Have you ever topped a slice of cold pizza with scrambled egg and bacon and eaten it for breakfast? It’s pretty good. I would know. It was a part of this very short term diet I tried only a few weeks ago.
I remember the night before that breakfast; I received a call from the pizza delivery driver who had my order outside. I met him in the driveway and retrieved my two large cheese pizzas.
My memory on this innocuous pizza exchange is subjective because, in my mind, the exchange between the pizza delivery driver and myself was anything but innocuous.
A few months ago, I turned thirty years old. There was a strange and poetic significance to my thirtieth birthday for two reasons: The first reason was that it was the first birthday party I’ve had since I was two years old. My girlfriend and brother organized a surprise dinner with close friends and family in attendance. When you’ve spent twenty-eight years never doing something special for your birthday, you have these “surprise blinders” on that make you physically incapable of detecting the tables all pushed together where people with faces you should recognize are all hushing and whispering.
The party ended and a few days later it was my actual thirtieth birthday. The other reason for my thirtieth birthday being strange and poetic … well, that’s a bit more complicated.
Some of this has to do with it being my first birthday without my late mother. She would’ve been seventy years old. I think one of the things I learned from her was to downplay birthdays and be humbled by anything that may happen. It was somewhat of a passive-aggressive ploy on her part to guilt her family into getting her something – but it was also a reflex like when a doctor hits your knee with that little rubber tomahawk.
“If you’re in trouble or hurt or need –go to poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help –the only ones.”
There is far too much history and baggage to get into here without writing an entire book (I’m a few generations too late for that to be a viable career!), yet to make a long story short – – my mother was raised by her first generation Irish Immigrant grandparents in Brockton after her mother passed away at a very early age. She worked her whole life but also had a sickening envy that led her to make bad decisions with her money. A quote from John Steinbeck can help explain this: “In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.”
As the pizza delivery driver handed me the two pizzas, I remember the look he gave me and thinking “he knows that there’s no one else here. He knows these pizzas are for me and for me alone.” This entirely unwarranted guilt manifested as I sat down. Before eating the first slice, I pulled out my phone, logged into my banking app and found the most recent charge: $19.
Two large pizzas delivered for under $20? Impossible! Well, I did some research beforehand and found a place nearby with a low delivery fee and a deal that was exclusive to Wednesdays: Buy one, get one free. Of course I tipped the driver. I worked at a pizza shop before. I’d never dream of it…
A week before this, my father and I entered the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse in Boston. We paid $25 to park, removed all of our metal belongings, passed it through security, made our way to the elevator, and headed to the 3rd floor Housing Court. As we were leaving the lift, my father’s landlord was awaiting that very same elevator. He sees my father and says amicably, “Hi, Doug.” My father responds back and reaches his arm out to shake the landlord’s hand. My father’s landlord responds back and says “What the hell ah’ you doin’ like we’re fuckin’ pals.”
After we walked away, I asked my father “What are you doing trying to shake his hand?”
My father said “We’ve been cordial up to this point. I-I-I don’t understand.”
I responded: “Dad, we’re at a courthouse. This is not a place people go to be cordial. This is a place people go to fuck other people.”
Over the past few months I have been severe with my father. He has become less my father and more a task that I must complete before I can move on to anything else. This saddens me. What saddens me more is how helpless he is. Since my mother passed away, he has not been able to afford rent and is now being evicted from his home. He is disabled and makes a fixed income.
One thing I know about myself at thirty is that I am not particularly well-suited for the economy in 2019. If there is a task that dwarfs all other tasks in its importance, I cannot focus on the smaller tasks. It’s not a trait I am particularly proud of. The laundry waits. The dishes wait. My organization at work waits. Student’s grades wait. Bills wait. A scheduled car maintenance appointment waits. My relationships wait. My own happiness waits.
Even my nutrition waits. With $9 left in my bank account before pay day, I ate that cold pizza for each meal — from Wednesday night to Friday morning. My guilt made me believe that the delivery driver knew what I was up to. Perhaps there were other options that could’ve been marginally cheaper – but, to be fair, I didn’t feel up to going grocery shopping after I got home from work on that Wednesday night.
I am ever so grateful that the surprises from family and friends – they don’t wait. And I hope to return the favor someday.
Speaking of surprises: A friend of mine made a GoFundMe page for my father so that he can get through the next few months. I love the people around me: https://www.gofundme.com/cw3fq-a-family-in-need?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fb_dn_cpgnstaticsmall_r&fbclid=IwAR0kwMx-hz1Nxj1o_kE86sbEBuifAe5MZB5-R1G_N9RP2HDljQSZU3P0yio
I know I’ve done this before – but any little bit can help my father get through the end of March. We made an agreement through the court with the landlord to pay rent until the day he is supposed to leave.
tcampbellmurphy 