5 a.m pornstore graveyard shift

Three Pieces:
The Addicts Almanac, part 1
Use Once and Destroy
The Foot Freak

5 a.m. pornstore graveyard shift

Its four a.m. at Taboo video on 82nd and Division in S.E. Portland. Another fucking graveyard shift. This is meth central. This is crack whore hell. This is where the freaks gather. The sick creatures of the night. This is transsexual prostitutes. This is closet gays secretly cruising for cock. This is glory hole Gus with the running sores all around his mouth and eyes. This is grandpa has a dirty little secret. This is thirty small booths, each with one hundred and twenty channels of various pornography. Three minutes for a dollar. This is where the dirtiest dirt goes down. Anonymous exchanges of body fluids and blood born pathogens. Money for sex for drugs. Tricks for tracks if you will. This is where I work.

I’m the clerk. It’s my job to sell these people condoms and lube. It’s my job to distribute dollar bills for the “arcade”. It’s my job to police the arcade. It is a long dark horseshoe shaped hallway with thirty small closet sized rooms along the inner wall. Each booth contains a chair, a video screen, and a slot to put your money in. The booths smell like stale man sweat and fermented fossilized cum. The booths smell like crack smoke, fermented cum, and unwashed ass. The booths occasionally smell like piss and shit.

Some of the booths have a waist level hole in the wall between two booths. Known as a gloryhole, some men will sit in these booths for hours at a time. Their mission is to suck cock. They will suck any cock that comes through the hole. Often these men are clearly diseased. Open sores cover their faces and hands. They are spun out on meth and crack. They emerge from the booth only to smoke the occasional cigarette and then quickly return lest they miss some “action”. Some have told me they feel they are providing a service.

The men that utilize this dubious service come from all walks of life. Most often these are not “gay” men but simply desperate. There is a nonstop parade of these sexual opportunists. They come into the store, peruse the straight porn and then casually slink back to the arcade. These men are your mail man, your bank teller, your district supervisor, your college professor. These men wear wedding rings. “Honey, Im working a little late tonight” These men are husbands, fathers, grandfathers, brothers, and uncles. These men are also the odd balls who have no chance with women. The semi retarded and the elderly. The morbidly obese and the guy with boils all over his face and neck. The potential serial killers and the confirmed sex offenders. The geeks and the losers. Maybe they are not getting sex at home, maybe their wife doesn’t give head, or maybe it’s the elicit thrill of the forbidden act. Maybe it’s the filth it’s self that is attractive. But mostly it’s just easy, anonymous, and anybody can do it. If these men could see the mouth on the other side of the hole, if they could see the face attached to the mouth and look into those yellowed and bloodshot eyes would they return? I often wonder what diseases these men bring home to their families. Try explaining to your wife why she has syphilis.

Some of the booths have a glass patrician between them with sliding blinds. There is a button you can push if you want to see what is going on in the next booth. If they want to see you too they can push their button and the blind goes down, leaving a clear window between the booths. These are called voyeur booths. When the bars close, drunken couples come in to put on a show. Often it is the woman pulling the man back to the arcade. They take a voyeur booth and put on their exebishonist performance. Often, they invite random men into the booth with them. Sometimes many men form a line outside the booth. Maybe the husband just wants to watch his wife get fucked silly by strangers. Maybe the wife wants to watch her husband suck a dick. Usually it’s a little of both. Rarely are they attractive couples. They are middle aged and older. They are too thin or overweight. They have missing teeth and missing hair. Their faces show the ravages of meth, coke, and booze. They are any and all races. They are an accurate representation of the swinger lifestyle. A true cross section of the polyamorous.

“Would you like to have a crack at the little lady”? “She doesn’t look like much but she can suck a mean dick”. This is what they say to me when purchasing their lube and getting ones for the booths. I tell them I am completely impotent. I tell them this with a straight face and no hint of humor. This is my standard answer to the constant invitations and bizarre come ons for casual sex. To the little old man that asks me if I “wanna get my dick sucked” and to the six foot black man dressed in drag that asks if I want to “try a tranny”. My answer of impotency shuts them down. Its slams the door shut with finality and they are often left speechless. It’s fucking hilarious, and I take pride in not laughing.

