LIVE or DIE by the Pizza Pie
From muggings to stolen cars, Lawrence drivers have all the fun.
By Erik Johnson, Jayplaywriter
Don't tell Joe Noel his job is dangerous. He doesn't want to hear it. There is no boss breathing down his neck or telling him he has to stay late Friday or come in early Saturday morning At the end of the night, when 4 a.m. finally rolls around, Noel goes home with a thick wad of cash lining his pockets. He chooses the music he listens to and no one else's. And aside from the occasional no-show, shortchanged or disgruntled drunk, everyone's delighted when Noel arrives at the door.
The Kansas City, Kan., junior has delivered for Pizza Shuttle, 1601 W. $23^{\mathrm{rd}}$ St., about 25 hours each week for more than two years. Averaging 50 stops each night, Noel admits he's seen his share of hairy situations but says he's been able to avoid trouble until recently.
Early morning, Sept. 25, however, was different. It was Noel's last delivery of the night. He was tired and eager to head home. As he stopped his 1992 Honda Accord on the 3700 block of Overland Drive in West Lawrence, one of three shadows standing on the nearby driveway suddenly ran off. Something isn't right, he thinks.
"By the time I figured out what was going on," he says, "They hit me with a board, I think. I don't really remember." As he lay on the ground, unconscious from a powerful blow to the head, five men kicked, stomped and robbed him. They stole $65 in cash, his cell phone and leafed through his wallet for whatever they could find. "I wasn't carrying any extra cash, but they took a ring off my finger that I had found on the ground somewhere. I guess they thought it might be worth something."
The men ran off with the pizza and Noel's belongings shortly after. He awoke, sort of, about five minutes later
feeling broken and bewildered. Noel says he remembers little from the next three days, but he managed to drive himself back to the store that night. His manager found him in Pizza Shuttle's parking lot, slumped over in his seat and incoherently explaining that he'd been robbed. A police officer was already in the lot examining a car that had been hit. He immediately went to the scene, and found one of Noel's shoes, his hat and his wallet, but no suspects. Two trips to the hospital revealed Noel had suffered a severe concussion. It could
Joe Noel suffered a concussion when he was mugged on a delivery last month. "It was an isolated incident and I just happened to get the last delivery of the night," Noel says.
have been worse, but a pair of CAT scans revealed Noel had not broken any bones in his face. "I was pretty bruised up," he says. "I had kick marks on my face, and boot marks on my arm and shoulder. I don't think they punched me at all; they just kicked me while I was down and unconscious, which is really shitty to do."
In the past two years, I delivered for three different pizza shops. But in my countless hours wandering the roads of Lawrence I've never encountered — knock on wood — anything like Noel's recent brush with the worst Lawrence has to offer. Few drivers can.
At Pizza Pro (you may have never heard of it; it went out of business in about seven months), we primarily serviced the East Lawrence area. I delivered to a trailer park on $19^{th}$ Street one afternoon, and having been there dozens of times before, was suprised to see a recent-model Cadillac Deville in the parking space. A burly, sharply dressed middle-aged man answered the door of a doublewide trailer that had nothing but a small table in the far corner. The man was entirely too well-dressed to live where he did, and my suspicions were confirmed when he asked if I had change for a $50. I did not. But with an$ 18 tip, whatever secrets he held back there were safe with me.
Photos by Joshua Kendall
10.28.04 Jayplay
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