Food Court

Tonight my children and I dined at Gino's Pizza and I heard a song in the restaurant that brought me back to my high school job at Pizza 'n Pasta in the mall in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

"Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard off their "Hysteria" cassette tape. (I realize it is so uncool to use the term cassette but I grew up in the sucky 80's so I am not old enough to say album and not young enough just to use CD or Disc. My generation can best be characterized by a useless pile of thin shiny dark brown tape sitting in your lap as you helplessly put your finger in the tape hole, struggling to rewind the wheel and get the guts back into the plastic body).

"Step inside, walk this way
You and me babe, hey hey"

It was the summer of 1988 and I had a day job working at the Pizza 'n Pasta at the mall. At nights, I was a bus boy at the Red Lobster also on the mall campus. Each day I would drive my family's Ford Country Squire robin's egg blue station wagon with dented crappy fake wood barely hanging on the sides from my little town of Brandon, South Dakota (population 2000) to the big city of Sioux Falls (a half hour away with about 200,000 people back then).

I was able to get the job at the pizza place from a woman (Monique) who went to my church. She worked for the owner "Vini" in another establishment. I got the Red Lobster job on my own, going in and filling out an application. During my review, I told the manager Kevin Z. I wanted to grow up to be a Red Lobster manager just like him. He drove an IROC. I'm glad they didn't hold me to that statement.

The best part of that summer was that I ate free pizza all day for lunch and seafood all night for dinner. The worst part was that I had to resort to eating seafood mostly taken from the customers' leftovers or old fish that the manager needed to get rid of. By the way, leftover crab legs are gold in a seafood restaurant and only the waiters can eat them. Bus boys have to eat the non-shelled stuff. Another pecking order item you might not know until you experience it; when you close up the restaurant at midnight and divide the "example dessert platter", the most senior dishwasher gets first dibs and the bus boy once again gets last. Luckily nobody else liked Key Lime pie.

Every morning, I "stepped inside" the group of fast food restaurants in the round in the middle of the food court. These were tiny establishments, each about an eighth of a circle.

I "walked this way" through a tight little hallway to my summer cell.

"Love is like a bomb, baby, c'mon get it on
Livin' like a lover with a radar phone
Lookin' like a tramp, like a video vamp
Demolition woman, can I be your man
Your man"

Vini was a gangster. Actually, it turned out he was THE gangster of Sioux Falls. One of his legit operations was to be a bail bondsman. He would also employ prisoners on work release. I believe he did this not only keep in the good graces of local authorities, but also to take care of former and groom future "employees".

There were two types of workers at the pizza place. The cute high school girls working the register and taking the orders out front, and the convicts and guys like me working in the back making the dough and the pizza, safely out of sight of the customers.

One of the work release guys was in the back with me and I remember him motioning me over to him as he was talking on phone. He cradled the phone to his chest (the 80's version of the mute button) and pointed out into the crowd.

"Do you see that chick on the pay phone, you know, over there?" he gestured.

I nodded that I did indeed see the young lady using the nearby pay phone, over the counter, though the seats, near the crappy mall jeweler.

"Women know that guys in the joint are ready to go, and she's calling me to hook up, you know what I mean?"

I had no idea what he meant.

To this day, I don't know if he was able to copulate with this young lady who was interested in his unleashing his heretofore caged animal desires. You have to admit, it was impressive for him to get that far simply by eyeing her over the counter and slipping her a phone number.

"Razzle 'n' a dazzle 'n' a flash a little light
Television lover, baby, go all night
Sometime, anytime, sugar me sweet
Little miss-a-innocent sugar me, yeah"

I don't remember their names, but the little miss innocents that worked the front counter were relatively sweet and harmless young ladies who spent the work day dreaming about a better life and the rest of their free time, it appeared, lying under a tanning bed.

"Take a bottle, shake it up
Break the bubble, break it up

Pour some sugar on me, ooh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me, c'mon fire me up
Pour your sugar on me, oh, I can't get enough
I'm hot, sticky sweet from my head to my feet yeah"

The best part of the job was making the big glob of pizza dough. We would take the base ingredients, which included sugar, and mix them together. The worst part was opening the vacuum packed box of yeast. Yeast stinks, let me tell you, especially when it is expelled into your face under heavy pressure.