I am the graveyard porn clerk and I am not to be fucked with. My cold stare stops tweaker shoplifters in their tracks. In the middle of the night when I walk over and ask “can I help you find any thing” you know what I’m really saying is “I’m onto you scumbag”. I’m watching you watching me. I show no signs of weakness, and I will fuck you up if you test me. I carry an aluminum baseball bat and brass knuckles. I am fueled by black metal, black coffee and the blackest contempt.

Part of my job is to make sure that the people using the booths are paying. There is a red light above the door of each of the booths. When the red light is on, money is being spent. I check the doors of each booth with an unlit red light. If the door is locked I knock and yell through the door. My standard greeting is “If you wanna use the booth you gotta pay”. Then I move on. Often street people and crack heads lurk in the booths as a way to get off the street or a safe place to smoke drugs. I really don’t give a fuck as long as they pay, what they do in the booth is their business. When they are not paying it becomes my business. I continue down the hall checking each unlit booth. I open the door of each unlocked room.

You never know what you will find when you open one of these door, and what is seen cannot be unseen. I have see two men buttfucking with a rain coat draped over them. I have seen people smoking crack and smoking meth. I have seen bums sleeping and surprised a hooker shooting up heroin in her foot. I have seen a man dressed as a woman sucking another mans dick while shoving a huge black dildo deep into his own ass. I have had men flash their penises and I have had men flash their assholes at me. I have seen a well groomed man in a business suit on his hands and knees licking up the old cum on the floor. I have found rooms covered in blood and rooms covered in piss. It’s not my problem, I am not a janitor, I am the clerk. Besides, that’s what Mexicans are for….

Porn clerk humor is not politically correct. Porn clerks are not politically correct, we are the misanthropist elite. We make minimum wage and we hate your fucking guts. We make fun of your stupid questions about sex toys and porn. We smile in your face, take your money, and rip you to shreds as soon as you have left the store. Sometimes before.

Being a porn clerk is retail sales and customer service, but the customer in not always right. We will call you a scumbag to your face and tell you to “get the fuck out NOW”. Try asking a clerk if the store carries bestiality. Try hitting on a female porn clerk or just hang around too long near the counter acting like a douche. You will find out how we “celebrate diversity”.

Porn clerks have the dirt on you. We know your tastes in porn and we can bring up your account to see all the titles you have rented in the last year. We know what lube you jack off with and what flavor of flavored condoms you prefer. We mentally file it away when you buy that tube of anal eze. We tally the number of visits back to the arcade each week, and by the way, we can see what is going on back there. There are cameras. Not in the booths but in the halls. We see you going from booth to booth rattling doorknobs. We see you going first into one booth with a guy then another booth with another guy. WE KNOW YOU ARE SECRETLY GAY. Don’t worry though, your secret is safe with us. We just don’t give a fuck.

Table of Contents

Three Pieces (June 20, 2009. Issue 6.)

The Addicts Almanac part one....

When you have been eating jail food for a month then get released without warning into the cold slate grey predawn Portland streets, the smoky interior of the Roxy Cafe at five a.m. with its smell of clove cigarettes, coffee, and greasy diner food is a true trash oasis. Those old familiar Pulp Fiction posters on the wall and the same Skinny Puppy songs playing on the jukebox. Small groups cluster at tables and in the booths. Gothic kids and punk rockers drinking the all night coffee and chain smoking. Flamboyant gay guys sit at the bar eating pancakes, loud talking, and looking around to see if anyone is paying attention. No one is.

I spot an associate sitting at one of the small two person tables by him self and make my way over. His name is Joe but he goes by Ashes, and Ashes looks loaded. He barely looks up when I sit down and from the length of the ash on his smoke I can tell he was on the nod. His hooded blue eyes finally look up with pinprick pupils and find mine as the waiter takes my order for coffee and toast. He tucks a long strand of greasy hair behind his ear and through missing teeth tells me I look like hell. Coming from him this is truly something.

