Picture of Jimmy
THE BULLSHIT PEOPLE
BY
DAVID ARTHUR WALTERS
South Beach Nightlife – Washington Avenue
March 1, 2011
MIAMI MIRROR
by David Arthur Walters
SOUTH BEACH – Jimmy and Yanin have a symbiotic relationship. Other than the fact that they are roommates and both are so round that they would roll down a hill if they fell down on it, they are as different as night and day. He is Middle Eastern, she is Mexican. He is jovial, she is sullen. Jimmy runs one of the scores of pizzerias on South Beach’s Washington Avenue (MED PIZZA) where he works the day shift. She works five nights, and he pays her $400 week for doing so.
I stopped by the pizzeria to chat with Jimmy yesterday. I wanted to know if he had learned the catechism yet. Jimmy was a Muslim but is now becoming a Catholic – “Never mind,” he told me once, “There is only one God who has many names and is worshiped many ways.” His conversion has something to do with his immigration status. He would be persecuted and maybe beheaded if he went back home – where he once taught Islamic studies – as a Catholic No problem with the catechism, he said, and a priest was going with him to the interview with Immigration.
We often commiserate on dental issues: Did he go see the dentist I recommended, Dr. Santeiro, on Collins? Yes, he said, and I was right, he did the job really quick without a bunch of assistants and fancy computer equipment, for about half the price our old dentist had quoted – we liked our old dentist, but price is a big consideration nowadays. Jimmy said he had recommended Santeiro to people already. My own new denture was perfect, I related, but the same filling that popped out twice with the old dentist had also popped out twice with the new one. I did not want the filling in the first place but the hygienist recommended it, I said, and I was not about to get a crown, like our old dentist recommended, and have it come off too, because my insurance did not cover crowns although it covered fillings one-hundred percent. Maybe I would get a crown, however, if small claims court awarded me damages, I added, but I sure hated to sue people because their science does not work as advertised – a million fillings are lost every year.
Oh, had Code Compliance come around to hassle him about the cardboard Coke advertisement in his window? No, the sign is just temporary, so should be no problem, Jimmy said, and the Coke guy thought my suggestion was good, to use the sign with black customers instead of white customers for Urban Week.
How was I doing? Not so well since a low-class puta moved into my apartment complex, I related, followed by loud and drunken, twenty-dollar tricks from eleven at night to eight in the morning. Three or four guys would do her at one time, while others waited outside her door, some falling asleep on the steps or passing out on the sidewalk. She would scream in Spanish when they smacked her around, ordering them, “Don’t hit the puta!” I noted that the property on Euclid Avenue has always had drug dealers but not one prostitute had actually worked inside there since I moved in. Some of us thought the landlord was just stupid or greedy for renting to anyone who comes along with hard cash, but now I am told by old-timers in the alley that he is a Cuban gangster, one of the criminals Castro wanted to get rid of. He had said the woman was a nice person who just had many brothers, but that was ridiculous, as she was Cuban and her dozens of visitors were mostly Hondurans and Guatemalans. “Anyway,” I told Jimmy, “I think the cops nailed her as she has not been around lately.”
Yanin was at the pizzeria early, glaring at Eric Fromm’s book on love – she takes pride in her intellectual endeavors. She was listening in, of course, so I figured I would get her goat so she would say something for a change. I knew she was proud of her country of origin. I remembered how I got a proud Puerto Rican going when I asked if San Juan had an airport big enough to land jets.
“Jimmy, do you know how I know those tricks of hers are low class Latinos?” I asked rhetorically. “Because they drink Corona beer, that’s why. She had a woman come around in a car with temporary tags and deliver a half-dozen cases of Corona at three in the afternoon every day, getting her ready to entertain her customers. These stupid guys think Corona is high-class stuff because it is expensive compared to the Old Milwaukee the homeless Guatemalans in the alley drink. But you’ve got to put a wedge of lime in it to stand it. If they were high class guys they would drink Modelo. Even Tecate would be better. But no, it’s Corona for them. The reason they like Corona is because they get the water from a stream in Mexico that runs under a huge cemetery, so the stuff from bodies oozes into the water. Talk about a low-class taste! I tell you….”
“Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!” Yanin screamed. “What kind of beer they drink has nothing to do with nothing! They are bullshit people! If you don’t like bullshit, move to South Pointe or to Brickell! What do you expect for only $800 a month for a room between 5th and 19th Streets anyway? It’s all bullshit! Bullshit people everywhere on South Beach!”
