Reluctantly I dress and head for the city center, over stuffed bus rides and noise. As the bus nears Guadeloupe Street I shuffle my way through the crowd. Unbelievably through the stained bus window I see Reina in full stride across the street. She looks beautiful, her long black hair drifting in the breeze of pollution. I struggle to get through the bus door and crowd. I call out to her; my call goes unnoticed. I dart through the traffic and diesel smog to reach her nearly getting run down by a passing scooter. I reach for her shoulder; she turns and looks at me for a moment straining for something to say, maybe my name. “It’s me Jack, Jack Hines, Reina you must remember!” “Oh Jack it’s been so long, of course I remember you I’m surprised your still alive.” My heartbeat finds me wordless. I light a smoke to calm myself. “Listen Jack it’s good to see you are still here, but I am in very much of a hurry right now, my daughter she is waiting for me at her school.” “Your daughter! Can’t I at least walk with you?” “Yes but you must walk fast as I am late and tuck in your shirt you look like a bum.” “Reina for years I have dreamt of seeing you, somehow I lost track of you” We walk at a brisk pace avoiding the obstacles along the sidewalk. Reina tells me how she has cleaned her life up and now has a job at a restaurant where her and her daughter Estrella can eat daily. “We live in a small apartment owned by my boss only one block from the restaurant. He is a kind man and has a wonderful wife they have looked after us for many years now, since shortly after you left Jack.” “I didn’t leave, you kicked me out and I believe it was even raining the night you asked me to leave when you sent me away with only a blanket to cover myself in the Rain. And your daughter Estrella, how old is she?” “Esrella she has five years.” “She has a beautiful name.” “Yes Estrella, it means star in Spanish, she is very beautiful as well Jack, you will see. Her school is only a few blocks away so can you please tuck in your shirt and tidy your hair, I want you to look respectable when she meets you.” What have you been doing with your life?

Rent Money

One could clearly make out that Miguel was of Latin decent by looking at his complexion and his high cheekbones. His long hair was held back by a scarf of light satin originating in some poor country where textiles where sold cheaply. He spoke perfect English, I never did ask of his nationality.
I had considered buying some speed. It was readily available in every country in the world, at least the countries I had visited. Junkies were easy to locate by a trained eye. Caved in jowls and lips that formed their toothless crooked cock eyed smiles, not really smiles moreover untrustworthy grin. Miguel had warned me not to invite that devil into my life yet somehow I couldn’t resist. I think it was speed, not exactly an expert on the subject I suppose it could have been anything, never the less we snorted a few lines and then smoked some mixed with Miguel’s dime bag.
I reach for my worn pants that drape over the old wooden hardwood chair; into the pocket again hoping to somehow find the 1000 pesos I had previously discovered missing. A small packet of white powder in plastic wrap is all I find. Either I sell the packet or fall into the grips of addiction. A sudden knock on the door startles me as the landlord announces that he’s on the loose for the rent money, I’m only behind one month, which consists merely of fifty-five dollars. I petition the thought of whether he would be interested in the plastic wrap package. “Go away!” The pounding persists so I answer the door and explain that I’ll have his rent money this afternoon, no later than tonight.

Tattoo

I want a tattoo
but you don't know who I am
I'm a mad artist
and a poor writer
With art in the bowels of
that gallery
with Michael
that short
strange faced man
Telling me I'm
one of his permanent artists
As I suffer through lack of sales
with mad hair in the mirror
Someone said I'd be discovered
in Nelson
but I'm going to Jacksonville
to find myself
Where poets and freaks gather
where poets and freaks are the same
Where my friend will put music to
my word
In Jacksonville
they can give me a tattoo
All I know of this place
is a few pages of newspaper
and a friend
who can put music to
my word
In Jacksonville
they can give me a tattoo
I'll see you there
as I quiver on stage
if I make it
Maybe they'll remember me
and my friend
who puts music to my word