Ashes has been on the streets a long time. He was already “old” when I first hit the dope road all those years ago. Beneath his long and tattered leather trench coat and his Sisters Of Mercy tee shirt his thin frame shows the wear of a long time dopefiend. His arms are covered in homemade tattoos and scars from past abscesses. A line of yellowish bruises and track marks snakes its way down the side of his neck and into the collar of his shirt. There are bloodstains and cigarette burns on his shirt and jeans. Ashes is somewhere in his late thirties but looks a decade older. Anybody with eyes would make him for an addict. He is about as trustworthy as a rented snake and he is the closest thing I have to a friend at this moment. My first question is of course is he holding and if he is can I get him to kick down a little something? Even a rinse would set me straight and buy me some time to make a plan. No junky wants to give up any dope EVER, but I have some leverage as he has NO hustle and he knows I WILL make some money today. He supports his habit by spare changing in the transit mall. Not a sure thing, even on a good day. A real loser’s gambit. Real bottom of the food chain shit. So I get him to agree to get me well as long as I take him along on what ever scheme I cook up for the next day.

In order for me to get the fix we first have to go back to the squat he shares with some other disreputable scumbags under the Jackson street overpass. We leave at once. Fuck the coffee and toast. It’s only a few blocks away and as we make our way to the spot, the morning people are already beginning their day. Office workers are emerging with their overpriced Starbucks beverages and service workers are on their way to their shitty jobs serving shitty food to shitty people. Ashes hits up every one we pass with his mantra of “spare change? Spare change?”

The pedestrians avoid eye contact and keep moving. Their not scared, just seen it all too many times. Anybody that lives or works downtown is so used to this that its like rain to them. Something unpleasant but inevitable, just part of the city. When we finally reach the overpass and duck down through the hole in the freeway fence the smell of shit hits me like an excrement anvil. The whole side of the embankment is dotted with small white flags of used toilet paper marking each pile of human feces. There are no public bathrooms open at night in Portland so people do what they have to do where ever they can. No matter how many squats I’ve been in the smell of piss and shit always takes my breath away for a moment. Every time, my mind screams “This is the bottom.” Truly it would be hard to fall any lower than this. Maybe dying of aids in a welfare hospital would be worse.

Maybe.

The squats that line the freeway overpasses are like catch basins for the refuse of the city. The mentally ill, sexual deviants, illegal immigrants, wanted fugitives, hardcore drunks, prostitutes, crusty train hopping kids, tweakers, and junkies. We all have called these places home. For a night, for a week, even years for some. It’s easy to fly below the radar here. No rent, no responsibility, not a care in the world besides where your next fix or your next bottle is coming from.

My next fix is coming from Ashes and he is unrolling his works from a rolled up piece of a leather apron he had up his sleeve. “There’s not much here to go around” he says, but he is willing to share a little, AFTER he gets his of course. I watch twitching and sweating in anticipation while he prepares his shot and as he draws up the black water from the spoon my stomach does flip flops like maybe I’m gonna puke or shit my pants. But I don’t.

Ashes has burned his veins long ago so he just shoves the needle into the thin muscle of his his shoulder and slowly pushes down the plunger with a slight grimace of pain. “I left a good rinse for you” he says, gesturing towards his spoon. Upon examination there is a light brown residue on the spoon and in the tiny piece of cotton stuck to the bottom. I look around at the spectral figures in the darkened squat. Most still in their bedrolls and sleeping bags its hard to spot a familiar face so I just ask out loud if anybody has a clean point. Nearby what I had mistaken for a pile of trash and old rags stirs and by some miracle this small girl who I hadn’t even noticed says she might. She begins to dig in her pack and pulls out the familiar brown paper bag of the Outside In needle exchange. She tosses the bag to me and tells me to keep it; she says she is trying to kick. I don’t want to think about what I might have done if there wasn’t a clean point available. Sharing needles under a bridge is not anything I want to experience.

I’ve been lucky and I know it. I want to hug this tiny female savior but we don’t know each other. I wish I had a million dollars to give her. She may have just saved my life and I tell her so as my way of thanking her. She merely shrugs and rolls back over so she doesn’t have to watch us shoot dope in front of her. I have to be careful; I haven’t had a hit in almost a month. Many junkies have gotten out of jail only to O.D. with their first shot. They dumbly do the amount they were used to doing before being locked up. Not realizing that the time inside has lowered their tolerance. I can think of a half dozen guys that have went out that way, but from what Paisley has left me I definitely don’t have to worry about an O.D. so I cook up the meager fix in the torn off bottom of a pop can and tying my arm off with a bandana do my thing. I find a vein right away, and when the blood blooms in the clear tube of the rig I slowly press the down on the plunger sending the light amber solution on into my arm.

