The Pizza Boys E-Book

Keith Kelly

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Woodstock is a teenager, growing up restless and bored in the small East Texas town of Werchet.

It's the 1980's, and this town seems to never let its citizens leave: to be born in Werchet is to stay there. Woodstock is afraid that delivering pizzas, day after day, will always be his life.

Determined to change his future, Woodstock sets goals for himself and plans to escape Werchet’s clutches. The only thing standing in his way are feelings for a girl he knows will hold him back from his dreams.

Can Woodstock find his way out of Werchet, or will he forever remain one of The Pizza Boys?

Leseprobe

THE PIZZA BOYS

KEITH KELLY

CONTENTS

Also by Keith Kelly

Acknowledgments

1. Woodstock

2. Jenny

3. Growing Up

4. The New Job

5. Kenny

6. Darla

7. The Neighborhood

8. Jenny

9. Woodstock

10. Darla

11. Kenny

12. Patty

13. Pizza

14. Jenny

15. Woodstock

16. Speed Limit

17. Carmen

18. Darla

19. Live Aid

20. Kenny

21. Paralyzed

22. The Band

23. Carmen

24. Pregnant

25. Darla

26. Woodstock

27. Carmen

28. Not Much to Do

29. Peace

30. Kenny

31. Patty

32. The Letter

33. The Space Shuttle

34. Kenny

35. Woodstock

Epilogue

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2021 Keith Kelly

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2021 by Next Chapter

Published 2021 by Next Chapter

Edited by Terry Hughes

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

ALSO BY KEITH KELLY

The Symphony Of Life

The Instruments Of Life

The Magic Blanket Fort

A Day With You Poetry Collection

American Dream Poetry Collection

Dedicate to the real Pizza Boys,

Ronny, Michael, Todd, and me.

Those were the best years of my life.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge Clifford Todd Oswald for reminding me of something I said many years ago that I had forgotten about. That reminder and a short typed conversation between us inspired me to write this book. Thanks for all your support.

I also want to acknowledge the true-life pizza boys. Because of you, because of us, I have memories that led to this book and, as I said in the dedication: “The best times I ever had.”

“You know you have hit the big time when Eric Clapton is playing back-up for you.”

KELLY DARROW

1

WOODSTOCK

Working at a pizza restaurant delivering pizza is an excellent thing for a high-school kid like me to do. Driving around town getting paid is cool. I am in the 10th grade, and this is how I make my spending money. The year is 1983, and I am 15 years old, enjoying my first real job. It enables me to memorize the streets, so I can deliver pizzas fast to the customers. Several of my buddies work at Mr Gravits pizza, and they talked to the manager about giving me a job. Randy, my friend from school, mentioned that they were hiring at the restaurant, so I applied, and the boss gave me the job.

Mark, Barry and Rod are my other friends who work here. Randy got them the job as well. Drivers get paid $3.35 an hour, which is the minimum wage, plus 50 cents per delivery. The more deliveries, the more money the drivers take home at the end of the night. The trick is getting several pizzas moving to the same area of town. Barry is the master at this.

I drive a ’76 Mercury hand-me-down that Kenny helped me buy from a neighbor. Kenny is the man who has raised me. I consider him to be my father. I spend nights driving the city streets, trying to deliver as many pizzas as possible. Some nights when I cash out, I have 80 or more dollars. Most of us drivers arrive at work at 4pm. and get off around 2am on the weekends. After work, we often sit around drinking and playing the video game Galaga until the sun comes up. I go home, sleep, and do it all over again. Trenton, my supervisor, is in his mid-twenties, but that seems old to us.

Kenny applied for a work permit for me, and they granted it. The state also allowed a hardship driver’s license for me to drive during working hours.

Darla, Kenny’s daughter, is 18 and works at a fashion boutique. It’s doubtful Darla will ever get out of Werchet. She is what people around Werchet refer to as white trash, but actually she is a wonderful person, just a bit misunderstood.

Monday mornings are tough because I don’t get off work until 11 on Sunday night and then go to school next morning. I often doze through Mrs Brown’s first-period record-keeping class. The teacher likes me, and I like her, but she rides my ass. She even went to Kenny’s work once, telling him how I am throwing my talent away because I don’t apply myself. I’m not super-intelligent or anything, but bright enough to recognize what I have to do to pass the 10th grade. The only interest I have is just getting by.

