It was a combination of getting back together with my wife and getting burnt out with it. When you’re delivering pizza around Northeast Baltimore you have to be constantly on your guard when you get out that car.

During the week, I would go to my construction job—be there—at 6 and I’d work till between 2:30 and 3:30, come home, take a shower, throw on a nice pizza deliverin’ outfit and be at the pizza place by five and work until 11, sometimes midnight.

It wasn’t all a bed of roses. There was more to delivering pizza than banging the phone girl and the female customers and drinking Johnny Walker with the guys on Glenmore. One time I was delivering pizza on Mary to this big dindu woman—who was decent woman—and some driver cut me off and when I hit the brakes her toppings all slid to one end of the box and I had to spread them back over the pizza. I cleaned my hands before and after, but still, stuff like that happens and it bothers you. She had no complaints and kept ordering, so I guess I might have been good enough to work in the kitchen too. All the little stresses of the pizza business begin to add up.

I sometimes did construction on the weekend, depending on scheduling, how bad the job needed down.

The construction pay during the week, was usually bringing home between 800-1,100 dollars a week.

During the week with the pizza thing, I was making 50-60 dollars in tips, not including the hourly pay.

On the weekend, I’d make up to 200 in tips at least a hundred.

Was a hustler, I’d wait a couple minutes and take an extra order or three and speed out of that bitch. But the Nigerian guy was happy with the $6 an hour under the table.

So I was bringing home:

Pizza: 4 week nights = $300, plus 2 weekend nights, $300, for a total pizza man income of $600, all tax free, not including gas money…

Construction: 5 days take home $8-1100.

We usually didn’t work weekends, but when we did it paid you’d get time and a half or double time. Some jobs, anything over 8 hours is time and a half.