According to the PJ Pizza Employee Handbook, each delivery driver was required to wear an official royal blue polo shirt with an embroidered patch on the right chest that read "PJ Pizza: When You Wish for Deep Dish." On the left chest, another patch included an unflattering caricature of Harold Reynolds, the founder, owner, and manager of PJ Pizza. Nobody knew why he approved of the unflattering image. It certainly wasn't because he was modest. And it wasn't because he was able to laugh at himself. Harold was as serious as a meat slicer's spinning blade.
You might also wonder why the store was named PJ Pizza instead of Harold's Pizza. You might also ask why Harold dropped the possessive and called it PJ Pizza instead of PJ's Pizza. The answers to your questions are contained in the Employee Handbook:
PJ Pizza is the full name of our restaurant. PJ Pizza is the ONLY proper name of our establishment. PJ Pizza is our identity. Therefore, PJ Pizza will NEVER be known as PJ's Pizza. Employees are required to use the full name, “PJ Pizza," and will be reprimanded if they refer to our restaurant as “PJ's Pizza,” or by the diminutive, “PJ's." Employees are also required to politely but firmly correct any customer who mistakenly refers to our restaurant as “PJ's Pizza" or “PJ's." To reiterate, our restaurant, the finest pizza place in Spokane, Washington, will be forever and ONLY be known as “PJ Pizza."
Based on that particular entry in the PJ Pizza Employee Handbook, you might assume that Harold Reynolds was an obsessive dickhead. And you'd be right to make that assumption. But he also employed two assistant managers who'd risen from jobs as dishwashers. Moreover, one of those assistant managers was a formerly undocumented Mexican who'd become an American citizen because of Harold's sponsorship and tutoring.
I'd delivered PJ Pizza's deep dish extravaganzas for three years. I began the job as a part-time driver at the same time I began community college as a part-time student. I made it halfway through the first quarter of school—sleeping through English and History classes—before I dropped out and asked Harold for more shifts.
“You're my favorite kind of person," he said. “A smart guy who doesn't like books."
As a full-time driver with three years experience, I grossed almost $625 a week before taxes. After the state passed a law that raised the minimum wage, Harold swore that it would drive him out of business. But he began paying two dollars more than minimum and also decided to charge a 15% service fee to diners instead of accepting tips. So PJ Pizza stayed in business partly because of Harold's financial gambles but mostly because we did indeed make the best pizza in Spokane. We were in high demand. People were willing to pay a premium. Harold gave his employees most of the money collected from that 15% service fee. So, after getting my share of that cash pool, and after paying federal, state, and city governments taxes, and various other work-related fees, I earned about $1,956 a month. Poverty wages, basically, even for an unmarried person living alone in Spokane. I could only afford to rent an attic bedroom in a boarding house. Though calling it a boarding house makes it sound like my landlord was an eccentric 1950s widow who made blueberry scones for her Merchant Marine renters. In truth, my landlord was a corporation that bought old houses, performed a bare amount of repair and remodel, and rented out inadequate rooms to the inadequately employed. All the renters shared two common bathrooms and a common kitchen. Most of the time, most of my housemates were clean.
Harold required us to put 12 pepperoni circles, no more and no less, on the small size pizza; 16 on the medium; 20 on the large; and 24 on the extra-large. Or maybe it was 10, 14, 16, and 20. Or maybe it was something else. I was always forgetting. I sometimes had a tough time remembering numbers—remembering them in order. So, sometimes, I'd put on the wrong number of pepperoni circles—or too many ounces of cheese or onions or pineapple—and Harold would catch my error during one of his regular spot checks.
“Gary," he asked me once. "Why does this keep happening?"
And I said, “Pizza-making is art, not science."
He laughed, but he still docked my pay for the cost of the extra ingredients. Just two bucks for the extra meat and veggies on one pizza. Kinda mean, I guess, but he'd also dock my pay if I didn't put on enough ingredients.
“That's a lesser pizza you made” he'd say. “That's a pizza you settled for."
One Thursday, during a particularly crazy shift where I'd delivered twenty-two pizzas and put nearly thirty miles on my car, a battered Nissan that seemed to have more room for the pizza-warming sleeve than it did for me, I delivered a bacon-and-spinach pie to Anna, my girlfriend, at her parents' home one block outside our advertised delivery zone.
