Hot Dog!

At various times in my adult life, I have worked many different jobs. One job I’ve fallen back on a number of times is running a hot dog cart. It’s not hard work, if you don’t mind standing on your feet eight to twelve hours per day, fixing hot dogs, sodas and whatever else a particular vendor might be selling.

The first time I ran a hot dog cart was when I made the decision to move to Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was an odd decision from the get-go. My stepfather’s business had transferred him and my mother there, so I figured I’d at least have a place to stay. I had forgotten one detail: my stepfather and I never did get along. My stay at his house lasted about a week. The next thing I knew, I was staying at the local homeless shelter.

After a few days, I found a job. It wasn’t much of a job, but it was better than nothing. I began working for Eddie’s Hot Dogs. Every day, I set up a cart with pans of water, a full propane bottle, a soda canister, and miscellaneous supplies. Then, I wheeled the heavy cart to a small park about a mile away. Once there, I’d raise the umbrella and put out a folding board advertising “Fresh hotdogs and Sodas – $1.” I earned about $20 per day; enough to pay for a small room in an old converted hotel.

I made several friends while working for Eddie. There was a sister and brother team with the names “Sun” and “Moon” (their parents had been hippies) who were in their twenties; a thirty-something named Greg who’d been in the military; Laura, Eddie’s daughter, who everyone thought was eighteen; and, eventually, Eddie himself became a good friend. When the hotel I was staying at was condemned, I lived for a short time with Greg in a converted bedroom of a Victorian house. While I was there, he began dating Eddie’s daughter. Laura wouldn’t let Greg tell her father they were dating, so they’d often meet in secret in his room. Whenever that happened, I’d have to “go for a walk.” The relationship didn’t last very long, since Laura turned out to be only fifteen years old. She looked older, and ran her own hot dog cart, so nobody thought about even asking how old she was. Apparently, Laura decided to confide the information to Greg one day. He immediately threw her out. The next day, he left town.

I had already moved out by this time. A little terrier-mix dog had adopted me, and Greg’s landlord didn’t allow pets. I spent the next few nights sleeping on a flat part of the roof where Greg had been staying that led to a fire escape. When the landlord caught me there (and threatened to call the cops), my dog (“Benji”) and I moved into a little storage shed where the hot dog carts were stored. After a few days, Eddie discovered me there and chewed me out–not for sleeping in the shed, but for not letting him know I was struggling. He invited me to move in with him and his family. His son, Danny, was just a couple years younger than me, and he let me sleep in one of the twin beds he had in his room. Danny and I got to be good friends, Benji took to Danny as well.

That was when Eddie and I bonded. I became sort of a cross between friend and adopted son to Eddie. He introduced me to a . . . well, “cult” would be the closest term . . . known as EST (Erhard Seminars Training). It was a combination of Zen Buddhism, Nihilism, and Positive Thinking. They had a lot of phrases like “the end justifies the means, or it doesn’t” and “practice what you believe – just don’t believe everything you practice.” One key thing they taught was your mind could cause anything to happen. We’d drive around, doing things like concentrating on telephone poles to see if we could make them sway. Over time, I came to the conclusion that EST was just a way to convince people to give them lots of money. Each seminar they held came with a hefty price, starting at $350 for a two-hour session.

I never made a lot of money selling hot dogs, but I really enjoyed the job, and the friends I had working there. Moon and Sun wound up in the drug scene and one day Moon sold everything on his cart—including the umbrella and propane tank. Eddie, who had the Zen attitude that EST taught, just set Moon up with another cart—with the agreement that Moon would give Eddie 10% per day of his profits until the tank and umbrella were paid for. To make up for the 10%, Moon started buying extra packs of hot dogs from the supermarket and mixing them in with those Eddie provided. Eventually, Eddie caught him at it, and found out Sun had been doing the same thing. Eddie’s language wasn’t very Zen as he fired the two.

All this happened in just over a year. Eddie’s Hot Dogs would turn out to be one of the longest jobs I ever held, outside of working for myself. But, one day, I got the news that my grandfather had died. Grandma wanted me to move to California to live with her in the house they had owned for thirty years. Thinking that Grandma was allergic to dogs (I later found out she wasn’t), I left Benji behind and moved to California.

After about a year, I suddenly lost contact with Eddie and Danny. I thought maybe I’d done or said something to upset them. Three years after that, wanting to be close to my little sisters, who were still living with my parents, I moved back to Colorado. Eddie’s Hot Dogs had been sold. The new owner kept the name and was still in touch with Eddie. Not knowing who I was, the owner (Bill) wouldn’t give me Eddie’s information. But he did offer me a job—which I accepted. I was, once again, a hot dog vendor.

A few weeks later, Bill gave me a phone number to call. He’d talked with Eddie, and said Eddie wanted to hear from me. I called, and Eddie told me what had happened. Danny had died of cancer the year I left. They hadn’t even known he had it. The distraught family decided to sell everything and move back east.

