Josh had a summer job bussing tables for the lunch crowd at the Flying Fish, one of several restaurants in the vicinity. He felt very grown-up and cool working his first job. Except for one snide, stuck-up waiter and an occasional a-hole customer, he liked everyone at the restaurant. He’d saved up over five hundred bucks this summer. And working 10:30 to 2:30 was a sweet deal, because he still had time to go to the beach or hang out with friends in the late afternoons. Plus the commute was a breeze—a ten-minute bike ride from their duplex townhouse off Eastlake. When it rained, he grabbed an umbrella, walked a few blocks, and caught the SLUT to work. Josh liked the SLUT—for the people-watching and the sheer novelty of saying he was on the SLUT. “I rode the slut today,” he’d tell his friends. “And I rode it hard.” Josh was fourteen years old. Tall and thin, he had wavy brown hair, green eyes—and thanks to those afternoons in the sun, a clear, tan complexion.
