The Sound Of Love

He knew that six hundred would not really be enough to hire new people. He would be able to hire three at most and this would leave absolutely no money saved. He had around two thousand dollars saved up which meant that if he hired six people, which was the minimum amount he needed right now, he’d be able to pay the remaining three for about three months before running out of money.

However, his plan was sound. He was going to hire another one of his friends to help his mom cook hot dogs and burgers at their home, making his home a centralized kitchen. His stalls were frequently running out of drinks as well so there would be a constant backup supply of the drinks at home as well. He would hire one person for each stall who would act as a second to him, Stacy and Omar and these three second in commands would also serve the purpose of heading to the central kitchen and bringing back food and drinks so that the stalls never ran out of anything.

He also wanted to hire two extra delivery boys for something new that he was going to start. He was going to get a separate number put in at home and he would give this number out to people at his stalls. People would be able to order the delicious food that Michael offered. He knew that this was a real risk, but he had a feeling that it would pay off.

He decided to take the risk. He knew that if, within the next three months, he didn’t start generating enough income to pay the salaries of the people that he had hired, he would have to stop the delivery service and possibly shut down one of his stalls. He was very afraid of this happening because these stalls were incredibly important to him. They were stalls that earned him income, he didn’t want to take a step back. However, he knew that without risks he would not be able to expand his business by any serious degree.

And so, he hired six new people. He started the delivery service but within a month realized that people were not going to order this food. They might see it on the street and be interested, enticed by the smells, but they weren’t going to order it. Michael considered letting the two delivery boys go but he decided against it. He decided to change things up.

He told the delivery boys to take the food and walk around with it in the busy market in the lower east side of the city. People would be enticed by the smell there and buy it. This idea turned out to be a real success.

By the end of the three months, Michael decided to let one of the delivery boys go because it just wasn’t financially feasible to keep him and he had to continue paying the second in commands about twenty dollars less than he wanted to but at least his business was still running and he didn’t have to shut down any stalls.

Michael continued to expand his business. He started experimenting, offering different kinds of hot dogs and started creating special dips that he served with French fries. He never opened brick and mortar stores, realizing that the whole reason his business was successful was because there was a certain kind of charm in buying food from children in cute stalls.

By the time Michael was eighteen and graduated from high school, he had ten stalls across various areas of the city including one big stall in the main market. His business was earning thirty five thousand dollars per month by this point. He spent about eight thousand every month on his supplies, he proudly paid each of the managers of his stalls eight hundred dollars per month which was minimum wage, and the delivery boys and cook got the same rate. Out of the remaining money he gave his parents their shares, paid himself five thousand per month and kept improving his business.

When he graduated, his friends started to go off to college. Michael realized that he had an opportunity here. There were a lot of poor kids that started selling drugs because they needed to earn money for their families. He started hiring these kids and paying them good wages. He realized that this would be great marketing for his business and it would allow him to maintain the charm of a roadside stall run by kids.

Over the next sixteen years, he built an empire for himself. Now he was worth over a billion dollars and had a number of different pursuits. His lemonade was sold in stores around the world. He had restaurants as well as stalls across America. He had won so many victories, overcome so many insurmountable obstacles.

This was why it worried Carlos so much that he was just sitting here, completely out of it. He had been defeated, for the first time in his life he had been defeated. He did not have the will to fight anymore.

Carlos didn’t know how he was going to save Michael, and Michael honestly did not want to be saved. He wanted to wallow. He wanted to feel this misery and he wanted to feel it completely. He knew that this was the only way he was going to be able to get over this, if he allowed himself to feel so utterly miserable that it filled his being.

It was going to be a rough few months. Michael did not know if he would come out of it whole. He certainly didn’t feel whole right now. He felt empty, and he was desperately trying to fill this emptiness with alcohol. He just needed to be numb right now. That was all he wanted in the world. To feel nothing at all. And when this emptiness would become everything, then he might be able to repair himself and become something once more.