With my past success in the drug market fresh in my mind, I felt that I had to get back to the top as soon as possible. The drive that led me into the drug dealing business in the first place was the same drive I had to become a financial success again. I didn’t want to let a police raid get in my way and bring me down.

	I was dating Brandy and living with her in the basement of her parent’s house in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Colorado Springs. She bailed me out of jail on Christmas Eve and I had an uneasy feeling about moving into her parent’s house with her. The night I got released, I walked into the house in the middle of the night and everyone was sound asleep. I saw the Christmas tree with all the presents under it, the stockings neatly hung over the fireplace and the dog sporting his Christmas sweater. I felt as though I was the scum of the earth and that I didn’t deserve to be in this beautiful home and around such nice people. The uneasy feeling grew to extreme discomfort.

	I awoke next to Brandy on Christmas morning and we went upstairs to see everyone opening their gifts and enjoying them. I didn’t know how her family would react to my presence in their home, especially on that particular day. I got introduced to everyone and then went to the corner of the kitchen, hoping not to interfere with their holiday. Brandy continued to assure me that I was welcome in the house and that I shouldn’t worry about their judgment of me.

	After opening gifts, the whole family sat at the table for Christmas dinner. When I came into the dining room, I didn’t expect to see a place on the table already set for me. In the kindest way, they asked me to sit and eat with them. Brandy’s mother had prepared a meal fit for a king and I enjoyed every last bite of it. The meal before this was jail rations, which only made my appreciation of this meal even greater.

	The rest of the day went smoothly. In the evening, after Brandy’s younger sisters went to bed, her father went to the fridge and pulled out two beers. He sat down at the table with me and gave a hearty “Cheers.” After the first round of beers, we enjoyed a second, then a third and so on. When the beer was gone, we killed a large bottle of rum. He wasn’t aware that I was so heavily into computers and technology. I wasn’t aware that he was a web developer. The conversation that began with a few beers lasted until we were both drunk and laughing our asses off about the most obscure computing concepts.

	After the first day, the discomfort I felt drifted away and I immediately felt as though I were part of the family. I took something of a hiatus for the first week of my time there. Still having the same cell phone and number, I received a lot of calls. Most were asking to “stop by.” Although I was no longer in business, I still took the phone calls, always telling people that I was out of the game and they needed to find a new dealer. One call I received was from a good friend and fellow dealer. He informed me that an associate of his was looking for web developers to join up with him in forming a new company. It seemed an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up seeing as how I was jobless and still so ambitious. I took down the phone number for an individual named Greg. After hanging up the phone, I picked it right back up and dialed away. I arranged to meet with Greg the following day in Manitou. I felt a sense of relief rush over me and I ran to Brandy and told her that, although a bit immature, the time for celebration was upon us. We got drunk, made love, and sat around smiling.

	I went to that meeting in my best clothes. When I arrived, it seemed I was grossly overdressed. There are a few things about web developers that one must understand and that I completely forgot until this point. First, web developers are out of shape and poorly dressed …all the time. Second, web developers are mellow and relaxed in everything they do. This is mostly drug-induced relaxation, which brings me to the third characteristic of most in this group. Web developers drink. If ever you want to see a group of alcoholics you must first stop by a restaurant and see the staff there and then walk to the web development office next door and look at those guys. Not only do they drink like there’s no tomorrow, but also they aren’t required to clean themselves up the next day.

	As I sat and talked with Greg about the work that’s done between him and his girlfriend and about the company he was looking to open, I noticed a couple things around the basement we met in that led me to my next action. I saw an empty bottle and a bong. Since I still had a half-pound of mushrooms, I felt there wouldn’t be any harm in coming to the meeting with a gift. I gave Greg and his girlfriend a fine bag and landed myself the business partnership. With a handshake and a goodbye, I left the building and went home to celebrate again.

