My phone rings. A startling ring. It’s all that I hear. Jeez, why is it so loud. Fuck! ear buds. I furiously tap my ears to silence the sound. First thought, bill collector. It’s the only calls I get. Take a number, asshole. I take my phone out, to swipe “Ignore,” but pause on the number. It a local number. 502 area code. Maybe I should take this.

I head from my work area towards the break room. Turn off Bluetooth to disconnect the earbuds and slide my finger across the touchscreen to “Accept” it. Here goes.

Maybe it’s a social quirk, maybe my generation. I used to talk on the phone for hours. Nowadays I’ll press ignore in a heartbeat to send you a text. I can think through what I am about to say. Consider what you said. On the rare occasion that I actually have to speak on the phone I am as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs;-) Dad used to say that. He had a hundred of them. “Sweating like a whore in church.” I never got that one. Is it because she feels guilty. These days that’s the least “unholy” job you could have.

“Hello?” I say, feeling a bit nervy.

“Yes, is this Jordan Canter?”

“Yes it is.” Hmm… Doesn’t sound foreign.

My voice is audibly shaking.

“Hi Jordan. This is Dana at the Cleanse Clinic.” Relief begins to rush until I think, wait. Why? What is this? Drug test? Bloodwork? Why are you calling? Who the hell is Dana.

I’m not left in suspense.

“Jordan, you’ve been selected at random for a pill count.”

“What?”

“Random pill count. Gather all your medicine together and get down here. We’ll get this done as quick and painless as possible and we can all move on with our day.”

I’m so shocked that I don’t ask any questions about the details.

It’s always been a rule since legislation was passed regulating the use of this drug.

The doctor had to undergo special courses to be allowed to prescribe it.

The patient has to attend at least two 30 minute one-on-one counseling sessions with a licensed therapist or two 60 minute group therapy sessions per month, or one of each, a monthly drug screening, and undergo at least one random pill count per calendar year. It has now been eight years, and this is my first time getting one.

They must be trying to get in compliance. I knew immediately that I was fucked from at least three angles:

One, I’m at work, broke, since I cleaned out my account last week to see the damn doctor, and would have to figure out how I could get from here, all the way home to get my medicine, to the doctor, then back to work.

Two, I will have to somehow explain this to my supervisors at work who will have to get someone to take my spot at this, very last minute, notice. It’s not like I have a habit of dipping out of work often. In fact, I’ve left one time in my entire career here, and that was followed by me being hospitalized for four days on IV antibiotics.

Three, and here’s the worst: My count is off. I am short by about 15. I’ve picked up a bad habit of taking an extra here or there on especially loooooong days. Then borrowing from friends who take the same medicine as me. After a year of doing that, I am about 15 behind. I don’t know how I will explain this without getting myself into trouble, possibly even legal trouble. It’s against the law, definitely, to borrow or transfer narcotics from one person to another.

Or what if they think I am a drug dealer. My record doesn’t exactly call me “clean as a whistle.”

I don’t know what the fuck is about to happen now, but I know this isn’t good.

Back in the office, watching the husks of human souls floating by. Up to the sign-up sheet at the window, to the seats to wait, into the office when they’re called upon. This is what's left of them after being ravaged by the streets. The goal here is to return them, us, back to whole.
The office waiting room is dim like a nightclub, yet sterile like a mortuary.

What is this place?
To some it's hell. To some it's heaven.

To some of us it's a tool to get well, save face, or possibly make your best friend or girlfriend answer your calls again. To me it was all of these things.
The souls floating in and out of this place had another destination in life, just like me, before they’d found themselves facing down rock bottom, familial turmoil, and shame unlike anything they’d felt before. The lucky ones found this place before they found their final resting place. The least lucky found it but, still didn’t survive.

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Where Am I?

When this place opened under its current name it was listed online as a kidney doctor. Hence the name "Cleanse", but when the "Recovery Business" became a profitable enterprise, so come the investors from all around. The Cleanse Clinic was just the same.
Downstairs from a pain management clinic, where the problem tends to start, it just seems like poetic justice that you would go downstairs to get fixed.

I started attending this place in 2017, when Passport started paying for M.A.T. Medication-Assisted Treatment. That was my in, and my way out.

It was a fateful time. I was losing friends daily, any day, I felt, my number would be up.
At the beginning I was able to kick the heroin habit but, continued to show up dirty for meth.
The doctor back then, Dr. Haq, once said to me in his thick Indian accent, "You have to stop taking the meth or it will kill you. If you won't than why quit any of it? If you die from heroin at least it will be peaceful. Meth, however, is painful no matter how it gets you. You could bleed out from your brain, that sound fun?"

It didn’t.
Bedside manners were never his strong suit.
I fought tooth ‘n nail to hold on to that little bit of ice I'd been doing but eventually I gave that up too. (A story I told here and here.).
This is a suboxone clinic. Where helpless souls, hopelessly addicted to drugs, mainly opiates, go for help when AA/NA isn't enough.

To understand the following plot, you must understand my state of mind.

For instance:
On the bus. In such a panic. Today might be the day that they refuse my medicine. I think back to Susan's words, after me attempting non-chalance when I say, "hopefully there's no problems at the doctor or the pharmacy." Because there has been problems at both, I think.
Sensing the impending doom I must be experiencing, she attempts to reel me in. "Jordan, is there anything more that you could of done?" I think this through, and shake my head.
"Then what do you have to worry about?"
Nothing. She was always so good at keeping me grounded, now that we're apart I'm like a lost ship floating out of orbit. But even then, it didn't last long. What she didn't know is I've been dreaming nightly for months about a place, it's kind of like a trailer park but there's people just kind of everywhere. And lots of people from throughout my life are here too. My father is there.
My father is in every dream, every night. I think it's how I cope with losing him. In the dream I'm trying to find a doctor that will take me. There's a countdown to how long before withdrawal. There are always different scenarios keeping me from the medicine and I always wake up right before I get it, at first in a complete panic and then, relieved, it was only a dream.
Back on the bus.
I'm getting closer to my stop at which point I'll make a dash across Broadway from the TARC Station, across the parking lot of Platinum Food Mart, up the alley around back along the edge of the hood, Village West, cross Roy Wilkins Parkway and I am there.
But these moments, excruciating moments, feel like an eternity.

I just know something bad will become of this. I can feel it deep down inside of me.
I hop off the bus and make my dash. The sun is heating up, it’s a late Spring morning, there are homeless people at the corner of the hood, like normal, I get to Roy Wilkins and stop on the median to finish my cigarette, when the fear returns. It's 10AM on a Thursday. The office closes for the day at 12PM. I light another cigarette, paralyzed by fear. I couldn't shake it, no matter how hard I tried. I finally made it into the office to sign-in at 11:45AM.
The receptionist met my eyes with a smile, I thought here it comes. They can't see me. WHY DID I WAIT SO DAMN LONG. I self-sabotaged, that's what happened!
"Good to see you Mr. Canter. We were wondering when you were gonna show up. Here, let's hurry up and get you in front of the doctor before she leaves."
..... Go figure.

Thirty-eight Days Ago

At the Cleanse Clinic: I walk in to sign-in for my appointment.
Since I started getting my insurance through work, I have been paying a $40 co-pay to be seen. Which was how much the Cleanse Clinic said I had to pay. This insurance cost $300 a month. Almost a quarter of what I take home.
I'm met, not by the normal, sweet receptionist, but by the small, putrid, skunk of a man, known here as the "money man" and by all means should never be interacting with people attempting to better their lives.

His eyes see indifference and his energy stinks of the greed of the robber baron. The contemporary version of the company men who came to appalachia in their fancy suits to rape the settlers who settled on that land with sneaky tricks because they didn't know how to read. He takes advantage of our addiction.
He says, "Hold on, we're gonna need a payment from you."
I think, oh my co-pay. And reach for my wallet. As I get it out he continues to talk, flipping through papers in front of him, "it looks like you are behind $780 before this visit." My heart drops, to somewhere near the groin level. I hear him say, like he's a million miles away that I will "have to make a substantial payment before I can be seen today."
I feel every ounce of anxiety that I've stuffed down start to boil up.
"But I'm paying my co-pay every month."
"Yea, but you have a $2,000 deductible."
"Dude, I wouldn't have signed up for the insurance if I had to pay $2,000 up front, not a chance."
I think for another moment, I do have a $2,000 deductible but my job pays that for me. I step out of line and call the office of BJK Plastics. The secretary answers. She's new, I still don't know her. The old secretary, Amber, got a better job, more money, closer to home, good for her, but she was so great. Hated to see her leave, she'd know what to do here. I ask for Miss Mary, who handles, I'd guess, everything.
"This is Mary."
"Miss Mary, this is Jordan Canter. An employee in production—"
"Yes, I know. Whad-ya need Jordan?"
"I am at my doctor's office right now and they said that I owe over a thousand dollars, but I have been paying my co-pay every month on my visit—"
"No, Jordan, you do not have a co-pay. You don't have to pay anything at all. Most doctors bill you in advance.” Yeah, I think, they do. “You bring the bill down here and we pay it. You do have a $2,000 deductible, but with it is an expense account for $2,000 which covers that. So that you don’t have to pay anything out of pocket."
She was right. This office, however, who has been spoiled by Passport, and people who need help for they might die today, is hearing none of that.

Yea, but. This guy isn’t a doctor; he isn't even a CNA. He's a little dweeb who wants to shake up lives. Hurt people. Maybe an inferiority complex, maybe he gets paid in commission and his wife (?) is busting his balls because he is 32, already impotent from porn addiction and not bringing home the type of money he swore to her father he would. Well, he's a junkie just like me. Except with more incestual clickbait.
I begin to empathize with him. He's just a boy, trying his best to make it in the world. Maybe: He is an Arab but loves Israel, so he calls himself a Frenchman, but deep down he knows that they would kill him if in an out of bounds zone in Gaza. He can't help how things look. It looks like I am trying to be seen for free. Unless he took into consideration that I have never pulled anything like that in nearly 10 years coming here, and I was on heroine and meth when I got here for Christ sakes. I am practically one of their success stories, and this idiot is ready to throw that away. I wonder if the owner of this place knows that. What if he stopped me from being seen today, after coming here for a damn decade, started to go into withdrawal by tomorrow, acquired a bag of heroin, shot it into my arm and it was carphentanyl, or worst xylazine. I could be dead in 24 hours over this. Nope. Still hate him.
"--Jordan. You still there?"
"Oh, yes Miss Mary, sorry."
"Jordan, we can get the money you paid reimbursed. Just get a receipt showing you paid it, and we'll get you paid back. Just maybe do it next week when I am less busy."
I put it on speakerphone and step up to the glass receptionists window.
"Hi, Dick, I mean, excuse me what's your name?" Not amused, neither am I.
"I've got my boss here on speakerphone. Miss Mary can you tell him about that?"
"Yes. So, if you or someone at that office, can get him a printout of all of the bills that he owes for this year, he will bring them here and they will be paid-in-full. Other doctor's offices would send a bill and he could bring the bill down and we pay it—"
He chimes in, "—yea, that's against our policy here."
"Uh-huh. Okay, so is that all you need from me Jordan?"
"Yes Ma'am. Thank you so much for your help straightening this out."
"Yep, Bye."
The phone hangs up and to my back pocket it goes.
I turn back to him feeling triumphant. But this talking PEZ dispenser was completely unphased that he had talked to anyone.
After an uncomfortably long silence I ask, "So, are you going to print out these bills so I can get them paid?"
"Yea, I'll make a note and put it in your file and next time you come in I'll try to have them ready. But I still need a substantial payment before you can be seen today."
Indifference. That's what his eyes say to me. I see in them that he is not going to budge. I better do whatever I can to get past the troll under the bridge.
Feeling utter defeat, I say, "what's the minimum that you'll take? I came ready to pay the $40 co-pay that I was being charged although I didn't owe it. But I was mostly broke outside that."
He says, "that won't work. How much do you have?"
I look in the app in my phone. I have $208 even.
But $175 of that is supposed to go to rent. In fact, I am supposed to pick it up while I am out.
I tell him truthfully, "Man, I got $208. That's it—"
"Same card as last time?"
"Yes, but—" He already had it pulled up.
"—Alright, it went through." He handed me a urine sample cup and says, "come on back." And that quickly I was broke. Damn.
I could've argued maybe and gotten him to put the money back, that was after all illegal as hell, but I felt defeated. I was just happy to be getting to see the doctor. Ten minutes earlier I was in pure shock from the thought of it. This place, and this medicine has been like a security blanket for so long. If I lose it, I'm afraid I might lose myself. But now I have another issue. I don't get paid for two more weeks, I don't have my share of the rent, I have a ride to and from work, but what if something unexpected occurs. What will I do then.

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AUGUST 7TH, 2025

I hang up the phone, not quite grasping what has just happened. A pill count? Really?!
Yes, I know they do them, but now? After all these years of worrying , and making damn sure that when this does occur my count will be right, but for some time now I've been taking an extra one here, there, and when I'm too far behind to make it until my appointment I can borrow from a friend that knows I would give them back. Now, they want a count and I am fifteen short. I. AM. FUCKED!
I reach out to a couple friends that might loan me what I am short until after the pill count and I can give them right back, but they don't have them either.
I'm thinking I will just have to go in short. Tell them the truth and if they kick me out, they kick me out. I'm at work, which means I will have to explain this to my immediate Supervisor, go home, get the medicine, and get to the doctor's office. What if they take them away from me for being irresponsible. I don't know how this works. What if they think I am dealing drugs, bring the authorities into the mix. This is crazy! Wait! I don't have the money to go down there even if I was good. That fucking Frenchman robbed me blind. At this point I see there is nothing I can do. I’ll have to change my doctor at the last minute. The way I used to change my bank account before payroll went through after I’d overdrawn my account so badly my whole paycheck would be gone.
I know of at least one other doctor I could transfer to. A coworker who used to go to my doctor has been telling me every time I talk to her that I need to transfer.

Fear can destroy things that have taken years to create in a matter of moments. It can render you completely useless, paralyzed in its wake. But it can also create bonds that never existed and strengthen bonds that were already there. The fear of the unknown is always the strongest fear, right? I spent the next three weeks completely paralyzed by this unknown fear, and made misstep after misstep.
But realized things that maybe I would've never known and met at least one person who I'm sure I wouldn't of known.
I lived my entire life in some kind of crippling fear. Fear of dogs. Fear of the dark. Fear of my mom. Fear of hospitals. Needles. Woman. Fear of the law. Fear of death. Fear of God. Could never be so lucky to have so much commitment that I could fear it but, fear of never being committed to, that’s real.
I fell down in a huge way, but came just short of irreparable damage, and landed just safe of sustainable growth. I couldn't ask for a better fall from grace.

Three weeks since the call. Had an appointment for a different doctor but didn't go. It was such a long trip I would've been on the bus for six hours, there and back, I was not ready for it.

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I called the Cleanse Clinic office line just to feel out the situation. I am confident that exile from the program is inevitable, but I keep holding onto a microscopic piece of hope that they will show a little bit of humanity when I get there. I call to "update my contact information" and the receptionist, Krystal, who I am very positive is lowkey on crystal, answers the phone.
She says, "Jordan, I am real busy right now. Can you call back tomorrow morning, and we'll get your information updated in the system."

“Yes, no problem. So, there’s nothing else right now?”

“What d’ya mean? Oh, Jordan. Have you and the kids made it to Kentucky Kingdom this year?”

She asks me this every time she recognizes me. As if to let me know that she remembers me from three years ago when she seen Susan, the kids, and I there.

“No, Krystal. She and I split up.”

“Oh, that’s right. Sorry Jordan. Just gimme a call back earlier tomorrow and I’ll get your contact info updated.”

“Alright, thank you Krystal.”

I hang up the phone, my bit of hope growing in size. She didn't mention it, and she's known for carrying all the gossip in the office, exaggerating it to epic proportions. If she hasn't heard it maybe I am okay.
As if by self-sabotage I stayed up all night, the night before, digging my grave deeper and deeper and not even mentioning to my housemates that my appointment which they know I need to be at was taking place at 10 o' clock, the following morning. I set no alarms and crashed around 7 o'clock. I woke up at 11:50 in a rageful panic. They leave the office for the day at 12 o'clock. Amber got me an Uber down there at the last minute. I walked in at 12:05 to meet the Frenchman at the window, disappointment on his face.
He says, smugly, or I consider smugly, from him, yep I'm getting kicked out, I'm sure of it, "alright, so here's the deal. You're super late."
"Yes, yes I am." I say as he scribbles on a Cleanse Clinic appointment card, "We need you to be here on Tuesday at 8 AM. You will get to see the dr then."
I don't want to be left in suspense for another weekend, so I throw the feelers out, "Alright, so will I see a regular doctor?"
"You'll see whoever is available."
"Ok. I am out of medicine. What do I do about that?"
He says, as he hands me the card, "take that to U of L hospital and show it to them so they know you have a scheduled appointment. They will give you medicine to hold you over until your appointment. Bye."
He's beaten me again. I've been late to my appointment before. A few times. They've never told me to go to the hospital. The other times they called the doctor, and he/she had called me in medicine until I could be seen again. I was absolutely positive they were tossing me to the trash. I turn to walk out, I can feel my emotions welling up, I try to fight back the tears, but they won't stop. Ah, fuck, should’ve taken my Paxil.

Like dominoes in a tsunami, everything is falling to pieces. I take out my phone to see if Amber can get me an Uber home, 1% battery. Oh, fuck. I'm about to be stuck downtown. She had told me to find a link to metro free Wi-Fi since I, of course, haven't paid my phone bill, and she'd get me a ride home. I am now walking up the sidewalk on Broadway at 10 Street. Searching for Wi-Fi.
Searching...
Searching...
Searching... I am able to hold my emotions together, but just barely. I know my reaction to this is ridiculous, but regardless this is reality.
Searching... I've got to keep my composure.
Searching... Keep it together Jordan.
Searching... Oh! There it is. Come on man, connect, PLEASE....
Oh, shit. It's connected. I open my free texting app, TextNow. Click on Amber. Start typing.
"Please. Send for a ride to the same spot. Will explain when I get home. Thank"-----DEAD
"FUCK----"
I sit behind a large tree facing away from any passersby and sob quietly to myself. Trying to assess every decision that brought me to where I sit.
There is obviously nothing sadder and sorrier than a middle-aged white guy crying about his doctor not seeing him. My last article was about the systematic genocide of an entire nation of people. I'm crying because I might have to find another job, maybe go to rehab at the worst.
I get my composure after about 15 minutes.
Consider staying here. As I see the homeless people gathered across the street, I wonder what this moment was to them. Did they have a crying behind a tree moment? Or did they take this in stride. Decide this was their homes? Would they rather be in the streets on drugs than in a home as a productive member of society, as some conservatives like to suggest, or did life systemically break their spirit. The American dream crush their dreams and the world break their, all to large, hearts. I've often envied them. Dreamed of having no worries. Acuna Matata, right?

At one point I considered spending a year in the tent city of Skid Row, Los Angeles, document it and write a book. Like David Simon did for The Corner, the book that would go on to be the award-winning HBO TV show The Wire.

I thought maybe it would be the moment that jumpstarted my career in journalism, but thought better of it. Imagine it, I go there, get strung out on California drugs, already living in a tent, I might never leave.

Through these thoughts I gain my composure. I am about 40 blocks from home. On about five hours of sleep in several days. All I want to do is lay down.

Okay, Jordan, you are still in the spot where you found the Metro connection. The phone died while I am sure 20 other apps were running. I just need it to stay charged up long enough to connect to the wifi, open the free texting app, and shoot a message to Amber. Okay, here goes…

I turn on the phone. Wait for it to startup, it takes so. damn. long. to start up. I stare at it for what must be the most excruciating 3 minutes of my life. And it is up.

Wifi, connected.

TextFree, Amber, I type, “Same place. Phone dead. Please help.” Send.

Sent, YES! And it died. Oh fucking well. I got the message out.

One Hour Later I was back at home planning the rest of my life, because after today, I was sure, that nothing would be the same, so I took some of the same with me and continued my reacquaintance with King opioid and Queen amphetamine.

No worries reader, it’s short-lived.

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“What’s your plan, Jordy? You’ve gotta have a plan.”

Her words could wake me up out of a dead sleep. So, I believe in every one of our lives that people are placed in our lives and taken away for reasons unknown to any of us. Maybe this is God, maybe forces of nature, maybe it’s energy that can move mountains. I don’t know. I tend to follow the Jordan Peterson belief, only on this, that if we are unsure about God or have problems keeping faith than if we at least follow the principles of the bible for the most part that our lives will be better. Not sure how well I do this, but so far I haven’t killed anyone, and that’s a plus.

Tuesday morning. Judgement day. I’m scheduled at the Cleanse Clinic at 8 AM. My roommates know about it this time. Amber offers to get me an Uber down there, “but you’ll have to catch the bus back home.” She tells me.

“If I go, all I need is bus money. I can use the same bus pass to get home.”

“Why wouldn’t you go?” She says.

I very grimly tell her, “It feels like I am attending my own funeral.” Dramatic? I don’t think so.

I get dressed to go. It’s 7 AM, if I wanna get there on time I should leave now. But I lay back down in bed. The fear of what lies around the corner exhausting everything. How far down am I? Not that far Jordan, but this appointment will tell it all.

I went to work on Saturday after staying up much too late. They sent me home and told me “before I could come back I needed a doctors note saying that I am in treatment and stable.”

I needed this appointment to go okay but I know it will not.

When I got home Saturday a friend of my roommates (and now a friend of mine) was there. I’d met her a few times and we talked and talked and talked and talked. We touched everything from racism to life stories. But something she said cut razor deep into my psyche. I can feel it as I lay here in bed, basking in my own self-pity.

“Jordy, what’s your plan? You’ve got to have a plan.”

She’s right. I always have a plan. As if channeling reality directly into my frontal lobe, that’s where decisions are made, see, she says to me. “Get to the suboxone doctor, get the paperwork you need and try to save your job. You have to have a job Jordy. No matter what you have to do. Get a ride, ride the bus if you have to but, you’ve got to have a plan to get your job back.”

She’s right, “You’re right. I can’t lose this job.”

Fear. There is rational fear, and irrational fear. I don’t know what fears are more rational than others. Fearing a drone strike is irrational if you live in the Midwest, but not if you live in Yemen or Syria. At least, today that is true.

Drive-by shootings are not a worry if you live in the suburbs but in South Central LA, any kind of shooting is a possibility.

I spent most of my life fearing the irrational. When I first got clean I started having panic attacks when I thought about dying. It was like my mind making up for the years that I didn’t care about myself, and that fear that, it turns out is not uncommon at all was showing itself by making me believe I was dying right then. It got so bad at one point I was taken out of work by an ambulance because I was positive I was having a heart attack.

I thought, at one point that I would not go anywhere that I couldn’t take a bus to since buses were much safer than cars and car wrecks claim more deaths than heart disease per year. If I am to close to heart disease to turn back, I could at least steer clear of cars. This fear was irrational. As was the fear that had me still lying in bed at 10 AM when Tricia’s voice again invaded my psyche, “Jordy, you’ve got to do everything you can—”

I looked at the time, 10:15, I’ve got to go. How will I explain that I didn’t even try.

“Amber!” I holler out to the room next to mine. No answer. I get up and walk to their door and knock, they must’ve went back to sleep. A couple more knocks and she answers, “What Jordy?”

