Article voiceover
In 1986, I delivered two pizzas to an iffy motel on Third Avenue in Spokane. A black man answered the door. A few other black men sat around the room. Spokane has never been a diverse city so the black men were a cool surprise, especially since they were the kind of dudes who wore bright and tailored clothes that you never saw in Eastern Washington. I remember that one skinny man wore an emerald shirt with matching pants. Back in those days, it seemed that only Indians wore sparkling colors and only as part of their regalia at powwow and ceremonies. I was wearing a blue polo shirt with the C.J. Pizza logo— a shirt that I'd probably handwashed in my kitchen sink with an Ivory soap bar because I was too poor to afford a laundromat. The tops of my arms and hands were burned from reaching into the ovens and brushing against the hot walls. And I'm sure that I stunk of pepperoni and body odor. I felt inferior to those black men but that was my life—I was a pizza man who felt inferior to everybody and often encountered people who went out of their way to make me feel more inferior. O, the ass- holes who said, "Keep the change" when they handed you a ten-dollar bill for a $9.75 pizza and Coke. But I must admit it wasn't all bad. Some customers overtipped. And I enjoyed the adventures of delivering to sex workers standing on street corners. They flirted and embarrased me. "Kid," they said. "You're too skinny. You gain some muscle and you'll be a handsome man." I delivered to parties where the pot smoke gave me instant contact highs. I delivered to exhibitionist men and women who wore very little when they greeted me. I was robbed twice. I once drove for two miles while my cash bag somehow clung to the roof and didn't fall and lose me one hundred bucks. I ran from mean dogs and attack cats. Best of all, many customers were ecstatic to see me. They loved pizza men because we were nomadic pilgrims handing them greasy sacraments. The best pizzas taste like forgiveness. I was approaching the end of my shift when I handed the sausage and onion pies to that stylish black man at that terrible motel. I was so exhausted. that I wanted to cry. But that man's kind eyes cheered me when he asked if I knew who they were. He called me little brother. I was dark from the summer sun, probably darker than anybody else they saw that day in Spokane. They probably thought that I was Mexican. "Do you know who we are?" the man asked again. "No," I said. He laughed and said, "We're Ray Charles' band and we're playing a show with him tomorrow night at some place called the Opera House." Why, I thought, is Ray Charles' band staying at a terrible motel? And then the man answered the question that I hadn't asked aloud. "Yeah, Ray is sleeping in some hotel penthouse while he crowded us into this funky-ass shit-box." He laughed again, shook my hand with elaborate and unfollowable finger, palm, and knuckle moves, laughed one more time, gave me a twenty-dollar tip, and said, "Ray is a cheap bastard who pays us nothing but that motherfucker can play." I was happy when I walked away from that motel. Then I climbed into the delivery car—a heap that you had to start with the screwdriver wedged into the ignition on the steering column, I spent that tip money on groceries but I might've bought a Ray Charles cassette if I'd happened to pass by a music store. Was Ray Charles a cheap bastard? I don't know and I don't care. He was certainly a genius who turned every song into a holy hymn. Hey, America is only intermittently beautiful but Ray transforms me into a patriot whenever I hear him play the piano and sing that song about the purple mountain majesty above the fruited plain. He makes this Indian boy— this former pizza man, this dude with the minimum-wage past, this guy who used to possess minimal chances, this poor thing turned unskinny poet—want to light illegal fireworks and parade with every last American hearse.
This really moved me. You are a beautiful writer ❤️
Great images…just wonderful…