The Delivering of Food

912 Finlayson Street
I pull up and park. Got steaming hot pizza here. It's a remodeled older house on a busy street. There are a couple of decent foreign imports in the driveway. I imagine a young couple with a child ordering out after some evening renovations. The lawn is elevated by nice stonework. The eccentrically large door opens after numerous locks are unhinged. I'm greeted by a giant painting of a hairy vagina. Two dykes appear. Both have short hair, glasses, and wear overstretched denim. They hated me before I arrived. They both say “about time.” I glance at the bill. It’s taken me twenty minutes to get here. I am, of course, in error when I correct their credit card receipt. They’ve tipped me a hundred dollars. My honesty is inevitably rewarded with a one-dollar tip. No one says thank you or good night. I kick over a flowerpot on the way back to my car.

23 Shady Willows Lane
If you're going to complain about your food being cold when it arrives don't order souvlaki from thirty kilometres away. It’s simple mathematics, right? It takes me an hour to find this place. It's in farm country, down a private road, down an even more private driveway. There are three houses with no address. The last one I knock on is the right one. I'm berated with a story about another restaurant that is inexplicably closed on a Monday night, their usual Greek place. And then I'm berated about the food “feeling” cold through the brown paper bag. I honestly don't care. I listen, smile, take the cash and as I leave I run over a garden gnome, it’s crushed torso with its etched grin left gazing at the evening sky.

I’ve just graduated from University with a degree in Anthropology and got a job as a Dishwasher/ Delivery driver at a Greek restaurant. My girlfriend works there, too. In September she will defend her masters thesis. Then we will go to Greece and get married at the restaurant owner’s villa. Beyond that, plans are vague.
Most evenings after work we drink our tips away with the restaurant manager at the pub next door. He tells fantastic stories, like sleeping with a Conservative MP in Ontario and doing cocaine with her off marble tables. He drinks gin and sodas quickly out of short glasses. His stories have you leaning forward on the table with your elbows, your hands supporting your face. I believe every word he says.

#1-1434 Mt. Pleasant Ave.
This place is just around the corner from the restaurant, a basement suite. I walk up and knock. There is some commotion and it takes a second before the door opens. I assume I was too quick. A short man opens. He stands there like a wounded sparrow. Through the crack of the door I see another man putting on his socks. They will be sharing one small pizza, cheese only. The man asks me if I've seen Dangerous Liaisons before. I say I have. He invites me into to watch it. I tell him I'm working but thanks for the offer. He tips me forty-five percent. I remember this house for the cash bonus.

9765 Birch Park Terrace
You've got to be kidding me. Who orders ten pizzas to Broadmead? It's half an hour away with no traffic but there is a lot of it and it takes forever to get there. On the way I pass the asylum where my parents met as psychiatrists. I remember a story they told me about a lunatic who stole the asylum truck. He drove the truck into a tree at the bottom of the driveway. I wonder what tree it might have been. A child opens the door and hands me a stack of small bills and coins. I count the money and she is three dollars short. I try to convey this to the child but she is only interested in the tower of pizzas I'm holding. The child takes the pizzas and closes the door. It's a cheap ploy by the parents and surprising, as it's a well-off suburb. I could ring the bell and settle this but instead I urinate the words “Fuck Ass” to the best of my ability on the manicured front lawn. It's late summer, shortly after dusk.


Most people in the restaurant’s kitchen don’t speak English very well in normal conversation. But it’s perfectly legible when it revolves around kitchen lingo: “table two order up”, “three order calamari, one Caesar salad”, “pour me a ginger ale, lady”. The front-end girls are all smoking hot, young, and for the most part, ridiculously flirty.
I often sit with Danny, the head cook, on breaks or during slow periods and have a pint of German beer. He had started, like me, as a dishwasher and delivery driver, but seventeen years ago. He worked his way up the ranks: driver, prep cook, pizza cook, head cook. To some degree, this frightens me. He’s told me of his life back in China as an Engineer and Architect. He had built and designed some of the most impressive buildings in Shanghai. I asked him why he left. He said for a better life. He works a second job on his day off. This frightens me, too.


