Day LVIII

Cathouses and honrdogs

       Mexican smokes were awful, they tasted like shit, pretty much like the first time you smoked a butt out of an ashtray. American smokes cost more across the border. I only brought like four packs. I was only smoking like a pack, and a half a day, so I thought that was more than enough. Angel smoked at least three a day, and he had more than compensated. He knew the deal down there, but somehow forgot to clue us in on it. Garza was barely a smoker, but he thought he brought enough to get him through three days. Both he and I were wrong.

     When you socialize, if you want to be cool you need to share. So there we were in the cantina, drinking Coronitas, and listening to American music on the juke box.

     There are like a gazillion military bases in Texas, in the San Antonio area there at least seven that I know of, three Air Force, the rest Army, and who knows how many through out the rest of the state. So since most customers were GIs, the music was American. There were a lot of GIs down there.

     Guys go down there to have a good time, and that's to drink, and be a horndog. Cathouses are legal, and in the cantinas, the girls sit at your table, you buy them a drink, mostly watered down booze, or colored water, and you pay for it as if it were booze. Some were gorgeous, but others…well, you needed to be drunk enough to not recognize the wicked witch of the west’s twin sister. Early in the morning of the second day, Angel wakes me up.

     “Yo, man we needs ya…wake up!”

     “Wat’s up!”

     “Ya speaks Spanish, donya?” He looked at me, and I could tell he was worried.

     “Juan’s in the hoosegow, man!” He continued before I could respond.