“Will you still order me that Uber?”

“Yea, as long as it is under $9.44. That’s what I have left.”

“Thank you. I can’t skip this, I’ve got to at least try.”

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30 Minutes Later…

I’m getting out of the Uber in front of the doctor. With not a second to spare I head on in. I called them ahead of time to tell them, “I am late, but on my way.”

The sign reading “Cleanse Clinic” beaming down at me, I wonder if it’s the last time I’ll see this sign. Stop being so dramatic Jordan. You pass this place every time you go downtown. You’re getting discharged. Not dying. Maybe not.

I enter through the first set of automatic doors. Take the oh so familiar left through the next set into the waiting room, dim enough to be a nightclub, yet sterile like a mortuary. I see the first good sign in days as I walk up to the receptionists window. Priscilla. She’s the best, so nice, she remembered for a whole month one time to bring me her husband’s old backpack, which I still use everyday.

I look around, no sign of Frenchy. I thought for sure he’d be here to hound me about the bill. I say nothing, but take a pen to sign in on the sign up sheet.

Priscilla looks up and smiles, “hey Jordan, how are you?” Then eyes back to the computer. Searching for whatever it is that she does on that side of the window.

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I tell her in the most apologetic tone I can muster, "So sorry. I am so damn late.” She looks from the computer and locks eyes with me. Not in a look of passion, but stern, serious. Haha, it turns out more like Howard Stern on Sirius (Get it. Howard Stern is the star of Sirius Satellite Radio. Literally the only draw to Sirius, if that). She holds that stare and right when my nervous are about to give and I must look away it turns to a menacing smirk followed by, “you think we’re sweating what time you show up?”

I think, damn, I wish that was how everyone felt about me here, but I keep it to myself. After all, I can’t blame everyone here for one Arabic-Frenchy going through some kind of identity crisis because he has such a high tolerance to Cialis he’s about to file Chapter Eleven (it’s bankruptcy, see).

Instead I laugh through it like I always do when I don’t know what to say.

She giggles a bit. Grabs a new urine sample cup and a sharpie. Writes my name in J. Canter, looks up at me over her glasses like my aunt does, except when she does I am normally in trouble. But not with Priscilla, “Birthdate, 3, 1, 90, right?”

Good memory on this one, “Yes, that’s it.”

She passes me the cup through the window, says, “come on back,” like always and I remember, for the first time in days the realization sets in, holy shit, I jumped off the deep end, risked everything including my life, panicked over something that was never happening! Fear.

Irrational fear.

But now I’m back…

Stay Tuned… Thank you for reading.

Editor-in-Chief

This section I added after post. I wrote it in a note realized it belonged in this piece. When you get to the end you'll understand why it fits:

I really hate the argument, “they do jobs Americans don't want to do”, it's offensive and doesn't exist. There might be jobs you don't want to do but, there's no such thing as jobs Americans “won't” do. We'll do anything, no matter how hard or dirty for the right price, which is actually the issue.

If there wasn't people willing to do hard jobs for cheap, employers would be forced to pay employees based on how hard the job is.

But, I don't even think that is it. When I have no job there is NOTHING that I wouldn't do to provide for my family. I've done the dirtiest jobs in the hardest conditions and come out of it tougher every time. We've got to stop giving people that out.

There's no such thing as too tough of a job. If you think it is, you should probably do it. It'll make it that much better when you do.

Where Does the American Work Ethic Come From?

I don’t know if what follows this is true, but it's something I’ve been observing for some time now.

However, since around the pandemic it changed, and I do not believe it is for the better.

First off, lemme start with the song. I found it maybe ten years ago, maybe fifteen, but when I did it opened my mind to something about American work ethic.

My work ethic started out at zero. I gained a strong work ethic after working for a guy who was very hard to impress, and I got so tired of being insulted and threatened that I decided whatever he asks me to do I am going to go ten steps further and do it flawless. It’s worth it to prove this asshole wrong.

Unfortunately, he didn’t notice, even after I went ten steps further than the day before, and the day after that, and the day after that. I realized this guy was either blind or unwilling to give anyone a “Good Job” lol. But something happened with that, I stopped caring about his attaboy and started stepping back and looking at my finished work and thinking, damn, I did that.

Then, I realized he was doing the same thing, and he actually was telling me “Good job”, but in his own way.

He was stepping back and looking at what we had done and taking pride in it.

It was a horse-riding stable, my job at first was cleaning the stalls and turning the horses out to the pasture every day, then it became, bush-hogging the fields, then it became building new stalls in the barn, adding onto the barn, then running the community service program on Saturdays and taking a whole crew of young people working their community service off, eventually I was managing the entire business.

I came there when I was eighteen because I had no family not in prison, had just gotten out of jail myself, and had nowhere to go. It was great because in any other situation I would’ve walked out of that job and never learned that lesson and I might be as lost as the rest of my generation.

When I figured this out it was like the key to getting through work happily.

Years later I still take this with me everywhere I go, everything I do. There is such an amazing feeling to step back and look at something and find the pride in being able to do it.

When I first heard this song “John Henry’s Hammer” I realized that this is not new. It goes back to another time, way before I was born, and might be part of American culture.

There is something so very American about taking pride in your work.

I used to lay floors for a living and would take before and after pictures, and it was so fucking cool to get to the end of the job and sit with your co-worker and talk about the job we’d just finished. Show the pictures off to other people, it’s not even bragging, it’s pride.

I noticed at other jobs since then that other people share in this too. I worked for 15 years at a company that had a quota on each line and if you finished your quota your whole line would get to go home with a full day’s pay. That became where the pride came from, everyone would get together at the liquor store across the street and gather to talk about the day, and there was a comradery that came with that pride.

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The Story of John Henry’s Hammer is Really the Story of John Henry’s Determination in the Face of Automation

So, the song, “John Henry’s Hammer” if you didn’t listen to it, it’s about a guy named John Henry. His dad — or Pappy — has been in prison more than out his whole life. John Henry's Pappy woke him up one midnight, and said, “before the sheriff comes I wanna tell you, listen boy: Learn to turn a jack, learn to lay a track, learn to pick, and shovel too, and get my hammer. It’ll do anything you want it to.”

So, John’s mom had a dozen babies. They all got sick and “when the doctor wanted money,” he told him “I’ll pay you a quarter at a time, starting tomorrow,” which is “Pay for a steel driver on this line.” So, he goes to get a job doing what his “Pappy” told him to do.

He is interviewed by the Section Foreman. The Foreman says to him, “Hey! Hammer swinger! I see you brought your own hammer boy but what else can all these muscles do?”

He says, “I can turn a jack, I can lay a track, I can pick and shovel too—”

“—Can ya swing the hammer?”

“I’ll do anything you hire me too.”

“Now ain't you something. So high and mighty with your muscles, just go ahead pick up that hammer, pick up the hammer. Get a rusty spike and swing it down three times, I'll pay you a nickel a day for every inch you sink it to, go on and do what you say you can do”

So, he gives him three swings, and he’ll pay him a nickel a day for every inch that spike goes. If you needed commentary:

“With a steep nose hammer on a four-foot switch panel, John Henry raised it back till it touched his heels,” swung and on his first swing sunk it seven inches. That’s “35 cents a day for driving steel.”
The Foreman says, “Sweat boy! You owe me two more swings.”

John Henry exclaims, “I was born for driving steel.”

John Henry became known for how well he swung his hammer. People would come from all around to see him, “Watch him make the cold steel ring!”

Eventually, that boss comes down to rub it into John Henry’s face that soon automation was coming, and a steam engine would be replacing his “share of the driving.”

The “Bad Boss” as he is referred to, laughing and said to John Henry, “You full of vinegar now, but you ‘bout through. We’re gonna get a steam drill to do your share of driving, then what's all them muscles gonna do? Huh, John Henry? (Were) gonna take a little bit of vinegar out of you.”
John said to him, “I feed four little brothers, and my baby sister's walking on her
knees! If the lord say that machines ought to take the place of living, then what's a substitute for bread and beans? I ain't seen it. Do engines get rewarded for their steam?”

Well, some time passed, and it became time for the steam drill to replace him. The mine boss finds John Henry resting through his lunch hour, and says to him, “get up! Whoever you are and get a pickax, give me enough coal to start another Hell, and keep it burning, mine me enough to start another Hell.”

John Henry sees the time has come for the steam drill to take his job and decides to challenge that steam drill and prove nobody, not even no machine, can replace John Henry.

John Henry said to his captain, “a man ain't nothin’ but a man, but if you bring that steam drill round, I'll beat it fair and honest. I'll die with my hammer in my hand, but I'll be laughing! ‘Cause you can't replace a steel drivin’ man.”

A big crowd had gathered at the mountain to see the great “Man Vs Machine” showdown.

John Henry says, “How is you?” To the steam drill. When he gets no reply he takes issue with this condescending hunk of metal, and says, “pardon me mister steam drill, I s’ppose you didn't hear me. I said how’re you? Well, can you turn a jack, can you lay a track, can you pick and shovel too? Listen, this hammer swingers talkin' to you.”

The race begins and John Henry is going so fast the onlookers think the “mountain is caving in!”

John Henry told the captain, “Tell the kind folks not to worry. That ain't nothin’
but my hammer suckin' wind! It keeps me breathing. This is steel driver’s muscle. I ain’t tin.”

When John gets to the finish line, he realizes he’s won but also realizes the steam engine doesn’t know it.
John Henry says, “Captain, tell the people move back further. I'm at the finish line and there ain't no drill. She's so far behind, but ain't got the brains to quit it, when she blows up, she'll scatter cross the hills, lord lordy, when she blows up, she'll scatter cross the hills.”

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This story is the story of automation that is approaching again with artificial intelligence. And it is a story of the pride we take in our work and the ability to provide for our families.

The steam engine didn’t have the brains to stop when she’d been beaten, but AI is going to have the ability to beat the John Henry’s and the brains to stop.

I worked as a temp at the RC Cola plant for a week here in Louisville. They had the most unbelievable machine that did everything from making the bottles, filling them with soda, bundling them, palletizing the bundles and putting the pallets on the truck to be shipped out. Talking to a couple guys there they said, “when that machine came arrived their employees went from a hundred down to five.” My immediate thought was, damn, that’s ninety-five people who thought they had secure employment being thrown out on the streets.

Now, that is coming to us in the form of AI. Sure, it’ll be more efficient in a lot of things, but what about the things that need a human touch.

I’ve attempted a couple articles here using ChatGPT and it felt sterile. I immediately was like, “Oh, well I can do a better job than this.” That was a positive outlook on this, but I count help but worry. At what point does it advance to where there’s ten thousand John Henry’s competing to continue doing the thing that gives us meaning? I can’t imagine that doesn’t happen and if these things continue to advance exponentially it could be sooner rather than later.

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The ‘Purpose in Life’ Trap

Something my ex-significant other and I noticed during and after COVID is people stopped taking pride in their work, and they never started back. I don’t know if it’s the phones. I don't know what it is, but I know I take pride in doing my best in any job I do, and she had worked in customer service at restaurants and she talked a lot about the pride she took in getting peoples orders right, and making sure the customer got everything they were supposed to and left satisfied, but in the last few years both of us noticed that these young people coming up take zero pride in their work ethic. We’d go into restaurants and these young people would get obviously annoyed that we were bothering them with asking them to do the job they were being paid to do.

We would consistently see five people on their phones, refusing you service, ignoring your existence, the boss shows up, and instead of trying to get them to take your order they’d just do it themselves. Because of this more and more restaurants are doing orders by kiosk, and self-checkouts and actual fucking robots.

If these people aren’t learning a work ethic there, I think it’s starting a domino effect leading to every job being replaced by the “steam engines of today” and the John Henry’s are becoming an endangered species.

Work and Meaning in Life

We’ve probably all heard stories of someone who was married for 40 years and when their spouse passed away, they had no reason to keep pushing and pass away themselves shockingly soon after.

Or, just the same, you heard of someone who worked their whole lives and once it’s taken away, they lose their purpose in life, their health goes downhill and very soon you see their name in the obituary.

I do, however, also see people who get used up by their jobs, then dropped like hot potatoes for someone younger once they get too old to carry out their job anymore, which is the same effect, just someone different invoking the cause.

Something happens to people who live their lives with a purpose. It keeps them healthy, and as soon as that purpose is taken away, they are as good as doomed. If the young people coming up never have that purpose than, what will that do to the future of the human race?

Does Artificial Intelligence have the potential to create a slow-moving doom of mankind or fast moving like Terminator. I don’t know, but something is happening, and I believe they are all connected.

Technology has empowered me in my life unlike anything I ever imagined.

It’s opened the door to be able to literally do anything I want to. For a poor kid, from a small town, I can’t find the words to describe how amazingly consequential that has been for me, but just as positive as it is, there’s another side which can be equally as negative, and I wonder if other people see this too.

There must be a way to pull back from the brink, that doesn’t set society back a half a millennium.

Thank you for reading!

Editor-in-Chief

I believe that analysis is spot on, and that is what makes me love this Substack so much. A podcast is getting to sit as a 3rd — sometimes 4th — man listening to a conversation. This Substack is my chance to talk back.

Although it proved me wrong, I couldn’t help but love to see Tim Dillon’s interview with CNN finally get aired.

Quite honestly, if they air interviews like this more often, I’ll become a CNN Stan. Okay, maybe not that far, but I’ll at least view it un-begrudgingly. This was a good interview, the girl conducting the interview was, shall I say, spacey, enough, that she didn’t seem like a stuck-up branch on a windless night. No, she was kind of loose, asking kinda hard, in a silly way questions.

But, early on she asked a question that provoked a memory in my mind. “podcasts” as “simulated friends”, ah. Now that’s a real possibility.

So, I should preface this by saying, when Spotify does their year-in-review thing and gives you the stats of how much Spotify you’ve listened to for the year, who was your top, according to their numbers I spent 144,195 min on Spotify, listening to podcasts. My #1 was the Joe Rogan Experience, then Dave Smith at Part of the Problem, Lex, and Breaking Points. That equals out to a hundred 24-hour days. So, yea, I’d say they are my friends.

So, growing up, being a teenager were the best days of my life. My last home, as a teenager, was in a project housing complex called Landmark Apartments.

According to the indictment I received for drug trafficking when I was 18 it said the high school was 296 yds from my front door.

We had so much traffic running in and out of my apartment we would constantly get accused of selling drugs. We were always so broke. We lived off dad’s $634/month SSI check and it was never enough. We eventually decided if they were gonna accuse us anyways, we might as well start selling so we, at least wouldn’t be so broke. We started selling pot, but that’s a story for another day.

When school let out all my friends would walk home, and my place was always on the way to wherever they lived. So, after school there would always be 40 teenagers in and out of my place.

I had more friends than I could count. My Dad was the coolest dad. Everybody loved him and he loved them. He loved that all my friends called him “Daddy Wayne.” When he passed away the outpouring from my class in high school was unbelievable.

It's strange, I always considered myself an introvert. I spent months in jail not speaking, literally, not saying a word to anyone. Getting up to eat, then back to my bed to read.

I read my time away in there and I believe it is benefitting me now, but that time with a room of 15 people gathered around me playing a tune on my guitar that I’d just learned, passing a joint around, were the happiest days I can remember. I had hundreds of friends if you asked me back then.

Then those friends moved on with their lives and so did I. There was no school for them to meet up after every day. No Daddy Wayne to offer them his spaghetti he took so much pride in.

It’s the most unfortunate part of life. The best of times never remain the best, and you spend the rest of time trying to recreate those times or make new ones.

Sometimes you do, sometimes they become better than they’ve ever been.

We chase these times that have long since passed, like a junkie chases his first hit. Trying new methods to get that feeling one more time, maybe we’ll use two lighters this time, or dip a Q-Tip in pure grain alcohol and light it and use that flame to take our hit? (Maybe that one was just me.) But never truly succeeding.

No. Friends move on with their lives, as do you, as did I. The friends I replaced them with turned out, one after another, after another, to not have my best interest at heart, or their own.

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The new friends I’d made thought being a friend was calling you to “come try this ice they got”, or to let me know “their dealer had Roxy 30’s in,” / with the M Box.

Or ask if “you had a bump?” They’d “get you back on the first” — or “third.”

100% transactional. The few times I tried to get clean, I would tell them, and it would go in one ear and out the other. They’d still call the day before payday to get me high so they already had me when my paycheck rolled in.

I had to get out! In the most radical way. I moved, changed my phone number, and stayed inside. I got clean by isolation.

I’d still run into people from time to time in passing, who’d see me as a quick $50. So, I would rehearse what I would say in my head. I found that a stiff “No!” Could sometimes lead to problems. There are ways to say no that cause an escalatory response. Especially when you’re dealing with crazies who live in tents, also you don’t always know whether you are talking to a crazy drug dealer or just a normal one trying to push a few packs. :-) I tried a few different replies before I found my universal-drug-dealer-avoidance-statements.

It was, “No, I’m straight.” And if they persisted, as they do, I say, “I can’t. I’m on paper (probation or parole). I got a drug test coming up.” That usually worked because every drug dealer understands that shit.

It’s partly my fault. I kinda still have that junkie look. Teeth messed up, hair disheveled, always in the wrong part of town, so it’s hard to avoid those interactions. So, for me, rehearsal is a must!

I isolated. Very funny, I’m an “isolationist” in politics and life. To work, back home. Kept to myself at work. Ear buds in. Started listening to podcasts, and I’d never thought about it, but I enjoy them so much. They are simulating friendship for me. I used to have hundreds of friends, now I have hundreds of podcasts to listen to.

These are the friends I’ve been looking for since I left Landmark apartments. The worst thing they’ve ever got me into was maybe Curtis Yarvin or questioning WW2 =-).

I believe that analysis is spot on, and that is what makes me love this Substack so much. A podcast is getting to sit as a 3rd — sometimes 4th — man listening to a conversation. This Substack is my chance to talk back. It takes me from being a spectator to actually being a part of the conversation, whether they know it or not.

Thank you for reading.

Editor-in-Chief

One more thing. Please consider subscribing. I don’t feel good enough about my writing to ask for those who can pay to please buy a subscription, but it’s there if you so choose. But my promise is to work my tail off to produce as high a level of work that I possibly can, and I am just ecstatic that anyone would read my words. Thank you all!

I publish new work every week, soon in audio. I’m building a platform for free thinkers of all kinds and creeds. All are welcome and appreciated.

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Several factors have contributed to the opioid crisis: an increase in the prescribing of opioids, changes in illegal opioid markets, and greater demand for opioids among people in some demographic groups that have experienced declines in real wages and social cohesion. Those factors have reinforced each other.

Real wages and social cohesion. Interesting that Washington is aware of this and are doing nothing to fix the problem. Why, I wonder? Could it be that they created the problem?

Recently John Kiriakou appeared on a podcast and this being at the moment that every headline had something about U.S.A.I.D. in the title the first story he told during the six-hour podcast — yes, I finished it — was a story from back when he was working under John Kerry on the Senate-Foreign Relations Committee.

If you don’t know who John is, he is ex-CIA, who left the agency in 2004, and between 2007 and 2009, went to ABC News to blow the whistle on our “enhanced” interrogation program overseas during the War on Terror. By “enhanced” interrogation, I mean torture. We were using torture to interrogate “possible” terrorists.

After he blew the whistle and left the agency he was hired by the Senate-Foreign Relations committee.

The Obama Administration chose to indict him in 2012 for violating the Espionage Act. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison in 2013. Since than he’s written several books and made hundreds of appearances on podcasts and is a radio host for the Russian-owned Western-friendly Sputnik.

So, we were all aware of the USAID funding set aside for heroine cultivation in Afghanistan, but maybe you weren’t aware of the reason for this, as a foreign policy initiative, and the unintended consequences that are now our present.

First off, I must say this, I am against any cartel of any kind pushing the drugs that have poisoned my friends and family for decades, I am against them being pushed into any country.

So, John goes on to tell a story about how Afghanistan became the producer of 93% of the world’s heroine. What happened was after the American occupation and the overthrow of the Taliban, opium production became the only crop the Afghans were cultivating due to profitability. Remember the Taliban was a Theocracy and heroine production was against their religion.

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I have heard numerous accounts of soldiers — personally and in public forums — from the War in Afghanistan come home to tell stories of guarding poppy fields for local farmers. There’s the Geraldo Rivera clip (inserted below).

And America’s favorite propaganda outlet Voice of America.

So, this isn’t conspiracy theory. These are facts of life.

As the Senior investigator for the Senate-Foreign Relations Committee John goes over to Afghanistan to write a report on why 93% of the world’s heroine production was coming from Afghanistan, who we were currently occupying. So, he flew to Bagram Airbase in Kabul, Afghanistan, he said he wanted to visit the Kandahar and Helmand province in the South of Afghanistan which were the leaders in poppy cultivation.

The soldiers at Bagram immediately give him a hard time and he’s forced to “pull rank” to get them to take him to do his investigation.

It worked, they had no choice, so they begrudgingly take him on a helicopter to Kandahar and then Helmand.

While in the Helmand province he runs into USAID who are digging water wells just outside of a poppy field that stretches back as far as the eyes can see.

He meets a farmer and asks what he thinks is a good question, and it probably is, “Why do you grow poppy (which only has one season per year) when you could instead grow something with two seasons?”

The man frustratingly answers, “Look, the Americans told me in 2001 if I told them where the Arabs were I could grow as much poppy as I wanted—”

Jon asks, “—what Americans told you, you could grow poppy?”

Before the farmer could answer, the soldiers who were escorting Jon, had heard the whole exchange and said, “That’s enough, we’ve got to go, there’s a threat.” It was just them out there.

Jon knew there was no threat, but he went along with it. He’d heard enough.

He gets home, contacts the DEA, meets with an agent and the agent tells him, “You’re never gonna get this paper published. What you don’t realize is this poppy goes to Russia and Iran. We want them addicted to heroin; it keeps their societies weak.”

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This is where my knowledge comes in. As a curious, inquisitive addict.

There was a show that came out around 2014, that created a real scare in the heroine-user community called Drugs Inc. and more specifically the episode called “Krokadil.”

(If you’d like to see it, I posted the only version I could find of it on YouTube. It’s only partial and age-restricted)

It was about the drug called desomorphine which is created by breaking down codeine that is bought OTC at local pharmacies in other countries.

By the way, to be clear, it is not actually a “flesh-eating drug.” What it is however that causes these horrific images in infection and gangrene from a process that contains things like gasoline. Here’s the problem, they are shooting up a drug with the remnants of gasoline. It’s just dirty and dangerous and should not come close to being shot into a human body, but the drug they are attempting to produce is not a “Flesh-Eating Drug” but allow me to digress.

In countries where you could get codeine easier than heroine is where drugs like Krok blow up. So, places where codeine is an over-the-counter drug is perfect for something like this to fester.

In the video it was Russia and Georgia. Back then the reason these places were using this was because heroine was so very hard to get.

Now, if this story is true and I sense no lies in it, it solves a question I’ve long since had, why are we getting the fentanyl here in America?

Now, I’m hearing from people in sober living that they are having cases of people coming into detox with desomorphine in their system, so I must ask the question, is filling the demand for heroine in Eastern Europe causing us, here in America, to end up with a thousand times more dangerous alternatives?

Is it time for American companies to cut out these evil middlemen?

Dude, codeine is as legal (probably more) in Canada and Mexico (our neighbor) as it was in E. European cold countries, the next “flesh-eating drug” doc could very well be in America.

