Kicked Out of the Nest

The last year of my apprenticeship was totally different than the first two and a half years. Suddenly, everything had changed. Hodgi started to deal coke more and more at work. He got John, the director of food and beverage, hooked so bad that he was outside the hotel in his BMW waiting for Hodgi to get off every single night. John had a master’s degree from Cornell in hotel management. What a waste. He got fired and a couple of years later he decapitated himself in a single car accident flying down a canyon going to get just a little more from Hodgi. Hodgi was fired shortly after, and within a couple of years he was pulled out of a lake with a bullet in his head.

Candy

The year was 1977, and this new job just rocked my world.  Not only was my world changing, but everyone’s world was changing.  There were gay people proudly waiting on every table.  There was a new drug on the street called cocaine, and the Rolling Stones (my favorite band) had just sold out to this new kind of dance music called disco with their new album release Some Girls.  Everything around me was different, except my home.  It was the greatest summer of my life. 

Every day, all six apprentices would take our break at exactly 4:30 PM, marching out of the kitchen in a single file line.  We walked right past security to go sit in a van that was parked right in front of the Mormon temple.  We would smoke out, listening to the Grateful Dead.  I loved my new friends, they were all in their mid-twenties and they treated as if I was as old as they were.  I tried as hard as I could to act the part, thinking about every word before it came out of my mouth.  This, in turn, led me to say very few words at all. 

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.