Writing
“First and foremost, I am a writer — Jeronimo del Toro.”
Tengo una cita en mi palco en el Azteca antes del mundial con una mujer hermosa bajo la lluvia.
It was a good week and funnily enough, that makes me think I have nothing to write about. I want my life to keep being an adventure, but are adventures only possible when you hand yourself to the devil.
IT’S ALL FALSE. NONE OF THE PEOPLE I TALK ABOUT ARE REAL. I AM NOT REAL.
Cough, cough.
So where was I. Yeah on the streets, a genuine rich homeless man, then I met a dude. A real nice dude that had problems of his own and saw in me a helping hand by being a helping hand. God placed him there outside by the pillar as we chatted and suddenly I had a place to live.
It was a construction and I slept in the albañiles room, there were two of them, an eighteen year old mute and an older guy. We got along well, the Annex and Jail do that to ya. You’re not just another empty hollow white guy, you’ve seen some shit and having seen some shit can be seen by those who have seen some shit and those who bullshit bullshit themselves because we all know they haven’t seen some shit.
I saw some quite literally as I pulled and pulled the heavy shit bucket with the blue rough rope to relieve the drainage in the annex. I’ve seen and smelled some goddamn shit and they could tell.
I had everything I needed. A shower, yes cold, but the days are hot and that gets you started in a nice way. I didn’t have a towel so I used my expensive wool sweatshirt as one. I lose everything. I have left a caps and clothes trail behind so that if I ever got to the witches house for some candy I won’t be too hard to find.
When the albañiles began to sleep here once again I lost that room but gained another and an air mattress that constantly deflated so that really I was sleeping on the floor.
And I was so happy about it, for those of us who have been trying to be free but somehow every turn we turn we are trapped again, as if tested by the heavenly and demonic things when you finally find freedom and its the real thing.
Meaning no OCD, no repetitive thoughts, a constant good stream of money, keys. No addictions. And you know the literal physical freedom removers like jail and clinics. You almost can’t believe it, so you test the waters and visit a hooker and a dancer, not really because you desire it but because you want to see if it is finally for real and as you dip your toe in the jacuzzi and feel the sting of the heat as the lap dance goes on and you realize you are finally free, then you remove the toe and get to living.
So I did, I got to living, hit the gym, once or twice, the body is nice, the belly a little potbellied, I used to think that was bad, no it isn’t it’s a food reserve in case the money runs out. That is what a belly is isn’t it, and why most manly men have it, we are storing resources even inside ourselves preparing for hard time. Hell now I feel stupid my potbelly isn’t big enough it should be bigger.
Went to midnight group (my personal favorite) when the masks fall down and the real meat in the spiritual shit is told to those drinking coffee in the night. Talked about my lack of a mattress, not complaining, actually just for the fun of it, and then we went to eat some tacos and right there in their parking spot, a used but perfectly fine and working free queen size mattress left behind.
God was saying te voy a poner un colchón ya tu pon de tu parte y pon la almohada. GOD DID!
Anyway, decided to go for a walk with my backpack like a tourist smiling to the passerbys and I walked from Narvarte to Pedregal across the heat and the city terrain. What a cryptic cyberpunkish constantly filled up sounding like a roaring engine grey and green poor and rich city Mexico City is. There is no place in the world I’d rather be.
New York go fuck yourself, I met an old guy from New York a year ago, he was very wealthy. New York wealthy, I wanted a handout, he thought about giving it, then he said “I thought about it and you gotta do it yourself kid, you gotta do it yourself” he was right, and I am, doing it myself.
I thought I was falling for a sixty something year old woman, I wish you could see her, she is sophisticated, wise and beautiful. Really beautiful. I love spending time with her. She shares my faith (the truth of the universe get over it) and my principles and the sound of her voice and the colour and depth behind her eyes is truly honestly enthralling for me and I can’t get enough, nothing going on.
She is just a good samaritarian, and this is all from my side, but I kinda like that and I have always liked older women. Anyway I know what’s good for me and healthy and it’s purely platonic and we have grown to have a beautiful friendship.
She is so intelligent and her spirit glows, always saying the most regular things in secret because of fear of gossip and saying “tengo que ir al tocador” in the most polite manner instead of the modern crude “tengo que ir al baño” such heathens around me that use the word baño instead of tocador.
On the heathen note a guy spat on the road, my roommate made an impressed face, the guy said, and if it had lemon and salt I would’ve swallowed it whole. Come countries of the world to the world cup and meet our interesting Mexican real specimens that season their spit with salt and lime.
The world cup can be felt in the air. The fucking world cup. Who would’ve guessed it.