Usually, she only ordered pizza when her mother and father were gone. And, usually, Anna and I would leave the pizza on the kitchen counter and run upstairs to enjoy mid-shift sex in her bedroom. I'm not a handsome guy. Not at all. In fact, I'd say that I qualified as homely. My eyes were too small for my face. My ears too big. My teeth too crooked. But Anna's face was symmetrical and pretty. I felt like I didn't deserve her. And that's a poisonous feeling. It seeps into the blood of a relationship.
Holding that bacon-and-spinach pizza, I knocked on Anna's door. She kissed me hello but she didn't usher me inside.
“Listen,” Anna said as she stood on the small front porch. “I'm joining the Navy."
“What?” I asked.
"I've joined the Navy," she said. “I ship out in ten days."
“Wait, what?”
“I'm leaving" she said. "I'm sorry."
“Hold on, hold on,” I said. “When did you decide this?”
“I've been thinking about it for a while. I signed up a few months ago."
“And you're just telling me now?”
“Well" she said. “I wanted us to be happy before I left. I still want us to be happy. We have ten days. Let's make them good ones”
I wasn't sure what to say.
I had many cousins and uncles who'd served in the U.S. Armed Forces. But half of Anna's family was a trail mix of peaceful trailer park hippies who wanted no part of any violence and the other half was an arsenal of conspiracy theorists who were convinced they'd eventually be going to war against our country.
“I don't understand," I said. “Why is this happening?”
“I need to do what's best for me," Anna said.
“I thought you loved me. I thought we were in love."
"We are in love," she said. "But the Navy will pay for college. You remember college, right?"
She was still pissed at me for dropping out of school.
“Come on," I said. “I said I was sorry for quitting.”
“I showed you the numbers. College graduates make more money than non-graduates. Significantly more."
Romance was easier before everybody could Google everything.
“Hey,” I said. “I know garbage men who make more money than lawyers.”
I didn't know if that was true. I hadn't Googled it. But it sounded great.
"But, Gary," she said. “Garbage man is a good job. So is being a lawyer. But you have to work hard. All you want to do is deliver pizzas. And you don't even work hard at that."
I wanted to say that our mid-shift lovemaking wasn’t hard work but I knew that would just get me into deeper trouble.
“Pizza is only temporary," I said instead.
"Temporary, temporary,” she said. "You're always going to be Temporary Gary.”
She sighed, stepped inside her house, and slowly closed the door on me. That gentle dismissal was more painful than if she'd slammed it shut.
"I still have your pizza," I shouted.
“Keep it," she shouted back.
I walked back to my car with the undelivered pizza. We drivers used our personal cars for delivery. Harold paid for the gas that we used during work, based on odometer readings. And he gave us the cash for regular car washes in order to maintain a professional look. But he didn't pay us for basic engine maintenance or for any repairs.
I guess the outside was more important than the inside.
I'd first met Anna when she was walking her dog in the park. I didn't have a whole lot of extra money for entertainment. I couldn't afford Netflix so I binge-watched people instead.
“Cute dog," I said to Anna as she walked by with her five-pound mutt.
“Yeah,” Anna said. “And she knows it."
“She does prance,” I said. “She must be a show dog. How did you train her to walk that way?”
“She walked like that when we got her. She's a rescue dog. We got her from the Humane Society."
“So she's a girl with a mysterious past," I said. "What's her name?"
"Her full name is Peanut Butter Cup. But I usually call her Peanut. Sometimes, I call her Butter."
"Those are good names."
"Yeah," she said. “I think maybe she was owned by an old woman who died. She likes old ladies. Just spins in circles when she meets an old lady. And then she must have run away after her owner died because they found her living by the Little Spokane River. Her hair was so dirty and matted, they had to shave her bald."
“Wow,” I said. “She's pretty small to have survived on her own."
“Yeah” Anna said. “You'd think that would mean she's smart. But she's not. She's below average, I guess, and a little bit traumatized."
“Below average and a little bit traumatized,” I said. “Just like me.”
Anna smiled.
