The Queen of England

It wasn’t what you’d call a close relationship, but as pizza delivery guy and customer went, it seemed to work well enough. He was the regular driver at one of Mr. Los Angeles’ and my regular pizza delivery joints, one which we liked partly because it was a rare holdout establishment where you could still place your order by telephone with a real person, and look forward to have it delivered by the same guy at your front door.

Photo by Amin Ramezan

This particular guy was of medium height and build, with a pleasant if not especially memorable appearance. He would park his car in front of our house, hand over the pizza, receive our payment, and thank us. I, in return, when I answered the door, would thank him for the pizza, tip him appropriately, bid him stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter, and extend the greetings of the holiday if one were approaching. He would smile at me; I would smile at him. Not a connection that I spent very many hours of the evening dissecting with girlfriends over cosmopolitans; but still, in so far as I thought about it at all, it seemed reasonably satisfactory on both sides.

Until the day it wasn’t.

Mr. Los Angeles had gone out of town and I had a writing deadline that would keep me too busy to cook, so I decided to treat myself to a delivery; because it was not for both of us but only for me, our regular order of a meat-lovers’ bonanza with extra pepperoni and jalapeño chilis, extra-large (Mr. Los Angeles likes the leftovers cold for breakfast, it might be a Los Angeles thing); a large antipasto salad; a side of cheesy garlic bread sticks; a large diet coke; and sometimes, depending on which of us was doing the ordering, a portion of extra spicy buffalo chicken wings to round things out (I don’t judge, I merely report), was whittled to a more modest request for a small mixed mushrooms and a small green salad.

Because I had been wrapped up in writing, I was already hungry by the time I ordered, and chose the pizza place largely because they usually delivered quickly: 45 minutes, the woman at the restaurant told me, which I knew from experience was what they always said, but which usually meant about 25, so I munched on a couple of hazelnuts and worked on.

Except that 25 minutes passed, and there was no pizza; as did 45 minutes, and there was still no delivery. 50 minutes went, the bag of hazelnuts was now empty and my stomach starting to growl; then 55, and still nothing.

At the hour mark, I called the restaurant. The woman there was pleasant but unable to help. Yes, the usual guy had left on his rounds, and no, it was not an unusually busy day. Hold tight, she advised me, because she was sure he would be there soon.

Ten minutes later, with no sign of the food, I was hungrier still. Ten minutes after that, I was eyeing the neighbor’s goldfish through the window and thinking dark thoughts of sushi. When the doorbell finally rang, more than one hour and a half after I had placed my order, I was, not only hungry, but extremely irritated.

“You’re an hour late,” I told the guy in what was maybe not the friendliest of tones. “Where have you been?”

Now, there might quite plausibly have been a reason why he had been delayed. He might have been stuck in one of those sudden traffic gridlocks that LA will throw up from time to time. He might have narrowly avoided an accident and needed time to collect himself. He might have received bad news while he was on his way. Whatever it was, he need only have explained and – since, even when annoyed, I am a fellow human being – I am sure I would have been sympathetic.

Instead, he glowered and thrust the pizza roughly in my direction.

“I’m here now,” he said. “Here’s your food.”

Remember, please, that at the time I was extremely hungry and that at all times I am of Irish extraction.

“Is that all you have to say to me?” I asked. “You’re very late, and I think you could at least apologize for the delay.”

Which was when the blandly pleasant pizza delivery guy quite suddenly turned on me. His face reddened, his brow drew down, his eyes blazed scorching flames of vitriol.

“You think,” he shouted at me, furiously, “that you’re the Queen of England!”

I could only gape at him, struck dumb by this. I thought I was who?

“The Queen!” he repeated, fortissimo, in the unlikely event that I had failed to hear him the first time around. And lest there remain confusion about the location of my royal realm, “Of England! Just because you have a fancy accent you think you’re better than everyone in America!”

The granddaughter of Joe Barrett from County Cork via Clerkenwell, East London, and Syd Donnelly (yes, that really was his name) from County Leitrim via Camden Town, North London, could only continue to stare in astonishment. Because I had what? I thought I was what?

“You look down on everyone!” he yelled. “You walk around all the time like the Queen looking down on her subjects!”

To this day, I have not the slightest idea of what I had ever done to create the raging sea of resentment that had, it appeared, for some years now been roiling beneath his gently smiling surface. But whatever it was, I’d done it all right.

“Every time I see you, you act like you’re the Queen!” he bellowed. “Maybe that’s what people do in England! But we’re not in England now! We’re in America!”

He pointed an apoplectic finger at my pizza box and his lip curled.

“This,” he reported in tones quivering with outrage, “is a small order! I don’t have to hurry to deliver a small order for someone who thinks she’s the Queen of England just because she has a fancy accent!”

By now, he was all but frothing at the mouth.

“Go back to England!” he roared. “Where everyone behaves the way you do! It’s different here in America! Take your fancy English accent and go back to where you came from!”

He grabbed his payment and made for his car. At the front gate, he turned once more.

“This isn’t England!” he reminded, not only me, but half of the rest of the street while he was about it. “This is America, where everyone’s treated with respect! But I guess Her Majesty’s too haughty to have figured that out!”

To sum up. It’s not always wonderful to have an apparently fancy accent.

But the pizza was good. I do like a mushroom.