Got a box in the Aztec stadium. That’s great, no other way to go about it, it’s a nice flex, but when you flex you lose, because nothing really comes from you but from the one and only GOD. I look at my surroundings and see god everywhere, and I can’t fathom how I used to be so blind.
Anyway on my three hour walk like a pilgrim in an inn I took a stop took my usual two cold brews with extra charge caffeine drug dose and chatted with my spiritual guide, my pastor, we talked about any and everything.
I wish everyone would realize about jesus, but some get angry when you mention his name. Demons. No doubt about it, like the OCD. Demons swirling around your brain like a vanilla chocolate cone repeating the same filth, and what I thought was medical turns out was spiritual. It all is. Spiritual. Worked. Keepin’ that a secret for now. But cool and anyway this is all fiction and none of it is real so how could fictional people that don’t exist sue me.
Saw a friend from my old uni, good guy. Miss some people, but I was never the school type, plus in art you only need it to a certain point, us artists our job is to take in as much of the world as possible and digest it and then spiritually place it on a camera frame or the page of a book or colours en un lienzo.
The so called “artists” at that school, not all, for example my good female friend who is always smiling and I think is just the spitting image of joy is full of art. She is art in her soul. Not into her just think she glows. I would love to raise my daughter to be like her and that’s respect.
But others are fakers, they think they artists cuz they’re faggots and they dress a certain way. NOPE.
Being an artist, well…. ask Hemingway, or Kubrick, Kerouac, Tarkovsky, Joyce, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Sergio Leone and Bergman….
What a fucking wannabe jackass I sound like, but the point I was trying to make is this: they didn’t express for profit or fame, The night 2001 a space odyssey was released a third of the theatre walked out and the studio heads yelled at Kubrick telling him he was an imbecile, Tarkovsky was exiled from Russia and Kerouac died an alcoholic in his mothers house.
These people all had a certain quality I share, not one I chose, but one I share, and one that led me to spend every friday in detention in the principals office and therefore get that certain fascination, that quality that sent me to jail and that quality that makes me me. Meandering me. I live to live and that is all.
Okay the ego is getting out of control, back on track.
Yeah worked, and loved it and went to group as usual. The loneliness stings i miss my uni friends, maybe that’s why i am being an ass face. An ass on my face that would be nice wouldn’t it. Hmmmm. Isn’t that a sin? It is yeah. Still want it.
Friday night I saw the usual misfits and we decided it would be a good idea to be waterboarded by ourselves that way we could tell people “Hey you guy, you ever been waterboarded? No? well I, I have! fucking loser tibio sonnoffa…” so we got a wet towel and a hose and reclined the victims head and we burst open the tap and let the person half drown. We all did it. It was horribly engrossingly hilarious as we all choked and coughed and I spent the night with the guys.
Saturday a streamer called something like Shifu walked into a restaurant I was at. Lotta attention. Realized that’s coming, gotta appreciate it’s not here yet. Prize to pay for art. Not something good but a devil’s trap, actually bad. Look at Jesus Christ and the Devil in the dessert. Look at his life, GOD’s life on earth.
Sunday I invited a girl I liked to my box. I know her from rehab, we spent many days under the Jacaranda trees talking about life when I was still scared and trembling. Purple Petal Pressed in our pointing fingers and thumbs. She looks exactly like Margot robbie just mexican. Mexican Margot Robbie, so she is more beautiful cuz, fuck you australia who is hosting the World Cup, anyway Mexarobbie and I had been chatting and planning a bar jazz date, realize I could invite her to a match in the box and so I invited her and my roommate and his girl and my sponsor called godfather who is the sobriety goat and a kindhearted man, although a little bit too scared of germs, again OCD.
Addiction and OCD very similar thought patterns, obsession compulsion, he just like I never had a shot at normal use. OCD gets in the way of that.
Anyway Mexarobbie, although I don’t like calling her that because she is so much more and so beautiful and I didn’t have to try. What is she? Because depth is what matters not looks as much as she has.
She is half American and half Mexican and grew up in a beautiful school surrounded by jungle she has her father English and her mothers spanish. She had to make do for herself as I never had to but she is learned in the game of life although a little bit destructive in her choice of men. Smart she is finally making a good choice the recovering drug addict that has been in jail. Who would’ve thought.
Seeing her was like all those other full day and nights in the clinic when we would talk and smoke tobacco, and we realized a year ago we actually had been together in the clinic. And remembering our dynamic needed no remembering as it was engrained and ready as soon as we said hello outside Medic Sur where she parked her car, why is she coming out of a hospital, is she a doctor that has come to fix what Helen, the woman with the red dress destroyed or is she just a gal that came to see a football match with a pal.
