La ciudad de la euforia

A few years ago there was a joke that said that corruption was like paella, which was made everywhere, but nowhere like in Valencia. And so it was. There have been scandals throughout the country and cases more serious than those in the Valencian Community, too. However, what was happening here had irresistible ingredients, protagonists that were difficult to explain and a timid social response that was never fully understood. No case, no matter how scandalous, seemed to directly affect the daily lives of citizens, rather the opposite. The perception on the street, fed by the media, was that the formula benefited us all. Justice advanced very slowly while the PP ran in Ferrari. In times of economic boom, his bet generated wealth, jobs, growth, leadership and even, what the hell, a lot of envy. The money belonged to no one and the profit belonged to everyone. That reality was rotten behind the curtain mattered little. It's really hard to see your surroundings when you are blinded by neon lights. It is impossible to argue with a mouth full of caviar canapes. "The party in Valencia never ends", boasted a senior party official on one occasion. He also ended up prosecuted. This is the true story of the mayor who counted bills in the seats of his car, of the posh money addict who disappeared from the map to be reborn as a hippie anchorite, of the one-eyed man, the scrap dealer and his gorilla, the Pearl and the rabbit, of that manager who spent millions on sensual Romanian "translators", the businessman who escaped to Moldova or the builder who ran in a trikini through the corridors of a hotel in Andorra with ski goggles: links in a kind of food chain in which all agreed to feed off the waste of others. Some sat at the table of the great banquet and others only scraped the plate; They all parasitized the system, but none opened their beak because if one spoke, you know, they all lost out.