Free Devilcountry by Craig Spivek

monotone,
with a hint of expectation.
    “Sorry ma’am. We’re headed down.
 Waaaaaaaay down.”  Her pearly smile ceases ever so slightly as the
elevator jolts to life and begins it’s ghostly
descent.  And she is gone.   
    Her image lingers in my mind.  I know none
of that will happen.  
    They’ll probably have a parade for her when she
croaks. Like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, different giant inflatable
Dirigible Parasites will be escorted down Doheny Drive in her honor.
 Grand Marshall Seacrest will say a few mono-syllabic praises. They will all honor her passing with a tearful ode.  In tribute ,  one of the inflatable Kardashian Parasite Dirigibles
is set free and floats away.  It hovers over the Hollywood sign for days.
 The vulturous gases inside slowly release a toxic cloud of poison out of
its ginormous ass.  It bleeds mildly over the devilled landscape,
disgusting all in its path.  Dry-heaving clinics are opened up along the
405.  The E channel offers 24 hour coverage.
  
      Why do
they shine the way they do?  I think. Why are they larger than life, even
when they are having their mug-shot taken?  Why
did I care so much about being disrespected by her?   Some
cunty gossip columnist?  A false authority who was granted unwarranted attention, power and influence.  It ate at me.
    To be fair any kind of authority pissed me off.
  It was why I burned through so many jobs.  By the time I
started delivering for The Big Pizza I’d lost count of how many different
careers I’d burned through.  The number of bosses I’d told off had reached
double digits.  Just because you are in charge doesn’t make you God.
 I didn’t care who you were if you were an abusive prick I took you down.
 But, obviously that’s why I was in my mid-thirties and delivering pizza
in my own car with no health benefits.  Still, I hadn’t stormed off this
job yet.  Nothing had provoked me.  The owners had a muted presence
at best.  Dickie would come in maybe for an hour a day, press some flesh,
eat, steal, and leave.  I’d yet to see or meet Carin.  Geraldo was my
boss and he was good to me.   Really good in fact.  On my first day he gave me five bucks before my shift for gas.  I’d
known people my whole life who wouldn’t have done
that.  He knew I was nuts, but for some reason he was sympathetic.
 He was preoccupied with Carin and Dickie.  He didn’t like a lot of
what he was seeing at the store.  Still, they knew how to step back and
let Geraldo run it the way it needed to be run and it ran like clockwork.
 He was amazing at his job.  I loved working for him.  I guess
it was because I didn’t see him as authority.  I saw him as someone I
respected and admired for all he achieved and all he overcame.  I’d see
him laughing with the other cooks and dishwashers and I’d see my Grandfather
standing next to them, laughing too.  It was people like this who
understood what work was about.   Friendship, camaraderie
and getting shit done.  This kept me calm.  Kept my demons at
bay.   Demons that had caused so much self-destruction
for me in the past while on the job.  Unable to cope with bosses
who bullied or showed disrespect or co-workers whose ass I had to cover and
they reaped the full reward.  Working in Geraldo’s shop was healing me.
 I feared it being taken away.
    Still, when I was placed in the presence of
celebrities there was an energy surge I felt which wasn’t entirely pleasant.
 Like being around an authority figure of whose behavior I wasn’t quite
convinced.  Most celebrities were fine and decent but some made me
nervous.  All of them caught me off-guard and created an element of
self-doubt. The gossip columnist had created a spike in me.  Her
entitlement became a given that others such as myself were forced to  accept .  It was some sort of mental push on
her part or deficiency on my part, or both working in tandem that she was able
to manipulate.  It