If there's a Job conducive to the surfer's lifestyle, as well as the aspiring porn actor's or potential drug addict's, it's pizza delivery.
In January of 1987, I was between seasons on the ASP tour, the start of a three-month "off" period which, under my hand-to-mouth circumstances, meant a great opportunity to earn some quick cash. A round trip ticket to Australia was $1200. If I worked nights I could stay up to scratch on my surfing, pay rent on the one-bedroom Malibu apartment I was sharing with a friend and show up ready for the first stop on the tour, the Stubbies at Burleigh Heads.
I landed a gig with Johnnie's New York Pizza. The place was a kind of hole-in-the-wall takeaway. Deliveries worked like this: all addresses within a two miles radius of Johnnie's were free. Anywhere further out than that commanded a $5 delivery charge which was generally hidden from the customer's knowledge, hence you could easily take home a $10 tip for a single drop off. On Friday and Saturday nights you'd earn between $75 to $150 bucks in a shift; easy money for zapping up and down Pacific Coast Highway slinging pies to the rich and famous.
My boss, Will, was just a couple years older than me and though Johnnie's was his first entrepreneurial venture, he wasn't so heavy on the business end that he couldn't appreciate his opportunistic employees. The fact that booze and bud often end in pizza made for serious colour. Which leads me to Joelle, the large-breasted Asian woman who'd housesit every few weeks at a swank beachfront condo. She loved the delivery drivers for their surfer physiques and no-strings-attached lovemaking. She was very straightforward about her needs and she had no interest in pizza. One night she calls, the boss answers the phone. I happen to be standing next to him at the time. He caps a hand over the receiver, "Jamie, it's Joelle, you wanna get laid?"
"Simple as that?" I ask after a ponderous beat.
"Simple as that. Just drop off whatever orders you've got lined up first and you're all over it."
"OK, I'm in."
Will gets back on the phone. "OK, The driver should be there in the next 20 minutes." By this time the two cooks, Salvador and Pedro, have overheard the conversation and have migrated around the phone area.
"Get laid? You say get laid?" Salvador asks, suddenly all beaming
"Yeah," says Will. "It was Joelle. And tonight's Jamie's lucky night."
"Oh amigo! Oh amigo!" Salvador says, patting me on the back like I'd just won something.
"You're very happy for me?" I say to him.
"Si, si..."
"You want to go in my place? You go this time, I go next time?"
He's elated at this idea. "You say the truth?" he asks, incredulous.
"Yeah, you go in." He looks at Will. "Go, go, whatever," Will says.
'Just make sure you get all your orders in the oven."
Salvador rips off his apron. "We go!" he says. Salvador and I hop into my car. We head south along the coast highway a few miles to a gated condo complex that's on the west side of the road, meaning beachfront units. My plan is to drop Salvador with Joelle, drop off a couple pizzas, then pick him up enroute back to the HQ. We park, ring buzzer 142, and a sexy voice comes over the intercom. "Hello?"
"Johnnie's Pizza," I say. Bbbbbzzzzzz goes the buzzer.
I walk Salvador to the door, he knocks, but then in the moment I should have respectfully eliminated myself from the equation, I didn't. I stood there, curious, wanting to see what the illustrious Joelle looked like. My grave mistake. A fairly short, big-tittied Asian woman with teased hair and lots of make-up opened the door. She looked at Salvador then at me. Then at Salvador then at me.
"Who is this?" she asks, the corner of a nipple popping out of her black lacey negligee. She had hot and horny love written all over her body language and what the fuck kind of curve ball have you heaved at me? on her face. I looked at her apologetically, "This is Salvador."
"But I didn't ask for Salvador," she said in an annoyed tone, as if we'd delivered her a small pepperoni when she'd ordered a large everything-on-it.
"But we thought you might like to try Salvador."
"Well, I don't... take him, you're not leaving him here."
Salvador stood between us, not quite understanding the words but definitely getting the message.
"I'm sorry," I said. "Vamos, Salvador, we go."
"POr que?"
"Come on," I say, a hand on his shoulder.
"Who the hell do you think I am?" she barked before slamming the door.
