Migdalia Cruz
Comic
LUCY: 25, Latina
LUCY is trapped in an apartment with her delusional mother. In this monologue, LUCY finally finds a friend/potential suitor in MILTON, to whom she speaks about her job delivering pizzas and other things she finds interesting and, perhaps, impressive, on their first date.
LUCY I like my job. Other people might not like it, but I do. I get a kick out of the kids who come up to me with thirty-six cents for a slice. “Don’t you know what century this is, kid?” I say. They don’t have a clue. So I give it to them anyway. I don’t care. Why should I care? They’re just little kids . . . You know what else I like? I like it when they turn off the ovens and everybody goes racing home . . . That’s when I whip out a bag of Twizzlers—I find licorice real relaxing, you know what I mean? It like gives you time to think because you gotta chew it so long. I come to some interesting ideas that way. I’m gonna write a book about that place someday. One chapter is gonna be just about Twizzlers and the things it makes you think. Another one’s gonna be about sex. It’s something the way people carry on there. There was this one woman who used to come around all the time. We called her Blowjob Linda; she used to grab guys and take ’em into the toilet with her. They’d come out minutes later with their shirts out and their flies open, looking like something blown in out of a tropical storm. Anyway, that’s Linda. I could write a whole chapter just about her. You know what I mean? She had style. Not too many people with that. Yeah . . . you see all types. I think that’s why I like it so much. It’s always in-ter-esting. I think so anyway. I don’t know about anybody else.
[Pause.]
You know what else? I like talking people into buying things they don’t know they want . . . Yeah, that’s the best. Pizza with pineapple and anchovies. Man, some people are sooo stupid, they’ll eat anything.
[Pause.]
Some people tell me I’m too old to be delivering pizzas, but isn’t that who you would want delivering your pizza? Somebody older. Somebody responsible. You know how not getting a pizza you ordered could ruin your evening. You could be left there with nothing to eat. And then you would have to go out. That’s what I save people from. From the streets. From seeing other people. From having other people see them. I’m a shield.