By Joshua Ryan
Maybe it was around 8 o’clock when they locked me in. I’d never gone to sleep that early in my life. And who knows how many hours it was till I took that shit? I was totally out of it. Totally wasted by these insults I’d received. But the morning came, signaled by a BANG on the door. A voice yelled “CHOW. Eat it all. NOW.” A little hatch opened in the door, and another dose of workie food dropped into my storage unit.
OK, I was hungry again. So I ate it. Sitting on my “bed,” with the crumbs dropping onto my naked junk. And hair growing on my face that I couldn’t shave off. And a collar around my neck!
I was just finishing my workie breakfast bar when the same voice went down the line saying, “It’s time! Take a shit and fold your blanket! It’s time! Take a shit . . . .”
I didn’t need to shit again, so I folded my blanket and laid it on my bed, hoping that I did it right. Then the door was unlocked. I saw another workie looking back at me. This one’s name was Drum. It was his voice that had been giving the orders. You know those guys that are so buffed out, their clothes don’t fit anymore? That was Drum.
Seth needed money. Well, more accurately, he just want some “walking around” cash so he could continue to socialize with the other college students who never seemed to care about the price of anything. That description fit maybe half the students at the elite New England college they attended. Seth belonged to the other half. His background was middle class. And he and his parents were pretty tapped out just keeping him in this obscenely expensive school. A little extra cash would help.