You Can Call Him Al

For every action there is a reaction. In this instance, a contemporary pizza pie review resurrecting a man from my past. Submitted for your approval: Recently, I chanced upon “Barstool Pizza Reviews” on YouTube and began watching several from the prodigious series. Pizza has long been a fare favorite of mine and informally reviewing pizza shops, restaurants, and the frozen varieties, too, came naturally to me. Why, pray tell, did Celentano’s discontinue its frozen pizza, the best of the lot during my youth? Anyway, among his one thousand entertaining and informative pizza reviews, Dave Portnoy called on Johnny’s Pizza in Mount Vernon, New York, which is a veritable stone’s throw away from the North Bronx. He gave it an extremely high score, 9.1, the best that I have seen to-date in the videos viewed. And, yes, I remember sampling Johnny’s Pizza a quarter of a century ago—it’s a family business still, I’m happy to report, in the family. Suffice it to say, Johnny’s Pizza deserved the accolades then as well as now.

This is where Al comes in. Once upon a time I worked in a place called Pet Nosh on Central Avenue in Yonkers, also a veritable stone’s throw away from the North Bronx. A customer of ours, who regularly shopped in the store, purchased a weekly mother lode of pet supplies for his wife. She not only fed stray cats and dogs, but donated food to area animal shelters. Prior to learning his real name, Al, I had nicknamed him “John Gotti,” a moniker never uttered in his presence. Time and again, Al went home with piles of a bargain dog food—kibbled biscuit—called Quaker City, which he cleverly dubbed “the motor oil.” From my perspective and a few others, Al truly resembled mafia titan du jour, John Gotti, only his coiffure was not the genuine article, and he wasn’t quite as dapper as the Dapper Don.

As a friendly gesture, Al would periodically bring us Johnny’s pizza pies with their super-thin, delectably charred, crunchy crust. A younger employee referred to them as “tampon pizzas,” a peculiar choice of adjectives, I thought at the time. Al was a good guy on that little snippet of stage in which we cohabited all those years ago. I don’t know where we got the notion—or, perhaps, the inside scoop—that Al possibly consorted with some unsavory sorts. Maybe he told us, I don’t recall. After all, looking John Gotti-esque didn’t mean he was in the same line of work. My paternal grandfather resembled Marlon Brando as Don Corleone, and the former was an iceman who despised the underworld thugs who tried to shake him down. Al, in fact, once mentioned that he owned a fruit store nearby at some earlier date, but he wasn’t exactly convincing as a bloke who endeavored to live the American dream by selling broccoli, sleeves of garlic, and cantaloupes.

Well, with no forewarning one day, Al’s wife materialized to do the shopping for herself—Mrs. Columbo unmasked—and informed us that her husband had been arrested. On what charge or charges, we never learned. She said he was very upset that he had to remove his rug for a mug shot and couldn’t wear the thing in the slammer.

Eventually, Al got out on bail and was awaiting trial. He never returned to Pet Nosh, though, and Johnnie’s uber-tasty pizzas became memories from a simpler time. Word eventually got to us that Al wouldn’t have to stand trial after all. He died of a heart attack before it began. All I can say—regardless of his alleged transgression or transgressions—is that he was one of the good ones. Rest in peace and pizza, Al.