I first met Frank late last October. He came stumbling into the franchise. His car had run out of gas, he’d hitched a ride down to the gas station, and didn’t want to walk back. Well, yeah, because this was nine at night and by the time he got back to his car it would’ve been light out. I think he might’ve been drinking. He was an older guy — late fifties to early sixties. He flashed a ten-spot in exchange for a ride — $5 for me, $5 for Greg, he said — and I said, “What the hell?” I had a run up that way. I carefully positioned my Maglite (read: weapon) on the left-hand side of the driver’s seat and all the way up, Frank was “Fuck liberals this, fuck liberals that, blah-blah-blah.” I was tempted to pull over on the side of the road and let him walk the rest of the way. He joked that he wanted to get a pizza-delivery job part-time, “…but the boss probably won’t hire me, he’ll remember me ‘as that guy who ran out of gas.’”

“Yeah, that’d be an impediment.” I said. What I thought was, “Plus, are you drunk? Drunks and delivery don’t really go well with each other.”

(Most of the people I work with are either addicted to the alcohol or the weed. Common statement: “Yeah, I’m only going to drink myself to death two to four nights a week … not countin’ Fridays & Saturdays, y’know”).

So I let Frank off at his car — a beat-up minivan — and went on my merry way. And he didn’t apply for a job in October, or November, or December, so I forgot about him. I also was really pissed at him — he’d offered $10 for the ride, half for me, half for Greg. Greg had turned down his half with the intent that since I was taking all the risk, I should also get all the reward. Fuckin’ Frank didn’t see it that way and only hooked me up with a $5 spot. Bastid’.

And then one day two months ago I walked into work and there he was, in full uniform. After I worked with him for about a week he finally put it together: “Hey, are you the guy who gave me the ride?”

I’d only told him five times.

***

He likes to go over to the liquor store next door when he gets off work. Often will be the day that I’m pulling in and he’s pulling out, and he raises a can of duff — or whatever cheap ass brew he drinks — in salute to me as he’s driving out of the lot.

***

So yesterday I came into work and Frank was all in a huff. Seems his first delivery of the day he’d run over some guy’s garden. The story, as I understand it, was this: he’d arrived at the house and had to wait for a lawn-care truck — big pickup with the long ass trailer — to get onto the driveway before he could. The owner of the house claims he saw Frank drive onto the yard — and the garden (it wasn’t a garden yet, but he’d put down a strip of multch with the intention of starting a garden — to get around the lawn-care truck. There was great argumentation and apparently Greg had to go down to re-seed the not-yet-garden or something. “It wasn’t anything much,” Greg mentioned. “Took me like five minutes.”

“So what was he so pissed about? Christ! It wasn’t even me!” Frank snapped.

Well, I mean, I’d be pissed if someone drove over my garden too, regardless of whether or not it only took five minutes to re-seed. I have a policy: if I need to drive over someone’s yard, I ask them. Usually it works like this: I take a delivery to a house with a narrow enough driveway which makes turning around difficult. Backing onto the street is undesireable because it is a (fairly) busy street and the landscaping makes seeing approaching vehicles difficult. As I hand the customer their pizza I say, “Excuse me, I was wondering if you would mind if I turned my car around on your lawn? I hate to ask, but I’m not comfortable backing onto [Whatever] Road.”

Sometimes the customers beat me to the punch, “Now, listen here, don’t you try and back onto that road, see that grass to the left of your car? Back there. If you try to back to the right, you’ll go into my sump pump.”

In any case, the point is one of respect to the customer. And tact. There’s little I’ve seen in Frank to suggest he has either. For example, the other day: “Yeah, so I’m driving on [Road] and there’s a big lawn-care truck parked on the side. So I know I have to pull around it to get by, and I just know as soon as I do there’s going to be a car coming, but what can I do? So I do. And wouldn’t you know! There’s this woman in a car — you know the type, the rich cunt with the cell phone glued to her ear drivin’ a big flashy Escalade. And she’s givin’ me this look like, ‘get out of my lane’ and I’m all like, ‘Hey, back up so I can get past. Be curteous here.’”

And I’m like, “Wait, so she’s already passing the truck when you try to pass, but you want her to back up for you?”

He claps my shoulder, “Hey, y’know, don’t be all pussified. You’re a man. Act like it.”

I don’t know about acting like a man, but playing chicken with an Escalade just doesn’t sound like a smart thing to do.

In any case, I’m listening to Frank’s explanation of the day, and then his threats, “I’m going to get my buddy’s car and pull circle-eights through his front yard!” and it is just so difficult for me to imagine a scenario where he didn’t drive over this guy’s garden.