There Are No Friends Anymore

I had known him for eight years. At first, a preteen who prowled the Plaza at night looking for kicks, loose change, or drug money. He ran with a pack of huffers - their upper lips in a continual state of glow from the residue of paint thinner. Crinkled, brown paper bags and small spray paint cans bulging the front pockets of their tattered jeans. Like Wild Boys they hooted and hollered through the Plaza flirting with old vampires who fawned over their energetic youth. He would badger me for my address or plead to take him home 'to watch movies' with huge, doe-like eyes. Too young, I refuse.

Years later, he is a responsible twenty-something. We randomly meet one evening in the Plaza as he is returning from work. Name badge on red string dangling from his neck. Again, with the same look, he asks where I lived. During the passing months, he visits almost every day after work for a bite to eat, watch a movie (on a particular Sunday, he sits through all six Star Wars films), watches porn, gets a blow job. Tu mamar rico.

Unlike virtually every other guy I met, he never once asked for any money. During that time, every night some fool would be banging on my door requesting pesos or attempted to rob me. Not him. Not once.

Fate pulls us apart again. For ten years, I go mad, transient, become a published writer. On a personal level in the attempt to make friends, I met one let down after another which results in myself become a self-loathing recluse. He flounders and ends up in prison for seven years narcotic trafficking. He's released, gets married, has a baby settles into a hetro-centric cocoon.

I return to the desert city and we are reacquainted. But, he had become what fate had ordained. The first day in my house, he hits me up for 450 pesos ($30). I hand it over without fail to show how much respect I had for him. I will pay you back when I get paid tomorrow. That was two months ago. The act of not paying me back was not what hurt. The finalization that he valued our friendship was less than thirty dollars.

That has been an occurrence of late. People I had thought of as friends - friends in the way that we hang out, talk, share common interests and actually enjoy the time spent without ulterior motives or monetary gain - had all...ALL fell to ruin.

This is the aspect that drives me to leave, once and for all and to never...never...look back.

Tranquilo.

Dark and well past midnight. A muted crimson from the cigarette illuminated his copper colored-skin in the half light. Quiet. We could hear each other breath. In the near distance, down by the obscure, long shadows off the empty street, the sound of four gunshots. Somewhere a dog barked. Under the blankets, we drew nearer, the warmth of his smooth skin, the softness of his hair, the pleasant smell of his torso. It stimulated me - smoothed me out.

   I felt unreservedly calm as we entwined. Arm around my shoulder, head on his chest, I looked up, regarding the outline of his attractive features in the crimson glow of the cigarette’s cinders. Hooked nose, thick pouty lips, thick eyelashes, ebony hair hanging limply over forehead.

   Outside the blankets, the room was ink black and cold with clothes thrown about the tiled floor. The smell of sweat and semen wafted in the stillness mixed with cigarette vapors - but, inside the blankets it was warm and still and serenísimo. Not a word exchanged, yet the feeling was there - a fellaheen feeling of togetherness as I had not felt since...

   He put the cigarette out in the silver tray on the table next to the bed. He embraced tighter, drawing me near, and a small kiss on my forehead. Slowly and surely, I heard his slight breathing as he fell asleep. I lay there and stared into blackness, out in the still night a lonesome train horn moaned - my hand gently slid up and down his thin side coinciding with his slow, steady breathing.

   Eventually, I succumbed to sleep, too - dreaming of Argonauts in fiery ships...

Pounding Out One Atrocity After Another

With all that’s been happening in my sappy, uneventful yet somehow complain-able life lately, I’ve been writing often. Frequently, I sit at my computer and let my feelings flow from wherever I feel them to the tips of my fingers, bouncing back and forth between cold keys…and no matter what I write and no matter how much time and thought or effort I put into each tap on each key and every entry as a whole, it’s wrong.

   It’s all wrong. It’s frustrating. Most writers, they go crazy. They have a masterpiece, one mind blowing novel which does well, usually after they pass, which is a problem in and of itself, but this masterpiece, it empties them. After people buy it and read it and engulf themselves in the art that is this person’s past seven or eight years of writing, the author himself is hollow. They write away all their feelings. No matter what the story’s about, they put too much of themselves in it. They spend every waking second in the effort to improve it and fix it and ultimately go absolutely basket shit crazy. That is not something I desire on myself.

