One scene – Ethan Torres

In the warehouse job I was constantly around weed, and cigarette smoker, alcoholics everybody there had their own fix. I would constantly be tempted this fix. After  I graduted, because of my long struggle with marijuana, I did my best to take a break from it all, so I can find myself again.  In the beginning of October my best friend, Edin asked me if I wanted a job. Ive known him since I was five years old, but we started becoming friends since then. Edins parents were very old immigrants, and they never really treated him like a kid, at nine to them he was an adult. Without that proper parental care he choose his own way, a way that chooses him, he found love and comfort in the streets and as held on to it ever since. He got expelled from high school and never went back. We worked a lot of jobs together as kids so when we told me about this warehouse job, I immediately said “yes”. I started the next day, working three days a week from early in the morning till late in the afternoon. I would pack totes (big containers) of school lunches for public schools in New Jersey. I would stack 4 large totes, and one small tote one top over 6 feet tall, and than move them down with a hand truck and pack them into a 16-foot truck. During this time, I would also work another job, right after this job at a gym. where I would clean up the gym floor, and organize the studios for up coming fitness classes. I was working from five am till a eleven at night.

“What’s up cuzzo”, my friend said you ready for work”. Of course,” I replied. 

      “We have a lot to do today”, the manger Tommy uttered while puffing his cigarette.

       “You want to smoke”my co worker stated. 

       “of course,” my other  co workers said. 

      “You coming Ethan”?

I nodded my head, feeling the pressure of the intoxicated environment. 

   I enjoyed working my two jobs. But deep inside my head I knew I was meant for something more than what I was surrounded by. I knew I had to go to school eventually and the longer I avoided thinking about school, the more the idea would come passing through my head. I was constantly tempted to smoke, I honestly liked smoking. But because of my past and everything I’ve been through because of smoking, I knew I had to minimize it as much as possible. I felt like I was repeating the same cycle that I’ve seen in my family. I was 18 years old with two jobs, making good money. Just like my family, I had my struggle with addiction and drag myself into a hole of constant confusion of what I should do with my life. I was really talented in boxing; it was like the work ethic I had for basketball transferred into boxing. It made me excited for what was to come in boxing, but I  knew I couldn’t just box, and I have to balance all the other things I have going on like work, my relationship with my girlfriend. Working at the warehouse was hard to deal with because it gave me flash backs of my old self and I knew I couldn’t work there for long. It was like I was living between two worlds. One with the old version of me, and the other one was the man I was trying to become.