If it seems as though I am trying too hard is because I want to try hard. I have sinned about and around that in my prozac madness getting all obsessive about an Estonian girl for no reason at all. I want to be there, I want to feel and I now understand it’s not about perfection in the other person but about imperfection and the beauty thereof, she is so ferocious she is gentle like her cheekbones protruding and her full lips, but fuller is her smile which comes from her even fuller heart and the sound of her voice is a song, but the form of her thoughts a poem and the gait of her walk a painting.
We watched the match. It was fun. We talked about cuahutemo0c blanco down there at fifty three a mobster a mayor and a football player, what a life. And although he is fat and has the appearance of a turtle he is goddamn good.
The match was over.
And then it was beautiful, it began raining and we waited for everyone to leave, and she and I this beautiful woman I didn’t have to try hard back then nor these hypothetical day. We didn’t try, but God sure did as the gentle rain fell down and the bright white lights showed all the droplets like a thin curtain and mist covered the field and there was no sound except the droplets hitting the security guards yellow ponchos.
And then I thanked God as I thought. Tengo una cita en mi palco en el azteca antes del mundial con una mujer hermosa bajo la lluvia.
I relapsed. The Mexico City Motel Blues
I almost hit my dad. Fuck, it’s gone too far.
Actually, no. I would never hit my dad, but enough is enough, and I had to stand my ground. I told them I was not coming back, and I meant it.
I think I saw a little bit of fear in my father’s eyes as my mother screamed. He has changed. He has gone insipid. He is not willing to change, and neither is she.
What is it now? Three years I have had to change everything about myself? And I did have to, good riddance. New wine, new wineskin. I had to leave, and there is no looking back. I love them, but I hurt them more with my presence.
But enough about them.
My squirrel-feeding, fiending friend said this would give me more stories to write. I am a writer first and foremost. So, out on the streets with four backpacks, waiting for my New Zealandish philosopher friend. Is that what you call Kiwis? I don’t know.
Anyway, he got confused because of my bad instructions. I guess we aren’t off to the best start. But he arrived eventually as I kissed my house goodbye.
I am not going back. Not in one year. Maybe more. I’ve changed too much. Those walls, they are caving in. The huge T.V., the comfortable bed, the chauffeur, the sports club, those are control traps. I have to see past them.
Not playing the artist. I am the artist.
Mr. Philosopher Kiwi and I spoke well into the morning outside a pharmacy, white neon lights keeping us awake as I ate the ripe ciruelas he gave me. Delicious. I sat on two of them and turned them into jelly.
I got to count my money first off. Nine pesos. Shit. Shit. I am poor as shit. Nine pesos, and four bags with clothes.
Before I left, I showed my father the nine pesos and told him to look at what I was starting with. I’d make more than him. I regret that. Or do I? I don’t know. I am all confused in emotion, but I know I had to go, and they are wrong.
It will take them time to see, as it took me time to see past my addiction. But they will, or not. But my limit has to be I am not willing to put myself in that situation anymore.
And so I thought happily as I slept outside group by the volcanic stones with the four bag packs as my astonishingly comfortable pillows. Like a homeless man. Well, I guess I am a homeless man.
The police came, and I had to leave. Fuck the police, always with their shit. We don’t have a good rep, me and the coppers, even if they’re Mexican copers. I am not a delinquent, but free-thinking enough to cause trouble. Maybe I am just a jackass. A little of both, maybe as well.
Well, now you are all on your own, and you don’t even have nine pesos because you spent them all in spicy candy.
I went to the park. Two AA friends found me. They insisted I accompany one of them to sleep. I budged so they could catch a snooze. I went with the crystal-addicted gay guy in abstinence. He had a nice apartment. He gave me a room and sat besides me as he puffed cigarette after cigarette, chain-smoking.
Fuck. Fuck me, fuckitiy fuck, I feel the same way I felt in jail, sexually vulnerable next to a man. Fuck this shit.
So I left, carried my four heavy bag packs, and headed out to San Jeronimo at four a.m. and walked all the way to the group until my back was sore, but my spirit, well that one was stronger than ever.
I had made the right choice, I thought, as I smiled and looked at the road ahead. Good. I love this fucking city. It’s the best in the world. And I’ll be the king of it before this is all over.
Hey there, Julian, stay humble. Remember to stay humble and place God first before you lose yourself like you have in the past.
I got to the group and made a big, big, big speech about how I was never going back, and I meant every word.
Am I a brat? I guess yeah, but that comes with wealth and white skin in Mexico City. But, you know, as far as Mexico City brats, I ain’t that bad.
