Sandwich Man
Tony and I went to college on Staten Island. We were country kids surrounded by city kids with family names like Spaccarelli, Maccarelli, and Vermicelli and nicknames like “Pee Soup,” “Little Richie,” and “Verm.” In this somewhat foreign place, my “leave me alone, let me be me” persona was at odds with the “look at me” and “in your face” shouting needed to survive there. In the end, it probably was a bad choice for continuing education but on the best side, I met the love of my life there which made the trials and transformations all worthwhile.
Tony and I did not come from money; we always needed money; and, we would do anything for money. Having grown up on the streets of New York, we might have travelled a different, less acceptable path to higher education and adulthood. But we didn’t and we found ourselves constantly looking for work. Always attention seeking, we worked with the frat boys going from dorm to dorm after dinner selling hoagies as the Sandwich Man (aka. Tony Ahballoni and Son). At first, were just runners, yelling “Sandwich Man” or personalizing the arrival with “Ahballoni here, come and get it” while bringing meatball and other “heroes” wrapped in aluminum foil from the delivery car to the dorms where more experienced caporegime took care of distribution and money laundering.
After months of laboring in the shadow of BMOC like “Chuckie D,” we got a chance to be the “inside man.” Now seeing himself as a capo in training, Tony was waiting for Little Richie to return with a fresh supply of meatball parm subs. Looking at Jessica, a well-endowed young lady from Long Island and pretty full of himself and his newfound promise, he proposed: “…bet you a sandwich (about $1 in currency of the moment) that I can do 10 pushups with you on my back.” And, with the fanfare of an Olympic event, as sometimes does, the voyage to stardom clouded quickly. In the middle of “family room” in perfect pushup position with Jessica saddled pleasantly on his back, Tony grunted and groaned and then broke the anticipatory silence in the room with a boisterous and symphonic air biscuit (“BRAACHTTT”) that remains both legendary and cautionary in dorm sandwich man and other in-home delivery lore.
