing into the sensual cavern of his wicked mouth. He arches his back slightly and tilts his head to one side, exposing the delicate curve of his vulnerable throat; exhale...he smokes slowly. Each time he tilts my head back to exhale, his mouth stays parted in a small O shape, like he’s frozen in a moment of orgasmic passion.

My hands tighten to fists. I gnash my teeth and dig my nails into the flesh of my palms. It’s all I can do to stop myself from pouncing on him… and licking the residue of nicotine from his lips and fingertips.

I Don't want To Be Famous, I Just Want To Be Read.

these days people like to talk about having sex and tasting that hard cock with their broken hearts which whirls around in their rib cages so they take a swig of alcohol and smoke a cigarette and then look up at the stars which remind them of his eyes he’s was always so beautiful i traced his spine with my fingertips i kissed his clavicles and i cupped his sorrow in my hands and his veins bled ink because he wrote beautifully and sent letters and sipped tea and petted his cat while he sat on the other side of the room and watched t.v. and he had a beer in hand and was totally wasted and his breath smelled like whiskey and sorrow and there were old books on the floor the birds were singing outside and their memories were swept away by the ocean and everyone was in love - 

almost everyone was guilty of this at some point

(The above was written in a post-alcoholic state in the middle of the night. Management apologizes for any inconvenience.)

Tijuana Trepidations Vol. 7

In a Ranchero bar in Tijuana, I watched as a slender, petite boy in his late teens was being pulled into a room by his hair, screaming. My Mexican friends told me not to worry about it.

Upstairs in our private room. we chose our men and boys and mine sat on my lap and fed me. He had to be 17 or 18 and he was trying to be coy. I’d chosen the guy I’d seen being pulled into the room by his hair.

The rentboys had lined up in front of the four of us, sprawled out on the U shaped sofa, and I’d been told to choose first. The boys and men stood there looking bored. I knew they were used to this, but the idea of ‘choosing’ a guy was alien to me. I chose my ‘date’ because his eyes were red from crying.

I sang Born in the USA because it was one of the only songs in English I knew well enough, but mostly I just sat there drinking Carta Blanca in big glasses filled with ice. I sat and listened to the others sing sad love songs in a language I couldn’t understand and I smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes.

Afterwards my friends encouraged me to take the kid back to the hotel, but I said no, and he began crying again. I gave him two hundred pesos and he stopped crying and was happy again.

Back at the hotel, I tried masturbating in the shower, but nothing happened. All I could think about was that kid being pulled into that room and the way his eyes lit up when I put the money in his hand.

***

There was an American bar in the Red Light District of Zona Norte and I went there to watch the American football games and drink myself stupid in the company of overweight, old white men. In a lot of ways it was like being home, except I could smoke inside, and all the girl hookers were Central or South American.

On some of those nights, I called my brother because I knew he was watching the game too.  But I was always too drunk and when I woke in the morning I always had text messages asking me if I was okay and telling me to come home.

You’re scaring me, one of these read.

***

One night I ended up on the roof of the Rex Hotel, alone. I just sat there looking out at the city, depressed, thinking about what a mistake it was to come here. My boyfriend and I had come here before he was my partner for seven years, when we were still just friends, but I remembered it so clearly.

I’d wanted to visit the Rex because I knew Charles Bukowski had lived there for a time, but my partner didn’t know who Charles Bukowski was. He liked the view though. At night the city looked gorgeous from up here and we took pictures of ourselves, the city behind us.

I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with that guy.

I was wrong, I guess.

We Are All Lonely.

He walks down the motel hallway and the lights above him flicker as he passes. His lanky, black hair kind of bounces with his steps - it’s bobbed short and parted down the middle, he looks like a runway supermodel - but this man is a whore. The torn, faded jeans scream it, the cheap, wrinkled t-shirt commands it, the come in his hair brags about it. He won’t hesitate, he’ll fuck you and leave and he can do it all without talking, so he’s popular. The shadows in the hall mix with the shadows around his eyes and when he stops in front of me all I see is white. He looks in and I look out and we meet somewhere in the middle. I let him into my room and the hallway goes dark, the lights in my room spark out. He stops a few feet in and turns around, red eyes glowing in the black, he curls a finger at me and I step inside.

(When everything is dead it gets quiet. Quiet enough to hear muscles move or blood rush. Quiet enough to hear penetration at its deepest point- where flesh touches flesh and you can hear the body send off electricity full of excitement. And if you’re fucking a beast you can hear him purr beneath you, bent in front of you, vulnerable for you in the utter black that is around you. A beast from fire will lay for you with smoke and char as you succumb to the demon that wants your cum.)

After all, we are all lonely inside.

Truly Fucked Up.

Trudging slowly over wet sand - no, wait, that's a song. I can't start there.

The sky is as grey and uninteresting as a dead television channel. I walk along the warped boardwalk - curled planks, exposed nails - and look out onto the equally colorless, crashing surf. Sad and weary ice cream vendors prowl by and notice my equally sad demeanor and offer nothing to this frumpy-looking gringo.The air is chilly. It has been quite cold since my arrival. Several families frolic along the littered beach and brave the brisk water.

I found my way down to the border. A huge rusted fence of steel girders juts out fifty feet into the sea. An enormous corrugated wall separates the haves from the have-nots and stretches and meanders east for miles and miles.

