It’s a story I don’t tell very often, not because it’s to painful, but just because I can’t believe how stupid I could have been. Actually the last time I told this story was when I was in Huntsville Alabama.

Well the beginning is usually a good place to start, so lets say that I had just dropped out of college (for the 1st time). I was lacking direction in my life and not really sure what my next step should be. It was around this time that I received a call from a friend of mine who will remain nameless, mainly because I still talk to him, and hold no animosity towards him, despite the situation he put me in.

My Friend, we’ll call him Professor Winkie (just because I think that’s funny). Winkie called me and told me to move back down to Florida (where I graduated high school) he said we’d get an apt together; he even had jobs lined up. On top of that his GF had a hot friend who was lonely, and well that was all I needed to know…. That we’d get an apartment together (oh and the girl thing might have had something to do with my decision, funny that seems to be a theme in my life?!)

I packed up the Neon, and jumped on the road, and I was off to Florida, for the 2nd time in my life. On the way down I met the love of my life, I have no idea what her name was, but we started driving next to each other some where in Georgia, we communicated with messages written on notebook paper held up to our windows. When we needed to stop for gas we finely got to talk, she was on her way to college I was on my way to join the mob…

We exchanged phone numbers and she borrowed my Tag Team CD promising to return it to me when we met up in a few weeks. I never saw her or my Tag Team CD again. Sometimes I still think about that CD.

I arrived in Tampa and met up with my friend, we went to shoot pool with his 2 lady friends, both of whom were as described and as friendly, albeit a little white trashy, but it was Florida and I dealt.

Skip ahead about a month and Mr. Winkie has no job, I am working for strictly commission for a company called “JAM Designs” it’s an interesting company I’ll elaborate in a few moments on that. Mr. Winkie pulls me aside and informs me that I am no longer welcome in his parents home, and that he has no intention of leaving Great no money and now no where to live.

I smile, thank him for his hospitality and pack up the rest of my junk into my car and spend the night at the best location I’ve ever had, I had beach front property on Courtney Campbell Causeway, I got to see the sun rise over the gulf from my panoramic… Windshield, and shortly there after the FHP informed me that I had to move my vehicle.

I have gotten off track though, this story is supposed to be about JAM Designs not when I was homeless. I found the job in the news paper under a title that said “rock and roll life style”.

The interview; I head down to an industrial park in Tampa off Hillsborough Ave and find the door labeled “Jam Designs” I enter a sparsely decorated room off set by a large gong, a bell and a car alarm set to one side, on the walls are framed motivational pictures and at the back of the room as a pretty girl sitting behind a desk. She smiles as I enter the room and ask my name. Finding me on her day planner she asks me to have a seat. I sit in the lobby of Jam Designs and wait for my name to be called.

After about 10 min I hear some “shouting” or chanting coming from the back room then the door busts open and 10-15 people rush though the door and out into the street, they are followed by a gentlemen I will soon come to know as “Mitts”. Mitts is an Italian about 6 foot 3 with olive skin and short dark hair, he is about 240 lbs and its all muscle.

“Tony Mitolla” he says extending a huge claw my way

“Nathan” I reply standing and shaking hands

“People call me Mitts cause of these things” He smiles showing me his giant baseball mitts sized hands.

He ushers me into his office and offers me a seat, and informs me that they have an unusual hiring process, and that I’m going to have to spend the day with one of their sales managers Nick Price. Sounded ok to me, I’m homeless, broke and got nothing to do for the day anyway.

Nick explains to me that we will be going on some sales calls today so we leave for his car; now this part of the story isn’t very interesting, the long and the short of it is that we spend all day going door to door selling pictures, yep you heard me right pictures, cheap frame prints. I still remember the line for the cheap plastic frames they weren’t cheap plastic they are “Mylar frames with a brass insert” ß No idea what that means or if it’s true. The frames were cheap plastic and the glass was so thin if you sneezed wrong they would shatter.

Over the next few weeks I make ok money selling these things. We would buy the pictures for 15 bucks from “Jam” then we would sell them for 20, if we could we’d try and stick the buyer for “tax” which would be anywhere between 20 and 60 percent depending how much of a sucker I took you for. To further explain the money, Mitts was a regional boss so he received 5 dollars off every picture EVERYBODY sold so you can do the math but figure 30 guys selling 20 pictures a day (On average) that’s 3000.00 a day tax free 5 days a week, on top of that there were sites like this all over the country in every major city all buying their products from the same company in NYC

Mitts ran the shop like a general, but if you crossed him or didn’t make enough money he could turn into a scary dude in NO TIME, on more then one occasion I saw him reduce grown men to quivering piles of fear. Doors slammed pictures were thrown and occasionally people were “tuned up” meaning they were beat up in the wear house.

I never experienced any of this because I flew under the radar, I never was the biggest produce, but I was never the worst. After about 4 months of this I was told our 1 st rally was coming up. I had no idea what the rally was going to be like, but the Mitts rented us a big van (like church’s use) we filled it up with Beer, Pot and fast food and we were on our way. I should also mention at this time that we had two pet snakes with us as well (there is a reason I mentioned this). The rally was in Atlanta, a few hrs North of Tampa, Some where near the Florida Georgia state line I remember looking out the back window, with my beer in hand and noticing a car traveling very close behind us, to the point I could see the badge on his shirt. No sooner had I shouted my warning, then he hit his lights and we were pulled over.