Ten years ago, there was no such thing as a fentanyl pill. Now chemical companies in China are producing precursors for meth and fentanyl and sending them to super labs in Mexico to be sold to Americans to keep our society weak.

The same thing happened with meth. Here in Kentucky, in 2001, all nasal decongestants containing any form of ephedrine became controlled substances to stem the ability for the drugs to be manufactured here at home.

I know, I was waste deep in these waters when that law was passed and spent many years following networking with other meth cooks to come up with the Sudafed to make a batch.

Then, in 2013, meth, in one Summer, went from being American made and sold for $130 a gram to being extremely potent ice that cost $55 a gram, and then $40, and then $30, and heroine went from being something that rarely killed to being fentanyl that kills even the most seasoned vets.

Meth is now so cheap that anyone that can come up with $5 can get the shit and so strong, every American city has been decimated by it. Leaving once productive members of society, now as psychotics yelling at trees for looking at them crazy.

If our plan was to weaken our “enemies” societies, it seems we might’ve reaped what we sowed.

The Geopolitics of Drug Trafficking

Some things I found out in researching this story.

In 2001, the Taliban had eradicated a majority of the the poppies in all of Afghanistan.

Six months later, we overthrew the Taliban.

Most people believe Osama bin Ladin belonged to the Taliban, but he didn’t. In fact, they were an entirely separate entity. A theocracy, no doubt, but so is Muhammad bin Salman’s regime, in Saudi Arabia and they actually did harbor Bin Laden.

Since we pulled out of Afghanistan and the Taliban took back over heroine production was reduced by 99%.

In the 1990’s Afghanistan produced 70% of the world’s heroin. At a time that no one in my neck of the woods had even seen the stuff outside of movies.

In 2000, the Taliban started shutting down poppy farms and heroine production labs. Within one year they had reduced the poppy’s grown by 30% and the heroine manufactured by 70%.

In 2002, our soldiers started protecting poppy farmers and keeping their fields secure.

Mullah Haibatullah imposed a ban on drugs in Afghanistan in April 2022, only seven months after the Taliban took power.

High resolution imagery shows that in the province of Helmand poppy cultivation has fallen from more than 120,000 hectares in 2022 to less than 1,000 hectares in 2023 – a reduction in this one province alone that surpasses any prior national poppy ban in Afghanistan, even the Taliban prohibition of 2000/01.

While cultivation persists – and may have even increased - in parts of the northeast, such as Badakhshan, it is clear the stage is set for the lowest levels of poppy cultivation since the Taliban ban of 2000/01.

The Taliban’s efforts to ban poppy began in the spring of 2022 just after the ban was announced in early April. In particular, the spring and summer planted crops in the south and southwest were targeted for eradication. The authorities didn’t touch the standing crop – the one planted in the fall of 2021 - that was only a week or two from harvest as that would have provoked widespread unrest so close to the harvest season and after farmers had invested considerable time and resources in their poppy fields.

That was nice of them.

Now I know this is an ugly position to take, but unfortunately, it’s true. The more poppy is eradicated world-wide, the more fentanyl that makes it into our backyard.

We play geopolitics with a chessboard made of sand. Every evil move we make around the world leads to blowback back home. From the Mujahideen to 9/11.

And from the Afghan poppies to fentanyl on our streets. This is just another way that involving ourselves over there is causing turmoil over here. It’s not what we voted for. The constitution doesn’t give anyone the authority to do it. And Americans are dying over it. It’s time to make it stop.

Thank you for reading.

Editor-in-Chief, The Freedom Manifesto

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In The Trap

To us at this time. We were totally disconnected from the realities of the trap, and the people working in the trap. To us, these people were celebrities. A class so far above the people waiting in line to get served, day in and day out, that when people that we knew from the line, went on to work in the trap we felt like they had made it.

We’d watched Steven on a daily basis, go from selling points to us from a gram bag that he’d bought for a hundred bucks trying to turn a profit, to buying pounds at a time, having 20-20 employees under him, testing, bagging, and serving the dope, rebuilding properties, traveling all over the world, having three children, all off the backs of this trap house on Bank Street. We ate up the culture of this place like we were part of The People’s Temple and Steven Cockerell was our Jim Jones. So, when Steven called offering one of these premium jobs inside the trap, it felt like we’d made it. But, since this is “Trap House Economics,” let’s talk about the economics, first.

It took years to beat out all the kinks in his little system, but by 2014 it was working like a well-oiled machine, except it wasn’t, at least once a week Steven would call Angie and I down there to have us pick up a half gram and “Try it out” and tell him if it had too much cut, if it was the same stuff we’d bought earlier, he was constantly at battle with trying to make sure his employees weren’t tampering with the product, stealing from him, setting him up. After they got busted there was a story that some girl was accusing them of kidnapping her and holding her hostage for three days.

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See, El Chapo’s employees would never tamper with his product, he’d kill ‘em, Steven didn’t have that same “rule by violence” type of control. He was a businessman. In another life, born to another family, he’d have been a shrewd, hard hittin’, successful entrepreneur, but born to the Cockerell’s on Bank Street in Portland Louisville, this was the business.

So, Steven paid $400 for 24 hours in the trap. During which he didn’t care what you did but he’s calling every hour to check in with you and every three hours one of his people came to check the money, and the weight of what was left of the dope. Who would get a weight to money ratio to make sure you weren’t fucking nothing up and/or stealing any of the money or dope. Steven was also known in a rather Elon Muskish way for berating his employees, especially there at the end.

Back to the Message

I said, “Like in the trap?”

He said, “Yes, where’re you at?” Oh, back to reality. I gotta explain where I am at.

I tell him, “I’m walking up 26th Street. On my way back home.”

He said, “Stay there. Billy is coming to get you.”

I tell him, “Alright, I’ll be walking up 26th Street. I wanna raise the gap between where I am and where I just came from. I just got robbed in Dino’s parking lot. I appreciate this, Steven. Thank you. I won’t let you down.”

He said, “Just don’t rob me and you won’t.”

Just then Angie calls. I answer. She says, “Jordan, they want us to work in the trap tonight.”

I say, “I know.”

I was exhilarated. I’d went from the worst night to the best night. I felt like we’d finally made it. Like, all my hard times had finally paid off. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Billy picked me up at 26th & Market Street, we stopped by the house, picked up Angie, and headed to the trap to begin our lives on the other side of the train tracks.

When we got down there, the guy we were relieving seemed a bit unnerved. We figured he was just ready to get outta there.

There were three raids that brought the Cockerell’s down. This period was between raid #1 and raid #2, but ever since the first raid happened everyone seemed a bit jumpy by the time their 24 hours was up. Everyone knew time was short and no one wanted to be the guy on the inside left holding the bag.

When we got there, we were there to relieve Patrick, AKA Pat.

Billy came in with us and asked Pat if he’d “stay a couple hours longer to show us the ropes.”

Patrick obliged and told Billy, “Do you wanna pick up this money? I got $1500 here, separated, counted, and ready to go.”

He said, “No, not yet. I’ll come and get it all at once in at the next drop.” And he left out.

Patrick was white, ginger, you know red hair, freckled face, short hair. Not super short but not lanky either. Thin, but you can tell he works out a bit. Seemed almost too clean and well-dressed for…this.

After Billy left Pat expressed distress about Billy not taking the money with him. “Will you make sure they get this. I’m not worried about it being in y’all’s hands, but it’s the money I’m responsible for. It’s $1500 and anything could happen. I don’t have it to replace, and I need this job.”

Angie and I reassured him, “We’d protect it with our lives.”

We kinda knew the deal, but what he did teach us is How to get well on the boss’s supply without upsetting the boss. If “we needed to do a couple points—as he was sure we would—we’ll shorten the next couple serves by a bit. Just remember to make sure it’s not so short they complain, and don’t do more than we can make up before the next count and money drop.”

He also explained to us that any amount the bag was over we could take out, and if we don’t take it out the higher-ups will give it to us, so we’re not doing anything they don’t agree with.

“If someone orders a .1, give them a .08, if they’re obnoxious, make it a .06, if someone orders a half gram (.5), give em a .35, unless they’re someone like, well, like you two, who’ve been coming here a long time and have an inside connection with Steven, short anyone else, if you want of course, but I would, because let’s be honest, the heat is on you. If anything happens, they might get arrested but you’re the one facing the most time. Make it worth it.”

That was his parting pep talk, and off he went. We let him out, locked the door behind him, now it was just us, left to our devices.

I must mention, that by this point one of the rules of the trap is “no one is allowed inside the trap.” Not even the family. And definitely not Momma Jenny, but we could never tell her no. If anyone is supposed to be there they will call, otherwise you do not open the door for any other reason, but while Patrick was there with us, a few shadowy figures stopped by. I only knew one of them, he went by the name “Black.” We knew him from hanging around the trap, he seemed to bounce from one trap to the next and get away Scott free when shit hit the fan. We met him at a rival operation that got their business purely off of location. I can’t remember their names now, but it was a lady and a guy who claimed Steven got his connection from them and would circumvent customers looking for Steven’s into their place with a promise of the same H, with no cut. They were also known for sitting on dope until Steven’s would shut down for whatever reason, such as someone making false alarms to the trap phone to get them to “panic close” and poach their customers as they went up the alley, since their house was right at the entrance to the alley.

This caused them to alienate everyone around leaving no one to warn them when their place was being raided. For this they were the first one picked off by the FEDs and Black had moved on to bigger things, like haunting the trap up the alleyway looking for a come-up.

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I remember the day they got raided, I turned my bike down 28th Street on my way to Steven's and seen three unmarked Dodge Chargers that I’d never seen before parked right before the entrance to the alleyway. I stopped and called Steven, “Hey, is everything alright?” I said, in a bit of a panic.

He said, “Yea, come on through.”

I said, “Dude, there's FEDs sitting on the alleyway.”

He said, “Hold on.”

A minute went by… He comes back to the line. “Yea, I don’t know what that is. I see em on my camera. Come through the front.”

That was their solution to everything. When the front looks dicey, come through the back. When the back looks dicey, come through the front. Jeez!

Once Pat left and we were officially on our own we decide to do a little ice and another point of H. I try to give Angie a shot, but she’s dehydrated so I can’t get a vein, I also have to pull it off in between customers so that’s an added stressor.

The trap phone rings, it’s Black. I answer the phone, and he says, “Hey, I’m at the door. Let me in.”

This is our first night, we don’t really know who is cool and who isn’t. We tell him, “Sorry, bro. No can do, Steven gave us strict orders not to let anyone in.”

He says, “Yea, but that doesn’t apply to me.”

I say, “Hold up. I’mma call Steven and ask him.”

He says, “Okay cool, but let me in while you are calling him. I’ll talk to him myself—”

“—No. Sorry, bro. Can’t do it—.” He hangs up the phone. Steven answers the other phone, which Angie has been calling him to ask on.

He says, “Dude. That motherfucker is never allowed in that house. Ever!” And hangs up the phone. Jeez!

I call Black back to tell him, he doesn’t answer. He must’ve known. I have no clue what all that was about. I peek out the curtain. It’s as empty as can be.

Angie says, “Did he hang up?”

“Yes.”

“Okay… Hurry, up let’s get our shots in before someone else shows up.” She says, with a note of desperation in her voice.

I understood. I was feeling the same way.

“The Trap” refers to one of five houses—at this time in space—that are owned by the Cockerell’s, be it Steven, his Uncle Timmy, or his father Ernie. This one specifically we spent more time in than any of the others. When we first started coming here this was Ernie’s actual home, it’s a nice house, one bedroom in the back, by then it was completely empty, except for that one bedroom in the back where we are at. The front door is boarded up so no one can come in that way. The Backyard is surrounded by a wooden privacy fence with a garage/large shed at the edge leading into the alley where business used to take place. But several robberies, hundreds of close calls with the law, and for some reason a DEA that allowed what we’d call today an open-air drug market two blocks away from the police station. The back door was made of square glass panes, right next to the glass door was the bedroom window, with a window seal about three foot off the ground, and a cinder block under the window, where customers—like me usually—would place our order and sit, waiting for it to be passed out the window from behind a gray curtain. Only hands in view.

On the inside the floors were carpeted, with carpet that could definitely use a shampooing. Against the window, flush with the window seal, almost like an extension of the seal was a mini fridge, upon which we’d use as a table to weigh up, bag up, and count the money. Inside the mini-fridge we’d, most of the time, keep the drugs and money with an upright living room chair on one side and a fold up chair on the other, the only furniture in the entire house, straight across the room from the window is the door to the bathroom with a toilet, that still sat shattered into pieces from the first raid, where the FED’s shot the dog in the back yard, shot a flash bang in through the back door, busted in and caught Anthony “Red” Kessinger attempting to flush the drugs down the toilet, unfortunately the bag was too big and slowed the flush giving the “Goon Squad” time to shoot out the pipe in the back of the toilet in time to stop the drugs before they went down. This was maybe two weeks before we sat in the same chair carrying out the same job that Red was incarcerated, awaiting trial for.

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I finish my shot right as the next customer shows up. It’s the 2nd shift swell, the group that gets off work at 11PM, by the time we get one customer served we peak around the curtain and there is five more. It’s 11:45PM, this continues for the next three hours, no real excitement, just bag up, go, bag up, go, then Billy shows up to do the checks.

He’s real cool about it. We’re over by a half gram so he takes it outta the bag and gives it to us, clears out the money, we gave him $1450. We tell him, “What about the $1500 down here from Pat’s shift?”

He says, “I don’t wanna count it right now. I’m ready to go. I’ll get it next time.”

He leaves out. When he leaves there is one customer outside, I lean down to the window, “What d’ya need?”

She says, “three points of H and two points of ice.”

By now we have a system worked out. We take turns taking the orders, she bags up the H and I do the ice, and we take turns passing it out the window.

While we were taking care of this the trap phone starts ringing. Before we could answer they hang up and start calling Angie’s phone, it’s Steven. I answer, “What’s up bro?”

He starts yelling, almost inaudibly, “Why the fuck is no one answering the trap phone?! I just got numbers back, you’re $800 behind!? What the fuck is going on?!”

I answer, in complete confusion, “B-Billy just left, he said everything was perfect. He even gave us a half gram because we were over.”

This was the wrong thing to say, he bellowed out, “Over! How could you be OV-ER! Maybe I made a mistake with you two. Count the money, give me a count and weight right now. Don’t accept any more calls until I have this!” Click. He hangs up the phone.

Me and Angie, in complete disbelief start arguing about this then start scrambling to count the money. There isn’t much money to count, Billy just picked it up, so we get a good weight, just then Angie pulls a stack of money out of the mini-fridge. It’s the $1500 Pat left.

Angie says, “do you think this is what is happening? He’s not counting this money.” I thought the same thing.

The phone starts ringing again. It’s Steven again. We brace for impact before answering, take a deep breath, “Yes. We got it—”

“Hey, my bad. Billy just got here. Y’all are doing a great job. Keep it up. Talk to ya in a few.”

Relief washes over like a warm bath.

I put the phone down, look up at Angie. As if to be reading my mind, she says, “I need another shot after all that.”

It’s now 2 in the morning. I start fixing another shot. Another customer shows up. Angie takes care of them.

The phone rings, it’s a customer. Angie is busy at the window, so I answer, the voice on the other side, small, mousy, woman of a certain age, she says, “Hey this is Amanda. Is Steven there?”

Weird question. Everyone knows this is not how to get hold of Steve. “No, he’s not. D’ya need something?”

“Ummmm…. Is there clear in right now?”

Clear is a codeword for ice. Although Steven keeps an abundance of H, he always had trouble keeping ice in. He’d sell out as fast as he could get it in.

“Yes, sure do,” I reply.

“Does he cut a deal on weight?”

“I…Don’t know. How much are you looking for?”

“It depends on the price.”

“Well, I don’t have the price on anything higher than a gram for $55.”

She says, “Okay, but I’m not paying gram prices for a quarter ounce.”

“So, you need a quarter ounce?”

“Do you have that much?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, yes.”

“Lemme get a price and call you right back.”

“You have to call me back?”

“Yes, I don’t know how much that runs.”

“Well, maybe I’ll just go somewhere else.”

I’m getting irritated and have an all-over bad feeling about this.

I tell her, “Good. Call someone else.”

I hang up and reiterate that strange convo to Angie. By the time I do this she’s calling again. So, I hit the “F-U” button and give Steven a call.

Steven answers, “Hullo?”

“Hey Steven, it’s Jordan. I got somebody calling wanting a quarter ounce of ice.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I needed to call you first.”

“Okay, you got a pen?”

“Hold on I’ll get one.”

I reach around looking for a pen, found one under the door to the mini-fridge.

“Yea, I got it.”

“Okay, write these prices down. Gram $55. 8 ball (3.5 grams) is $150. Quarter ounce (7 grams) is $300. A half is $550. Anything bigger you’ll have to call me. Chances are you won’t need anything bigger than that, but if you do I need to know because it means I’ll have to get more.”

“Ok, cool. I’ll call her back and let her know.”

“Alright, what’re we looking at like right now?”

“Do what?”

“What do we got left.”

“Oh, I—Do not, give me a minute to check, I’ll find out and call you right back.”

“Alright, but next time know it.”

“I will.”

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I hang up the phone and Angie, whose been listening in says, “I got the weight. There’s 48 grams of H and 28 grams of ice. We just gotta count the money.”

We’re both sitting in our respective seats on either side of the mini fridge.

Fridge against the widow. I reach in the fridge and pull out the money and start counting. The trap phone starts ringing, I hear five heavy thuds, and my whole world explodes into dust, glass, and chips of wood. It’s so loud my ears are ringing, my vision is spinning, my eyes can’t focus on what’s happened, I’m too close to ground zero to see. The window has exploded into us, I finally get a focus on Angie, who was across from me, but is now on her feet, she grabs my shirt and says, “Come on! Let’s get the fuck outta here.” I’m moving as quickly as I can away from the window, I look back to see a hole where the window once was and a dark figure climbing in, I see the glare of a gun in one hand, now I don’t look back. We run to the front door of the house, all I can think is, They’re coming for us! They’re going to kill us. Vaguely I remember the words a wise man told me; “they’ll kill ya so ya can’t send someone to kill them. Stay out of that game.”

It’s every bad dream I ever had in my life manifesting itself in reality, we get to the front door, Of course! It’s boarded up! There’s a side door, I know there is, but we have to go back towards Them! Whatever. Whoever. Is there!? Every evil deed I ever committed. They’re all coming back for me. This is my time.

The front door… how well are those boards on there. I’ve got to give it one more try! I unlock the deadbolt, turn the door handle and pull like I’ve never pulled before. The door flies open so easily my own force knocks me down. Angie grabs me and says, “Get UP!”

We run out the door, straight across the street. Angie doesn’t knock, she opens the door and bounds through, still in a full run, to the back of the house, we are now in Ernie, Steven’s father’s house. I stall a little because I’m also afraid of running into people home’s unannounced, Angie is off and running to the back. She’s trying to wake someone up. I spot Ernie asleep on the couch, not asleep now. He’s wide awake now.

I say, “Ernie, we just got robbed. They took everything.”

Ernie says, “Slow down, take a breath, what happened?”

Angie’s now there in the living room and we try to explain. “We were working at the trap, across the street. We got robbed, they hit the window with…Something—”

“—A cinder block.” Angie says.

“Oh, a cinder block?” I say. Finally understanding what caused the explosion next to my head.

“Yea.”

“Okay.” Ernie says, “Go back, and lock the front door. Did anything make it out?”

We both shake our heads, no, now realizing I still have money in my hand I say, “Oh, this.” I count it out to him, it’s $34.

“How much was left?” The drugs, God the drugs.

I say, “28 grams of ice and 48 grams of H.” A silence settles over us.

Then Ernie blows up, “Fuck the drugs, fuck the money. Someone could’ve gotten fucking killed. Now, this is starting to be bullshit! I’m shutting this shit down. It’s done. Can y’all get back home? Do you feel safe with that?”

We nod our heads, “Yes.”

“Go lock the door and go home. Business is through tonight.”

We leave Ernie’s, Angie says, “We have to go back in. Both of our phones were in there.”

“Damn.” I so do not wanna go back in there. But we do.

We walk back to the back room where it happened. Where I was sitting there is a straight line of $20 bills across the floor, I say to Angie, “They missed the money. Let’s take it back to Ernie.”

We make eye contact, as if transferring thoughts between our eyes and start stuffing money in every pocket we could. I take my shoes off and put money underneath my insoles. I guess I thought I might get searched by someone, or something. I do not know. What we did know: We know damn well Steven isn’t paying us for this, and this is the end of our employment on Bank Street. This is that $1500 that everyone tried to get Billy to take, and he never did. We risked our lives, our freedom, and got cussed over the phone for it. It was almost like God had left that money there for us.

Thank you for reading.

This has been a Non-Fiction account of my life, in the fast lane. This is Trap House Economics.

By Editor-in-Chief of

Living my life in the rearview
And I'm haunted by
My past and sometimes I just wanna die
I need to change my ways
Momma, I'm gonna try
But that's a lie 'cause you heard me say that a thousand times
I say Lord please help me
'Cause I've been living unhealthy
And the life that I've been living, Lord
Can I really be forgiven for?

—The great poet Jelly Roll

In the back seat of a red Dodge Neon, passing the liquor store at 26th and Chestnut. A warm sunny December day that only happen in Kentucky. We just came from picking up our fix for the day. We’d tried the trap this morning, but they were shutdown. Something that rarely happened.

Heather says, “Did you hear? They busted the trap this morning. They arrested Steven and Stephanie, everybody!” It hadn’t made the news yet, but being an active Facebook user, she was able to see this on her timeline.

It was the first I’d heard, I’d find out more in time. The thought of it caused a sinking in my heart. Part of me thought it might never happen, but the reasonable part knew they’d had so many close calls, it was bound to happen.

Angela said, “It serves them right. All the grimy shit they did. They took advantage of our addiction.”

I seen it differently and I voiced this.

“Angie, he’s the same age as me. While that trap house was reliably there for us for five years he had two children.

“He’s never gonna see his children grow up. Ernie and Jenny are gonna miss out on their grandkids growing up. He’s gonna miss his children growing up. At least a really important part of their life. They’re gonna grow up with no father. And the last I checked we took advantage of them at every opportunity.”

Angie softened a bit but not too much, “I didn’t really think about it like that.” She pivots, “We got robbed in that house! We got robbed for them. We could’ve died.” She loved to tell this story. Even though I was there with her.

Steven Cockerell did get 20 years. His father, Ernie, is now passed away. I believe the other 28 people arrested in connection to this operation are out now. Steven and Stephanie Cockerell, twin siblings, got the brunt of the deal, or at least they’re the only cases that went Federal. Steven got 20, Stephanie got 5.

I’m gonna do my best to tell this story. From my perspective.

Steven came into the game from humble beginnings. Starting out buying a gram and selling 10, one-tenths of the gram, called a “Point” for “point” one (.1) on the scale.

When the FEDs finally decided they had accumulated enough evidence to bust him, his little operation was pulling in a minimum $1.2 million dollars a year, pure profit. No weight, all in small sales, broken down to whatever, however, and whenever you wanted. He operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. What I would call today a carefully managed “open air” drug market.

