Everybody Loves Pizza

When I only had a few classes left before graduating from college, I found a new job in Chapel Hill as a pizza delivery dude. My friend Jim did the same thing, so we got to work together, so to speak. We met a bunch of interesting new people, such as cynical pre-law guys Casey and Robert, Casey’s brainy fiancée Rose, wild biker woman Alison, and English grad. student Kelly, who’d taken classes at Iowa with Beat-associated novelist John Clellon Holmes. The place we worked at, Pizza Transit Authority, was the chief local rival to the fierce new Domino's Pizza. The competition forced us to hustle and we soon began a time race, each side promising faster and faster delivery. Before long, we had to wear little timers, and if we were more than thirty minutes late, we’d have to give our pizzas up for free. Students loved this idea and tried to trip us up at every turn. Drivers were always getting into little fender benders. Jim was held up at gun point once, another time sent to deliver at an abandoned apartment, and yet another time ended up delivering to a phone booth.

Given that our pizza-delivering base pay was below minimum wage, we had to figure out how to make a better margin, especially since we drove our own cars, which got chewed up in the process. Because students were notoriously cheap (i.e. rarely giving tips, often not even knowing that we depended on them to make it worth our while), we’d try to get the phoned-in double orders so we could deliver to two nearby places and save on gas and effort. Our most effective tactic was carrying around two-for-one coupons: whenever someone ordered two or more pizzas, we would neglect to tell them they could get two-for-one with an easily attainable coupon. Upon our return to base, we would turn in the coupons and pocket the coupon’s extra worth of cash. This was expected, I suppose – a little black market perquisite for the needy.

The only things I liked about delivering pizza were the occasional interesting glimpses into other people’s lives. Besides the obvious thrill of delivering to scantily clad and slightly drunk co-eds, there were sometimes big tippers and funny storytellers who invited drivers in for a tale or two. These were mostly lonely people, I suppose, like other writers looking for new material. As for me, I gathered some definite ideas for character traits and plenty of concrete examples for interior setting descriptions during these jaunts – plus I was on my own, much of the time, driving around, which beat being stuck in a tight cubicled office space with idiots (that would come later).

Casey the pre-law student hated idle time, like waiting around for new orders without instantly assembling and stacking empty pizza boxes for no apparent reason. You see, he expected promotion if he worked extra hard (ha!). I can still see him out in the parking lot, sweeping with a broom. His fiancée Rose was a smart cookie, and eventually found several of us more fitting jobs at a new nearby publishing house, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, where I ended up working for three years. In fact, my supervisor turned out to be pre-law student Robert, which was nice because he would always be sneaking away for long bike rides and new coupon scams. Casey and Rose got married and moved to Pittsburgh, where Casey could work for his father. I wonder if he ever got a promotion?

Today's Rune: Protection.