Anyway, big speech and all that. It went great.
And know what. Reached out to people. One guy answered. Moctezuma, from my Kingsford days. I always did love that guy. Good kid, good with the ladies and recipient of much jealousy. He has a heart of gold, as Neil Young would say.
The blonde old lady of the group who is rich and graceful, and I am really into, is helping me financially. No sex stuff. Just pure, genuine Christian charity and elderly generosity. I guess she had a hard time escaping the clutches of control from her family back in her time as well.
I wish I knew her when she was young. She must’ve been a sight to see. I’m gonna ask her next time I see her to see a picture of her in her youth.
Why am I always into old ladies. Oh hey, because I was always in the principal’s office.
Anyway, a few bucks in the wallet, and Moctezuma picked me and my bags up. We got to his house and watched Tarkovsky. I showed him Tarkovsky, and then we talked money and business. That shall be left unsaid.
But it has something to do with a woman with a red dress, which I kept telling him I wanted Luisa del Prado to play. I reminded him I always thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world physically;
emotionally, and spiritually I don’t know. Never really talked to her. Guess she doesn’t like me, you know, with the drugged-up hallucination messages and all, and my fat egg-shape face depressed post-jail stage.
Yeah, she never saw the best of me, but I can get really obsessive about women. It’s the one vice I began with.
Not a playboy. I mean a retired playboy, because I got injured. Pussy overdose. Ha. Being crass. Don’t want that life anymore. Nothing comes off it.
Saw a blonde I liked with her little sister the other day, asked her out. She didn’t answer. But she was nice, just not into me.
Good girls, Mexico City family white girls, not into me. Got too much of a past, I guess. But I like my past.
Well, Santa Fe with Moctezuma. We woke up and we hit the gym looking ahead at La Mexicana. We talked about making it. We will. In time.
I talked about marrying the Prado girl. I don’t even know shit about her. She could be plastic and not worth my time for all I know. But beauty, beauty goes a long way, and a man can be willing to go a long way for visual vivid vicious veauty. It’s what led me to jail.
Funny, she’s been writing me too, and I her. I love that woman. I think she loves me. We have a great relationship now. The sound of her voice, there is nothing like it.
With me and Helen, I will never truly understand, but I like that I don’t understand, and I just love purely. Nothing I can do about it. I didn’t choose that love. It picked me in the most extraordinary way. I’d marry that girl, and she knows that.
We shall see, but she is in another country, and I got to find a way to survive.
Visited Moctezuma’s uni in Santa Fe, just for fun. Accompanied him to class where there was a sexy black German girl and Donald Trump was talking about exterminating people. Good ol’ U.S.A. setting the example for us all.
Met up with a junkie friend. He is sober and happy but highly medicated. I saw him and realized he was going to make it and grow to be a great man. Suffering does that to you.
Y a great man doesn’t mean rich and famous, although it can coexist, and great men know that.
There are a few friends in group, but one stands out to me as a great man. His family owns the largest chain of luxury supermarkets. He looks like Wolverine, and he is just the most relaxed guy in the world. That’s a great man, with his usual smile and his black crop tops and white Lamborghini from the nineties. He has a character in my movie. He has to.
Went to Bible study and invited Moctezuma.
Again, there is one really good friend who I really admire as a man and as a servant of God. I was looking for his advice and subconsciously for a new dad now that I left my own. He told me it’s not about changing master, it’s about stop being a dog. He is right. I have to stop being a dog.
He got mad. He is going through some really tough shit.
A Pharisee sat next to us. Didn’t pay attention to him. His foreign girl pretty, never looked at her.
Then my other good friend who got falsely accused recently by a junkie girl so she could continue using. It keeps happening and happening, the false accusations. I think now most are false, but I gotta stop with all that. Not my problem, and I’m not a white pigeon. I am a sinner. I love to fucking sin.
Woke up and ran in La Mexicana listening to Kanye West and thought about a meeting I had recently about the woman with the red dress.
Have to work, but how if I don’t even know where I will sleep and there is no going back. NO FUCKING WAY.
Talked to a priest, he got angry. Well, he is human, and I am pretty stupid.
The next day I had to leave, and I went to Condesa with Jero who has his own huge apartment in Amsterdam. Jackpot. Selfish thoughts. I have to live here.
JPT also can give me a home for a bit, some place in a week or two. He just has to make sure of a few things first.
I love JPT. I also love Jero. He is a mind I will never understand but that I am fascinated with every time we talk. He loves computers and is pale as the moon. His heart is, again, huge.
