Sam: Sam short for what?

I was so lonely. I ran away having left more than a dozen of dead bodies and a bad history with men. They made me do it. I always told myself to justify why I poisoned patrons who were at my restaurant. I dated and lived with this cool dude who one day showed up in our town. I am one of those women that everyone talks about in whispers. If you are new in town, guys generally advise you about the best places to pick up women or the best place to nurse a beer or a vodka shot without interruptions. A place where you become an alcoholic, no questions asked basically. One advise which always came was: "I almost forgot, have you met Sam yet?"

Sam that they referred to was me. I don't know what Sam is short for. All of my life I grew up knowing that my name was or is Sam. No one bothered to tell me -"Sam, short for what?"

You see I was adopted and my adoption papers were sealed by a smart judge. My parents were just too tired of dealing with me. I looked odd when I was born, worse as I grew up.

My mother was an editor of a woman's magazine and my looks annoyed her and I cried often disrupting her mating powers with my dad. My dad was important that is all that I knew for sure. He was irritated with my mom for forgetting to take her pill after a huge celebration that had resulted from kegs and kegs of wine and ale. Let us just say that my parents partied and partied. I had older siblings who were adults and lived on their own. Being an accidental birth disrupted the scales of happiness that my parents felt they deserved and owed no one an apology for.

My mom one day announced while my dad was making his knot of his tie as they were on their way out on a date, "You know, I had no intention of getting pregnant. It was a mistake, Your dad and I have paid dearly for that mistake"

"I can't have a nanny take care of you. We had a difficult time with nannies. They all slept with your dad and I hated that. They were not even nice women. They just slept with your dad. That's why we work so hard to try and improve our marriage. He is not ready to leave me, so I have to keep trying...."

"That's okay mom, I can take care of myself while you are gone. I will lock the doors and go to sleep. I won't even watch TV" I said, realizing that my worst fear was about to be realized.

To which dad said: "We have hurt you enough darling. We hate driving back home in the eerie hours of the morning drunk and nearly dead. On many occasions, we would prefer to be in a hotel rather than drive home. I think that maybe you should be adopted by a family that can take care of you. We asked your brother and sisters if they could take you in. They can't. We have thought of many solutions, none are possible. A Social Worker from an Agency will pick you up tomorrow after school. They found a nice family who wants you and has time to take care of you. We love you very much, but not enough to change."

Dad walked to me and gaveme a peck on my cheek and pulled my mom by the waistline closer to him and that is how I left my family a family which I had known since birth,

Mom had giggled and said, waving her hand; "See you later honey!"

That was it and I met her. I asked for her badge to be sure that she really was who she said she was. I had a duffle bag with me at school so that we did not have to stop at Mr and Mrs -you know! I had cried all night in disbelief that my worse nightmare had come true.

The next day I woke up at a home of a very conservative-looking couple. They asked me to sit down. I did. They explained that they were unfortunate not to have kids of their own. They had applied to so many agencies to adopt a child and got rejected until they agreed to take in an older kid instead of an infant that they had hoped for.

I sat stunned and decided that it was a ruse. Maybe my parents wanted to teach me a lesson. They will pick me up later or if they didn't, they will eventually be forced by the government to pick me up. I surmised.

Her husband my new dad said with a horse frightening voice which seemed to struggle to come out because he was very fat and his neck fused with his chest, in my eyes anyway: "They said it was something about my mental state of mind. My mental condition, whatever that means!" He slammed down a bottle of finished beer and walked away to the bedroom door and said. "This is your room.

My wife and I are way over there!"

I picked my bags and navigated to my new room. What I noticed was that it was not a paradise. I was going to have a lot of work to do to make this home a place where I could live.

I finished high school and left that place so fast. I had been exposed to a family of really messed-up minds. My mom was gay and struggling to be with my dad. My dad was fat and sick and absent in life. He drank alcohol and swore at me and my mom hated that he woke up alive when in fact he was done with living. He didn't want to see a doctor. He spent most of my teenage years passed out on a dirty couch with my mom almost always gone to date her lover.

I met and dated a cool cat who lived not far from where we lived. He too had been adopted, I was not sure of the circumstances of his adoption. We had that in common.

My mom would not come out and accept that she was gay. That broke my father's soul. I could not stay and witness it all. I moved in with my boyfriend and kept my mouth shut. Until I realized that I was dating an unreliable guy. My limited experience with the outside world limited my ability to read his behavior correctly. He was more than unreliable, he possibly was a criminal at minimum or an insane criminal at best. Guess what those do? They kill, lie and steal.

Days of his unaccounted-for absences, and his beatings when life threw him a curveball traumatized me. I took that bad energy and focused on working hard and making money. I knew that I was not right in my mind. A Xanax here a cocktail here to soothe my nerves helped me meet the right people because I would be eloquent in my expressing myself. One guy offered me a chance to be his business partner. He owned a restaurant and I could afford to part with my oney for this prestige. We worked together while I also was a chef. My boyfriend turned to be one of many who confiscated children from schools or public places for some sort of child-stealing ring.

It was an elaborate scheme and we could not confide to one another, because I got a sense that we were monitored at home.

I worked so hard hoping that my savings would afford us a new life elsewhere. My turn too was coming. My boyfriend was caught up with such a criminal scheme from an employer who promised to save him. It turned out to be a decoy from a very nasty criminal connection and cops who were corrupt.

One day my partner fuming and agitated asked to meet with me at his office. He told me that he had met with the health department and there was a drug that they were trying out and they asked for our help because our business was thriving and it would be a very good place to test out this drug which was just about to be approved for use by the FDA for distrivbutiin to the members of the public. The drug was to be crushed into a powder form. All that I had to do was to sprinkle it on the food of patrons who shall be at the restaurant who shall be noted to me upon arrival at the restaurant. We were going to be paid handsomely for this effort because we were the middle man between a drug that was to be released to the public and members of the public who were desperately sick and would try anything.

This went on for years supposedly my drugs were changed as soon as they were released to the public. It was perchance when I was in a public rest room that a stranger in black shoes showing under the stall stood in front of a door of the toilet stall where I was relieving myself said to me: "Mam, I am so sorry to let you know that the powder that you sprinkle on the food of your restaurant patrons is in fact poison. You have killed many patrons over the years. It is an insurance scheme on steroids. you are being investigated by the Justice Department. Tomorrow your name shall surface, I suggest you leave this bathroom and drive away from here to Canada because you will not see the light of day if you don't.

"By the way Mam they never hire adopted children for real!"