by H. M. Mann
Byron laughed.
“I’m gonna regret asking, but …” Armstrong hitched up his pants. “What kind of information is worth a Vega?”
The priceless kind, of course! “If I wanted to open a pizza joint in Northwest that delivered exclusively to Northwest, where would I start?” Johnny asked.
Neither man spoke.
“Um, that’s the kind of information I need,” Johnny added. “I mean, I hope you don’t really want the car for giving me that information since I plan on delivering those pizzas in this car.”
Both men continued to stare at Johnny.
Johnny felt like a live moth stuck on a hot light bulb. “Can, um, either of you help me?”
“The old Pizza Hut building is still vacant on Melrose,” Byron said eventually. “That’s where I’d start.”
Armstrong stared at Byron. “Hold up. You want to open a pizza place that delivers, but you don’t have a car that runs … or any money … or any employees, right?”
Johnny nodded. “Right. I’d be a one-man show for a while.”
“You are crazy,” Armstrong said. “I need forty-five for the tow.”
Johnny peeled off two twenties and a five from the dwindling roll in his pocket. “I, um, I don’t plan on using a car at first.”
“Huh?” Armstrong said.
“I’ll probably hand-deliver the pizzas,” Johnny said. “You don’t see that kind of service anymore, unless you’re in a restaurant, right? I’d hand-make it and hand-deliver it to each and every customer. Once I’m established, I’ll get a bicycle with a big basket in front and later buy a golf cart with a warming oven in the back.”
Armstrong laughed.
Finally, Johnny thought. Armstrong is too uptight. He needs to loosen up.
“You can’t be serious,” Armstrong said. “Can you even cook?”
“Yes.” Time for the sales pitch. “I have toiled in many fine restaurants in the valley, from IHOP to Señor Pizza. If it’s flat, I can cook it.”
Armstrong blinked.
“A large pepperoni costs you about, what, ten bucks unless you have a coupon, so let’s say the average large pepperoni around here costs nine bucks. Agreed?”
Only Byron nodded. Armstrong looked steadily at the metal beams in the ceiling.
“I know from working for Hector at Señor Pizza,” Johnny said, glancing at the beams and seeing nothing special, “that it only costs him a buck-fifty to two bucks per pizza in food costs, thereby earning him a profit of about seven dollars per large pizza.”
Armstrong snapped his chin to his chest. “How many pizzas y’all sell a week?”
“About three hundred on average,” Johnny said, making a somewhat educated guess. “I’m sure Dominos easily sells many more than that a week.”
Armstrong looked at his huge feet. “The man at that little pizza shop makes over two thousand bucks profit every week?”
“Well, you throw in other costs like a driver, overhead, boxes, advertising, electricity, that sort of thing,” Johnny said, “and he probably nets … about fifteen hundred a week.” Johnny smiled. “All I need is to get into that old Pizza Hut building and start building some pizzas and a customer base.”
Armstrong looked at Byron. “You hearing this?”
Byron nodded. “Yep.”
“Dude, no offense,” Armstrong said, turning his full front to Johnny.
Johnny decided then and there never to take offense to anything said by a man who could block out the sun simply by turning his body halfway.
“Dude,” Armstrong said, “you’re white.”
“Yep,” Johnny said. “Since birth. But Reverend Springer always told me to reach for my dreams, so here I am, um, reaching.” He also told me never to run in the house and some other things I never remembered not to do.
Byron stepped closer. “Reverend Thaddeus Springer?”
“Yes sir,” Johnny said. “He and his wife were my foster parents for about six months when I was six. I went to Forest Park Elementary about twenty-five years ago.”
“Forest Park was all-black back then,” Armstrong said.
“Not quite,” Johnny said. I was the single grain of salt. It was a spicy place.
“You don’t say,” Byron said.
“I’m, um, a deacon at Faith Ministries. Pastor Payton is my, um, pastor.” At least I think he’s my pastor and I’m still a deacon. Can you fire a deacon?
Byron nodded and smiled broadly. “Pastor Payton is a great man. We take care of his car. Man sure can sing, can’t he?”