Salvador and I drove back to Johnnie's in silence, he most likely dealing with the ego bruise of being shut down and me, well, I was plotting the way back to Joelle. I dropped Salvador at the HQ, headed off to deliver the pizzas that at that point had gotten cold, then drove back to Johnnie's where I swiftly asked Will if it'd be cool if I signed off for the night. "Tell me how it went with Salvador and you can get out of here right away," he replied.
"Well, not real good," I said and relayed the whole story.
After an extended moment with the bathroom mirror, I bid farewell to my fellow employees, got in the car, and raced back to Joelle's.
"Hey, ah, Joelle?" I said into the intercom, trying to muster up a tone of remorse, compassion and sexiness.
"Yes."
"This is the guy who was here earlier, the surfer guy... Umm, I was thinking you might like to have a beer."
"How could you? How could you insult me like that? Bringing this boy..."
"Yeah, um, that was a mistake. See, he really wanted to meet you..."
"Yeah, well you made a big mistake. BIG mistake!" There was a long pause. I was trying to figure out how to turn the situation around when she added. "You know, I'm not just some slut you can treat like shit. There's obviously a lot you've yet to learn about women. I mean, what do you guys think of me at that place? Not much, obviously."
"No, no, we don't think that. We like you. We respect you," I said.
"Well, whatever, but I was in the mood earlier and now I'm not so have a good night. Click." She hung up. I stood there a few seconds, one hand holding the phone, the other in my pocket, noodling my truncheon like some kind of salivating molester. I rang again.
"Umm, Joanna, listen I promise I won't stay long, I just want to... talk or..." Bbbbbzzzzzz...
I walked down the path to #142, the front door opened up a crack which I took to mean I should just walk on in. It was dark inside. In the next room I could just make out the back of a woman's head sitting on a couch. "Joelle?" I said. The woman casually got up, walked in my direction then diverted left, swatting the wall. The lights came on to reveal a 270° ocean view living room with a pair of French doors, wide open to the sea. The room was sparsely furnished - a TV in one corner, a stereo in the other, a couch and a small coffee table facing westward. Joelle had changed. Instead of the Victoria's Secret outfit she had on earlier, she was now wearing wintertime pajamas, the kind of nightclothes a wife wears to tell her husband tonight's not the night.
"Shall we take a look at the moon?" she asked. Following her out to the deck, I noticed a box of condoms sitting as centerpiece on the coffee table. Left over from earlier or placed there 30 seconds ago? I wondered. Stripped of make-up and out there in the moonlight, Joelle was as close to the word "beautiful" as an anonymous lover is capable of being. She had the markings of the professional woman in the way her hair was styled and the way she carried herself, yet a hint of the dreamer in the way she seemed to bask in long pauses and silence.
"You surf?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"I like surfers."
She gave me one of those looks where the chin stays low and the gaze holds for just a hair longer than normal, then walked back to the living room and sat on the couch. I followed but before I could sit down her hand was rubbing my thigh, then fiddling with my belt, then unzipping my pants as she hunted my womb-scraper. For the first five or so magical minutes she morphed from Porn Star to Artist to High-School-Cheerleader-I-Was-Always-Mad-About to Woman-I-Could-Possibly-Love. And then, roundabout the time I figured I should slip on the condom while I still could, I came. It was a good one, A-grade and full of shiver. And Joelle was 100% with me the whole time, that vicarious, I'm-not-done-till-you're-done attention a lover loves. I came back down to Malibu in a matter of seconds and immediately thought of ways to pony up for round two. Joelle gracefully leaned back into the couch, propping her hands behind her head.
"That was really nice.. .You're free to go whenever you like," she said.
"You sure?" I asked.
"Oh yes, definitely." she said. I pulled up my pants, pecked her on the cheek, said something to the effect of "thanks for everything," then waltzed out of there a blessed man. A month later I had a plane ticket, two new 6'3"s and a 6'8", a quiver of fresh wetsuits, and all the balls, confidence, gumption and sense of humor needed to live the next nine months of my life on the road, chasing glory via surf contests. Doing all I could to extract the Superman within.