The Cold-Hard Economics of Cold-Hard Cash

Steven would buy a kilogram (2.2lbs or 1000 grams) of pure, uncut heroin for $100,000. He would then (add) cut (to) it 100%. Cut is a filler to increase the mass of the product to produce more profit. Every dealer does this. Back then the idea was to cut it using something as unnoticeable as possible. Today they want it to be noticeable. By cutting their product with things like fentanyl to, instead of dilution, they get concentration, making the product more powerful instead of less powerful, using cut that’s stronger than the actual drug they’re cutting. This creates the epidemic of overdoses we’ve seen in the last decade. No one ever od’d on Steven’s dope. No one.

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Steven would buy a thousand (1,000) grams for $100,000 dollars. He would cut it into 2,000 grams. Making it worth $200,000 dollars and he would sell it for same price he got it, which breaks down to $10 a point. Which would make it $100 dollars a gram.

A thousand of those hundreds equal out to the hundred-thousand dollars he spent buying the product. What was left was a thousand grams, all profit!

And at a time that the cheapest *point (0.1 tenth of a gram) you could get was for $15-20, you had to wait on them, they might not answer. Steven’s business never missed a call. Steven quickly became the biggest heroin dealer in the city of Louisville, KY, dealing to the streets. There were bigger dealers who would supply other dealers, but people came from all over to get “Steven’s $10 point.” And his *ice sold for $5 a point. It was rumored that according to the FBI he had over 860 daily customers and his operation worked out of seven houses within that block. I, of course, knew this.

His family owned that block and if the trap wasn’t located in a relative’s home, it was one of the houses he was rebuilding/remodeling for the block with some of his profits. He also, vacationed all over the world and posted about it on social media, but we’ll save that for another day.

On average Steven would have to *re-up once a month, meaning he made a hundred-thousand dollars in profit and sometimes the trap would be so busy he would have to re-up several times a month. This means he would sell a minimum of two thousand grams a month.

Making millions as a “street dealer” was unheard of. Only the cartels transporting and serving to the street dealers would be raking in that kind of doe, but no doubt he was.

Steven said to me one time, “I don’t know why they haven’t gotten me yet.”

It was clear at times by the comments Steven made that this thing had gotten way bigger than he ever intended. Halfway into it his entire family was totally dependent on his income, and income it continued to do.

*Ice-Methamphetamine in crystal form. It looks like chunks of ice.

*Re-up- The act of replenishing an exhausted drug supply

*Hood Novel- A genre of books that tell stories about life in the inner city. I.E. The “Cartel Series”, “Murderville”, books by Rashida Clark or Ashley & JaQuavis.

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In The Beginning…

So, we’re gonna tell this story. In pieces of course. Otherwise, we’re looking at a book. Maybe a *hood novel, non-fiction of course, but let’s start from the beginning.

Heroin was starting to become a thing here in Louisville, KY, late in the year of 2011, but it was slow to come in the beginning. Every dealer that we would go to for crack or tabs I would first ask for “H”, which it was called back then. If they could get it, they wouldn’t touch less than a $50, and I never had $50.

I worked a job through a day labor company called Labor Works. Which means they pay you daily instead of a normal job where you would get a weekly paycheck. I would get a daily check of $53.44, for my shift. Monday through Friday.

By the time I ate, bought cigarettes and bus fare I would make it home with about $30 to get high on. No dealer would fool with me, not for H, with only $30.

When I met Steven, Angie had been getting tabs from his twin sister, Stephanie, and weed for her daughter. I had been asking around adamantly looking for heroin. I liked the tabs but, I was addicted to the needle and wanted something I could shoot up.

I hadn’t asked Stephanie, but somehow, she’d heard that I was asking around. It was strange. Being that at this time I was pretty disconnected from this group. That wouldn’t be for long. Stephanie contacted us and said to Angie, “my brother has the other stuff.” Although we weren’t positive what the other stuff was, we knew we wanted it. She gave us his number.

The next day after I picked up my check at Labor Works and got it cashed at Ali’s next door, an Arabic shop that would cash any check, ID be damned, I headed to the bus stop. Once on the bus I gave him a call and told him we’d be by.

When we got down there we went to three different houses before getting the right one. I said, “He said to meet us at this one.”

Angie said, “no, we’re supposed to go to his sisters.” It quickly became clear to me that every house on this block, Bank St. between 29th and 30th, was connected to this family.

Meeting Steve was cool. He was a nice guy, talked to you like he was level with you. Drug dealers are bad about presenting themselves like they are kings, and you are this unworthy peon, Steven wasn’t like that. He treated you like a friend.

We found him in a single-wide trailer, with a chain link fence around it and toys in the yard. The yard left the impression that there was a big dog nearby. I was instantly anxious, not knowing where he was. Angie was dangerously fearless, especially of dogs, and walked right in before I could protest, and I followed along, like a fool. Stephanie was there, she met us at the door, finally the right door, and brought us in to introduce us to Steven. He was sitting at a kitchen table, chair turned sideways to face away from the table.

He was a big guy. Maybe 300lbs, and 6 foot something, jet black hair, very short fade.

He asked, “What is it y’all need?”

I said, “We have $40 dollars.”

He said, “How much will you pay for a point.”

I said, “I’ll give you $25.”

He said, “And you have $40?

I nodded, “Yes.”

He said, “Okay,” and turned around and started bagging it up.

I was excited we’d found a connect we could walk to who’d sell to us like this, so naturally I started yapping, I said, “Man, you don’t know how hard it’s been trying to find someone who’ll sell us less than $50.”

He said, “I’ll sell you any amount. You can come with $5 dollars. I’ll sell you $5 dollars’ worth.”

I didn’t know at the time I’d put my foot in my mouth. Everyone else was getting points from him for $15 dollars. I’d just turned his hundred-dollar gram he had bought to resale into $250 dollars. Those were the days, though. I’d come by every day after work, buy a point for $25. Angie and I would split it twice. Once when we got home, and the rest the next morning before work. I would be good until I got off work 10 hours later.

Because I had switched from meth that made me seem more “visibly” on drugs to heroin, which I could hide better, people at my work would say, “Jordan, you’re doing so good. We’re so proud of you.” I didn’t have the heart to tell them, “I’m not doing better, I just switched up.”

Unfortunately, that never lasts.

Three Years Later

The day had started like any day back then. Sick. Looking for the next fix. I hate the word “fix”, honestly, because nothing was ever fixed. “Fixed” assumes it won’t be broken again in 4-6 hours.

I had a piece left from the night before to get me out of the bed but needed more. A friend of mine from work, Jeff, a diabetic, gives me a box of a hundred needles, minus the 20 he needs, every two weeks. I was close with him and his son to the point that he felt like he was, kind of a father figure to me. I felt the same of him. He was an older guy who had been around the block a time or two, and was full of advice. He knew I shot up and nothing would stop me, so instead of trying to convince me he’d give me these needles so that I wouldn’t reuse or share tools with anyone. Unfortunately, I’d single-use ninety rigs in a week, then start reusing the ones in the best shape.

I needed to get over there to pick those up. The *rig I was using felt like I was hammering a 20-penny nail into my arm and was starting to clog up.

I needed to figure out my hustle today. It’s 1:15 PM EST, if I was gonna get any business, I would’ve gotten a call by now. If only someone would call needing a “fix” my problems would be solved. I look over at Angie, sawing logs, if she gets a call we’ll be up and away! But it’s Sunday Morning and they’re always the worst.

I have a thought, an idea, but it’s a bit more of a longshot than I’m used to taking. The last few times I’ve been to the trap there was people hanging out next to the window selling rigs for two dollars apiece, and I wonder if Steve will let me do this. He’s been against it in the past due to people being snatched up by the FEDs leaving the alley to the back of the house, and he thinks it’s better to just have dope that maybe you can drop, than to have a needle that’s harder to dispose of.

He even tried, at one point, to make a rule that you had to do it before you left, but that didn’t work out too well for people who need it to get up for work the next day.

Steven had a rotation in his management of this “situation.” Shit would happen; he’d come up with rules to counter, then soften up on them pretty quickly.

I’d have ninety rigs, and apparently, he’d let up on the “no side hustles at my trap” rule so I shoot him a text:

Steven it’s Jordan. I’ve got a bunch needles and no way to get any $ today. Can I post up behind the trap and try to sell some, I promise I won’t cause any trouble. If not, that’s cool, lmk.

Honestly, I hope he says, “No.” I don’t have a good feeling about it, and I’m not great with approaching people. I tried to sell weed this way when I was seventeen. It turned out I didn’t have the guts or the gall to approach other people and the ones that spoke to me first rarely need anything, but I feel like I could pull it off today. It’s not like I’d be confronting strangers. I’d be talking to people just like me. Most of them I know. Inflicted with the same afflictions on them as I. So, it will be nothing like circling a project housing neighborhood looking for someone to sell drugs to. This will be my people. And they’re there to get drugs anyways.

The phone vibrates, a message, simple, sweet and to the point. It read:

Go ahead.

I nudge Angie, oblivious in her slumber. I tell her, “Hey, I’m running down to get those rigs from Jeff, then going to sell some behind the trap. Call me whenever you get up.”

She said, “Okay.” Then went right back to slumber land.

I hop on my bike to pedal up 26th Street. Jeff lives next to the liquor store on 26th street at Chestnut Street. Yep, the same one from the beginning of this story.

Jeff is in a sober living house behind the liquor store. Great location for sobriety, right? It’s a beautiful autumn day, I don’t remember which one. I know it was a nice day because 26th Street was jumping. People were out. I’m pedaling away on Angie’s daughter Heather's boyfriend Darryl’s 20” BMX bike. Not exactly good for travel, but it’s doing the trick. I’m riding with a smallish yellow backpack on my back. Which I plan to conceal the box of “tools” in. I stop pedaling right before Chestnut to send a follow-up text to Steve and let Jeff know I’m here. I tell Steven:

“Hey bro, I’m on my way down to Bank Street, had to make a pit stop.”

I call Jeff to tell him, “Hey buddy, it’s Jordan. I’m outside.”

He says, “I’ll be right there.”

So, I pedal on around the corner and stopped on the sidewalk in front of the steps leading up to this very large sober living house. Located extraordinarily close to a liquor store. He walked out, and handed me a grocery bag, the box of needles inside. Jeff was considerably tall compared to me at a towering 6’ 3”. He worked with me at Accu-tec, his son Evan was one of my best friends and lived with me from time to time. Jeff was what some call “goofy,” I call humorously adept. He could wear cargo shorts in a snowstorm, being from Michigan.

I had he talked in a really low voice that I couldn’t hear. From what I could make out he said, “Be careful out here, they just got somebody in this parking lot earlier. They’re sitting out watching for people.” I assumed he meant police but in retrospect, I think maybe not.

I said, “I will, I’m headed back to the house.” This was partly true but I’m not sure which part. I turned the bike around and gave it one long pedal, around the corner onto 26th Street, back towards Portland, home base.

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“Boost” Me Not

I don’t know who needs to know this, but the wave-downs are the “Enemy of the People.”

What do I mean by this? You’re in motion and someone waves you down because they want to “ask you something” and I promise it’s never to your benefit. That’s why being on foot is dangerous. There’s no escape. Regular people will simply wave and say, “‘Sup bro” and you might reply counter-salutations just the same. Something to that effect, I like to say, “How’re you doing brother.” Simple small talk that gestures to the other person, “I am friend, not foe,” but the wave-downs are more persistent, almost expressing desperation and if you’re on foot and you see one of them coming, maybe go a block out of your way to avoid them, and if you’re lucky enough to be on something with wheels, you should tuck-tail and get the fuck outta there.

I did not do that this day.

I’d already had it in my mind that maybe I could sell some of these rigs down here, seeing everybody out and such, but I wouldn’t have struck up conversation to ask. I’m much too shy for that.

I get waved down just a block past Chestnut by a guy on the other side of the street, younger black man, maybe in his 30’s, around my height, back kinda hunched like he’s been walking a long time, in a white tee and black jean shorts. Instead of waving back and pedaling faster, away into the distance, like a dupe, I stopped.

He said, “Roll over here.” So I did.

He asked, “What d’you do?”

Understanding the question, I said, “Ice and H.”

He said, “Do you boost?”

I said, “Not really, I got like 60 needles I’m trying to sell if you know anyone.”

He said, “I know a girl around the corner, I could take you to her, but right now I got a point of *Hank, I need someone to boost some Glade Air Fresheners. I’ve done been up there too many times. I got someone buying them for $8 a piece. I’ll give you this point if you grab me a couple.”

We’re now walking, I’m pushing my bike. I run this through my head, I am so not a booster. I get too nervous. I’ve never been into stealing, but maybe that point he’s got is really good. Maybe it’s better than Steven's. I could get home, split it with Angie, maybe it’s so good we won’t have to do anything else tonight.

I say, “I’ll try.”

He says, “Don’t try, you just put ‘em in your pocket and walk out.”

I say, “Okay, I’ll do it.”

In my mind, I’m thinking, I’ll get in there, if it doesn’t feel right, I’ll get out and tell him “nevermind” and get my ass back to Portland. I feel real unsure about this now. Then he does the unthinkable.

He says, “Go ahead and take this, so you know I’m not bullshittin’ you.” He reaches in his pocket and pulls out the point of dope and hands it to me. It’s folded up in a piece of paper, I squeeze the paper to make sure I feel a bulge in it. I do, so I put it in my pocket.

By now we’re in Kroger parking lot, and he says, “I’ll be right down here.”

He gestures towards the end of the building. I continue walking towards the entrance.

Looking at the store from the outside, I see they have actual security guards in uniform. I see like 20 of them. Now super nervous. I walk on in.

I’m in Kroger now, looking for the air freshener aisle. I see it and walk back there. I realize, I’m in basketball shorts and a tee shirt. Where am I gonna put these things? They’re kinda fucking big. And what in the world do they want with these things?! There’s no way I’ll get outta here with these things.

I pick one up off the shelf and think long and hard about putting it in my pocket. And put it back on the shelf. I just can’t shake the idea of getting arrested for shoplifting. I have a warrant back in Larue County, so I’ll be in jail for at least a month. Fuck that, I can’t do it. I’ll give it back to him. I turn around and head back out the door. I passed fifteen security guards on my way back to the door. The guard lady at the exit door tells me, “Have a good day,” as I exit. No way she wouldn't of seen a giant air freshener package sticking out of my pocket. I was so glad I changed my mind. I get outside, look around, I don’t see him. In all of this, I keep feeling my phone vibrating but am actively ignoring it. I see him towards the corner of the parking lot. On the sidewalk about to cross Broadway to Dino’s, the chicken and gas station across the street.

I approach him and holler, “Hey!”

He turns to me and says, “What happened?”

I tell him, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t do it.” With my hand out trying to hand the drugs back to him. He made this face like he was disappointed in me and waved it away. He said, “I’m good, keep it. What was it you had?”

“Ummm… Needles.”

He said, “Oh, that’s right. Come back in…. like 10 minutes?”

This was becoming more and more confusing. I’m just trying to break away and get back to familiar ground. I say, “Yea, sure, back here?” We’re at the edge of Dino’s parking lot now.

He said, “Yep, right here.”

“Okay.” And I turn around and head back towards Chestnut, back on my bike now. I’m thinking fuck that! I might never come through here again. I see an alleyway ahead and decide to stop and check out that point he gave me and maybe do some before I go home. I’m now standing in the grass on the side of an alleyway, evening now, past dark, no streetlight, I pull out my phone to use the light to get a look at this point, I see I have missed calls, missed text messages. One from Angie, several from Steven, she woke up, I think, and called him looking for me. Further investigation reveals a message from Billy (Steven’s Brother-in-Law) too, I don’t know what is going on, but whatever it is can wait until I do this. I hold my phone screen down towards the unfolded paper, trying to block the wind. There isn’t very much there. I’m just gonna go ahead and do this, first, however, taste test, I stick my finger in it, I press it to get a bit to stick to my fingertip, then lick it off my fingertip, it tastes sweet. Almost like…Smarties. It is Smarties.

I’m pissed now. I think, that dirty motherfucker. What if I had stolen that shit for him. Or worse, what if I had tried and gotten arrested, for that!

I was gonna head back home, I was not gonna be back there in 10min. I kinda figured that was a move to shake me, now I see why. Because what he’d given me was fake. So, now I’m going back. Fuck that, he’s gonna know that I know. I turned the bike back around and headed back towards Broadway. When I get back to the edge of Dino’s, I see him. I’d went over in my head what I was gonna say. I was gonna real calmly inform him that what he’d given me was fake. He’s standing with three other men, but I’m not paying attention to them.

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Stupidity on Display

Before I get a chance to confront him, he cuts me off with, “Hey, you still got those?”

I said, “Yea—.”

And one of the voices of the other two men cuts me off again, “Give ‘em to me. And get off the bike.”

I look over to see a barrel pointed right at my face. Not even ten feet away. My heart rate shoots through the moon. It’s a black gun, gleaming from the metal, and I can almost see the bullets with my name on them.

What the fuck was I thinking!

At this point, I am now moving more cautious than ever before. And I start going through my head, how did I get here. What am I doing. Am I about to get shot for some needles? I let the bike go, sliding it out from between my legs, he takes it by the front bar of the handlebars. Gun still trained on me, the man to his other side takes the bike from him, he waves his hand for more, I give up my backpack, with nothing in it except for the needles. I start backing away, taking as big a step as possible in reverse, looking at the ground, hoping he doesn’t decide I’ve gotten too good of a look at him and feel the need to get rid of the witness, me. When the gun is lowered a bit, I turn on one foot in the other direction and start speed walking away. As I walk, I start to think again, fuck, what am I doing here. What the fuck made me come down here. Now I’m going back home emptier than I started at the beginning. There was so many off roads I could’ve taken, but I kept going. How fucking stupid am I!

I feel a buzz in my pocket. My little Assurance Wireless is vibrating. Luckily, even the most depraved would never take that. I pull it out. It’s Steven, a text, “Come to the Trap, I need you to work for me.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thank you for reading. Part (b) will be out tomorrow.

Editor-in-Chief

Well, you know, it turns out meth heads love to start fires. You know there's just—every drug has its, kind of, weird element to them, and meth heads love starting fires, they love destroying things, meth is like the drug of nihilism. So, it's like perfect drug for LA and California right now…..

I mean, I think homeless people are going to, often, start fires, for a lot of different reasons, I mean. Drugs can start fires, but the meth heads are like, into fire! Like, it's a big part of meth culture, is just starting things on fire… \

—Michael Shellenberger

Nobodies thought about this in theological terms?

—Tucker Carlson

So, as LA burns to the ground, the speculation of arson is hot on the grapevine. Michael Shellenberger, a hero of mine, and founder of , of which I am a daily reader, seems to think burning things is in the culture of meth use. Some burning hot memories rush to the front of my mind, I’d like to share these stories and maybe they will confirm his bias or mine. I don’t believe they are caused by the addict’s admiration for fire but, due to a lack of caution, and an abundance of incompetence, and maybe a little bit of super heroism of themselves. Meaning, meth makes you think you can do anything and avoid actual caution. These are, of course, anecdotes, I don’t fancy myself as a scientist, anecdotes are all I really have, and they shape my view of most things.

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“We Had it Under Control”

After my first experience taking pills, from someone who knew the deal with them, I wanted more so, began a habit of going through medicine cabinets everywhere I visited. And because I knew so little, I would take basically anything with the warning, “may cause drowsiness”, or “dizziness” because I thought that was how you did it. I later learned better when I found out my father’s heart pills had that same label. I found a bottle of Skelaxin, a non-narcotic muscle relaxer, and thought I had something good. I took those all day, eighteen of them I believe, then when Randy, my cousin, came by and picked me up on a 4-wheeler, we drank two beers a piece, did a line of crank (meth) and the rest is a BIG BLUR! Apparently Skelaxin only has narcotic effects when mixed with alcohol, according to drugs.com you shouldn’t even take medicine that contains traces of alcohol with this due to deadly/dangerous interactions.

What I do remember clearly is taking the four-wheelers to the back field and catching the field on fire, in the middle of summer, a dry, dry summer.

Where I grew up was farms on top of farms on top of farms. Every year or so, the farmers would burn their fields, something about restoring the topsoil or getting rid of weeds that are bad for your crops, I don’t know which one. The property we lived on had the biggest river in the region bordering it, Nolin River. It was 200 acres of open field, and ninety acres of woods along the river. The river bordered our property.

After seeing some of the neighboring farms burn their fields in recent days, and heavy intoxication, Randy, who was also the property “maintenance man”, says, “let’s do the same with Mom’s—his mother, my Aunt Gerri—fields.”

“It’ll be okay. We can keep it under control.” He said, when I protested a bit, “Jordan, trust me. It’ll be alright.” He always loved to say that, trust me, and I was naive enough that I did, for a very long time.

We had a sled that we hooked to the 4-wheelers for some good dangerous fun from time to time. This sled was a car hood, turned upside-down, with the back seat from a Plymouth minivan welded to it. No one ever got hurt, but we should of.

While crossing the field we—well, he, I watched—took pieces of paper and lit the Goldenrod, or wheat, or whatever the tall stuff is that grows in the fields of Central Kentucky, and it starts to catch quickly. His idea was as long as we didn’t let the fire move toward the trailers where we lived everything would be alright because the field dead ends into the river, and water puts out fires. After all, the wind is only blowing a little.

It wasn’t like we had Santa Ana winds out there but, things turned ugly regardless.

Very soon the flames were over our heads, and we were using the sled, chained to the ATV, going up and down the field, trying to keep it under control, we thought we could use the sled to stamp out the fire, thus keeping it under control…Right? Wrong!

What we didn’t know that anyone with a fucking brain would know is that the fire, can and would, jump the river.

The field burned, the woods on both sides of the river, burned, the fire department showed up and was able to get it under control. It didn’t make it to any homes, but damn, it could have. This surely wouldn’t have happened without drugs, but I’m not sure if it was an admiration for them that caused it. Aunt Gerri had to pay a hefty fine for an intentional fire on her property. Before anyone attacks me, however, I was only 13, please, lol. For this next one, however, I was not.

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House in the Hood

I was on my way to work. I had a fool proof plan as I peddled my 10-speed down the bike lane in Portland Louisville. My first mistake was being in Portland. See, I was halfway between sober, and a mess and this night turned out to be a mess.

I could never visit Portland without relapsing. It was a guarantee. Every time I visited my old friends there, the drugs would come out immediately, and this time was no different. I spent all night doing meth and taking Valium's until 5:00AM rolled around, and it was time to go to work.

I stashed my drugs in a scrap a/c unit until I got off work. Surely, I just wanted an excuse to come back over and continue my binge.

They were hoarders and trash pickers, and their studio apartment where they resided was stacked with things from the ceiling to the floor. I stashed my drugs, would stop at the local store Boones Market, to grab a biscuit, a cup of coffee, and a pack of cigarettes. That was the plan, but I made an error when I arrived at the store, pulled my bike up by the air pumps to chain it up while I was inside.

A couple was standing in the shadows and one of them said to me, “Nice bike.” I thought he was asking for change or something of the sort, and I was as broke as anyone so normally I wouldn’t engage, but he caught me off guard. It wasn’t a nice bike, unless you have nothing then any bike is nice.