This is going so well! Johnny thought. I’m just not exactly sure what “this” is. I wish A would be as enthusiastic as B, though. Then the two of them could C what I’m driving at … so they can tell me what it is exactly. “Yes sir,” Johnny said. “So can Faith and their boys.”
“Most certainly,” Byron said. “Pastor Payton was a fierce football player in his day, and they say he’s just as fierce behind the pulpit. Armstrong even blocked for him back in the day.”
“When the spirit moves him,” Johnny said, “there’s nothing that can stop Pastor Payton.” And maybe the spirit—or Spirit—is moving me now? What exactly am I doing here?
The two men seemed to look at Johnny differently now, as if Johnny were no longer the crazy, drooling man in the straightjacket but perhaps the loony-tune allowed to wander the halls and maybe play with the inflatable blocks.
“To be honest, I haven’t been to church in about a month,” Johnny said. “I had been seeing Gloria Minnick, but we had a falling out.” Because she had a pressing need to press some French flesh.
Armstrong stepped even closer. “Marion Minnick’s granddaughter?”
“Yes.” Gloria, the woman with the interesting hands who used to feed me lollipops. Wish I had a cherry Dum-Dum. I didn’t eat breakfast.
Byron inched closer. “Describe her to me.”
“Well, Gloria is about five-six with short brown—”
“Her grandmother,” Armstrong interrupted.
“Thin, maybe five feet tall on her tiptoes, white hair that floats above her head like vertical cirrus clouds, makes sweet lemonade, meddles in other people’s business all the time, has excellent hearing, doesn’t want me to call her ‘ma’am.’”
“He knows her, all right,” Byron said, nodding.
“You got along with old Marion?” Armstrong asked.
Is this a trick question? “Yes.”
Armstrong closed his eyes. “You’re kidding! That woman … ooh.” He snapped his eyes open. “I got to go out with Gloria Minnick just once in high school, and then her grandmother … ooh.”
Johnny sensed Armstrong’s angst. “Gloria’s, um, she’s seeing some French guy now. Paul Something. Something French. Long hair. An archaeologist. Drives a Prius.”
“No,” Byron said.
“Oh, man, that is a shame,” Armstrong said.
Johnny nodded sagely. “Yep. A Prius.”
The three men stood there shaking their heads. Byron touched one of Armstrong’s massive elbows, and the two of them moved behind the counter, leaving Johnny to admire the Vega alone. It must be an A-B conversation, Johnny thought.
Byron waved him over several minutes later and pointed to a metal folding chair. “Take a load off.”
Johnny sat.
“How far did you get in school?” Byron asked.
Is this part of an interview? “I have an engineering degree from Virginia Tech.”
Armstrong’s face contorted, his eyes little slits, as if he were stifling some gas. “You went to Virginia Tech, got an engineering degree, and you deliver pizzas?”
“Delivered,” Johnny said. “I’m looking for something new, a new challenge.” It’s a brand new day. I watched The Wiz four times just to hear that song.
“Why in the world would you …” Armstrong shook his head.
“I know, I know,” Johnny said. “Engineers a few courses short of master’s degrees do not deliver pizzas. But I sort
of had to.” Johnny gripped the sides of the chair and stared at the floor. “I, um, survived the shooting at Tech. I wasn’t in the building at the time, but I walked right past him as he walked in. Could have been me, right? Haven’t been the same since. Used to work for the city but I quit that. Just couldn’t … concentrate.”
“We worked for the city, too, man,” Armstrong said softly. “Who was your supervisor?”
Johnny looked up. “The city manager her holier-than-thou self herself.” Very big hair.
Byron scratched his head. “I was working for the city then, but I obviously didn’t work for you.” He blinked. “Wait a minute. You’re Crazy Johnny, aren’t you?”
Johnny hadn’t heard that particular nickname in over three years. “That’s me.” Hey—I was even crazy before I went crazy. Guess I was just practicing for the real thing.
“Man, I wish I was on your crew,” Armstrong said.
Why? All we did was maintain the city’s shrubbery and water flowers in the median with smelly, non-potable water. “You did?”
“Yeah,” Armstrong said. “Other guys told us you made the job fun, and that you even got out there and worked beside your crews.”