Kenny was my mother’s best friend when they were in kindergarten until she died in a car crash on my first day of school in the first grade. The principal and the school counselor came into the class to get me that morning. As they walked me to the office, I felt the principal’s hand on my shoulder as he walked by my side. I thought I was in trouble for something, and I did my best to think of something wrong I had done, but nothing came to my mind. I remember hearing the principal’s heels clacking on the tile floor as he walked. I liked the sound and, looking down, I saw he was wearing brown dress shoes with shiny gold-colored buckles. We reached the office, and my grandparents and Kenny were waiting. My grandparents were sitting in front of the principal’s desk, Kenny was standing looking out of the window. When I walked in, Kenny walked over to me as my grandparents stood up. The principal walked behind his desk, taking a seat in his huge leather chair. Kenny dropped to his knees, making eye contact with me, and he told me the news.

“Woodstock. After your mother dropped you off for school this morning, she had an accident with another car. She passed away. Do you know what that means?”

“Like my dad?”

“Yes, hon, like your dad.”

The news devastated me, and I cried and screamed as I fell to my knees. The anguish was crippling and suffocating.

I lived with my grandparents for the next year until I was seven. Grandpaw and grandmaw were getting old, so Kenny asked them if I could live with him. I loved Kenny and had been around him my whole life, so I wanted to. I went to stay with Kenny and his daughter Darla. Kenny always embraced me. He is a great man. After two years, I started referring to Kenny as Pops. Kenny treats me like a son, so calling him Pops makes sense. The man is the only father I’ve ever known. Kenny is a good provider for Darla and me. I see unhappiness in his eyes and I wonder if he feels stuck in Werchet. I want to get out of Werchet some day, but I don’t hate the town. Darla does. She fucking despises this place. Guitar playing I see as my avenue out so, hopefully, I will never be stuck here. However, if I stay here, I will not necessarily view it as being stuck.

Mrs Brown, my record-keeping teacher, always says I am quite the dreamer.

“Yes, I am,” I respond.

She thinks the world of me as I do her. Students see her as hip. Mrs Brown is always going to Kenny’s garage, talking to him.

A fling may be in their future. It doesn’t bother me any. Pops needs to get his like the rest of us.

I pay close attention and realize most people are unhappy. Most search for more in life, regardless of what they have. Some use alcohol and drugs, hoping to fill a hole in themselves. Well, I ain’t clear what life does to a person but, based on what I’ve observed, I ain’t sure I want to be an adult. It seems adults find jobs, which they hate, get married to a wife or husband they aren’t happy with, and bitch about each other until they die. Many adults appear miserable. At least my friends and I think so. One day after class, I asked Mrs Brown what was the matter with adults. She responded by saying: “The youth of the time. That’s what’s wrong with us.” She loves to be sarcastic. Then she asked me what I meant, and so I told her they all seemed unhappy, aside from her.

“Mrs Brown, why do you seem happy when no other adults do?”

“Why do you assume most adults are unhappy?”

“The way they look and carry themselves. Even people I deliver pizzas to look unhappy.”

I told her how I heard couples fighting, cursing each other like dogs when I made deliveries.

“So you think I live a peaceful life?” she asked.

“Yes. What do you do to be happy?”

“Simple. I feel content and thankful with what I have, and I don’t owe more than I make.”

“That’s it?” I asked.

“That’s the answer.”

“Wow! Rock on.”

I thought about what she said, not owing more than she makes. Mrs Brown is right. As I drive through the neighborhood looking around, I notice that people have so much shit in their garages that there isn’t even enough room to park their cars in them. That’s what Mrs Brown meant by having a bunch of crap you can’t manage and don’t need. Mr Watkins, my neighbor, is a sanitation worker with a new Mustang. Ain’t no way he can afford that on his salary. At this moment, I decide as an adult I intend to be like Mrs Brown. On Monday, I will tell her my goal as it will make her happy. She will still fail me in her class, however, for not doing the assignments. That’s OK because I don’t need her class to graduate. I am just taking her class because she is so rad. Mrs Brown always asks me if I know what I am doing credit-wise. What she means is, am I sure I have calculated everything correctly. I’ve added up the credits and understand what I need to pass the tenth grade and high school.

