“The Business”

By Lauren

The smell of gardenia’s overpowered the rotten stench of tuna fish.

“Thank god for that damn garden,” Joey muttered, pushing his yellow sunglasses further up his nose. His ears were littered with piercing, hidden by his shaggy, blonde hair. The fish order had not left his house for the last three days. Not since the sky cap, Steve, had spent the night.

Steve worked as a sky cap at the airport and by night, he fished. The fish went to an all-night diner attached to a bowling alley.

Joey hated being in the fish business, but a man had to make money somehow. He had a wife and a little girl to support. She’d be five next month.

Steve, or SC, as they called him, caught tuna fish and in the dead of night, stuffed the drugs into the dead, scaled bodies. The smell threw off police dogs. The fish was then sent to the diner, where the owner transferred the drugs into polyester shirts and bowling pins. Once in place, they sold for hundreds, even thousands of dollars.

It was enough money to last Joey’s family well into infinity. In the end, they were sent to infinity, but not due to money. Rather, by a drugged up pyromaniac.

Let’s switch gears here.

Tyler was a drug addict. Ever since he had started bowling, he got hooked. He’d do anything for a high. He was addicted to many other things too; namely, fire and a red head by the name of Joanna. In a twisted turn of fate, he was also Joey’s brother.