It hits me first in the muscles of my jaw and with a slight burn up my arm. No euphoria, just a little rush, a slight sensation of relief. It wasn’t much but it will have to do. I know I will have to make some money soon and my first thought is House Depot. It’s a bus ride but pretty much a sure thing. They give you up to one hundred dollars cash back on returned merchandise. You don’t even have to have a receipt.

So, the hustle works like this. One guy goes in and shoplifts ninety nine dollars worth of whatever. Usually something small like diamond drill bits or door lock assemblies. This guy is known as the booster. Another guy waits outside at a nearby fast food restaurant or bus stop. The booster takes the stolen stuff out of the store and hands it over to the guy waiting at the bus stop. This guy is the returner. The returner then goes inside the store and returns the merchandise for cash. The returner brings the cash and the receipt back outside to the booster and is given a small cut of the money. This is known as the “boost and return.”

Another variation on this is for one guy to hang around outside the store picking up receipts or getting receipts out of the trash. Then he goes into the store and steals the exact item on the receipt and returns it for the cash. I used to know this little junky girl that was straight enough looking that she could go into a store, put something in a shopping cart and push it right up to the return counter without ever leaving the store. That takes a lot of sand, and with my tracks and tattoos there is no way I could pull that off.

The returners only get like twenty out of the hundred bucks as there is no risk in returning. All the risk is taken by the boosters so they get most of the reward. The only thing required to do returns is a valid I.D. Once you have done three returns without a receipt House Depot cuts you off. After you have been cut off you can’t return again for a year, so basically your ID is burnt. Boosters are always looking for new returners with clean I.D. who don’t look like disreputable scumbags. Right now I need someone with a clean ID to take the bus with me to the Beaverton House Depot and put some work in. Ashes is not an option. He doesn’t even have I.D. and any loss prevention guy would make him instantly. I tell him to help me find someone to do returns and I will kick down some cash on top of the shitty little shot I already owe him.

The small girl in the corner has overheard all this and it is too much for her. She stands right up and says “fuck kicking! I want in”. I feel kind of bad for dragging her into my madness but she says she has clean I.D and in the light is actually pretty cute in a beat kind of way. She stands probably five feet tall and is no more than a hundred pounds. She has black dreads pulled back into a ponytail, large expressive eyes, pale skin, and very red lips. She says her name is Zoey but she goes by Squeak. Appropriate. She is wearing black Carhart bibs and a Venom shirt but says she has just the outfit for our expedition.

After digging in her impossibly large pack she finally finds what she is after and gets back under her blankets. Some rustling around and a small amount of cussing later she emerges virtually unrecognizable. Some worn Gap kakis, a striped Columbia sportswear sweater, and her dreads pulled back in a bright knit stocking hat have transformed her into someone the House Depot clerk probably won’t look twice at. Her new look has Ashes and me laughing and that gets her a little pissed but after a minute she starts laughing too.

With that laugh and seeing her smile for the first time I realize she is more than kinda cute. She is a very pretty girl. Petite and delicate features highlight the playful light that shines from her eyes, and if I’m not mistaken that light is being directed at me.

+++

Use Once and Destroy

Waking up under the Jackson Street Bridge is never a good way to start the day. Looking out from under the meager warmth of the mildew smelling blankets I can’t see the sky, only the mud, the beer cans, and discarded piles of wet clothing revealed in the sodden half light of early dawn. It is a typical Portland morning in late spring. Cold, slate grey sheets of rain pound the overpass and the cars rushing overhead. The rhythmic sounds of their passing greet my ears like the waves of a great industrial ocean crashing on black top shores.

