Pizza Gets Me In Trouble
The Guidance Counselor Snags Me
My love of pizza started when I galloped into Grandma's tenement after school. She was at the stove. She was always at the stove.
Well, that’s not true because she had so many other things to do that she didn’t spend every moment there. Perhaps that’s what I wanted to think because so many wonderful things came from there. Like the bread and oil treat awaiting me when I arrived from a vigorous day of play. It was simple and delicious and served with love.
“Ed-a-Wood. Here. Take-a. Itsa good-a fa you.”
My brother, cousins and I stretched like birds in a nest as she drizzled the oil on the crusty, firm bread. We may have been chirping. She pinched some salt, un pinzimonio. The aroma of warm bread and fragrant oil nurtured us. We didn’t mind the oil sliding down our necks.
And then there was the addictive pizza fritta, deep-fried pizza; crisp on the outside while soft and chewy on the inside. She topped it with a bit of tomato sauce.
And her irresistible pizza . . . soft, chewy, topped simply with oil and salt, sometimes combined with tomato sauce. The smells and tastes of Grandma's treats evoke nostalgia and comfort and remind me of the enjoyable days of my early years.
So you may wonder how pizza got me in trouble that day in junior high school when an opportunity led to a bad decision.
One day, I had a smoldering desire for pizza from DeLuise’s Bakery across the ball field, beyond the elementary school and Chalkstone Avenue.
DeLuise’s was the best place for pastry, pies and strip pizza; a neighborhood destination of smells and tastes. The Napoleons and sfogliatelle were amazing, but nothing beat the strip pizza. I could smell it from afar.
It was when the idea hit.
I skipped out before lunch break and scooted across the ball field for the warm, soft, savory, baked bread, crisp on the bottom and smeared above with layers of tomato sauce. I looked at my Dick Tracy watch. I had time to get back before the other students went to lunch.
The ball field was a stretch of infield dirt and outfield grass.
Rabid, I marched along, picking up the pace by third base, second base and right field toward center, kicking dust while looking over my shoulder. I had never done anything like this. I was a blue shirt, white bucks, baggy khaki pants, wavy-haired predictable kid. To do something out of the ordinary, like changing my wardrobe or leaving school early for pizza was a little frightening, but I was on my way, and there was no turning back.
Money from my paper route was jingling in my pocket. I crossed the street to the bakery and opened the door to the overwhelming aroma of pizza. I strolled to the counter. The strips were stacked neatly in a tray on top, wax paper separating the oily layers. Ah, the pizza; ten cents a slice.
“May I help you, sonny?”
I looked around. “Yes. I want two slices of pizza. Can you make one of them an end?”
“Sure. Aren’t you out on lunch break a little early?”
“Uh yeah, I guess.” She wrapped the pieces in wax paper, put them in a bag, and handed it to me. I gave her the twenty cents, spun around, walked out the door and crossed the street. The oil, seeping through the bag, was a calling card.
Once across the street, I opened the bag, reached in and pulled out the end piece, peeling away the wax paper after each bite. I devoured it, crunching the corners while savoring the taste of the tomatoes. Nostalgic oil slipped down my chin just like the days at Grandma’s. I wiped it with my sleeve. I folded the second piece in its wax paper, put it in the bag and carried it in my other hand. I licked my fingers and began my march back across the field thinking that by the time I got to second base, I would be ready for the remaining piece. Still, no one had been dismissed for lunch.
As I approached second base, I looked up to see her, the guidance counselor, an imperial, matriarchal hulk of a woman, standing in the school doorway, hands on hips. I could not see her face, but I knew she was wearing a scowl. I felt her steely eyes boring through me from afar.
I stopped at second base, turned toward right field took a step, started, turned back, turned to left field, took a step, and stopped, again. She waved. Head down, I shuffled my way across the infield, dragging my feet in the dust. I was done for.
After an eternity, I approached her. There was no room to get by. “What’s this about?’ she barked. “Why are you out while no one has been dismissed? And what’s that in your hand?”
“Uh, not sure.” I looked at my hand. “Pizza?”
“Come with me.” I blundered along, following her heavy heels that clicked along the corridor. By this time, the kids were getting out of class.
They stopped. There was nowhere for me to hide the bag. My pocket could never manage the bag and the oil. They snickered. They knew.
Crowd-conscious and humiliated, I trailed her down the corridor to her office like a shamed puppy, passing other kids now gliding along on their way to lunch. I tried to pocket the bag to no avail. She stopped. She turned. I stopped. She motioned me into her office with crooked fingers. ”Sit . . . there!”
I snuck by her sideways as she stood at the door to her inner sanctum. Impatient, indignant, she was eyeing my oily bag with calculated appraisal, one eye half closed, her lip turned up. Maybe she wanted a bite. What if I offered the slice in return for a pardon? That’s it. I’ll give it to her. She could take it to the teacher’s lunchroom.
She sat miles above at her desk, ogling me, her bushy eyebrows spread-eagled. I avoided eye contact as I slouched in the hard chair alongside her desk.
“Sit up. Good posture. What is this about?”
“I was hungry, so I went for pizza.” I sat up and held the pizza low beside the chair as a trickle of oil seeped through the bag and slithered down my fingers.
“You know this is unacceptable.”
“Yes.”
With a nefarious glare and an arthritic curl of her hand, she picked up a fat pen. “What do you think I should do? I could call your parents, you know. Even worse, I can get the Principal.”
“I don’t know.”
She paused solemnly, staring at me, her granite chin tilted slightly upward. I wondered how her bright red lipstick meandered around her lips, the top part a horizontal inverted number three. “OK. Get out of here.” I bolted out of the chair. “Don’t let it happen again. And, by the way, get rid of that pizza.”
Get rid of the pizza!? Curses, the final blow, the worst sentence of all. I tossed the greasy bag into the bucket near the door and wiped my hand on my khaki pants. “Yes, Miss F. Thank you, Miss F,” I replied, one foot out the door, the pizza in the waste bucket not easily forgotten.
Hmm, did she take it for her lunch and smear that lipstick?
Reminds me when I visited my grandma on Federal Hill. She would always make a treat for me which was day old Italian bread spread with a little water, olive oil, sat, and pepper and heated in the old black oven. Delicious.
This story had me salivating. I know it is only 11AM, but I need to make a pizza right now! By the way Ed, I grew up on Chalkstone Avenue and attended Nathaniel Greene Jr. High. My dad had a store called Hospital Spa across Oakland Ave. from the school. He was there 40 years and I worked there with him from the age of 12 for 10 cents an hour. MY dad used to sing O Sole Mio with a beautiful voice when I was there with him. Such great memories. My mom was always in the kitchen too. I remember eating eels, chicken legs and other unusual delicacies. MY siblings and I used to rush to read all the newest comic books as they arrived, but first we had to remove the outdated ones and stamp the new ones with the hand held date stamp. I love your stories. They bring back those simpler times with great affection.