What brought me here was the attempt to get a reception on my cell-phone. I got one but it was in vain. The truth of the matter is: I am flat fucking broke. This move has drained all I had in the bank. To keep afloat, I was told by my landlady back in El Paso that my deposit would be mailed to me. Much needed, I assure you at this point. Even if it is a paltry fifty dollars. It would help to get by the next two weeks until I got paid. But, it is explained to me on the phone that it would take "up to thirty days to process". In other words - it will be months. Fucking bureaucratic bullshit.

My roommate Paco has been kind enough to award me a daily allowance for the past week to eat with. Money I am sure he can not spare - but, he is being humble and sweet about it. I tell my inquiring friends that it is lack of funds for the reason of my depressed mood. "I haven't been without money since 2007." Is my usual reply with a forced grin. That is a bald-ass lie.

I am so depressed. This depression is consuming me like cold fire. I just want to hole up in a room somewhere and be alone - however, under the circumstances, that is an impossibility. No one's fault but my own.

What have I done? Is the question screaming in my head. Why did I make this stupid, impulsive move? Why?! My health - both physical and mental - are rapidly deteriorating. I can feel it. And it's insidious. The mask that I wear is beginning to crack and fall away and one day, one day soon I will stand in front of these people not the suave, cool, world weary traveler that I put up, but as a shivering, babbling, terrified invalid who will simply sit and cry and sob in never ending grief. So much loss over the past few years...

I want to go. I am not supposed to be here. The main reason I had left Tijuana two years prior was the paranoia of fucking up my pension. How am I going to live here in comfort with that sword of Damocles hanging over my head? 

Damn, this mental shit. I loathe conversation with anyone. I just want to be alone. Then when I am alone, I feel like shit because I realize what an insufferable monster I have become. And, seriously, who would want to be friends with my anyway? Everyone is out for their ulterior motives - to take instead of give. I just want a good friend who I can trust without any of the bullshit of physical contact to fuck it up. The fucking fags in El Paso screwed that up for me. That is why I guess I left in such a hurry - being in absolute loneliness for a year, distrustful of everyone.
And here I am in Tijuana - the city of hedonistic dreams and broken hearts - ten million people all wanting nothing more than to drink and fuck. And, I want to be alone.

I am truly fucked up. Maybe death is a way out? It surely wouldn't be skin off of anyone's back...no ones at all....

Lalo.

Where storm clouds hid past the horizon, in a desolate city that no one visited - he lived there.  Woke up there. Put out personal ads there. Romantic ones, and ones which hinted towards a vintage love that had gone distant in light of technology - texting, instant messaging, skype. He wrote about pebbles at windows and bike rides and holding hands and when he finished another draft of an ad, he’d jerk off to grainy porn that came in glitchy and on stolen wi-fi.

The  following mornings he’d walk to the paper and pay the fee for his ad to run with bold letters and asterisks and a fake circle around it so when readers went back to see what they had chosen to follow up on, his would get sneaked in.

No one answered the ads but overweight married men, or overweight lonely men, or overweight normal men who were just overweight, but he kept at them - writing longer and longer tales of romance and eventually taking over an entire page in the newspaper. Men flocked to him every week. Some would wait for him at the paper to intercept, but he would look them over and walk in, pay his fees and leave.

In that town there was no cannabis or alcohol so he found himself smoking a mixture of herbs, seeds, sticks and kitten’s whiskers. It was a confusing blend of smoke, but it got him to different planes and he would use those escapes to fantasize further about a man:  Short, but not too short. A nice neck. Black hair and blue eyes. Classic, American boy next door good looks. A subtle southern accent, but not too prominent - the kind which only comes out in certain words. A man who can hold his own but would also need someone beside him. He wanted a man to stand behind, let him do his thing, and step in if he needed.  He wanted the free spirit to his planted oak.

One week he decided to fore go the story and instead made a simple checklist.  If a man could complete it and meet the requirements, he would be welcomed to contact him. The requirements were the same as the above desired characteristics in addition to having a certain no-greater-than weight and a complimenting spiritual outlook. There was also a blank section for applicants to use as they wished: a small written bio, or a certain playlist, or a dirty limerick - their choice.

The attention stopped and the city gave up on him. They shunned him and considered him an outcast.  After a couple days he couldn’t go to the grocery without them spitting on the sidewalk in front of him.  Children would throw snow at him. Men would push him behind drugstores and give him what-for’s. The town had decided honesty was something left to the library, and they wanted what they saw on television and movie screens.

He stopped with the ads and ate his TV. dinners and smoked his cat whiskers and took out the trash when it was absolutely too full to fit anything else in. Neighbors would watch him from behind their blinds, sending their eyes to him all judgmental and southern. He missed California, and the Orange County swap meet.

Eventually he got lost in his beard and smoke and ran a stop sign, crashing into a pick-up truck and spinning it a little. A woman hopped out the bed of the truck and ran to the passenger door and pulled out a baby in a car seat. He sat in the car, wide-eyed and pale, and watched the neighbors come out pointing. The small family in the truck was fine, just rattled, and his phone started vibrating in his pocket. Things were getting noisy with the hollering and the glass and he rolled up his window, flipped open his phone. The text read: “My name is Lalo and I saw your ad in the paper. I’ve been following your ads for some time now, but have come to miss them recently. I found your last ad, filled it out, and I’m pleased to say I meet your little requirements. We should meet.”

He looked around and saw the cops walking towards his car.

He texted back: “Send me a picture.”

