Karma Happens

            This blog sure is getting dusty, and to all my dedicated reader, mom, I apologize. As many of you may or may not know, the past few months (actually more like 7) I’ve been working at a pizza shop in my hometown of West Chester, PA called Saucey Pizza. I’m actually really surprised I have yet to write anything about it here, I guess my excuse is I’ve been busy with grad school. Some of you are probably wondering, "What kind of name is Saucey?" It comes from ether the saucey swirl we put on our pizzas or the state people are in when they walk through our doors on a Friday or Saturday night at 2AM. Both suit the name well. If you’re from this area you know that because Saucey is set up in a college town within the vicinity of roughly 20 bars it acts as a refueling station for those sober enough to remember its location (the main intersection of town across from our three story courthouse). This job has offered me the opportunity to deliver pizzas to the crack dens of downtown West Chester, clean up vomit off the floor, break up fights over nothing, and party with my boss. Aside from the crack dens it’s like college all over again! I actually did get to party with my boss in college (shout out to the Rickster if your reading this), but thankfully I never had a reason to knock on the doors of any notorious Harrisonburg meth houses (this is the only blemish to JMU’s otherwise friendly mountain town). I studied English at JMU, and lets just say my knowledge of W.E.B Dubois and the concept of double consciousness is useless at Saucey. The majority of people I serve have no consciousness. But that’s neither here nor there. The reason I’m writing this piece is not to inform you how wonderful my life is, but instead to offer some proof that the sometimes misinterpreted idea of karma does in fact exist within our lives. The story I’m about to share is a pretty extreme example of how it works, but it is still an example nonetheless.

            Let's first set the scene. It’s Thursday night somewhere between the hours of 10pm-12pm, essentially the lull between the hungry college kids who just finished a late night of studying and the stampede of booze hounds that arrive after the bars let out. My coworker Gage, a few years out of high school, is in the back chatting with our cook Jose as he swings around a foot long piece of dough by his waist side. There’s a brother hunched over the corner counter with a hazed over look in his eye munching away on a couple of slices. I’m at the register helping a sweet girl who’s acting extremely giddy. I can’t tell if she’s taken aback by my good looks or if she’s just this way all the time. As I take her order I glance at the door and see an older gentleman walk, sorry, stumble in and he begins to start a conversation with Gage. I couldn’t hear what he was saying initially, but from what Gage later told me the man excessively used the word “jamoke” to describe the brother hanging out in the corner, adding this extremely racist piece of advice, “You make sure to tell your boss you keep all N****** outta this establishment. I won’t accept that.” (Sadly this still exists in our world and if I had heard this at the time I would’ve refused service on account of bigotry). What I did hear was, “That guy (pointing to me) is he a jackass too?” By this time I had finished serving the girl and was now staring straight at this forty something year old white guy wearing an orange polo and a navy windbreaker. He had a disheveled comb over and a face like John Calipari. This is what ensued.

            “Are you talking to me?” I replied.

            “Your damn right I am.”

            “So, you always go around calling people jackasses?”

            “Just you.”

            “Ok. Do you want pizza?” (Surprising how fast people change their attitude when you have something they want.)

            “Yeah yeah, I’m just fucking with you!” He extended his hand as if to conjure up some type of formality. “Billy Edwards.”

            “Billy, I’m not shaking your hand. What do you want?”

            “Come on. Lighten up!”

            “Ok. What, kind of pizza do you want?”

            “Come on, just shake it.”

            “Tell me what kind of pizza you want or you can leave.”

            “Alright. I’ll take that one.” Billy pointed ambiguously toward the the glass display case housing the pizza.

            “Um, pepperoni?”

            “Sure, sure, whatever.”

            I looked over towards Gage who was standing behind the glass display and gave him a nod. He grabbed a slice of pepperoni and slid it into the oven. Billy now had his arms folded with his elbows resting on top of the counter. I decided to see if I could piece this guy together as I waited for his slice to warm.

            “So, what do you do Billy?”

            “What do I do? You wanna know?

            “Yeah, I do.”

            “I run the fuckin’ mafia.”

            “You run the mafia. The West Chester mafia?”

            “NOPE. The Italian, the Irish. Run ‘em all”

            “What about the German mafia?”

            “The German? Just know that I run this goddamn town. Don’t even think about fuckin’ with me.”

