A Town Called Malice

I pull open the heavy glass door releasing a cacophony of voices and blaring music. None of this is right. Antica Napoli, my favorite pizza shop is a store-front joint with eight booths. It’s calm and quiet. Typically two, maybe three booths host a couple of people, usually senior citizens. One booth is set up as a permanent box-folding station. The quiet always surprises me. Located a block from Gettysburg College, I always wonder where the students are. Fraternity and sorority shirts line the wall above the soda machine, gifted by students, inviting Ignazio, the owner, as an honorary member. I rarely see a college crowd here. Maybe I come too early. When I was in college, pizza was a late-night treat. Maybe all their business is carryout. Mine is, since Covid.

This night though, college kids pack the booths, their voices competing with one another and the blasting music. It’s a Jam song, A Town Called Malice—an upbeat tune at complete odds with its dire, dead-end lyrics describing stalled, working-class lives. The music strikes me as strange. I don’t recall hearing music here before, and certainly not at party volume. I’m happy it’s a song I love, but it doesn’t seem like the sort of song Iggy would have on his radar. The restaurant’s vibe doesn’t match the environment I just left—reclined on a sofa, buried under a blanket, reading the news. I find it annoying and overwhelming. I just want to grab my pizzas and leave.

I approach the register, surprised to find a child. I guess it’s one of Iggy’s kids, but I thought they were much younger. Still, this boy seems too young to work, and he’s blonde. Iggy’s hair is dark as coal. When Eli got his first job at fifteen, I suppose the people walking into his shop felt the same way. Huh, he’s just a kid.

“HEY,” I shout, “PICKING UP TWO MEDIUM PIZZAS FOR JEFF.”

“Zubba zubba zubba zubba.”

“WHAT’S THAT? I turn my right ear, my better ear, towards to boy hoping to catch what he says. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE NOISE.”

“LET ME CHECK.”

The table behind me, rowdy a minute ago, quiets down. I look over my shoulder, a couple of the guys at the table watch me.

The boy returns. “Zubba zubba.” I give a confused look. “FIVE MINUTES,” he yells. I pay for my order and grab a chair at the only empty table.

Settling in, I pull out my phone. As the screen comes to life, Spotify appears. The song that’s playing is A Town Called Malice. It’s being wirelessly transmitted into my hearing aids. I listen to music this way all the time. As I stare at my phone, embarrassment rushes my brain. I rethink my exchange at the register a moment ago and my cheeks warm.

A few minutes later, the boy brings out my pies. I thank him at an appropriate volume and push my way out the door. Back in my car, I wonder for the thousandth time what the hell my problem is.

~ ~ ~

This is one of countless incidents over the past several years where I feel like my brain let me down. I attribute these episodes, without proof, to the medication for Tourette Syndrome I just stopped taking a couple of months ago.