A cop tapped his window and he got out and started the apologetic “Is everyone alright” routine, checked on the baby and put his hand on his forehead like a worried man would do. He thanked the cops for their assistance, cleaned up the shards of bumper and headlights, and tried to get to his house to check out the man’s picture as quickly as possible.  But the boys in blue put their hands on him after the neighbors had gone to their insides. They left him bruised and warned.

As he laid there in the street and street lamps he got another vibration from his phone and checked it. He was handsome. Space black hair, House-blue eyes, a neck to die for.  He texted him his address and he responded: “30 mins.”

He left his car parked facing the wrong way on the curb after having to push it the 3 or 4 blocks back to the house. He walked through the door and said out of breath, “I’m having someone over. I need you to stay in the back of the house tonight.”

The house was an old house, with wooden floors and windows stuck in their panes, having expanded with the rain. He lived there with a ghost, but the ghost was friendly. It would take light bulbs out of their sockets and fill the water jug in the fridge, but it never brought fear to him and it gave him privacy when he masturbated. He had announced one night to the living room that he was placing a white board and marker on the wall and should the ghost feel the want to share its name, it could write it. He told the ghost it could stay, so long as it didn’t frighten him - though waking up to a name on the wall would be terrifying, no matter how friendly the penmanship. The board stayed white and was white still when he locked the front door behind him.

He wasn’t home five minutes when there was a knocking at the door. He hollered for one second and he washed his face and combed back his hair. With everything dirty shoved away, he answered the door and almost buckled with surprise. The picture was one thing, but to see him standing there, surpassing expectations, nearly took his air. Tall and lean. Strong Aztec features. Copper skin.

Lalo walked into the house, made an irked face, and looked at him.
”How ‘bout we go out?” Lalo asked.

He looked back and saw a shadow scurry behind a wall. “Alright,” he said.

They went to a bookstore and didn’t find much. The faggoty cashier winked at Lalo as they left and Lalo mentioned this to him when they got in the car. He went back in and, though Lalo couldn’t hear what was being said, Lalo saw there was pointing and one punch thrown.

He got back in the car and shook his knuckles.  ”Where do you want to eat?”

They went to a movie instead and saw something called Devil and tried to figure out the killer before the credits. His pick was the first killed so he tried to make out with Lalo instead, opting to do it then instead of waiting nervously. Lalo obliged and they felt their tongues for the first time. They stayed entwined for the film and by the end had wandered their hands under each other’s jeans.  Lalo was hard and he was throbbing and they decided to go back to the house.

They rushed through the door and threw off their coats as they bumped into the walls and door frames, making their way to his bed. He hit the radio and Murder Ballads came through the speakers, bloody and dark. He threw Lalo to the mattress and held himself up over the inviting form, his hair brushing the tips of Lalo’s nose and lips. Lalo unbuckled his belt and pulled it from his jeans. Lalo undid his button-fly with nimble fingers and put his hand around his cock, pulled on it, too. He fed Lalo his tongue again and Lalo put the tip of him against the long, throbbing bulge of his denim.

“I want to do something,” Lalo said. ”Put on a movie.”

“What movie?”

“I don’t fucking care.”

He ran to the living room with his flopping member and came back with Edward Scissorhands, put it in the player, then noticed Lalo was naked and stretching his limbs, his ribcage expanding around his frame, all flesh and inviting. The long, thick penis was stretched up along the flat stomach. The skin was pulled back over the head, clear semen formed at the tip.

He lay with Lalo and when the movie began Lalo said, “I’m going to suck your cock.  And you’re going to tell me what you’re watching.”

Lalo smiled and put his cock in his mouth and he began sucking on it, slowly gliding his mouth up and down the shaft, flicking under the head with his tongue.

He put his head back and watched the saliva build up around Lalo’s lips. Lalo looked up at him and pointed to the movie.

“Uh…There’s some houses…and they’re…they’re all colorful, or…suburban like…Jesus Christ your mouth…” He felt the suction and Lalo's tongue caress the sensitive head of his penis. It made his back arch and toes point outward with each stroke. Lalo was naturally hitting all of his buttons.

Lalo pointed back at the screen again.

“Uh, fuck, ok…there’s a lady walking…around…and she’s…she’s selling something…are you fucking kidding me? Come here.” And he grabbed Lalo’s face and put his lips to his, but Lalo pushed him away and went back down to his glistening, slobbered dick. Lalo put it back in his mouth and moaned, pleased with himself.

“Ok, ok…the lady is still walking…and no one is buying anything…and she’s thinking about sucking my cock, gagging on it and wanting its cum…”

Lalo looked up and smiled, shook his head with his cock between his teeth, and said, “No improv.”

He sighed and lifted his hips into Lalo’s face, pulled Lalo towards his erection and had him swallow it.

“I’m going to fuck your face.”

And Lalo smiled, or tried to smile, as the stiff cock pumped inside his throat. Lalo put the man's hands in his hair and made him grip the dark, curly strands. He pulled on Lalo and held his cock deep in his mouth until Lalo turned red and his eyes watered. Lalo brought his head back and a wad of drool fell out his mouth as he took a breath. They smeared it on themselves and he jerked off while Lalo put his fingers in his hole.

“Bring it here,” he told him.

“Come in my mouth,” Lalo said.

Lalo gripped his cock and began stroking it between his lips, smeared saliva bubbles and spit-covered. Their eyes were no longer strangers. They had found something in each other’s and they stared with it, reaching out and finding the other. He began to rapidly breath through his nostrils, mouth clenched such. He held Lalo’s head and cheek and shot his spurting load into him, jabbing his hips roughly up at Lalo's twisting, bobbing head, making Lalo squirm and whimper and close his eyes and lose some of it as it seeped out the corner of his mouth. Lalo swallowed what he could and licked up the rest before laying his head on the man's sweaty chest. Some cum slowly made its way out him and they laid there while Edward got accustomed to a waterbed.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Lalo whispered.

