Porky’s

    Tucked in the back corner of Tijuana’s Plaza del Zapato there’s a dirty gem responsible for some of the best nights and worst mornings of my life. Porky’s was a melting pot for Tijuana’s punk kids, cokeheads, Goths, gays, hipsters, and scenesters. Mike, Eddie and I were usually the only Americans there, and we frequented Porky’s so often it wasn’t long before we obtained local status. One moment we’d be tilting caguamas of Dos Equis and smoking Mexican made cigarettes to the low melancholic bass riffs of Joy Division, the next we’d be dancing on tables, spilling drinks across the dirty tile floors to the B-52’s surf-style electric guitar in “Rock Lobster.” We’d spin around like a record to Dead or Alive’s keyboards’ synths, and “run, run, run” to the dance floor when the choppy rhythmic guitars of the Talking Heads started to rattle through the green ectoplasm painted walls.

    What I miss even more than Porky’s music, are all the beautiful almond skinned, chocolate haired chicas that packed the place. I don’t know if it was because we were Americans, white boys, or because we were always the ones having the most fun, but the girls down there loved us, and weren’t shy to show it. We rarely had to ask girls to dance; they just grabbed us by the arm and lead the way. Eddie translated Spanish for us, but most of the time he was off with his own girl. I sometimes attempted to woo the ladies with my two years of high school Spanish, but normally this was a disaster.

    I once whispered all sexy and smooth into a girl’s ear I was dancing with, “Tienes bonitas osos,” which I thought meant, “you have beautiful eyes.” She burst out laughing and I asked what was so funny?

    “You just told me I have beautiful bears! Eyes are called ojos not osos silly.” We continued to dance close, and I winked at Mike who was about to take a body shot of tequila off some girl’s navel.

    One oppressively hot Tijuana night, we decided to take several rounds of la cucaracha’s. These were potent shots the bartender lit on fire and had to be drunk as fast as possible through a straw. This did not help the heat and I was dripping with sweat. I felt like a slab of rotisserie beef slowly roasting on the fire.

    I was about to go outside to get some air when a girl grabbed me, “Hola me llamo, Paula.”

    We exchanged no other words. I just remember her being short with an apple bottom backside, a perky chest and big brown eyes like a lil’ forest critter. It wasn’t long before we were making out wildly, and she ran her nails down my back like a feral cat. The Smith’s “This Charming Man” played behind us, when she took things to a new level. She started licking the sweat off my face, her tongue travelled up my cheek, across my ear, and even down my nose. At first, I wasn’t sure if this was kinky in a good way, or if she was just some kind of freaky nut job. For a second, I questioned if any of it was even happening, or if I was just tripping off the la cucaracha shots, but rather than spoiling the mood, I just let her keep doing whatever her nasty little mind desired. And not only did it feel good, it felt right.

    Most nights, Porky’s was packed shoulder to shoulder, and cigarette smoke filled the bar like early morning fog. One particular night, the smoke in the air was thin and the dance floor was almost deserted. The only occupants were two gay guys, a few girls a tad too large for my personal preference, and couple Goth girls. One of the Goth’s looked and danced like a tall skinny corpse. The other was about 5ft tall, had on knee high shiny black leather boots, and the typical dark lipstick and eyeliner. Although she was quite tiny, she had nice curves that filled her tight black pleather dress in all the right places. I had never had any previous interest in Goth girls, but after each Caguama consumed, this one looked cuter, and I grew curious.

    I went two stepping towards her with the stagger of a sea sick sailor. I was sporting a fresh handlebar moustache, a red plaid shirt, and my confidence was sky high. I slipped in between her and the corpse, and we danced to an electro Goth band playing called Dirty Sanchez. With my back to the lanky cadaver, I slid my hands down the Goth girl’s waist and I felt the outline of her panties. She smiled and bit my chest. Her friend got the hint that she was the no longer needed in our dance sandwich, and she sulked away to dance with the two gay guys. I spread my legs wide to get closer to her tiny level, and we began grabbing, grinding, pinching, licking, groping, and grinning, but we never said a word. After a few songs she pulled me towards the exit. I exchanged a few broken words in English with the corpse, and realized she wanted me to go back to her place. After persuading Mike, we all took off in an old forest green Taurus, and drove through the broken TJ streets.

