Tricks Gone Bad

In the high desert west of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, a passionate interlude between two men goes off the tracks. A young journalist for The El Paso Times reports the crime but misses the key questions. Why would a man with a successful career, a home and loving family, risk everything for a casual encounter with a stranger? And why did he have to die? After covering the Juarez murder, the young journalist is soon embroiled in his own trick gone bad; a betrayal which could cast a permanent shadow over his life. And it's not the only time the reporter risks personal and professional ruin without asking important questions. In five interlocking scenes that span 15 years and four cities, author David M. Hancock points a searing white light at a life of gay cruising and deadline reporting. It's all about adrenalin in these vignettes, whether the reporter is covering a young woman's murder in Coral Gables or making a 3 a.m. drug run with a Miami Beach go-go boy. Or debating whether to stab a shady character in New York City. "Tricks Gone Bad" -- An erotic tapestry of fact and fiction that begins and ends with a real-life murder in the Chihuahua desert. Cunningly told moments set in the misty suspension of consequences required for sex with strangers. ------- CIUDAD JUAREZ, 1985 - Back before the Internet siphoned off the mystery of human intercourse, men of a certain ilk had secret gathering places. Every city, town or two-horse hamlet had a place or two of convergence for men with an itch to scratch. The setting might be a park or rest stop subtly enhanced by hovering spirits; a forest or isolated beach consecrated by lust. Maybe you got directions from runes scratched on a bathroom stall. Or some kneeling acolyte told you as you buttoned your jeans. Perhaps you stumbled upon it in your own restless rambles: An unremarkable locale unmasked by the telltale glimmer of fairy dust. The druid in you could smell the billowing sexual energy of a sacred grove. And when you returned later and saw the hungry animals prowling, beasts like yourself, you thought with satisfaction: Aha I knew it Not all hijinks happen in the midnight hour, of course; or off the beaten trail. Male sexual energy is so irrepressible that it bubbles up right under the noses of unsuspecting citizens going about their daily rounds. Libraries, in particular, are prone to attract adventurers with other than literary pursuits. Double agents posing with a prop book or magazine, watching the herd with wolf eyes. It's torn down now in the name of urban revitalization. But the old public library in El Paso, Texas, was a known venue - doubling as a source of archived knowledge and sexual connection. The library was a modest building of no great account. A shabby building, really. But if its stacks could talk - what a tale it would be of covert glances, hands accidentally brushing against asses, bathroom quickies and assignations taken off-site. David is already intimately familiar with that particular library when its dual nature comes up in a tragic and scandalous news story he is reporting. David is on the phone right now speaking with the Chihuahua state judicial police chief about a missing El Paso man. It's a little past 7 p.m. and David is sitting at his desk in the fluorescent-lit brightness of The El Paso Times newsroom. He has just returned from his daily trek to Ciudad Juarez - an hour sitting in traffic on the international bridge. David's back is to the windows of the newsroom, where the sun is descending in a burst of blinding orange that will wind its way through a series of vivid reds and profound purples. Another glorious Southwest sunset, the kind that visitors stop and gape at; but one that barely registers with locals. All around him, the newsroom bustles with the organized chaos of a newspaper preparing to go to print.

• | Author: David M. Hancock
• | Publisher: Abysmal Antics Publishing
• | Publication Date: Mar 26, 2015
• | Number of Pages: 112 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 0986437506
• | ISBN-13: 9780986437502