Dime Bag

I lie on my hard bed wearing nothing but black socks, flicking snot from my finger out the glassless barred window. Atop of me an old Mexican blanket faded by the sun. I’ve been carrying the savior of a blanket for years rolled affixed to my pack. It was my sole possession the night I left Reina’s closet apartment. A crusted rooster calls to the humid morning. I’ve been awake since 4:00am with the shakes and a rumbling sickness in my stomach. The morning finds me missing 1000 pesos. A radio loud and steady when the landlord awakens greets my day.
Miguel always said speed was the hardest to quit. I had met Miguel in the center of town, we both frequented the zocalo at night to drink alone and write sad poetry. That was the plan to sit alone yet it seldom ended that way. Miguel carried a dime bag of weed in his back pocket. It was flattened from sitting in the park on hard concrete benches that got cold at night. There he sat nightly puffing on a joint. It may have been the same joint night after night for he only ever had two puffs then put it away after snubbing the little red cherry that had only begun to glow. I guess that’s what brought me to meet him.

who could keep up with that

The night
was hotter than
a hash-oil hot knife
He just wanted to drink
and get drunk
that's all he
wanted to do
Her asshole looked like
it had been in a train wreck
it was hungry
with pain
Long neck wine bottles
and candle stick past
Who could keep up with that?
He just wanted to drink
and get drunk
thats all he wanted to do
His writing was getting dark
His art, piled in the corner
His truck was at the side of the road
with a crack in the glass
and a bottle half through
He just wanted to drink
and get drunk
thats all he wanted to do

At The Cabin

Thought we had grown out of that as the car drifts sideways then backward at an excess of 80mph. Dust pooling up over the rear window as the ditch approaches in a backward backwood skid. He falls from the drivers seat onto the dirt, his head scraped and red. He crawls to the firepit, laying on his side, he attempts to roll a cigarette.

Reina

I had met a young stripper in Mexico where Latin music played so loud to bruise the bananas and cantaloupes. She had led a painfully difficult existence. Thrown from her family at the tender age of thirteen to hustle on the streets of Mexico City where she pulled wallets like toll passes surviving from the riches of her tricks. Prostituting her unripe body to old horny men of the night. She had experienced life at a rapidly accelerated pace. When I first made her acquaintance she was no more than sixteen. I had been robbed of all but a few mere pesos in the hard luck city, which situated me in a desolate bar drinking my last cerveza. Reina that was her name, which in Spanish meant “queen”, carried no pretence to steal from me as she could clearly make out I had nothing but bad luck. She bought a few beers for us as she told me of her existence. The day fell into darkness as she lured me into her realm. I followed her to a dingy closet of an apartment to where we dined on one another for what felt like eternity. She had stolen something from me, my inhibition. She had thrown it out the one small open window through the iron bars that held us in. We performed unprotected sex for months on end until finally she became ill in the mornings. She told me she found a doctor who would gladly exchange a blowjob for an abortion. Which was about the same time as she aborted me from her life. I’ll never forget those days and nights in that dark apartment making love and drinking cheep red wine.

Lies

Tell me you screwed 30 girls in two years,
tell me you knocked out the best street fighter in town,
tell me you can outdrink any fool.
Just don't tell me something you think I wanna hear,
not the sad excuse why my parts are late,
not the line
that I'm next in line with a dozen in front of me.
What the fuck happened,
all of a sudden the world is free to these fucken liers.
Every service manager trained to lie.
I'm telling you,
it seems one needs a mediator
just to get through
the daily bullshitters
bullshitting you
about bullshit.

Further Than She's Ever Gone

She's never left the valley
Not since I've been with her
The old girl
did better than me today
Hit the bottle hard
the night before
had to beat insomnia for the drive
The 351 modified
purred over the mountains
Ditches filled with schitzo
white tail
Ready to leap
at me in 4th gear
at any instant
Nine bears on the trip
never stopped for a photo
Had to tape the
wiper switch on
As rain fell from
the Alberta sky
Stopped at Storm Mountain Service
on our way home
Bought a couple of
Vermillion Lager
and a V-8
She roared up the hill to
Boom Lake
to suck 'em back
That's when I
grew alive
All comes to life
after a couple a cool ones

Stuck Up Bob's Creek

Found the snow line
Backed into a muddy water bar
Drank Old Milwaukee
Cheered to being unstuck
Great day

