How to Survive Delivering Chinese Food in Chicago

One of the jobs I did while half-supporting myself in high school. (I guess you could say I worked my way through high school.) Was at a wire factory in Addison Il. Addison was a good 45 minutes down the highway, but I had pretty much my pick of hours, so I worked there when I began senior year. About six months later, the owner of the factory discovered Mexicans so us local boys were quietly let go.

I discovered the delivery job on my own, Howard Dong was always recruiting new drivers, as he had a thriving business and a high turnover. I found I enjoyed the work, made decent tips, and ate a good dinner every night.

If you imagine there are a few stories to tell concerning driving food to all parts of Chicago until 1am each night, you are right. After all, I had to go into Gold Coast condos, and west end welfare hotels. Night shift workers at the post office and students in dorms up studying late.

I'll start with the most obvious one first. Yes, hot women often did answer the door in baby doll negligees and hint strongly they would like a driver to deliver far more than the egg fu young, but that only happened to the balding guys with the pot bellies. It never happened to me (lucky dogs!).

Here are a few things that did happen while I was chauffeuring people's dinners around, and I'm not making any of it up:

Before I begin, the disclaimer: yes, I was a 17 year old delusional hippie-type who believed first in the power of the Shanghai Menu. I was told putting that menu on my dashboard would give me powers other motorist could only dream about; park in tow-away zones, DOUBLE PARK (if the tow-away zones were filled up), basically, it was a talisman that warded off all evil. I also understood that how you carry yourself can make the difference of dudes messing with you or deciding not to mess with you. I always walked shoulders back, head up, and knew if anyone was within 75 feet of me at all times. Using the power of the Shanghai menu, I always parked right in front of the building I was going in, keeping the number of steps on the street to a minimum.

Now a few tales from the streets of Chicago.

Most of my customers were nice people who took care of me and I took care of them. Owner Howard Dong was the original blueprint for Mr Crabbs on Spongebob Squarepants; he took ALL orders, everybody's money was good with him. While some drivers would flat out refuse to deliver to some areas, I never did (after all, I had the power of the Shanghai Menu). This could mean heading to a west end welfare hotel on a Friday night and taking a couple of big bags of food in a rickety elevator with some derelict junkies, but it didn't bother me (I was Spongebil delivery guy!). These were neighborhoods sane white people would avoid driving through in broad daylight, they were that dangerous. These guys would generally give me a little something only because it was a novelty to see a white boy at all.

I was bringing an order to such a place one Saturday night around midnight to the "front desk". Here's why front desk is in quotes: It was a fortress with thick glass and bars with a little slot for pushing money and room keys through. Not what you'd normally think of when you say front desk. Well there were a couple of people in line ahead of me so I stood there to wait for them to finish their business (the food was for the two desk ladies). The guy in front of me was drunk as hell and giving them a hard time. Not violent, he was just really out of it. When I looked over his shoulder to try to figure out what the deal was, I saw he was trying to push his er ebony fire-hose through the slot at them. They were telling him to go away and squealing, it was more funny than dangerous. He finally got the hint that he couldn't pay for a room that way and staggered off.

One of the times when I was driving through the projects (these are high rise ghettos) the kids had the fire hydrant open as they sometimes do on a hot summer evening. Well, the window on my VW van was open to get some air as well. The cars in front of me slowed down not to hit one in case they ran out in the street. Suddenly between two parked cars a boy jumped out with a bucket full of water and threw it through my window. I was drenched, the food was all wet, and I was mad as hell. Thinking these were pint size pranksters, (and I was the adult authority) I stepped out of the van to bitch them out. I was already out of the car when I saw they had backup; the older brothers were standing by. I was back in the car and explaining to the rather large fellows how clever the little guys were, what a good joke they pulled on me ha ha. Happily, they not only let me live, but didn't even rob me of my wet food! The power of the menu I tell ya!

Among my semi-regular drop-offs was Chess Records on South Michigan Avenue. I would crane my neck to see who might be working on any given visit, I usually saw Muddy Waters, he would be producing some gospel choir or other (boring but) rent paying exercise. I was also driving the night of the big Sly and the Family Stone riot. Sly stood up Chicago 3 times during booked shows. They planned this free performance to make up for all that and (of course) Sly didn't show. 100,000 + people went on a rampage. I'm glad I didn't take off work for that!


I probably have 12-15 stories worth telling; the Yellow Cab that rear-ended my van in front of Cook County Hospital, among them, but I'll only mention one more that showcases my stupidity. This was a delivery to a different project (high rise slum) on the south side. Now this place was way notorious; the police refused to patrol there after dark. Naturally I said "no problem, I'll take it". It would take a full page to fully explore the full dimension of how utterly dumb that was, so let's just get on with it shall we?

I had to park a distance from the building, and there were several buildings; you couldn't tell which one was the right one. I'm walking around out there asking for directions (10 o'clock) when a large fellow in a beret stops me and wants to know what I'm doing. I tell him I'm taking an order of shrimp fried rice to somebody. He looks at me like I've lost my mind.
The Black Panthers patrolled the place at night, it was the only thing passing for security there. His interceding may have saved my life.
He got on his walkie-talkie and radioed ahead and made an arrangement for the food to get where it needed to be. Then he told me to leave and never come back there again.
I drove food for about a year-and-a-half, I didn't take my life in my hands every night, something good eventually came of it; I met George Price.
George also lived in a high rise, but it was on Michigan Avenue (where wealthy white people lived). Every time I brought him his food he would be interested in me and ask questions about what I was doing with my life (a nice guy). After several deliveries, I was offered a job with his small company doing something in an exciting new field: commercial typesetting (this is typesetting with a computer!).

My first real job 8-4pm M-F. Paid a starting wage of $100./week. But that wasn't too bad in 1970. Unless you wanted to do more than eat and pay the rent. My transmission died in my VW van, so I had to go back and work at Shanghai again to pay for that. It was pretty much just like school, day and night, 5 days a week.

The job at Graphic Sales was cool because we were the cutting edge of the business. They had been setting type with hot metal on the Linotype contraption for about 80 years, we were doing it on photo-paper with a large computer, then pasting it on the layout board. If you think it sounds crazy primitive now, you shoulda seen the other guy(s)... they ran a thing that looked like a hay baler, but it had a furnace on it melting lead to form into characters. Then another guy (who had been in training for a couple of years) would take it, put it on a proof press to check it. THAT was primitive!