I would sing the above verse from this song while I was pouring the sugar into the mix, it was entertaining.

What was not entertaining wass watching Ray, the high schooler with full facial hair and a bad straw colored mullet, shaping the large lump of dough into a torso of a woman. He'd crudely form the breasts up top and then a slit an the bottom (complete with oil for proper lubrication). He would then simulate sex with his Dough Girl, luckily just using his fingers. I guess it was safe since we always wore clear plastic gloves. I didn't like leaving him alone in the back.

"Listen
Red light, yellow light, green-a-light go
Crazy little woman in a one man show
Mirror queen, mannequin, rhythm of love
Sweet dream, saccharine, loosen up
I loosen up"

One of the most depressing things I ever experienced was passing by the Pizza 'n Pasta years later, both during college and afterwards. I saw the same "once high school girls now grizzled women" working the counter. Crazy little women, mere mannequins in this small town life.

"You gotta squeeze a little, squeeze a little
Tease a little more
Easy operator come-a-knockin' on my door
Sometime, anytime, sugar me sweet
Little miss innocent sugar me, yeah
Give a little more"

My younger brother worked for Vini's son a few summer's later until Vini's son was put into federal prison for strangling his wife to death using her own pantyhose. Squeeze a little more.

"Take a bottle, shake it up
Break the bubble, break it up"

The jailed man on work release (whose name I unfortunately forgot) taught me that the Non Alcoholic beer we had in the fridge actually contained a trace amount of alcohol. He would slam the contents of the N/A bottles and report that he was able to catch a little buzz.

"Pour some sugar on me, ooh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me, c'mon fire me up
Pour your sugar on me, oh, I can't get enough
I'm hot, sticky sweet from my head to my feet yeah"

Ray had a girlfriend, a girl older than his high school age who had a full time job. Their relationship was way too serious, and I got the impression it made them feel like such adults to act this way.

During a span of a few weeks, Ray became demonstrably more frustrated and kept talking about how horny he was. He could get enough, but his "old lady" was having some unspecified female problems and so he couldn't "go there". He was very bitter about this. Sweet.

"You got the peaches, I got the cream
Sweet to taste saccharine
'Cos I'm hot, so hot, sticky sweet
From my head, my head to my feet
To my feet
Do you take sugar, one lump or two? "

As the lowest person in the ranks of Pizza n' Pasta, I was asked to do all the unpalatable jobs. Even the convicts got a pass as they couldn't leave the premises. I had to root around in the storage cellar during those hot sticky South Dakota summer months, getting more yeast, more boxes of soda concentrate and huge jars of the "secret pizza sauce".

Vini once asked me to help him carry some pizzas to his car and I was happy to oblige (for many reasons). I remember walking right past this Rolls Royce as he stopped and popped the trunk. My small town brain could not compute that this gentleman actually owned a car I had only seen on my 13 inch black and white TV during an episode of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous". I remember stupidly asking him, "Is this your car?" He laughed and replied, "I sure hope so, because if it isn't that means I stole it!" Perhaps he had.

"Take a bottle, take a bottle
Shake it up, shake it up
Break the bubble, break it up
Break it up"

I didn't really appreciate it at the time, but my managers (who shared time at Vini's other eating establishments) were all drunks and drug users. Professional, clean ones. One even did jail time, much to the chagrin of his wife and young daughter. I didn't even know what cocaine was, but I would overhear stories of how they were racing down the street in cars driving backwards, out of their minds, screaming at the top of their lungs. I recall wondering why they would do such a thing. Perhaps this is a reason I never touched an illegal drug (still haven't).

"Pour some sugar on me, ooh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me, c'mon fire me up
Pour your sugar on me, oh, I can't get enough
Pour some sugar on me, oh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me, get it, come get it
Pour your sugar on me, ooh
Pour some sugar on me, yeah
Sugar me"