Thirty Bucks

“Wanna buy a pizza?”

That refrain haunted my boarding school dorm every Saturday night of my senior year. Chase the pie whisperer was hawking the goods to raise money for the baseball team’s spring training trip to Florida. The weekend hustle was in the great American tradition of hard work, taking advantage of a captive audience, and promoting ill-defined social benefits. In this case our teenage hunger was assuaged and the team made a noticeable improvement in turning double plays.

New York City has always been a center of hustle. Whether it is people moving quickly, talking even faster, or a combination of both to sell some kind of ware, hard work and a willingness to pound the pavement was admired. When rain comes, a mysterious fleet of people appear at subway entrances to sell cheap umbrellas. When the sun returns, like woodland spirits at dawn, they disappear. I’m pretty sure they are also the same guys who sell green hats for St. Patrick’s Day and red, white, and blue gear for Fourth of July. Now these folks may not be future moguls, but everyone has a kind word for saving your suit from a soaking or providing instant gear for a holiday.

Then came the drama of the $30 New Year’s Eve pizza.

When a million people come together in Times Square to count down the New Year, all manner of things can happen. In the 80’s it was mostly muggings, stabbings, and an occasional shooting. In the Disney-like atmosphere of today, the talk is mostly about security and what kind of adult diaper people wear standing for 12 hours until the ball drops. Into this morass of opportunity waded the Domino’s pizza guy. With a store just off Times Square, he had a constant supply of pizzas and, literally, a million hungry mouths to feed. And as James Earl Jones’s character in Field of Dreams predicted, people were willing to hand over their money without even thinking. In this case, it was $30 for a pie. New York City, a legal (and tasty) product, and people with cash to burn. The man was set up for a nice pay day and be seen as a model entrepreneur.

So you would think.

“Price Gouging!” “Greed!” “How Could He?” Those are some of the printable headlines. In our modern nanny-state city, this fine man was decried as a war profiteer. I’m not saying he was feeding the masses with loaves and fishes, but he wasn’t the Judas of pizza either. Want a real rip off? Try the old man day-drinking bar that slaps a New Year’s sign on the door proclaiming an 8:00 PM-Midnight open bar for a mere $100 bucks. Trust me, neither the value nor the booze will be top shelf.

Beyond Domino guy’s foresight, there is something else that should elevate him to the street vendor hall of fame. How did he get to walk around the pens of people in the first place? Dubbing itself as “one of the safest places on earth,” the news outlets endlessly repeated the requirements for entry into Times Square, the army of cops protecting the area, and the “once entered you cannot leave or move anywhere” mantra. Apparently this guy has the skills of an Ocean’s Eleven safe cracker or warm pizza is some kind of sci-fi cloaking device.

Not as swift was our twit Mayor De Blasio who tweeted in part, “…I’m sorry this corporate chain exploited you—stick it to them by patronizing one of fantastic LOCAL pizzerias.” OK then, where were the LOCAL pizzerias that night? There are plenty around Times Square, and they all deliver. Knocking a man for hustling is even more insulting coming from a guy who has never done a full day’s work, honest or otherwise, in his life. Even worse, De Blasio proudly eats a street slice…with a knife and fork. Not very LOCAL.

So the start of 2020 looked bleak for New York until I scanned the headlines in the Daily News. “Man snatches woman off Bronx subway train, later beaten by good Sam[aritan]s.” Now that’s my LOCAL town.

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.