But Not Forgotten -- Beginning

The day Dan Colbreth was fired from Zottolli Pizza Delivery, I was standing by the make line trying to push my way through a crazy rush.

The owner at the time, Peter Zottolli, was sitting in the office behind me pouring through the paperwork with a completely un-amused look on his face.

Dan was four hours late for his Sunday night shift - the night he was supposed to do his week-ending paperwork.

A hush fell over all of us as the front door swung open and Dan staggered inside drunk as a skunk.

Peter was past the counter into the small white and red lobby before the door even closed completely behind him.

"Do you know what time it is?" Peter said.

Dan smirked at me. It was a knowing look - one that caused me to shrink.
He looked very old at that moment with his gray mustache and hair looking almost white in the fluorescent lights, and deep crow's feet around his eyes.

He looked at Peter.

"Time for you to get outta my face and let me do my job."

Peter's mouth fell open. "You've been drinking! You're in no shape to work! I'm amazed you even had the audacity to come in."

"And you've been boning my sister, so what's your point?"

"How many times this week have you come in drunk?"

Dan huffed, "There's only one right way to run a joint like this, and it involves a lot of alcohol."

Peter sighed. "I've put up with you self-destructing for years now, Dan. I kept hoping that you'd snap out of it. If you weren't family. . . ."

"Just because you dip your wick in my sister doesn't mean you're my family."

Peter shook his head. "One would think you'd be a bit more grateful."

"Grateful? You're a bottom-feeder. As soon as you saw everything falling apart for me, you started wringing your hands. Marry my sister and gain business and a slave to run it."

Peter pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, looked back at me, and then at Dan and licked his lips.

"Dan, you're one of the smartest and saddest people I've ever known. I love you like a brother, but I can't carry you anymore."

Dan looked at me with his sharp eyes. "Did you have anything to do with this?"

I shrank. In truth, I was next in line for the store manager's job, and it was me who told Peter that Dan had come into work drunk four times in the last week. I had lost my scholarship paying more attention to my leisure activities than my education. I needed more money, and I had transformed myself into a bit of a bloodthirsty opportunist.
Peter laughed assertively. "You brought this on yourself, Dan. You don't need a job; you need a therapist and a detox center."

"Go to hell!"

Dan threw the keys at him and stormed out, and that was the last time we ever saw him alive.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peter Zottolli was the only one of us, besides me, who ever liked Dan. Those who were cordial to him were only tolerating him because he was the boss.

I worked at Zottolli's Pizza for three days before I ever met Dan. I started during my sophomore year in college as a make line cook. The first time I ever worked with him was on a Friday night, and it was a disaster.

At the beginning of the rush, which started at around six o'clock, the phone girls mixed up the tickets hanging above the make table.

Zottolli's was just a hometown Mom and Pops type establishment that couldn't afford computers. Instead, they used an old-fashioned "door slip" system. When someone would call or come in, the phone girls would take their order on a strip of carbon paper that was 8 ½ inches by 1 inch. One copy of the order would go to the make table, and the other two copies of the order would be glued to the actual pizza box which would be hung up in sequence above the cut table.

The orders on the make table were out of sequence.

The orders on the cut table weren't.

Dan had a habit of planting himself on the cut table during the rush, and the busier it was, the louder and more obnoxious Dan became. If things were going well, he would slam pans around and grumble under his breath, and nitpick the number of pepperonis on a pizza and the amount of cheese.

If things weren't going well. . . .

Twenty minutes into the six o'clock rush, Dan's breathing could be heard all the way outside the restaurant.

He snapped his head over toward me and glared.

"What the hell is this garbage coming out of my oven?"

I gave him an innocent look. Once the shape of my face registered in his mind, the glare on his face turned into a look of resentment.

He sighed and turned to the driver pick up stand and looked at Marc Corrigan, our assistant manager.

"Where's Bailey?"

Marc smirked at him. "He's only been talking about it for two months; he's graduated and got a real job."

Dan looked back at me. "Who the hell are you?"

I stopped working and turned to him. "James Foreman, sir."

"Don't stop working! You've got twenty tickets hanging there."

I turned back around and finished making the meat pizza I'd been working on.

Dan looked at Marc. "I don't remember hiring any new blithering idiots."

Marc rolled his eyes. "He's a student at Bridgeton University. Peter hired him. He's only been here three days."

"It's amazing that we're still in business."

About that time, another out-of-sequence pizza rolled out of the oven. Dan slammed the pie peel, (basically a large spatula), down and turned to Marc.

"Take over the oven so I can beat the hell out of this deadhead."

Marc jumped over to the cut table and Dan sauntered over to the make line and eyed the tickets.

After a moment of looking he turned to me and gave me an incredulous look.

"What did you say you scored on the SATs?"

"Dan," Mark sighed over on the cut table.

Dan spun around. "The little bastard can't even count."

He snatched the tickets down off the make line. "You've got ticket number 4367 five tickets ahead of 4358. What the hell is wrong with you?"

I didn't know what to say.

Dan shoved me out of the way hard. I stared dumbly as he made five pizzas, and then I nudged my way in to help top. Dan spun around and glared at me.

"Get the hell off the make line! Go wash dishes or beat your meat. I don't care. If I thought you could read, I'd give you a delivery just to get you the hell out of my face!"

I felt like a complete idiot at that point. I turned and went back to the back where I washed dishes throughout the rest of the rush.

Once everything had died down - around ten o'clock, Dan called me back to the office and shut the door.

"What did you say your name was?" he said lounging in the overstuffed office chair.

"James Foreman."

Dan shook his head. "Who did you screw to get into college?"

I laughed assertively. "Listen. . . ."

"What is your major?" Dan said as if I hadn't even spoken.

"Art."

Dan huffed. "Well, you certainly are creative. You've done a great job tonight of creating chaos where there was none before."

I shook my head. "I don't know. . . ."

"Sit down," he demanded.

I sat down. Normally I would've been all over him, but I was a bit intimidated by
his brawn. He was over six feet tall and weighed at least double what I did at the time.

"I can't fire you because Peter hired you, but I can promise you that if you ever screw up like that again, not only will I make sure you get fired but I'll be waiting in the parking lot after you get off to whip your ass. Do we understand each other?"

I didn't know what to say.

I wasn't the first or the last to be treated in such a way.