It Wasn't Just the Pizza.

​​There were a lot of pizza places around Quincy, but my favorite was always Pizza Connection. It was a small thing, situated at the corner in a busy intersection, and we would walk there from our house, already daydreaming about their crisp roasted eggplant on gooey cheese on a thin crust, made just the way I liked it. As far as I was concerned, it was the best pizza place in the world, and while I didn’t spare much thought for it, it had a fond corner in my heart. In summer drama camp, when we were asked to make a map of our theoretical town, I made sure to put a Pizza Connection on there. To me, depriving the town of Pizza Connection pizza was a crime worthy of jail time.

And that was what I thought when I paused at the intersection and I said, “Hey, Pizza Connection’s closed!”

There were sheets hanging in front of the windows, and the whole place looked like it was being torn apart. My heart pounded as we walked up to Pizza Connection-and then it stopped.

“Oh,” I said, reading the sign on the door. “They’re just doing renovations.” But at the bottom, I noticed something odd: the phone number for a Domino’s, and instructions to buy pizza there if you needed it.

I pointed it out, and my mom shrugged. “Maybe they just wanted to support them,” she said. It was a stupid reason, but we were stupid people, and, honestly, we didn’t care that much. We were like a frog in boiling water-placid because we didn’t see the danger up ahead.

The months passed, as they do, and I slipped into a routine; chill in the morning, go to drama camp in the afternoon, then go to the park and stay there until night. On the way to the park, we had to pass Pizza Connection, which still seemed to be under renovation. Sometimes we heard drilling noises, or the thwack of hammers hitting nails, and I’d fantasize about what Pizza Connection would look like once it was done. And at the end of the summer, I got my answer.

We were walking to the park. First we went past a few houses, and waved to the old lady tending her garden, and crossed the street, and then walked past an automobile fixing place, keeping far away from the road because there was white liquid that dripped down toward it. I ran across the crosswalk, and my brother followed, shouting at me to slow down-he was always the more prudent one-and then we both stopped.

“No.” I whispered.

Pizza Connection had been fixed, but it had also been transformed into something else entirely. Instead of that large green Pizza Connection sign, there were neat letters that spelled out Domino’s. There was the logo next to it too, the rectangle with dots. I couldn’t see much, but the inside was also transformed, with smooth wood and clean tables. That giant bottle was still there, though. If that wasn’t there, I would have screamed.

In an instant, even though I’d never cared that much about Pizza Connection, I felt melancholic. I glanced at my brother, and I could tell he was feeling the same, because there was that darkness in his already dark eyes. My mother had no reaction. “Let’s go.” she said. “We’re going to be late to the park.”

We both turned and followed her, but I had a lump in my throat, like I’d just swallowed a bowling ball. Later on, after the fun of the park was over and my thoughts came rushing back, I got angry. At what, I wasn’t sure-everything? I was mad at Domino’s for stealing Pizza Connection, and I was mad at myself for not cherishing it more, and I was mad at Pizza Connection too, and how it had the gall to leave me just when I needed something to not change. Fuming, I asked my mom why Pizza Connection had to close down. Couldn’t they have tried harder to keep it going?

My mom shrugged. She’d seen a lot of change, and this didn’t faze her one bit. “Maybe it just didn’t have enough business,” she said.

That troubled me. If I had bought more pizza, could I have saved Pizza Connection? Was it my fault they had gone out of business? You see, I was a self-blaming kind of person, the kind who would turn a knife on themselves to save others; or, more specifically, their perception of others. But looking back, I don't think I could have done anything. Businesses are big, and customers are small, and it’s easier to battle regret if you believe there’s nothing to fight.

Still, I felt like I should do something to honor Pizza Connection, so I wrote a eulogy for it, and shared it with my friends, and they joined in with choruses of sorrow. I doubt they even knew what Pizza Connection was, but that was teenagers for you-they would imitate others, do anything they could to agree with others, just so they could feel the rush of “we’re the same”. I preferred the sadistic rush of “we’re different”, but I was sometimes swept up in agreement. I was brave on the inside, but scared on the outside. At least, I thought I was.

You see, in 7th grade, I started to change. I don’t mean puberty, although that…happened. I mean me, my personality, what I liked, what I felt.

Before, I thought I liked engineering. Biomechanical engineering, to be specific. My life was all planned out-first I would go to North Quincy High School, cause I liked their school song and they had all the smart kids, then Iget into MIT, and study biomechanical engineering there, and then I would graduate, find a job…and then, I’d figure the rest of my life out. This plan was set in stone, and my family liked it, so all was good.

But in 7th grade, I started to…change. I began to write. I’d liked it before, but I’d never done anything. I’d said, “I’ll write a book!”...and I didn’t. So I just stopped, moved on…but then, for a reading assignment, I had to write an alternative ending to a story-and I went all into it. I knocked out a 10-page ending that not only finished the story but set up a sequel and future arcs and a gay ship, because I had a thing about them back then and still do. And then my friends said, You should start writing stories, Dharshini, and so I did. And then after writing, I got into animation, and then art, and my parents watched as my desk became covered with paper, and my computer lay open for hours on end, and I ventured deeper and deeper into a world they didn't like. And they got worried.

“Dharshini,” my mom said, getting ready to inject some medicine into me. “You will never become an artist. You can become an engineer, or a doctor, or a lawyer, but not an artist.”

I looked up, eyes wide, as the needle broke through my flesh. It shouldn’t have hurt so much, but it did.

“Dharshini,” my mom said, looking more sympathetic (as she’d had injections of her own), “Just-promise me you’ll be smart, okay?”

She hugged me, but I didn’t hug her back. Oblivious, satisfied, she left, leaving me sitting there. I looked down at the drawing I’d been working on.

Turns out, I draw pretty well when I’m crying.

So then I started to question everything-my family, my behavior….myself.

And now,

I’m still in 7th grade,

And I’m still not sure what I want to do,

What I want to become.

But that’s alright.

I’ll figure it out.

And now that I’m thinking more deeply,

I think that I miss Pizza Connection so much because it was something that I thought would never change. I never spared much thought for it, and I never thought about it being gone. In my mind, it would exist forever.

But in reality,

It didn’t.

So maybe that was a catalyst.

Maybe that’s what really sparked my mind; not my new interests, not my fragile relationship with my parents,

But a small pizza place on 41 Safford Street.

So, in the end, this story isn’t about Pizza Connection or art or my parents,

It's about change.

That’s all.

Thank you

for listening.