Dafney checked his immigration status. Juan had his papers on him and showed them to Dafney. I would think the man was 'legal' since he and his wife bought a house and then lost it in the Great Recession as the downturn is being coined. I prefer the Great Ripoff By The Rich. It would be more precise.
Juan wanted the good life in America and bought a home with very little money, if any, down on the principle. Three thousand plus mortgage payments for a house that is a clapboard from the fifties in Panorama city--cement floor and no attic space at all, The roof is the ceiling.
Once the bottom went out of the housing market, his carpentry work vanished and so did, eventually, the house with all the money that they put into it including the work Juan did to improve the house. That, I think is what you call ripping someone off. Give them a fantastic deal on an overpriced item. Take the money they give you and give them something worthless, a house they can't afford and never could afford outrageously overpriced. Now you have the house to re-sale and thousands and thousands of dollars on top of it. All the banks did were to walk away with the property to sale again, eventually and some cold hard earned cash of a ruined family.
Juan now lives in an apartment in a gang infested hood. When he came to put sealant on the roof he was trying to climb a ladder with one arm. When I looked at why, his other arm was badly swollen, so bad that the skin near the elbow had spilt.
"Juan, what the fuck happened to your arm?" I asked.
"My son got in a fight with some people and they tried to kill him. I went to help my son and someone hit me in the arm with a bat when I tried to protect my son."
Months ago, when he was doing some repairs here he asked to leave early because he was looking for a better place to live. Now I know why he was so desperate.
Juan is a good carpenter but he needs direction. He needs to work for someone else. Not that he doesn't show up and do the work. He is messy. Plain and simple that's who Juan is. A simple man, who likes to smoke and throw his butts to the ground, who doesn't think twice when ridding a bucket of watered down paint on the lawn. Mexican Monkey said he could get him lots of work but for his messy habits.
His work is good and it is fast. On top of that he charges twenty-five an hour or a hundred and ninety a day. I had the roof patched and coated two years ago for three thousand. Juan put on two thick coats of roof coating and the cost for labor and materials, five hundred. That worked, no leaks in the heavy downpour we had last night and the coating is guaranteed for ten years.
And that has been the problem for hundreds of years here in the South Western United States. Land Barons fucking the poor, making themselves richer and the poor--poorer. Nothing has changed and the saga of Juan of the Rose keeps repeating. Migrants fucked over by land barons.
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