Devilcountry (7 page)

The dried
Psilocybin Mushrooms
Julio had
treated with several of his own herbs and spices began taking effect rather
severely forty-three minutes later as Geraldo was ratcheting up the Matterhorn.
 He felt a rumbling beneath
him which
was the
roller coaster, attached to a chain grinding its way up the first hill.
 He began to see through the bottom of the car to the world below.
 He was floating upon it now.  He looked to his right and saw the
mountain turn cavernous and distinct.  It began to pulsate.
 
Rhythmically, with a
sense of being alive.
 Clouds formed above and a world of ice
unfolded before him as he climbed higher.  The clack of the chain holding
the car on the track seemed to dissipate and turn into bird squawks. Unfamiliar
birds.  A mountain of
ice  stood
before him.
 Glacier-like textures he’d never seen before.  
Cold,
shivering, frigid and screaming.

Harrowing darkness.  Clouds came out of
nowhere, turning a sunny day into a darkened ghostland, as red sparks shot out
from the horizon and an orange-reddish
hue
covered the
sky.  Lightning and thunder crashed around him.   The mountain
started to twitch and perforate like a giant, rubbery egg about to be broken.
 It was expanding, stretching, and vibrating until finally two black horns
emerged from the top in an eruption of molten lava, rock, dust and fire.
 Two huge arms reached out and blasted their way from the sides with hands
twenty feet across, black, jointed, webbed, and glistening with sweat.  A
head with giant bat ears and a huge, flaring nose appeared over the crater as
fire and stone showered around it and down onto Geraldo.   A
barreling, hairy chest extended and gave prominence.  The head had a
mouse-like shape but it only seemed to be cloaking what could only be perceived
as a far more malevolent inside. It sat atop a blown-apart peak.
  This was
El Ratone
.  Geraldo sat speechless, unable to
even move.

Lightning, rain, and fire showered down around
him as
El Ratone
let out a scream that made Geraldo’s ears feel like
they were bleeding.  Its pointy ears, jagged and bloody, arms and hands
long and deadly, swooping around, breathing in fire spewing
out
 deadly
carbon monoxide.  He swung forth a huge, mountainous,
semi-aroused rat cock and balls, swaying back and forth, while simultaneously
breathing in a Luciferian gasp and letting loose with another scream.
  Geraldo had to do everything possible to not panic, to not cry out.
 The monster leaned over from its jagged, mountain perch, grabbed Geraldo
up in its serpentine hand like King Kong.

The massive,
other-worldly
vermin brought Geraldo close to its mouth.  Its brimstone breath and
giant, bloody incisors had great hunks of meat dangling from them. There seemed
to be the remnants of a man wedged in between two bicuspids.  Geraldo
could make out his head and arm with the arm still holding onto a phone
receiver.  
The Iceman cometh, the
Iceman goeth away
echoed in his head.  Geraldo shook as it breathed
out a deadly plume of dead air.  It spoke.  
Softly,
at first.
A deathly growl,
sounding like
a
deep-baritone instrument, hell-bent on creating a cacophonic symphony of
destruction. “WORSHIP ME...
”  
There was a moment
of pause.  Geraldo closed his eyes but could not get away from the image.
  “BOW DOWN, Geraldo...and I will provide.”  Geraldo calmed down
a bit.  Trying to not squirm within El Ratone’s grasp, he opened his eyes.
 El Ratone continued.  ”I am everywhere, Geraldo.  I am
all-powerful, all-knowing, endorsed, contractually locked-in, picked up for the
new season, all meals included, syndicated.  Let’s do lunch and grab it in
post, have a union break
....stay
with me always.
  Where are you going?  I thought we had a relationship?
 We still have time on your contract...you won’t see a dime
....how
about a pilot?...I love you. “ Geraldo was in shock.
 