Tire Tracks

Denny and Jack had been putting in long hours sling'n mud in the pipeline ditches. After twenty straight they were in for a four-day weekend. They loaded into the old white car that Denny had bought from some innocent family. The car they refered to as "The Shark". They had searched every nook and cranny of that old car, ridding it of roaches or anything incriminating as the plan was to cross the border into the land of cheap beer and girls. The border hounds waved them through easy, Jack was disconcerted that they had left all their stash on the Canadian side. So they hit the first gas station for a trunk load of beers. Up and over the Driving To The Sky highway. They landed in some small American town with more than one hideout to drink. The girls were mostly paired up with cowboys, they wore Wrangler pants and western shirts with sleeves rolled to show their tanned brown cowgirl skin. It was going to be difficult as neither Jack nor Denny resembled cowboy appeal. Well Denny wore western boots with his frayed denim pants, it was more of a seventies look than that of western comparison. Jack just appeared as a drunk not much for looks, but man could that guy string a line. It was working for ol' Jack he had cornered two single girls. He worked to accompany them at their table. Not sure how long it took for those two to out-drink the girls and make asses of themselves, but nevertheless they lost 'em. Off to the next watering hole where they had a rotation of women to drink with, but by closing time it was slim pick'ns. I can say they weren't the slimmest girls those boys left with. Denny had been driving, but he decided the girls should drive out of sheer chivalry. Jack hooked up with the one in the rear seat and Denny was sitting close to the driver, he had his arm around her and a smile on his face. Jack began to go crosseyed as he reached for a feel. Dizzy drunk on cheap beer and overweight girls, Jack passed out. When he awoke the following morning, The Shark had came to rest in a widespread field planted tall with some kind of wheat. Denny was passed out in the front seat with his pants rolled down to his knees. Jacks' first concern was that of the wad of cash they communally had rolled and stashed in the long tongue of an ashtray. "Hey Denny wake up, is the money still there?" Denny pulled the ashtray open to find it empty of the roll of cash, then pulled his pants up. "You stupid fucker, why did you let those girls roll us?" "It's not my fault you stupid drunk!" "Well you let them drive." "What's that got to do with anything?" I think Jack swung first, that's how I got the story, but Denny caught him a good one right above the left eye. It split Jack open to bleed on the red interior of the back seat. "That fucken hurt!" Jack said. Denny sat back in the front seat and lit a smoke. "Turn the car on, I'm fucking cold," Jack said wiping the blood from his eyebrow. Denny reached for the keys to notice they were missing, nowhere to be found. "That's just fucking great," Jack retorted. "Shut up or your other eye will be bleeding," Denny offered. Jack slammed the back door behind him and said, "It was a lucky shot and a cheap one at that." "What was that?" Denny questioned. "I gotta take a piss," Jack walked through the trampled tire tracks that had been left behind from the fat girls getaway vehicle, opened his fly and began to piss when he noticed the car keys in the long grass. "Holly shit Denny, look what I found." Jack prided the keys in his hand. Denny had been searching the seats for loose change. "Got enough to get us across the border." They started The Shark, turned up the heater and followed the tire tracks out of the field. Once at the paved road they had no sense of direction, so they flipped a silver dollar that Denny had found down in the crevice of the front seat. "Heads we go right." The coin showed tails. Luckily they drove directly into the little western town, topped the car off with $12.45 and headed for the border.

Hungry Drunks

Jack fell into a deep red wine buzz, pulling his chair near to the wood heater to stir the ambers about. The crackle of the cabin fire kept him close. The slight whisp of sun was falling into the snow-covered afternoon hillside. Jack had been writing throughout the dull grey day. It was evident, Jacks writing hadn't found certain fame. The publishing company had lost his manuscript in a pile of unpublished disappointments. Jack knew he was far from an exceptional writer, he'd have to wait in line. His fingers stained with black ink and saturated red wine. His old friend kept calling, filled with expectation. He felt Jack's writing was soon to be discovered. It was most likely because of his personal accounts within Jacks stories. Hopeful. Yet, fame hadn't shown face at Jack's door in quite some time. Not since the local authorities had drug his name through the mud to publish in the local rag. Something about "public drunkenness" along his way home holding dear to him his gin and tonic, not to spill a drop. Oh those cops couldn't bare to let such eloquent bliss go unnoticed. So they marched old Jack off to the drunk tank to share space with the pyromaniacs,insomniacs and hungry drunks.