Pizza With Sven
Waldo Abraham Crane of Waldo’s Pizza in the town of Factoryburgh looked out the foggy plate glass window and saw rain pouring down. He huffed and looked away.
Christmas Day my ass, he grumbled, his hands traced with flour while kneading dough, It’s supposed to be snow piling up.
He sneered and he sighed, slammed the dough like a medicine ball onto the table and thought about giving up for the day. For thirteen years on every Christmas he’d been flipping the sign in the window from CLOSED to OPEN, and for his normal hours, not that half-day bullshit some businesses did. No, Waldo didn’t do anything halfway. He committed to it from beginning to end, even if it was a catastrophic failure.
But there were times he didn’t want to keep going. This was one of them.
He looked down at the pile of dough on the table and thought to himself, I don’t need to pick it up, I don’t, nobody’ll come today. It was 11:32 in the morning. The clock on the wall said so but it was a few minutes fast so it was probably closer to 11:35, but the pre-noon hours didn’t stop Waldo from drinking from a bottle of blackberry brandy.
A big drink, some of it dribbled from the corner of his mouth and ran down to his apron to add to the berry patch of other brandy stains.
Waldo kept the radio on when he worked but it was mostly for background noise. He liked to work alone, didn’t want to be bothered by people slowing him down. Waldo worked fast and furious, and he’d rather burden the stress of running the pizzeria solo than have to get out of the way for one single employee. Waldo had a process, and his pizzas were made with an almost grim uniformity. They were always delicious and perfect, best damn pizza in town, the only differences were toppings. Same old slab after slab after slab. Anybody got in the way and they’d ruin his Zen routine, and the pizza would be shit.
Sometimes he’d hear a song on the radio that got him grooving side to side in some imitation of dancing, and just this moment at 11:32/11:35 he heard a song that he hadn’t heard in years, the song Can’t Keep It In by Cat Stevens.
Waldo picked up the dough again and danced with it, a silly grin forming on his brandy-stained lips. For a few moments he tossed the dough with lightness and ease, singing the words he remembered and humming the ones he forgot. He didn’t think, he just tossed dough and danced. It was weird, because Waldo actually felt good while doing his work. It was still automatic but it wasn’t the chore it had become.
He’d stayed open on Christmas for different reasons throughout the years, from the idea that the only pizza place open would make a killing to providing a service for people who were alone on the holiday, but beneath it all Waldo just wanted to share what he loved with other people who loved it just as much. The more the years dragged on the more he decided people just didn’t love it the way he did. His life’s work was utterly disregarded on the day he wanted to share it with everyone.
The DJ said the song was a Christmas request for a special someone and Waldo pretended it was him. When the song ended Waldo came down from the reverie and felt a shadow of a grin still on his lips, so when he heard the door open up the smile that came to his stubbly and kind of ugly face was genuine.
“Morning, come on in, what can I get you?”
“Brrrrrrapppee!” the customer almost shouted in a high-pitched squeal, and shook himself dry like a dog. Water spit everywhere. The oversized hat on his head stayed in place while his head spun side to side. It was an ugly hat, faded camouflage with a faux fur trim.
Waldo was frozen in place and for a moment he wondered if this was a crazy man. He was hesitant to say anything else, but the new customer stopped shaking water from himself and, in a voice that can only be described as ‘fuckin’ weird’, said, “Hi! I,” he poked himself in the chest, “Yes, I am Sven! And Sven wants pizza!”
The dazed and glazed look on Waldo was not noticed by Sven. The Scandinavian accent in his voice was thick and comical, and the stupid smile on his face didn’t help Waldo take it seriously.
Sven clarified and motioned a big circle with his arms, “Yes, yes, a pizza,” and then he poked the air here and there inside of the circle, “Pizza, pepperoni!”
Waldo nodded and said, “Uh, you got it, guy, pepperoni pizza, what size?”
Sven tilted his head to the side, “I don’t know ‘size’?”
Waldo mimicked Sven’s animated arms describing a pizza, “Small,” he drew a circle a foot wide, “Or big?,” he drew a large circle.
Sven’s eyes lit up, “Oh, pizza! I want PIZZA!,” his arms grew a huge circle, at least three feet around.
“I, uh, no can do, guy, I couldn’t make that big of a pie.” Waldo thought this man might be loose from the loony bin upstate.
Sven had zero reaction to Waldo saying it wasn’t going to happen.
“No, you make,” Sven said, that stupid smile never faltering, “You make a pizza.” Sven reached into his pocket.
“Look, buddy, I-” Waldo was cut off by the wad of cash from Sven’s pocket. It must have been at least six hundred dollars in a crumpled pile of cash, “Oh,” Waldo hiccuped, “Uh, alright, a pizza.”
Somehow Sven’s eyes lit up more. They looked like they were going to explode from the joyous pressure his smile was squeezing into them. Sven raised his arms in celebration, “Pizza!”
Waldo sort of smirked, “Uh, yeah, pizza,” and went to work rolling out the dough. Crazy bastard, if it weren’t this early I’d say he’s plastered.
