PIZZA GUY’S LAST STAND

It was a Saturday night & the band was playing at one of our regular bars out in the western suburbs. The very same one that hosted (was cursed with) the last R&B Rockers’ gig. Although, to be honest this area was less of a suburb & more of a mobile home community. The bar was located in a strip mall on the main highway & happened to be next store to a pizza place - not sure which one, but one of the big chains. The bar served food (microwavable food, nothing special), but they stopped serving food once the band started. They did however have an arrangement with the pizza place next store where bar patrons could order pizza (the bar had copies of the pizza menus) & it would be delivered to the very table that called it in. Or, sometimes people would just go next door, order their pizza & have it delivered to them when it was ready. Either way, it worked well for both the bar & the pizza place, a “win-win” if you will, that is, until this particular night. A group of women all in their late 20’s or early 30’s were out on the town, or at least at this strip-mall bar & around 10:30 or so they decided to order pizza from next store. The pizza arrived just as we were headed to the stage to begin our last set. The pizza guy said as if surprised “cool, a band, what kind of music do you play?” We told him (all the while wondering how he could be surprised to see a band, since the stage directly faced the wall between the bar & the pizza place & the bar wasn’t that big to begin with! However, being the friendly chaps that we always were, we explained to this dumb-ass that we played the usual bar band crap, R&R, R&B & some country (asshole). This must have pleased him because the next thing we knew he had delivered the pizza to the women’s table & was now dancing with a couple of them!! We thought “well maybe he’s on his break” but then we noticed he had ordered a pitcher of beer for the table & was drinking most of it himself. By the end of the night we all realized he wasn’t going back to work & for some reason (maybe because he was now a ‘drunk’ pizza guy), he thought that one of the “ladies” should go home with him & it didn’t seem to matter which one (even though it was obvious to everyone else in the bar that none of the “ladies” felt the same way). The bartender quickly called the pizza place & soon another uniformed pizza guy came into the bar to try & remove drunk-pizza guy, but he still wouldn’t leave, he said “you can’t tell me what to do, I’m your manager!!!” That made the situation even weirder than it was. We were starting to tear down & do the load out & most of the bar crowd had either left or was leaving while this was going on. The women’s group that he had joined decided to leave & suddenly he was ready to go (with them he must’ve thought). By this time sober pizza guy must’ve called the main boss because as we got outside there was a big scene going on between the women, drunk pizza guy, sober pizza guy & some new guy we hadn’t seen yet. The women eventually left while drunk pizza guy was distracted by the sober pizza guy & the new guy. We were only able to get bits & pieces of the incident (actually a pretty loud argument) while we were going in & out of the bar loading our equipment into our various vehicles coincidentally, just as we got the last of the gear outside & were finishing loading (& were all able to view the scene together) all hell broke lose. Drunk pizza guy decided to go after the women (who were long gone by this time) but as drunk pizza guy pulled his car keys out of his pocket (which took an eternity for him to accomplish) the new guy grabbed them out of his hand & tossed them to sober pizza guy. This put drunk pizza guy in an even shittier mood & he started screaming almost to the point of sobbing. That was enough for the new guy (who indeed was the main boss & it was indeed enough), because he suddenly yelled “that’s enough, you’re a disgrace to this store, you’re fired!!!” & with that, he ripped the ‘official’ pizza store patches right off of drunken ex-pizza guy’s shirt. This is too much for drunk ex-pizza guy & now he really does start sobbing – more like blubbering - & says” why don’t you just take everything? With that he takes off his pizza shirt & undershirt & throws it at his ex-boss. Fortunately before he takes off his pants (ya never know with drunks) he notices that sober pizza guy is driving his (drunk ex-pizza guy’s) car out onto the highway. He begins chasing the (his) car & screaming some more. He makes it out to the highway where exhausted, humiliated & of course drunk out of his mind; he collapses in the ditch separating the east & west highway roads. The boss turns to us as if he just realized we had seen all this & explains “I better go take him home & put him to bed & bring Tony (sober pizza guy?) back, he took Joey’s car home, I hate when he gets like this”. He nods goodbye & drives over to pick up Joey (drunk ex-pizza guy) & take him home etc. It was quite a sight & quite an evening, even for us. At this point Lenny the keyboard player turns to me & asks “so, ya wanna stop for breakfast on the way home?” & of course, being hungry, I did want to. We both had omelettes; mine was really good.