#28 With Mouse, Radiator and Sky

I am on Court Street in Carroll Gardens, or Cobble Hill, eating a meatball sandwich staring at the sky cause it was gonna rain any minute and I hear, “Bernarducci!” and I turn around and there is this kid, like 30 years old and he comes up to me and says, “I seen you once before!” and I says to him, “You seen me more than once!” and we give each other a big man hug. He recognized me from the pizzeria from over 25 years ago!

So this kid Anthony, it turns out,  is the son of Michael, who walks up to us, who is the son of Mr. Tony! I worked for Mr. Tony over 25 years ago and Mikey, Mr. Tony’s son, is around 60 now. Mr. Tony passed away in about 2001, from cancer or something. I couldn’t believe it because Mikey looks exactly like his father, Mr. Tony! A tiny bald guy with a giant head. He is carrying two big plants and he lives in the neighborhood and owns a bunch of restaurants. It turns out his father, Mr. Tony bought the building where I used to work on Woodside Avenue in Woodside. He still goes over there once a month to pick up rent from the businesses in the building. Tony’s Pizza, where I used to work isn’t there anymore, but he’s got a few other things going on in Queens, if you know what I mean.

So over walks Mikey’s wife Christine, and she says, “I seen you before!” and I says, “yes, you have! At least a couple a times!” and she tells me about her daughter Sophia, Anthony’s sister who I never met. I was thinking that the son always names the first kid after the father, and I knew that from when I knew young Anthony from the pizzeria. I could not believe he recognized me.

It’s been a long time!

Remember we ate at that fancy Gramercy place and the wine guy recognized me? He also worked for Mr. Tony and it turns out that afterward he got into something really big and his mother called Mikey up to thank Mr. Tony and them for helping her son get his start at the pizzeria. He went to Italy to study cooking and now he is onto something really big, I don’t know what, but his mother is really grateful to Mr. Tony letting Matthew work in the kitchen and cook and stuff. I don’t know what he is doing and Mikey never called the mother back but he will definitely find out!

When I worked for Mr. Tony, there was this really fat guy Joey L. who made the pizzas and he would sweat into the dough! It was ridiculous. It was like he was sitting on a radiator and the sweat was dripping on the pizzas! A mouse would walk by and he would keep on sweating into the dough. Disgusting!

Mikey is around 60 and was the same age as Anthony when I worked for Mr. Tony. I cannot believe it. They look exactly alike! Unbelievable!