   And yet, it is the path I have chosen. The crazy, mad, sweaty writer glaring at his laptop screen like a psycho typing out raw, peeled prose of filth, poverty, and degradation. Hours spent – no, days spent - holed up in my dank room pounding out one atrocity after another. And you know what? I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

No One I Love

The dank smell of unwashed penis and bleach assailed my nostrils. Three seats over, a gray old queen sat tapping his foot – lined face an apprehensive mask of sadness fretting over his lost youth - watching in the gloom the ballet of sex throughout the adult theater. On screen, a drugged-out Italian bitch was sucking cock twelve feet long - so it seemed.

Alex, he said his name was, sat next to me motionless as statuary. Skinny, hawk like face with black goatee, red cap turned backwards - transfixed on the flickering images dubbed in Italian with Spanish subtitles. I glanced over to him: shadowy silhouette outlined against green wall streaked in black goo and splattered in other abstract liquids, now dried and flaking. Long moment of silence.

“Let’s get out of here.” He finally stated.

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

He stopped under a rusted corrugated awning, white florescent light seared my eyes - pedestrian traffic bumped into us - Alex turned and mumbled, “You wanna coffee?”

Mambo be-bop jazz wailed from the speakers as we sat in the café observing the people dash outside. We talked of various subjects from science fiction to the fall of Communism - he was quite literary. Well read - knew of books I had never had the chance to read.

He took a long drag off of his cigarette; blew it into the air above his head, “So, tell me of this book of yours - what is it?”

“It’s a horror story.” I stated flatly.

“Really?”

“No, it’s a heart breaking romance.”

“Okay.” He smiled cynically.

“Actually, it’s a travel book.”

“Now, wait a minute –“

“It’s a medical report on dealing with schizophrenia and depression.”

He smiled, “How many fucking books is it?”

I sipped my coffee, “It’s a mess. Like me.”

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

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

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

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

Word in Motion

Working furiously. Without distractions or any type of social life. Holed up days at a time in my sordid little one-room flat in a Mexican slum typing without end. Three hundred and fifty-six pages so far and it is depressing the fuck out of me. Not bad as in writing or style, but the stories and incidents are excavated from my personal life. Nothing is more thrilling than living and then re-living your life’s greatest failures. I am writing this in the most raw, eye-peeled way I can. If the world is shit - and it is - I want to reveal it in a hi-def close up.

they’re all thieves

6:37am. Young, cholo type tweeker bops into the café acting as tweekers do. Basic urban hip hop gear draped over a stocky, toned frame. He swaggers with that macho walk that heats me pants every time. Fiddles incessantly with various tubes and containers on the condiment table. He uses the mensroom to go smooth himself out. Turns baseball cap backwards before entering. Before lighting up. Before sucking that glass pipe dry. Old, flabby queen sashays in with tea-cup chihuahua on a leash. Bangs on the bathroom door because the tweeker is taking too damn long. Fuck, man, let him take his medicine. It’s a horrible world out there, he needs to prepare. Tweeker bursts out, flashes me a wonderful smile with that macho handsome Latino face.

   “Don’t want no problems, chief”, He says to the snooty queen in passing.

   Tweeker ping pongs around the largely empty café plucking up bits of discarded paper, straightening chairs, swaying to the jazzy-jazz warbling over the speakers before dashing out into the post dawn nothing of the still sleeping city.

   I scribble annotations into my little notebook. I have drafted two or three more chapters to be incorporated into current novel. Much needed and am pleased with what I wrote. Romantic dealings and heartbreak let downs on a homeless level. Yeah, gay hobos need lovin’ too.

   I order my second large mug of house coffee, check my Facebook - boring - check my Tumblr - funny - check my e-mail - ghastly. I am biding time. Waiting to make my next move. What that move is at this point is a complete mystery. However, I am sure when revealed it will be both beautiful and strange.

   Two hours pass and I write. Think. Contemplate. Young cholo tweeker bursts back into the café, walks up to my booth and places his bag in the adjoining chair.

   “You gonna be here a bit?” He asks.

   “Yes, for another thirty minutes or so.” I croak.

   “Can you watch my stuff while I’m in the bathroom?” (He pronounces it baffroom).

   “Certainly.” I manage a smile.

   Clandestinely, he removes his charred glass stem pipe from his backpack and enters the mensroom, confiding, “I don’t trust the people who work here. They’re all thieves.” He enters the mensroom and locks it before I have time to answer.