            “Alright, not fuckin' with you. I think your pizzas done.” I turned around towards the over, opened the door, put the slice of pepperoni on a paper plate and dropped it on the counter. “It’s going to be $2.50" 

            “$2.50!? You know what, how about I try your pizza before I even think about paying you for it?" He reached across the counter, picked up the slice with one hand and sloppily raised it above his mouth and chomped down on it like only a smashed forty something year old man could do. “Hmm, pretty good.” He dropped what was left of the slice back on the plate, threw his right arm in the air, middle finger displayed and slapped his left hand against his right bicep and casually blurted, “Fuck. YOU”. He then turned around and slowly staggered out the door.

            “Don’t ever bother coming back here again!” I yelled at him. Feeling as though that didn’t quite do justice to what just transpired I tried for a more personal insult, “I hope you drive!” Being an otherwise gentle soul I almost said, “Don’t” instead of “I hope”, furthering the frustration of the moment. By that time he was already out the door. The next customer in line was a couple who just witnessed what went down and bursted out laughing at my departing comment to Billy. They tried to make me feel better by joking about Mr. Edwards mob connections, but there was no denying the awkward tension still in the room. Gage was pretty dumbfounded by the whole situation, and afterwards he called his stepdad who owns a salon in town and is apparently friends with all the big wigs of West Chester. He had never heard the name Billy Edwards in his life.

            The next fifteen minutes of that night went along pretty normally, and then I looked out the window and saw a police SUV parked in front of the shop. An instantaneous feeling of redemption came upon me as I left my post behind the register and went outside to investigate. Located on the corner just to he left of our entrance I saw a group of three police officers surrounding a man in an orange polo. I immediately went up to the police officers who were standing with their hands on their hips staring at Mr. Billy Edwards, head down and shoulders shrugged with his hands in his pockets. I introduced myself to the officers, explained what had happened just a few minutes ago and told them all I wanted was an apology from Billy. He apologized, but it wasn’t gratifying at all, only because it felt like a parent making their child apologize to a neighbor for wrecking something on their lawn. If they didn’t catch Billy there’s no way he would’ve apologized, but at the very least he did pay for the slice and even gave a dollar tip. That also didn’t mean much to me. When I asked Billy what were supposed to think next time he comes in the shop, one of the cops interrupted and said I’ll most likely never see him again as he was “out of state”. I thanked them and as I began to head back I saw one of the officers detach a pair of cuffs from their belt as they motioned for Billy to turn around.

            When I got back to the entrance of the shop there was a group of five or six people congregated outside. They had seen me talking to the officers and filled me in on how Billy got nabbed. Apparently he had been walking in circles up and down the block and when he decided to cross the main intersection to get to the other side of the street (ignoring all crosswalk signs of course) a police car coming the opposite way almost hit him before laying on his horn. Billy was stunned by the horn and just stood in the middle of the street glaring at the officer. After he continued walking across the street the cop circled back around the block and found him on the corner in his inebriated state.

            While this remains the most belligerent customer I’ve ever dealt with, it comes nowhere close to the drunkest, as Billy was still able to form coherent, albeit offensive sentences. It's never fun dealing with bigots, but I was thoroughly entertained as I am most nights. More importantly, that run in reinforced my belief in karma, an age-old concept derived from a balance of morals and actions that run our universe. As most of us understand, the more good you put out into this world the more you’ll receive, and the same goes for the bad. I’ve seen it work both for me, and against me, and it seems the older we get the more we become aware of this universal truth. There remains however, a fine print that goes along with this theory, and that is for those who commit good acts only on the basis of expecting something good in return, the less likely some kind of good will be reciprocated in the way they are expecting. This is because karma isn’t a predictable system of exchange created by humans, its driven more by faith and a willingness to believe that everything you need and deserve will be provided for you when the time is right. That’s why people who ask themselves daily, “What about all the good I do? I’m always doing the right thing and I never see anything in return!” don’t seem to receive the benefits of karma.  It’s like watching a tree grow. You can give it all the sunlight and water you want, but if you sit by it and stare at it all day you will never see any growth come about. However, if you come back periodically with the belief that it will in fact grow, the more easily you will see the change and benefit from its fruits. In the case of Billy Edwards, he burnt down whatever kind of tree he had and got to experience an instant kind of Karma.

            With all that said I hope you go about your day doing good things and spreading love because it’s the right thing to do, not because you expect something in return. Know that all good deeds will eventually be repaid and that all wrongful actions usually find a way to come back around and bite you. 

            Thanks for taking the time to read this and keep stopping by the blog, as the summer months begin approaching I will be updating it more regularly!