Zoey sleeps soundly under the moldering covers. The sound of her soft breath and the comfort provided by her warmth cause me to linger in the bed though my mind is drifting to more pressing matters. I have to take a piss and more importantly I need to do my wake up shot. I grab an empty forty ounce bottle that is within arms reach piss in it and throw it as far away from us as I can. Only then do I reach for the bag containing the works and very quietly unwrap the unsavory treasures within. I light two small tea candles, one for light and one to cook up my hit. The sound of the lighter stirs Zoey from her sleep and blinking at the flame she stretches and gives me a sad and tired little smile.

It’s been almost a week since we first met here in this darkened urban cave. Almost a week since that first trip to House Depot and that first sweet score. Almost a week I have been out of jail this time. Almost a week and two more trips to house Depot. Two more trips to S.E. Portland and two more rides in Julio’s car. It took us only a day to go through those first balloons. I laugh bitterly to myself remembering that I thought they would “last a few days”.

Right…The thing about heroin is, the more you have the more you need. I lie to myself this way a lot. It is a necessary defense mechanism for a junky. The truth is just too ugly, so we construct elaborate mythologies for ourselves. We are masterful deceivers. We exist on lies. We manipulate and destroy everyone around us in the name of that great unholy whore dope.

Daily we say it “gonna kick tomorrow”. That ultimate junky cliché and we believe it when we say it. “Just this last shot”. “One more fix”. These are the lies that sustain us. Without this armor of denial we would surely parish by our own hands. The grim truth of this self imposed life sentence would overwhelm us and carry us to the bottom of the darkest pit.

The people in our lives pull back and fall away with each shred of our credibility. To them we are beyond sick. We cannot be trusted. It’s true; we are lepers in this great and prosperous society. To look upon us is to look upon death itself. So we cook up, tie off, and shoot that lie right into our arms. With this sacrament we are healed. You can’t visibly see the change and from the outside we appear as shabby and pitiful as ever but inside, inside we are golden warmth and comfort. In that inner landscape of bliss and satisfaction we take shelter from the world. We take shelter from ourselves and that great deception. We rush ever onward towards our doom knowing we are just one shot away from death and finding out the truth about god.

By the dim light of the candle I arrange the tools of my self destruction before me. The spoon, the needle, and the tiny ball of black tar. These are the sacred and holy devices needed to worship here, here in this death church. This black cathedral of concrete and suffering. From my water bottle I draw the measure of liquid needed and squirt it into the spoon. I remove the last of the heroin from the small square of plastic shopping bag and place it with the water in the cooker. Tying my arm off with a shoelace I hold the rig in my mouth and complete the ritual. Finding a vein in the darkness is a challenge and after a few tries and with blood running down my wrist from the misses I finally see the small burst of red in the tube. Pushing the plunger home I remove the spike from my pale and wounded flesh and lean back to enjoy the brief respite.

The rush is over quickly, leaving only the absence of discomfort. Not really a high so to speak but merely the relief of not being dopesick. After the initial “honeymoon” stages of nodding out and nausea this is all we get. We forever chase those early highs, sucking the fumes of old memories. Inhaling the toxic exhaust of our own burned out potential.

With a sigh I pull the blankets back up to my chin and close my eyes. Without looking I can hear the sounds of Zoey preparing her own wake up hit. I nod briefly and wake a few minutes later when she crawls back into the bed. She curls her small frame close to mine and presses her face to my neck. We sleep like this for awhile and for us this is the best we get. These moments make all of it okay. Just for now we can pretend we are not in this place.

Later on it has stopped raining and the absence of sound awakens me. Sunbeams filter in through the fence that covers the opening under the bridge and the interior of the squat is revealed in all of its squalid glory. The same sight I have awoken to for a week now. Dirty needles, used condoms and cigarette butts stepped on and half buried in the mud. We need to get the fuck out of here. This place is death. I need a plan to make some real money. After the three successful trips to House Depot Zoey 's I.D. is now burnt so that’s out. I haven’t called my mother in a long time, and she is usually good for some help if I can make up a good enough lie…….

+++

The Foot Freak

Ashes awakens with a start to the sound of the Max train as it screams through the zoo tunnel on its way back to downtown Portland. “What the fuck” he thinks to his self, I must have nodded off. Nodded off indeed, he has slept on the train all the way to the end of the line in Hillsboro and is now almost back downtown. “Where the fuck is Wurm and Darby”? he wonders out loud. The train is virtually empty and it is growing dark outside. It is getting late and with no money to score Ashes begins to feel the dark wind of panic blow through his bones.

