It was a casual tuesday in the sunshine state. I was on the verge of catching a breeze out of town on the sharp edge of an after-hours rendez vous.  I had been hitting the fix on the running dog all over the nation.  Bouncing through the bad uncle post cards and dancing with the clever reminders to find an elusive trail of adventure.  

Green eyes.  

She was lovely and I told her so. Sharp edge, peeling back a general retirement, a slight disdain for chick flicks disguised in porno jackets.  A casual wise toe apple seeding the sand when my eyes follow her thong up the beach.  Wonderful beach.  Next thing I know we’re drawing lines on the furniture and asking for hugs during the latenight friendlies in her silk pjs that she’s torn to sexual threads with some other casual jack, or jill.  She’s hot after all, and I can’t help but fall in love with her orgasmic snore. I finish before I enter that new voyeuramma parked in the yard. Mom would be proud. Three hours she told me, and I was up all night avoiding the concaves and an accidental joust.  Silk pajamas will slide wherever they want to go, often strangling late night erections in an upper class mess. I can’t say what they do for the ladies, she said “more comfortable” and slipped on the sweats. Chick flick.  Porno jacket.  

I forgot my petty cash in the car and she stands there with her oriental face waiting for the tug. Oh well, my back feels better and besides, a hundred dollar handjob would burn my cheap ass for a week.  “Thanks” and “nice to meet you” as I drift past the plastic fountain grabbing a complimentary mint.  I swear I can hear moaning from the joint as I cross the parking lot. Only it’s getting louder as I move away.  I’m sensitive, my pants are tight, I’ve always jacked it to the neighbors.  But in the parking lot?  I rush to the car.  The moaning’s rattling my ear.  I’m about to lose it.  Car? I don’t have a car. 

Deep breath. big eyes. twitching cock wrapped in silk shreds, strangled, purple, oozing.  She’s still snoring that orgasmic snore.  I take a moment to like it before cleaning up my dream. Photos, recordings, the usual clean up crew and I’m thinking about the bus only there’s that small toe apple seeding the sand… 

And then there’s the harmony that must be maintained in the north.  I’m on a road trip after all, and I haven’t seen the kids at Christmas for five years and the postcards are getting tired.  Not to mention the mileage on the birds, jingling across the continent like distorted baby toys.  So three days on the dog and I arrive on The Eve via the santa express. midnight, for real, a regular saint nick.  I juggle for the youngsters and offer the latenight comedy routine for the siblings, getting a little closer in the “old age”.  ( Thirty in El Paso over a chinese beef and broccoli buffet. lonely hotel rooms.  early retirement.) I sneak cigarettes in the snowfall and think about the travel junk still throbbing in my veins. I twist the latenights around my guts and plan my departure to an uncertain future.  looking at plans, plotting a course.  twelve hours on the dog and my bacon and eggs are waiting on the counter at Moe’s before I can shake my jacket.  So I work for a week and try to ignore a green Canadian winter and the lingering flames burning there.  I hit the wapps and work on a wad before I return to the friendly sands of the beach, that wonderful beach and the toes rooting, looking to hold against the coming waves.  Global warming’s a distant threat but i can feel it in the back of my know how so I buy a dingy and strap it to the roof but the neighbors give me the queer eye.  And there she is, bikini in the back yard. Fuck it, we’ll swim.  I suit us up with the flippers and the wet suits and more spears than I can carry.  She gets me a job polishing bottles in a bar to ease the crazies of resettlement.  Everything is peaches.  Ripe, beautiful, peaches.  Life is a regular Handsome John.  I golf with the old man, hustle stick on the weekends and leave my Neil Cassady under the bed.  Twenty bucks a game, I’ll go one handed, you bank the eight.  I’ve never been beat.  Well once, but that came down to a game of paper-rock-scissors that’s still under protest.  At the end of the day she makes me feel real.  I almost regret the vasectomy in vegas. Almost.

so i stumble onto this discount music scene and it reminds me of Mr. Nope, cruising the environment of the miniature telephone cafe in the legendary Pork Chop Studios.  It’s eighty degrees and dudes wearing a fur coat like he owns the place, but every one knows it’s the old man who calls the shots and pours the drinks.  And I think about drifting back to the independence of Ehino but I’ve got chores to do.  She keeps me busy with the “if you’re not busy”s, only now it’s getting to be more like the “do this and do that”s.  So I think about cutting out and right before I can say it she’s trying to take me into her throat. Determination. She rides me for an hour then jumps off and says “I’m done”.  And me, jacking the whiskey that just won’t quit, so I fasten the amateur bondage and spread her legs to the wall.  She tells me no but when I’m ready she tells me not to stop.  I leave it on her belly as she tells me I suck.  I’ve still got bruises from last nights cock ring so I toss her some toys and smoke a cigarette while she buzzes away.  and then she says, she says, “It’s up your ass the next time you pass out on the couch.”  The dildo.  She’s shaking.  I wonder if the thought of raping me is making her come.  It slides out as she nod’s off. the bed is a mess.  I’ll wash the sheets in the morning, add it to my list of chores. 

a slow trail of intoxicants leaks from your lips and drifts toward the ceiling fan. you’re nodding off, content in the sunshine. the waitress gently rocks the hammock and bashfully ignores your bermuda shorts erection with awkward eyes. “would you like another margarita, senior?”  

“Sure” you tell her as you catch her catching a glimpse of your sleepy excitement. You take a chance, “and one for you, senioritta.” 

“Si senior.”

you drift off to the gentle whir of the vacuum and wake abruptly to a sharp pain in your ankle. “get up off the couch you lazy„ and wash your ass!” It’s your mom. She probably saw your boner, and she has no margaritas.

You go to the store for a case of coronas. there’s a foot and a half of snow on the ground.  You wonder why you’re wearing flip flops.  Others also wonder why you’re wearing flip flops.  You tell them, “no sais, amigo.”  you’re pale,  white, confused.

Julio Almonte 

And where was the baby jesus?  Why, in the Golden Igloo of course.

It wasn’t Porkchop, The Miniature Telephone cafe, Shaking Apple, or The Golden Igloo, but strange things were certainly going on.  

Scrapyard Yellow rocking the air guitar, and check the rare shot of a young Julio Almonte, pre-tats, on the right.