Harold gave one free PJ Pizza polo shirt to each delivery driver. And we were expected to buy at least one more shirt. Some of the drivers bought three or four extra shirts to make sure they always had a clean one ready for work. Harold sometimes gave surprise twenty dollar bills to drivers who were exceptionally clean, diligent, and organized. A tiny bonus. It was a wink, a pat on the back—enough for bread, milk, and a few cans of soup. Harold loved a spotless work shirt in what was a messy job.
“If you look good,” he always said, “then the pizzas taste better."
But I thought it was a waste of money to own more than one shirt. Those polos cost $15, which seemed like a lot for something probably made by toddlers on a dictator's private island. There was no washer or dryer in my boarding house so I usually hand-washed my polo shirt in the bathroom sink at the boarding house. Sometimes, I wore my polo into the shower and scrubbed it with the same shampoo and soap I used to clean myself. Then I'd hang it by my bedroom window to dry. It never completely dried that way. The morning after, you could squeeze the fabric and make little detergent bubbles.
Sounds goofy, I know, but it cost $5.50 to wash and dry a load of clothes at the self-serve laundromat. There's no way I had the money or time to properly wash my shirt on a daily basis.
So, okay, sometimes, I'd come home tired and toss my dirty PJ Pizza polo on the floor. And, sometimes, I'd stagger home utterly exhausted and fall asleep in my shirt. Then I'd be forced to wear an unwashed shirt to work. Of course, I would first do some spot cleaning with a bar of soap. And, to mask my body odor, I'd roll deodorant directly onto the fabric of the shirt. When it stank the worst, I'd apply two or three coats of Speedstick to my armpits and also to the shirt's armpits. Sometimes, depending on my mood and the weather, I'd wear a shirt that hadn't been fully washed in three or four days. Eventually, I'd stink so bad that Harold would lend me a new polo to wear, but only for that one shift. He'd always take it back and would charge me a dollar for rental and laundry.
One dollar here, one dollar there. Harold Reynolds giveth and taketh.
After Anna told me she was leaving me for the Navy, I sat in a shopping mall parking lot, ate the bacon-and-spinach pizza in my car, and wondered about my future. How could I keep Anna from joining the Navy? Or if I couldn't stop her from enlisting then how could I maintain a long distance relationship? She'd be serving on a ship where there'd be a few dozen women and hundreds of men. What could I do to keep her faithful?
I realized that I needed to prove how much I loved her. I needed evidence. I needed something real and substantial. I needed to propose marriage. So I Googled “engagement ring” on my phone, saw that I couldn't afford anything, and changed my search to "budget engagement ring."
WalMart was selling a one-and-seven-eighths-karat silver sapphire ring for fifty bucks. The ring looked decent in the photo. And it was cheap. Way cheap. It seemed to be the cheapest engagement ring in the universe. Only $50! Who couldn't afford that? What kind of romantic loser couldn't dredge up five ten dollar bills? Me. I couldn't afford it. I didn't have an extra $50. Payday was two weeks away and Anna was leaving in ten days.
Damn it.
“Where have you been?” Harold asked when I finally returned to the restaurant.
“Traffic,” I said.
Harold thought I meant car traffic but I was talking about emotional traffic.
“You've been running behind all week," he said, “You might be getting near a penalty."
I lost a few hours of pay every month because of my chronic lateness. It might not have been legal to punish a worker like that, but it seemed morally fair. Maybe Harold wasn't the greatest boss but I wasn't the greatest employee, either. Anna was right about my work habits. Harold truly cared about pizza. I barely gave a shit.
“You've got a delivery waiting," he said.
Our delivery area included the rich neighborhoods of Spokane's South Hill and the poor areas along the East Sprague corridor that were busy with used car lots, pawn shops, legal pot stores, middling ethnic restaurants, dive bars, and massage parlors. East Sprague was also the working grounds for most of Spokane's street prostitutes.
Three years earlier, during my first night on the job, I took a call from a loud woman.
“Honey," she said. "I need one of them veggie calzone things. Small size."
“Okay,” I said. "What is your address?”
“Corner of Sprague and Roy."
“Yes, ma'am, I need the specific address. The house or apartment number, please."
