Peanut Pizza

BAMMMMMMMMM.

The 93rd Mayor of Philadelphia slams his massive right hand on his massive mahogany desk.

“You tell that redneck motherfucking peanut farmer that if he wants to be President of the United States, he needs to win fucking Pennsylvania and to win fucking Pennsylvania he needs to win fucking Philadelphia and to win fucking Philadelphia he needs to win fucking South Philadelphia and to win fucking South Philly he needs to win the fucking 39th ward and to win the fucking 39th ward he needs fucking me because I am the fucking 39th ward!”

It had all started on such a pleasant note.

“Thank you, Senator, for taking the time from your busy schedule,” said Mayor Frank L. Rizzo to the man running Jimmy Carter’s campaign in Pennsylvania. “Please be seated, John. That’s a Boston chair by the way, you being from Massachusetts and all.”

The mayor’s office is a model of spartan décor: two flags, American and City flags, an impossibly shiny mahogany desk the size of an aircraft carrier, and the Boston chair.

The Philly press loved Rizzo. As a young cop on the rise, they dubbed him the ‘Cisco Kid’ for his swaggering cowboy style. When he grew into his 6’2’’, 250-pound frame with a neck thicker than a bull’s, they crowned him the ‘Bambino.’ He liked both names. Rizzo never met a photographer he didn’t like unless there was something going on he didn’t want seen. I don’t think Rizzo was a Democrat or a Republican, he was for Rizzo and whichever party he needed to get the power he craved, Rizzo became. Elected as a Democrat, his embrace of Richard Nixon in 1972 earned him the ire of Democrats especially former Philadelphia mayors Richardson Dilworth and Joe Clark. Rizzo had the Dems by the balls, and he squeezed them. (Nixon rewarded Rizzo’s endorsement with significant federal funding for the city.)

As mayor, Rizzo was accused of promoting racist policies; as a cop, Rizzo had earned a reputation for brutality. My father saw him knock the eye out of a smaller man using a blackjack in an unprovoked beating. My father remembered Rizzo enjoying it.

Rizzo continues in a calmer voice, “Please ask the governor to give me a call if he’s serious about becoming president. Tell him the political facts of life in Pennsylvania just as I told you, word for word, don’t leave anything out, John. Thank you for your time, senator.”

Meeting over. The office quickly emptied except for John, the state senator from Massachusetts running Jimmy Carter’s campaign in Pennsylvania still sitting in the Boston chair convinced that a Carter presidency was now in the ruthless hands of the volatile mayor of the City of Brotherly Love.

Why was the Cisco Kid so pissed off?

A Citizens Committee led by Democrats Richardson Dilworth

and Joseph Clark, petitioned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to recall the 1975 mayoral election won by Rizzo in a landslide. Dilworth and Clark had been blood enemies with Rizzo for decades, campaigning against him in each of his successful runs for mayor. The recall turned into a bitter street fight. Rizzo, who once said of anti-police demonstrators, “When I’m finished with them, I’m gonna make Attila the Hun look like a faggot.” Dilworth and Clark’s heads were on his chopping block.

Jimmy Tayoun, a ward leader from South Philly took the phone call in the cloak room of the Middle East Restaurant which he owned with his father and brother. Pop ran the cloakroom, always wearing a fez, and smoking a blend of Turkish tobacco, and I believe, a sprinkling of hashish in a hookah. A few of us had been drinking at the bar discussing the execution of the State Senator from Massachusetts we all just witnessed.

“Carter called the mayor, said the rally was for his candidacy, not an endorsement of on any local issues, he didn’t know Dilworth and Clark were going to push the recall. It was a misunderstanding.”

“What happens now?”

“Carter’s coming back here on Monday. The governor will meet him at the airport while the mayor will be holding his own stop-the-recall rally at the FOP where he will tell Philadelphians to vote their conscience.”

“Conscience? What conscience? It’s a fucking election!”

“Bottomline: no endorsement for Carter or Ford.”

“Frank and the peanut farmer made nice. Maybe we should give Carter a peace present or something.”

“Maybe even get some good press out of it.”

“Something from the voters of Philadelphia.”

“Look, this all came down to South Philly. Maybe something that Carter likes and something that says South Philly.”

“What about a pizza, a giant pizza shaped like a peanut with ‘President Jimmy’ spelled out in fucking peanuts.”

“And I got the guy to make it.” said Jimmy.

 Poison Peanut Pizza

Though the pizzeria was closed on Mondays, the suggestion that a visit from Licenses & Inspections prompted the owner to make an exception. Carter’s plane, Peanut One, would leave Philly at 3pm. We’ll be there to send him off with a six-foot peanut shaped pizza as a symbol of Philadelphia’s support for his candidacy.

Incredibly, it worked. We got photos Carter posing with the six-foot peanut pizza. The future president boarded the plane, and our mission was over.

No. Not by a long shot.

“Gentlemen, a moment, please,” Hamilton Jordon, Governor Carter’s senior aid comes down the ramp. “If you don’t have any plans for that peanut pizza, Jimmy would sure love to taste it.”

It wasn’t the Hand of God that grabs my shoulder, more like Mr. Spock’s Vulcan Death Grip and it belongs to a burly, crewcut Secret Service agent. “Not so fast, kid. We don’t even know how these guys got here and we not letting them on the plane.”

Meanwhile, I’m frozen, I can’t move, I can’t speak, I can’t breathe. The agent tightens his grip as the conversation with Jordon heats up.

         “Jimmy thinks a peanut pizza sounds appealing and figures it’s big enough for all of us to get some.”

         “I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t know who these two guys are, and I’m not letting that potentially poison peanut pizza or these two guys on that plane,” insists the agent.

“Potentially poison peanut pizza? Do you hear yourself, sir? Look, I appreciate your concern, agent, I really do, but Jimmy is hungry, and he can get ornery when he hasn’t eaten, and I don’t intend to deal with that, understand.”

“I’m doing my duty, sir.”

“Speaking of duty, tomorrow, Governor Carter will be elected as the 39th President of the United States of America, and one of his first actions I assure you will be to transfer you to duty on the Eisenhower farm, the former first lady still resides there and has her own Secret Service detail of which you will be fucking assigned for as long as she fucking breaths.”

I’m losing all feeling in my right arm and would scream if I could. Then it stops. The agent stands down.

“Gentlemen would you and your peanut pizza please follow me.”

Presidential Pee

 Getting a six-foot pizza on an airplane is as challenging as it sounds. We’re working our way down the aisle when I bump into a door that slowly swings open to reveal Mr. Carter, eyes closed in blissful relief with his soon-to-be presidential penis in hand, taking a much-needed leak after a long afternoon of campaigning.

Startled, he tries to stash his pecker back into his pants and zipper up at the same, always a tricky and dangerous maneuver.

“Be careful, sir, it’s only a pizza.”

I had read the Carter’s Playboy interview about ‘lusting for women in his heart’ so, I was relieved he was just taking a sorely needed leak. He flashes that toothy smile and offers his hand, wet with presidential pee, which I shake.  “Peanut pizza, sounds fabulous, thank you.”

The pizza was not only a Philly media success, it even had its 15 seconds of fame on Walter Cronkite that night.

Jimmy Carter is a good and decent man by most accounts, and by most accounts, when crossed, he can be a vengeful man who bears grudges. As president, Carter punished Rizzo by denying millions in federal funding to Philadelphia.

Guess he didn’t like pizza with his peanuts.