Fishmonger

I had survived another conference, and Dawn and I were getting ready for a great summer. Life was so much better without having to fight with anyone (i.e. my mother). No one screamed at any one else, and everyone was kind and considerate. What a concept! Dawn and I finally started to see how other people lived. On top of that, I had really begun to move up at the Hotel. Three apprentices had quit, so I now had the third highest ranking seniority (of all the apprentices). Plus, it was fun teaching people twice my age how to cook.

One day, Roget got in a couple of hundred fresh whole king salmon. I loved to clean salmon. I was fast and good at it. When I first started my apprenticeship I butchered the shit out of them, so Roget made me clean every salmon in the whole hotel until I got good at it. That was over a year ago, but I had still cleaned a couple of salmon every day since. I was a very proud eighteen-year-old fishmonger. I had broken my arm riding my skateboard, so when I walked by and offered to help Roget clean all of the salmon, he declined. 

First place. First bust. First syringe of coke.

I started selling quarter ounces at school and work for thirty bucks. Mike had dropped out, and was working with his dad putting glass in buildings. It only took me a month of selling quarters to get together enough money to rent a three bedroom house for Dawn, Mike, and me. We must have looked at a hundred houses before we found someone who would rent to two seventeen-year-olds in Bountiful, Utah. Dawn and I went to school every day, and I had a great business selling pot. It paid all of the bills plus bought food and clothes. This was great because it meant I could spend my paychecks from work on my new girlfriend Stacey.

It was getting too cold to ride my bike to work so I rode the bus. One time I left my backpack on the bus, and it had thirteen quarter-ounces in one of those fake oilcans designed for stashing shit. I called my mom from work and asked her to go to the bus station and pick up my backpack for me. She went there with my Grandma and when she tried to pick up my pack there were cops there trying to arrest her. I guess they figured out the oil can.

Sharon #48

My mom was never home then.  All of my older brothers and sisters had moved out, and my little sister had gone to live with her dad.  So, I pretty much spent all of my time at school and work.  My mother had been taking Black Beauties every morning and sleeping pills every night for years.  I can remember both bottles being on her night stand throughout most of my life.  I didn’t understand it then, but I now know (from my own experience) that you can’t make your body go up every morning and down every night with artificial stimulus without it taking its toll on those around you.

My mother loved to fight.  She was married five times to five different men, and she fought like cats and dogs with all of them.  When all of the men had left her, she started fighting with my older brother and sisters.  It wasn’t long until they all moved out, leaving only my little sister and me.  My little sister said that she couldn’t take it anymore, so she went to live with her biological father.  This, of course, left me alone with Mom.