Deli Diaries 14: The Atheist Feeding the Churches of East LA

Hi, I’m here from First Church of Christ the Impatient. I’m here to pick up 150 pieces of chicken. What? Twenty minutes? I ordered this in advance. There are a hundred people waiting for me to come back with this. This is unacceptable. The congregation at Our Lady of Perpetual Dissatisfaction have already finished their meal and are on their way home. When I placed the order on Tuesday, I specifically said that I would be here at 11:30. Well, here I am. Where’s the chicken?

This is a royalty-free image of chicken.

I forget people still go to church. I went three times a week all my early years pretty much until the moment I looked around the room at everyone else and thought I don’t believe a word of this. In my hometown, most retail stores were closed on Sundays because everyone went to church—no one to shop, and no one to keep the store open. But then, after a few moves, I ended up in the Bay Area, where the only times I realized that people were going to church was when I went to the Merritt restaurant on a Sunday afternoon and got the stinkeye from dozens of church ladies who knew that if I beat them there, I hadn’t had my heathen butt in the pews.

Not that I didn’t go to church buildings—I am a 22-year member of a 12-step group that meets in the basements and classrooms of churches. I fiercely hated this aspect at first, knowing that I started drinking and drugging because of what happened in the name of these churches and these religions, but had nowhere else to go. At first, I tried to stick to the meetings that were held other places, but eventually, upon finding out that the main spiritual mantra of the group was “it doesn’t matter what god is” and witnessing the high weirdness of the noon meeting held every day at the church next to Delores Park—the only meeting I could get to on my lunch break—I chilled out about that.

I know one guy in my social circle who goes to church. He’s a former male stripper who transitioned to running gay porn sites, tried to start a sex-doll brothel, and now makes his money in the cannabis industry. And he’s an ardent catholic. To me, going to church is a vestige of my Southern roots, along with catfish restaurants and people “goin’ muddin’.” It’s just not what I thought of people doing in Los Angeles.

Working at the supermarket on Sundays changed all that. Oh, they come, “suited and booted,” as a church friend of mine used to say, looking like the entire family is getting interviewed for a job—sometimes the dads throw on a Raiders cap as soon as the preacher says the last amen and they get back in the Yukon. Now, most of them are easy-peasy, getting the popular eight-piece dinners with some potato wedges and 24 ounces of a deli salad, throwing them in the cart with their King’s Hawaiian Rolls and six liters of various sodas. I recognize most of them by now, although usually they are wearing basketball shorts and have “Laugh Now, Cry Later” tattoos faded out to a dull gray. Sundays, they look nice, and are going to have after-church dinner at home, although no one is going to cook. But some of them are going to be difficult.

I blame the personality type who volunteers to order and pick up the massive boxes of chicken on the difficulty. For one, they want to see the small crowd cheer when they walk in with a box in each hand, the welcomed one bearing gifts, just as the Wise Men brought gifts to the Baby Jesus, of gold, frankincense, and potato salad. Second, deep down, they want something to go wrong, so they can vocalize and wallow in their self-righteous indignation. These are the people who have nothing going wrong in their lives but want the attention and support of others that a real victim receives, but without the hardship.

But it’s given a really bad reputation to all the church-goers in the area. You only notice the assholes. It’s like you don’t notice how many people don’t fart in front of you. You may walk by hundreds of people in a day, but the invisible surprise from just one person will change your perception of the day. And the loud, obnoxious after-church chicken eaters who repeat their case to you when it won’t help at all erase the perception of the two hundred customers you served in a row without a complaint. It’s not just me, or the deli. The bakery and the meat department don’t care for them, either.

For the morning crew that rolls in at 3 a.m., the people who show up at 9 for church are sleeping in and have a whole day off. It’s a little bit like serving tourists—you need them so your job exists, but they drive you nuts.

Last Sunday, I was on deep fryer detail. I had an order that required 50 pieces of grilled chicken, which we made and put aside in the hot case. The order also needed 100 pieces of fried; fried chicken has to be timed close to the pickup, whereas the grilled chicken just has to be kept hot. If you don’t understand this, you probably don’t eat chicken at all. So I planned my lunch break so I would have time to sort, batter, and fry two stacks (each stack fryer can hold 56 pieces) before the pickup.

When I got back, ready to drop my double batch in the fryer, the grilled chicken was gone. Someone must have given it out in the wrong order. I don’t really care what happened—it didn’t matter and still doesn’t—my only concern was getting more grilled chicken ready. My coworker S__ jumped in and prepped the batch, but there was no way it was going to be ready at 1 p.m. I called the customer’s number but got voicemail; I left a message I doubted would be heard. My only hope was that the customer would be late.

I knew when she showed up in her Sunday best at 12:59 who she was and I was shit out of luck. She told us all about her church group and that they were already eating without her and repeatedly told us that she was told it would be ready at one. The chicken was given to her at 1:20 p.m. She stormed off, back to church.

At 3:00 p.m., she called back, demanding a refund. I didn’t take the call, but I heard S__ say “just bring it back, and we’ll give you a full refund.” I knew who was on the other end at that point. They talked a little more, then S__ hung up.

“I told her to bring back whatever they didn’t want and she said they ate all of it,” S__ told me with a Joker’s grin.

She was probably the only person at her church who cared. I’ll be they didn’t even notice she was gone.