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Hazard Pay

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Hazard pay
A Domino's Pizza employee delivered pizzas on Sunday night and was robbed. On Monday, she was fired.

By Evelio Contreras

Christine Clayborne had been employed at the Domino's Pizza on Fourth Street in Salem for six years.

She was a manager at one point. But what she really loved doing was delivering pizzas.

"It was like a freedom job," she said. "You don't have to sit at an office or stand."

Delivering pizzas was Clayborne's job -- until Monday. She was robbed Sunday night during a delivery. The next day, she was fired.

The reason?

"It makes Domino's drivers look like a target," she said her boss told her.

Clayborne, 26, was carrying more than $20 with her. Drivers wear a button that says: "Does not leave Domino's Pizza with over $20.00."

Clayborne doesn't know exactly how much money she was carrying. But she said it was more than that.

Phone messages left with Tom Wallace, the owner of the Domino's Pizza where Clayborne worked, were not returned Wednesday. But Greg Carter, manager of the Domino's Pizza on Elm Avenue, said the $20 limit is "for insurance purposes."

Drivers "are forewarned that they are not supposed to carry more than $20," he said. "If they are carrying more than that, then they are liable for the money."

Carter said carrying more than $20 can be a fireable offense.

Sitting on a couch in her Salem apartment Wednesday, Clayborne recalled the night of the robbery.

Clayborne said she had two delivery stops Sunday night: one at Roanoke College, the other at 619 Bland St.

She wasn't familiar with the second stop. The house on Bland Street sits up on a hill, behind two rows of nicely trimmed, meticulously kept bushes. There was no place to park the car on the side of the road, she said, so she pulled into the driveway. It was fairly well lit, Clayborne said.

"It was a normal pizza delivery," she said.

She got out of her car with a pair of pizzas, turned and heard something strange -- a voice from the bushes: "Do you have the pizza?"

Before she could respond, a man wearing a ski mask and crouched close to the ground sprayed her with a fire extinguisher.

"I was in disbelief," Clayborne said.

She couldn't see. Her whole body was covered in white foam.

"Is this guy serious?" Clayborne said she asked herself at the time. "It was the funniest thing. He seemed pretty shaky."

At first, she thought it was a joke. But then she realized that she was being robbed.

The man grabbed the pizza out of her hands and asked her for the money bag.

"I gave it to him," she said. "He was still spraying."

After he took the money, she asked him, "Can I go now?" He said, "Stay there." She did.

Seconds passed and he was gone. She ran into her car, her eyes red and stinging from the extinguisher foam. She drove down Bland Street, stopped at a house on Craig Avenue near Longwood Park and asked someone to call the police.

"They got there before I was off the phone," she said. "That made me feel good."

What didn't make her feel good was her boss calling the next day at about 4 p.m. and telling her she was fired.

"I can't believe I got robbed and got fired," she said. "I haven't gotten my thoughts collected together."

Clayborne, a student at Virginia Western Community College, doesn't know what she's going to do for money. She has bills to pay and three children to feed.

"I heard I might not get my last paycheck," she said.

When she got fired, she said, her boss asked her, "You're still going to pay the money back?"

Sgt. Mike Green, of the Salem Police Department, said no arrests have been made in Sunday's robbery.