His focus was on the work; he’d never attempted to make a three-foot diameter pizza before, and normally he’d outright refuse it, but it was Christmas and he’d likely not see another customer for the rest of the day. He focused on the dough but could hear the radio playing what sounded like an organ, an-
“Pizza!”, Sven had walked into the kitchen wearing that stupid hat and just about scared the shit out of Waldo.
“Whoa, buddy, you can’t step back here, your shoes are all muddy!”
That same stupid smile. Sven pointed to the radio on the shelf (it was covered in flour and years of abuse and just below a cabinet with a fading green door), “Music? Morrison!”
Waldo’s eyes narrowed and he realized he could hear Manzarek banging through Light My Fire, Waldo’s favorite song by the Doors. The weirdness of the moment was highlighted by the thought in the back of Waldo’s mind that Sven didn’t know the word ‘size’ but knew who The Doors were.
“Yeah,” Waldo said, “Morrison. Doors.”
Sven nodded a smile, “Doors.”
Waldo hesitated and, with a hint of hesitation, handed a ladle to Sven, “Pizza?”, he asked?
Sven shouted in joy, “Pizza!”
The two went to work making a monster pizza, singing along to Light My Fire all the way. Waldo found the experience way more tolerable than he expected as he crafted this giant pizza. It was bizarre and at first his body physically resisted stretching out the dough to such a large size, but with some concentration the magic happened.
They sipped from the brandy bottle together and before long Waldo was feeling a touch drunk. It took the two men working together with two pizza paddles each to load the monster into the oven, and they almost dropped it at least twice because they were laughing about how insane it was.
Waldo decided that Sven didn’t expect to actually get a three foot pizza but was overcome with joy that the pizza maker relented. Just some wacky guy with a ton of money and a weird Christmas wish. Waldo was enjoying the absurd Christmas activity even if, by all rights, he should detest making a giant pizza.
Sven was having a blast, too. He loved pizza the way poets sanctified a broken heart and the IRS devoured a tax cheat, and here he was at the heart of where pizzas were born. He looked around the shelves in the back, eyes amazed at the variety of toppings and spices, pastas from linguini to shells to fusilli to bow ties, and a lot of brandy bottles.
“She’s just about done, gimme a hand getting this out, Sven, it weighs a ton,” the pair went to work and were fairly buzzed from the brandy. The pizza was removed, it was cooked perfectly and looked delicious.
The two set it down on a table in the back and marveled at their creation.
“Pizza,” Waldo said solemnly and sipped the brandy and handed it to Sven.
“Pizza,” Sven repeated, recognizing the solemnity of the moment. He sipped the brandy.
Waldo felt a sliver of fear cut into his heart. What now, he wondered?
The radio played some more organ, and a drum thrummed its way through the speakers. Waldo and Sven knew immediately what song it was, but before they could sing it, the door opened.
Eight more customers walked in, and they all wore ugly hats and shook themselves dry and made some variation of “Brrrrrappee!” when they did. Sven’s eyes lined themselves in tears when he saw his family had shown up.
They looked at Sven and the air was charged.
“Pizza?”, one of them asked.
“Pizza!”, shouted Sven.
“Pizza!”, they echoed.
Waldo was amazed at what was happening as the Scandinavians swarmed to a few tables and Sven joined them, ample hugs and greetings around. Waldo smiled and grabbed out his biggest, sharpest pizza wheel and sliced the monster pie into slabs of delicious and cheesy goodness.
He served some to everyone, and they were all ecstatic and pretty god damn wild about. They were doing shots of hot sauce mixed with the brandy and making that weird “Barrreeep!” noise when they did, Sven at the center of them all, still wearing that stupid hat. But they absolutely loved the pizza, it was apparent on their faces. When they took a bite they were momentarily thrust into the lofty realms of nirvana.
When they were served Waldo made his way back to the kitchen and felt out of place in his own kitchen. It didn’t feel the same anymore, like it was missing something he didn’t even know about before. The song playing on the radio was mimicked by the guests (they were each different versions of Sven, humming the words and baarreeeping and wearing some kind of stupid hat but full of a zest for life).
“Pizza?”, Waldo was snapped out of his frozen stance by Sven. The boisterous man had walked back into the kitchen to get Waldo’s attention.
The smile was still on Sven’s face, but it wasn’t as joyous and stupid before. It seemed more genuine, softer, thoughtful. He touched Waldo’s shoulder and gestured with his other hand towards the tables in the dining area.
Waldo nodded and felt himself choke up. It wasn’t until this precise moment that he realized how very lonely he’d been, and how god damn grateful he was that he had a bunch of people who loved pizza as much as he did. When he joined the Scandinavians they all beamed and sort-of-sang the song on the radio, the incomparable Joe Cocker version of With A Little Help From My Friends.
Waldo, Sven, and the Scandinavians ate the best goddamn pizza in town, together. Waldo looked outside at the rain and decided that, yes, it wasn’t just rain anymore. There were some snowflakes out there too.