I have committed a sin. I know I have. I’m not sure what it is, but God has made me pay.
He brought me here, to Greenwich Village Pizza in Los Angeles.
This is not a food blog, and I’m not a chef of any remote note. However, there are certain things that are nearly impossible to screw up to the point of inedibleness (not a word, but my word). Eggs. Rice. Chocolate milk. Yeah, there are good levels and bad levels. But, 99.9 percent of the time, whatever emerges goes down your pipes without returning.
Pizza has always been on that list—until now.
I ordered a cheese slice. A nice woman took my order. She told me she’s Armenian and loves the Miami Dolphins. She also told me the slice was $3.50. Not cheap. Especially because the place is, well, grotesque. Crumbs on the table, hot as hell, sedated slices melting angrily beneath a glass pane. But I ordered because I need wifi.
Sat down. Turned on the laptop. Wifi is awful. Pizza 1,000 times worse.
How to explain? Imagine eating a slice of carboard topped with cheese and sauce. Now make that cheese 10 days past expiration. Add tuna juice to the sauce. Stir together and plop on the cardboard. Oh, add just a half spoon of your cat’s last discharge. (Dog discharge works, too).
Then—eat.
I’m staring at the piece, wondering whether it was born in the 1970s or 80s.
Wondering how I got here.
In pizza hell.