Devilcountry by Craig Spivek Page A

Geraldo’s world, decent.  Gino was
not.  Gino looked up and noticed Geraldo standing over them.
                  “Jesus!” He stirred awake, sleepy eyes,
stretching, ‘”You’re like a serial killer all standin’ there.  What time
is it ?... Carin! Carin your Mexican is here! CARIN!!”
 
    Carin came to.  “Hi, Geraldo,” she said
groggily. An already deep voice made deeper and more crackly by drugs and drink.
                  “Hey, Carine, you need to sign
please.  All jur papers, then it’s done.”  
    She pulled herself up from the seat and sat for
a second.  Make-up smeared, hair everywhere.  She rubbed her hands
over her face.  “What is this?”  But she knew what they were.
 She knew exactly what they were.  Geraldo handed her a pen, switched
on the halogen hanging overhead so she could read.
 “Oh, right.”  She put the papers down on the coffee table.  She
let out a breathy sigh and began the process of ending her relationship with
that dipshit.
    She thought she loved him.  She thought he
loved her.  They had met at a cast party a few years ago.  He was
pretending to be a writer.  He was a friend of a friend.  The friend
and she stopped talking once Dickie started dating Carin.  Her
relationship with Dickie soon took off.  On their second date he took her
to a local Italian restaurant in the Fairfax district.  Dickie had heard
good things about their linguini and their pizza wasn’t bad either.  Sales
had dipped due to some recent scandal.  The local mafia had heard the
owner may have been having a gay love-affair with one
of the driver’s.  This did not go over well inside the majorly homophobic
yet financially lucrative crime syndicates that enjoyed dining there.  So
they chose to screw up a couple of his food and liquor vendors and dine
elsewhere for a time.  The place had become a ghost town. But what did
Dickie care? It would be cheap, out of the way, and not too many people.
    They sat in the back, where it was lit nice.
 They had wine.  They laughed.  They stroked each other’s hands.
It was one of the most romantic nights of both their lives.  Carin started
talking about the pizza place where she had worked as a teenager back in
Brooklyn.  It was there she caught the acting bug.  Sitting on a
chair after the lunch rush.  Fifteen years old.  Watching old movies
with the cooks.  Humphrey Bogart fascinated her.  Lana Turner was
mesmerising.  Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. One of the cooks
and part-owner was Giuseppe.   Older,
a decent man. He had won big on the ‘69 Mets and bought a one-quarter
share from a loan shark in a pizza parlor in Brooklyn. If anything, Giuseppe
knew there’d always be work.  From time to time Giuseppe still had to deal
with the loan shark he’d gone into business with.  The shark would pull
out a huge jelly roll of hundreds and fifties and
flaunt it a bit too aggressively in front of Carin.  It made Giuseppe
nervous but he always tended to the shark with a smile.  He’d tell Carin
after the shark had left, “man I hate it when that shark comes in and starts flashing
his money like that.  It’s so rude.  Makes everyone else feel like
shit. You know?”  Carin nodded at Giuseppe. “Carin, if you ever come into
money...” Giuseppe corrected himself.  “I mean when you come into
money two things, one, don’t ever count your money in front of poor people and
two, gimme some of it.”  He smiled and winked as he made his second point.
 Carin smiled back.  “Sure thing Gyp.”
    Giuseppe had married early, the first woman he
laid.  He never ever played around, they had one son who joined the army
and moved to Germany.  He pretended Carin to be the little sister.   The daughter who stuck around. They would sit and watch the
films together.  He schooled her on Casablanca .   Some Like
It Hot and Brando’s performance in Streetcar was mesmerizing to him.
 “The film is kinda girlie but