Long Road Full Speed ~ New Beginning

Long Road, Full Speed Ahead

    To understand what brings someone to rock bottom, you first have to look at what they were like on the top. Here I was this naive bright eyed teenager leaving home for the first time, and going to live on my own at college. I was hidden from the crazy that was somewhere inside of me. It didn't seem like bad things happened to good people, and my choices could never have consequences. If I had known how dumb I was at 18, I would have run screaming back to the safety of my parent's house, and escaped from myself. Instead I stayed and began a long road, full speed ahead.
    I blame two people for my downward spiral into a drug fueled oblivion. Well, that is not really true I blame myself the most. The crazy part of me escaped for a little while and I became a different person. I made some poor choices and no one forced them on me. So I blame three people; myself, my alcoholic loser ex-boyfriend, and my self involved best friend. I suppose you could say my story is pretty standard for a 20 year old from a small town. I have seriously been witness to lots of things I wish I could erase. When I hit rock bottom I should have left this earth for good, but someone had other plans for this girl. I suppose I should start my story where everyone's tale begins. At the beginning of the end.

    The first sign that my life had taken a different turn was the day I quit waiting tables at Finn's. It was a normal day I woke up and ate my breakfast with my ungrateful boyfriend of two years. He was bitching because I hadn't cleaned the bathroom to his standards and his eggs were cold. Like I said it was a normal morning. Finn's was an Italian restaurant in a rich part of town. The clientele were mostly assholes, and dealing with them was not something I looked forward to everyday. Just the day before a lady had thrown her fish at me. A whole fish!
    I waited a good amount of time before returning to her table. I could tell she hated everything on the menu by the way she was looking at it. I asked her if she had decided what she wanted. She looked me up and down as if trying to decide if I was worthy enough to wait on her. This was typical of the customers who came in, they were not afraid to look down their noses at anyone.
"Does your Trout come with a slice of lemon on the side," she hissed like that was the worst thing in the world that could happen.
"No ma'am, it is cooked in lemon butter when it is pan seared," I replied, "but we only add a slice of lemon when you request it."
"Well I will have the trout, but there better not be a hint of a lemon slice, or I will be very upset."
    Something told me she would be upset no matter what came out, but the customer is always right, sure. I went into the kitchen and told the cook Marco to make sure no lemon touched the stupid bitch's fish. I went back out and continued to wait on my other tables.
    I saw the owner come in, and tried my best to avoid him. Finley White was a creepy older man, who had opened Finn's after he had great success in Florida with his restaurant Finn's Seafood and Wine. He really did not belong in the mountains. He hated everything about it, but he loved making money. He had a couple of women in his life, both young enough to be his grand daughters, and they were always around demanding things of the waitresses. He was someone who made me uncomfortable, and he was not afraid to talk to us in inappropriate ways. He wanted his waitresses to wear tight black pants and unbutton their shirts to show cleavage. This was probably just for his enjoyment, seeing as how most of the eighty year old billionaires could barely see past their wine glass.
    I saw him go over to the lady who had ordered the fish and kiss her hand. Great, I thought, one of his minions. They leaned their heads in close and looked back at me as they whispered.
    I pictured the conversation going like this.
    "Who is that dreadful homely girl you hired, she doesn't even know what a lemon slice is?"
    "Well she came in on a day when I had too much to drink, and I thought she looked good in the uniform."
    "She is the worst waitress in the entire universe, and I am so rich I lived on Mars for a while."
    "Ha, you are hilarious Constance, or some equally horrible name, "her days are numbered here, I am just trying to get into her pants."
    "Grace, earth to Grace, your crazy woman's fish is getting cold," Marco jarred me back to reality. "You need to get your head in the game girl, quit daydreaming."
    "Thanks Marco, wish me luck," I called over my shoulder as I began the dreaded march to her table. At least Finn had left, so I just had to deal with the snooty witch by myself.
    "Here you are ma'am, may I get anything else for you?"
    She looked at the plate I had sat down, like it was roadkill that had been sitting out for weeks, and hastily whirled around in her seat to stare at me.
    "I smell lemon," she snarled, "you stupid girl, how hard is it to not let a lemon slice touch my food."
    I tried to hold onto my composure,"Ma'am I assure you that the only lemon you are smelling is the lemon butter that it is cooked in.
    "You said nothing about lemon butter, she was starting to raise her voice, "there is no way I will eat this garbage."
    At this point I realized this woman was crazy, she had listened with disdain to my entire speil about the lemon butter, and had not mentioned that she would not eat the fish. She had only spoken of not wanting a lemon to touch her fish. I knew that it would do no good to argue that point, so I just reached for the plate in front of her.
    "I will get them to make you a fresh fish, it will only take a minute."
    "No!" she screamed as she slapped my hand. "You have already ruined my dinner. I am going to ruin your pretty little uniform."
    I feel like the next part happened in slow motion. She was holding my arm in one hand, and the plate in the other. I looked around at my fellow waitresses in disbelief about what was about to happen. I saw Finn look up and give me a hateful stare as he walked towards me. I looked into the eyes of this crazy woman as she lifted out of her chair with the plate. Then she threw it, and everything sped back up. The plate cracked my forehead, the fish hit me in the mouth, and the lemon butter slid down my face and into my shirt. She stood up and ran shrieking to the bathroom, and I walked over to a table and sat down to collect myself.
    "What did you do?" Finn screamed, "Go clean yourself up, and get back to work. This is a business not a place for you to harass my customer's with your bad manners."
    "You were standing there Finn, you saw everything, how can you possibly blame this on me?"
    "Ms. Elizabeth is a fine lady, and she has more class in her little toe than you possess in your entire body," he was in my face now, "You must have said something smart and provoked her. Now the poor thing has embarrassed herself in public, and the whole town will be talking about how I can not control my rude waitresses."
    I could not believe what was happening. I had kept my cool, and tried to keep her happy, and this was the thanks I got? I just went into the bathroom and plopped down on the toilet seat. Why do I work for this jerk?" I thought. The crazy lady was in the stall beside me, and I could see her four thousand dollar shoes under the stall. I wished I could punch her, I wished I could give her a swirly, do anything to embarrass her as much as she had tried to embarrass me. I just sat there however, until she left. I sat for a long time, not moving just thinking. When I finally did come out Finn had left. The shift manager was a lady named Kay, she chain smoked and had the husky voice to prove it. Her face was drawn up tighter than elephant skin. This didn't stop her from slathering on fifty pounds of makeup and attaching brown hair extensions. She was probably fifty or older, but she was trying to hold on to her youth.
    "You okay honey?" she asked.
    "Kay, you have worked with him for years, has he always been like this."
    "As long as I have known him, but he keeps me fed and a roof over my head, so I do what he wants."
    "That woman must have escaped from the crazy house."
    "She is certifiably insane, but she is worth more than everyone in this town put together. If she got down on her hands and knees and ate dog shit, they would still suck up to her, and tell her that she was so smart for finding something that didn't cost money to eat.
    "Well I am out of her Kay, I can not take much more today."
    "Rest up honey, we will see you tomorrow."
    As I walked to my car I thought about that last sentence. Would she see me tomorrow? What if I just didn't show up? I was thinking that sounded like an awful good idea. Maybe I would run it by Grayson when I got home, see what he thought. Right now all I wanted to do was go to my house and get good and drunk. I had a bottle of Jack Daniels and some cherry coke that I was going to make disappear just as soon as I washed the lemon pepper out of my hair. I looked back as a drove off, "Screw you Finn, I hope you get a disease from a teenager and your balls fall off."