Category Archives: delivering pizza

Sugar stealing biker midgets and other hazards.

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(From Pizza Pie Chronicles, Pavo Magazine, 2010)

Okay, I’m a middle aged white woman. I look like somebody’s mother because I AM somebody’s mother. I don’t look the least bit mean or intimidating. Friends and even complete strangers (delivery customers) worry about my safety. Justifiably so, it seems. When we were trained, the manager assured us casually we’d be robbed sooner or later.

But I am a sensible person. It’s hard to rob a person in a moving vehicle. I trust my instincts and believe me, if I think it’s not safe to get out of my car, I won’t. Some nights have spooky moments. My phone loses reception in all the worst places. One street started off okay, nice little ranch-style houses, a streetlight or two. But before the numbers counted down to my appointed destination, the road petered out into gravel. The last streetlight was busted. My headlights illuminated further down the road, where the gravel ended and the red clay rutted track led uphill and out of sight.

Next to me was an old one-story house, with boarded up windows, sitting crooked on the lot like it’d been dropped there by an absent-minded giant. Oh, the rest of that road looked so dark. You know in scary movies where the audience shouts “Don’t go down to the basement! DON’T OPEN THAT DOOR!” — I had those kind of vibes. And unlike the pretty young heroine in the movies, I paid attention to those vibes and whipped my little car around and headed back to the store.

The map for delivery drivers posted on the wall of the store has great swathes marked off in bold black: “NDAD”. It didn’t take long to figure out that meant “no delivery after dark.” I drink lots of caffeine and stay alert.

Of course some (or most) of the fear for my safety is based on the race thing, whether people are willing to admit it or not. So it’s ironic that my first brush with trouble would happen in the nice mostly white suburb on the fringes of our delivery area. I was delivering to a business, with the word “shop” in its name. I got there and across the street I saw what was clearly a biker bar. This shop, then, must be where those leather-clad hooligans got their bikes tuned up and decked out.

The owner of the shop saw me headed in with a load of pizzas and wings, and graciously held the door open for me. With a bad feeling in my gut, I saw the repair shop had a pool table. And a bar. And it smelled like liquor, and it was cloudy with cigarette smoke. I set the food down on the bar and turned around to get paid. A man in black leather came towards me waving a fifty. He was a little the worse for drink. I later heard this place has a rep for pretty good home brew. He actually looked like he was about to fall down.

He handed me money and I said politely (as I’d been trained) drivers weren’t allowed to take fifty dollar bills. He waved the money again and said I’d better take it, the extra $10 was my tip. So I took it and turned to leave, holding the now empty thermal bag. Really bad vibes practically turned the air purple. “Hey,” the drunk biker said. “I want that bag to keep my beer in.” His buddies stopped playing pool to watch a more entertaining game.

“I’m sorry, sir, I can’t sell it to you.” I know I sounded prim. I wanted to sound like a Sunday school teacher. I was clawing behind my back for the door knob. He interrupted me. “Sell me your hat. I want your hat.” His buddies laughed. This was fun.

“You can buy one at the store, sir,” firmly, a “don’t bully your classmates” tone. I turned and put my hand on the door handle.

“But I want some sugar. What if I stole it?” From behind, he reached up and put his forearm across my throat. A classic choke hold. But notice I said, “reached up.” He was short. I mean, really short, like five or six inches shorter than I am. It was kind of like a five-year-old in black leather and whiskers taking on a tenth-grader.

In the weeks that followed, I have thought of so many ways I WISH I’d responded. People have (of course) told me how I should have reacted. If I’d only bent my leg at the knee and raised my foot up sharply, there would’ve been a connection. I could have screamed and then extorted money from all the biker dudes. I probably could’ve copied some lame karate move from a spy movie and thrown him. That would have been real entertaining.

But I did none of these. I twisted loose and jumped in my car and drove away as fast as I could. I stayed mad a couple days, until I told the story to some friends. One of them positively howled. “Sugar stealing midget bikers!” I told him I was stealing that. And I can’t wait to go back. I know what to do now.