“Bullshit people?” I smiled and winked at Jimmy – I had wound her up and she was letting go.
“Yes, bullshit people!”
“But people seem nice around here today, and Jimmy never gives me any bullshit.”
“He’s here daytime! You come at night, and then you will see bullshit people!”
“I don’t like to come out on Washington Avenue after ten. I watch some TV then go to bed at eleven. But this puta’s customers wake me up.”
“You don’t know what it’s like!” Yanin shouted, while looking into the mirror at herself. I knew we were about to get a command performance out of her.
“Come and see bullshit people at one or two or three in the morning! Who has the luxury cars? Black people! Guess where they get the money! They are bullshit people and attract all kinds of bullshit people! One pimp I like, he is very good looking, almost white, and he comes with five blonde girls all the time, some with blue eyes, and one night I see lots of people looking in the window when I am selling pizza, and I look in the mirror and see why, because one of his girls is down on her knees in front of the pizza counter doing him while he has a big smile with big white eyes and big white teeth, and then another woman takes out her teats and he starts licking them! Bullshit people! One time two girls come in here naked, nothing on top, just a tong with asses sticking out. Bullshit people! One woman comes in last night with one teat in her blouse and one out, and then another woman comes and leans up against the pizza display and puts both teats on the counter while men are shouting ‘Give me those pizzas!’ I tell you, bullshit people! And don’t you come here at three in the morning or you might get accidentally shot! A man was beaten to death over there, another man was shot in that club over there – you might be walking on the sidewalk and get shot by bullshit people!”
“What about the cops? Are they corrupt?” I interjected.
“What do you think when you have all these bullshit people every night? What do you think when someone orders pizza and shows a badge?”
“That man is not a cop,” Jimmy said. “He is a phony. He tries everywhere to get free food with a fake badge. I told him not to come back again.”
“Bullshit people! Jimmy, you don’t come here at night! You don’t see everything!”
“Damn, do you have video, Jimmy?” I asked. “We could edit it and make a movie of the events and put it on the Net – your pizzeria would be famous!” And to Yanin: “Aren’t you afraid to work at night?”
“No, I am a Mexican! I have my bat!” she exclaimed, looking away from the mirror and pointing at a baseball bat under the counter.
“She has Michael working with her,” Jimmy added.
“Are you nice to the customers? I mean, what kind of attitude is best with your customers?”
“Attitude? Nice? You can’t be nice to bullshit people! I’ll tell you what kind of attitude is best with bullshit people: it is the ‘Fuck-You’ attitude, that’s what it is.”
“So the customer is wrong from the minute he walks in the door?”
“Whatever! I don’t care! When the bullshit customer looks at me he sees ‘Fuck-You’ written on my face and knows he better not mess with me! And after I get off and get some sleep, I go to the library and read to forget the bullshit people!”
Yanin had said her piece, and returned to her book on love.
“Jimmy,” I said to my friend, who was practically cracking up, “Yanin should be teaching a special customer service course at the hospitality school: How to use the Fuck-You Attitude on Bullshit People. Of course it would only be good for Washington Avenue service.”
“It’s a lot different here at night,” he conceded. “I have many nice customers in the day. Two Italian guys are trying to buy me out.”
“Mafioso?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care.”
“Oh, I was just thinking a pizzeria would be a great front for drug, prostitution and laundering, that you might get a better price for the business from the Mafioso. You should advertise at Mafioso.com. They would sell plenty of Corona too. You know there is something in it that affects people, turns them into bullshit people. I think they add horse piss to it.”
“Bullshit! It’s any beer! It does not matter which beer!” Yanin smiled with the exclamation, and I bid them both farewell.
--XYX--
Update: Sept. 11, 2015
Med Pizza was forced out at the end of its lease by the landlord's demand for higher rent, and was made part of Pepper's Mexican restaurant next door. David Gonzalez, owner of Pepper's, offered Jimmy a job, but Jimmy returned to his home country to attend to illness in the family. Yanin is still around, attending to pizza elsewhere. The block has a high crime rate due mostly to nightclubbers. The famous Mansion club across the avenue is about to close, which may put a big dent in businesses on the block.
Truth About South Beach Night Life
Sandie
Did a little observational night crawling in earlier days in San Francisco, Minneapolis,, and Atlanta. But my only encounter like the pizzeria was when my cousin, after a night of bar hopping dragged me down to the Minute Bar in downtown Dayton where the girls would give you service in a minute. ;-}
Ron