Like an old pair of shoes, an old pair of comfortable shoes I pull out from under the couch, and slip onto my feet, this feels right.  This feels right, to go back to work, and then, Friday night, this that it also felt right, to stand before sunset on the grassy bump in front of el Torito restaurant bar, just north of the South Bay power plant, smoking a cigarette and gazing out at the gray waters of San Diego bay. (follow the link to see how THEY FORBID THE COPYING AND USE OF THEIR internet MATERIALS but will take your money heh oh yes heh heh heh we are just as baddddd don't throw stones me I selfish bitch with our puppies OUR PUPPIES aaaaaaaaaaaaaa... where the hell was I... oh yeah, in front of el tiroto)

It must have been seven or seven-thirty and the five of us were already two pitchers down.  I had my first paycheck cashed and in my pocket.  It was Friday evening, blessed Friday evening Thank God and the American labor movement for Sunday and Saturday and now thank the Civil War slaughter for Memorial Day and let the games begin of Summer, and yes, thank my parents for four and five years of their young lives fighting and waiting 1941-1946 until they got out at last and.  And yes thank you, all.

Friday was Robbie's (Roberto Solsticio) last day at work.  I was hired to replace him as head of shipping at Bookmakers, Inc.  Our boss, Eddie, head of all production, and Annamaria (head of the ladies who do the binding and stapling and sewing [yes, we also do sewn bindings]) and Lon (sales executive) and I all went down the road from our factory at the salt mines to el Torito to drink beer and chatter back and forth in two languages surrounded by commercially marketed Mexican culture screaming trumpets and squealing violyns of mariachi and Eddie bitching about how unperfect they are so loud so boisterous so... darnit... so fricking chicanamerican *sigh* there's no satisfying anyone anymore we are all fracking pochos and chollos and go back to Russia dammit if you don't like it yes Virginia, there IS an Aztlantis Clause.

We are there right now.  This is the musical robe of black pearl, this is the silver button belt that Nathaniel Hawthorne never nunca alcanzó de cariciar, the weeping violyn, the guitars, the singer screaming at the top of his voice and no one can hear him THAT'S HOW NOISY IT WAS IN THERE I had to get out, go outside, look at the gray water of the bay beyond the scrubby shoreline flats, past the rusty railroad tracks, and out there, a single sailboat slipping past, out there on the water that made Spain conquer California and called, siren like, to those Yankees in Boston here I am, come and get me for your destino manifiesto pinche neocolonial intervencionista.... (SHUT UP DANIAL)

Ahem.  Back inside.  Eddie bought, wouldn't let me pay for anything, insisted, said I hadn't got my first full paycheck yet.  He and David refried are good people - and by the way, David D. is doing well (a secrete message for his fiends [¿mzspelings - iz'yu hear?]) and he was right, this one check, this first check was only for three days and I already owe my beloved Tere almost a hundred dollars.  Well, Owed, now.  Good thing rent is not due until the 15th....

Roberto told Annamaria and me that we must work together, that if I want she will be my right arm and I will be her left hand... we laid our three hands together on the fake cantina table in el Torito.  Brothers until death do us part yes.

Meanwhile, back in Tijuana, my love was attending a wine reception at the great hotel outside Agua Caliente you could see the minarette smokestack down the street and Norma Bustamante was celebrating her latest book about the elephant and the donkey, best friends from the San Diego zoo and Revolution Avenue.  Our friends from the literature chat group refused to go oh no we don't know any of them and besides didn't she forget to put your names in the book as translators?  Well yes but that was innocent ignorance, nothing more, and still....

So my love went for me with Luisa.  It was her cousin Franco who painted the illustrations and... well, she said it was like I thought, a bunch of really polite rich people saying how nice you could come and won't you have some more wine?  When I got home Tere dragged me into bed and we made... ah yes I believe we are still in our honeymoon here.

I had originally planned to go to Norma's reception but I had to be with my work comrades, I needed to, and yes, I wanted to, to be with my coworkers in the ritual drink of passage, the toast of handing over the torch and the cup, and then... then Robbie drove Eddivid and me down into Tijuana (all three of us live here and I ain't inventing any of this) we went to the La Fuente on sixth street near the corner of Constitution and in the back room R & D played game after game of pool while I sat and ate a torta (they refused the other one I bought and Tere & I would eat it for breakfast Saturndaeg) but yes shared my huge order of French Fries and I watched those two men dance around the table with their pool cues ("tacos") as they bid farewell to seeing each other every day after week after month of sharing all those frustrations and joys, triumphs and petty tragedies I watched them and talked with them, three babbling border men scabbling back and forth in Spanglish and Inglañol and then, at last, we all went home in separate roads and separate vehicles, taxis, cars....   It was the end of an era.  But like I said I am still on my honeymoon here, even after five years living in Tijuana it is still very, very new, and the border phenomenon....

EARLIER that Friday Afternoon, The Big Boss of Bookmakers bought everyone sandwiches from Subway for a welcome, delicious goodbye gesture to Roberto.  I sat back and watched the coworkers chat and joke and it was really very nice to feel the love and sadness hovering in the air, to listen to the women and men laughing and joking about him, and... then... to see them sometimes glance at me and wonder if I could ever even fill one tiny fragment of his shadow, nor delicately balance the envy that is natural between different departments and jobs, the anger and jealousy that was, for one brief shining moment, faded into Camelot distance.  Oh gringo, gringo, what a whirlpool of workers' jealousy you have stepped into.

cowboy friend ship wreck less

no apo strophe remember

THEN LATER I tell you again how Roberto told Annamaria and me that we must work together, that if I want she will be my right arm and I will be her left hand... we laid our three hands together on the fake cantina table in el Torito.  Brothers until death do us part yes this is why I go I come

crossing the border every day to work on the other side now you really are a Tijuana gringo, yes.  Oh but that reminds me of some notes... I made... last week

FROM LAST WEEK, FOR TODAY

I have only half and hour for lunch
sit writing outside the bookmaking factory where
I work on the other side U.S.

later I will rewrite, type, ask Phillip to add grafix code
and email Charlotte about her critique of grammar and
syntax both on the wall and off    o f f         o  f  f          this EleKtrOniC wall page space text

don't believe it                       I am on the other side and alone,  a l o n e
on  both  sides                        of  this   c a m e r a      w  o  r  d

                                       a l o n e ,   with you, I read.

I cross this gap between brain and fiction
between page and paper, between computer
and typing fingers, between pen and

hand

just as I cross every morning into the uNited sTates
"What are you bring from Mexico?" the man asks

the woman asks

black uniform shirt, black
woven patch on her shoulder
on his arm

"My Lunch."

[PHIL/MIKE: find constitutional authority to police the borders and Edit In, Pleaze....]

you mean like this, Dano (article I, section 8):

To regulate commerce with foreign nations

There is a parliament of the mind
a bureaucracy of thoughts and feelings
this chatter of chakras and
invented personalities of my

our psyche

intellect intuition emotion sensation

four corners of the universe [ MAYA AZTEC four petalled flower ] black red yellow white