Shortly after that, I quit selling hot dogs, and became a telemarketer—which wasn’t really a step up, but I earned more money. A series of bad choices over the next few months got me involved in a check-writing scam with a couple who made their living creating new identities for people. I ran to California but was picked up by the authorities a few months later—and I was extradited right back to Colorado. While out on bail, I foolishly married a friend of mine, and got her pregnant. My son would be born while I was in prison. My wife, Diana, had a bad labor, and David was born with a three-chambered heart. I kicked myself for not being able to be there. Because of David, the parole board granted me a commutation, and I was able to get out of a three-year sentence after doing just over nine months. When I got home, David and I bonded instantly. Diana, on the other hand, became more and more distant. Then, five days after his second birthday, my son passed away during heart surgery. Diana didn’t seem to care.

I left town and wandered around the West Coast for a while. Then, I moved back in with Grandma. Looking in the newspaper, I saw an ad for a hot dog vendor to operate a cart at a nearby BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station. A couple days later, I was peddling hot dogs, sodas and chips. I did okay—enough to give my grandmother some money for room and board—but not enough to afford my own place. Then, after I’d been working about three months, a couple of Iranian brothers came by my stand. They said they had bought a nice hot dog cart and were looking for a good location. Then, they asked how much I would take to give up my location, so they could sell there. Of course, it wasn’t exactly “my location” to give up, but I didn’t tell them that. Thinking they’d just go away, I told them “Five thousand dollars.” They didn’t even haggle. They just wrote down their address and told me to stop by after I was done for the day, and they would have the money, if I agreed never to work that location again. I figured, for $5K, I could just quit, so I’d be keeping my word, and not working that location. When I went to their house, though, they had this elaborate contract drawn up. In the contract, it said I was giving up my “business” and turning it over to them. There was a lot of other stuff about not starting a new vending business of any kind within five miles, and so on. I figured, so long as it didn’t say anything about selling the cart, I was okay. After all, I was agreeing not to work there, anymore. I just left out the part where I was working for someone else. But then they told me they’d only give me $2500 down—and the other half after they’d been there for three months, to be sure I kept my word about not selling there. $2500 cash looked good to me for just quitting a job, so I took the money.

The next morning, I called my boss and told him I quit. Then, I took $1000 of my ill-gotten gain and headed for Reno for the day. As usual, I came back without any money. But I knew myself and had left the other $1500 in a drawer. When I got home, there was a phone call for me. It was the local police department. They said they just had some questions. While I knew what I’d done wasn’t very ethical, I didn’t think there were any laws broken. I was wrong. I was charged with fraud and wound up on parole. I also had been ordered to pay restitution of $5000, since that’s what the contract said they had agreed to pay me. I filed paperwork protesting the amount, and something happened. After that, every time I sent in the $50 per month I was supposed to pay, I’d get a refund check from the county for $50, for “overpayment”. Of course, I didn’t argue.

Once off parole, I wanted to leave the Bay Area. Having really enjoyed Colorado Springs, I decided to move back. Driving into town, I saw a “help wanted” sign on a warehouse. I stopped in, and found they were looking for people to drive ice cream trucks. I figured it was a lot like selling hotdogs, so I applied. The owner, a Pakistani whose name I never could pronounce (I called him “Sam”), told me he was also looking for a night watchman. The job didn’t pay anything, but I’d be able to live in a small mobile home that was on the lot. Not having any other plans, I took him up on it.

I made decent money selling ice cream. Then, one day, I was talking to Sam about my hot dog vending experience. He told me that he happened to have a hot dog cart in his warehouse that had never been used. I saw an opportunity to work for myself and asked him if he’d rent the cart to me. He agreed, and Denny’s Hot Dogs was born. I was going to call it “Spanky’s,” since that was my nickname. But Sam thought “Spanky’s Hot Dogs” might give people the wrong impression. I didn’t see it but went with “Denny’s” anyway.

I found a good location and began earning a modest income. But then, Sam’s brother moved from Pakistan to the United States, and told Sam that he’d like to run the hot dog cart. Without notice, after I’d gone to the work to find a good location and build up the business, I no longer had it. Sam told me I could go back to driving an ice cream truck, but I was so angry, I didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

Talking about it with a friend, I decided Sam needed some competition. I bought a van with a sliding door on the side. I put in a chest freezer and built a counter where the sliding door was. Then, I used flexible magnets to put signs on the van. Once I got my business license, I drove through what I knew were good areas to sell ice cream ahead of the schedule that Sam’s drivers did. My prices were also lower, and I sold other things besides ice cream. I had sodas, baseball cards, and even little dime-store toys. I think a lot of parents dreaded seeing me show up, but I began making some pretty good money. I even hired my friend’s son, Jason, to sit at the counter while I drove around, waiting to be flagged down. Then, I would get the ice cream and sodas out of the chest freezer, and hand them to Jason to give out. That enabled me to cover twice as much ground in one day.

