Horrible Tales From A Chinese Restaurant

When I was young I started working at a Chinese restaurant when I was a Junior in HS. I've had various other jobs. I've been working since I was 12, but I'll save those stories for another day.

My friend had hooked me up with the delivery boy job. It was easy. They'd hand me the food, I'd take it over to whatever hell hole they'd order from, and I'm another dollar richer. I didn't have a driver's license though. But it really didn't matter. I doubt that a store that had a dozen or so illegal immigrants sweating away in the kitchen would give a rat's ass about me having only a learner's permit. Not that I was a horrible driver or anything. I just never bothered to get a license since I didn't have a car. But alot of the skills as a driver I learned during those months as I dragged (more often pushed) the 1980 Toyota Corolla from house to house.

A typical night goes something like this: I'd show up for work around 4:30. Orders start to come in around that time. I'd wait patiently around the back, smoking a cigarette or taking tokes of the sticky. Sometimes the owners would put us delivery boys to work cleaning lettuce, peeling carrots, trimming broccoli etc, which he would have gotten hell for from the health department, seeing how most us delivery boys never washed our hands. Not once.

The orders would be boxed up by this girl (the owner's daughter - more on this later) and we'd carry it out to our cars and head out make the rounds. There were three of us: me, my friend Dan, and this crazy guy from vietnam named Nguyen. He must have had a first name but I don't remember it. We could never pronounce it anyway so we always called him Weasel.

Weasel and my friend Dan had their own cars. Dan had a POS CRX and Weasel had a pretty clean 93 Integra GSR. Because they had their own cars, the owners gave them another dollar per hour (a whopping $5/hr). Me on the otherhand, had to settle for the store car. An embarassing POS '80 Corolla. White with the store's logo and number all over it. It had been in many accidents, the paint was patched and sanded in places to reveal primer and the interior was yellow with brownish patches where human hands would frequent. Plus it smelled like a cat died in the radiator (which at one point was probably true) and the windows were almost impossible to roll down due to rust in the lever.

It was a godawful shitty job. But it had its perks. For one there was the sticky icky (thank you Weasel, you crazy sonofabitch). For another, you wouldn't believe the shit that delivery boys do when we get bored/angry/annoyed. On an average night (5pm to 2am) we go out on 2 runs per hour. With around 5 stops on each run. Any given night M-F 1 in 5 runs we run into dicks. On weekends, over half. Of course, when I first started I figured this job was going to be a piece of cake. I was mistaken.

I start out by going to different runs with Dan and Weasel to learn the streets. Whoever was going out, I'd go with. I tried to stick with Dan of course, but I had to go with Weasel a few times.

The first few times, it seemed easy. So straight forward. Dan was pretty laid back guy, he'd let me hang out in the car while he ran up to the door, did the switch and we'd be off to the other one. The real fun started when I was riding with Weasel. Weasel is a paranoid psycho. His brothers, uncles, sisters, hell even his damn dog seemed to belong to a gang, each crazier than the one before. He was twitchy as hell (probably all the ganja he be smoking) and dumber than a pile of broken bricks. As soon as I got into his car he screams at me "Dont fucking get dirt into my car bro! I just got this shit!" He was working the job to pay for the car. Not by actually delivering food, but by running drugs on the side.

"Now listen up bro (he finishes every sentence with bro and usually starts with damn or dude.) you gotta pay attention because the streets here are fucking tricky aite bro? I fucking hate LA yo, fucking stupid fucks all over the fucking road. Ya know bro?" You'd think I'm a little annoyed by his demeanor but Weasel is this tiny little skinny kid. Pale as the moon. He's got a voice like Mickey Mouse. It's hilarious when this guy opens his mouth to say anything.

On one stop with Weasel, we pull into this apartment complex. Its populated mostly by college kids. You know the type. Kinda run down, 2 bedrooms but shared by 8 guys, all of 'em poor. There's usually a party going on in one of the rooms. Weasel flips out. "I fucking hate this fucking prick! Cheap ass mofo! You're gonna get alot of these punk ass college fucks. They always ordering shit and giving you the wrong address." (We have no 30minutes or less or its free policy, but I swear to god every other idiot that calls thinks that it's free if its late.)

So Weasel grabs the package, its a pitiful 2 dish with rice. Not more than 12 bucks. (2 orders minimum order - when someone orders minimum you KNOW he's a prick.) For some reason Weasel wants me to come along on this one. Sure, why the hell not - BIG MISTAKE ON MY PART. We go looking for the room. Except there isn't a room. It was some number like 323 or something, but there was no such room number. Weasel is flipping out cursing like a sailor, fuck this, fuck that etc etc. The whole time I notice that there are like 2-3 people in different windows watching us, Weasel doesnt even look in their general direction but he turns to me and says "Is the prick in room#(?) looking at us?" I nod that they are. Weasel, w/o another word turns the hell around and screams out "Did you order Chinese?" to this fat white guy looking at us.