Vinny is a thin, kind-faced “off-the-boat” Italian who labors at his oven behind a counter flanked by a wall painted with the likeness of his cliff-side hometown. His pizzeria is the center of a predominantly Chinese commercial strip in the northeast corner of Queens, New York, a couple of miles away from Flushing. Many of his lunch patrons are Asian.

Dominick, the man he speaks with, is a muscular man, also in late middle years, who sits across from his delicate, bleach-blonde wife as he speaks in a thick Queen accent over his shoulder.

Dominick: Why are you working on Sunday?

Vinny: It is good to see you, but a shame I must work seven days to do so. I have this man working for me, and yesterday—Saturday—he informs me that he works no more Sundays. I say, “My friend, I have worked six days, can we begin your new schedule next week. I am supposed to go to church with my daughter tomorrow.” He tells me “no,” he works no more Sundays beginning today. So, I say, “Then, my friend, we part company here. I am lord in my own house and demand only courtesy and cannot have that—so now I work all week, and you go on your way.”

Dominick: I would ask you his age, but don’t have to—he must be in his late twenties, early thirties maybe. I have my own cross to bear, a real piece of work, this guy who paints houses for me. Mind you, I contract with millionaires, nice houses, people with class. This guy can paint, but he’s a bum, goes through money like water. He lives in the house while he paints it, sleeps in their bed like Goldie Locks, uses their shower. I tell him, friend, you can’t paint a million-dollar house for top dollar and crack the man’s fridge, eat his cold cuts, drink his beer.

Vinny: Why not flip houses? I know a man who bought a house for eighty-thousand, remodeled it and sold it for nine-hundred thousand. You could do that.

Dominick: I have been tempted: the neck, the back the shoulder have all been cut on, the neck twice. But with the characters out there, I end up doing everything anyhow. I work for other people and do it myself. I downsized, got rid of the Beamer—what the hell, it’s white. You have to park it and someone will scratch it.

Vinny: What about Florida, for your pain?

Dominick: Florida? Florida we just came back from. Let me tell you, my friend, Florida is for the newly wed and the nearly dead! It is like a tomb. The swimming pools are empty. No one sits on the beach. The women wear not only hats and sweaters but scarves too and it’s hot. They looked at me like I was nuts for wearing a tank top. When I am ready to die, I will go to Florida.

Vinny: How about your daughter? How is your daughter?

Dominick: Oh, she’s doing great. She married this guy who is a doctor, and she’s a school teacher. They done good, living out on Staten island. What about you, my friend, what will you do?

Vinny: I am thinking of finding a buyer, retiring.

Dominick: Yes, that’s what we do when we get old. But there is no one to fill our shoes. No one who cares about what they do with their hands or takes pride.

Vinny: And so it goes, my friend…