“Oh, honey, you must be new. I won't be in no house. I'll be standing on the corner of Sprague and Roy, right by that check-cashing place."
“I don't know if I'm supposed to deliver to people standing on the street.”
“Don't worry, baby, Mr. Reynolds knows all about me. I've been a customer for years.”
So that was the first time I delivered directly to a prostitute. Her street name was Diamond.
"You get it," she said. "Because I'm a beautiful thing that lives in the rough."
She once told me that her real name was Betty. But another time she said it was Harriet. I probably delivered thirty or forty small veggie calzones to her over the years. I delivered to other prostitutes, as well, but Diamond was always the loudest and kindest. And then she stopped calling. I didn't like to think about the terrible reasons why she might have gone away. I hoped she'd left the streets for a job like mine—demoralizing and low-paying, but not so damn dangerous, unhealthy, and naked. I had the strange thought that maybe I could've asked Diamond for a fifty dollar loan if she'd been around.
"Ah, sweetie,” she would've said. "You want Diamond to help buy your girl a diamond."
How does anybody make it through the day with all the desperation floating in the air like flour and salt?
“Come on, Gary, wake up," Harold said.
I wanted to tell him that I'd been thinking about things that were far more important than pizza.
“You've got a delivery," Harold said again. "A street corner calzone."
“For Diamond?” I asked hopefully.
"No,” he said. "It's a small Hawaiian calzone with extra ham and pineapple. Sorry."
He put his hand on my shoulder. I don't know how much he truly cared about Diamond or her vanishing. Or even how much he cared about me. But he cared enough to be decent. Maybe that's all we should expect from people. Just a thin slice of decency.
"Now get your ass moving,” he said. “And put on some deodorant. You stink.”
Yeah, like I said, Harold Reynolds giveth and he taketh.
Hustling out of the store with the Hawaiian calzone, I tried to smell myself and get a sense of exactly how much I reeked. But, scientifically speaking, humans are unable to accurately gauge their own funk. Oh, you can recognize your own scent and you can also recognize that you need a shower, but the true nature of your most epic stench will always elude you. It's a primitive form of self-protection, I guess. After all, how could our distant ancestors have crowded into small caves if their noses weren't immune to the prehistoric miasma?
I climbed into my car and shoved the calzone into the warming sleeve sitting on the passenger seat, and dug through my glove compartment looking for something to mask my body odor, and found only a half-filled tin of mints and about two inches of lemonade left in a plastic bottle. So I crushed the mints with my thumbnail, poured a little bit of lemonade into the tin, shook it hard for a minute, and created a mint-and lemon-smelling paste that I rubbed into my armpits. And then I sucked the residue off my fingers so my breath wouldn't smell so much of bacon and spinach.
Some kind of cleansing ritual, huh? Who says we ever stopped being cavemen?
Anna read books. She had a library card.
Sometimes, we went to the library together. I'd use the free computers to surf the web while she looked for something good to read.
She liked books about other countries. Novels, sometimes. But mostly history books. And travel books, too. She liked to look at maps.
She'd put her finger down on a map, sound out the name of a country or city, and ask me to guess what might happen in that place.
“What kind of dances do they have?” she'd ask. “What kind of musical instruments?”
Once, I said, “I think all musical instruments are based on the same basic idea. It's not like discovering a new animal or something. Everything is basically a drum, flute, or guitar, right?”
“Dude,” she said. "Why do you shit on dreams?"
When I delivered the small Hawaiian calzone to that prostitute stranger on the corner, I asked her if she knew Diamond—if she knew what had happened to her.
"Sorry, honey," she said. "I know three Diamonds and two Emeralds but I don't know where any of them are."
You gotta watch your feet when you walk the city streets. It's too easy to step on all the discarded souls.
"Hey, what's your name?" I asked the prostitute.
"Turquoise," she said and laughed.
I laughed, too.
"But, really," I said. "What's your name?"
"Esme," she said.
"Short for Esmeralda," I said.
"Yes," she said. "Good on you."
I said goodbye, drove away, and parked in the lot of an abandoned Chinese restaurant. I needed to figure things out. I needed to make plans. I needed to keep Anna away from the Navy and all the oceans in the world.