I have great friends. This makes me happy. I have to thank God for my friends and the people who have stayed after the Georgia/addiction hurricane.
Slept in a mattress with nothing and organized a date for Friday from a girl I met in a clinic back in the day. Planned a jazz night. Went to group.
Jero’s mom doesn’t like me, so I have to leave, so it’s back to the streets again. Fuck, this made me really fucking angry. I yelled outside in the street. All my Condesa dreams gone, dead. Fuck.
Keep your spirits up, so we decided to watch a Jap animated movie, and then the thought crawled into my brain. Strippers. You are in Condesa. There must be some nice table dances here that can make you feel better late at night.
I fought the thought without fighting it because I really wanted to go, and I failed God as I walked out the door ready to relapse. No drugs. No alcohol. No cigarettes. No porn…
I went, and I sat, and I looked at all the flashing lights and the demonic songs talking about money and thongs and looked at the women.
HOLY FUCKING SHIRTBALLS.
They all looked like they had their tits done by the same surgeon, as well as their ass. It must’ve been a good surgeon because those were good tits.
I ordered a coke. They offered alcohol. I was going to relapse, but not with the alcohol or the drugs. With sex. My favourite drug. My greatest sorrow.
I looked at the beautiful women dance in the poles. They got all the way to the top. The strength they must have in their core to do that. And those tits.
I was sinning, and I knew I was sinning, but I loved every fucking second of it. Every fucking second as the music played and plastic big-assed Barbie danced. I can’t paint her with words, but my bone could’ve sure been used as a paint brush.
And that’s it. I chose the hookers over the date, and I knew it was wrong, but I loved it.
Anyway, like cattle they sold the women, and I picked the most beautiful one, a curly-haired Cuban, and paid the prize and took her upstairs.
I didn’t think about God, although I knew about the devil. I took off my sweatshirt and she mounted me and began to dance. She looked drugged up in her eyes. She was incredibly beautiful, and it was all so sensual.
I’m handsome. Hookers like me. It’s just a fact.
I treat hookers better than regular girls. I guess it’s the guilt, but all I want is a regular girl, but I keep going back to the hookers even if it’s years apart, and the regular girls, they never arrive.
It’s a sad thing. Maybe even sadder than the beautiful drugged-up Cuban hooker’s eyes devoid of soul. Sorry, no. Filled with a soul trapped deep beneath, wanting to be let out.
So I just looked at her face and she at mine. She noticed. My eyes too. They carry something as well. It was electric.
She took my dick out and gave me a handie. I didn’t come.
We said goodbye, and she went on to the next guy.
I slept my last night in Condesa, woke up and looked at all the fucking Americans. It made me sort of angry. Hypocrites. How do our people get treated in their country? I have lived it firsthand. Still, I will always love America. America is Rita Hayworth and Grace Kelly. There is nothing like Grace Kelly.
But Mexico is and will forever be Anelisse, even if she is on the other side of the globe.
What is Mexico? Who are we as a people?
I left and visited the group like the homeless man I was. It usually goes the other way. Addicts using are homeless. Sober people in recovery aren’t.
Had to leave. Never doubt that for one fucking second. Things there are insipid, and they won’t change. They are too set in their way. Meanwhile, I am being the good Samaritarian sharing my good looks with Cuban hookers.
I went to church and confessed my sin to two old ladies who were incredibly supportive and gave me words of encouragement. This is all getting to be an adventure. Another adventure. That’s what I wanted, I guess.
After the old ladies, I spent the day on phone calls, and by nighttime the usual gang was there laughing our asses off about black dicks and the fact that I got a free hand job by the Cuban hooker after I only paid seven thousand. We laughed like businessmen in the fifties as they slapped their secretaries asses. ROARING.
Had no place to sleep. Went to a regular hotel, didn’t have enough money, so I had to go to a love motel and pay for what I could afford to sleep.
Woke up early and got to living, but I was so goddamn tired I slept in a bookstore’s attic on the cold hard stone floor with my Bible as a pillow.
I read two gospels and willed good.
Then a friend, without asking, gifted me money, and I got sick, and I started talking about hookers like an asshole in front of a girl that hates me (who knows why) in such a rude manner that, although it was English I was speaking and she doesn’t, she recognized the word pussy enough times to yell at me.
I knew I deserved it, but I was fucking taken by the idea of a hooker, so I went back to the hotel and ordered one.
She got here, and that is the Mexican woman. She was brown and small but beautiful, although her teeth were crooked.
We had sex, and then I felt like shit.
She told me I was the most handsome man she had met in the service, and I asked her about her life, and we spent the time naked looking into each other as souls, not people.