“Yes.”

“Do you know you have one here?” Lalo asked.

“Yes.  But it’s harmless.”

“I don’t think it is.”

Martinis at Sunset

I lay in my room. Outside seagulls squawk, dogs bark. My roommate is in the living room killing zombies online. Enough of this shit, I shower and dress and walk down to the cafe to shoot the shit with anyone who will lend a friendly ear.

Mostly on account that I wanted to smooth talk this one guy who I recently met named Jose Luis. He is attending medical classes and makes the occasional trip to the beach to watch the sunset. The first time we chatted and I thumbed through his text books, I made a quip about Freud and he followed it by a comment about artists having oral fixations all the while giving me that look. You know...that look.

So, as I was saying, I went to the beach to talk with him yet instead wound up sitting in front of the beer/pizza joint called Horno 320 and drinking beers with expat writer Robert Smallwood. Me being without funds, it was nice of him. We sat and chatted of writing and writers. All the while blowing my rendezvous with Jose Luis. A ver...

Eventually, Robert invited me to the rooftop balcony to his house on the beach to smoke weed and sip martinis. Though that 52 year old was sloshed to gills stumbling over words and sometimes his own feet, the old man made sense - he urged me to continue writing (I had confessed that I was thinking of throwing in the towel) and I should exploit my gift. Funny, never saw it as a gift - more as a curse, but I digress.

As the sun sank as a flaming ball over the silver horizon, we returned to the pizzaria and sat out on the tables on the sidewalk and joked and laughed - mostly Robert making off-kilter sexual innuendo at two girls who sat across from us - it was actually a relaxing time that I needed after the emotional rollercoaster ride of the previous week.

And as for Jose Luis - the poor boy is in my sights and I think it is high time to begin the hunt...

If You're Going to Try, Go All the Way.

I sit here at the cafe on the beach. Sunny skies and crashing surf. A fishing boat bobs languidly on the silver horizon. So calm. Yet my paranoia and angst runs rampant. Why am I so wound up? When I get like this, I want to write. My mind is awash with a million images and words splash across my eyes like a kaleidoscope of fireworks on a summer night. The only recourse is to write my way out of this insidious depression which I battle on a daily basis.

I sit and I scribble notes on a new novel. No title as yet. It is still in it's larval state. However, it will be gritty and raw and harsh. I will not hold back anything. I plan to puke it out onto a page and then smear that mess into some sort of coherent prose. It will be an anthology of several stories of my adventures through the back alleys and underground sewers of American society.

Staring out into this idyllic vista, am I living the dream or have I thrust myself into another fractured nightmare? I think the paranoia is that I still hadn't adjusted to this change. Or it is the tidal wave of nostalgia from previous Tijuana episodes. Have I changed that much? Has my age finally caught up with me? Do I crave the tranquil stability which I had spat at for so many decades? Only last night, I lay in my room pondering the idea at the first of next month packing my shit and moving to Tucson. Why? Hell if I know.

Charles Bukowski once wrote, “If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery - isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”

Oh, how I envy writers who can turn their misery into beautiful flowers. That is the goal I am attempting to reach with my writing. To excise all the misery and heartache and letdowns and depression from my body and mind onto paper. But, there seems so much. A vast, dusty hall of memories piled to the high, dark roof in uncategorized, dirty, and soiled boxes echoing with the low hum of absolute solidarity. Well, it seems I have my work cut out for me.

The Theater of Noise

Too much is too much
In the Theater of Noise
Blue dog barks at the night sky
How much is the cries
How wet is the wet
Girlfriend, where's boy?
Total cries of lust
Why hogs of beauty come?
The back story of my place
The Theater of Noise
Interesting, but true
The Theater of Noise
Belongs to the people!
For the people!
By the people!
By the people
How do you know?
By rotting governments?
By stupid politicians?
By rancid presidents?
Behold my Word Hoard!
Sky red, Blue night. Why?
Why? Why? Why?
Perhaps the answer is in you?
Anytime
missed the cumshot
Blew the shot, blew the shot
Blew the shot

My Dog Barks Some.

The sky a dazzling, bright blue. Silver mist from the sea. The hushing swish of breaking waves. Shirtless boys prowl the art fair set up by vendors on my street. Police cruise by in their Ford F-150's with eyes of hate hidden behind wrap around sunglasses, arrest three drunk boys stumbling along the boardwalk. The boys - shirtless with thin, copper skin that glisten with perspiration and sex - hold plaintive looks on their faces, faces that accept the inevitable with calm, animal stupidity. All is well on this lazy Saturday afternoon far from the filth and degradation of downtown Tijuana.

I sit at the cafe with my friend the troubadour, he by the moniker "Doobie". He serenades any passerby or dog or junkie with a sad ballad of life. We chat between great puffs on Luckies and sip coffee by the gallon served by twin brothers who lost their calling as models or porn stars. They both are drop dead gorgeous. I have employed Doobie as a literary translator. I have decided it was time to translate all my books in Spanish.

This change has not settled in yet. I am still paranoid and broke from this mood. A decision that is still up in the air. This new life is idyllic - almost too good. And as we all know, 'too good' and me are bitter enemies. Fucking bitch.