The train is nearing the Public library stop at Tenth Street and he thinks there just might be a chance to panhandle up some cash before the library closes. He exits the train and pulls his ragged leather coat tighter over his thin frame. As he crosses the street towards the library a cold rain begins to fall. There are people gathered on the front steps and he allows some hope in his mind but as he gets closer he realizes it is just another group of street kids already set up and flying a sign for beer.

His guts turn to liquid and he knows he is going to have to find another spot and fast. The bus mall has always served him well, but he has always started out much earlier in the day. It has to be nearing six or even seven and he knows his dealer stops serving by nine at the latest. He begins to walk faster down Yamhill Street towards fifth and Sixth Avenue. Fifth and sixth are where all the bus stops are and where there are bus stops there are people. Where there are people he just might have a chance of raising enough change for a fix.

His last hit was hours ago and with that knowledge comes the fear. That twisting fear deep in his bowels that maybe he won’t be able to
score. A cold sweat breaks out on his body and beads of sweat appear on his upper lip. With a frantic look he begins to approach the random strangers gathered under the shelter of the bus stops. First one and then the next he asks everyone he sees. “Please spare some change for bus fare”?

Maybe if he wasn’t as dopesick as he is, maybe if his eyes weren’t quite so fevered looking. Maybe if he didn’t look so goddamn desperate someone would be kind and extend to him the mercy of the small change in their pockets. But not tonight, tonight he looks just a little to wild. As his anxiety grows the people grow a just little more afraid. As he approaches each shelter women hold their purses closer and men glare at him threateningly. At one stop a man reaches into his pocket only to extend in his hand a small religious tract. FUCK!! He crumples the pamphlet in his sweaty hand and hurls it to the ground.

He looks up at the monitor that displays the arrival time for the busses to see what time it is and with a heavy sense of impending doom reads the time is eight thirty five. It’s much later than he thought so with desperation he pulls the small change from his pocket to see where his fate lies. He counts out two dollars and thirteen cents. Nowhere near enough to score but enough to make a phone call.

Maybe, just maybe he can talk one of the dealers into giving him a front. He first dials Rodolfo but his call goes instantly to voice mail and his fifty cents drops into the phone. MOTHERFUCKER he shouts and slams his hand onto the top of the phone hurting his wrist but not caring. He pulls out another fifty cents, drops the coins into the slot and dials Angel. Angel picks up on the second ring and asks suspiciously “who ees eet?” Hey its Ashes man! Are you still working? “eets who?” ASHES, you know from downtown? Can I come see you? “jew got money?” Angel asks. Well not exactly but…Then the line goes dead and Paisleys heart falls with the quarters as they are deposited into the phone.

In younger years he would have just gone to Stark Street to pull a quick date, but now, now he is considered old and ugly. No longer does he have the youthful look required to hustle the men cruising for kids on stark. No longer does he have the vitality. His flesh has the dead and wooden look of the ageing junky. His mind runs through the few possibilities remaining to him and as he remembers his past turning tricks on Stark he remembers Bob.

He hasn’t spoken with Bob for awhile but he knows that with a call Bob will be there and that Bob always has money. Bob has to be in his sixties by now, he was “elderly” when they first me years ago on Stark. At the time Ashes wasn’t even strung out yet. He was doing speed, smoking pot, and turning a few quick dates just to have pocket money. Bob would sit parked in his silver mini-van and watch the activity of the kids on the street. Bob has Multiple Sclerosis and is reduced to using a small electric scooter to get around so he rarely exits his van. At first Ashes thought Bob might be a cop because he would just sit there and watch. He never seemed to date anyone and he seemed to be there all the time.