Sam tried to get an injunction against me, but a judge ruled that I had as much right as he did to operate a legitimate, licensed business. But then he got the Health Department involved. Even though everything I sold was pre-packaged, there was a law about the sales of ice cream that required a food vendor’s license. I tried to get one. However, because I used dry ice to keep the ice cream cold in the freezer, I couldn’t guarantee a certain temperature. I could not get the Health Department to grant me a license. To this day, I think Sam pulled some strings, somehow.

At the same time all this was going on, I was in a relationship that was going sour. One day, I decided to just “chuck it all.” I put everything I owned in the van and just started driving. I had a vague notion of heading to Florida. I’d never been to the East Coast, and thought it would be neat to go there. Maybe see Disney World or the Everglades. What I didn’t put too much thought into was how much money I had. While I’d made decent money with my ice cream truck, I didn’t save much. I had less than a thousand dollars to my name. And, after spending more than fifty dollars for gas, and paying over a hundred dollars for one night at a hotel in Dallas, I realized my money might not last very long. So, I made a new goal: I go to New Orleans. It was close to Mardi Gras, and I wanted to be there for the festivities.

Coming into town late at night two days before Mardi Gras, I had trouble finding a hotel with a vacancy. When I finally found one, it cost me over two hundred and fifty dollars for one night. My money was dwindling fast. I couldn’t find anything until after Mardi Gras and went through almost all the money I had left in about four days. Then, I found a little run-down motel in the town of Metairie (just outside New Orleans). They rented rooms for $100 per week, almost all I had to my name. After moving my stuff into the room, I went out to see about getting a job. It turned out that jobs were scarce in Louisiana. The first one I found was at a print shop, doing computer graphic design. I convinced the owner I was an expert—but barely knew how to use the program. After a few days, it became evident, and I was nicely told not to come back.

Out of money, with rent due, I wound up selling my van—worth almost $4000—for $800. Weeks went by, and I couldn’t find any sort of job doing anything. I was getting desperate, and foolish. With my last ten dollars, I went to a riverboat casino. I put the $10 bill in a fifty-cent slot machine, playing two coins at a time. I was down to $2, when the machine hit a jackpot. I won four hundred dollars! If I had left the casino right then, I would have been all right—at least for a few more weeks. But I thought I could parlay that money into enough to either move back to California or Colorado—or maybe even start some type of business.

As I was walking out of the casino with only fifty dollars to my name, I was both depressed and hungry. On the walkway by the riverboat was a hot dog-shaped cart, advertising “Lucky Dogs”. I stopped and bought a hot dog. While eating it, I asked the vendor if the company was hiring. He looked at me like I was out of my mind but gave me the address of the company and wished me “good luck.” I walked two or three miles until I finally found a seedy little warehouse with men sitting all around, smoking cigars. I asked for the owner, and one of the men grunted and pointed his cigar toward a sign marked “Office.” A big man in a filthy white t-shirt greeted me at a counter and asked what I wanted. I told him I had previously sold hot dogs in California and would like a job. I was surprised when he asked me how much money I had. When I told him I had less than fifty dollars, several men nearby chuckled.
Then, the man explained that, if I wanted a good location, they started at $500. I started to walk out, but the man called me back, and told me I could lease a cart for $50 a day, plus supplies—and he’d “front” me the amount I didn’t have. The challenge was that I’d have to find my own location. He showed me a map with red “X’s” all over it. He explained those marked where carts already were. I would have to park my cart no closer than 4 blocks from any of those.

I finally found a place at the end of Bourbon Street and set up my cart. The first day, after deductions for what I owed, I was $35 dollars in debt. I did better the second day, finishing only $4 in the hole. The third day, I actually made money…seven whole dollars! Then, on the fourth day, I broke even. My rent was overdue, and the owner of the motel was threatening to lock me out. I didn’t know what to do the next day when, as I was getting ready to take my cart back to the warehouse, I realized that the $85 I had in my pocket would give me a $5 profit after rental and supplies. So, instead of reporting in, I parked the cart outside the warehouse and just walked away. When I got to the motel, the landlord had put a lock on my door, with all my belongings inside. I told him I didn’t have the whole $200 I owed him, but at least I had $85. He held out his hand for the money and I foolishly gave it to him without asking any questions. He wrote me a receipt for the $85 and told me to come back with $115 if I wanted to retrieve my belongings. Devastated, I called my grandmother–who paid for a Greyhound bus ticket to California. The trip took over 24 hours, and I had absolutely no money. That was the longest bus ride of my life. By the time I got to Grandma’s house I was famished!

Of course, Grandma had fixed what she thought was my favorite lunch—hot dogs.