The last flashes of my time in Mexico are only glowing now. I've received a few e-mails from friends there, all promising to come up to California, or else insisting that I return to the D.F. It's almost as if I wasn't ever there. I feel the weight of emotion on my chest. The loss of so much new love and life. I had to remember why I went there in the first place: It was a job. And now the job consists of unpacking our freight on monday, and getting my check from keith and moving on with my life.

That's the only view that's consistent with my survival.

The last time I saw Tulo was at Papagoyo Tabares in the center of Acapulco. Him and some of the other guys dragged me back to the famous stripclub for one last insanity, even though I protested that I was sick and feverish (which I was) there in the hotel parking lot, and that I hadn't had any sleep in 32 hours, and that I had a plane to catch at 5am. No matter, they said. Better I should have some tequila to attack the fever, and stay awake with friends at tabares.

Tabares was on. just a few nights before some of the other Americans had gone there on my reccomendation, but they complained that the girls were ugly and it took them forever to get their clothes off. Of course these guys had also gone with wives and girlfriends, and so they did not end up with their booth full of chicas, grabbing at their pricks and selling them sex and an end to all pain. Well of course they didn't like it! they were in a little bubble.

That night was my thrid trip to Tabares. I had literally become a regular. Tulo had also become a regular, and the to of us sat drinking beer talking about the Scorpions. Tulo's wallet had been stolen in tabares a week before, and one of the company grips - Noe - had been mugged at gunpoint on his way home, but no matter; we were right at home there. I loved all the girls. I told them they were angels. They understood my emotion. On the set us dirty bastards in lighting and grip don't get any attention from women in the comapany. For one thing we're too busy working, and then those chicks are alays occupied with the male talent - los putillos - whose hair they're brushing and clothes they're arranging.

Everyone in the company knew we hung out in tabares. Hell we left every dime we made there. If you stay in tabares late enough the fun show begins. Clowns and dwarves rollerblade around the place, and all the girls are carried out and deployed to dance on the tables in matching red sequin dresses. Some guys in the bar are dragged up on stage to receive their *privados* in front of the whole place, and they end up ith their clothes off, on stage, getting their dicks sucked to raucous aplause and approval from the bar's patrons.

And then the music changes. Metallica or whatever strip club standard is discarded, and there beginds the peeling violin of a drunken mariachi or ranchero. And then you're really in Mexico - timeless Mexico. I stumble seeing double to the bathroom, and not one table fails to salute this staggering gavacho with a tipped bottle of beer or a lecherous wink.

The last time I saw Tulo he was in the private dancing booth. i had looked all over tabares for him, because I had to leave to catch my flight. He was sprawled out on the rounded booth, and a girlwas lying naked atop him, perpendicluar to his body.

"Puta madre guey! Testoy buscando por todos lados!"
"Ya que onda guey?!" he yells back over the roar of the maricahi.

Me voy ahorrita. We kissed. i kissed him over and over, and then I kissed his putilla and thanked her for loving him. I reminded him to create the image of the *Virgen de Tabares* and i would have it tattooed on my chest, and then I left for the USA.