Finally after a few weeks of seeing each other around Bob spoke to him. It was a shitty, wet, and miserable November night and Paisley wasn’t making any money. He was cold, tired, and had no place to go so when Bob rolled down his window and asked if he could take him out to dinner Ashes accepted. The smell inside the van was typical old man. It smelled like cough drops and Vicks Vapo rub. Bob with his withered legs was certainly no threat but from experience Paisley knew to keep his guard up. Bob asked “is Denny’s Ok”? “Whatever you want” Paisley replied and they pulled away from the curb heading across the Burnside Bridge towards the Denny’s near Lloyd center.

During the drive Bob began to talk about his self. Explaining that he was a Christian and a closet homosexual. How he had been married twice and had three adult children. He spoke about how he always knew he was gay but tried to fight it by getting married and having children. He spoke about living a double life. He told about being very active in his church and even attending George Fox University to become a pastor. He told of his days of cruising the adult bookstores for anonymous glory hole sex with strangers and his fear of bringing some horrible disease home to his wife. He told about his shame and the nights he would spend parked on Stark Street just watching the “out” gays coming and going from the nearby nightclubs. He would watch longingly from the safety of his van and very occasionally pick up one of the younger looking boys working the corners.

Ashes was beginning to feel creeped out by this strange old man and decided he didn’t want to go to fucking Denny’s. He wanted some money and he wanted some fucking drugs. He didn’t want to listen to this old queen’s life story and he certainly didn’t want to sit across from him and watch him eat a goddamn Grand slam. “Why don’t we skip dinner” Ashes said as they neared the Restaurant parking lot. “What did you have in mind”? The old man asked him coyly. “What the fuck did YOU have in mind”? Paisley asked back “because we both know it wasn’t dinner”. “I know a place we can go” Bob replied and turned the van towards the S.E. industrial area.

The ride was silent and Ashes thought to him self that he wasn’t going to suck this old mans dick for any amount of money and the most he would do would be to allow the old fucker to watch him jack off. They pulled into a darkened parking lot and Bob parked the van in the shadows behind a couple of old semi trailers. “Okay first show me some money or I aint showing you shit” “Sure”, Bob replied and pulled his wallet from his pants pocket. He extracted two twenties from within the wallet and handed them to Paisley. In that split second Ashes could see there were at least four twenties left in the wallet and probably more. He began to wonder if he could get away with robbing the old man.

“Look, I don’t want to fuck you or anything” Bob said and Ashes replied “That’s good because I don’t fuck guys. I’m not even gay, I just need money”. Paisley heard the sound of Bob unzipping his pants then Bob asked him to take off one of his boots. “Let me see one of your feet” Bob asked, and Ashes though a little wierded out was at the same time relieved. A foot freak! Easy money. He put his boot up on the dash and began to slowly unlace the twenty eye Doc Martin.

He could hear Bob’s excited breathing in the cab of the van as he finished untying the tall black boot. Ashes hadn’t changed his socks or even had a shower in over a week so as he pulled the boot from his foot the musty odor from his stale socks filled the small space. Bobs breathing quickened “now the sock” he said almost breathlessly. “Another twenty” Ashes said, knowing the old man would pay. Bob quickly produced the crisp bill and handed it over.

“The sock, take it off” Bob said again a little more desperately. Ashes began to remove his sock and he could hear a rhythmic rustling sound fromBob’s side of the van. He pulled the sock from his foot and Bob moaned deep in his throat. “Give it here” he said. Ashes handed Bob the stiffened sock. Bob snatched the sock, pressed it to his face, and with a groan and a shudder it was over. He reached for a Kleenex from the box on the dash.

Bob extended the soiled sock towards Ashes. “Keep it” Ashes said and laughed out loud as he laced his boot over his now sock less foot. Bob laughed too but Ashes could tell he was embarrassed. “I’m sorry” Bob said as he zipped his self up. “Don’t be, just take me back downtown”. This first encounter was over five years ago.

At first they had repeated this same scenario on a weekly basis, but over time as Ashes grew more strung out and his looks began to fade the encounters grew more infrequent. Still though when there was nothing going on and he was unable to hustle money any other way he had always been able to count on Bob.

The last time he had called, Bob didn’t even want to do the “date” he just looked at Ashes with concern and gave him twenty bucks. “I’m praying for you” he had said. That was around three months ago. Ashes dug another fifty cents from the pocket of his soiled jeans, dropped the coins in the phone and dialed Bob’s number.