   The clock on the wall ticks. I write. The sun curves up in the sky. The city slowly wakes.

Scribbles in the Margin of my Days

I find myself in Chuco Town - flat on my bloody, sore ass and see a shrink who deliberated after I exposed my tales of woe regarding the last five years of my life, came to the conclusion I should be locked up and the key tossed away, no rampaging roaming queens aloud in my district, girlfriend. I digress: the now is happening and the yen of returning to San Diego and all points south have been tempting my wondering baby blue eye.

   I have been suffering from insomnia for the last 48 hours with these fucking thoughts: I want to return to Tijuana, but I don’t want to go, I want to stay in Juárez City but I don’t want to stay. The lure of drugs and corruption seduce my being on both sides and both decisions have their good points and their bad points which of course sucks like a fairy in a bath house...an old ugly fairy. So I went to the local psychiatric center and deliberated to my shrink and Dr. Windom took notes and scribbled little scribbles never looking at me you understand on account I’m soooo feelthy. The diagnosis being to put me back on mind-fuck medication and I told him he can stuff it up his wrinkled snatch and stormed out because more or less (generally more) I like myself. Oft cited, if I died tomorrow, I’d die happy, harboring no regrets. I will transcribe these events - my purpose in writing it as “shitting out my educated Southern California background once and for all.” It’s a matter of catharsis, where I will continue to voice the most horrible of manias.

   This stream-of-consciousness spewing is apparently an attempt to liberate myself from the social and familial conditioning which controls me, that hems me in, that ultimately drives me - in desperation or rebellion - to self-limiting and self-destructive choices. Even so, I am evading the issue. I can’t make up my mind what to do. Juárez City substantially offers the same as Tijuana without the high-paced stress but the pay rate in El Paso is below poverty level and I am a faggito who has high standards, bitch, I won’t get fucked behind any old dumpster.

   I talked to my shrink (“Urgent warning…one of the nastiest cases ever entered this clinic.”) and wailed I feel so lost I can’t think. There is only a big fat blank as far as my future is concerned. That is to say, Dear Reader, I wish I could be like you and go to work regularly and pay rent regularly and have a big screen television and a PS3 and an electric can opener and a mustang convertible with all the trimmings and go to prim and proper little dinner parties with polite laughter at stupid jokes made by simpering fairies but I can’t and the fucking problem is that I don’t know why. I know what I do is not normal, I mean the blog which I spill forth is not fiction, how could anybody make that shit up continuously for fourteen years? I was there, I seen, smelled, and touched everything which transpired so I know it’s real, so fuck you faithless philistines anyways ever tell ya the time I was in Tijuana I once saw a seventeen year old Mexican Indian boy Azteca who shoot golf balls out his ass, and the fairies told me he was quite the nimble minx in bed...ahem, I perused other blogs and I wondered am I the only one in the world who travels and has a sex life (I miss you so much Saul “muthafukuh pounds ass like a pornstar!”) and enjoys everything this big blue marble has to offer? A mad man of one in a condemnatory society mired in political correctness? Ah yes, but therein lies the problem...

It's Coming...

1984 1/2

This great nation was at one time an upstanding role model for other countries of the world. A Golden Era in which it prided itself in peace and the prosperity of its people. That was until a handful of radical assholes got lucky and attacked a major city in the great nation which in turn gave cause for all types of schizophrenic retards to step forward and instill outrageous laws against (never any laws for) its own people.

Diplomat: “As of right now, in lieu of war, this nation is under martial law.”

A senator sat bloated off the sadness and discontent of the poor, picks up a phone receiver in his office: “Where the fuck is the Chief of the Department of Defense? Get his ass down here! I want, by tomorrow morning, posters plastered on every corner and bus bench in this country! ‘For your protection! Terrorism is everywhere!’ And have him design a kid friendly mascot to go with it so no fucktard housewife in Burntstump, Arkansas beef about shit like freedom of speech or personal liberties. Hell, if I know…make it a goddamn koala or platypus!”

What the government did not want anyone to ever realize was that the generation born between 1980-1995 actually outnumbered the Baby Boomers. They knew that if that particular generation ever turned their eyes toward political reform, they could change the world. And so, with insidious subtly, the powers that be kept them glutted on bland television programs and uninspiring music. They designed higher education to be outrageously overpriced and practically unobtainable and fed the masses shiny brain candy. They took away inspiring music and replaced it with vapid Top Ten pop stations. They cut off art and supplanted it with endless reality shows to plug into, trusting the generation would sit quietly as they ran the world.