678 Summit Place
Wow, this is a splendid place. Perched on the side of a hill in a part of downtown that I didn't know existed. There is some heavy construction going on. It would be interesting to come by one day and see what the finished product looks like. I find Gary, the guy who ordered the pizza. He's hammered. He wants to shake my hand. He tells me I don't shake my hand like a man. His hand feels limp, and lifeless. I wonder, according to Gary's standard for manly shakes, what one has to do to shake like a man? He refuses to let go. He might be using my hand for balance, or for some delusional reason, thinks he can score with the pizza delivery boy. He holds the box of pizza like a purse. The toppings surely stick to the top of the box. A man who looks like he could be a Dry-Waller walks by and says “goody, pizza!” and claps his hands as if in prayer. His claps create a cloud of grey dust and he walks right through it. Gary gives me a twenty-dollar tip. I'm positive his slurred eyes are trying to make out my ass as I walk away. I start to lurch like a cripple as an evasive maneuver. The next time Gary orders pizza I let Josef, the tall black guy, deliver it.

1246 Bay Street
I knew this one was trouble as soon as I found it. Right on the corner of two busy streets. A battered rancher with broken lawn chairs and empty beer cans in a yard protected by a molding fence. A couple of university kids answer. I give them the pizza. They look nervous but seem relieved I'm the same age. They say “Listen Dude, we don't have any money, we'll get you next time”, like for some reason that would be okay with me, like it was my pizza shop, like it wouldn't come out of my pocket. That sort of reasoning won't get you a university degree. There is not much I can do but slash the back tires of what is likely someone's parent’s vehicle.

582 Forest Rover Place
Houses in the rich neighborhoods can go one of two ways: really good tip or no tip. At this one I get no tip but an offer to come inside and watch the returns of the 2004 United States election. As someone interested in politics and only having a few weeks left on the job before I leave, I accept. I sit on the couch and eat humous and pita with a retired couple. They like my knowledge of the election and tell me they are glad the youth today are aware of these things. I like that they are supporting the Democrats, especially since they are in a rich neighborhood and didn't tip me. I still can't help myself on the way out and stomp out a spectacular looking floral display.

Sarah and I spend most days sleeping in and watching television because we were out all night guzzling the money that should probably feed us and pay our rent. We watch Days of our Lives with real passion. Sometimes we record it if we actually have to leave the house and do things like laundry. We’re really into Magnum P.I., too. It’s on every afternoon at two on channel six. Usually, at three, we watch a show that documents horrific murders in American towns no one wishes to hear of. Then we go to work and before our shifts begin we both have a cigarette out back with a small glass of wine in a teacup.
We think we are pretty smart by keeping the same schedules. If one of us gets off early, the other sits around and has a drink or five with Ned, the manager, or the other staff. At all times we are extremely negative about how ordinary people live their lives and rant and rave about how this depresses us and swear that we will never be like that.

No. 12-8763 Bolton Apartments, Bridge St.
I go to an apartment in the seedy part of town. It's one of those apartments that have a walkway to the front door, like a motel. These are always bad news. The curtains are drawn. A faded Canadian flag lists from a side window. A Folgers coffee tin bulges with rain-soaked cigarette butts near the door. A fat woman answers. Right away she starts into me about how she ordered Pepsi. I tell her we only have Coke. She says Sid knows this and always brings her a Pepsi. I tell her I'm not Sid. This doesn't change anything. I offer to go get a Pepsi. She's okay with this. I go to a corner store and ask the owner if I can trade a Coke for a Pepsi. After some negotiations, he agrees. For some reason, I have to pay the deposit. On the way back I park on the side street next to the parking lot of the building. I lick every piece of pizza in the box and sprinkle my belly button lint over top. It looks like oregano. I then light a smoke and ash in the side of tomato sauce. This provides the allusion of freshly ground pepper. To top it off, I rub the can of Pepsi in to my right armpit for thirty seconds. I give the fat lady the Pepsi, pizza, and side sauce. She acts like nothing has happened between us. She gives me a dollar tip and then a fiver to give to Sid. I say thanks, leave, put the cash in my pocket, and tell Sid about the Psycho when I get back. I keep the fiver.

A few months later Sarah and I get married; a couple of years after that we get divorced. Throughout, we tell ourselves that our lives will change and that that we’ll get real jobs, host dinner parties, buy expensive cheese, be ordinary people. I’m convinced that we will pay off our student loans and credit card debts and that we’ll take another fabulous trip, this time to Russia, or Hungary. Instead, we pay off nothing and take trips camping to nearby lakes, visit her family in Vancouver, or house-sit for my parents when they take airplanes to interesting places.

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These days I become nervous when I see garden Gnomes. I avoid Nurseries and stare straight ahead when I drive by them in people’s front yards. It doesn’t matter if the gnomes are alone or are in family clusters. They stare accusingly at me like some sort of karma police, reminding me what I did, of who I was.