10 of us in this van all under age all drinking beer and smoking pot the cops pulled us over were trying to hide all the evidence, a futile effort, as we opened the side door to the van 4 beer cans fell out. Realizing it was beyond hope I just walked out of the van with my beer can (which was taken from me despite my protests). The cops lined all of us up on the side of the interstate and began going though the van soon finding the large volume of beer and marijuana, at this same time they found the pillow cover holding the snakes, it is pretty funny to see 4 highway patrolmen with guns drawn poking though a pillow case scared of a boa. We took the snake out for the officers to inspect the otherwise empty bag but they chose not to hold the snake.

It was at this time that Mitts pulled up in the 2nd van, he asked for the ranking officer on scene, explaining that this was his van and he was responsible for the contents, he then pulled the officer to the side and spoke in sharp hushed tones, the officer then pulled a cell phone out spoke to somebody for a moment, and then told the officers to confiscate the contraband (pot) and let us go…. WHATE THE F?!?! Not one to argue with a cop letting me go I kept my mouth shut and got in the van, the ride was much more subdued and nobody mentioned the odd occurrence.

When we got to the “rally” I was introduced to a number of “bosses” Chris Sareni, Vito Banano, and a series of other peoples who’s name ended with o or i. These were not the type of people you crossed; all were wearing impeccable custom suites, brand new Italian leather shoes, and more tacky gold jewelry then MR. T. Most of them also had those huge coke colored sunglasses that only bad mob stereo types wear? It seriously looked like a gumba wana be convention; except for the money that was being thrown around everywhere.

When I was there I was treated to an incredible dinner cooked by some made to order chef (he actually cooked in the room on a wheel around cart), Dinner was stake with muscles and pasta in cream sauce, The wine was the most incredible flavor to ever touch my tongue I have no idea what vintage or brand it was, but there was dust on the crate that it came out of. These guys drank fortunes by the case.

It was at this sit down that I was told (not asked) that would be moving to Texas to assist the Dallas office, apparently it was struggling and I had been “chosen” to help give it a shot in the arm.

3 days later I was driving though college hill (those of you from Florida know that there isn’t a single GED, let alone anybody who went to college in the entire area there). Richey was in my passenger seat (Everybody had nicknames, I was Strika ß Not Striker) after he secured some herbal refreshments we were on our way, we drove from Tampa up the coast and across the panhandle spending the night in New Orleans with his good friend from that office “Red Hot”. The next day we pushed on to Dallas, and to be honest nothing really exciting happened in Dallas.

Then it was time for Richey, Red hot and I to open the Houston office, we packed up our things and moved to Houston with in days we had the money rolling in, this was a brand new city, and there was nothing but fresh money to be made soon we had the office up to about 15 people. I was living in a hotel at this time (all of us were), A few months into the Houston period I went home for something (possibly my brother’s graduation I don’t remember now). When I was gone I offered my car to a friend of mine to use when I was gone.

It was when I was in the Dallas location that the gloss and shine of the whole thing had started to crack and I was starting to doubt the validity of this company. When I was in Dallas I lived with Jessie James, the Boss of that office, and she was no longer happy with the company, I don’t know what the details were, but after a few drinks she would get very angry about the whole thing and warn me to “get out when I could”.

The reason I tell that small part is because when I was done in Minnesota I flew back to Atlanta for my 2nd rally and again was greeted with open arms as the returning son, everybody was excited to see me. One thing I was not excited to see, MY CAR?! WTF why was my car here? I spoke to Richey and they decided to save some cash by driving my car from Houston to Atlanta, with out my permission! I let that go, what could I do now right? But deep down I was starting to get a little frustrated, I was making people rich and I was barely making it by on the way home I was pushed too far;

On the way home I took the 1st shift driving, taking my car though Alabama, to Mississippi before deciding that I had had enough, when I told Richey to get in the back I was tired of driving, he refused…. WHAT? Oh hell no, this was my car, GET IN THE BACK SEAT I”M tired of driving …. Again he refused I got right up in his face and backed him down, I have no idea where it came from I’m not a violent person, but I felt so disrespected. It was at that moment that I knew I was quitting the next day.

Monday morning I came into the office, when everybody was loading up their pictures and what not for the next day and told Richey.

I said “I’m done” he looked at me with shock and confusion,

“With what?” He asked,

“with you with this the entire thing, its been over a year and I’m sick and tired of this shit” He lost it, he called Red Hot into his office and both of them verbally berated me for a good 10 min telling me what a piece of shit I was and asking how I could do this to them etc. I just sat there with a blank look on my face and took it, I was over this whole thing and there wasn’t anything they could do to change it.

When they realized that I wasn’t budging they became threatening me warning me about who they knew and what would happen, I didn’t care, I told them to fuck off and left the office to get my stuff on the way down the hall came 2 of my coworkers that had just been released from a nickel for B&E, they met me in the ware house, one picked up a baseball bat the other grabbed a basketball, I was pretty sure they didn’t want to play sports before I left so I squared up.

The 1st guy threw the basketball at me and bum rushed me to witch he was met with a right hook knocking him back. When I opened up for the punch though I was hit with the butt end of the bat, right in my stomach knocking every ounce of air from my body, I doubled over and protected my head as I was repeatedly kicked punched and beaten. Eventually they stopped, I took my things and left.