The senator leaned back in his chair, wistfully glancing out his window at a serene view of Washington, D.C., “And thank God it worked…”

Procrastination Destination

Am I editing or am I re-writing? Most of my afternoon and well into the night was spent typing, and retyping a novel that I began with fervor four months ago before finishing a poorly constructed first draft and promptly ignoring the story for a full two weeks. In the grand scheme of things this is kind of okay. I’m not being paid to write about international art thieves, I haven’t been given a truckload of money and a swiftly approaching deadline, or a third thing - so I should be able to take as much time off from my personal life as I like. Except when I do I feel like shit. But I can’t stop taking breaks! I love it! I rewarded myself for retouching the first three paragraphs of my story with playing video games and writing this blog post. Here’s the kicker…

Post Script.

Soft jazz music plays from somewhere near outside. “Jesus Christ, people are up at 4am?”, I whispered to myself. I wondered what demons were visiting these motherfuckers. So many alone people trying their best not to find each other. Alone multiplied by many alone doesn’t really result to anything good. “Ha! I’m a fucking mathematician now”, I thought jokingly while lighting my last cigarette. Sex makes me puff cigarettes like I’m waiting for WWII bombs to fall. What a waste of my only best friend for now. Cigarette sticks and fuck—they’re the only good things left in my world. And alcohol. I almost forgot about the booze.

Fucking Double Standards!

The double standards in sex confuse me. When a woman gets a vibrator, it’s seen as a healthy expression of her sexuality. But, when a guy orders a 240 volt fuck-master pro 5000 blowup doll with 6 speed pulsating pussy, elasticized anus and a non-drip semen collecting tray with optional built-in realistic orgasm scream surround-sound speaker system, he’s called a pervert. Why?

Orale was the Answer.

Visited my friend Saul. He lives in the Old Colonias. Walking through the north-west side of Tijuana, that area promotes anything in the way of absolute poverty and filth. The sidewalks are debris strewn and cracked, despairing, beat individuals shit in the street, rummage and then consume scraps from vast mounds of garbage, entrepreneurs encompass every corner cooking up hideous, stinking jumbles of food which they peddle to passerby. Old men blink in the sun, female prostitutes look furtive and miserable, and slouched on a red stool under a rusted awning of a burrito stand, the dark brown crotch of the sleeping pimp swells with syphilis.

As evening fell, Saul and I both were bored and I came up with the brainstorm of visiting every bar we could and at each cantina down one shot of tequila and move on to the next. We became adequately faded - Saul and I stumbled down Calle Coahuila, home to many squalid dives and whorehouses.

Ambivalent transvestite hookers drift under yellow street lamps, eyes luminescent with methamphetamine, they lean against outcroppings of crumbling red brick walls, talk in silent, catatonic gestures, frescoes of elusive depravity, flat two dimensional howls drift into the night: “Orale…Joselito! Carlos!”

Stagnant patter of commerce: “See the show! Naked lady!”

“Nice girl, meester?”

A hideous soiled mouth blows smoke rings into the night, “Wanna fuck me, baby?”

Saul and I jet into the bar Kin-kle, a tacky queer joint with a mangy, over stuffed bullhead above red metal double swinging doors where guys would show you their erections for a beer. In the dark alcove booths, drunk and horny, Saul and I made out under the vigilant eye of a waiter with a hard on. Patrons passed us with indifference as I masturbated Saul to an unscrupulous climax under the red covered table, his lanky body entwined with mine.

“The fundamentals of it all, it ain’t right.” Sniffs the envious old expat sitting alone and indignant at the bar. He ejects his resentment like a thick fog.

“Why dontcha mind your own business for once?” I slur, wiping the glistening residue of Saul’s discharge off my thumb with the red table cloth.

Later that evening, Saul and I committed crimes against nature in Hotel Coliseo. Finding myself lying on my stomach with Saul on top thrusting into me, boy did I get the better end of the deal - slapslapslap - lean arms wrapped around my torso and neck. My back is bitten passionately. My face pressed against the dingy pillow - I feel Saul’s hot breath against my left ear as he gets closer to his climax. Closed my eyes and with clenched teeth, felt hot semen squirt up into me. Afterwards we shared a joint, our shoulders touching under the covers as ominous shadows slowly crawled across stark, depressing walls.

