Ahhh, TJ

'I crossed the border at dawn. Tijuana was just coming awake as I turned onto Revolucion, it's main drag. Child beggars were digging for breakfast in trash cans, taco vendors were stirring pots of dog-meat stew, sailors and marines were being escorted out of whorehouses at the end of their five-spot all nighters. The smarter ones stumbled over to Calle Colon and the penicillin pushers; the stupidos hotfooted toward East TJ, the Blue Fox and the Chicago Club--no doubt eager to catch the early morning donkey show. Tourist cars were already lined up outside the cut-rate upholstery joints; Rurales driving prewar Chevys cruised like vultures, wearing black uniforms that looked almost like Nazi issue.'

--James Ellroy
The Black Dhalia

a hooch in 2004

it's pushing me towards Jesus

this 'bells palsy,' i gots.

-- reticent to post a pic. just might though. stand by to gawk. warn the kiddos...

not sure if it's right though.

besieged with ailments, then turning to Jesu Christi.

reminds me of those jailhouse conversions.

or fighting hole revelations.

soon as i'm better, out goes the Word.

until another fulsilade of pain.

just dunno.

"go where the universe pushes you," someone once told me.

-- yeah, it's cliche.

but i've tried to live it.

really have.

the plays and the writing and film.

red carpet premieres.

kennedy center.

nicholls semi's.

screenplays.

stage plays.

doing as much as i can.

funny thing: buddy of mine is a big Jesus freak.

recent convert.

wants to be a preacher.

respectable gig.

and i'm even curious to a certain extent.

just can't get over the redneck misinterpretations.

the snake handlers;

filipino cancer healers;

Jesus campers;

and catholics -- geez -- went to Mary Star a few days ago.

sat in the back. way in the back.

few blue-hairs; couple well-fed kiddos; old guy with a limp; retarded girl subued by her furious father; an old maid (maybe she was raped years ago...i sensed she was hurt. hurt bad. it never healed right and she comes everday, just hoping and praying God will fix her. make her right.)

she still kneels.

everyday.

and of course, me: looking like quasimodo.

essentially i fit right in.

the priest did his thing.

verbatim, rarely looking up.

hispanic bloke.

couldn't really understand him 'cept for the prayers.

'our father;'

'hail mary.'

myself, i said a few personal prayers. things i haven't said since 2004.

since fallujah.

because that's when i stopped.

remember the exact time.

night.

when the mortars and rockets came.

by this time, i didn't really give a good goddamn if i lived or died.

so the mortars are dropping, few Jarheads are yelling.

walk over to one of those concrete bomb shelter thingys.

inside: a female Marine.

lil' thing.

lil' tuff girl, she was.

glasses, bootcamp issue.

tiny, tiny lil' sausage fingers;

teacher back home, she once told me.

real gung-ho and i felt very disconnected from her at that time.

but there under the concrete barrier, lil' hardcore female Marine was sobbing like a baby.

like she was supposed to.

like any human was supposed to.

i hugged her.

nothing sexual.

not even intimate.

homo-sapiens reacting to their environment.

saber-tooth tiger in the cave.

titanic hitting deep blue.

737 barreling towards the tower.

(don't ya just love my metaphors? cooking with grease now...)

but we hugged and the impacts ceased shortly thereafter.

Marines hooted and hollered @ the insurgents.

sent out the QRF.

and me and this lil' girl parted ways.

a Lance Corporal.

we never spoke again.

don't remember her name.

walked back to my hooch real numb.

disjointed/nihilistic.

sat on my bed and drank some whiskey my cousin had sent me in a bottle of listerine.

caught a buzz.

right there on the outskirts of fallujah.

far from the tigris and euphrates.

middle of nowhere iraq.

the dirt very dry and the town itself like a bizarre tiajuana.

my right hand on my M16 A2 service rifle.

left on listerine Jack.

drinking.

breathing.

paging through an old Hustler.

wondering what's next.