So I wondered again how I might obtain the fifty dollars I needed to buy the engagement ring for Anna. I briefly thought about robbing a convenience store. I knew a few guys who'd worked at the Circle K down the street from PJ Pizza. So I knew how the stores worked. And I figured it would be a relatively safe crime. Well, I wouldn't rob the place where I knew people. They might recognize me, even if I wore a mask, and it would rude to rob and scare friends, anyway.
But it would still be fairly safe to rob a strange store staffed by strangers. After all, I would only be armed with my loud voice and an imaginary gun. And I knew that corporate employees—the guys who worked at the nationwide stores—were legally required to cooperate with robbers. I also knew those guys didn't give a shit about their corporate overlords. Those workers wouldn't try to heroically defend the cash register. They wouldn't risk their lives to confront me.
And I certainly didn't want to risk my life either so I wouldn't rob any of those independent stores where the owner worked graveyard shift. That kind of dude would protect his store, his property. His money. That kind of dude might kill me.
So I'd rob a 7-11. I also knew that 7-11 workers only kept a small amount of cash in their tills. They regularly dropped most of their bills into a time-locked safe. So it wouldn't be a big money felony. I wouldn't be stealing a dramatic amount of money. I just needed fifty bucks for the ring and maybe another fifty to justify the risk. And since I would only do it once, and would wear a mask, there was little chance that I would ever be identified and arrested.
I wanted to Google the statistics for unsolved convenience store robberies. But I realized that's the kind of Internet search that might lead me to getting identified and arrested.
Yeah, I was a criminal mastermind. Like all the criminal masterminds sitting in jail.
So, instead of committing a felony, I texted Anna a row of heart emojis. But she didn't text back.
I waited and waited and thought maybe I should throw my phone off the Maple Street Bridge into the Spokane River. Maybe suiciding my phone would solve all of my problems. My phone bill ate up ten or twenty percent of my income every month so it would certainly solve some of my economic problems. And my phone was an immediate source of pain. You always knew what horrible thing was happening in Spokane, in the United States, and in the world. Was life better when you didn't know about the disasters until hours or even days later?
And then I saw three people—two women and one man—pushing an old station wagon into the parking lot. I briefly thought about robbing them. I was desperate. But we all have bad thoughts that we don't follow with action. And even if I were a real criminal, I wouldn't rob three people pushing a crappy car. It didn't seem like a wise investment.
Then I wondered, crazily, if Harold would advance me fifty bucks for the engagement ring.
I was named PJ Pizza Employee of the Month only once in three years. It was a month where I'd managed to wash my shirt every night. I was also a conscientious delivery person for thirty consecutive days. I delivered my pizzas politely and efficiently. I treated my co-workers with kindness and good humor. I even made Harold laugh three or four times.
“You keep working this hard,” he said, “and maybe you'll be working in the front office with Cameron.”
It was rumored that Cameron made thirty dollars an hour. That sounded like a fortune. I wanted to make that kind of money. I wanted to be Employee of the Year. Employee of the Millennium. But, damn it, I couldn't even defend my crown as Employee of the Month.
In any case, I don't think I won that one month because of my work habits. Mostly, I think I won because of my consistent but brief loyalty to a fresh shirt. It's the small things that matter, right?
For winning, I received a small trophy and sixty dollars in cash.
Jesus, I wished I’d saved that money. When does the cash ever arrive when we need it the most?
I watched those two women and one man bickering as they stood by that station wagon they'd just rolled to a stop. Usually, I would've just driven away. So I don't know why I stepped out of my car and approached that trio.
One of the women was tall. One was short. The man looked like a trailer park sex symbol who'd started shoplifting cigarettes in second grade and had never stopped. I knew Anna would never have left a guy who looked like him. He was probably the kind of guy who could make her orgasm. She'd never orgasmed with another person. Only by herself. And only with a battery-powered toy. She couldn't even orgasm if I used the toy on her. She still loved sex with me, she said, but I had my doubts. How could I not have my doubts? I did my research on the Internet and tried all sorts of moves on her. I tried to be emotionally and physically honest. I tried to communicate. I tried to be the kind of man who was good in bed. I'd been good with other women, I think. But nothing seemed to work with Anna. But I wasn't going to give up. I was dedicated to her even if I wasn't dedicated to anything else.