Maybe it was the Valium, but I started talking and joking with the two, and out of nowhere 30 minutes had passed and I’d completely forgotten about the store, work, any of that. I had started this conversation thinking the guy and girl hanging out at a corner store at five in the morning, wanted something, was panhandling, but they weren’t, at least not from me, as they had tried a couple different people walking by. They could obviously see that I was one of them, down on our luck, trying to get by. We all three started drifting up the street, just talking and walking, then we were at their spot, which was a rundown abandoned house, no electricity, boarded up, but they had pulled one of the boards loose to get inside.

After squeezing in between the boards into a pitch-black room, I get out my phone to use the flashlight to see what is around me, it’s pretty rough, there’s an old grimy mattress where they are now sitting and a couple old chairs where I grab a seat, you can’t move around much more than that because there's is old rotted furniture and shit everywhere. I tell them I had some ice on me and some more down the street. I split what I had with them, then decide to run down on my bike to grab the rest.

For the first time it crosses my mind, I’m not making it to work today…

It was really quite silly, hanging out and getting high with a homeless couple in an abandoned house. I had a home and a full-time job, but here I was hanging out with two homeless people in a rundown abandoned house, where black mold was the safest thing, I might get exposed to. Twenty-four hours ago, I’d had six months of clean time, now here I am. I tell them, “I’ve got some more ice and some Valium's. I’m gonna run and get it.” They were skeptical of this, surely because many of others had lied to them before, so I finish my cigarette and throw it down, and squeeze out from between the boards that kept the entrance.

On my bike, peddling back, it’s about a ten-minute bike ride from there to there. When I get there, they don’t answer the door right away, they must’ve fallen asleep. It takes about fifteen minutes of knocking and calling to get them to answer, and finally they do. They’re trying to rest so I’m in and out, and headed back, I see the couple walking hurriedly with their eyes down, stern looks on their faces, a couple blocks before I turn on the street with the house.

I say, “Hey what’s going on? Y’all wanna go back to the house to do a line?”

They both look shocked, and I get the feeling I’m missing something, and the lady says, “Look up!” And points to the sky behind her, and it’s first time I look past them, there’s a cloud of black smoke on the horizon about a block away from us, right about where I was headed to.

I then started to hear the sirens wailing, and realized they were really close.

He said, “I don’t know what happened, one second everything was okay, the next second the place was on fire.”

It hit me almost immediately, the cigarette I threw down… Damn.

We circled around the block and seen that the neighbors on both sides were on the sidewalks because the fire was so big it was reaching the neighboring homes. It was awful! What it was is careless stupidity.

In the days after this incident there was unintended consequences that followed. No one was hurt, but the rumors going around was that spice heads had caused another fire, nodding out and shit, so the Metro Police started cracking down on anyone seen trespassing in any abandoned structures and a lot of homeless people were back to the sidewalks, arrested, and I’m sure some of them got off the streets over that.

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The Indoor Campfire

Rewind a couple years further I had a friend named Travis, he was homeless at the same time that I was, difference was he had been on the streets a lot longer than me, and in turn already wore out his welcome with practically everyone. I wonder if he made it out….

So, on cold nights when I could find someone's floor, or garage to crash on, he would find an abandoned house.

One, very cold night, I found Travis, asleep on an empty living room floor of an abandoned house, curled up dangerously close to a fire he had built in the middle of the floor. I had never seen anyone do something like this, and he was so sound asleep. The two of us knew each other from meth and meth culture, we bought from the same dealer, had used together, even at one point had the same girlfriend, but I had no clue how I came to be homeless at the same time that he was, and even less do I know of how I had come to find him in that living room. But it scared the shit out of me. It went against everything that I knew of fire, everything!

You can’t build a fire in a living room, without a fireplace! The smoke can’t escape, the oxygen gets replaced with Carbon Monoxide, it seemed crazy!

I immediately thought, this is a suicide attempt, with fire! Dear God! You sad, sad, soul! I start shaking him! He won’t wake up, shake him again, the fucker’s snoring, he’s alive, he’s just been on a bender, probably hasn’t slept in two weeks! I finally get him to answer me, he says, “Whaaaaaat! W-what do you want!?”

I say, “Travis, the fire!?” He opens his eyes, he’s awake enough now to get why I’m tripping, he sits up and says, “Shit, it’s going out!”

“I poured water on it; you can’t build a fire in a band-o.”

“Ah man, that was the only water I had! Did you dump it all?” I hadn’t.

“No, just half of it, but that fire would’ve killed you, right?”

“Killed me? I build fires in here all the fucking time. As long as it’s an open room like this one, otherwise I’d freeze to death! Do you got a cigarette?” I did.

I sat there with him for a couple hours; we did some meth I had tucked away. A couple days later, probably the last time I seen him, there was an abandoned house fire, that burned down completely and caught two other houses. Travis barely made it out safely. I seen him later that day and asked him about it. He said, “I don’t know how it started!” But I did.

Once again, meth was absolutely involved but I’m not sure if you could say, he liked the fire. He was simply cold, and wasn’t sufficiently afraid of fire as he should have been.

This final story, happened to my darling Susan and I, many years into me being clean, and has hints of both things, meth addicts who cause fires and tear things up. To which, I’d argue, they don’t like tearing things up, they like fixing things that should instead be thrown away.

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The Apartment Fire

I’ve become a morning person as an adult. I have to remember sometimes, that not everyone is, in fact, most people are not. My preferred schedule is getting up at 4:15 in the morning, if I have to be at work at 7. 7 am on a day off. It gives me time to drink coffee, and read, and check out videos on YouTube. Nowadays, I do a lot of my writing and research early in the morning. Sometimes I wake up to a subject rolling around in my head.

Anyways, I wake up and slide out of bed as gently as possible as to not wake Susan before her time, it’s 4:15 in the morning and my alarm has just gone off, I clicked it off as fast as I could, to not wake her. I slide on my house shoes, walk up the hall to the kitchen, turn on the Keurig, to let it warm, pull on my flannel jacket, feel for the lighter and cigarettes, and creek out the door to smoke the days first cigarette.

When I open the door, there is quite a sight to behold. My eyes are pulled upward to something abnormal right out of view, when I look up, I see, the darkest, angriest, storm cloud in one long bellow, rising toward the sky. We’re in a downstairs apartment, so looking up, it was hard to see where the smoke was coming from. I thought maybe there was a fire behind the building, a house burning back there. I see a guy walking kind of in circles in the parking lot, hands on his head, and I recognize him as an upstairs neighbor. I approach him to find out what is going on. I notice his nervousness as I approach, he says, “Don’t worry, it’s okay! The fire department is on their way.” As he says that, I do start to hear the sirens. He says, “See, ya hear ‘em? They’re coming here.”

“Okay, what happened?” I’m realizing now that it’s the upstairs of our apartments burning. I can’t remember the guy’s name, but he was known as a drug addict, and in this part of town, drug addicts use meth.

“I plugged my phone in to charge it, and I laid down on the couch, I woke up and the mattress was on fire, so I grabbed my backup phone, ran out here and called 9-1-1. Now here we are.”

What struck me the first time as odd, is, he doesn’t ever mention trying to put the fire out. I heard the story like fifty times, between him saying it over and over to us, to him telling it to every official that showed up, ne never tried once to put it out, he panicked and ran. Then assumed that the fire department would come and put it out, no big deal.

I finished my cigarette, taking in, this is really bad.

I go in, and say to my girl, trying my best not to startle, “Baby, I’m so sorry to wake you so early, but there’s a fire upstairs, we need to get Pepper and come out here and see this.”

She says, “Okay baby, I just got to pee.” While she’s peeing it must have dawned on her what I was saying, because she comes out with Pepper—our sweet little angel of a dog—and says, “I can smell it.” As she says that, I start to realize that smoke is now pouring into our apartment from all the cracks and crevasses.

We went out to the car to sit out of harm’s way; the Fire Department are now here, and they are going door to door making sure no one is inside any of these apartments. There’s chaos in the apartment directly under the fire. Where the ladder is, in the picture above. They weren’t answering the door, then you hear a big crash, that we later learned was the heat from the fire shattering the lady’s bedroom window, then two adults and five children come pouring out of there, scared to death! Thankfully, no one was hurt, but what exactly happened?! Was the meth head performing a séance, sacrificing a mattress, or does he just admire the flames. Turns out it was much simpler than that, turns out he doesn’t understand electricity, that’s all.

His phone charger stopped working so he tried to splice it directly to an extension cord and plug it in. Problem with this is the current coming out of the wall is either 220 or 110 Volts, when it passes through the little box that your charger cord plugs into, that box, only allows 5 to 12 Volts, depending on the plug, to come through at a time, but if you bypass that box, you’re pushing 220 volts into a little phone battery, and if that much power doesn’t blow the battery, it causes extreme heat at the splices, all around bad way to fix your phone. He did this, then laid down to get some shut eye, not a fear in the world.

Anyways, that’s it for that story. The landlord put us up in a hotel for a week, only because of smoke damage and damage to electricity caused by the fire. Outside of that our apartment wasn’t touched.

It’s almost like a satanic panic talking point to say that these people simply like fire. I’ve been one of them, shit just kinda happens. I’d concede that I’ve seen people on meth do some pretty evil things, but starting fire because they like it? Nah. Meth heads are very busy people.

Incompetence causes more problems than anything in the world! The damage in the world, that all Seven Deadly Sins combined has done, could never match up to the damage done, in all sectors of the world, and all points of our lives by incompetence. Incompetence is the great ruin-er of all things! That’s all I’m trying to say. Thank you for reading!

Editor-in-Chief

A man passes by, walking down the street, he's very old, very frail. At least, he seems to be.

I'm in the break area at work. He walks past, pays me no mind. I notice his backpack, I swear this must be the biggest backpack I've ever seen, I start to think about my own time living on the streets, how much I hated the weight of the straps on my shoulders, my back would ache from it, and I was fairly young. I look at his bag, as I said it's very large, larger than him even, and it's barely hanging on his shoulders. His back is hunched forward, like a turtle, and the bag is his shell, God it must be SO heavy. It must have everything he owns in it. I wish I could lift the weight off his shoulders, but I can barely handle the weight of my own.

I've spent a lot of time with the homeless, as the homeless, and with them in my peripheral, sometimes you'll encounter a man screaming out in anguish, sometimes yelling at a tree, you have to wonder what's happening in his mind.

I once knew a girl who'd spent 20 years of her life on the streets. In public, she was just the nicest, sweetest person, but in private you'd see the damage that still lingers. She was a lot of times very hostile, bitter, always thought there was a plot against her. If you have a traditional bank account you know this but from time to time they’ll send you a new debit card, she was a hoarder and was always on guard about her stuff and never opened her mail. Instead, she had a chair with mail piled to the top of it, and spent all of her spare time at the thrift store going through all of their clothes so she could add on to her pile at home of stuff she’d never use or wear. Every surface in her apartment was stacked to the ceiling with thrift store stuff. I used to say she did that so no one would have anywhere to sit and wouldn’t come over. She believed one time that because there was a purple mark on an envelope that she’d gotten a new debit card in and I had a purple lighter, that I must be conspiring to get the numbers off the debit card without opening the envelope, like pressing the envelope with the lighter to see the numbers, I guess, I wasn’t by the way, also she hadn’t activated the card, and didn’t plan to, so it would be the dumbest plot in history.

The act of being on the streets does something to your mind, there's some parts of your mental faculty that you'll never get back. I came to understand this then. She was funny, smart, had made it off the streets, had a nice place to live, a nice job, sober, but was so afraid of going back that if her bank account dropped below $1500, she would start selling herself again, like she did to get by when all she cared about was finding the next hit. She was terrified of ending up back on the streets and that was her solution. It was like a glitch in her mind and, I’m not sure if you ever come back.

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I was in a halfway house with a man, he was an older man, had just spent 11 years of his life straight in prison, because while being robbed, he smacks the gun out of the guy’s hand and stabbed him, he lived, but Al went to prison. It was in the very small, very country, very white town of Munfordville, KY, coincidentally where I went to high school. Definitely not the type of place that would cut a black man some slack on a violent crime. Al was the coolest, he had the most unique voice you ever heard, very deep, very gruff, like 40 years of cigarettes and booze gruff. We would leave the halfway house every evening and go downtown looking for something different to have for dinner. When I would fuck up, he was my harshest critic, but you could tell it was because he cared. I hadn’t seen him since those days, while riding the city bus one day I heard that voice, he was going in on somebody, I looked around to find him, sitting at the back of the bus, by himself, talking to no one. I said, “Oh shit, Al, how are you doing?!” And shifted to a seat closer to him, he started talking to me like he remembered me, but soon it seemed he didn’t, and he was telling me about someone who wasn’t there as if they were there, by the end of the conversation I found out he’s been living in streets. He has a big bag next him, which surely contains all of his belongings, he said he was “on his way to work and almost missed the bus” then without saying bye got up and hopped off at the next stop, it was definitely not where he said he worked. I like to think he recognized me but, outside of talking to me like he knew me, there wasn’t much to point to it. No telling what that guy has seen since we were in that halfway house. At least he’s still alive.

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I believe we're all, not very far away from Al, or the girl with OCD, or away from the turtle man with the heavy backpack, we're just one too many bad days away. Hardships accumulate on our conscience, at first, they strengthen it but too many and it begins to erode, breaking away the foundation on which it stands. It all matters, every hardship we’re subject to counts, some people’s immune system is stronger than others, but we’re all subject to being a woman, shrieking at no one, or a man digging in the trash for something that’s going to pull him out of this, my father, who at one point was absolutely positive that there was a new species of bug that was eating his skin. What I’m saying is that could be any of us.

I must say that a lot of my mental faculties have returned since I’ve been clean, but maybe I haven’t spent my allotted number of bad days, I don’t know. These are simply observations.

Susan, who is the love of my life, my best friend, and soul mate, has a saying, it might be from the Bible but it's the basis of what I believe empathy to be, and when she says it, I feel it so deeply, "If not for the grace of God, there goes I...." Before you judge anyone, remember that could be you, or your son, or grandpa, just as easily as it isn't.
Thank you for reading.
, Editor-in-Chief,

It is not the critic who counts.

Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,

Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds.

Who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause.

Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,

And who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. —Theodore Roosevelt

I used to think about being hypnotized. I believed it would take something completely changing the way my mind operates for me to stop anything. A friend of mine that I was in jail with told me a story about being hypnotized. He was a very country guy that you wouldn’t assume knew anything about something like that. He didn’t want to do it but, his wife hated his smoking, and she wanted him to try it, so he did it for her. Afterwards, they’re on their way home, almost there, it’s about a half-hour drive and she says, “We’re almost home and you haven’t had one cigarette. By now you’ve normally smoked five.” He knew that she was right, but he didn’t want to admit it, so he lit one real fast, but after that one he didn’t even finish that pack. He was done. It changed something up there. In my mind the change wasn’t so sudden but regardless, it happened.

I can’t be discharged from this program, I just can’t. The class is Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 9am-12:30pm and I can’t miss a single class or have a single dirty urine. I have a first shift job that I’ve been at for years. Monday-Friday, 7am-3:30pm. I have rent to pay, but I can’t get kicked out of this program. It’s the only thing providing structure and medicine to keep me from going back to heroin. I have to give it a try. They’re not giving me any other option. So, I do. At first, I’m still missing here and there. They can see that I’m actually trying, so they say nothing. One of the days in class, they play the following TED Talk, I didn’t know what a TED Talk was.

And this one.

This changed my life. Now, these two talks are masterful, brilliant, and she did the work to come up with these ideas. They are brave and truthful to a fault. When she boycotted Joe Rogan during COVID for having “Anti-Vax” doctors on I couldn’t help going to her video to comment, “Dude, don’t you see!? He’s in the arena and you're being the critic!!!” Anyways, I went home and watched and watched and watched. There is a quote in the second one Listening to shame that she talks about and the quote with her explanation of it, changed my life, here it is:

“It is not the critic who counts. It is not the man who sits and points out how the doer of deeds could have done things better and how he falls and stumbles. The credit goes to the man in the arena whose face is marred with dust and blood and sweat. But when he's in the arena, at best, he wins, and at worst, he loses, but when he fails, when he loses, he does so daring greatly.”

This is a very famous quote by Theodore Roosevelt, the Man in the Arena quote, and it really says so much. She continues with:

Life is about daring greatly, about being in the arena.

When you walk up to that arena and you put your hand on the door, and you think, “I’m going in and I’m going to try this,” shame is the gremlin who says, “Uh, uh. You're not good enough. You never finished that MBA. Your wife left you. I know your dad really wasn't in Luxembourg, he was in Sing-Sing.

I know those things that happened to you growing up.

I know you don't think that you're pretty, smart, talented or powerful enough.

I know your dad never paid attention, even when you made CFO.”

Shame is that thing.

And if we can quiet it down and walk in and say, “I’m going to do this,” we look up and the critic that we see pointing and laughing, 99 percent of the time is, who?

Us.

Shame drives two big tapes, “never good enough”, and if you can talk it out of that one, “who do you think you are?”

The thing to understand about shame is, it's not guilt. Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior.

Shame is “I am bad.”

Guilt is “I did something bad.”

Listening back on this, her delivery is kind of, dare I say, cringy but the subject matter is brilliant, and beautiful and true. Even as I’m sitting here typing there’s a distant voice in my ear saying, “who do you think you are? No one would want to read anything you have to say. You’re wasting your time.”

Silencing that voices some days is the hardest thing I’ll do.

I made a conscious plan, that I must make one-of-two decisions. Either give up this program and revert back to way things were or take this seriously and get as much out of this program as possible, I opted for the latter. It was literally the first thing I’d ever taken seriously, my whole life. I didn’t do serious. I’m still a goof ball that laughs way too much, but I can straighten up when it counts.

I went into work on Friday and told them, “I was attending a drug treatment and would only be able to work Monday and Friday.” If I can’t do that then I understand. I’ll find work elsewhere, and to my surprise they said, “Okay, we’ll see.” I’m sure they didn’t believe me because I had said things like this before, that I was in treatment, or getting clean, or going on vacation, when I was really going to pull a scam in Tennessee, they had a right to be skeptical. I thought, “I have to prove myself.”

I wasn’t sure if my plan was to stay clean, or just not get kicked out. As a matter of fact, I know. I never intended to get clean or be clean but once I made that decision to take this serious not getting high became easier than getting high. Sometimes were tough and looking back I’m really not sure how I made do. For one thing, I was only able to work Monday and Friday, I made $8.25/hour which meant that I cleared $116 a week. My rent was $100 a week it cost $4 at the ATM and I am a smoker. Like I said, I don’t know how I made it. There was a soup kitchen around the corner that would give out lunch and a food box every day. I would go there every day after I got out of class and get something to eat. On the way there I would stop at my job while they were in there working and raid their ashtrays.

The class, some days they would have us watch a talk like the Brene Brown talk and we would discuss, but most days someone would present a problem they were going through and all 12 of us would talk through it. It was like an open discussion. I resented it at first, would hardly take part in the discussion, but once I decided to take it seriously, I would long for it. I would get out of there on Thursday afternoon and couldn’t wait to go back on Tuesday. When it was completed, I’m not gonna lie. I was upset. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve longed to get back to anything like I did that class. The people around me at home, the ones who cared started to notice, I talked different, I moved different, I reacted different to stress. No doubt my life had changed, I had changed. There was just one problem.

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Will, my best friend, and housemate, was without a doubt, in support of me staying clean, but the rest of our housemates were not, after completing IOP there was times that one of our housemate’s downstairs would message me at 1 in the morning, “Hey, come down and get this hit of crack”. It would always be near payday, that was their plan, to get me smoking right before I got paid so I would fuck up my paycheck with them. It would work at first, I’d take that hit and immediately start planning to blow my whole paycheck on it tomorrow. Crack was such a miserable drug though, it made me want to do it less and less every time it wore off, so this kept insuring I wouldn’t be back.

The guy I rented from was one of my housemates, Jesse, he was a kind soul, raised by hyenas, his mother, got rest her soul, and sister were the devil’s downstairs, and he could see what was happening, so he made a suggestion. “Look, I know how my mom and sister are. You’re doing really good.” He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew something was. “Why don’t you and Will get a place together, out of here. After this week, I won’t charge you any more rent, you save up your money for a month and get your own place?” And we took him up on that.

I got on Craigs List looking for apartments or rooms for rent. I called many of the listings, but they were all a huge process to get into. Then, I called the listing that read, Cold Rooms 4 Rent Available Pay Now Move in Today, I thought it’s either fake, or fake, but I was out of options, so I called, a man answered, kind of aggressively, half yelling, “Sup, what you need?” I put on my best stern business tone and said, “I’m calling about the Craigs List ad for ‘Rooms for Rent’?” He said, “Cold rooms, yea.”

I said, “do you have any available?”

He said, “Yea, when do you wanna move in?”

I said, “This Friday.” He very quickly, read off the address and said, “call me when you get there.” Just that fast and I’m like waaaait! I had more to say, “I want to move in this Friday but only have half the money today and will have the rest on Friday so I’m just calling to make sure you’ll have a room on Friday.” And he said, which blew my mind but in hindsight wasn’t as crazy as I thought at the time and made me real skeptical of this whole thing, “just come and get the room today, and if you don’t pay me Friday, you’ll leave Friday.”

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To understand the next part I must explain that my best friend and I were moving into a boarding house. If you don’t know a boarding house is just a house, where they put all the rooms up for rent like it’s an apartment, everyone shares the kitchen and shares the bathroom. So, we’re renting a room there. I’m used to sleeping anywhere and he’s used to having a bed so he would take the bed, and I had a blow-up mattress to put in the corner. It was going to be tight quarters but that wasn’t new to me. Nobody knew us here, I told everyone we were brothers so they wouldn’t think we were gay.

I go down to the address listed in the ad. I call the landlord. He has one of the other housemates there show me the room. I walk in the room, and let me just say, it wasn’t exactly spacious. The bed was centered in the room, and I would have to move it to one side to fit my twin blowup mattress, but that’s okay. It will do, I’m actually pretty happy with it, I’m finally not renting from someone with whom I also live. I’d been doing that for years and lost a lot of friends because of it. Take it from someone who has tried every combination of this. You do not want to rent from a friend or someone who lives in the house with you, it might work out in the short but, eventually things turn sour.

Moving day comes, we’ve got our stuff packed up and a ride down there. When we get there, I call the landlord, he sends out his maintenance guy to take us to our room. In the house the maintenance guy, instead of taking us to the room I was shown, he says, “That’s already been rented, your rooms back here.” We walk through the kitchen to the back of the house, our room is the back room. He hands us the key and says, “that’s your room, I gotta go, will see y’all around.”

We walk in the room and it’s fucking horrific. This room has a twin mattress and frame, and the room is the length of the mattress, the width about a foot and a half wider than the twin mattress, my blow-up mattress wouldn’t fit on the floor because the room was smaller than 2 twin mattresses. I had cells in prison that were way bigger than this room. I could make a pallet on the floor, which is what I’ll have to do, but the space is so small I’ll have to lay on my side to fit. It was rough. This plan started to seem grim. The landlord knew it was 2 people, I don’t know how he thinks this’ll work! This must be why he was so quick to move us in, no questions asked. We spent the rest of the evening attempting to settle in and planning our next payday disappearing act. It never came. About 10 o’ clock that night I get a call from the landlord:

Landlord (LL): Hey man, I can’t wait all night. Are you coming or not?

Me: I’m already here.

LL: Were you gonna call me? WTF is going on?!

Me: I talked to you at like 6 when I got here.

LL: Got where?!

Me: To the house. I’m in the room now.

LL: You’re already in the house? Who let you in?

