I find this information out along with the fact that he's a father, and he's got another one coming. "16, but I'll be 17 in November and I'm excited, because in one more year I'll be 18, and then I'll have a big party." And I look at him, trying to make sense of his situation, of the immeasurable maturity and immaturity it takes to get to where he's at--but when I hear him talk, he's just a child. "And I'll have beers at the party," he snickers, and I tell him that's very legal of him.
I joke around with the men at work that this young guy is like my little project now, my baby, and that I'm going to raise him and teach him the inner-workings of this deceivingly difficult job. And I say that because there's always a chance to mess up. Every move is a potential burn, cut, what have you. But it's still just a job at the end of the day, like any other. Except this boy's daily salary will go towards diapers, and baby food, and whatever else babies need to survive. But work continues, and the salacious (using big words doesn't make you smart) attitudes of the men I work with become increasingly discomforting.
My co-workers have become violent in their sexuality. They continuously threaten to shove cucumbers and squashes up my rear. They ask me every morning if I've gotten with a girl (to put it angelically) and they're blown away when I tell them I have not, since I actually have days off for the grand and never-ending pursuit.
But it's difficult for the men with no women. They gawk at any passing female, and anatomize her best features, whether it be her lumpy ass, or her short shorts.
I never understood the need for prostitution until I started working at the pizzeria...or the need to compulsively drink after a hard day's work, like cliche alcoholic fathers in Lifetime films. And it's the gross monotony that does it, the willing imprisonment of the position--being an immigrant, legal or not, and being geographically, as well as socially entrapped. The alcohol, liquid-earplugs, a damper to the requests, "One slice to go, not too hot."
When you consider that these men work 84 hours a week, for years, you start to understand that those inherent biological needs supplant any pride or reservations towards the professionally promiscuous. I've been asked at least ten times if I was interested in calling a prostitute after work, sharing or taking turns, I imagine. And the 16 year old watches us and catches on quickly.
An hour before we close shop, the father of soon to be two, looks at a girl who passes by the front of the pizzeria with a bunch of other loiterers and says "wow, she's one pretty girl," and he wages serious bets with the men that the girl being lusted after is twelve years old.
A picture from two months ago. Original caption: Tequila Tuesdays, and sometimes Saturdays
