when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore

I can toss pizzas like you have never seen them tossed before, never in your life except in those silly cartoons with mustachioed Italians in white chef hats singing "Bella, bella, bella." I don't sing "Bella, bella, bella." I wear a Domino's hat, a beige baseball cap and I sing along to 103.5, Tampa's real classic rock. I am learning the words to so many classic rock songs at work. I feel so American. People, real live people, people other than New College students come in to order pizzas, pick-up specials, knowing that it is all about bargain shopping in this land of milk and honey, about getting that discount. Five fifty for a large one topping pizza pie.

I scrape dough off of a tray, and mold it into the shape of a circle, give it a crust with my cornmealed fingertips, and then I lift it, real high, and toss it. I toss the fucking pizza to the sky, into the pink sky, setting sun, Burger King and car headlights on 41. Release it, hoping that it was meant to be. If you release it and let it go, and it comes back, then you know it was meant to be. It comes back from its cosmicly high adventure. It always comes back. It was so meant to be.

The pizza, your pizza, gets tossed into the oven, and in a few minutes, it is taken out and sliced into eight fairly uniform slices if it is a medium or large. Ten, if it is an extra-large. And all the while, I rock out to classic rock, feel the heat of the pizza oven, look out onto Tamiami Trail and feel like I am the living embodiment of Summer. I talk to my co-workers, my friends about funny things, things other than bullshit, other than school. I talk to a seventeen year old girl about her hangover. I love it. So much. Bella. Bella. Bella.