	The next day, I went to Wal-Mart to buy the flimsy desk I would eventually call home and brought it to Greg’s basement to assemble. After a bit of desk construction, I set up my computer and got to work. We only spent a few hours doing actual work and the idea of getting a bottle came into our heads. I insisted on Jack Daniel’s and that’s what we drank. Business was done for the day, so I took that opportunity to get acquainted with my new business partners.

	I found out that Greg and his girlfriend were from Miami and they moved to Colorado for the real estate market. They had been in the business of online affiliate programs for some time, namely porn and sex toys. It was somewhat recent that they got involved in the area of search engine optimization. It seemed that after only one day of work with these people that I got along with them perfectly. After all, Greg and myself became members of the same online gaming clan.

	I spent a lot of time working and trying to build the company. Each month our income grew exponentially and each month I spent more and more time at my desk. After the lifestyle I led before, it was a sudden and nice change to become virtually unknown and absent from the entire drug community. Brandy, on the other hand, was still going to clubs and parties while I was at work. The thing that really pulled us apart was the fact that I was living such a clean life and she was still involved in the party life. There were many nights that she would be too drunk to pick me up from work and bring me home. For a few weeks, my desk became my home and I never saw her for more than an hour or so on my lunch breaks. Usually, it was nothing more than a quickie in the van, lunch, and a kiss goodbye.

	I came home one night after a long day in the office and found her passed out. I knew that night would be my last in that household. I felt more upset about losing touch with her family, who had become quite close, than losing touch with her. The next day, I told her that it was over and I packed my bags. I walked from her house to Manitou with only a backpack of clothes and a guitar. I felt liberated and saddened at the same time.

	I arrived at Greg’s basement and told him about the breakup. For about one month, I lived at my desk. I ate, drank, and breathed computer-programming code. I went through a horrible whiskey binge and, seeing as how I was able to program and be shit-faced at the same time, nobody condemned me for it. Everyone saw me running outside every ten minutes to puke. Everyone saw me falling over onto my keyboard at work. Everyone saw that the only things on my desk were a pack of smokes, an ashtray, my computer, and a bottle of Jack.

	The income and productivity of the company continued to grow. After we landed our biggest contract with an online pharmacy in Canada, we felt it was time to open an office and hire in some new employees. I was left out of many of the decisions during this time. I’m not sure if they felt my judgment was impaired or that I was incapable of making good business plans but, nonetheless, I was left out.

	We moved into an office a few blocks away and posted help wanted ads in the computer labs at the local high school. I began conducting interviews with the applicants that came in no more than one week after office opening. We hired in eight employees, built desks for them, bought systems for each station and networked the office. Things were really picking up and running smoothly for the first couple of months. I was very excited about the company and how successful we were in our endeavors.

	The real fall of the company came in about March, a month after the office opened. Greg came to me one night after the office was closed and told me that he knew a girl in Miami that would be perfect for me. At first, I laughed it off and sent her a really simple email say nothing more than “Hi.” She replied instantly and we met online, over the communication medium of text. Although I had never met this girl before in my life and she lived two thousand miles away, I became extremely captivated by her. Our online conversations were energetic and lively. It seemed that we could talk about any subject for hours on end without running out of thoughts and words for each other.

	I began to neglect my management responsibilities and my own workload. I spent at least ninety percent of my day talking to this woman. The employees would come in every morning and see me still sitting at my desk, drunk as hell, talking to her. My ambition and career went completely out the window and my heart and passion took hold. I fell in love with this woman who, as far as could be perceived, was nothing more than text on the screen.

	Eventually, she sent me her phone number and I began talking to her over the phone. The fucked up part about the phone arrangement was that I had no phone. I would creep out to the pay phone on the corner and spend all my quarters talking with her. The thing that really sucked was I lived in Colorado. Colorado during the time of March and April is quite cold and snowy. There was something in her voice and the manner in which we could speak with each other. Our conversations over the phone were as invigorating as our conversations over the Internet and, for me, were a little more profound. She would ask me every time we talked to wait for her. She wanted me all for herself and she couldn’t wait to see me. It was nice to know she felt the same way about our growing relationship …or so it seemed.