I ask if she will go over the credits with me.

“Hell no, that’s your problem, not mine.”

Mrs Brown has looked at my credits, however. The student office aide is my cousin, and she said she saw Mrs Brown with my file one day.

Mrs Brown always seems calm, but I saw her get mad once. My friend Stan and I were sitting in our cars in the parking lot drinking beer during lunch. Stan had one or several too many, and when he returned to class, he heaved up all over his desk. Mrs Brown fumed. The stench of puke and alcohol captured the room. She sent him stumbling down the hall to the nurse’s office. Mrs Brown never told the principal, I guess, because Stan never got in trouble. She acts cool like that; she understands kids.

This incident was the talk of the school. I told my friends that Stan and I were drinking baby buds in the parking lot, and Stan drank too many, and he threw up all over his desk in class. We laughed so hard for several minutes. The next day, the principal called me to his office. Mrs Brown was there also. I got suspended for having alcohol on school property.

“Why did you report me and not Stan?” I asked Mrs Brown.

“Stan will never amount to anything. With him, it doesn’t matter. If you have guidance and discipline beginning now, you will. That’s why.”

It’s Friday evening, and the rain is pouring down in sheets, which means work will be busy. Every person in town will call to have a pizza delivered. I should make good money in tips. The first pizza to hit the delivery shelf is for Mr Lazaro, and he is a big tipper. He lives over on Warren drive, about 10 miles from the pizza place. The old dude seems to be a good man in his sixties, and he’s the only person I’ve ever met who served in the Second World War. Mr Lazaro was a prisoner of war. Randy, my co-worker’s dad, knows him, and he says Mr Lazaro suffered torture and beatings by the Germans for more than a year. You wouldn’t think it, although I ain’t sure what a beat man is supposed to act like, it is strange to think someone would torture Mr Lazaro. His wife was a teacher at my high school. Mrs Lazaro retired the year before I entered.

Mr Lazaro always orders a large pepperoni with extra cheese, and he has me stop and get him a six-pack of beer. Mr Lazaro calls and tells the owner of the Quick Stop to sell beer to the pizza-delivery kid. Once or twice Mr Lazaro has given me a beer.

I arrive at Mr Lazaro’s house in good time.

“Hey, how are ya, Woodstock?”

“Fine, and you?”

“Not bad for a rainy night.”

Mr Lazaro gives me the money for the pizza and beer and a three-dollar tip. Driving out of the neighborhood, I plan to take a round or two uptown before going back to work. Uptown is a strip that we kids cruise called Victory Drive. It is about three miles long, beginning at a roundabout by Kroger’s, going west with a detour through the Sonic. It continues west to the Dairy Queen, where we turn around and drive the opposite direction where it starts over, and we do this for hours. There is also a store parking lot where we will pull in to talk with one another. Cops come through and keep us from assembling. It’s known as the pig lot.

The point is that if I didn’t fuck around so much during deliveries, I could make more money. Sometimes I make special deliveries that generate more money. These deliveries comprise a pizza along with a bag of weed to specified individual customers. Customers requesting special distributions are clients of my employer. I bring the bills back to Trenton, and he gives me 20 per cent, which means I end up with extra dollars a night added to the gas pay and regular tips. I am the only one that my boss trusts for special deliveries.

Another regular customer who calls in on Friday nights which Trenton almost always delivers himself is the Corral Club. This place is open during football season and it’s where all the high-school kids go after the games. It has live music, air hockey, and pool table games. A woman named Mrs Hawthorne runs it. She runs a tight ship. Only 11th and 12th graders can go out into the parking lot. Everyone else has to stay inside. Mrs Hawthorne knows what grade every kid is in. There is no sneaking anything by her. My boss delivers her pizza because, if any of us delivers to the Corral Club, we will hang out and lose track of time and be late returning from a delivery. Trenton is only 25. I think he likes delivering there to see the high-school girls.

