King of the Californias

by Monk, New York City, NY, USA

Cecilio Goncz favors the Indian side of his Ecuadorian heritage, sort of an ageless quality trapped in his high cheek bones and almond-shaped eyes. His neatly-trimmed mustache is his only facial hair, livetattoos in place of his eyebrows. This week, they read 'Solamente El Dios Puede Juzgarme', solid animated monobrow in pulsing Old English type. His head appears recently shaved, beads of sweat popping between veins and faint wrinkles. Dressed in an informal black linen suit, matching cowboy boots, he sits on the balcony of one of Oakland's thousands of bistros, overlooking the twisted graveyard of the Goldengate Bridge, coolly sipping a blood-orange martini. I make sure the recorder sits prominently on the table so there is no impression of guile on my part, frame him generously with Bay over his shoulder, and listen, translation services running to keep up with his pidgin of Spanish, English, Korean, Tagalog, and Russian.

"I was maybe ten when the Little Big One hit," he says. "We lived in Pico Union back then. Few of us. Came up for work, ended up spending most of our time hiding from Customs, Immigration, Homeland Security. Little Big One hit, everything south of Santa Barbara became its own real estate. I mean, they say SoCal actually took it light, you know? Ended up an island overnight. NoCal's the one got screwed. Nothing left standing. Frisco...well, you can look at Frisco from here. Nothing pretty anymore."

When I ask Mr Goncz about the Inglewood Five, he smiles, showing off the seven-hundred thousand dollar organic alligator tooth graft that has become his trademark. When he doesn't answer, I ask about what most newsfeeds refer to now as The Shadow Years. The killings. The dictatorship. The narcotics factories. Rape camps. Slavery. Goncz chuckles, drains the rest of his martini, looks out at the Bay.

""It was bad days, right? Lot of bad days. The Fed pretty much walked away, right? 'Southern California is no longer viable for reclamation,' the President said. Well, I mean, yeah. Bad days and all, but we made it. And yeah, some people got stepped on along the way, and I'm not going to say they didn't, but ordo abchao, right?"

I check the translation services. Mr Goncz lays a callused hand flat on the table and looks at me. "Order out of chaos."

I ask about his diplomatic status now that Los Angeles has had its first democratic elections in twenty-plus years. He drums his manicured fingernails on the black matte table and looks out at the Bay. "U.S. wouldn't take me, but NoCal still got love for me. Put a lot of money into rebuilding up here. Californians know how to show appreciation."