“We need a car to get to Atlantic City, Angelo.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to take the bus.”
“We’d look like a couple of chooches. I was thinking Vince’s Caddy.”
“How much does he want for it?”
“Twenty-four hundred,” Joey said.
“I got $1,400 in the bank. About six hundred in cash plus coins at the house.”
“I have $500 total.”
“Bet he’d take two.”
“Think we can Jew him down?”
“He needs money for the divorce and he’s paying to keep the kids in Catholic school to avoid the Mexicans. But he always needs quick cash to go down the casino on the weekend.”
“Tony says they got Hindus in his daughter’s elementary school.”
“We’ll offer Vince fifteen hundred.”
“We’d have enough left over to buy a case of red wine and suits at Leo’s.”
“Leo is tops. I got a black three-piece when my mother died. He only charged me $75.”
“I got a gray one for my sister’s wedding for $100.”
“They’re real nice suits.”
“I want one white as fresh mozzarella.”
“I want a red one.”
“Spicy marinara.”
What color’s the Caddy?”
“Green.”
“Minghia, we’ll look like the Italian flag pulling up to the boardwalk.”
“What time’s the pizza contest judging start?”
“Ten.”
“We go early, see, mingle, tell everybody who we are.”
“Yeah, we’re the fucking Pizza Kings.”
“We tell them where we’re from?”
“Of course we tell them. Where we’re from makes us who we are. The Pizza Kings from Old Forge, Pennsylvania, the pizza capital of the world.”
“Then what?”
“What?”
“Sure as shit some goof is gonna ask how some dago coal town can be capital of anything, especially pizza and who made us kings, anyway.”
“That’s when we shine.”
“What?”
“We’re the Pizza Kings because we say so. Most of these young dipshits running around the Convention Center for the Pizza Nationals come from New York, Philly and Boston. Foodies. Millenipedes or whatever they call themselves. I read where they even got guys coming in from California.”
“Get the fuck outta here. California don’t even have pizza.”
“They think they do. With avocados on them. You know anybody who eats avocados? Me neither. We’re the real deal. Coming from hard coal country we got more pizza parlors per capita than anywhere in the country. That’s a fact.”
“No shit?”
“OK, so I don’t know for sure but that’s what we tell them.”
“Like we own the joint.
“Yeah, like we own the joint.”
“When do we announce we’re judges for the event?”
“Right before the judging starts.”
“What if they ask for proof?”
“Act shocked that they would even ask.”
“That’s when we go to the media, right?”
“Yeah, make a stink. Act offended. Hurt. Say we went way out of our way to come to this event, making time on our calendars when we’re preparing to go to Rome to get knighted by the king.”
“Does Italy have a king?”
“No. But you think they know that? You gotta be quick on your feet.”
“When the organizers see we’re making a scene they’ll come over all apologies and let us judge a pie or two. That’s when we make another scene, kissing our fingers and saying shit in Italian.”
“I don’t speak Italian.”
“Say shit like we do at home. Stunad. Ffangul. Mighia Louie.”
“What if they call the cops?”
“Say the same shit on the way out. By that time we’ll be in all the papers and on the TV.”
“That’s our shot to get own weekly local cable TV show here at home.”
“Beautiful.”
“We drive around in the Caddy in our suits, going from one pizza joint to the next, rating the pies and trays, eating for free, all over the coal region. From Tower City to Forest City and all the greasy little patch town pizzerias in between. We’ll finally be famous.”
“The Pizza Kings, starring Joey and Angelo.
“I almost can’t believe it.”
“Yeah, me neither.”