conversations when Sammy and Mandy had first started dating.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Sammy. You fucking embarrassed me in there tonight. I mean, Jesus Christ, would it kill you to try and behave around my friends just once?” She gesticulated with her hands. Sammy didn’t have to take his eyes from road to know that she was mad with him. She was drunk and therefore she was mad at him, although he would admit that on this occasion her anger, although a little excessive, was justified.
“I don’t want to argue, Mand, you’re a bit drunk and those guys took the piss, and only because I don’t have a college education or drive a fancy car. I work hard to make my way, and you above all people should know that I enjoy what I do. I’m proud of who I have turned myself into so don’t get angry with me, or take their side; not tonight.” Sammy wasn’t angry with her. Mandy didn’t go out often and seldom did she get drunk, but whenever she did it was always the same routine. She would call him up, he would go get her, and then they would argue about how he was rude to her friends. It was a cycle that stemmed from the main difference between them; their backgrounds.
Sammy was a 22-year-old construction worker, someone who came from a family of borderline degenerates, someone who was never given much of a chance in life. His two brothers were petty criminals, and his sister lived on benefits in a house provided for her and her four children while she chased child support payments from the four different fathers. His parents divorced before he was even born. Sammy was the baby of the family, the youngest by quite some way, and it was his conception, in fact, which had placed the final lid in the coffin of their relationship, with his father questioning his mother’s fidelity. The question was never answered; his father always preferred to pose such important questions with his fists or other handy appliances rather that with his tongue. Sammy called him his father, but in truth he was only the father of Sammy’s sister, who was conceived while his mother was engaged to another man (who for the sake of the record was not the father of either of Sammy’s brothers). Sammy never knew his own father, and he in turn escaped his family as soon as he graduated high school. Although he had the brains for it, he knew with a strange levelheadedness at an early age that he wouldn’t benefit from going to college. He liked the idea of working with his hands, and so he packed his bags at the first opportunity and moved to a different city, away from his family in Denver, and began a series of cross-country adventures before finally landing in Baltimore, where he had been ever since, living just outside of the main city in the suburb of Edmonson. He had moved around a lot, living in rented accommodation, moving from city to city, working construction for whatever company was hiring, before he was finally offered regular work with Whiting-Turner Construction, whom had now been his employers for 2 and a half years.
Mandy Jenkins couldn’t have been more dissimilar to Sammy if she tried. Her family were rich, her father a doctor, head of cardio thoracic surgery at Johns Hopkins while her mother was a stay-at-home mom, dedicated to her children, never moaning, always willing to spend her time aiding them in whatever they needed, from conversations or advice through to simple transport, something that would have never crossed Sammy’s mother’s mind.. She was too self-obsessed to even notice Sammy had moved out of the house until three weeks later. The first phone call to check on his whereabouts came three weeks after he had left home, just as he was about to pack up his bags and move for the second time.
Mandy had one brother who, while only in first in his year at Stanford, had already been headhunted by some of the largest law firms on both coasts, not to mention a few from abroad. Mandy herself had chosen to follow her
“I don’t want to talk about it, Sammy. You fucking embarrassed me in there tonight. I mean, Jesus Christ, would it kill you to try and behave around my friends just once?” She gesticulated with her hands. Sammy didn’t have to take his eyes from road to know that she was mad with him. She was drunk and therefore she was mad at him, although he would admit that on this occasion her anger, although a little excessive, was justified.
“I don’t want to argue, Mand, you’re a bit drunk and those guys took the piss, and only because I don’t have a college education or drive a fancy car. I work hard to make my way, and you above all people should know that I enjoy what I do. I’m proud of who I have turned myself into so don’t get angry with me, or take their side; not tonight.” Sammy wasn’t angry with her. Mandy didn’t go out often and seldom did she get drunk, but whenever she did it was always the same routine. She would call him up, he would go get her, and then they would argue about how he was rude to her friends. It was a cycle that stemmed from the main difference between them; their backgrounds.
Sammy was a 22-year-old construction worker, someone who came from a family of borderline degenerates, someone who was never given much of a chance in life. His two brothers were petty criminals, and his sister lived on benefits in a house provided for her and her four children while she chased child support payments from the four different fathers. His parents divorced before he was even born. Sammy was the baby of the family, the youngest by quite some way, and it was his conception, in fact, which had placed the final lid in the coffin of their relationship, with his father questioning his mother’s fidelity. The question was never answered; his father always preferred to pose such important questions with his fists or other handy appliances rather that with his tongue. Sammy called him his father, but in truth he was only the father of Sammy’s sister, who was conceived while his mother was engaged to another man (who for the sake of the record was not the father of either of Sammy’s brothers). Sammy never knew his own father, and he in turn escaped his family as soon as he graduated high school. Although he had the brains for it, he knew with a strange levelheadedness at an early age that he wouldn’t benefit from going to college. He liked the idea of working with his hands, and so he packed his bags at the first opportunity and moved to a different city, away from his family in Denver, and began a series of cross-country adventures before finally landing in Baltimore, where he had been ever since, living just outside of the main city in the suburb of Edmonson. He had moved around a lot, living in rented accommodation, moving from city to city, working construction for whatever company was hiring, before he was finally offered regular work with Whiting-Turner Construction, whom had now been his employers for 2 and a half years.
Mandy Jenkins couldn’t have been more dissimilar to Sammy if she tried. Her family were rich, her father a doctor, head of cardio thoracic surgery at Johns Hopkins while her mother was a stay-at-home mom, dedicated to her children, never moaning, always willing to spend her time aiding them in whatever they needed, from conversations or advice through to simple transport, something that would have never crossed Sammy’s mother’s mind.. She was too self-obsessed to even notice Sammy had moved out of the house until three weeks later. The first phone call to check on his whereabouts came three weeks after he had left home, just as he was about to pack up his bags and move for the second time.
Mandy had one brother who, while only in first in his year at Stanford, had already been headhunted by some of the largest law firms on both coasts, not to mention a few from abroad. Mandy herself had chosen to follow her
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