Pizza is a way of life where we come from. You don’t ever really think about pizza. You don’t ever really think of pizza as good or bad until you’ve tasted great pizza. And then it spoils everything. You’ve tasted the nectar of the gods.
The thing was, if pizza had a home then New Haven would be the Olympus of pizza. Frank Pepe, Modern Apizza, Sally’s, Bar, Colony—each with their own take on something so simple. But that is what makes the comfort foods such a staple in our society. Mom’s meatloaf, your grandmother’s gravy, everybody claiming a family recipe that crushes something else. But always around something simple: meatloaf, cheeseburgers, meatballs, grilled cheese, etc.
Well we had all of that, but most of all, we had pizza. When Pepe’s started expanding, I was skeptical. But when you entered the restaurant and ordered a pie, and you took that first bite, your faith was restored. This family can expand and keep the quality. They figured out the “secret sauce,” if you will.
So two years ago today, I was hopeful. David was in the Haven, and as usual, I would visit him every night—I missed only one night when he was there. But this particular day, I signed a lease on my new apartment, and I was going to see my brother who was supposedly in the best place he could be given the circumstances and supposedly receiving the best treatment possible. Yonkers had recently opened a Pepe’s, and as I drove by, I flipped around, pulled into that all-too-familiar restaurant, and ordered some celebratory pies. I was moving to a very interesting apartment, my brother was going to get better. I had a place he could stay when he got out, and things were going to be on the up and up for us.
Twenty minutes later, the sweet, sweet aroma of Pepe’s pizza is permeating the interior of the car. A little fog is building on the window. Pavlov takes over, and I am nearly drooling in the car.
I arrive, head up the steps of this very old manor, and make my way up to the floor David is staying on. I wait my turn while I check into to the locked floor. I see David, and I realize something is not right. He’s just not himself. But he sees the pie and looks at me, and I know something is a little better.
We walk into his new room, and he shows me his setup: It’s a hotel room… a cheap hotel room but nicer than where he was staying previously. He introduces me to some other patients who all seem nice enough, and overall the place is much quieter than where we had been last. He gives me the usual vague response, and I am ticked off because I suspect we aren’t getting the treatment we want. Hey, let’s eat man.
“I’m not hungry.” (usual response from him)
Okay, so I’ll go the kitchen area, and I’ll give it away then. I’ll walk out to the kitchen and plop down, open the box grab myself a slice, start eating, and begin offering some of the other patients slices, telling them about New Haven pizza. David immediately moves in and shoves three slices down. (works every time)
We go back and forth about this and that. I am telling him how excited I am that we have a deck. I try to pull out of him the events of his day. I get little to nothing, so it was like making conversation with a tree stump.
But we ate our pizza, and I think it provided him a little comfort, a reason to go on. I made it to the end of visiting hours as I always did, and then it was time to go home.
I didn’t know it was the last time I would share a pastime we always shared.
Every time I walk into a New Haven pizza joint, he is the first and last thing on my mind. I always think about our last pie and how gipped we both were on that particular pie.