Yesterday, as I was walking through Plaza Santa Cecilia on my way to the States, I saw Old Chuck - the ancient pedophile who I rented with on my last stay here in las playas. He was older, grayer, frailer. He sat with a gaggle of other old queens in front of that notorious bar El Ranchero. Obviously, they are a restaurant now, also. I could never bring myself to eat cuisine offered by that putrid den of debauchery. Could you imagine? Insidious.

I am in limbo. Mentally and physically. Mentally, because I have not contacted SSI and reported my change of address strict from fear. A fear that consumes me, I have to admit. I will next week and let the dice land were they may. What choice do I have? return to El Paso and live an existence worse than death? Physically, I feel tired. Worn out. fatigued often. In my creeping age, I think this body has reached it's limit. Perhaps I need to make an appointment with a doctor and get a check up. I honestly can state that I have never had one - not a full exam, anyway.

Enough bitching, right? I need to handle this like I always have in the past and that is simply to go with it...

Vamos A La Playa.

As of this writing, all is well. I am settling into my new digs comfortably. Of course the inner responsible me is screaming "What did you do, you asshole?!" But, I never listen to that bitter, judgemental bitch anyway. I mean, really? Why should I?

Yesterday, I went to San Diego to purchase a P.O. Box for various reasons. The two years gone - everything seemed so alien upon my return. I can't put my finger on it. Again, it will take some time to assimilate back into this hurly-burly lifestyle. You tend to lose track of the world of the living when you are stuck in the anti-life that is El Paso, Texas.

A note of sadness - I was appalled to find out that a good friend of mine was murdered in my absence. His name was Daniel - you long time readers or just the ones that have been keeping tabs on this shit that I write, might remember that he was the young bartender who worked at Bar D. F. and was a cook at the Patio Bar/Cafe. It appears that the occurrence was straight out of a Mexican novela. He had become smitten with a young girl whose father had ties with the local cartel here, some how he pissed the father off and was executed. And, so it goes, Mr. Pilgrim.

My room mate, Paco, who so graciously let me rent a room in his house is being the perfect roommate - caring and respectful. A handsome, Mexican nerd who - when he is not working - is glued to his computer since getting internet installed two days prior.

Now, comes the big question on my behalf - do I go all out and live a fun-filled life of debauchery, swimming in all the carnal fruits that this city has to offer? Or do I use the accumulated patience and knowledge of retirement and just relax and continue to write more books? How the fuck should I know, Dear Reader? I'm making this shit up as I go along - it's more fun that way. But, true to form, I will continue to submit full reports on whatever fate flings into my face.

Rambling, Rolling Thoughts.

I'm jotting this down on the fly so bear with me:

There is no way to describe the loneliness and pain of taking a bus halfway across the country in the middle of the night. I felt apprehensive as I stood in that blistering heat of downtown El Paso waiting to board the cheap-ass route I had chartered. It seemed so fast that this decision to relocate had came to pass - a matter of days really. Four days to be exact. Four days to shed the two years accumulation of useless crap. Anyway, as I said, I felt odd - as if I was escaping a trap in which if I did not hurry, the trap would close and I would remain forever.

So, I'm careening through the dusky night in seats which felt like steel - seated with an obese retard who felt it was necessary to snore loudly in my face. I noticed that he had something garlicy earlier.

I sat in discomfort and with spinning paranoia - staring up through the rattling and plastic window at that full moon in that vast, navy sky full of stars - wondering if I had done the right thing. I mean, pulling up my tent and stealing into the night was nothing new to this Great White Explorer - seriously this was downright child play - but, I must admit, I did have my doubts.

The night dragged as I fidgeted with a sore ass and cramping legs - Lordsburg, Tucson, Phoenix, San Bernardino, Baldwin Park - phantom towns of past nostalgia whisked by like unnamed assholes in a well traveled bathhouse. I've seen them countless times before and I will apathetically see them all again. So it goes.

Well, Your Reporter finally arrived at the border town of San Ysidro. Newly renovated it would seem since my last visit. Crossed la linea into the land of milk and honeyboys, handing change to grimy hands of grimy children, dragging my luggage rapidly past the taco vendors - stench of seared meats and wilted vegetables - past the barking pitchmen and up to a gang of taxi drivers all on the hustle. Picked the cutest that I could muster in that ugly menagerie and hurtled over the mountain to my final location - las playas. (The beach for you ding dongs that no speaky the Spanish)

Pulled up to my old haunt, the cafe Aquamarino where, after slapping a 200 peso note into the taxi drivers hand followed by a wink, I was greeted by several old acquaintances sitting out front on tables sipping coffee and shooting the shit. I was also surprised that two people I did not know approached me and complemented me on my books. I still can't grasp this unwanted fame and notoriety from this writing gig which I have stumbled across. They're just books, people.

Eventually, I was reunited with my good pal Paco - he had originally invited me to rent a room in his sea side villa for only $150 a month. When I saw the place I was quite pleased - comfortable and spacious.

As of this writing, I am sitting in a sea side cafe of Moroccan motive eating sweet tiramisu and sipping Arabic coffee and I can honestly say - no more regrets. Unlike Lot's wife, I will not ever look back.

A Ticket is Bought.

I have waited two years for this bus. Two long, insidious years and I finally ripped myself free of these domestic shackles and chartered a fare back west. I won't bore you with the details of the long, monotonous trip - hell, just read previous posts on similar voyages - they're all the same.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I am en route back to California. Why? How the fuck would I know. You want to try to figure it out with me? Of course you do. That is why you are here. I can tell you this though, I have finally stepped into full on insanity and the best part of it is - I'm planning to write about it in painful accuracy. So, tally-ho!