El Ratone
loosened his grip.  He let his wisdom sink in.
 Then he resumed.  “Serve me well, Geraldo...now...pay tribute...go
and buy a TV at the
Best Buy
that has just opened up near you. I hear
they are having a sale...don’t get the warranty...it’s a riiiiiipoff
.....
”

The ride had freeze-framed.  
El Ratone
gingerly
placed Geraldo
back
into his seat, using his claws to
gently strap him back in.  “Safety first...” whispered
El Ratone
.
 Geraldo was paralyzed as he watched the creature retreat back up to the
summit and
place
himself back within, leaving not a
trace of himself behind.  The clouds immediately dissipated, the sky’s
orange hue turned back to blue, the sun returned, the pause button was released
and Geraldo was hurling through the Matterhorn at fifty miles per hour, the
sounds of screaming tourists all around him.  A pale, overweight, out of
work, roofing salesman wearing a T- shirt with a picture of Hillary Clinton
with an X through her had a caption underneath that read
AMERI-CAN not
AMERICUNT!
sat
behind him screaming with his arms
raised.  Geraldo blacked out.  

“Sir, you have to exit the car so that others
can get on,” said the talking Zit who ran the ride.  It was actually a
pimply-faced teenager, but to Geraldo it looked like a huge Zit with pus
emanating from an over-exagerrated proboscis.  They had pulled into the
station.  The ride had ceased nearly five minutes ago yet Geraldo was
catatonic.  He could not move.  
Julio, who had been
in the car in front of Geraldo, looked back at him and began to chuckle.
 He then walked over and helped Geraldo out of the rollercoaster.

“Sorry, that’s my cousin.
”
explained Julio to the Zit as he grabbed up Geraldo from the car.  “He’s
like totally retarded an’ shit.”

“No problem,” said the Zit.

“
Como estas, Geraldo
?  Did you meet
our friend?” whispered Julio, as he pulled Geraldo to safety.  “There’s a
Best Buy right near my apartment building.”

Geraldo spent the rest of the afternoon hiding
behind a garbage can next to the Haunted House in New Orleans Square,
shivering, laughing,
crying
.  Occasionally
vomiting as the toxins inside his body began to purge themselves.  He kept
repeating a mantra as his lower lumbar ached and kicked:  “This is a
better life, a better life, a better life,
”  he
whispered to himself, over and over again.  An image of a pizza and a
woman with beautiful blond hair kept entering his mind.  Unsure of the
data, he stored it in the back of his mind for later.  

Six months after his trip to the mouse, after
various gigs around all of Southern California he would find a job as a pizza
cook in Beverly Hills. When he walked into The Big Pizza that first day, he
felt as if he had been summoned a long time ago, and was finally arriving at
his destination.  He had seen this place before but couldn’t quite put his
finger on when.  
A flash of Julio laughing at him.
 He shoved the memory away.

Two weeks later, with his first paycheck, which
was actually six-hundred dollars paid to him in cash and handed to him by Jimmy
the day shift manager in a discarded Esquire subscription renewal envelope.
 He bought the cheapest flat screen TV from Best Buy he could afford.
 It was $99.79, cash, no warranty.   It was placed on the
dresser he picked up at the Goodwill Store
.
 It is not plugged in.
 

It will never be plugged in.

THE BLACKENED KINGDOM

I
pulled up to the house.  Verified the address.  It was on Beverly
Drive just north of Sunset.  
A huge black gate around
it.
 Set back from the street a bit.  You’d never know the
evil that lurked within.  I’d been delivering now for a bit of time.
 I was cool and confident.  I had my patter down.  “Hi! Pizza’s
here, $16.17.  Thank you so much,
have
a nice
night.”  That was what we charged for a large with cheese.   But
this order was different.  This order was for a Sicilian style pizza.
 We didn’t make too many of these.  It was a giant thick-crust
monstrosity that virtually no one purchased.  
Almost two
feet in length and a foot and a half in width.
 With an inch and
half thick crust.  It took forever to prep and then bake.  In truth,
it wasn’t all that tasty.  It just looked big and cool.  The crust
had no real soul to it.  It looked good on display.  They’d cut one
up for single slices throughout the day, which usually no one bought and then
threw the rest of it out at the end of the night for the zombies.  
Even they kind of poo-pood it.
  When it was done
cooking, cooling and being sliced and you finally got it into the bag it felt
like it weighed at least twenty pounds.  It was our “Sicilian Special.” It
should have been called “The Brando.”  
Over-priced,
over-weight, and far less tasty than the Sicilian style pizza of yester-year.
 So it made sense I had to deliver it to the unofficial mayor of
Devilcountry.

