An Empty Bottle Of Jack, One Thousand Euros, A Gas Mask, A Mirror, And Aztlan

Friday night in the teteria with no name in Lavapies I gave Ana la Gitana a backrub before I had to leave. Ana is a gypsy (I met her in Granada) and she is the sexiest cougar (thirty-eight) I've ever seen. I think she hexed me when she kissed me goodbye.
When I left her, I went to pick up these two American girls, 19 and 20, art students from Indiana. The young one is Mary: a former dancer with a face made like a Modigliani. Bridget is a photographer. She wears glasses and has long, curly red hair. They giggle a lot. It is their first time out of the country. After a stroll and a bottle of wine through La Latina, I took them to the Mexican gang's pad and after a couple of rails, a lot of gin and tonic, and a tall bourbon nightcap, I was twisted. It was pretty late when I decided to head back to my sugar mama's (Ilana's) apartment down on the South side. Mary came back to my place to bump uglies all night. She had no idea what she was doing, but shit was tight. Sex with young girls, in a nutshell. Mary and Bridget flew to Barcelona the next morning.
I spent Saturday down in VK (Vallecas), blowing tea and working on my rasta friend's bike. She'd just got back from a cyclotour in Ireland and was about to do another one to Santiago de Compostela.
That night I met up with my Aussie friend Josh because he invited me to a party in Santo Domingo. The house is right next to Opera and across the street from a house of prostitution, known colloquially as a "puticlub." I brought a tea cigarette*, a liter of Coca-Cola, and a liter of Negrita rum. Everybody got well lit because they're not used to just tea, they're used to chocolate with tobacco. There were a bunch of journalists, artists, and travellers, and the lighting was perfect, so after a few drinks the joint was hoppin' and I didn't stagger home until seven thirty.
I spent all Sunday in bed because I was coming down with a cold. I went to see a doctor Monday and got a two-day "get-out-of-work-free" note. I celebrated by notifying my boss and smoking a fatty. I felt a lot better with two days off so I spent all day playing guitar at Ilana's place. I took a break to run a lid of tea up to Lavapies to the Mexican gang. I got forty yo-yos for it. I'd just gotten back home and I was cooking up some dinner when the phone rang. It was Rike. She wanted to drink a beer and talk revolution at nine thirty p.m. That's what we did, after some confusion in regards to geography (I got lost).
Sitting in the park we talked in the two languages we have in common: mostly Spanish, but some English creeping in. We spoke about our favorite memories of snow and about making art with information. A liter of lager later we came to my sugar mama's penthouse. By "penthouse," I mean, fifth floor, no elevator. That building is falling down, but you can get on the roof for a mediocre view of the city. Plus, I had an "oh" of tea sitting there, in an Egyptian carpet bag.
"Tienes un llave?" Rike's interest was piqued.
"Si."
"Oooh!"
After huffing up the endless stairs, smoking on the roof, I said,
"Es que, Ilana esta acostombrada a ser lo que quiere, y quiere un hombre en casa. Con todos el piso vacio menos ella me pidio a mi a quedarme. Cuido la casa, cocino, y tal...Sabes, ella es muy pija, de Santa Monica, Judia, un pasta que te cagas. Su tio tiene casinos en Las Vegas. Le conozco de Berkeley, en California."
Back downstairs, Rike and I watched "Charlie Wilson's War" and after tea toddled off to bed around midnight. I slept  in the room I usually sleep in, and Rike slept in the spare.
Where is Ilana? Doing blow and boozing it up with the Mexican gang: Panchito, Santos, Maximilliano, Dante, and the Brasilero Andre. Jo and Roxy are accompanying Ilana and the boys. Disco Disco Blow, Disco Disco Drunk, Disco Disco Home. At seven A.M. eight coke hounds too drunk to stand yet too spun to succumb to gravity's urge are ringing the bell incessantly. I let them in, groggily, and attempt a return to bed that is not to be. They scatter like shards of a shattered bottle. Roxy and Maximilliano are rutting like rabbits on the living room couch. Ilana and Santos are thumping at the walls in Ilana's Room. Dante and Jo are on the roof. Dante won't stop talking. In fact he's talking so much, Rike came out of her room and went to mine to avoid the noise. I try to get Dante to smoke on the roof so he'll calm down but he won't. Maximilliano must've finished 'cause Roxy came up to the roof laughing and said "I walked in on Ilana and Santos and they were fucking! But I don't think they'll be much longer."
Roxy was right. We got back downstairs and Santos was just coming out of Ilana's room with a smug grin on his ferret-like face, adjusting his pants, and blood steadily oozing out of his nose and down his upper lip. I don't know if that was from the sex or the cocaine, but it was probably both.
"Oh, wey, tienes sangre en la cara." Dante looked concerned, but when I wasn't looking he'd made off with the bottle of Smirnoff that I'd had in the fridge. By the time the blood was off Santos' face Jo and Roxy had left. "I have to fly to Germany in seventeen minutes," Roxy said as she bis'd me. Jo said "I have...class...?" looking at her watch with a look of utter confusion on her face. The boys tried to leave three times but kept forgetting things. The third one I ignored and got back in my large, comfortable bed, which contained within a soft, warm, lightly clothed, sleeping strawberry blonde anarchist graduate student from Berlin, aged twenty six.
I woke up a few hours later, and she was cuddled up next to me. Faint, white light came into the room from the window high against the ceiling. The distant hum wash honk of traffic on the street five stories below wafted in from the living room windows like chloroform.
I stirred and Rike nuzzled against me.
"No tienes que trabajar?" I asked.
"A last dos."
"Y que hora es?"
"Las once. O que sea. Pienso que lo puedo hacer mañana, tambien." Then she nibbled my neck.
"Que suerte tenemos." I said. Rike lifted her head and looked at me.
"Porque?"
"Todo el mundo alla afuera curriendo con tanta prisa, y nosotros, estamos aqui."
Then we made out like teenagers.
I made Rike mint tea before she left. Downstairs, she kissed me goodbye. She promised to see me the day after tomorrow and kissed me goodbye again.
I left Ilana sleeping in the mess, took the stash, and split for my home pad. I would've taken the Smirnoff if I could've found the top  but Dante had lost it. Whatever. I still had a bottle of Negrita rum.
At home I made half a liter of strong rum and coke, with a whole lemon in it, and a peanut butter sandwich with banana and raisins.
I took all that and my guitar and sat in the sun with the park for hours, until Ilana came and it started to drizzle. It must've been around five. Ilana needed keys because she'd left them in Santos' jacket, but he'd left his phone. "This morning just won't end," groaned Ilana. I laughed at her. She left. I went home after that. It was time for me to go, anyway. I made a dental appointment, got the antibiotics my doctor prescribed me (but I won't take for just a cold), and picked up a few groceries on my way home. I had one last errand. A bar had closed and there were cases and cases of liquor, taxes paid, unopened, under a pile of sweaters at a social center. Sitting on at home right now, I have a eight bottles of Dewar's White Label scotch left, two bottles of Negrita Rum (which is most excellent), three bottles of Smirnoff, and one bottle of good Pacharan, which is a spiced Aperitif. There's more rum and a couple of huge bottles of gin I need to pick up later. I've scored roughly three and a half cases of liqour. I got on my bike, picked up a case of Brugal rum, and carted it over to Lavapies. After way too much fucking walking and way too fucking much waiting I sold it to Andre the Brasilero for forty yo-yos. Then I went home and by eleven thirty I was asleep. Tomorrow was Wednesday and I had work in the morning.

*Jazz Musicians Blow Tea.


**names changed to protect the guilty