LOWLIFE HIGHLIGHTS

CURB SERVICE - BORDERLINE - PART FOUR

1968 - After my sexual encounter with a Mexican prostitute, in San Luis with my friend Kelly and the two Steves; after being searched of body and car by the customs police, we crossed back into the USA. We went to an all-night restaurant and waited. I queried as to what we were waiting for and Steve the idol explained: While in San Luis, after depositing Kelly and me at the saloon, Steve and Steve had gone to meet their connection. They had purchased two kilos of Mexican marijuana for thirty dollars. Next, they had gone to a popular dance club frequented by underage teenage Americans who could legally drink in the border-town bars. Steve the idol, with his good looks, charm, and radiant smile had met a girl who had crossed over from Yuma with a group of friends. The girl, most likely drunk, gave Steve the idol her phone number which he would never use and her address which he would. She had crossed the border, she told Steve, in her parents’ new Cadillac. Steve bid her adieu and then, with Steve the jailbird, located the Caddy parked close by, covertly popped the hood, and stashed the marijuana inside. Now if the group of girls were searched at the border they would get busted and Steve and Steve would be out thirty bucks. If they crossed without being searched, all we had to do was wait until they were back home in bed and then open the Caddy's hood and retrieve the dope. And now, that's what we were waiting for.

*

1987 - I regained consciousness with my head on the Chicago Club bar, sat up, and looked around. I was still stumbling drunk. There were fewer people in the place. The bartender brought me a shot and a beer, telling me, on the house. Gracias Senor. I rubbed my face for a while then hit the tequila. Lupe hadn't returned and I had a feeling she was no longer in the building. I got up and stretched and walked into the Ladies' room and looked around. A young girl with a curly mass of hair and a bumblebee leotard followed me in, took me by the arm, and led me back out. She said Lupe was gone and she was here to take her place.

In the hombre's room I took a leak and smoked part of a joint, which filled me with a new energy and put the blood back in my legs. Back in the main room a live nude girl danced a slow hoochie-coochie. A young Mexican guy had staggered out to the dance floor and gone to his knees in worship. His friends in a booth on the sidelines whooped and whistled and encouraged him onward. I brought out my camera and turned on my flash and started taking pictures. The kneeling Mexican made crazy faces.

At the end of the set I followed the dancer into the dressing room where a few girls, including the bumblebee, were hanging out, taking turns at the make-up mirror. I started taking pictures, posing the girls, laughing, flirting, hugging and kissing, making friends. I was whirling, happily vertiginous. No one was asking for money, we were taking pictures and having fun. A little goofy-looking guy from out of nowhere posed with one of the girls then asked would I let him take a picture of me. I gave him my camera and with a girl on my right and another on my left, we all smiled like happy people.

A big guy came into the room to appraise the ruckus. He had twenty years on everyone but me. He was the straw boss. He told me no more pictures, told everyone else whatever he told them, in his native tongue. The party broke up and the boss demanded, with outsized gestures, I leave the premises. I wasn’t ready to go but the guy walked to a closet, picked up a baseball bat and smiled at me. I bid them Adios.

Outside I walked a block then sat on the curb. I fired a smoke and drank from a bottle of mescal I'd lifted on the way out. I blinked in and out of consciousness. Somewhere a rooster crowed. I knew I had to get back on my feet. If I stayed here, sodden with drink, I would get robbed or thrown in the hoosegow. I got up and started walking. I stumbled by a teenager leaning on a post. "Acid, speed, marijuana, mushroom."

I hit the brakes. "How much for a dose of mushroom?"

I gave him a twenty and he gave me a baggie with a couple of good-sized 'shrooms. I took Lupe's address from my pocket and asked him to point me toward Revolution Boulevard. I pocketed the mushrooms and went back to walking, following the pusher's point. Again the rooster crowed through the otherwise silent night, and then again and again, echoing, from no discernable direction. I'd never lived on a farm, but still, somehow, the rooster reminded me of home. My youth. Cock-a-doodle-do. Cock-a-doodle-do. Cock-a-doodle-do. I drank. And drank. And drank. I got a cigarette, lit it, and blew smoke rings. I took side streets where not a happy soul stirred. Here and there glimmering shadows evaluated my ineptitude. I stumbled forward and whistled "Popeye the Sailor."

I blinked but my eyes didn't open back up. I was in a little fishing boat puking over the edge into the wake of a speedboat. I jumped awake still walking, the rooster crowed. I checked behind me and saw the teenage pusher who was either following me or just happened to be coming this way. I tilted back my head and drank from the bottle of mescal, daring the pusher and the whole fucking world: Come and get me. I came to a man who was perched, haunches on heels, on an overturned trash barrel. He crowed like a rooster. He was the rooster. I stopped and watched as he crowed again and again. He looked up at me and said a paragraph that made no sense then went back to crowing.

I put the flame of my Zippo into my face attempting to light a roach and slammed into a phone pole. I saw stars, a psychedelic light show. Down the block the pusher was still coming my way. My eyes were kaleidoscopes. The pusher was joined by a hundred other pushers. They all held hands.

I was throwing up in a porcelain bowl. Somewhere. Jail?

END PART 4

PART FIVE - July 7

…Someone kissed me and I swirled and swirled and swirled and rolled onto the floor…