Number of Deliveries: 9
Sales: $263.91
Tips: $33
Hours: 2.73
Total Wage: $20.09 per hour
One of my early deliveries tonight is in the Rancho Santa Fe Farms development, which is where Janet Jackson used to own a house. It's right up the hill behind the Pizzeria, so it's always nice to get a delivery in here. When I arrive at the door of the large, white mansion, a giant bare-footed black man, who must be close to 300 lbs., answers the door wearing athletic sweatpants (San Diego Chargers colors––blue with a yellow and white stripe) and a tight T-shirt. I assume he's a pro football player, which makes me feel both perceptive and a little racist.
His cute little girl comes to the door with dried snot below her nose and her hair in small, tight braids that look like furry mealworms against her exposed scalp. She begins to mumble words, but stalls, and I think she's going to utter an unintelligible toddler talk sentence, but she says, "Is your mother here?" I laugh and tell her that no, my mother isn't here. The man hands me a crisp, one-hundred dollar bill, and I see an original (I'm blanking on her first name) Walker painting––the woman who does the amazing slave silhouette paintings and cutouts––behind him.
"I don't have change for a hundred," I say, and hand it back to him. He looks perturbed, then asks if he can use a credit card. "Yeah, but we have to call it in," I say. He walks away with that slow glide I notice is reserved for athletes (I've seen the college athletes of all shapes and sizes at my old university use this same slow-motion walk to cruise across campus, as if they're permanently exhausted or conserving their energy for an explosive athletic maneuver later in the day.) The man returns with a phone in one hand and an empty 32 oz. Gatorade bottle in the other into which, my God, he's spitting chew spit.
"What's the number?" he asks, as spittle of brown goo makes its way onto his chin. I tell him the number, and halfway through dialing it, he asks me to repeat it. As he waits for someone to answer, he bellows at his daughter, "Sophia, what are you doing?" She has her face close to the cement walkway, but looks up and feigns innocence. The man asks for my manager on the phone, spits into his Gatorade bottle, then slowly reads off his credit card number. I stare at his large, dry, bare feet, and for some reason the bare feet make me think he must be from the South. There's this feeling––which I'm completely making up but which is partially inspired by the Walker slave painting behind him––that he's thinking, The roles are reversed; who's serving whom now? How ya like me now? It's a real Ma Rainey moment.
God bless America, I think.
When he gets off the phone, I hand him the receipt, which I've converted into a credit card slip by drawing a tip line, a total line, and a signature line, and I say, "You can just sign this." He takes the receipt from me, and as he's about to fill in the tip line, I try one last time to make a connection by saying, "What's the name of the woman who paints those silhouettes?" I know her last name is Walker, but I don't want to get it wrong. He turns around to look at the painting, then says, with little enthusiasm, "Kara Walker." And like a fumbling idiot, I say, "Oh, right, I've seen her work in San Francisco," to which he seems unimpressed. He hands me the receipt, closes the door, and I fret at the $2 tip on the $29.58 order (6.76 %).
The receipt has his last name, so I Google him at home: La'Roi Glover. Turns out this 290 lb., 6-time Pro-bowl defensive tackle played 13 seasons with 4 different teams in the NFL, and just retired two months ago from the St. Louis Rams. He's not from the South; he's a San Diego native. And, get this, he's a year younger than I am; he just turned thirty-five on the second of last month. Wikipedia informs me he's married with three children and he even has his own La'Roi Glover Foundation, helping out local high school and college students. I can't help feeling jealous, followed by depressed about my own life. La'Roi has accomplished everything he needs to accomplish in life––no one expects anything more from him––and he's only thirty-five. He gets to play dad and humanitarian and golf and live in his mansion (and spit in Gatorade bottles!), all thanks to professional football. It somehow doesn't seem fair.(Yeah, right.) But I think, He'll never feel what it's like to be a disappointment to his family, unless, of course, at this point he gets caught in a hotel room with hookers and cocaine. He can even afford to buy art from his favorite famous painters. Imagine. My great life living at the beach and delivering pizza suddenly seems a little less great.
I climb back into my old car with the slowness reserved for top athletes, turn the starter over, and hear the now familiar sound of the motor boat muffler installed by the previous owner play its silly tune: bumph, bumph, bumph, bumph. I think of the consoling lyrics of another young, successful black man––Timbaland (b. 1971)––as I drive off: "Listen baby girl, I ain't got a motorboat but I can float your boat . . . ." And I hope my girlfriend understands.
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