Mrs Hawthorne’s husband is a coach at the local college. Both do a lot with youngsters in the community, keeping kids busy. When Trenton can’t deliver for some reason, he sends me to the Corral Club to make the delivery. Girls always ask me to dance when I go, but I don’t know how, so I don’t let myself into that situation. Something I like about the club is Skip Hankins plays rhythm guitar in the band. What a fantastic guitar player. Skip dated Darla for a while. One time I walked into her room and she was going down on him.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Fuck ya,” she responded.

Darla is easy, a good girl but has slept with every boy in her class and mine.

Everybody loves Darla. One night, after closing the pizza place, we were all sitting around drinking when Trenton, my boss says: “Woodstock, does your sister have a boyfriend?”

“No, why?”

“I would love to knock the bottom out.”

“Darla will let you whether she has a boyfriend or not, but you are like 25 and she is 18. Can’t you get someone your own age?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Just ask her to screw. Cut through all the crap,” I said.

Rod’s older brother comes into the pizza place to bullshit sometimes. He says not to waste time giving a girl many lines – just come right out and ask her to do it. I thought about that approach, but I don’t have the guts. He says it works and I suggested Trenton use this line with my sister Darla.

Darla isn’t my real sister. I refer to her as such because it makes things less complicated. If I tell people she is the daughter of Kenny, the man who raised me, I have to go into the whole story of losing my mother and father when I was little. I miss my mother and think of her often. I can’t remember much of my dad. Almost everything I know about either of them Kenny has shared with me. I do remember a special moment walking through town with my mother one day when I was very young.

2

JENNY

“That guy is wearing a loud shirt.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

I couldn’t help laughing, “No, son, I mean bright colors that catch your attention. That’s another meaning for the word loud.”

“Oh. Why do adults make everything so complicated?”

As we walk hand in hand along the sidewalk downtown, among random car horns, I ponder about what my child said, and I agree with him. Adults complicate things. The simple idea of being a kid is much easier. As a child, I remember thinking about very little. Woodstock is five; his father died in a car accident when he was one. Since then, I’ve been a single mother, working as a server at a truck stop out on Route 5, just past the Handy Man liquor store. It gets tough being a single parent. There are times when I wish I had a man to help, but I seldom date, much less have a steady man. I went out twice with a man I work with named James. He is a good guy, but the chemistry between us isn’t there. In this small farming township in Texas, chemistry doesn’t matter for most women. If a girl finds a man with a job, he’s worth keeping.

I am different. This girl wants more. No way will I settle for the little-town crap, as I plan to get out of here some day. At 24 years old, I’ve only been out of town a handful of times, never leaving the state. Many people in Werchet are narrow-minded. Progressive, that’s what I am. Samantha, my childhood friend, is a year older than I am. She has a daughter named Cindy, who lives with her father in Dallas. He is a guy who made it out of here, and Samantha let her daughter go with him because she didn’t want her getting stuck in this town pregnant by a boy who would run off.

I am not sure what will lead to Woodstock and me escaping from Werchet, but somehow we will make it a reality. Right now, we live from paycheck to paycheck, which isn’t much. I make good tips probably because I am a pretty girl, like a red rose sparkling in morning dew.

It feels like an obligation to help my parents, so I do what I can for them. They own a little farm outside town. Dad was born and raised in Werchet, so he has closed-minded thinking. Mother shares the same beliefs. I don’t fault them or the locals for their lack of progression in life. Small-town crap just isn’t for me. The fact is I need more in life. I want more for Woodstock than the small-town life. There’s a world out there I plan on us experiencing. I may be stuck being unworldly, but my son will not. I want him to feel free and at peace. To live in a place where he is challenged in his thoughts, where he will get an education and a career some day.

Werchet is not so bad, but I fancy not dying in the town where I was born and raised. Werchet is 15,000 people settled in East Texas’s piney woods about 200 miles east of Dallas and about 40 miles west of Shreveport, Louisiana. It’s an excellent place to grow up, with minor crime, although there isn’t much to do. Teenagers ride up and down the road, drinking and stopping in parking lots to talk with friends. Hanging out of the car windows trying to flag friends down. Music blasting as they cruise the strip from sundown to sun-up. Most people here are farmers, and there is an old courthouse where old people sit and talk and one small high school where football is next to God. Many residents are stuck in their old southern ways. It’s more about the attitude towards life than the town or the people themselves. Mr Smithers, my neighbor, always treats us well, helping when we need it. One winter, I caught the flu and couldn’t work a few days. Mr Smithers brought food from his store, and it was a lifesaver.

