Regarding Ron...

Ron was (still is) a driver for Mahjong. He was in his 30's, had a degree in both history and education, and an honorary degree in intense creephattery.

Ron seemed to have difficulty with concepts like "get to know someone the slightest bit before you sidle up behind them and massage their shoulders" or "don't continue conversations with me that you started with someone else without offering me any context" or "some people don't play World of Warcraft so this gibberish is completely meaningless to them". Now, rubbing up on total strangers is some USDA grade creep shit, but it was actually speaking with Ron that was jarring to me more often. 

There'd be times when I was cutting pizzas and Ron was talking to Jeremy. I couldn't hear them, but it was always pretty apparent that Jeremy was baffled beyond the capability for response. And when he would take a delivery out, Ron would saunter over and continue the conversation he'd started with Jeremy completely seamlessly.  

"Haha, that was pretty funny, man. Show me the fox." 

"I'm...sorry?" 

"Jeremy was trying to show me the fox." 

"You know I couldn't hear what you two were talking about, right?" 

"Yeah but I just wanted to say I agree. I gotta take this delivery. Make sure to tell Jeremy to show you the fox." 

About a third of conversations with Ron were mind-numbing non sequiturs with you trying to play catch-up in his hopscotch of madness, another third were him telling you all about World of Warcraft, and the last third were in-jokes he rarely shared with other people, like, "Show me the fox." 

After a couple weeks of prying, Jeremy and I found out that, "Show me the fox," was a product of one of Ron's blisteringly insane conversations. He was making a joke based on the idea that Jeremy was getting a tattoo of a fox tail sticking out of his butthole, as though a fox had burrowed into him.  

We resolved to start paying more attention when Ron talked.

But as creepy as he was, there was no denying that he also had a way of making you fear for your life!

One time, while folding boxes in the back, I noticed something tucked behind the electrical box for the store. I asked Jeremy what it was, and he walked over and pulled out an enormous fuck-off butcher knife. He explained that Ron kept it back there for reasons unknown. 



I decided eventually to confront him about it, and here is, as verbatim as I can recall, how that conversation went:  

"Hey Ron...I saw this, ah, knife, behind the electrical box in the back. Jeremy said it was yours." 

"Oh yeah, I always gotta have it back there." 

"Oh...why exactly?"

He looked at me darkly and said only, "Just in case."

At this point my pants were just filling with shit. I knew I was about to die. The smell of shit-fear was his trigger, he was going to strike. I could see how he'd do it, he was so much bigger than me, someone was going to clean the cornmeal-dredged shit off my dead--

"Gotta go! Show me the fox!"

Driving: A Primer

To this day, if you walk into my old Mahjong, and crank your head directly to the right, you will see a poster encouraging you to join the team. Among the collage of ethnically diverse, smiling* men and women, there is a blurb espousing the apparently insouciant lifestyle of a driver.

"Do you want to drive around in your own car, listening to your own tunes? As a driver at Mahjong, you can get paid to be your own boss on the open road."

If you're picturing a man sliding over the front counter, pizza bag in hand, giving a cavalier grin before he settles into his car, then flooring it for the horizon with the Beach Boys cranked so he can make it home in time to take his best gal to makeout point, you haven't read any of this blog prior to this point.

The order queue system was about as simple as they come. First in, first out. You take the order at the top of the screen, which is the most recent, when you return your name goes at the bottom of the list. Somehow the drivers managed to turn this system into a hotbed of human indecency.  

Taking a double was common practice if it was busy, but if you took two orders when it was dead, even if they were right next door to each other, you might as well have had the mark of Cain.  

Drivers had an extraordinarily long memory for being burned. There was a form of politics at work that was fascinating to watch. Deals were cut, rivalrous teams were formed, misdeeds from six months ago were brought up, all with viciousness that would be at home on a battlefield. It ill-befitted men fighting for 4 dollars in tips. These were men fighting to live.  

The in-fighting wasn't simply to take more orders, either. It was to avoid known bad tippers, to seize known good ones, to take doubles or triples at unreasonable times, to foist particular orders upon particular drivers. Ron was often the perpetrator of such heinous acts, being a ruthless motherfucker. In return, he was often the victim when other drivers would team up. It was brutal social efficiency.  

Howard Zinn said: "I will try not to overlook the cruelties that victims inflict on one another as they are jammed together in the boxcars of the system. I don't want to romanticize them. But I do remember (in rough paraphrase) a statement I once read: 'The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is.'" 

Much in the posts to follow will revolve around the drivers and their exploits as they struggle to breathe in their boxcars. I maintain that you should never feel sorry for fucking drivers.

*Never witnessed in the wild.

Our Cast of Characters

Kevin - If it seems like he can do no wrong, it's because he's the one telling this story, chump, so fuck you.

Jim - On top of being to blame for everything, one of my best friends, and a FUCKING DRIVER at Mahjong. Took every ounce of shit heaped on him by the company in trademark stride and bitter humor.

A note for the uninformed: You will hear many, many terrible things that the company did to Jim and every other FUCKING DRIVER. I implore you now not to feel too sorry for them. FUCKING DRIVERS made like 15 bucks an hour with their tips, and they are only to be hated. Harden your hearts now.

Jeremy - Another good friend and FUCKING DRIVER. Darkly humorous. Showed me the ropes at Mahjong, particularly the noose.

Ron - FUCKING DRIVER and professional creepy person. Degrees in both history and education, but due to mysterious legal troubles, barred from being a teacher. Possible theories: due to tendency to sneak up behind people he doesn't know that well and rub their shoulders sensually, his resume is instantly met with an enormous red rubber stamp which says something ominous.

Mitch - Sane person, worked inside with me. My grounding in reality when Jim and Jeremy were on deliveries.

Bobby - FUCKING DRIVER, a severe alcoholic, very charismatic and admirable at least in his lack of fucks to give about Mahjong.

Redding - Stoner bro, incredibly wise man.

Edsel - Old, bird-like man. Completely inscrutable. Invariably answers, "How are you doing?" with "Fair." or "Functioning."

Natalie - General Manager of the store, 30-something, satan. A blend of idiocy and hateful evil so well-mixed that if Da Vinci painted in vitriol, she would be the Mona Lisa.

Joe - Assistant manager, handsome 20-something, one of the few people I've feared for my life around.

Stan - Assistant manager, really great guy, simple and nice. Almost fools you into believing he is happy, but eyes are honest even when we are not.

This is the core of the group, with more to be introduced along the way, of course. But everything in its due time.