Breaking Point

I have hit the breaking point. It was a long time coming - two years to be exact. But, I am there. Through madness comes clarity. Through chaos comes reason. I need to free myself once again. I need to get out. I need...

With A Chuckle.

He slipped off his khakis.

Thirty one, thirty twos,

fitted around the thigh.

He slipped off his shirt.

Button-down collar,

forty inch slim fit.

Summer-time blues.

He slipped off his glasses.

Specifications unknown

(to him, not their maker.)

He slipped off his bed.

Double, white, pressed

linen sheets, achingly

crisp.

He slipped open the nightstand,

made his last prayer to Sammy Colt,

and pulled the trigger with a,

a chuckle.

Vampyr

The greatness of Carl Dreyer's first sound film (1932, 83 min.) derives partly from its handling of the vampire theme in terms of sexuality and eroticism and partly from its highly distinctive, dreamy look, but it also has something to do with Dreyer's radical recasting of narrative form. Synopsizing the film not only betrays but misrepresents it: while never less than mesmerizing, it confounds conventions for establishing point of view and continuity, inventing a narrative language all its own. Some of the moods and images conveyed by this language are truly uncanny: the long voyage of a coffin, from the apparent viewpoint of the corpse inside; a dance of ghostly shadows inside a barn; a female vampire's expression of carnal desire for her fragile sister; an evil doctor's mysterious death by suffocation in a flour mill; a protracted dream sequence that manages to dovetail eerily into the narrative proper. The remarkable soundtrack, created entirely in a studio (in contrast to the images, which were all filmed on location), is an essential part of the film's voluptuous and haunting otherworldliness. (Vampyr was originally released by Dreyer in four separate versions—French, English, German, and Danish; most circulating prints now contain portions of two or three of these versions, although the dialogue is pretty sparse.) If you've never seen a Carl Dreyer film and wonder why many critics, myself included, regard him as possibly the greatest of all filmmakers, this chilling horror fantasy is the perfect place to begin to understand. 

Free Bird.

I light a cigarette and stare at the dead grass beyond the window. Morning pours into the kitchen, pale and grey. I hold the smoke with my breath for far too long and cough, eyes watering. When he sits down across from me, I barely glance up.

“Can I?”

“Get your own.”

He gives a placid shrug. His hair is matted, his skin is hypoxia-blue with eyes black and unfaltering.

I sigh fine, pull tobacco and rolling papers from my pocket, place them on the mahogany table. The room is brightening with fiery summer sunrise as I smoke and I roll and he says nothing, doesn’t make a single sound. I wait a moment before raising my eyes, hoping he would had evaporated.

He gives me a knowing, dry-lipped smile. I hand the cigarette over, give him a light. His fingernails are long, chipped, filthy, I note.

Quiet, whispery. “Was I worth anything at all?”

My eyes skitter away. I stub my own cigarette out in the ash tray. My stomach is loaded with stones. I am eleven years old, I’ve been brought up in front of the class to recite my times tables. My cheeks burn.

“Of course,” I try, but my tongue feels swollen. I bow my head, mutter, “No. not at all.”

“I wonder why that is.” Sarcasm. It’s like catching scent of a memory. His voice in the mornings before work, sure Juan, take your time, it’s not as though we’ve anywhere to be.

Now he’s spitting the smoke back at me like a weapon.

“What are you even doing here?” I rub my eyes with the heel of my hand.
“Don’t change the subject.” He slouches in the chair, tips his head back and makes a lazy o with his lips. I breathe in his smoke, hypnotized for a moment before I look down, begin rolling another cigarette.

He clucks with his tongue, digs in the pocket of his white shirt, and pulls one out.

I frown. “What the fuck? Why did you ask for one if you already had a pack?”

He holds it out insistently so I take it, shaking my head as I place it between my lips. The smile around his mouth grows and grows as he watches me, sitting very still.

I stop, demand: “What?”

No reply. He takes another drag from his cigarette as I light my own. The sky is blooming blue. The clock on the wall reads eight o’clock. I breathe in the silence and the smell of smoke. It’s the old days, back at his parents’ house when he’d have nightmares and we’d sit, watch each other as hours crawled by, sip bitter black coffee.

“Maybe you do get it,” he says to me now.

I blink. It takes a few seconds to pull myself from my lethargic smoke-haze and decipher his meaning.

“Maybe you do understand what I was worth. You just don’t know it.”

I open and close my mouth, drop my eyes to the carpet, run a hand through my hair, trying to translate the ache in my chest into English words, into syllables.

“No,” I say. “I wish I did, but I meant more to you. I will always mean more to you.”

When I look up, he’s gone. The cigarette, fallen on the tabletop, keeps burning.

I pick it up; drop it in the overflowing tray, so as not to leave a mark.

The Darkest Night.

There was something sexy about his desperation as he stood beneath that cold, hard street light with his thick lips drawn down in a clownish smile which he obviously didn’t feel; something intriguing in the way he threw himself at complete strangers, not for money as he claimed, but for the hope that one day one of them might actually fill that void in the pit of his stomach which was slowly eating him alive.

Most of all, though, there was something wise, tough, and ferocious about him. He was a survivor in the darkest jungle of them all, staving off those predatory fears and eluding the evils which dogged his every move.