    Mike whispered in my ear from the back seat, “You fucking owe big time,” as he tried to keep one of the Goth girl’s friends, who looked like a Transylvanian cave beast from molesting him. We arrived at her house and two guys with long greasy black hair and in tight black leather pants were watching Industrial Goth music videos on the couch. They paid us no attention and Mike sat down in a Lazy Boy next to them. “Hurry the fuck up,” Mike said as the two big girls sat on his lap. “Honestly, you are by far the worst friend ever,” he said as the beasts giggled and pinched his nipples.

    The Goth pulled me down a dark stairs case. The walls were lined with family photos of stiff lipped Mexican guys wearing gaudy gold jewelry standing next to expensive cars. In one picture, my smiling Goth girl hugged the waist of a barreled-chested Cholo with tear drop tattoos and the name Hector written across his chest. “Oh God, please don’t let Hector come home right now,” I mumbled as she took me into an empty room with only a bare mattress lying in the middle. I started to get nervous.

    We started going at it, and as I struggled to remove her bra from the back, the first words I heard from her mouth were, “It comes off in the front.”

    “What the hell, I didn’t know you spoke English.”

    She laughed, “You never asked.”

    Her name was Ana Bendix and that’s as far as our conversation went. Our clothes tumbled to the floor. We grabbed handfuls of each other’s skin, she bit my lip, we spoke only in moans. The room was thick with carbon dioxide. All language barriers and borders crumbled between us. Then, without saying a word, she winked and rammed her dirty little dwarf finger right into my butt. I squealed, clenched my cheeks, and arched my back. I had never experience ‘rear entry’ of any kind before. “Relax,” she said, as she prodded my backside with her little baby carrot finger. I wasn’t quite sure what to do. But before I could react, she licked my finger and stuffed it straight into her ass. We just laid there for a moment, speechless, our fingers in each other’s b-holes, when the room started to spin—I blacked out.

    The morning sun was reaching its orange tendrils across the TJ streets when Ana dropped Mike and I back off at the border. There were no goodbyes, no kisses, just a hug, a smile, and she drove away.

    “So how’d it go with ‘Sex Dwarf’,” Mike smiled and elbowed me in the side.

    I laughed as we shuffled into line with the rest of the tired eyed zombies. We all dragged our feet towards the portal of florescent lights that shined down on rigid men wearing dark uniforms, holding machine guns, and guarding the path to America. An officer with latex gloves systematically took peoples I.D’s, and punched them into a computer before giving them the “O.K.” to cross. I handed him my driver’s license, he looked it over, and put my information into the system that held everyone’s identity.

    “Where were you born and what’s your citizenship.”

    “San Diego, I’m a U.S citizen.”

    I answered the password correctly and he handed my I.D back. I walked along the sterol tile floors and was greeted by a well paved road leading to a freshly painted Jack-in-the-Box. Everyone was hustling to their cars and rushing along the streets; it seemed they were all late for something. I watched the rushing currents of people, and knew it wouldn’t be long before I too was swept into this river of bodies, all flowing towards the same stagnant sea.

     Later that afternoon, I was walking down the hall towards my bathroom, when my roommate looked at me and said, “God damn, what the hell happened to you last night? Did you get in a fight with pitching machine?” I scratched my aching head, looked in the bathroom mirror, and my entire upper body was covered in golf ball sized bruises.

    “Yea, I had a long night at Porky’s,” I smiled and rubbed my chest.

    But like my black and blue mementos, Porky’s too began to fade. I went down a few months later and Porky’s had been bought by some entrepreneur who wanted to make it more appealing to American tourists. I walked in and was shocked to find they had knocked down a wall and built a ‘lounge area’ with new black leather booths that offered V.I.P. bottle service instead of Cuagmas. Although they played the same Porky’s music, it no longer was the underground spot for TJ’s misfits and fringe youth to congregate. I felt sick and went to the bathroom. I almost threw up when I found Porky’s signature pissing trough on the floor replaced with new porcelain urinals. Porky’s had traded its soiled beauty for something far too familiar to my other life back home. I hung my head and sauntered towards the exit. Chuck T’s and torn jeans had been replaced by dress shoes and slacks, the grimy tiled floor now sparkled with a fresh coat of polish.