I began making changes in my life by enrolling in Junior College in the nearby city of Kilmore two weeks ago. It’s the closest college to Werchet, with an easy grant system. It’s a friendly college that will serve as a good starting place for me to take basic classes. No clue what I want to study, but bettering myself is my ideal. Kilmore is a half-hour drive one-way, and my car is not the best, but it’s all I got. Kenny, my childhood friend, who has always had a crush on me, checked it out and fixed it for the cost of the parts.

As far as college goes, I’m not sure where my interests lie. I finished high school but never cared for any of the subjects. The morning I drove over to check out the campus, I met Mr Travers, my academic advisor. I noticed right away walking through campus I was older than most pupils. Many of them are just kids. I look around at them, and they are so young, barely out of high school.

I am excited and hoping new opportunities will arise. Life will be busy as I have Woodstock to look after, plus I plan to work doubles making up for the days being in class. Most students take only part-time jobs, if at all. Some work full-time but don’t have the responsibilities I have. I have to raise a son and help my parents when the harvest is slow.

I may have fallen into the typical small-town-girl story, but I want to change the outcome. I did finish high school and then fell straight into marriage. Shit, I graduated one day got married the next. I thought I was so mature. This was what my life was supposed to be, like all the girls in town, actually. This is what our parents taught us, and their parents taught them. I work at a truck stop. Chuck, my deceased husband, worked at a gravel plant and had no ambition to do anything any different. Overall, I have no regrets in life – I’m glad I met Chuck and gave birth to Woodstock. I love that little boy. I also loved Chuck. His death strengthened me by teaching me to be independent and to raise a boy alone. His death gave me confidence. Strange to say that, but that seems to be the case. He would be proud of how I moved on with my life.

School is going great. Theatre Arts is my favorite class. The stage terminology is boring but learning about acting is interesting. My mother studied drama but met my father and dropped out of school. She settled down in Werchet and took care of the house while he farmed. I swore I’d never follow that route. That is why I attend college. Who knows, maybe I’ll stay in Werchet but, if I do, it will be because I choose to. Years ago, I asked Mom if she regretted what she gave up being a farmer’s wife. “No,” she said.

If she hadn’t chosen this path, neither Woodstock nor I would be alive. I plan to take control of my life. Never give up my dreams or goals. The first is finding a vision. The long-term goal is not to get stuck in Werchet. There are things I like about Werchet. The people are friendly, and I meet many people at my job. I like meeting new people who pass through town. When meeting someone interesting, I talk with them and then write about the experience in my journal.

The other day I met a couple from New York City I found fascinating. He was a retired man from steel manufacturing and his wife was a former schoolteacher. It’s amazing how much personal information people will tell you about themselves if you take the time to sit and talk with them. This man discussed their son Charles, a broker in Manhattan, and their daughter Lucy, a Broadway playwright. Listening to them tell me the story, I could see in their eyes how proud they were of their kids. It was a sparkle that only proud eyes can make. The man would take a bite of food, tell me about his son, take a drink of sweet tea, and tell me about his daughter.

Many people pass through the restaurant, but I never remember meeting anyone from New York City before. I shared with the man and his spouse about enrolling in acting classes at a nearby university. The man advised me to remain in school and make something of myself and that I’d be glad for that choice. Unlike most people my age, I am confident it’s good to listen to older people. They have been through life situations that have given them experience. It’s hard for me to understand why a younger person wouldn’t listen to someone who has been through life and had more experiences. Still, some younger people’s nature is to rebel against older people’s advice if what they say is something the younger person doesn’t want to hear. I learn from all people. Take my professors at school, for instance. I like and admire them, their knowledge and their practicality.

Acting class is my favorite, but I don’t want to major in it. I’m smart enough to realize my major of study needs to be in something more stable. Making a living as an actor is a long shot. I can’t risk it as I have a child to take care of.