And we both agreed what we did was wrong, but at least there was some sort of charitable love.
I want to stop this before I lose control again, but she was incredible, and I love sex and woman, or am I trapped by it.
The room was blue, and so is Mexico City at night, and the hooker talked about God even though the devil had brought us together.
And I saw more of a soul in this poor hooker with the ugly teeth than in all the rich white woman of Mexico City I had met, and it all got me to thinking.
I gave her my number for friendship and a AA book as she said she thought she could be alcoholic, and I talked to her about it.
She had a red dress, but she wasn’t my woman with the red dress. Figuratively, it will always be Helen, but literally I haven’t found her.
She closed the door, and I showered listening to jazz, kneeling in the shower floor, warm water on my skin, asking God to rid me of this addiction and to let me be a plain God-following man.
But I think this woman found me at the right moment in her life and my advice will help her. I wish. Maybe I’m just guilty.
Give me strength, Lord, to be good, simply to be good, and to walk Mexico City at day when the blues though felt are still hiding behind the Periférico ring, and the hookers are just girls eating a meal and chatting away, and the drunkards aren’t drunk, and my parents aren’t fighting.
It is better to walk in the wake of day, but I am only ever truly awake at night.
A fat, ugly, wise in a crass way guy, a schizophrenic, and an anxious not gay gay guy.
So I found myself at one in the morning sitting in a quite comfortable gaming chair staring at three friends as I spoke about my life story, my worries, and what had brought me to that moment.
There are many such nights in AA, in the group with the yellow wall and the blue chairs, late at night when only the craziest of us addicts remain and the deeply hidden lies and thinly covered veils come out, also the guy that works there who is considered one of us although not an alcoholic.
We are part of a select group in which to partake and to gain access one has to buy a very special ticket. “Partirse su puta madre” as The Godfather let’s call him Oyster said.
There was Oyster an old very very fat man, also incredibly ugly but one who is sure to make you laugh in his no nonsense no filter manner. He is the leader in those late groups because however crass he is a man filled with wisdom from such a long life.
Then there is another pal who is about forty, not bad looking with a full head of hair and a kind heart. He is a literal schizophrenic and began drinking to drown the voices away, his is a sad story one of someone constantly striving to move forward with good values but who constantly has to be inter in psych wards because of schizophrenic episodes, but it’s not all bad and he has a beautiful wife, and then my other friend a short lean fifty year old guy who looks thirty and is the least gay gay guy I’ve ever met, he is always anxious and reminds me of myself in my abstinence period.
So all four of us plus the other guy, alone, them smoking cigarettes, me not anymore talking about our particular peculiar predicament, that quaint strange disease of the soul in which when we tried alcohol, pussy or weed we couldn’t quite stop until we destroyed our lives.
So I sat there on the chair telling my life story, how I am frightened because I’m beginning a new work period and it is hard as good things aren’t easy but I like to find other things to blame to justify myself if I fail because I am too scared to act, blaming the past and the unjust situation that placed me in jail, when, I mean it will always affect, but it is in the past. Wrote a book about it. I have to let it go and not use it as an excuse for my fear.
The kind of digging deep you only get in AA when a fat ugly in a crass way guy, a schizophrenic and an anxious not gay gay guy talk late into the night about what was, what could be.
We are unique and irreplaceable Oyster said, God is inside you.
And about what other people say, he said: if I liked having a dick in my ass… is it your ass? Exactly, so if it isn’t your ass it’s none of your business.
I just laughed, but in a way he is right. What’s happened, happened and if the dick is in my ass it’s my business nobody else’s.
The not gay gay guy was quiet, probably dreaming about his days in the beach when he was always high and fucking and the schizophrenic repeated AA quotes and lessons telling me I was on a path to success, he then drove me home in a Mercedes and we listened to Eric Clapton.
The “Rapist” book publishing process and sneak peak
Todo empieza con una idea.
Publishing a book was not as easy as I thought, specially not one titled The “Rapist”, but that just goes to show my necessity to title the book in such a way to take power from a word that was used to define me, when it shouldn’t have been that way.
I am currently in the developing stage of my next two novels, which I am very excited to write, but I will only begin when I know I will be able to dedicate myself fully to the writing of said novels, as for me the creative process of writing a book (a script is relatively simpler) takes my full attention in a complete obsessive cycle in which I must write all day long, and whenever I am not writing I am thinking about the book and jotting down my ideas.
The “Rapist” book was a project I long had in mind and really couldn’t think of much else until I decided to write a book opposite of the movie I fought to produce alongside my agent, Carolina Sfeir, for three years, again we faced the same problem, it’s difficult to move a story about a false rape allegation in the current climate as many peoples’ ideologies are in conflict with admitting that injustices such as this can happen.
