SAMANTHA
Four hours later I found myself with a garbage stick, a trash bag, and a red vest over my clothes. I glared at Mark, who wore the same getup.
“When you said the local carnival, picking up trash wasn’t what I had in mind.”
He frowned over at the beer garden, the place he’d said we should try to get a job. “Me either.”
“Come on, you two. Unless you’re reading the midway, get your asses in gear. There’s trash to be picked up.” The guy who hired us on the spot, after a good laugh, pointed for us to get going. “Everyone starts at the bottom. And if you find some hooch, bag it separately. We recycle that shit.”
The guy wasn’t wearing a shirt. He was probably in his later fifties, and he had tanned and oiled skin with tattoos up and down his arms. A raggedy baseball cap was turned b