And, dedicated or not, I reminded myself again that I wasn't the kind of person who'd stop to help strangers. I try to drive and live defensively. I'm pretty sure stopping for strangers was against Harold's rules. And, yet, there I was, being helpful.
"Hey,” I said to the trio. “Is that really a station wagon? Like a 1970s station wagon? I don't remember last time I saw one of them actually moving."
“Yo, genius," the tall woman said. “This one ain't moving, either.”
The man smirked. But it was too damn rehearsed. Like he'd perfected it in a mirror before he'd tried it out in public. He looked like James Dean though I doubted that he’d heard of James Dean. I think the effort to look like James Dean existed before James Dean was ever born.
“It was my mom's car," the short woman said. She wiped tears from her face. “She gave it to me before she died.”
“I'm sorry it's not working” I said. “But it's a lot easier to fix those old cars than the new cars these days. New cars have enough computer power to take you to the moon."
“What are you?” the tall woman asked. “Some kind of college brain?”
“No,” I said. “Just a pizza man.”
“Okay, pizza man,” she said. “Do you know how to fix cars?”
“No," I said.
“Then what good are you?”
“Not much good at all," I said. “But I guess I can give you a ride somewhere.”
I instantly regretted offering them a ride. I regretted getting out of my car in the first place. I regretted my sad attempt to use crushed mints and lemonade as deodorant. I regretted that I'd never written down plans for my life. I regretted that I didn't make lists. I regretted that I never paused long enough to seriously consider my decisions. I regretted that I didn't know how to ponder. And then I realized that I ponder for hours at a time. I just don't know how to ponder well.
“Are you a serial killer?” the tall woman asked me. “I bet you're a quiet pizza man until you smell pussy. And then you start killing women. Is that who you really are, pizza boy?”
“Okay, wow,” I said. “I'm just trying to help. So, yeah, I think I'll get back to work now.”
What the hell was I supposed to do or say after the tall woman had been so graphic? I think she was testing me—to see how quick I was to anger and what I’d do with my anger. But I didn’t want to be tested. So I exhaled, turned, and walked back toward my car, but the man rushed over to me, put his arm around my shoulder, and whispered to me.
“Hey, dude,” he said. “I'm sorry she's being so extra extra. But you got to help me out. I just met her tonight. I met her at the strip club. She's a stripper, dude, and she was taking me back to her place to do it, man. I'm going to bang a stripper. Come on, dude, this is a dream come true. You need to give us a ride. So I can ride her. You get it? Tell me you get it?”
Jesus, what had I gotten myself into?
“Where's your car?" I asked. "Why don't you use your car?”
“Dude,” he said. “I got laid off. I sold my car. I took the bus to the strip joint."
I laughed.
“Dude" he said. "Don't judge me. It's public transporation and I'm the public. So you don't get to judge me. You're a fucking pizza man”
“I'm sorry,” I said. “You're right”
“All is forgiven, dude, if you just give us a ride”
“But to where? I'm working"
“Hey, Misty,” he said to the tall woman. "How far is your place?”
“I live in Post Falls," she said.
“We live together," the short woman said.
She leaned against her mother's station wagon—her inheritance. I could see she was proud of the thing, even though it was dead in a parking lot. And why shouldn't she be proud? Her mother had left her something. How many poor kids inherit anything? She was a Station Wagon Debutante.
“I don't know, man,” I said to the three of them. “Post Falls, Idaho, right? That's across the state border. It'll take like an hour to drive there and back, and I'm working.”
I was nervous. The trio didn't seem dangerous. But how many murder victims have thought the same thing about their murderers? I wondered what struggling actor would play me in the Forensic Files TV reenactment of my violent, and completely avoidable, death.
“Hey, Ted Bundy," Misty said to me. “I'll pay you to give us a ride.”
Yeah, suddenly, all of us were serial killers. Then I, John Wayne Gacy Dahmer Gein, had an epiphany.
“How much you gonna pay me?" I asked.
"How much you want?"