Injustice happens when peoples’ ideologies take over reason, as I was witness to in America.
I will publish this book, and I have complete and absolute faith that it will be a great fucking success, what I’m not so sure of is how long the publishing process will be.
Right now I am reaching out and in talks with multiple American and English literary agencies and agents to see which agent will be the best fit for my book, this has to be someone who wholeheartedly sees my vision, the vision that carried me to Joe Rogan’s house a few years ago.
Still, the subject matter makes it a difficult book to sell, and that is exactly why I must fight to sell it all the more.
The process is tedious, but such it is. This is the work part.
Stay tuned for my next two books in the literary front, in the meantime enjoy this sneak peek from the book The “Rapist”:
We had the room all to ourselves, and he closed the door so we could talk freely. He asked the police officers to remove my handcuffs, and they did. As I rubbed my wrists, he spoke.
“I’ve talked to your parents. They told me the situation. I’m sorry you’re going through this. Not a nice place to be in.”
“It is what it is.”
“Let me tell you. You have a great team on your side, the best of the best. We even hired a private investigator... which reminds me. Your roommates Bob and John...”
“Yeah, great guys.”
“Well, I’m not so sure. Excuse my French, but the investigator tried to contact them, and they told him to ‘fuck off.’”
“No, they wouldn’t do that... Maybe they thought you were somebody else, representing Helen, maybe.”
Matthew gave me a sad look.
“Yeah, maybe that’s what it is.”
“They wouldn’t do that. Especially not Bob.” “Ok. So what happened? From the beginning.”
He got out a yellow notepad and began taking notes. I told him everything, holding nothing back. Matthew scribbled in his yellow notepad as I spoke.
“I only have one question.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you run away? I guess when you’re my age and see someone who behaves like that, you just run. You RUN.”
“Why? Because I’m an idiot. I kinda felt sorry for her. I’m addicted. I don’t know.”
“That’s not it. She’s crazy, and lemme tell you something about crazy girls—they’re the best fuck.”
He laughed. I was a little disgusted at the comment, but I laughed alongside Matthew. I had to.
“When I was your age, all the girls wanted me, you know. They still do. Look at this girl.” He took out his phone and showed me a picture of an attractive girl on his DMs. It looked like a scam. I pretended a smile; I didn’t give a shit about girls. I just wanted to find a way out of here.
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The "Rapist"
“So you think she’ll end up in jail?”
“Slow down, soldier. First, we have to get you out of here. Then maybe we can try. But in these types of cases, they usually just tell them off and move on. Don’t expect justice. We’ll try, but it’s a long shot.” “What? How can she get away with something like that?”
“I tell you what—you just gave me a lot to work with. Let’s start from there.”
“She has to pay! She can’t keep getting away with it.”
“We’ll do our best. First, we have to get you out of here. Are they treating you right?”
“No.”
“Yeah, didn’t think so. This place is awful. It used to be better back then. It’s only gotten worse... Don’t worry, you’re in good hands. I’ve been doing this all my life.”
“I just don’t get how she could do something like that.”
“It happens more often than you think. Way more often. Especially in the last decade.”
“How can they lie about something like this? There are girls out there who go through horrible things... And these girls who lie, they just take away from their experience and credibility. It’s disgusting. You know, girls who get actually raped? Real rape, not this bullshit.”
“Let me tell you, there are some fucked-up people in this world.” He asked if there was anything else, and I told him that I would probably remember something on my way back, but I guess that was everything. Matthew signaled to a cop that we were finished, and due to his high standing in Georgia—he was a lawyer and used to be a
judge—he instantly came and placed the handcuffs back on my wrists. He led us outside, where he asked Matthew to sign some papers. He left to go retrieve them. When he did, Matthew moved his hands to embrace me, and then moved them down to my ass, felt it out, and
rubbed it.
The officer comes back, Matthew signs the papers, and leaves. I was
then led all the way back to my cell block by a nice black police officer who was well-built and handsome. I asked him if I smelled too much, and he said Yeah, with pity on his face.
I was completely hopeless. My lawyer, the one person who was supposed to protect me in this place, just sexually harassed me. Me. I got special permission to take a bath and decided it was time. The shower was metal and it had two metal buttons: one would pour scalding hot water, and the other freezing cold. The water would only
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come out for five seconds and then stop. To take a normal shower, you had to click both buttons at once to get hot and cold combined every five seconds. Not ideal, but it was my first shower in a long time, and the only place where I felt truly alone in there.
