Devilcountry by Craig Spivek Read Free Book Online Page A

a time. Dickie knew
he could take advantage of a drunken Carin.  So he did.
    Fuck Anaheim.  No way in hell I’m going
back to Anaheim ,  Geraldo thought.  Geraldo
hated Anaheim, the disgustingly white-bread enclave one hour south of Los
Angeles.   Home of the Angels, Steve Martin and
Disneyland.  ...And fuck Disneyland, thought Geraldo.  Steve
Martin was cool, but that wasn’t enough to hasten his return.  Disneylandwas Geraldo’s Devilcountry.  
    Just like Devilcountry, there are two Anaheims.
  The white – which was predominantly rich and
powerful with some exceptions; and the brown – which was predominantly
working class or undocumented.   The Latinos took care of all aspects of servicing white Anaheim.
 All the fast food, all the gas, all the supermarkets, all the landfills
were worked by Latinos.  Yet owned by Whitey.  Latinos also raised
all the children. Whitey’s and their own.  They
cleaned their houses, cooked their food, and everything else.  
    The Latinos of Anaheim all stayed ina
lower income sprawl known as The Flatlands. With the majority of white
people living just over the Riverside freeway in the northwestern stretch of
town known famously as The Hills.
    It was the same in Beverly Hills.  In
Beverly Hills when Geraldo had to run food or cash up to the cougar’s house
where Dickie had moved, he’d see the exodus.  All of the nannies and
housekeepers making their way on foot down Beverly Drive towards Sunset
Boulevard where the number two bus heading east would pick them all up.
 Geraldo could always tell who the decent
homeowners were by how far down the hill they would drop the help off.  A
few of them never got a ride.  For years the Latinos trudged up into the
hills.   Raising entire generations of children.
  Some of them growing up with an abbreviated
understanding of work or sacrifice.  Strangers to their parents
with behavior bordering on sociopathic and only given the faintest images of
childhood affection granted to them mainly from the help. Up and down they
would walk to the homes of their wealthy employers.  Raising the children,
cleaning the house, and then magically disappearing at the end of the day and
reappearing the next morning.  It was a giant magic trick that Geraldo
bore witness to each time he had to cater to Dickie’s bullshit.  He was
tired of it. Tired of Dickie and his immense mountain of crap that Geraldo had
to climb everyday. He was tired of seeing his friends suffer. He was tired of
seeing Carin be neglected by Dickie. Tired of being reminded of the poverty of
Mexico and the decadence of Anaheim.  
    Se conte el dinero en frente de los pobres, echoed
through Geraldo’s head.   It had been said to him by his
uncle when Geraldo worked as a teenager in his uncle’s restaurant.
 He was in partnership with the local Cartel boss. It was either enter
into a partnership or be killed.  His uncle always paid the Cartel off,
and always let them wash money through.   Always on time,
always with a smile.  The Jefe would take his roll out and
add his Uncle’s rent to it.  It was a huge fat wad of American dollars
intertwined with the slightest of Pesos.  Sometimes the Jefe would
have a lady with him.   Both of them smiling with bad
teeth.  He’d hand her some of the cash.  They’d both stand
there, at the counter, their free tacos getting cold.  Counting fifties,
hundreds and beyond.  Laughing.  It didn’t matter who was staring.
 
    Geraldo thought he had escaped all of that.
 That phrase became the mantra the cooks, dishwashers and Geraldo said
about Dickie.  It was whispered to each other or said with just a nod,
quietly as Dickie or one of his asshole friends would stand at the counter,
laugh and count his money. Swooshing through the hundreds, fifties, twenties
and tens for a single dollar bill to place in the recycled plastic canola oil
container the counter-help had converted into a tip jar with the word, “GRATZI”
written on