Me: The maintenance guy—

LL: Wait. What room are you in?

Me: The little one in the back—

LL: That ain’t the room you seen.

Me: No, it’s not. It’s the one the maintenance guy took us to.

LL:……..silence……

Me: I called you at 6, when I told you I’d be here, and this is the room they put me in—

LL: I’ll call you right back.

He didn’t call back, instead the maintenance guy was knocking on the door about 30 seconds later. He said, “I’m really sorry, lemme get you into the right room.” The landlord had 2 different people moving in that day, he got us mixed up, but after looking at the boxed-up entrance way and trying to figure out how to make it work, the normal sized room looked like a mansion!

The house was rough, even after we settled in, had roaches, was in the hood—I still live in the hood, but in our own house without roaches—but I learned to love that house. That house was the final resting place of my addiction. It was my sanctuary of change, there were people who used drugs in that house, definitely, and everybody smoked weed, but as long as I minded my business and didn’t go seeking shit out, no one was trying to talk me into it and I didn’t, I binge watched Netflix and Hulu, then starting getting into shows on YouTube, and then podcasts, I became fully immersed in the internet.

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Will was a Trump supporter, and it never made sense to me, I was like, this billionaire dude. Why? I had been in jail when he got elected, we all watched it on the Dorm TV in absolute disbelief. I was always into political punk bands, and I loved Obama in 2008, then I became so far caught up in the drug world I didn’t care anymore. Even a room full of criminals being held against their will for breaking the rules could not believe Donald Trump got elected. Then I heard about the Russia stuff, and I said to Will, “Bro, if this election was hacked and stolen by Russia, doesn’t mean he’s not actually our president?” He said, “Shouldn’t be.” I thought about this a minute, knowing how easily I’d been thrown in jail for the most trivial shit—I got locked up for riding my bike on the sidewalk one time, Will was sent to prison for buying an Xbox that turned out to be stolen—I said, “well if that was the case, there’s no chance that they wouldn’t have kicked him out of office, right? They don’t just let people stay in office that hack elections, right?” He said, “you wouldn’t think so, would you?”

“No. I wouldn’t think so. It seems like that would’ve been the biggest story in history.”

This was how I came to care about and be curious about politics as I am today. I wanted to prove to Will that he shouldn’t support this guy and, in the process, learned that he was framed for fucking treason by the intelligence community. The Steele Dossier was faked, and created by someone who the DNC, at the order of Hillary Clinton, paid to create. Which was then used as evidence to the FISA court to get illegal wiretaps on Donald Trump’s campaign before he even got elected. Which was reported on from the left by who recieved an award for this, and and many journalists on the right spectrum. Thanks to Public and we now know that the Kremlin actually disproved of Donald Trump and was hoping Hillary would make it into office. By the way, I don’t believe Trump is a good guy because of this, he uses the term “Palestinian” as a slur the fucking asshole, I just know that the Intelligence Community, the shapeshifting (red-blue-red-blue private-public-private-public) neocons, are way worse. The more I understand American politics and geopolitics the more they read like a true crime novel.

I never thought I was going to stay off of drugs if I’m being totally honest. I just wanted to get through that class and save face, but life kept getting easier and easier. Getting high and washing it all away was always the easier route for me, then not getting high turned out to be so much simpler. I never had to wake up sick again like I had at least once a week for so many years. Once you get into habit of doing what’s right, what’s right becomes the easier choice.

My mind is clearing up, all those years of fog, things are brightening up. I isolated quite a bit to simply going from home to work every day but after so long of isolation the friends you had in the darker world start to move on, I think isolation may be the only way to go. Also, if I hadn’t isolated and spent literally years online, watching videos, reading, looking for documents, trying to figure out different stories and by the way, being inspired by great people, I wouldn’t be writing this right now. So, I thank isolation for that.

Thank you for reading.

Jordan Lee Canter, Editor-in-Chief, Declaration of warLiberty

The needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting. Try to kill it all away, but I remember everything…

—Johnny Cash and Trent Reznor

We’d just gotten back home. We picked up our fix for the day, shot half of it before we left the Pic-Pac parking lot, like many days before. It seemed pretty good, good like strong, but nothing was ever good enough for me. I couldn’t wait to get home to do the rest. I got home and ran to the bedroom to mix up the rest. Angela came in and said, “don’t do that yet, Heather is running me down to Kroger.” I said, “why? I won’t do your half.”

“Just wait, we won’t be gone long.”

“You’re gonna be gone hours!” They would, it was food stamp time.

“Just wait, please.”

I said, “Okay, I will,” is what I actually said, what I was thinking is why is she being such a bitch. That ride back here was so long. She’s gonna be gone forever. As soon as I hear that car start, I’m doing it! I did and ascended into darkness. I’m not real sure of what happened next but, I have flashes now and then when I think back, of trying to stay on my feet. And struggling. I wasn’t ready to go yet. I believe if I’d been sitting down when I did it, I’d be gone now. That’s one of the things we would do if we thought we did too much, stay on your feet. Time escapes me but I remember not wanting to go down! That shot seemed so harmless, it was nothing close to how much I’d done before. It was less than I’d done at Pic-Pac. Then, I come back. Now sitting on my bed. Angela was there, I don’t know how long she’d been there. I said, “What’s going on?” Their were eyes staring at me, I could feel their concern. She said, “You were overdosing! I knew you were gonna do it. I told Heather, ‘No chance he’ll wait’. She said, ‘Nope he’s doing it right now’.” I was in disbelief. I didn’t do that much. When she found me, my face was turning blue from not breathing. I was lying against the wall, but still on my feet. She grabbed me and slammed me against the wall. She was a brute, that’s her form of help. Beat on things until they work, but it worked. It jarred me out of it, and I started breathing again.

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It had happened, I’d actually OD’d, I never believed it could happen to me. That’s the modern human experience, right? That really bad thing happened to him and I’m doing the exact same thing, but it could never happen to me! Right?! Wrong. Because it did; It had been my blanket to hold onto my whole life, never let me down, never treated me bad, never decided I wasn’t who I thought you were, and now is trying to kill me. I’m very shallow and faithless when it comes to this, nothing scares me more than dying. I really, really, want to believe there’s something for all of us after death, and most of the time I do, but back then I had no reason to believe anything, and I didn’t. Now I differ from that. This incident marked a move toward that difference.

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I look at the clock, it’s been no time, they just left, it’s been like 15 minutes. “What happened? I thought you were going to Kroger?” My mind is spiraling, I’m still very high but, what just happened was extremely sobering. She’s confused and shook up. She says, “I don’t know”, it was obvious she was shaken. She yells, “Heather, why didn’t we go to Kroger?” Heather yells back, “James Wilbur!” Angela says, “Oh shit, that’s right. Bank Street was blocked at the intersection, at 29th and we couldn’t get through, some people were outside, and we asked what happened. They said, ‘James Wilbur OD’d, they kicked him out of the truck in front of his moms and left him for dead. The EMS truck had the intersection blocked so we came back home to tell you about it….”

“Is he okay?!” I asked.

“Don’t know, he was still with EMS.”

“Damn.”

They could’ve let me die. I was very bad, you could say, the worst. My best friend Will, who occupied the back room of the house would wake me up for work. I was so hard to wake up and I knew it, but he’d always try. I’d offer to pay him for getting me up on payday because I felt so bad for being such an asshole to wake up, no one wants to deal with a grown man that doesn’t wanna get up for work in the mornings, but he never let me down.

This was a moment in my life that I have put a lot of thought into. By the way, James Wilbur lived. James ODing is the only reason I’m alive. I’m more sure of that of that than anything I’ve ever been sure of, ever. Someone was looking out for both of us, whoever that may be. James was an interesting character; he was always waste deep in the politics of Bank Street. One day I’ll write about the night I came down there to get my daily fix and found The Cockerell’s vs The Wilbur’s in an all-out war in the middle of the sidewalk. Steven handed me the point I came for and went right back to war, swinging, guns coming out, cell phones recording, insane. James sold me fake dope twice and his brother Jon did once. The last I seen him was my last hoorah in a jail cell. He gave me a look in that jail cell, and within that look I could feel him saying, “My bad for ripping you off.” He offered me a shot of coffee, and all was forgiven. He had gotten caught with a handgun and doing a 7-year bit for it because he was already a convicted felon. I always really liked James. He had a swagger about him that made you wonder how he got here. You always knew what you were gonna get if you dealt with James. He was going to rip you off. Everyone knew it and he’d admit it, if you did a deal with him anyways that was on you. James was also hopelessly addicted to drugs. I understood this well, if I had the guts to rip people off the way he did, I’d have done it too, and he was actively trying to get better the whole time I knew him. Or other people were. It’s hard to tell. I can’t tell you how many times I was at the “trap”, and heard Jon say, “you didn’t sell to my brother, did you?” Or hear the bosses say, “if James Wilbur comes through, don’t sell to him.”

That was something about that whole mess, maybe my caliber is off, but even the main guys were good people. Steven Cockerell was a good guy. He wasn’t mixing fentanyl with his drugs and crazy shit like that, he would bring me and Angela down to test his drugs because he didn’t wanna put something out that was too weak to get well or too strong and hurt people. He believed he was bringing a service to the people. By the way, the overdose I had was after he was raided and sent to prison. We were forced to buy from more shady characters that didn’t care what they put out. Maybe I had Stockholm Syndrome but after 5 years of dealing with the same group of people every day, you start to pick up an understanding of who they are.

This was one of those eye-opening moments that I had to think, maybe there is a God. If they had went on to the grocery store, I wouldn’t be sitting here, tapping away on this keyboard in my lawn chair hiding from the beating sun in-between my home and the *bando next door. They would’ve been gone at least an hour, and I had already stopped breathing when they got back 5 minutes later. An hour later they would’ve found me dead. The idea that they had turned back over an overdose of a friend on Bank Street to find me overdosing at home was extraordinary. Talk about working in mysterious ways. This moment was the Prologue to the Rest of my Life. It wasn’t over from there though. I would continue using, but much more cautious. It came to the point that I became so cautious that I couldn’t get high anymore. I was afraid to do enough to get high. The thought was always in the back of my mind, every time I tried, this could be your last. It was also getting harder to get every day. I was dealing with people who were shadier and shadier. A month later I was done with heroin. I always had Suboxone on hand that I’d get from different people on the streets, to resell when I could or take if I didn’t have anything to get me to work that day. I started taking those and made the decision to only take those. Good thing because one week later, an indictment was unsealed on Angela and me, for Engaging in Organized Crime and 18 counts of Theft by Unlawful Taking, for a scam that we had very recently taken part in. In brief, it ended with me in a jail in Franklin, TN, the sickest I’d ever been, handcuffed to a bench in front of the booking desk because they were “Not sure what happens when a feller stops takin’ that dang stuff. We heard it’s bad!” This was after being run through an MRI and X-Rayed to see if we were storing drugs in our stomachs because, “Why else would you be driving through our town?!” Story coming soon…

*Bando- Abandoned house, especially one now occupied by a family of racoons, possums, and cats. Co-existing peacefully, without war, or visitors stealing their parking spot.

THREE YEARS LATER

Counselor: Mr. Canter, please come to my office.

I know what it is, I’m dirty as hell. I sit down, she closes the door.

Me: Yes.

Counselor: We just checked your urine sample and it looks like something is in there that isn’t supposed to be.

Me: I know. I’ve had a rough time stopping, the meth. I’ll go a couple weeks then have a bad day and it’s so easy to make that bad day a good day.

Counselor: This has been every week. We cannot continue to treat you unless you do something different. This Suboxone is great for stopping you from drifting to sleep and never waking up again on opiates, but it does nothing to save you from dying slowly and painfully from your brain bleeding on meth—

Me: Fuck—

Counselor: Yea, it’s not pretty.

Me: Ok. What do you need me to do?

Counselor: We’ve already ordered you to complete our Intensive Outpatient Program(IOP), but you’ve only shown up 3 times. We don’t have anything more intensive than this. If this doesn’t work, it means you’re beyond our ability to help. That doesn’t mean you can’t be helped but you’re beyond what we offer at this facility. We’ll write up a contract if you’ll agree to it, to complete IOP. If you break this contract, it’s immediate discharge, no questions asked. The contract will be complete 6 weeks of IOP, that’s Tues, Wed, Thurs, and the weekend thru Monday off. 9am to 12:30pm. You must see the doctor weekly until you complete IOP, not miss a single class, and not have a single failed drug screen. Can you do this?

Me: I can…

TO BE CONTINUED……

I broke this up into 2 parts because it’s pretty long, and the editing process is becoming more of a rewriting process and it’s getting longer instead of shorter. So, this is part 1 of 2. The second part will be done soon. It’s already written, it’s been already written for 2 weeks, just in the editing process, I get other pieces that jar my psyche, and I must attack! Also, I’m pretty proud of it and didn’t want it too long to read. Thank you for reading.

Jordan Lee, Editor-in-Chief, Declaration of Liberty

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When you are arrested, and booked into the local jail, the first thing you do is see pre-trial. On TV, you hear bail set at blah, blah, blah. Next scene, they’re walking out with their attorney or next-of-kin that’s there to get them or the babysitter. In real life, you see pre-trial to get a bond, they ask you the same shit, do you have a job? Where do you work? Where do you live? Where will you go if you make bond? What kind of bond can you make? I’ve been asked these damn questions so many times and they have never gone well. I’ve tried every answer; I’ve told them everything from, I’m the President of Goldman Sachs to a lowly dirt farmer who’d like a nickel or two to rub together because I’m cold, it goes the same way every time. By the way, I’ve told them the truth too, it just makes no difference, the bond is always higher than anything I could ever make, and I’m stuck laying in jail until the case is resolved. Which means you’ll do anything to get it resolved. My most recent stint in jail, and the reason I will never do anything to go back, well, listen to this shit, it’s a good example.

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So, one heartbreaker, after another, a “friend” of mine let me in on a “possible way to make some money”, he tells me if I know anyone with a truck, his landlord owns the house next door and is planning to tear it down so he can have anything inside, the less stuff there is, the less he has to remove.

So, that was a lie, and 3 days later when I was explaining it to three sheriff’s deputies, I would realize how stupid I was to believe this. I talked to him early that morning to tell him I was there with a truck, and he said he was busy that morning, just if you make any money off it, gimme a little kick back. I thought, ok, that’s fair. Three hours later after I explained the story to the police they went over there to ask if I was telling the truth, he said, I’ve never met those people in my life, I don’t know anything about that house. And off to jail I went. We went because I managed to drag two actual friends into this. One of them, the one who owned the truck, was 65 years old and had never had so much as a traffic ticket. She’ll never talk to me again. The very wonderful officers who arrested us told her that I had manipulated her into helping me do this, which I’m sure was very believable, I truly thought what we were doing was above board. It was the oddest of houses; Inside it was like a very wealthy family in the 80’s had simply disappeared because all of their belongings were still there, but they were oddly dated. I can’t think of any examples of this, it was just the feel. The house had no windows, so everything was very weathered, as I looked through the house, there was multiples of all the appliances, lots of books, sudoku puzzles everywhere, in the basement, several riding mowers, weed eaters, and shells, like ammunition shells, lots of ammunition shells, lots of different kinds of ammunition shells! I realized, oh shit, whoever used to live here handloaded ammunition, and a lot! I still wonder about that house; it was like I stumbled into something mysterious and got pulled out of it before I could figure out what it was. Anyways, back to bail, and one heartbreak after another.

In jail, they charged us with Criminal Trespassing, 3rd Degree, a misdemeanor. I had a court date in Hodgenville, KY, for my very first arrest 9-years-earlier that I was still paying restitution for, which was in 2 weeks, but this is just a misdemeanor so once I see a judge, I’m sure they’ll let me out. My bond was $1000 which was the same as a million back then. I see the judge after a week, he sets the next date 2 weeks into the future, I ask for an OR bond—which means own recognizance, it’s my responsibility to make it back to court—the judge replies without looking up, DENIED! Based on your charges, you’re a danger to the community. I was crushed. A danger to the community for trespassing. I don’t have to explain why that’s absurd, moving on. Two weeks later, they said, you’ve been here for 21-days we’ll credit that as ‘Time Served’ and case is dismissed. Cool. I would’ve gone straight home, but I missed court a week before in Hodgenville and they issued a warrant for me. So, 3-days-later, I’m transported to Larue County and because they only have Circuit Court twice a month, my next court date is scheduled a month out, at which time they will release me, my only charge here is not appearing in court to explain to them why I missed a payment on the restitution I owe. Three days before I go to court, the Larue County Sheriff shows up to serve me with a warrant from Louisville because I missed my court hearing to explain to probation the trespassing charge, but that was dismissed so I’m not in more trouble, but I have to lay here and wait.

Three weeks later, I’m back in Jefferson County. I go in front of the judge, the judge asks, why didn’t you show up in court? Because I was in custody, and I was in custody, because I didn’t show up to court there, because I was in custody here. Judge says—by the way, much better judge this time—That’s unfortunate, well sounds like a misunderstanding, ok, were gonna let you out today on an OR bond until you see your probation officer. Thank you. Finally, good news! They take me back to the jail to wait to be released. I’m sitting by the door waiting, and waiting, and waiting, then it’s nighttime, then the next day. They never came to let me out, by the next day, every single person who walks past that cell door I’m asking. They think I’m just another crazy, I tell fellow inmates, they look at me like, O-K or are you sure that’s what he said? No one believes me, I’m there for 17 more days, calling the Department of Public Advocacy five times a day. I finally talk to a public defender that I knew, in fact, my case 3 years earlier was his first big case. He knew I was at least sane. I explained what happened and he said, I’ll check into this. If you don’t hear anything, call back at the same time tomorrow. Four hours later, I was being released, finally. The thing is any time you’re in their custody it could go like this. Everyone has heard the story of someone who got lost in the system and was left in jail when they were supposed to get out. That is always in the back of your mind.

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Back to the question, why would they plead guilty for something they didn’t do? The conditions of awaiting trial, are downright inhumane. When I was in Louisville Metro Detention Center 3 years before the incident above, the jail was so overpopulated I had to be house in a section of the jail that was condemned, because of this there is a Class-Action Lawsuit for people who had health complications from this. The capacity of the jail is 1,353 beds, at that time there was anywhere from 1,500-1,800 inmates at any time. Which leads to more violence, disagreements, shortages on food. When violence breaks out, you’re surrounded by metal, everything is metal, it’s so easy to get hurt. You can have a disagreement walking passed someone and bumping into them and end up with a murder charge. Local jails are the absolute worst, and it’s designed that way. They lay over court dates like nothing, I waited for six months for a court date, knowing this was gonna be my day, and because the judge was running late, they laid it over for six more months, just like it was nothing. I’m not speaking for myself here; I’ve been guilty every time. However, I’ve seen someone take a five-year sentence for something they obviously didn’t do just to get out of the misery of the county jail. They sure don’t have to do good police work like that. And it’s the reason there’s a 70% conviction rate on average. It’s not because they’re good at their job, it’s because the system is designed that way. If you get accused of a crime and don’t have money for bond and an attorney, or public defenders can be good, sometimes, but if you are stuck fighting a case from the inside, you’re fucked. You’re just looking for the best deal to sign the soonest. It’s understood in jail, that once you are sentenced your time gets easier, even that is crazy! Before you’re found guilty it’s supposed to be understood that you are innocent, then after you’re paying for the crime that you were found guilty of, then why is it once you’re found guilty, you’re able to get outside, you live in a more humane facility, you get better food, it’s fucking crazy! If that’s not a system designed to keep that conviction rate up, PLEASE tell me what it is.

Thank you for reading.

Jordan Lee, Editor-in-Chief, Declaration of warLiberty

Here’s the story.

I’d been taking them for years, in fact my first time taking a tab, short for Lortab, hydrocodone, I snagged it from my dad when I was 12. I told him later. What fun was it to get high if no one else knew it, right? I wouldn’t keep that philosophy later. In fact, I told him as an opening to ask him for another one, I was a very manipulative kid, especially to my father. He caved and gave me another. He would get high with me to keep me from going to Randy’s, my cousins, to get high because he—as if by some voodoo mind trick—prophesized that someone was going to get killed up there and “I’ll be damned if it’s gonna be my son!” He was right, Randy is serving a 25-year-sentence for murder, and it could’ve very well been me. It could’ve been any of us (I have a lot of writing to do about Randy that I can’t wait to get around to). He had another belief about this that after all I’ve learned, and all the addicts I’ve met who fell in this camp, it was everywhere how evil and terrible these drugs are, they tell kids that they will ruin their lives, then they experiment with some pot and realize, “Hey, this ain’t that bad. Well what else are they lying to us about?” They drink some alcohol, hmm… seems okay, then gradually upgrade to worse and stronger drugs, and at some point, their goose gets cooked and they’re full-on addicts and maybe if you told that kid the truth at the beginning maybe they wouldn’t have gone down this road, but I digress.

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We took a lot of pills over the years, did a lot of meth, made a lot of meth, coke, smoked a lot of weed, but avoided withdrawal until my first day getting out of jail, as opposed to the norm, going through withdrawal from being in jail. For years after Dad got sick, he would get a month supply of Percocet, or oxycodone, of which we take most of and sell the rest in about 3 days, and because you have to take them every day for *seven days I never experienced this terrible, sick period. Until I was 18 years old.

*In order to become physically sick from withdrawal on opiates, you must take them for 7-days straight.

In fact, the day before my 18th birthday, I was let off of Probation for a Burglary I committed when I was 14. I turned of age the next day, March 1st. The way it works is the Department of Juvenile Justice can no longer supervise you after you turn 18, it’s decided then whether to turn you over to state supervision or release you, they released me.

Juvenile Probation was more intensive than anything the state has EVER put me through. If I missed school without a doctor’s note, it was a violation, I missed counseling, violation, I had to see my officer in office once a month, and that asshole would come to see me at school every Wednesday, where he would drug test me, and get this, a ‘marijuana’ counselor would pull me out of class every Tuesday for an hour, who would also drug test me for the last year and a half of this, and it drove me further and further into rebellion. The counselor put me on a psychiatric drug called Abilify, which I took once and then never again. It was believed by the probation office at that time Abilify showed up in a drug test as methamphetamine, I was court ordered to take the medicine, but refused to take it so I used to joke that I had to make sure I took methamphetamine so I could pass todays drug test…. Yea, they didn’t laugh either. So, anyways I had a pretty constant meth addiction with monthly oxy use.

Our project housing apartment sat 2 blocks from the high school I attended so my apartment was it! All my friends—and I really had no enemies—would pile into the apartment when we would get out of school. I know I just painted a pretty grim picture of my upbringing, but my father was a really great man. Everybody loved him and not for any superficial or salacious reasons, we had nothing to offer anyone, we lived off a $734 a month disability check. Rent was $188, electric $100, and we treated every first of the month like we were rich. Three days later, not a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.

All of my friends called him Daddy Wayne, and we all took care of him. Oh, I should probably explain now, my father was deathly ill. When I was 11, Dad went to the hospital for 2-months and after that his longest period not in the hospital was a month. He passed away 10-years-later. It’s crazy to me, the vast number of memories I have from those 10 years. Anyways, all my friends loved Dad, and he loved them. For most of them, he was the closest thing to a father-figure they had. When he cooked his specialties he would make enough for the whole neighborhood, everyone would come over and eat. It was a revolving door, friends in, friends out. We didn’t have money, not sure where the next meal might come from, but we were happy.