“Supervising the cutting of the green and the trimming of trees was boring,” Johnny said. “We used to have weed-whacking races. I never won, but we always beat the rain and had real long breaks.” He looked up at Armstrong. “Why’d you quit the city?”
“We quit that noise together,” Armstrong said. “Got tired of it, the crap, the hours, the supervisors—no offense—the heat, the rain, the cold … So we opened this place. Business is steady, we make our own hours, we take vacations when we want to, and there are no performance evaluations or possibilities of layoffs.”
Byron smiled. “I can’t fire him and he can’t fire me. Mama would kill the firer.”
Johnny looked from Armstrong to Byron and back several times.
“No, we don’t look alike,” Armstrong said.
“So …” Johnny said. “What do you think about my pizza joint idea?”
Byron shrugged. “You have any money?”
Johnny showed them his thin roll.
Armstrong looked at the ceiling again.
Maybe he’s talking to God, Johnny thought.
“And yet …” Byron rooted around under the counter and took out a phone book.
“What you up to, By?” Armstrong asked.
Byron flipped a few pages. “Man needs a special car for his new business, one that will stand out and advertise his product for free.” He pointed at the Vega. “If that car doesn’t scream pizza, no car does.”
“It screams, but it ain’t screaming pizza, By,” Armstrong said. “It’s screaming, ‘I’m green.’ It’s screaming, ‘Don’t stare at me or you’ll go blind.’” Armstrong moved closer to the counter. “By, come on, don’t do this again.”
Byron smiled at Johnny. “Johnny Holiday, we’re gonna fix up your Vega and turn it into a show car.”
“But, By, why?” Armstrong asked. “If we restore it, there won’t be anything original on it but the body. It needs a new engine, By. And how is he going to pay for any of it?”
“He’ll work here till he at least pays for the parts,” Byron said.
“We got all the folks we can afford to pay now,” Armstrong said.
Byron shook his head. “Ronnie quit.”
“He was here before I left to drag the Vega here,” Armstrong said. “What happened?”
“Decided to go back to the army,” Byron said.
Armstrong’s eyes narrowed. “Ronnie was in the army?”
“He was just a bit AWOL is all,” Byron said.
“And you knew about it?” Armstrong asked.
Byron nodded. “That means we have an opening, Johnny. And once your business takes off, you can pay us for our labor with all those profits.” He ran his fingers over his own smooth chin. “You might want to lose the beard, though.”
Johnny nodded. It’s scratchy, and I make squirrels jealous anyway.
“So, Johnny, where are you living?” Byron asked.
Nowhere. “About that. I’m planning to move out today before I get evicted. I know I have forty-five days to vacate, but I’d go crazy if I stayed there another day.” The mice might miss me. I’ll just leave them the rest of my crackers. “So as of this moment, I am between addresses.”
“Somehow,” Byron said with a chuckle, “I knew you were going to say that. Got a cot in the back room, little standup shower, no curtain, a hot plate, a locker for your stuff. Place isn’t heated, but the weather will warm up. Stay as long as you like. Armstrong, tell him what his duties will be.”
Armstrong sighed. “By, come on, man.”
“I’ll earn my keep,” Johnny said. “You have a lot of cars out there that need, um, watching.”
Armstrong dropped his head. “Those are cars we’ve fixed that haven’t been paid for yet. We can’t keep doing this, By.”
“Tell him his duties, Armstrong,” Byron said.
Armstrong sighed and nodded at several men working under a car. “You’ll be doing what they’re doing. Sweeping up, doing oil changes, changing tires, replacing mufflers. You’ve done some welding before, right?”
What do they tell you to say in interviews when you have no clue about the task? Oh yeah. “No. But I am willing to learn.”
Armstrong wandered off, waving his hands in the air.
If he starts to lift off the ground, I will believe in God again, Johnny thought.
“Don’t mind Armstrong, Johnny,” Byron said, picking up a phone. “He just doesn’t have as much faith in human nature as I do.”
And neither did I, Johnny thought, until I met you.
“And you can use the old Caddy out back to get around town,” Byron said.