I watched him for a long time, like an anthropologist studying apes, taking in all that I could about him. In the end one thing puzzled me most; how did he have the strength to keep going on? Where did he find that persistence?

I knew I wasn’t going to get the answer any other way than asking him, so I walked over to where he was posted up, a cigarette hanging limp in his lips.

“What can I do for ya, homie?” He asked as I drew closer. “You wanna have some fun tonight?” I could taste the booze on his breath from six feet away but he hid his slur well. I wasn’t surprised; I would have wanted to be drunk, too.

“Well what’s the going rate?”

“For a cutie like you, daddy, I’ll do it for 40 bucks. Do you have somewhere for us to go?”

“Um, no, actually. But how about this, I’ll give you 40 bucks if you answer one question for me.” I pulled two 20 dollar bills from my pocket so he knew I wasn’t joking.

“What kind of question?” He asked with a voice laced with suspicion and eyes glued to the bill in my right hand.

“What keeps you going? How can you keep doing this to yourself?”

He thought about it for a minute, letting the question marinade, then he looked me square in the eye, his face glistened in alcohol induced flop sweat, and said, “Baby, even in the darkest night, hope is shining down on us sure as this street lamp above our heads. You just have to look for it and it’ll guide you through the hardest of times.” Then he snatched the bills from my hand and walked off into the dark; leaving me to stand alone beneath that cold, hard street light.

Bi-Sexual Conundrum.

When he put his hand to my cheek and whispered, breathless and urgent, “I’m not sure if we’re doing the right thing,” what was I to do? I was a good person but I was also a human being. As I lay there with the warmth of his arms, his chest and his legs breathing into mine, the dreams of restless nights rolling off the wetness of his tongue, what was I to do? I put my clothes back on and walked away from all of it. How was I to know that in guilt no one ever wants to be alone? No one asks questions like these with the expectation of foresight or objectivity furnished with the sensibility of reason. In the wavering smile that cast its light towards me by the fading sunset, the only hope that dared to hope was that I too would be equally uncertain, equally aware of the questionable circumstances in which we had both found ourselves. Instead, I saw only a turbulent future stretching out into the horizon - the pain and the mess that emotions and declarations of carpe diem eventually abandon us to. No, the truth is that I allowed myself to think that for once I could break all the laws that govern this absurd universe, and I let my heart go. What then, really happened? I was drunk, but not drunk enough to believe that in the morning we would not be plagued by worries of another empty one night stand. It wasn’t just that either. Where were we supposed to go from there? When all was said and done and clothed once more in the colors of the real world, were we going to think that the world we had created with crumpled sheets and the voices of each begging the other not to stop had now ceased to exist? 

Relics

This morning, I remembered I had a MySpace Account.

It came on me in an unwelcome flash. I was sitting at the table, nursing a coffee between both hands. Maybe it was my reflection in the liquid sheen of the dark mug, distorted. Maybe, like a pilgrim receiving the call to a holy place, it was divinely inspired. Whatever the cause, I remembered.

I did not login because I had forgotten how. My profile had not been deleted when I grew bored with that first online sandbox, left it for the tarnished mecca of Zuckerberg. It had simply been abandoned. I had moved on, expecting MySpace - like an old lover - to do the same.

I knew, however, that it had not - and that the ruins of that once-glorious social networking ziggurat still remained down the long and winding html that first took me there. I decided to descend into this ancient monument to public narcissism only after lying in bed for hours, sleep eluding me. Curiosity is the third most powerful force for driving a man quickly out of bed, next to having to use the bathroom and getting a wicked charlie horse.

I stared at the landing page, unable to remember my password. It was as if I was repressing something more than the cutesy nonsense statement I gave to all non-essential websites. More and more I felt like I was approaching the fallow ruins of a lost city, and it loomed before me as I pecked my fingers across the keyboard. It was my past - locked away on silently blinking servers somewhere in the universe - untouched for years. Until today.

The page came up. My homepage. It looked wildly different, like coming upon a pregnant ex, the blue hair and nipple piercings you never enjoyed, her happy husband. My “wall” - which seemed to be a hollow doppelganger of a news feed - nattered endlessly at me about Eli Roth, my friend’s sisters band, that porn star I’d friended while drunk in 2007. They were an ivy of my college interests, updates clawing unchecked at my wall, obscuring it beyond comprehension. It was unsettling, but I pressed on.

My pictures were me, but thinner. Hotter. There were even comments - from guys! - agreeing. When you’re at the wrong end of letting yourself go, pictures of how good you used to look are common relics, and largely uninteresting. I continued through the antechamber.

The blog was like opening a king’s mausoleum. Writing that was too “low” to be saved by a young, aspiring writer with delusions of The Great American Novel riddled the blog entries. These were raw short stories, ideas long forgotten, documents of college exploits and transcriptions of fever dreams. If I was Indiana Jones, this was the Ark of the Covenant.

But like those incorrigible Nazis, I just couldn’t help myself. It was not enough to find the Ark; I had to open it. I clicked on my message history.

It was all there, years of my life. Arguing about classes, planning parties, bemoaning middle-class problems. There were messages to then acquaintances who had grown into dear friends. There was a first tentative message to a guy I fell in love with, awkward and forcing a charm I’ve never really possessed. There were long, drawn out message chains with other guys, who I easily could have loved as well, but for cruel circumstance.