Ozzy Osbourne.

A Large Sicilian, (it came in only one size.)
with Pepperoni,
garlic
bread, a slice of cake and a
six pack of coke.   It was almost eleven o’clock at night.  
My last delivery.
 Pudgie’s barely legible sixth grade
penmanship read “Ozzy - $45.26”.  No address, we all knew where it was.
 

It was two days before Halloween.  
Jacket wearing weather.
 Houses were in full Halloween
attire.  Essentially they all gave the appearance of what the Osbourne
estate projected year-round.  
Goblins and crucifixes everywhere.
 Creepy statues.   I walk up to the tall black
iron gate
adorned with a satanic goblin built out of cement.
 It’s mouth wide open, fangs,
drool
.  Yuck.
There’s a call box.  Usually I just hit the button and wait for a Hispanic
to answer.  That’s the usual protocol in dealing with houses like this.
 But this time for whatever reason I simply turn the knob.  It opens
the left oversized iron-gate door.  The mounted Goblin is above me staring
down.  Still screaming.  A creak in the gate as it opens.  I’m
on the grounds.  My right arm begins to strain under the weight of the
food.  I see a lone porch light about thirty feet away.  I head for
it.  I was scared.  I didn’t know what to expect.  I’d heard
stories.  Biting off pigeon heads, snorting ants,
bouts
of insanity.  Now Ozzy was in Beverly Hills living here with his wife and
two of his children.

I’d delivered to celebrities before so I wasn’t
starstruck.  Still I was intimidated.  Delivering to stars can throw
you off.  You must get past the whole “they’re famous” part so you can
effectively take notice of the fact that you’ve got their food.  

I delivered to Jon Stewart at The Four Seasons.
 I was totally off-guard.  He is one of my comic heroes and I didn’t
realize it was
him
until he answered the door.
 All it said on the ticket was “Jon”, and a room number.  I felt
unprepared.  As if I needed to break through my muted, taciturn exterior
and impress him somehow.   I couldn’t get the words out.  I was
so used to being on mute all of the time I panicked when I was all of the
sudden thrust into the presence of my lord.

As I handed him his pizza I tried to make a
political joke that made no sense and may have accidentally telegraphed some
type of unintended sexual advance.  I panicked and back- stepped, mumbling
to myself, nearly tripping, looking even
more crazy
,
erratic and to the naked-eye perhaps even pre-masturbatory.  Which is what
everyone needs to see in
their
delivery man.  To
show how decent he was he still tipped me big and offered not one moment of
judgment or indictment over me.  He was purely decent.   I
looked like an idiot.  Oh well.  I’d kill for a do-over.  Hand
him his food, exchange money,
exit
.  Perfect.
 One must reconcile the past the only way they know how.

Raquel Welch was a regular.  Gorgeous
woman.  Sometimes she’d come in to pick up her food in person. She’d smile
at me.  It turned her on when I spoke
spanish
to
the cooks. I’d raise my voice an octave just for effect.

“
Aye
Geraldo!
Necessita La Pizza para
la bonita mujer! PRONTO!
”

“
Chupo mis juevos, pendecho...
” Geraldo
would mutter under his breath at
me
as he would ring
her up.   But Ms. Welch loved it.  I was a chummy,
unthreatening, bald,
jewish
man who physically
resembled an entertainment executive, only I was dirt poor, poorly dressed and
yelling at Mexicans in their own language, and handing her food.  She was
a seductive, hungry half-Bolivian with a firm “Jews run this town” belief
system.  Thus, to her I was a dream come true.  There was no one else
on the planet she wanted to hand her food.  I was perfect casting and for
less than thirty seconds I was Raquel Welch’s dirty little secret.  She
smiled big at me, grabbed her pizza and whispered a sultry “
adios
” to me
and only me.  I was high for a week.