I thought about Anna. I thought about her blue eyes. I thought about how she liked to read aloud to me in bed. I liked how she would sometimes stand naked on the bed and excitedly read to me about some amazing animal who only lived in one tiny place—about a blind spider that only lived in one cave on one island near Japan. I thought about how it was far more important for me to love Anna's voice than to love her body. And how maybe it was more important that I paid attention to the things she chose to read to me than it was for me to give her orgasms. I thought about how I don't know shit about shit. I thought about the price of that WalMart engagement ring.
“Fifty bucks,” I said. “I want fifty bucks.”
“Shit," Misty said. "You think I'm rich or something?”
"You're good-looking," I said. "Beautiful, in fact. A beautiful stripper. So I think you have a lot of one dollar bills in your pockets."
I felt like an asshole for talking to her like that. It was disrespectful. But I wanted to match her tough words with my own. I wanted that money. I needed that fifty dollars.
“Okay, Green River," she said. “If you're so smart then tell me how old I am.”
“I don't know. Why does it matter?”
“Just take a guess at my age”
“I don't know," I said. "Thirty?”
“You're a big liar,” she said. “Give me a real answer. How old do you really think I am?”
“Forty,” I said.
“I'm forty-three," she said. “And I'm already a grandmother."
"Okay,” I said. “What does that mean?”
“It means I'm an ancient bitch stripping on a Thursday night in Spokane-fucking-Washington. So how much money do you really think I made tonight?”
“Wow," I said.
“Wow what?” she asked.
“Wow, you just kicked my ass with some real economics."”
“Damn right," she said. “I can give you twenty-three bucks right now and I'll give you the other money when I break open my piggy bank”
“Your piggy bank in Post Falls?”
“Yeah, Lee Harvey," she said. “Take us to Post Falls and you'll get your fifty bucks.”
“Okay," I said. “Let's go.”
As we walked toward my car, I remembered that I once tried to apply for food stamps, but learned that I was only considered a low-income earner.
“But not low enough?” I’d asked.
“People in official poverty get partial benefits," the clerk had said.
“Official poverty," I’d said.
“Yes” she’d said. "And people in deep poverty get full benefits."
I was pretty sure that Misty the Stripper didn't get benefits. From the state or from the strip joint. And the James Dean asshole and the Station Wagon Debutante had to be poor, too. And there we were, trading goods and services for pennies.
I threw the pizza-warming sleeve into the trunk. Then Misty handed me twenty-three one dollar bills. It was a smooth and neat stack of bills. No matter the job, you have to take at least a little pride in the income, I guess. Then she climbed into the backseat with James Dean and I drove toward Post Falls.
The Station Wagon Debutante sat in the passenger seat and fumed. I guessed she wasn't a stripper. She seemed too homely and shy. And I also guessed that being roommates and friends with a stripper—with the kind of stripper who ended up in backseats with greasily handsome and unemployed customers—often put her in uncomfortable situations.
I didn't want to make too many assumptions. But she caught me making assumptions and made some assumptions of her own. She leaned close to me and scowled.
“I’m not going to fuck you,” she whispered.
“I hadn't planned on it," I said.
“Why?” she asked. “Because I'm not like her?”
“No,” I said. “I have a girlfriend.”
“They always have wives and girlfriends. It doesn't matter."
“I'm sorry," I said. “I just want my money and then I'm going back to work.”
"Whatever," she said.
I wanted to tell her that I was homely, too, just like her. And that I got ignored all the time. I wanted to say that we could compare acne scars. Maybe even use them to tell our fortunes like they were tea leaves.
And so we drove in silence along Interstate 90 to Post Falls. Well, not completely silent. There were noises coming from the backseat.
I wondered what would happen to the Debutante’s station wagon. Would it get stolen or towed away? Would she ever see it again?
Misty lived in a battered duplex on a dark and isolated street that was only technically in Post Falls. It certainly looked like a place where idiotic pizza men went to die.
“Yeah," I said as I parked in front. “I'm going to wait out here. You can bring me out the rest of the money.”
“Are you scared of me?” Misty asked.
“Yes, I am,” I said. “Just get me the rest of my money and then I'll go.”
Misty leaned close to me, so close that I could feel her hot and sour breath on my neck, and said, “Hey, give me back my twenty-three bucks."
“Are you going to mug me now?” I asked.
“No” she said. “Give me back my money and come inside. And I'll strip for you instead.”