My father was a stand-up comedian in his own right. He had bits he would do. He had a deviated septum and could run a coat-hanger through it, and my friends would be getting stoned watching me show off on my guitar, especially if it was there first time coming over, he’d come walking through with a hanger coming out of his nose and say, “can I have a hit?” And they’d most of the time freak out and say, “Whoa! What the fuck is that?!” It was the best. He had a bit he’d tell about a hair-lipped girlfriend he had. If there was an open mic where we lived and a Joe Rogan Experience to tell us how to become a comedian, I could see an alternative timeline where he could’ve gotten sober, started going to meetings, and got into stand-up comedy. Maybe he’d still be with us, but from where we stood, opportunities like this were nil.

It didn’t make sense to the onlookers, the traffic of young people coming in and out, and eventually we started getting investigated for drug trafficking. What’s crazy is we never started until they started investigating us, three weekends-in-a-row of police raids and all of them finding is paraphernalia, and we decided, we might as well. It was a definite me plan. We started selling marijuana for, what we would call today, an undocumented Mexican drifter who claimed to have cousins in Florida from the Sinaloa Cartel. To us, we’d just call him Chris. That’s a story for another day. We still didn’t make a lot of money thanks to my smoking up all the profits on ice. A couple of controlled buys and a few raids later, there we were, both in jail.

There was a lot that led up to this that I plan on covering later. We finally ended up in the same cell about a month in. He was arrested on my 18th birthday when the cops showed up at my “Birthday Party” and found the meth my dealer had given me for my birthday, my dad told them it was his, he didn’t want me to end up a felon. He truly had such higher hopes for me than I had for myself, what neither of us knew however is I had already “sold to a confidential informant, within 1000 yards of a school” (my apartment) and those charges weren’t set to come out until 24 days later, therefore I was arrested 24 days after him. He got out due to his health three days before I went in. After about 2 months in there by myself, just getting by, my father was rearrested to answer for 6 more felony indictments of trafficking that were sitting on the back burner in Larue County, and they brought him in the cell with me. It was truly a bittersweet moment, obviously I didn’t want him in jail too but if he was this is exactly how I want it. I want him there with me. Regardless of the rathers, my hard time in the very corrupt Larue County Jail suddenly got much easier.

The last time I had gotten to see my dad he was hospitalized while he was out, someone contacted the jail and told them that he was DYING AND MIGHT NOT MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT! I was terrified, and because of this message, Mac Trumbo, the Larue County Jailer, made a decision to put me in shackles and take me to visit him. The only Deputy Jailer they had to take me was Homer Trumbo, who happened to be nearly blind, maybe drunk, about 85 years old, and hilarity ensued. The transport car was one of them Crown Vic’s that the police drove back then with zero markings that it was for the jail. Once he got me in the car, he looked back at me and said, I hope you can see cuz I’m blind as a bat, if you see me start to nod off or run off the road, kick the seat, or give me a hoot, get me back in the lines. I was scared to death once I realized he wasn’t joking. We were moving in that car, I don’t know how fast we were going, all I knew is it was too fast! I had a bruise on my knee from hitting that seat so many times trying to get his attention, then we got pulled over by Elizabethtown Police. They flipped on their lights and Homer said, is that for us? I looked around, we were the only one it could be, I said, I think so. So, we pulled over, the cop walked to the window, eyeballing me in a jumpsuit, they must’ve known the deal, I heard him say, Homer, is that you?

Homer grumbled something that sounded like a “Yes”

The officer said, Are you okay? Have you had your insulin?

He said, Yes, I’m doing fine. Gotta get this prisoner to Hardin Memorial to see his father before he expires.

He looks back at me and says, Sorry to hear that young man. Homer, how about this, we’ll give you an escort there.

He says, Nope, we’ll be fine.

He says, Okay, well we’re gonna do it anyways. Thank you, Homer. He looks back at me and says, Best of luck to ya.

That was the nicest interaction I had ever had with a police officer. I couldn’t believe it; I believed they were all bad, truly. The rest of the ride was uneventful, we were there in minutes. When we got to the hospital the police kept going when we turned in. So, my dad’s room was on the 3rd floor, there was some walking ahead but I was in leg shackles, I don’t know who reading this has ever worn them but they are the worst, you can only step as far as the chain reaches and they cut into your ankles, Homer tried to fix them and made them tighter so he went and grabbed a wheel chair. Mind you, he is so old and broke down, I should be pushing him, but we made it. Now the last I had been told was that my father was in intensive care, not conscious, and under a ventilator. Not only were none of those things true, but I also rolled in and he said, Oh shit! And he jumped to his feet. He was fine, perfectly fine. He was hospitalized only because his blood was too thin.

This jail bit was the first time I had been away from my dad since I was 9. So, this was a great moment but there were real worries, he was still sick, and the on-call doctor at Larue County Jail, get this, was a fucking veterinarian for horses. Our doctor was a fucking horse doctor.

A friend I had made, Adam Simpson, God rest his soul, had been telling me that the doctor to go to here in Hodgenville to get any narcotics was Doctor Tron, I had never heard of him but a few people in the cell had. When they say jail is where you learn to be a better criminal, it’s true. It’s like a 24/7 Meeting of the Criminal Minds. When my father landed in the cell with us, it was understood by the horse doc that he wasn’t qualified enough to see him. So, they started sending him to see an outside doctor, guess who the outside doctor was…. Dr. Tron. So, this was long before narcotic medications were banned, back at this time, if you were prescribed it, they would have it on the med cart for you. So, when my dad comes back from the doctor and asks if anyone knows who doctor Tron is, we had been hearing about him, Dad, of course had already tried him for *tramadol’s and he said, he wrote them so easily, so the next time he asked for *Hydrocodone and *Ativan, to which Dr Tron replied, what milligram would you like and how many a day? The next time he asked for *Percocet 10s, The doctor said, I will write those for you, but you might prefer the hydrocodone because I cannot write refills on oxycodone (Percocet) because they are a higher schedule. So, he stayed with those.

Something else I should point out is Dad was still getting his disability check while in there, dropped on his books, and while $694 is barely enough to survive on the outside, you can live like a king with that much on the inside.

So, Dad was giving me 2 of his tabs every day and we started trading one a week to the *trustee in the hallway for enough tobacco to keep the whole cell smoking for a couple days.

*Trustee-Inmate in the inmate work program that works specifically on the jail or in the jail.

*Ativan-Anxiety pill, similar to Xanax

*Hydrocodone-Pain pill, highly addictive, generic name for lortab, tab; Percocet-Brand name for oxycodone, Same acive ingredient as the relentlessly maligned-for-a-good-reason OxyContin.

Then other people in the cell started to figure out, that all they needed to do was have a problem bad enough to see an outside doctor and they would go to doctor Tron. So, people started doing everything, faking blood pressure problems, seizures, kidney stones, one person popped his eardrum with a Q-Tip, I think that one was the worst. Pretty soon, half the cell was on Percocet’s and Xanax, legally. There was guards stealing pills off the pill carts, when my dad got out of jail half of his tabs and all of his Ativans magically disappeared. In fact, we were getting so many pills that there was a dispatch officer that was bringing us pounds of tobacco for Percocets. Before of course, he was fired for nodding off and missing 9/11 calls. I’m gonna write a piece about the corruption and rot of the Larue County Detention Center and Police sometime but I’m still gathering things, a whole lot that was known from living there was never reported but a whole lot was. Coming Soon.

By this time, I have gone from taking a few opiates once a month to taking them every single day for the last five months. Now it’s time for court. I didn’t believe for a second that I was getting out, in fact, I’d stopped considering it. I was happy, I had literally everything that I needed to get by outside of jail, inside. I didn’t have a girlfriend, so I didn’t need that. My Father and Best Friend are here with me, and I didn’t have a home waiting for me on the outside, and I had all the drugs I wanted on the inside.

My first plea bargain they offered was 7-years. I was ready to take that, it would keep me in here where I could keep an eye on dad and give me time to figure out where I would go, then they came with a zinger, a diversion with probation for 7 years, basically once I finished my probation the felony would be removed from my record. I couldn’t turn it down. In fact, the guys in the cell, including my father, wouldn’t let me. So, I took it, and seven days later I was released. With nowhere to go, $16 in my pocket, and wholly addicted to opiates.

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24-hours-later, I would experience something, for the first time, that would plague me until I broke free of it, 11-years-later.

Thank you for reading!

Jordan Lee Canter, Editor-in-Chief, Declaration of warLiberty

While researching the current piece I’m writing, I took a stroll down memory lane to see how people from my hometown are doing, I came running back screaming! I went to the waters edge, dipped my toes in, and the acid completely melted my skin! DO NOT SWIM! IT’S NOT SAFE! The kids are not alright! I did some searching through the local Larue County Herald News website, btw their wbsite sucks! I see a familiar name, I click. Let me just say, we were wild, we were silly, but we were happy, this kid, who is now an adult, I remember him being, one of the most sane of my friend group, read this:

Joshua Wolford was previously arrested on June 29, 2019, and charged with one count of Violating Graves (a Class D felony punishable by 1 to 5 years in prison) after digging his late wife’s ashes up from what was intended to be her final resting place at Victory Baptist Church Cemetery.

At the time of his arrest in 2019, Wolford had been living out of his car. The urn containing the ashes was found inside a bag in the back of Wolford’s vehicle. According to the police citation, Wolford admitted to taking the urn.

Three Years Later

The LaRue County Grand Jury indicted Joshua Wolford, 36 of Buffalo, with murder-domestic violence, arson (first degree), fetal homicide (first degree), abuse of corpse and tampering with physical evidence on Monday, December 19.

According to the grand jury, on or about June 12, 2019, Wolford killed his wife, Chasidy Wolford, thereby also killing her unborn child. He then started a fire with the “intent to destroy or damage the residence of Chasidy Wolford,” located at 618 South Otter Creek Rd., Buffalo, in an effort to prevent the evidence and manner of her death from being discovered and used. By doing so, Wolford intentionally treated the corpse “in a manner that would outrage ordinary family sensibilities by burning the deceased body of Chasidy Wolford in the residence.”

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Sometimes I’ll talk to old friends and they’ll ask, “What are you doing up there in Louisville? Why don’t you come back home?” I always say, and do what? Sleep on your couch? There’s NO WORK in these small towns. Everyone is on drugs. Trying to figure out how to survive, which ends up being, this illegal thing or that illegal thing. Middle America is hurting, you think the cities are bad? The small towns of the side counties are fucked up. They are being eaten alive by overpriced poison, i.e. fentanyl, meth, etc. Shits gone crazy, and it’s not looking to get better. You might think, well everyone has that one in their friend group growing up, that takes a turn. Well….

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How about this one, not quite as morbid but, fucked up, nevertheless,

A former LaRue County man was charged Monday in Bullitt County with taking money intended for a sick child.

Kyle T. Nunn, 30, of Louisville, is accused of pocketing $9,000 from a restaurant and a foundation set up to assist with Addilyn Roberts’ medical bills. The formal charge is theft by deception.

According to an arrest warrant, Nunn contacted the manager of Baxter’s 942 Bar & Grill, requesting $6,000 to organize a concert with country singer Jason Aldean. The proceeds would go toward the 3-year-old’s medical care.

Later, Nunn allegedly called the toddler’s parents and managed to obtain an additional $3,000 for the concert. They wrote the check out to “Davis Cooper,” who was allegedly affiliated with Aldean.

And this one is pretty rough…

A preliminary hearing was held Nov. 12 in LaRue District Court for Jason R. Davis, 37, who, according to police, failed to obtain medical help for a woman, who later died. He allegedly drove around for several hours with her body in the passenger seat.

KSP Detective Anthony Hardin said he was dispatched about 1:37 p.m. Nov. 1 from Post 4 in Elizabethtown to Lebanon Junction.

Terry Phillips, a Lebanon Junction officer, had made a traffic stop and the driver, identified as Davis, told him about the body.

Detective Hardin said Shalayna Skaggs, 32, of Buffalo, was in the passenger seat, facing the driver’s seat, covered with a tan fleece blanket and articles of clothing. Skaggs, who Davis said was his friend, was pronounced dead by the Bullitt County coroner. Her vehicle was taken to Post 4 as part of the investigation.

Here was one of my closest friends growing up

An Elizabethtown man who led multiple police agencies on a lengthy chase in February that ended in a field in Sonora was indicted Thursday by a Hardin County grand jury on four felony charges.

Joshua Logsdon, 34, remains hospitalized at a Louisville hospital. He was shot multiple times after eight police officers fired at him about 30 minutes after a high-speed pursuit began Feb. 26, according to investigators.

This is the first time Logsdon has been publicly identified as the person leading the pursuit and being shot. Commonwealth’s Attorney Shane Young, who is prosecuting the case, confirmed the identity.

Logsdon was indicted on criminal attempt to commit murder against Elizabethtown Police Department Sgt. Pete Chytla, a Class B felony punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison, if convicted. Chytla was one of the law-enforcement officers identified among the shooters by Kentucky State Police.

Logsdon also was indicted on charges of first-degree robbery, a Class B felony; possession of a handgun by a convicted felon, a Class C felony punishable by five to 10 years in prison, if convicted, and first-degree fleeing or evading police in a motor vehicle, a Class D felony punishable by one to five years in prison, if convicted.

He was shot, according to a KSP news release, after displaying a firearm at which time state police troopers, EPD officers and a Hardin County deputy sheriff fired their weapons.

The chase began around 5:45 p.m. Feb. 26 after Logsdon reportedly fled a vehicle on foot during a traffic stop by EPD as the Greater Hardin County Narcotics Task Force and police conducted a investigation near a shopping center off Sycamore Street, according to a KSP Post 4 news release.

A second person, Alison Campbell, 39, of Elizabethtown, is listed as a co-defendant in the case and was indicted on charges of first-degree trafficking in methamphetamine; tampering with physical evidence and possession of drug paraphernalia

And here:

An anonymous tip about an active meth lab led officers to an Oak Hill Road residence, according to Constable Tim Ford. He and the LaRue County Sheriff’s Department conducted a joint investigation.

Donald M. Goatley, 37; Angela Irene Montgomery, 35; and Joshua Jason Logsdon, 26, all of Sonora; and Naomi L. Latham, 29, of Elizabethtown, were each charged with manufacturing methamphetamine, unlawful possession of a meth precursor, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Logsdon was charged also with prescription not in proper container and possession of controlled substance, unspecified. He allegedly had an unlabeled bottle containing pills on his person, Ford said.

Goatley, the homeowner, gave officers permission to search the residence, according to Ford.

Ford said a duffle bag containing “all ingredients to make meth was found in plain view” in the bathroom of the mobile home.

And another…

A Hodgenville man was charged with first-degree assault and fleeing or evading police Sunday afternoon after he allegedly assaulted his wife.

According to court documents, a woman called 911 and claimed Joseph E. Hendricks, 28, had stabbed her with a pocketknife. The woman said he also hit her in the head with the “dull side” of the knife and she sustained scratches during the ordeal.

LaRue County Deputy Robby Brownfield responded to the scene and apprehended Hendricks who had ran from the home, according to documents.

The woman allegedly sustained a knife wound in the thigh.

And finally:

Derek J. Meredith, 23, of Glendale, first-degree possession of controlled substance, tampering with physical evidence, possession of drug paraphernalia, public intoxication. On or about Feb. 5, Meredith possessed methamphetamine, concealed drugs and a syringe, possessed drug paraphernalia and was intoxicated in public. Bail was set at $5,000 cash, plus conditions.

A year-long investigation into the growing problem of methamphetamine has resulted in the Sept. 15 arrest of 10 people in Green County. Troopers from Post 15 along with units from the Greensburg and Campbellsville City Police and Green County Constable Brad Hall executed the indictment warrants – and more arrests may be pending.

All 10 were charged with engaging in organized crime – criminal syndicate.

Other charges are:

• Barry Dobson, 48, of Summersville, was charged with enhancement, manufacturing methamphetamine, first degree; enhancement, possession controlled substance (meth), enhancement, use or possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana.

• Tina M. Allen, 28, of Summersville, was charged with manufacturing methamphetamine, first degree; possession of controlled substance, first degree; unlawful distribution of methamphetamine precursor; possession of drug paraphernalia; and possession of marijuana.

• Terry S. Johnson, 18, and Sandra Miller Rowe, 37, both of Magnolia; Derek J. Meredith, 20, of Hodgenville; and Billy G. Wallace, 41, of Greensburg, were each charged with unlawful distribution of methamphetamine precursor.

• Christopher T. Gray, 33, of Summersville, was charged with enhancement, manufacturing methamphetamine, first; enhancement, possession of controlled substance, first degree; and enhancement, use or possession of drug paraphernalia.

• Susan W. Rhodes, 44, of Magnolia, was charged with unlawful distribution of a methamphetamine precursor; possession of marijuana; and two counts of persistent felony offender.

• Jack Nunn Jr., 44, of Magnolia, and Timothy J. McCorkle, 50, of Canmer, were each charged with unlawful distribution of a methamphetamine precursor, first degree; and two counts of persistent felony offender.

All but Gray were lodged in the Taylor County Jail.

Gray has been lodged in the LaRue County Detention Center since July when he was charged with possession of controlled substance (meth) and use or possession of drug paraphernalia during a traffic stop.

When Constable Tim Ford made the arrest, he discovered a Green County warrant on Gray for theft of services and served that as well.

There’s so much talk of how bad our cities are doing, but our towns aren’t doing better. It’s just less concentrated. This was one friend group, by the way, a lot of them are dead, I mean a lot: Kentucky:

In 2023, there were 1,984 overdose deaths. This was a decrease of 9.8% from 2022.

In 2022, there were 2,200 overdose deaths. This was a decrease of 2.5% from 2021 and was the first year Kentucky saw a decrease in overdose deaths since 2018.

In 2021, there were 2,257 overdose deaths. This was a 14.5% increase from 2020 and was the highest number of overdose deaths ever reported in Kentucky.

In 2020, there were 1,964 overdose deaths. This was a 49% increase from 2019.

There’s a downward trend, true. It’s because it already killed them. We used to not have any friends who had overdosed, it wasn’t a real worry, now everyone who used back then have stopped or they’re already dead. The only ones left are those who are very lucky and it’s coming for them too.

Everywhere, in America, the kids aren’t alright.

Jordan Lee, Editor-in-Chief, Declaration of WarLiberty

I can’t remember if I mentioned it but, after my release from prison in 2011, and then in 2012, I relocated to Louisville, KY and both times there was a job waiting for me. It was a packaging warehouse called Accu-Tec that, was really my first job. As far as jobs go it was the worst, but as far as steady work, it was the best. It had an extremely high turnover rate, minimum wage (my whole first 5-years), the work was hard, hot, and you had to really need itor you wouldn’t make it. You had 3 tries in a 2-hour period at whatever job they gave you, if you didn’t get it, yougot walked out the door. You worked there, at every moment, like your next meal depended on it, because it did! There was, however, a culture of camaraderie that was hard to match, and a culture of envy and hatred that was hard to escape. There are some unbelievable stories to tell about that place, and one day I will, my writing skills are not quite there yet. I tried as hard as I thought I was supposed to, which turned out to be harder than most. For this, I became one of their top workers, I spent 11-years there and they tolerated me through the absolute worst of my addiction. I overdosed in their bathroom one time, during lunch break, after rushing to do a surprisingly strong bag of heroine. Was allowed back to work the next morning. In 2016, I got out of jail in Franklin, Tennessee, after months of incarceration, following a spree of fraud from Birmingham, Alabama, ending in Franklin. I posted on Facebook that I was out and the first message I received was from a Supervisor at Accu-Tec saying, “7am, you’ll be there, right?” Without hesitation I replied, “Thank you, see you then.”

Unfortunately, I had to move on from that place. They couldn’t let go of who I used to be and treat me as the person I am now. The Me, now, had to move on, but I digress…

About my third year there, I worked with a guy named Lucas. The job is like an assembly line. Putting together seasonal packages, i.e. Jim Beam w/ 2 glasses, or store displays that sit in the middle of the aisles. The main boss, Pattie, was like a 4-foot-tall Drill Sargeant and sharp, super sharp, when she walked up, everyone sobered immediately. She would hand-pick who worked where each morning. It was like getting picked for dodgeball.

I resented Lucas a lot. He wasn’t a very good worker, in fact he kind of sucked, but he was such a great talker, communicator, manipulator, and I just was not. He was slick with braggery and smooth talk, that you had to really believe in yourself to pull off, I did not. He was got hired and promoted on the same day that he walked in from the *Labor Hall.* I’d worked at this place for 2-years and was being told what to do by someone who’d been there for 2-weeks. It didn’t make much sense but I’d learn, eventially, that was how these things worked. There’s really nothing better than getting something by your own hard work and merit, truly. I didn’t even see how my drug addiction could effect my ability to get a promotion. I just knew I was better than that guy.

*The Labor Hall I am referring to is called Labor Works (the Hall). It’s day labor. When I came to Louisville, I was in a Dept of Corrections Halfway House. They sent me there to try to get a job. That will be an exciting story to tell on its own. It will be a whole separate piece.

Pattie put me on Lucas’ line. He didn’t like me immediately, but I ignored that. I actually thought he wasn’t as bad as I had percieved him to be.

He said to someone across the production line from me, purposely loud enough for me to hear, “I don’t care how hard he works, I don’t like fucking tweekers. I shouldn’t have to work around him. My in-laws are tweekers, and I have to let my kid go over there.”

I knew he was talking about me. He was looking right at me, and talking to someone else. I did my best to ignore him, and just avoided him as much as I could the rest of the day.

We worked hard, made the quota that he gets bonus money for. At the end of the day, I have to get my ticket from him that I turn in to get my paycheck, when I take it from him he holds on to it and says loudly, “You fucking junkie, maybe you should use some make-up and cover up those track-marks. What a fucking loser.”

I tried to hit him in the other cheek, I said, “Thanks Lucas, you have a great evening.”

I was so exhausted, it was hot. I didn’t want more of a scene. He was definitely trying to draw attention to me and I wanted the hell outta there!

What he said was right, but the malicious way he said it, was wrong. As I’m writing this, though, this wasn’t a real big deal. It was dirty, and shitty, but it effected him, much more than it effected me.

Eight Months Later. Lucas disappears for a couple months. In the mean time, I take over his job, got into the Suboxone Program, started taking steps towards a better life. This was completely unplanned of course. Lucas comes back to work, he’s lost 40lbs, easily. I think it was more like 80. Ok, so, he’s skinny now, erratic, pupils the size of his eyes. He’s tweeking. He’s very obviously high as fuck, and hasn’t slept in days. He’s assigned to work with me. I don’t know what to say, all I can say is, “hey, how ya doing, bro?”

He says, “I’m g-good. Been a wild month. Ya know…..” He proceeds to telling me that his girlfriend had gotten him to try crack recently, and when tax time came around, this year was the first time he got to claim both kids on his tax return and got like $8,000 back. His girlfriend asked if they could get some *ice to celebrate. So they did. So for the past 2-months they haven’t been sober a single time. “I was actually hoping to run out of money so I could come down and get some sleep. Still haven’t.”

*Ice, is crystallized methamphetamine. Here in Louisville, KY, due to the presence of the ‘Cartel’ the price of methamphetamine cut to 1/3 while the purity almost doubled between the years of 2013-2014. i.e price dropped from $135/Gram to $40/Gram, purity rose from 48% to 92%.

