"A GIFT OF HAPPINESS" CHAPTER 2: THE OTHER DAY

"A GIFT OF HAPPINESS" 
CHAPTER 2: ABOUT THAT OTHER DAY

By: Franklin Campusano 

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        On one particular occasion, Leslie and I where on our way to the pizzeria to work when we passed by what the locals used to call "Homeless Street." That place used to be a haven for the homeless people back in those days. That part of the street used to function as the business district of the area, but it's been long abandoned. The homeless use the abandoned buildings as a refuge. While Leslie and I were passing through the area, Leslie looks at me and said to me: 

"With all honesty Zoe, I feel a little jealous of you, you know?" 

    Taken aback by what Leslie said to me, I asked her: 

"What? Why? Why are you jealous of me?" 

    Leslie smiled and closed her eyes and looked down briefly: 

"Because you are always complaining about how hard and stressful college is. And that they give you too much work to do in the classes." 

"Uh huh?"

"On the meantime, here I am wishing to go to college." 

"Oh yeah? For real?" 

"Yes! Going to college is one of my long-term goals!" Said Leslie while laughing. 

    At this point, my eyes are were wide opened after hearing this from Leslie, I shrugged my shoulders and said to Leslie: 

"I'm sorry about that, please don't take it personally, I like to vent my frustrations out loud like that." 

"Don't worry about its Zoe" said Leslie while tapping my shoulder. "I find it funny that's why, you know, how different can perspectives be depending on people." 

"What major do you want to pursue?" 

"I'm thinking of pursuing medical sciences. How about you? What major are you currently on?" 

"I am a computer science major; I do a lot of math and a lot of coding."  

"Okay... by the way, changing topics, did you know that Phil is moving down to Florida soon?" 

"Uh, no? I don't be talking to Phil like that, so I never heard that from him." 

"He told Joe, but Joe did not keep the confidence. He wants to do him a goodbye party on his last day." 

"That's so nice of you guys, that says a lot." 

"Yea, Franky told me to tell you. Also, we are not supposed to tell him." 

"OfCourse, no worries." 

    Upon saying that, a random homeless man interrupted us with a loud scream. He started screaming and singing random things like a mad man. We both felt startled by him, but Leslie quickly tapped me on the back and told me: 

"Don't look at him, you might catch his attention." 

    As a response, I stopped looking at the homeless man. 

"Who's that guy anyway?" 

"That old man used to live in the projects with his wife back in the day, until he later got kicked out of house after he started experimenting with drugs." 

"Okay?" 

"He later started acting like this randomly. So, we all assume that he tried something very strong that made him that way." 

"Yea, it looks like it." 

"For that reason, we all refer to him as Boxerman, because he's known to sleep in boxes." 

"That's tragic." I said to Leslie in response. 

    Leslie then looked at me and whispered to me: 

"Look over there on the other side of the street, you see him?" 

    I looked at the other side of the street, there was a particularly rough looking homeless man. He had a beard and was bald and was laying his back to one of the abandoned bricked buildings while seating in the pavement. He was messing with some weed as we passed by him on the other side of the street. 

"That guy over there is Mr.Martinez. stay away from Martinez because he's very nasty with people. Because of that, nobody messes with him." 

    Upon hearing this, I raised my eyebrows as I discreetly glanced at him. But apparently, I wasn't discreet enough because he noticed from a distance. Martinez then yelled at us from the other side of the street: 

"What is yawl looking at? Did you lose something?" 

    We did not respond in return, instead we walked away a lot faster until we soon arrived at our workplace. In front of our pizzeria there was another homeless man of African descent. His name was Luis, and he was known for being nice and kind to the locals. He would often say hello to people and wished them well. We would sometimes give him a slice of pizza and a bottle of water since he always stood in the front of our restaurant and opened the door to people who were walking in. 

    That same day after we started our shift, Chris told us that that day we were going to have who was then our highest paying customer, an older woman named Chidgey come over. She was known by my co-workers for buying a lot of pies in one order once or twice a week. We assumed that it was in order to share it with the locals. She would often show up to our place by 5:40pm so Franky and Phill would start preparing the orders earlier so that when she came over, she just had to pay and pick up the pies. 

