I delve into this for you, and for my sanity, otherwise it would all go unnoticed and I would be suffering and laughing and sweating alone and as Mephistophilis gracefully put it: Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris--misery loves company.
For the past two days, I worked the counter and I made deliveries. Working the counter means: tending the register, spinning pies, wiping down the counter, arranging the slices behind the display case, actual congenial for the customers and occasionally microwaving rice-balls.
Nothing special with counter-work, but the deliveries, oh the deliveries.
The deluge on Saturday flooded Old Country Road and stranded everyone, but more importantly, me and my deliveries. And when I got to one of the houses, I was greeted by an amiable creature, a calm golden retriever. Out of the thirty or so houses with a dog inside, this was the only one that didn't bark like an idiot when I arrived. The owners let me pet the dog, with very little reserve. They introduced me.
"This is Max."
And I fell in love.
I remember there was some other dog, some mutt somewhere that whined quite a bit, really anxiously, ahh yes, I remember now. The mutt belonged to a family packing for a surprise disney trip--what happy little children they would soon have--the delivery boy, being made aware of such things, such privilege.
At another house, a man answers his door buck-naked, barely shielding his johnson with a towel when I show my disgusted surprise.
"Woah! You alright over there?"
"Yeah, yeah I'm sorry about this, just got out of the shower."
"Alright, $22.50, sir"
I don't remember at what point he says it, but he says "...still hot out there, ain't it?" and it was...And when he gets back, he's still cupping his crotch with the goddamned towel, and I can't believe his audacity, leaving me feeling anxious/harassed, but he tips me well, the hairy bastard.
An old lady living on some obscure cul de sac made me very aware of her fragility, just watching her live for our little shared moment, the quick and ungainly pitter-patter of geriatric feet.
There was a delivery to the Hampton Inn's front desk, a 10-15 minute pain-in-the-ass drive from the pizzeria, and when I tell the manager the price, he looks at me and tells me, very calmly, as if he's practiced this very monologue, "Full-price, huh? I can't believe you would disrespect us in such a way, such a slap in the face to my employees. "
Instinctively, I want to laugh, because he used the phrase, "...a slap in the face," but I try to understand before jumping on the defensive--bringing up how we normally do give discounts to our partners and how whoever handled the order just didn't realize at the time the egregious error they had made in forgetting to deduce three or so dollars from our standard price.
I tell him a simple phone call could rectify the situation, but he outright refuses to negotiate; the price, in his mind, is finalized. It has become personal.
"After all the business we've given you, after every reference we've given our customers. You can tell your boss we're no longer interested in doing business with you." And he hands me the little stack of menus from behind the desk, and I open up his pizza box and throw this dog poop I keep in my pocket for emergencies right in the middle of it--the steam from the pizza liquifying the whole mess surprisingly fast.
The poop part isn't real, but the manager leaves and I ask his quiet minion, who was standing next to the manager the entire charade, "Am I crazy?" And he tells me something obsequious to the effect of "Whatever the boss says..."
And you know, fuck it.
Later, I deliver a pie to someone's backyard, where there's a pool with three children jumping in and out of it, screaming ebullience, and three adults, lounging along the perimeter with mixed drinks, a happy calm between them all, and now exuding outwardly: "...Want to jump in?"
And short story short, I do, and it's more amazing than I imagined and the kids jump in right after me, screaming, "I can't believe it! I can't believe he jumped in! Yay! YAY!"
It was basically like this, but in a pool, and I got paid for it. And when I reluctantly hoisted myself out of the pool, the two little girls pushed me back in, proving that happiness can love company as well.
My car's thermometer, while sitting in the sun for a few hours reached 136 today, I remember it reached 148 at Bonnaroo.
...Sitting in the traffic between these destinations, these strange people, often wonderful, and entirely intriguing...
Ugly looking thing
traffic at a dead halt
beneath a bright beacon of green
trying so hard to signal the opposite
And no refreshing air to be had
just the muggy throwback
swimming in an ocean you could sweat in
--
That was an impromptu poem. Redundant? Maybe.
And as to the pedophiles mentioned in the title of this post, I just had to ask Bobby, that old veteran who comes in just to watch the phone girls work, what he was looking at today, since he was very obviously scrutinizing the movements of one of my co-workers. And he told me some bullshit about trying to "figure out [the girl's] dowry because women are the most expensive beings to maintain," or something, and then I had to make sure he was talking about "...women, right, Bobby? Not girls, women."
And even though he defended my freedom at one point or another, I still hate the bastard, and I wrote so on my drinking cup today, to distinguish mine from the rest.
"I HATE BOBBY"
The weekend fades to darkness and I drive home, my car still emitting the pungent scent of seafood fra diavolo. I arrive at the intersection of Glen Cove Road and Westbury and the light is yellow and I know I can make it. I drive through it and before I reach the beginning of the next street, I'm cut off by another driver making a quick turn in front of me, and I notice a flash of light behind me. A ticket. A $50 traffic violation as automatic as my ensuing anger. I scream one obscenity, bang the wheel of my car once, and allow the give-and-take of life to settle in like smoke.