Saul mumbled, “I gotta go, guero.”

I watched as he wordlessly covered his smooth brown frame with well-worn clothes. I dressed, listening to the whore earning her rent down the hall.

Down at the corner, Saul hits me up for 100 pesos. I slap the note into his hand and both of us saying laters, Saul went to do whatever Saul had to do.

Walking up from that cesspool of Coahuila - Zona Norte, (the Red Light District, ignorant asshole, keep focused) - I turn the corner into the Plaza accosted by screaming queers on all sides - and, man, were they out in force that night - when a truckload of Tijuana fuzz gang fucks me.

Encircled by menacing, black uniformed stormtroopers, a pint-sized fat one asked where was I going and before I could answer, barks for my identification.

Tall, smooth cop explained in English - now get this: “We had a report of a white American who fits your description buying drugs here in the Plaza.”

“My description?”

“Si, light hair, glasses, black clothes. May I have permission to search your person?”

Why not? You’re hot. So, up against the adobe wall and goosed - asked if I ever take drugs.

Never.

Never?

Never.

“We are just doing our job, senor - we are here to protect el turistas such as yourself.” Says hot cop, giving me his One Adam 12 production as he empties my pockets, placing my articles on the filthy concrete. Opens wallet fat with peso notes all the colors of the rainbow.

Can kiss that wad goodbye, I thought.

However, the troopers took nary centavo one and let me be with a cuidado and roared off in their Keystone Cops paddy wagon.

Casually lit a cigarette and walked into the darkness teeming with the perverse and sexual predators, the thump thump of the queer bars rattling in my skull. Cute Aztec Indian lad smiles with palm out for the soft touch. I drop a fist full of coins into his calloused hand. Always been a sucker for a pretty face.

Stopped in a cantina and downed two quick beers - nasty hooker cooch eying me and I give her the leave me the fuck alone glance back.

Old Mexican drunk with thick black mustache and deranged look in his bleary eyes snaps, “Leave! You don’t belong here!”

“Man, you don’t even know me. What did I do to you?”

“I just don’t like you.” The old drunk snarls and explodes into a mosaic of glitter and confetti. “Ugly American!” He screams before being sucked into the darkness of a toilet stall glory hole.

He's a Whore

He walked down the motel hallway and the lights above him flickered as he passed. His lanky, black hair kind of bounced with his steps - it’s bobbed short and parted down the middle, he looked like a runway supermodel - but this young man was a whore. The torn, faded jeans screamed it, the cheap, wrinkled t-shirt commanded it, the cum in his hair bragged about it. He won’t hesitate, he’ll fuck you and leave and he could do it all without talking, so he’s popular. The shadows in the hall mixed with the shadows around his eyes and when he stops in front of me all I could see is white. He looked in and I looked out and we meet somewhere in the middle. I let him into my room and the hallway went dark, the lights in my room spark out. He stopped a few feet in and turned around, red eyes glowing in the black, he curled 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 could hear the body send off electricity full of excitement. And if you’re fucking a beast you could 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.

-excerpt from novel in progress borrowed flesh

One Disenchanted Evening.

The air was as dry as the desert it blew across. I sat on a borrowed chair outside my red brick Mexican slum dwelling waiting. Hungry. Thirsty. Broke. Disenchanted in my decision on returning to this hell hole.

A fiery sun bathes the crumbling neighborhood - dirty children play barefoot in the broken street, a block away a sooty train howls towards the border, various music and futbol games issue from the surrounding warrens - and I sit here and I wait.

An insurmountable sadness overwhelms me as the age old question washes over my reeling brain: What am I going to do? What next?

My plan - for whatever that may be - is to hole up here for a year living with fundamental basics and save as much as I can to relocate to Cambodia. That is if I can dodge Big Brother in lieu of receiving checks for a year. If that is attained, I can move to Cambodia and dig that teaching gig.

A year is a long wait. But, I must do this. I have to do this. I am thrilled - at the same time fearful - at the aspects of relocating halfway around the globe for further adventures and most importantly writing fodder.

Of course this is simply a stepping stone to a more vastly lucrative (and equally screwball) objective. If all the Internet crap is true, then I within a period of five to ten years, I could attain enough to open a small Bed & Breakfast or perhaps a cafe to retire in a certain amount of comfort.

Long, strange days are ahead to be sure. I simply have to keep my wits about me...and my health. And that is failing as rapidly as my mind.