“Get around town?” Johnny asked.
“You got to go out and hustle up a loan for your pizza joint, right?” Byron asked. “That might take some time. Took Armstrong and me a couple months, and that was before the banks had their hands out to the government.”
Johnny nodded. I’m glad someone is thinking about my future.
“As you can see, we have a big enough crew for mornings,” Byron said, “because that’s when most folks want their cars fixed and ready, so mornings will be when you’ll have time to get out and get that loan so you can be rolling in the dough.” He punched in a phone number. “Bill, Byron. Got a seventy-four Vega here that needs some parts.” He held the phone away from him. “Johnny, you can use the Caddy to move your stuff from your place.”
Johnny nodded.
Byron pulled a set of keys from a hook on the wall and tossed them to Johnny. “Think it has gas in it.” He shrugged. “If it runs out, you know who to call.”
“I’ll fill it up.”
Byron pulled a twenty from his pocket and handed it to Johnny. “It’s an old Caddy, Johnny, a seventy-five Fleetwood, the largest American production car ever built.” He put the phone to his ear and shook his head. “No, Bill. A seventy-four Vega, not a seventy-five Caddy.” He covered the phone’s mouthpiece with his hand. “That Caddy out there has a five hundred cubic inch vee-eight. It’s twenty-two feet of American steel. It weighs over three tons and won’t fit in anyone’s garage. What’s in your pocket might not fill up a quarter of the tank.” He uncovered the mouthpiece. “Bill, you got to stop laughing every time I call you. Yes, it’s a Vega, and it needs some parts, OEM if you got ‘em … Yes, original parts …” He smiled at Johnny. “Got the Caddy for a song a while back. Man who sold it to me said Elvis once owned it.”
I’ll be driving The King’s old car? Johnny thought. Not bad!
“You go on, now,” Byron said.
“Thank you, Byron,” Johnny said.
“Go on.”
Johnny went on.
39
Gloria went off.
In her head.
Paul arrived a little after nine the next morning, waking Gloria from a res
tless nap. She had stumbled down the stairs after Marion had shouted, “The Frenchman’s here!” at the top of her little lungs. Now Gloria was fighting the urge to ignore him—and Marion, who was hovering a few feet away. Instead, Gloria steeled herself, opened the door, and said, “I told you that I would call you.”
“I know,” Paul said, “it’s just that I could not wait for that call.”
Gloria growled, “What couldn’t wait?”
“I am sorry for the way I behaved last night,” Paul said. “I have had a night to think about things, and what you said was right. I have no right to play daddy, as you say. I will do anything you ask to be near my daughter. Again, I am sorry for the way I behaved.”
What does he mean, he’s sorry? He’s not allowed to be sorry! He’s the one who’s been gone for five years! He’s the one who left me! I will not accept his apology. I will not allow this man into my house only twelve hours after I told him I’d call him. I will not budge from this spot. He’s only apologizing so he doesn’t have to pay back child support anyway.
“I have freed up some money to pay my some of my debt to you and to Angel,” Paul said. He took a check from his pocket and handed it to Gloria. “I know it is not as much as I owe you, but I hope it helps.”
Gloria saw a one followed by three zeroes. “Thank you,” Gloria said. What am I saying “Thank you” to him for? Okay, it’s a thousand more dollars than I had a few seconds ago, and I should be happy, but this is the man who owes me twenty times as much—
“I notice you have no car,” Paul said. “Perhaps I could purchase one for you and Angel.”
“Make sure he puts the title in your name,” Marion whispered from her elbow.
“Hush,” Gloria said. And that would be the first thing I’d have Paul do. “So you think you can just come over here and throw some money at me, offer me a car, and then you can see Angel whenever you like?”
“As I said, I will do anything you ask to be near my daughter.”
Gloria nodded. “Take me for a ride in your car.”
“Huh?” Marion whispered.
“I’m going to go see about Johnny,” Gloria whispered back.
“Sounds like meddling to me,” Marion whispered.
“I’ll just get my coat and we’ll go,” Gloria said to Paul, and she shut the door. “I’m not meddling, Mama. I’m concerned. There’s a difference.”