Man, What Are You Doing Here?

an essay about pizza, radio jingles, and busted romances

Photo by Tamas Pap on Unsplash

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Back in 1986, I delivered pizzas in Spokane, Washington. Our area of service included some of the city’s richest people on the South Hill and some of the poorest people along the East Sprague Avenue corridor.

One of my regular customers was a street sex worker who always ordered a pepperoni calzone and Diet Coke. She’d tip me 4 dollars on her 6 dollar meal.

Some of the rich folks would count out exact change to pay for their food and wouldn’t tip me.

Our boss was a short-tempered asshole who made us buy our official work polo shirts and yelled at us for putting the wrong amount of ingredients on the pizzas. But he also paid us 50 cents more than the miniumum wage, let us eat slices for free, and would sometimes deliver pizzas himself when things got too busy.

I worked alongside another driver, Greg, whose incredibly deep speaking voice turned into a beautiful tenor when he sang. He’d recorded a few radio jingles for local companies.

Greg was proud of that work. He’d given me a cassette of those tunes. Being a poet, I asked him if he wanted to co-write songs. But he had zero interest in writing his own music. Moreover, he was almost disgusted by the thought of performing onstage.

“No,” he said. “Never, never, no.”

I told him he was great but he just shrugged it off.

Once, when Greg and I were driving together to deliver twenty-five pizzas to a Little League Baseball gathering, he started singing along when one of his jingles played on the radio.

His voice was gorgeous.

One of our managers was obsessed with Billy Joel. She always played his songs in the pizza shop. So, as Greg sang in the car, I immediately thought of “Piano Man,” that autobiographical song where Joel plays in a bar filled with lonely customers who’d never followed their dreams. And yet, those failing people fully understand that Joel is far too talented to be playing in that sad-ass place. I thought of that lyric:

And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
and say, “Man, what are you doin' here?”

In the car, I wanted to shout that question at Greg. I wanted to ask him why he hadn’t moved to Los Angeles or New York in pursuit of a musical career. Hell, why hadn’t he even formed a band that played all the sad-ass bars in Spokane?

But I didn’t say anything. Greg was just my co-worker. I didn’t know him well enough to ask him about his fears and doubts. Maybe he was a committed anti-capitalist who didn’t want to sell his art. Maybe he had a debilitating case of stage fright. Maybe he just wanted to live a simple and private life in Spokane, Washington.

These days, I know enough about fame to know why some people turn away from fame.

A few weeks later, during a brutal heat wave, our boss decided that we drivers could wear shorts at work because the two delivery trucks didn’t have air conditioning.

I wore khaki shorts that reached my knee but Greg showed up in cut-off jean shorts that revealed far too much of his anatomy.

As blunt as ever, our boss said, “Greg, you can’t be delivering pizzas with your peaches hanging out.”

Greg had always been a mellow dude so we were shocked when he screamed and cursed at our boss. He tipped over tables and threw chairs across the room.

Then he released one last primal soul-wail and ran out of the shop.

It was a cinematic moment so the business phone kept ringing as we co-workers stood in silence. Then we put the pizza shop back in order and never saw Greg again.

A few weeks after that, I also quit in dramatic fashion when the delivery truck broke down at midnight four miles from the shop. I’d only earned ten bucks in tips during a ten-hour shift. I’d seriously burned my forearm reaching into the oven for a pizza. I still carry that scar. And I was distraught because my longtime girlfriend had abruptly announced that she was moving to Seattle for a job.

So I just left the truck where it had died and walked home.

A few days later, my last paycheck arrived in the mail along with my boss’s handwritten letter: “Sherman, your job is still here.”

I didn’t return to work. I followed my girlfriend to Seattle for the last few months of our romance. She was a white Christian conservative destined to marry a white Christian conservative—a steady blue collar man with a steady mind and soul. And I was a mentally-ill Indian boy poet who was destined to collapse at irregular intervals.

In the decades since I delivered pizzas, I’ve often thought about Greg. I lost that cassette of his radio jingles but I can almost remember one of them. Greg sang along with three or four other people. I think it was an ad for a restaurant—maybe a pancake house. I try to hum the melody but it remains elusive.

I only know that Greg sang the tagline alone.

I don’t remember the lyrics but I do recall that Greg’s tenor, when turned up loud, rattled the cheap speakers in the pizza truck.

Man, do any of us ever escape those places where we never wanted to be?