"A GIFT OF HAPPINESS" CHAPTER 1: A THROWBACK TO BUFFALO

     

"A GIFT OF HAPPINESS" 

CHAPTER 1: A THROWBACK TO BUFFALO 

By Franklin Campusano 

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    I find the duality of fiction and nonfiction fascinating. Even though both categories of literature are so distinct from each other yet, they can't exist without each other. Non-fiction focuses on reality, topics that are grounded in our state of the reality of things. Fiction in the other hand focuses on everything else, including what's real, but with a twist and even a little exaggeration as well. The honest truth is that both categories borrow from each other a lot and we can't have one without the other. 
    Why do I bring this up so in a manner so sudden and so randomly? You see, sometimes reality can be so abstract, so bizarre, so odd that at times we may be left wondering whether what we just experienced or are currently experiencing may be fiction or not. 
    At times, I hear people say, especially when they are retelling an experience: "and just like a fiction novel [...]" In my opinion, everyone has had or will have an experience that will leave them wondering and sometimes even leave them confused on whether what just happened is real or not. An experience such as this befell me about six years ago in the fall of 2017, when I was still a college freshman pursuing my computer science major. This is my story. 

    The other day my friends, Bella, Kate, and Lilith came over to my place to spend the night and to have fun together before their midterm exams, this was while my roommate Jazmin was out at work. In essence, this whole get together was originally intended to be an extended study session and at first, we did study a little. But before we knew it, we were streaming movies and shows, drinking a little booze here and there, and of course, we were ordering a lot of takeout food. 
    That little reunion was not the best occasion to study, but the occasion led to us seating in a circle while we talked about life and other deep stuff. 

 

    While we were conversating, Bella suggested that we should tell stories to each other. At the moment, I didn't feel very thrilled about it, the only thing in my mind at the moment was to party and have fun, maybe play a few video games on the meantime as well but not telling tales. I mean at the moment I didn't have nothing interesting to tell in my mind. Because with all honesty, at the moment, nothing interesting was going on my life. 
    As I listened to my friends tell their particular experiences, rumors and stories and of course, their juicy gossip, I started to remember something that happened to me back in 2017 when I used to live in Emerson, Buffalo. So, in the end, I opted to relate that story to my friends, with the hopes I could get a spook out of them.  

    When my turn to tell my story finally came, I introduced my story by saying: "Guess I'll just have to tell you the story of when I met and befriended an active serial killer while working on a pizzeria."  The air turned a little cold after I said that everyone went into a brief awkward silence. I mean of course, no one ever expects to hear that out of the sudden, even less from a close friend. But the truth is, back in 2017 I did meet and interacted with an active serial killer until "they" got busted and we all found out what was really happening in the background. Once again, this is how the story goes:     

    It was back in the late summer of 2017, back then I lived in the city of Buffalo, New York in a neighborhood called Emerson.  At the time I was 17 years old, and I was quiet the edgy girl. I loved listening to black metal bands and would rock their t-shirts all the time. I would die my hair blue and purple and wear all black, lot of times in a gothic style.  Back then my parents were going through a divorce and my mom had to raise us alone, since I am the oldest, I was told to go out and find myself a job. So, I did, and the best place I could find work in was a place called: "Joe's Pizza and Burgers." 
    Working at Joe's Pizza wasn't the most glamorous job, but it helped with paying the bills and with my college life, since the job was a part time job.  And in the end, I always had a little money left to waste and to burn, much to my regrets right now. To tell you the honest truth though, the best part of working at Joe's was the fact that while working for him, I learned how cook, and I don't mean cook as in throw whatever into the pot and light up the stove, I learned how to cook like a professional. And most importantly, I learned how to learn how to cook. This is not a luxury many young people my age gets to boast about now a day in the digital age.  
    The first day of work we and I do mean we because I was hired alongside another person named Leslie, we'll get back to her in a bit, we didn't have much to do but to watch the other employees, especially Chris who was our DeFacto manager whenever Joe wasn't around to boss us around.   
    Chris who the workers liked to call "the bomber," don't ask me why, taught us how to prepare the dough, how to ferment it using yeast, how to divide the dough in equal pieces and more. He then taught us how to apply the tomato sauce and the shredded cheese and the toppings. Overall, we learned a lot of things during our training. 
    A good thing about working at Joe's is that us the female workers didn't really have to get our hands dirty that often. The guys were on charge of the heavy-duty work. They had to work back in the kitchen preparing the orders and taking care of the deliveries. Us the girls we were to be in the front, handling the cash register and keeping the place nice and neat.  We were not allowed to do deliveries because of the neighborhood we lived. Despite that, occasionally we had to do kitchen work though, especially when it was overly busy or when we were understaffed.   
    Joe's Pizza and Burgers is currently located in front a massive housing complex called the Maple Hill houses, a place that's notorious for its gang activities. But since we worked right by the projects, we had a lot of traffic into our restaurant.  This public housing complex is composed of four tall buildings, one massive courtyard with benches and trees, two parking lots, and one basketball court. Sounds good on paper but all of those luxuries would come back to bite the property in the butt later. 
    You see, during those years, the neighborhood was going through a homeless crisis. There were a lot and I mean a lot of homeless people hanging out in the surroundings. Eventually they moved in and started camping in the premises and the streets nearby. The result was a lot of trash, a lot of waste, a lot of biohazardous waste, a lot of drugs and a lot of unhappy locals. You would see these individuals lying flat on the pavement and on pathways. They would do their necessities in the stairs of the buildings, in the courtyard behind the trees and most importantly, the elevators in which our boys had to access and use to do deliveries in. They would take over the benches and a lot more.  From what I heard and saw, the local authorities were not much help either. No one felt safe back then. Those homeless folks made an already trashy place into an outright dump.   
    Our customers in the pizzeria where very diverse, as I previously mentioned, we had lots of traffic, so money was not an issue for us. Joe, the owner of the place was very generous too, sometimes he would add bonuses to our paychecks whenever the restaurant had done very well. Because of that, we lovingly referred to Joe as: "the godfather, or the kingpin." 
    My coworkers were very cool as well. Back then we had the aforementioned Leslie who got hired alongside me, we used to call her "the princess" because she was a girly girl, and she was considered cute by the boys. We had a guy named Frank who we called "machete" because he knew how to handle knives very well. We had Phil who we called "grandpa" because he dressed like an old man. I already went over Chris, and I have failed to mention Joan. Joan has been working for Joe on and off for a long time until that point. She was sweet but quiet most of the time. We used to refer to her as "the OG." More about Joan later. Lastly, we had me, Zoe, and my alias for this job was "thundergoth girl" because I loved a band named Thundergoth back in the day and I would often rock their t-shirts at work. In retrospective that must have been a very bizarre sight, an emo gothic looking girl working at a pizzeria, how silly was that. 
                                                        
To Be Continued…