The emotion flooded over me, four years of memory meticulously documented. I opened the Ark, and it was turning me into a melting wax skeleton of overwhelming sentiment. I was not ready for such an intimate glimpse into my past - things once beautiful, now dried and turned to scars on my psyche, reminders of my advancing age and entrenched adulthood.

Like an looter in an ancient tomb, I turned and ran at the first sight of the skeletons buried there. I logged out, snapped my laptop shut, and crawled under the warmth of my covers.

There is no moral to this story. Only my story, and a dire warning to fellow travelers: If you were careless enough not to burn your profile down when you evacuated, do not be so foolish as to seek it out again. You will be accosted by the howling demons of your Top Ten friends, blinking Hunger Games banner ads tearing at your flesh and eyes. You will remember you once listed OAR as a band you enjoyed! Beware, travelers! MySpace is the path to ruin!

oh shit!

Private Transit

I took the boy back to my hotel with me because I liked his shoes.

I’d never seen them in real life before, only in pictures. They were ’50s boots, oddly feminine and heeled and an oily black color, boots the Beatles would wear when they liked alcohol more than marijuana.

I told him I liked his shoes and to sit on the bed if he wanted. He said thanks and okay. I was chewing gum, and it was making the air smell like watermelon. Not real watermelon—the synthetic watermelon-flavor smell.

What’s your favorite book, he asked me. He was watching my bookshelf intently, as if waiting for one of my paperbacks to leap off and land on my bed beside him. I pointed to it, told him it was a beautiful mess of a novel, and that I liked it because it made me feel what was lacking even if I could never see it or anything. I asked him what he liked, he said books of myths and things, because they didn’t try to be smart or sneaky, they just told you how to live and the consequences the gods would inflict if you didn’t.

I smiled. I bet I was doing that weird thing with my lip that I always do when I’m mostly smiling inside—quiet smiles, not funny but impressed or—not happy—content, I suppose.

He smiled back. I like this, he said. I like this a lot. I asked what. He said not knowing things. I like you not knowing me and me not knowing you. You like my shoes and my myths and I like your soft bed and that you like big books. It’s simple. I’m not strange and repellent to you.

Why would you be like that, I wondered.

He told me he was a narcissist. He was depressed, and that meant he had a brain cell excuse for being obsessed with himself. But, he still obsessed over what people thought about him obsessing over himself, and he would apologize too much and that was annoying and nobody really wanted to talk to him but since it wasn’t his fault that he was annoying that kind of had to but he knew this and it made him feel awful and disgusting for talking to them. He sapped life out of people, he said.

I don’t know why he told me all that. Then he made a face which suggested that he thought that I found him repulsive and this was what made him repulsive, you know? That he thought this, that he anticipated my reaction to be a certain way when it wasn’t. But I did like his shoes, and I knew I would never see him again. So I turned off the light.

Si Sabes.

Sat in the bar scoping out the few hotties who congregated around the old, wooden counter. Some sullen and alone as only faggots could be, others in animated conversations with friends or tricks. Each of us had the all mighty caguama in front of us. I was feeling it - being my third one. I swear I am becoming an alcoholic.

The bar-maid slash waitress, Rosie - only cunt I ever cared about - pointed out that Joshua, my flavor of the week, was standing just outside the rotted swinging double doors - waiting. Waiting to talk with me. I uttered that it was a public bar and he could come inside if he wanted to talk. You see, we had an argument a couple of days ago and I supposed he thought I would be a simpering faggot squirming back to him for forgiveness with beating of chest and great, gasping sobs. How little he knows this cold, imperious homo, right?

So, he's standing out in the dust and the smog with the honking night traffic, when finally Rosie beckons him to come inside. Meekly Joshua sits next to me - we shake hands. The wonderful thing about alcohol is that it has a tendency of making things better. We talked and drank and shot a few rounds of pool - all was okay again. As a fact, after I left the bar and stood in the lurking shadows of the dark street - Joshua followed me. I had the intention of going back to my hotel room alone. But, looking into those beautiful, brown eyes with the thick lashes - What the fuck?, I thought.

Back at my rented room, Joshua was garrulous - going on about his wife and kid, family, general life of his.

"You gonna stay the night here or you wanna go home?" I asked. "I'm tired and want to sleep."

He optioned to stay and I commanded that he sleep in his boxers. At that moment, I was tired and in no mood for his horny-ass shenanigans. Peeling off each other’s clothes, we lay on the coverlet entwined like hibernating pythons. Kisses in the deep night turned into a massage. Rolled onto my stomach, Joshua smoothed away much needed tension - have to admit, the boy can give a mean massage. I reach up and brush against the erection in his boxers.

"Que es eso?" (What is this?) I say jokingly.

"Si sabes." (You know.) He smiles in the dark.

My boxers are pulled so slowly halfway down my legs and with saliva applied, Joshua slides in. He grunts and puffs, lunging and thrusting into me before he yanks himself out and shoots his semen onto my ass. He plops down onto the bed next to me - still drunk out of his mind. My buzz still buzzing. Light laughter. Pecks on the forehead and cheeks. Arms wrap around smooth brown frame.

We shower and dry and lay quiet in the warm darkness under the noise of the omnipresent ceiling fan. Suddenly, Joshua bolts up, dashes to the restroom, and vomits loudly and abundantly into the toilet. Poor, drunk kid.

He mentions it would be better if he went home and - after borrowing taxi fare - we dress and I walk him to a taxi stand, making a date to see him Sunday afternoon for a movie. In the musty warmth of the night, I stroll back to my room, realizing I really am begining to care about that guy...