    Leslie and I were taken aback by this. 

"That's insane! She probably hosts pizza parties on her house or something." 

    That day, we had a customer named solidarity come over. She's a mother of three kids and she would often show up to our pizza place to order a large cheese pie for her kids. Often, she didn't want to cook and would opt for buying her kids pizza for lunch and dinner instead. 

    That day we also had a guy named Jeff who was a truck driver who would often show up to our restaurant in the afternoon hours and always bought two slices of pizza. He would eat the slices alongside with a can of beer. He probably had nobody to cook for him back at home. 

    Among all the customers that showed up that day, one in particular stood out for me and for bad reasons. It was this young-looking teenager who always had his hood up. He looked very dirty, like he didn't shower for a long time. He had a vertical cut scar on the right side of his lip. He was what you would call an edgy looking person. Overall, I had a bad gut feeling about him, something about his vibe spooked me at the time. 

    This kid, who I later found out was 14 at the time, would come every once in a while, to our restaurant and order a pepperoni slice with a ginger ale soda. He never ate at our restaurant, instead he would order his food and beverages to go. After the strange boy left, I turned around and asked Franky: 

"What's the deal with that boy?" 

Franky looked at me and said in response: 

"No one knows who he is or where he came from, that boy just showed up in the neighborhood one day and has been coming here periodically ever since." 

"He gave me the chills." 

"You just got to watch out, never hang around here after 6:00pm and you should be fine." Franky said. "There's a lot of homeless people in this neighborhood." Franky added. 

"Yea, that's why people are complaining so much." I added in response to Franky. 

    It was five in the afternoon, this meant that both Frank and Phill had to start preparing the order for Mrs. Chidgey. That day she ordered 14 pies. No, no kidding. They were hoping to complete the order by 5:40 pm so that Mrs. Chidgey could simply walk in, pay, pick up her order and walk out. It was a routine for the guys. Both Leslie and I were still a little skeptical about this, I mean to order that many pies, that is just something that is unseen. 

    "Does she always do this?" I asked Franky. 

"Yup, almost every week, multiple times a week." Frankly responded. 

"She probably shares it with the neighbors, she's known to be an extremely generous old lady." Phil added. 

"She probably got a pretty good pension coming in every month." I added in response. 

    Both Phil and Franky smirked and say: "Yeah, probably." 

    At around 5:35pm Mrs. Chidgey arrived at our restaurant with a pushcart. She was a nice healthy looking old lady. She wore a blue dress and had a ponytail. She also wore glasses. She looked at me with a very nice and warm smile and said: 

"Good afternoon, I never seen you two before, you must be new workers." 

    Leslie and I said hello to her. 

"Is my order ready for me to take?" 

    Franky then came from the back and asked Mrs. Chidgey for one or two more minutes. Chidgey was totally fine with that. She didn't seem demanding at all. 

"How long you two been working here?" 

"About a week." Leslie replies while looking at me for confirmation. 

"Yes, about a week and a half." I added. 

"How do you like it here?" Chidgey asked. 

"Is fine I guess." Both Leslie and I responded while looking at each other. 

    Chidgey then looked at me for a second. 

"You have a magnificent long hair, what's your name?" 

"I'm Zoe" I replied. I was a little uncomfortable, I'm not used to be complemented that way. 

    Chidgey then looked at Leslie and said: 

"You seem very familiar despite being new here, have I seen you before?" 

    Leslie responded to Chidgey by saying: 

"Yes probably, I live in the area. Despite being new here, I'm not a stranger. I used to be a customer here for a while." 

    Franky and Phill come out from the back with the pies. They loaded the pies into Mrs. Chidgey's pushcart. Chidgey then paid a very hefty $210 dollars and left. 

    "What a strange well manned super odd sinister looking but yet nice old lady she was." I thought to myself as she walked out of the restaurant and left. After all, she was the highest paying customer of that time. 

To be continued….