The lady cop was nice and let me out for about an hour. In that metal box, I felt the warm water and had a respite. I got out in my underwear, and there was knocking on the glass: another big black gay inmate.
“Hello, you’re gonna get me in trouble.”
Thinking I had made a friend, I just laughed and left. I was told later by Ramírez that I had sexually tempted a lot of bad people and had put a target on my back. What a fucking idiot.
I went back to my cell with another sexual predator. The metal door closed, and I felt more trapped than ever. I lay back on my bed with my clothes on, and my cellmate began loudly and obviously pleasuring himself. No remorse.
I was woken up, and our disgusting meals were brought to us. We ate in silence. He could tell I didn’t like him and felt endangered, but he was just waiting for the right moment. A disgusting meal next to a disgusting man was one of the few things to look forward to in a day —a sacred moment in the life of an inmate. And then he went right back to masturbating. He told me not to tell anyone what was going on, and I realized inside that cell that if I didn’t find a way out, I would be raped—actually raped very soon.
Avoiding looking at his black penis through the white sheets, I got down and began banging on the door hysterically. Nobody came. I kept knocking.
“I have a visit! Let me out! Let me out! I’m innocent! I have a visit! Let me out! I have a visit! Pop the door! Pop the door!”
And then something unexpected happened: all the other inmates started banging on the door.
“He has a visit!”
“Let him out, he has a visit!” “Let him out, he has a visit!”
The whole cell block started making a scandal simultaneously. They were all yelling I had a visit, and I had to be let out. All the men allied in a common cause. And it worked. Mr. Red came for me. He popped the door and let me out. He then escorted me to the bottom, where we checked the kiosk, and my name didn’t appear. He realized I didn’t have a visit and got angry.
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“You want to go back in the box? I’ll send you right now. See how that fits you!” “El hoyo, entiende.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I just... I needed to get out. I’m afraid... my cellmate... is trying to rape me.”
“Do you fear for your safety?” He smiled. It was a trap; I just had to say one word, and I’d go back in the box.
“No.”
“Then you’re just wasting my time, boy! You think I work for you?” “You speak English? El hoyo. I’ll send you to el hoyo. ¿Me entiendes? ¿Habla inglés?”
We made such a ruckus that the sergeant who was passing by asked what the problem was. I told him the situation and that I feared I was going to be raped.
“I know my rights. I talked to my lawyer.”
“Rights! He talked to his lawyer. He knows his rights. This is jail. There are no rights here.”
They left me standing there for a few minutes and went to talk by themselves. I was then moved back to another holding cell. At first, I wasn’t there on my own but with two black men. It went the same as it always went: them asking what I was there for and me telling them my story. They laughed. I asked them what they were in there for. The black inmates liked me when I spoke, and they heard my accent. Being Mexican meant I somehow also suffered some sort of prejudice that brought me there, but my skin color certainly did help my case.
One of the laughing inmates told me he had entered a church and killed seven people—a shooting. I don’t know why, but in the circumstances we were in, this murderous lunatic was a friend. Although the two of them found any and everything I did funny, and I couldn’t quite tell if they had made it up, laughing was a respite, and any time I could find one in jail, I appreciated it. And then they were taken away, and I was all alone in yet another tiny box.
I looked out the window after my fourth hour in that room and saw the food cart move into the cell block. I was very hungry, and eating was one of the only things I had to look forward to in the day, apart from the daily sandwich. The man moving the cart was the father- figure prisoner whom I had so vehemently told I was innocent. He saw me and shouted,
“That man is innocent!”
And laughed. At least someone got it.
A female police officer came around the fifth or sixth hour to take
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me out of there to my old cell, where I got my things supervised by two police officers, and then went down the stairs on the right side, two cells away from Mahiko. There I was greeted by my new roommate: a big, gayer black man who looked like an ape but talked like a Barbie, with black dreadlocks and a pretty huge belly. He was forty years old, and my new nightmare.
He tried to get on good terms with me and gave me candies, drawing paper, a pen, and crisps, which I accepted because anything to entertain me would help. But the power dynamic was unbalanced, as we both knew what he wanted, and he was bigger; I was in the same situation I had been with the other man. Tremaine had a very effeminate voice; they had put me with someone as likely to rape me, and the female cop looked guilty as she put me in. I couldn’t complain —they had already moved me. It was a trap, a sick trap played by the guards.
I buttoned up my clothes, and with my new soft wiggly pen that couldn’t be used as a weapon, I wrote the words “Papa” and “Mama.” I touched the wall and could almost feel them, our hearts beating in unison miles away, torn apart by injustice.