A Cast of Characters

On the off chance I actually sit down and finish some more Pizza Dude tales (for those who actually read them) I should take the time to introduce some of my characters:

Vern - The sole proprietor of Vern’s Property Maintenance and Landscaping, Vern Sawyer is a Canadian redneck from the hamlet of Raglan, located some 20 minutes north of downtown Oshawa. Big, brash, black and bald, Vern never let his ignorance of big words stop him from having all the answers. Take xenophobic, for example.

“I don’t know what the fuck that means. I just know I hate everybody who don’t look like me,” he answered. Then he roared with laughter as he hoisted his 300-pound bulk out of his chair, bellowing for us to “get it all, or you’ll be going and doin’ it again, on your own time!”

As he was leaving the shop, he stopped to pull out his wallet. “If any of you need any cash, best ask me now, ‘cause this gets locked to my ass in two minutes. If you still need money, you’ll have to go in the back way.”

Then he roared with laughter again, clearly pleased with his joke. That was the thing about Vern. He was as crude as a dog’s how-do-you-do and as subtle as a show shovel to the back of the head, but he was always good for a twenty when you were short. His generosity was duly noted in his account book, however, and too many of his workers, hooked as they were to one vice or another, were lucky to have enough left for rent by the time payday rolled around. 

“Not my fucking problem,” he would say when this was pointed out, and to his credit, occasionally a loan or three would never make it into the book

Do Wad – appeared as an extra in a porn flick once; still refers to himself as a porn star. Claims his super-sized ‘equipment’ makes him a chick magnet. Lives by himself in a basement apartment on the wrong side of the tracks. With his mother. Real name is Peter Poverelli.

Yo-Yo - real name is Cooper but is called Yo-Yo by everyone in the shop (especially Vern) because of his use of somewhat outdated street slang. “Yo, Yo, that’s my shovel, homie.”

Albert Trotter – a mysterious giant of a man with a massive, scraggly beard who speaks about as often as he bathes (infrequently). Despite his living arrangements – he splits his time between a trailer park located an hour’s bus ride away and a cot in the back of the shop – he is rumoured to be worth millions.

Eddie Rumsfeld – American-born Eddie is a Gulf War deserter who was once a member of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. A brilliant man who is generous to a fault, Eddie is a full-time drunk who occasionally makes an appearance at work.

Jacques Laraque – Foreman. Speaks with thick French-Canadian accent despite 20-plus years in Ontario. Stands barely five feet tall but his prodigious strength is legendary, so commands respect in the shop.

J.P. (short for Jean-Pierre) Laraque – Jacque’s 19 year-old son. At six-foot and change, towers above Dad.

Danny O’Doherty – Eddie’s drinking buddy, with a fierce temper and a history of jail terms for assault. Nice fellow on the job and like Eddie, generous with his money. Except he never has any and is always hitting up Vern for between-cheque loans.

Ron Metz – the oldest member of the crew by far, Ron is a former minor pro hockey player who quit the game halfway through his first season to fight in Korea. The next 20 years of his life is a mystery, though he tells stories of being in Berlin on August 12, 1961, in Dallas on November 22, 1963, in Memphis on April 4, 1968 and in Montreal during the fall of 1970. As these dates meant nothing to the crew members (with the notable exception of Eddie, who despised Ron, and myself), Ron’s rants were generally dismissed.

Junior – Real name Billy Nowicki, but Vern gave this 18 year-old advertisement for the need for Ritalin the name Junior, so Junior it is.

Pizza Dude – Me, also known as Doug Knight. I never actually worked at a pizza place, but I brought in a couple of pizzas from Domino’s during my first week (in a fruitless effort to suck up) and the name stuck.

Derek Leatherdale – the business editor at the Toronto Sun and my occasional boss. I am, I am told repeatedly, the bane of his existence, yet he continues to use me for freelance assignments. Derek suffers – sometimes in silence, sometimes whimpering like a whipped puppy – at the hands of his sadistic boss, the infamous Margaret McFaddy, a former ultra-right columnist and now wife of the eccentric octegenerian business tycoon (who just happens to be the majority owner of the newspaper), Derek McFaddy.

Derek McCown – My best friend at the paper, Derek knows more about the stock market (I know little and care even less) than anyone I know. Always trying to get me to invest, Derek seems to have little regard for the rules on insider trading, or for any great degree of integrity as a business reporter, for that matter.

Sven Rodmenneske – Fellow journalism graduate from Humber College. We have seemed to follow each other to several jobs in the past and we are still competing for writing jobs today. Good writer and the funniest man I know. I hate the bastard.

T-Dot - Tania Frost. Beautiful and dangerous woman both Sven and I had brief dalliances with in Brockville. Turned up in Toronto soon after my divorce, but died suddenly after a lunch date when she was struck by an anvil.

Harry Benoit - can best be described as unloved, unwashed and smelling faintly of formaldehyde. The unwashed part was apparently a matter of personal choice. The unwanted and unloved? Remember what I said about unwashed. As to the formaldehyde, you got me. Maybe because he was always a bit pickled. Maybe he bought his por pourri from funeral parlour yard sales. No matter. On April 13, Harry Benoit smelled like formaldehyde because he was lying on a slab of concrete in the basement of Oshawa General Hospital. Somebody had bashed the back of his head in. With a snow shovel.