“Dude," James Dean said. “That's the best offer you will ever get in your whole life.”
"Fuck this shit," the Debutante said. “And fuck you, pizza man. You're an ugly fucker."
Then she roared out of my car and stomped into her house. Some tantrums are justified.
“Come on, dude," James Dean said. "You get to watch my skinny woman get naked. And then you get to fuck the fat one. It's the full meal deal."
“Hey," Misty said and slapped him. “Don't talk about her that way. She's my best friend."
“Okay, okay,” he said. "My bad."
These two were maybe the worst people I'd ever met. And I'd placed myself at their mercy. So who's to say that I was any better than them?
“So, School Shooter,” the tall woman said. “What's it gonna be?"
I considered my options. I had no moral objection to strippers or stripping, to the noun or verb. Or to any kind of sex work, in person or filmed or streamed to the Internet. As long as we're talking about one or more consenting adults. And I've certainly watched plenty of porn, not as much as some of my friends but more than some others. As with most things in my life. I'm average at porn consumption. But, hey, when it comes to going to strip clubs with groups of friends, I have to admit that I'm completely baffled. Why do a bunch of straight guys want to pop simultaneous erections? So, yeah, in another reality, I might have enjoyed a solo strip show by this tall woman, but I didn't want to be sexually aroused anywhere near that dry cigarette butt of a man. This was the dude who rode a public bus alone to sit alone in a strip club. That was pretty damn baffling, too. Or maybe it wasn't baffling at all. Maybe everybody is lonely. Maybe everybody is exactly the same amount of lonely as everybody else. And, yeah, we might pour our loneliness into different containers but maybe it's the exact same type of lonely, too.
Or maybe I just decided that maybe the loneliness thing in the world would be watching a beautiful woman stripping in her duplex living room in Post Falls, Idaho. Maybe that shit would've won the Olympic Gold Medal in Lonely.
And what about the Debutante, the friend and roommate? Jesus. I didn't want to add to her misery. She'd obviously and justifiably decided to hate me. I just wanted my fifty bucks. I just wanted to drive back to my job. I just wanted Anna to change her mind and tell the Navy to fuck off. Or wait, I was happy that the Navy existed. I was happy they protected me. I didn't want them to fuck off. I only wanted them to tell Anna to stay home and accept my imperfect love.
“Listen,” I said to Misty. “I just want the rest of my money. And then I need to go back to work. Though I've probably already lost my job.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“I'm sure," I said.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “Your loss.”
She and James Dean stepped out of my car and walked arm-in-arm toward the house. She didn't look back, but he did. He smiled and said, “Thank you, dude."
I waited ten minutes for the rest of the money.
And then I waited for ten more minutes.
I knew I wasn't going to get the rest of the cash. I should've been happy for the twenty-three dollars that I’d already received.
And then the Debutante pulled back the curtains and stood in the front window like a night watchman. I guessed her friend would be apologizing to her in the morning. I guessed there had been many such apologies. And the same number of forgivenesses. And that their relationship would keep working like that. Until the moment it stopped working. Until there were 1,000 apologies and only 999 forgivenesses.
The world isn't fueled by fire or wind or water. The world runs on resentment.
I waited a few more minutes for my money and then I drove back to work. When I pulled into the PJ Pizza parking lot,I noticed that Harold Reynolds had sent me a bunch of text messages.
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Don't come back. You're fired.
I sat in that parking lot and counted my money again and again. I hoped the act of counting would turn twenty-three dollars into fifty dollars. I was hoping for paper alchemy.
I cried. But then I stopped crying. I realized my pain was only worth a few moments of tears.
Then I texted Anna a row of emoji ships.
And then I texted her, "Bon Voyage."
And then I walked into PJ Pizza to get my job back. I'd tell Harold about Anna and the WalMart ring. But I wouldn't tell him about Misty, James Dean, and the Debutante. I didn't know if he’d hire me back.
Yeah, like you know, like all of us know, Harold Reynolds giveth and he taketh.
"Romance was easier before everybody could Google everything." Loved that, loved the whole story. It had more than a ring of truth to it
"a thin slice of decency". What a succinct definition of what our world needs right now. thank you