From then on, he went deeper and deeper in. Wouldn’t show up enough to keep his job. He went to jail several time. Him and his became homeless. Kids in foster care. I haven’t seen him in many years now. Last I seen of him, he was on Bardstown Road with a sign, pan handling, and he looks how I looked, losing his teeth, ungroomed, dirty clothes. Fucking out there.

This was an insane example of how things come full circle. We’ve got to search inside ourselves to find the strength to empathize with one another because shit can sure flip in a second.

Next up is the same story, but on a National level.

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What. A. Rush.

The Great Robert Scheer wrote in The Nation in October of 2003

Limbaugh was an equal-opportunity drug warrior who, in response to the charge that drug laws singled out African Americans, said in an interview in 1995: “Too many whites are getting away with drug use? The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river too.”

Rush Limbaugh was the God Father of the Conservative talk radio pundit. He existed way before I had any interest the sort. That didn’t stop my Father from expressing his indignation against him. For this I very much agreed.

Dad: Never say never, Son. You don’t know how things might come back. No one knows what tomorrow holds but God. You don’t know about Rush Limbaugh yet, do you?

I didn’t.

Dad: In the 90’s he called for drug addicts to be sent to prison. It was on the news this morning that he got arrested for busting scripts of Oxycontin. I bet he wishes he never said that shit. Opiates are the worst because they can happen to ANYONE.

Dad: I hurt my back when you were 26 days old. I didn’t like pain medicine before that. I was more into speedy stuff. Some asshole at my job yelled out at me, and startled me.

I turned and popped my back and threw out a disk.

I was accused me of faking it at one point. We had a newborn child. You. There’s no way in hell I would fake some shit like that. I didn’t want to be off work.

Workman’s Comp checks were always just late enough to starve us but close enough that they wouldn’t do anything about it.

It can happen to anyone.

The doctor started giving me pain medicine. Then more and more, my tolerance went up and up, it becomes not enough so you start looking for illegal ways of getting them. I seen it happen many times to other people.

I had friends who’d tell my, “Wayne, I’ve got the flu.”

I knew better. They were dope sick.

It got so bad for your Mother and I that our drug dealer gave us the number to the Methadone clinic.

My Father was on opiates, quite literally, until the day he died. Rush probably was too.

Rush Limbaugh spent decades debating and speaking out against people who used drugs.

In 2003, the National Enquirer ran a story about Rush Limbaugh’s maid complaining about him abusing pain medicine which led to him going to treatment. Treatment which led to a 3-year investigation exposing that he had recieved 2,000 pain pills for 4 doctors in a 6-month period. His housekeeper helped him illegally obtain thousands more. Ziploc bags full of Oxycontin. This led to him being arrested for “Doctor Shopping” which on paper reads, stealing/receiving a narcotic prescription by fraud.

It started as severe back pain. Too often it goes this way. Go ahead, think for a second, “It could never happen to me!” It could, it can.

In the end, he was betrayed by his own housekeeper. Law-enforcement sources tell NEWSWEEK that Limbaugh's exposure as a pain-pill addict began when Wilma Cline, 42, who had worked at Limbaugh's $30 million Florida estate from 1997 to July 2001, showed up at the Palm Beach County state attorney's office late last year eager to sic the cops on her former boss. Her motive remained murky, but her story--how she had met Limbaugh in parking lots to exchange sandwich bags filled with "baby blues" (OxyContin pills) for a cigar box stuffed with cash--was luridly damning. Between July 2001 and June 2002, Cline delivered enough pills to Limbaugh "to kill an elephant," she told the National Enquirer, the supermarket tabloid that broke (and paid for) Cline's story.

She gave e-mails and ledgers to the cops showing that Limbaugh had purchased more than 30,000 hydrocodone, Lorcet and OxyContin pills, the Enquirer reported. Law-enforcement sources confirmed the basic facts of the Enquirer story to NEWSWEEK.

According to some the vast amount of opiates he took caused him to famously start going deaf.

Sins of the Father are the Sins of the Son

We all know about Hunter Biden’s famous laptop which exposes his families business dealings in China and Ukraine and his abuse of crack cocaine. It’s almost old news, Hunter even mentions his struggles with addiction in his memoir and on interviews but, how often do they talk about his fathers record of destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of addicts to drugs? The FBI, CIA, DHS, and select elites of the corporate media framed the release of Hunter’s abandoned laptop as a Russian disinformation ploy. I’m sure anyone who was paying attention remembers, “It had the ear-marks of a Russian disinformation operation”. It was not, and it did not. We have proof. The censoring of this information caused a Streissand effect and failed completely. That’s Hunter today, supposedly in recovery, God bless him. He’s not the subject today. His Father however, well…. Check out his father 38-years-ago:

In 1986, then-Senator Joe Biden authored the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986–a critical component of the broader War on Drugs that devastated low-income communities of color through mass criminalization and systemic police violence. The law strengthened carceral disparities between Black and white drug users by mandating a five-year minimum sentence for trafficking five grams of crack cocaine while requiring 500 grams of the chemically equivalent powder cocaine to incur the same conviction. Later in 1994, Sen. Biden spearheaded a deeply controversial crime bill that funded 100,000 new cops and accelerated mass incarceration by increasing federal funding to states that impose harsher sentences.

And then, this:

The 1994 crime law passed by Congress, authored by Joe Biden and, signed by President Bill Clinton, which was meant to reverse decades of rising crime, was one of the key contributors to mass incarceration in the 1990s. They say it led to more prison sentences, more prison cells, and more aggressive policing — especially hurting Black and brown Americans, who are disproportionately likely to be incarcerated.

This is Poetic Justice. Maybe that should be the name of this piece? In all 3 cases the subject showed 0 remorse or empathy for those going through something they didn’t understand, and when shit came back around they got a good strong whiff.

Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, not only became addicted to drugs, and now a convicted felon, he became addicted to THE drug!

Crack cocaine, under the “1994 Crime Bill”, was placed under a Mandatory-Minimum Sentence that was 100-times more harsh than the same amount of powder cocaine. Reason Magazine reported in a little more detail in 2022 when the Biden Administration failed, once again, to fix these sentencing guidelines that he has defended time-and-time again as a highlight of his career:

The Anti–Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which Biden wrote, established a sentencing policy that treated smokable cocaine as if it were 100 times worse than the snorted kind. Under that law, possessing five grams of crack with intent to distribute it triggered the same five-year mandatory minimum sentence as 500 grams of cocaine powder; likewise, the 10-year mandatory minimum required five kilograms of cocaine powder but only 50 grams of crack.

Because federal crack offenders were overwhelmingly black, while cocaine powder offenders were more likely to be white or Hispanic, the rule Biden championed meant that darker-skinned defendants received substantially heavier penalties than lighter-skinned defendants for essentially the same offenses. As that trend became clear, the African-American legislators who had supported the law turned against it.

This is how it happens. This is how it happens. I gave examples of people in drug addiction because it’s what I know the most about, but this doesn’t target one set of people dealing with one issue. Anyone going through despair, heart-ache, feeling like they can’t make it one more day. If you turn your back on them, it might just be coming for you. I have a lot of trouble believing in things I can’t see, but you can see this. I can point you too it. This is just 3 examples but there’s thousands more. Never say never. The worse thing you could do is see someone falling on hard times and think, “Sucks for them. That could never happen to me. Maybe they should’ve tried harder.”

Thanks for reading…..

Jordan Lee, Editor-in-Chief, Declaration of warLberty

They weren’t bad people. In fact, I considered them friends. And a few searches on the Online Offender Lookup says that all of them excluding the top guy, Steven, are out of jail and haven’t done anything to go back. It turned out a lot better than it looked in 2016, it looked bleak for all of us back then. This was a family of hopeless people, trying to get by in a place of economic uncertainty. At a time when the demand was off the charts.

I met many odd characters in the line. Sometimes unsavory, sometimes unsettling. However, nothing was more unsettling than meeting an imposter in our midst. I’m sure there were others. After all, this place for three years. There were hundreds of pictures taken that, as it was found out later, I made an appearance in. But this was blatant. She was healthy. Her voice had too much…. hope? She wasn’t one of us and it was obvious. IT. WAS. STRANGE. She was saying things that someone whose education about drugs derived straight from a DARE Officer or the film Reefer Madness might say.

The Lady: Where do we go? Oh, up there?

Guy Who Hangs Out1: Yea, up there. To the window.

The Lady: Oh, there’s a line. No, wait. I’m supposed to buy directly from Steven. Where’s Steven?

Guy Who Hangs Out2: Steven’s not here. If you’re buying, there’s the line. If not, you gotta go. Can’t hang out here.

The Lady: “Ok.”

She gets in line. This was crazy for a number of reasons and made her look bad immediately. This happened real close to the end of the operation. Everybody in the county knew about this place. It seemed like she stumbled into the place and couldn’t believe what she was seeing, and she probably couldn’t. It was unbelievable. Think, lines at the grocery store on food stamp day, but for drugs. All the houses have privacy fences so you don’t know what you’re walking into until you’re in, and there’s no restriction on who can come in. You’re supposed to call ahead, as I always did, but a year in they lost most of their fuck-giving and dealt with anyone who came in. With that being said, when she came in, she said the right name, but she seemed very surprised she wasn’t dealing directly with him. Which hadn’t been the deal in years. I was somewhat of a friend, and I hadn’t seen him in at least six months. Then she commenced to speaking as if she was reading a script. Or maybe an earpiece was telling her what to say. Regardless, it didn’t seem authentic.

The Lady to a rando in line: Hi. Rough weather, right? What’s your name?

Rando: Ummmm…

The Lady: What are you here to get?

Rando: I’m here for my sister. I take Suboxone*.

The Lady: Oh, I like Subutex*. So, I can mix it with anything. I like to take ten of them and it Feels so good! Did they get any crystal in?

Rando: Umm mm…I don’t know.

*Suboxone is for getting off of opiates. It comes in many forms. It’s a compound of buprenorphine, which is a mild opiate with strong and kind of odd chemistry, and naloxone, an opiate blocker. The buprenorphine binds to the opiate receptors 10X better than naloxone, and has a half-life of 24-36 hours while naloxone, the blocker, has a half-life of 30-40 minutes. At the same time, other opiates which are much stronger have a half-life of 20-30 minutes. That’s how Naloxone blocks heroine but not buprenorphine.

*Subutex is for those allergic to naloxone so it has no blocker. Therefore it’s believed by people who have never taken it that it can be taken like any other pills. What I know anecdotally and from research that any more than 3 Suboxone in any form does nothing. It has a ceiling effect. 2-3 or 16-24mg of buprenorphine in 24hours is where it hits the ceiling. Past that you simply get sick as hell and pick up the new nickname ‘Pukey’.

There was an inauthentic vibe to everything she was saying, and some of it no one anywhere would EVER say. She claimed at one point that this house had the best heroine in town. Which no one anywhere believed. Not even Steven. This places success had nothing to do with quality. Timing, convenience, price, and opening up a 24/7 Wal-Mart for drugs during the Heroine boom when the boom hadn’t fully come to fruition. These things made this a multi-million dollar a year operation. That combined with her comments, propaganda-like drug talk, no one had ever seen her. And didn’t see her again. She was behind enemy lines.

Oh, and “I like to take ten of them” is something no one has ever said unironically, and described it that way, it “feels so good”. I’ve never heard someone describe drugs that way. Because they don’t. That’s what you say about a massage. Or something with your significant other behind closed doors. Something you’re feeling in real life. You know who would say that? Someone educated by 1950’s anti-drug propaganda. Who thought they talk like that. And no one had called meth “Crystal” since the 90’s.

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My turn in line:

Me: Hey, it’s Jordan.

The Window: Yea. Whaddya need?

Me: Umm… One gram and one-and-a-half grams of h in separate bags. And a half gram of clear.

The Window: Alright, we’ll bring it to the door.

They were constantly changing the order of how things were done. Depending on who was working the window.

It’s her turn at the window. She pulls out what appears to be a Ziploc bag. A big Ziploc bag. Full of change. The curtain is down so no one can see inside the window. This is purposeful and the norm here. They have to open the curtain for her to explain.

Window: Whoa! We can’t take that much change.

Lady: I’m really sorry. It’s all quarters.

Window: How much do you think is there?

Lady: I don’t know.

Window: You didn’t count it!?

Lady: No. I didn’t have time.

Window: Hey. There’s a store on the corner. The owner is Sam, he’s a friend. Take it to him and bring back cash.

Security opens the door and hands me my order. He always looks me in the eyes while he hands it to me. As if to look in my soul to see if I’m the one. It’s going to be someone. Is it me or the weirdo at the window. In this business, in this world, there is always a betrayal in motion. Who is it going to be?

Seven days later the first of three raids were conducted by the FBI. ATF, and DEA. I’ve seen many videos from the scene that day. Luckily, I had just missed it, that time. Public transit here in Louisville Kentucky is the TARC bus system.

They used two, full-sized TARC buses filled with agents in all black and assault rifles to conduct this raid. They drove the buses a block apart and simultaneously pulled them across the road on each end of the block. Blocking both lanes so no one could come or go in either direction. I wish I had a picture of this. Over a hundred black ants poured into the block and flash-banged every house. The Trap was their, first target. They knew where the most action was happening at.

They shot their dog, a very nice boxer who loved everyone but me for some strange reason, flash-banged the house through the window, kicked the door and shot out the bottom of the toilet as the drugs were flushing. It wasn’t fast enough. Three arrests, a bunch of citations and a lot more evidence was gathered.

At the time that I was in line with that lady, I thought she was just very odd. The events that followed however, led me to believe, and I still believe, that everything she did was very calculated. That lady, without a doubt, was sent in by whatever one of the 3-letter-agencies she works for to see how things were being operated for a final time before they went in. It’s crazy to think how many more like her that they sent in. There’s no chance that she was the only one, maybe the most obvious, but she just seemed very odd at the time. She manipulated herself in, through the line, and got them to open the window. In the Discovery evidence one of the defendants on this case described to me a picture that was taken through the window with the curtains up. He didn’t understand how they had gotten that picture, but it made perfect sense to me. My mind jolted back to this moment.

Four hours after the raid they were reopened on a different block, and I was there getting my fix for the day.

(To Be Continued)

Jordan Lee, Editor-in-Chief, Declaration of warLIBERTY

While researching, of all things, what corporate media channel Sam Seder worked for befor the Majority Report. Just a rabbit hole.

I landed on the wiki for the original majority report w/Janeane Garofalo. I knew that show name was way too cool for Sam Seder to come up with alone.

I wonder why Janeane left.

She came under fire for comments on her April 28th, 2006 show in support of “Scientology-Linked” “New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project” which in plain words sounds like a noble deed. Never heard of it.

I go a little deeper and see it is a detoxification program for 9/11 first responders who are being ailed by exposure to toxic waste during the rescue. I love that. I loved when Jon Stewart took on Congress to get health insurance for them and the veterans exposed to burn pits. I wonder what that has to do with scientology? Deeper I go.

Ok. It’s top funder is Tom Cruise. Maybe thats how. Why the controversy then?

Oh ok. The technique they use to detox these people is the Purification Rundown…..hmmm, what’s that? Click.

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Oh, it’s where they give them increasing doses of Niacin which raises your internal temperataure and put them in a sauna for hours at a time. And Killed people, damaged others, it was invented by the ever-credible ambitiously-ethical truth-teller L. Ron Hubbard. Holy shit! The inventor of scientology and inventor of the terrible sci-fi book. Not to be confused with good sci-fi books.

Purification rundown is Part of scientologys bridge to total freedom, the chart that charts how you can live forever and they can make lots of money off of it

The Purification Rundown, as they were using on 9/11 first responders is from the Final Boss chart The Bridge to Total Freedom. Also known as Purif or the Hubbard method.

It was developed by Scientology's founder L. Ron Hubbard and used by the Church of Scientology as an introductory service.

It is promoted variously as religious or secular, medical or purely spiritual, depending on context. Hubbard put forward his ideas about niacin in a book called All About Radiation. He claimed to have discovered that large doses of vitamins could both alleviate and prevent radiation sickness. He marketed this anti-radiation mixture in the form of a tablet, calling it "Dianazene". Twenty-one thousand such tablets were seized and destroyed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1958.

The 1979 predecessor of the Purification Rundown was known as the "Sweat Program" and was similarly designed to remove traces of LSD which, according to Hubbard, remained for long periods in the body.

As an addict on probation I was told by many people that you could use Niacin to pass a drug test and suffered through many doses. And failed many drug test to which I was told, maybe you got the wrong kind? Or didn’t take enough. Now I see, this must be where that idea came from.

In the sweat program the participant had a restricted diet, including large doses of vitamins and a teaspoon of salt, and spent at least an hour a day jogging in a rubberised suit. For some, this regimen lasted for months. This later evolved into the ‘Purification Rundown’.

The program was developed for use in Narconon, and was published in Hubbard's Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology as well as the book Clear Body, Clear Mind. Two other books describe the procedure, Purification: An Illustrated Answer to Drugs and Narconon New Life Detoxification Program: the effective purification program by L. Ron Hubbard.

Back to the Rundown

The Purification Rundown usually takes several weeks. As well as spending time in saunas, people are required to do light exercise including calisthenics, treadmills, and other similar activities.

The program consists of a course of doses of vitamins (niacin in particular), long periods in a sauna, exercise, and consumption of a blend of vegetable oils, in the belief that the subject will sweat out the toxins and replace the oils in the body's fatty tissues with the vegetable oil.

It requires its participants to ingest the following at regular intervals:

• A multi-vitamin cocktail, the main ingredient of which is niacin. Clear Body, Clear Mind recommends initial doses of 100 mg, increasing to 5,000 mg over the course of the program.

  ^{This contrasts with the medically recommended level of about 15 mg: larger doses can have severe, even potentially fatal side effects. The participant is told to expect toxic symptoms due to the release of poisons or radiation from their body fat. Thus the effects of niacin overdose, which include skin irritation, flushing, dizziness and headache, are interpreted as a positive effect of the program.}

• Mineral supplements, including calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, manganese, copper, iodine and potassium.

• Up to half a cupful of pure oils per day.

• "CalMag", a drink which Clear Body, Clear Mind describes as a solution of calcium gluconate, magnesium carbonate and vinegar in water, in such proportions that the mix has twice as much elemental calcium as magnesium.

• Enough liquids to replace the fluids lost in the sauna.

  The Purification Rundown is promoted as having physical and mental benefits such as lowering cholesterol, relieving pain, and improving memory.

  ---

The Church of Scientology unsuccessfully tried to have the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Hubbard for his invention of the program.

Narconon

This is basically an L. Ron Hubbard version of drug rehabilitation. According to their website it sounds like miracle work, but watching their welcome video they drop little hints that they are simply a front for the Church of Scientology. You know, the church that has their own PRISON!!!! Where they send people who turn out to be suppressive people. Suppressive people are those that speak against the church of scientology. Anyone who speaks out against the church of scientology. So I wonder, what would they do with a drug treatment center? The Guardian reported on Narconon UK:

The charity that runs the facility, Narconon UK, says it is a world leader in tackling drug and alcohol misuse, claiming results superior to its rivals through a sauna detox, high vitamin doses and psychological exercises.

Its credentials appear to stack up: Narconon is listed on the NHS ­website, included in council ­directories, and displays a “good” rating from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in its marketing, alongside dozens of testimonials. “Narconon gave me my life back,” says one smiling client.

But behind the glossy image there is another side to the story. A nine-month investigation has ­uncovered allegations of safeguarding ­failings and psychological abuse at Narconon’s premises in Heathfield, East Sussex. It also suggests that – despite reassuring clients it is independent – the rehabilitation programme is more closely entwined with the controversial Church of Scientology than it lets on.

In interviews with the Observer, former patients and staff described how people seeking help were put through intensive ­mental exercises – “drills” – similar to methods used in Scientology’s “auditing” process.

In some cases, they took part in these repetitive drills for so long, while in vulnerable states due to their mental health or prior drug use, that they would go into “hypnotic” states, become paranoid or break down or suffer other extreme reactions. After taking part in the drills, which could last up to five hours a day for several weeks, others were ­allegedly left “traumatised”, feeling suicidal, with their minds “shattered”.

So that would most definitely be the same detox technique they are putting 9/11 first responders through back here in New York. Now that’s the UK. Meanwhile back at home The Tampa Bay Times report:

Already shaken by a series of high-level defections, accounts of abuse among its staffers, and the high-profile breakup of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, the Church of Scientology now faces scrutiny over its controversial drug treatment program, Narconon.

Four deaths at Narconon's signature treatment facility in eastern Oklahoma have prompted local law enforcement and health officials to investigate the center and its program.

The inquiry began after Stacy Dawn Murphy, 20, was found dead in her room on July 19 after returning to the facility from a one-day leave. The cause of death is under investigation.

Two other clients died within the previous nine months. Another died in 2009. In two of those cases, serious health issues were cited; the cause of the other death is unclear.

In April, authorities in Quebec shut down a Narconon facility in the city of Trois Rivieres, saying certain treatment procedures "may represent a health risk.''. . . . . . . .

Narconon centers claim success rates of 75 to 90 percent. But their methods, developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, have drawn fire over the years. They include high doses of niacin and lengthy sauna sessions that are said to release stored drug residues from fat tissue — a Hubbard theory contested by many health professionals.

The Narconon network of treatment centers is part of a Church of Scientology "sector" called the Association for Better Living and Education, or ABLE. It supports and coordinates the church's "social betterment" causes, such as combating drug use, advancing human rights and improving literacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Officials are also investigating the deaths of 21-year-old Hillary Ann Holten of Carrollton, Texas; 32-year-old Gabriel W. Graves of Owasso, Okla.; and 28-year-old Kaysie Dianne Werninck of St. Augustine.

Holten died on April 11 and Graves on Oct. 26. Holten's autopsy report also has not been completed. Her obituary in the Dallas Morning News said she died of complications from pneumonia and congenital adrenal hyperplasia. The medical examiner could not a find a cause of death for Graves.

The Takedown of the Rundown

The theory behind the Purification Rundown is that toxins, drugs, and radioactive particles are stored in body fat, which are released through the exchange of fats (thus the oil consumption) and exercise, and then finally released via perspiration and other normal mechanisms such as body waste. Independent scientific evaluations report that the concentration of toxins or drugs in the sweat is negligible, as they are primarily removed from the body through the liver, the kidneys and the lungs. The notion that toxins from fatty tissue can be sweated out is categorically denied by toxicology experts.

In January 2005, a group of five doctors and nine health education experts acting on behalf of the California Department of Education issued a report examining Narconon and its materials. The report described the key assumptions of the program as unscientific and inaccurate. Three experts consulted by The Buffalo News criticised the weak evidence and dubious assumptions behind the program.

An investigation by the New York Press asked a number of independent doctors about the evidence for the Purification Rundown. None of them endorsed the program's effectiveness and some explicitly described it as dangerous. Several said that no peer-reviewed research on the program had been published in any medical journal.

In 1996, journalist Mark Ebner described the case of a woman who had suffered heatstroke and anemia while on the program.

One day, she was found blue-lipped on the waiting room floor, hemorrhaging. Instead of taking her blood pressure or calling an ambulance or even a doctor, they explained away her bleeding as "restimulation" from radiation she had absorbed from ultrasound testing she'd had years before.

In 1997, two emergency room doctors reported treating a 45-year-old man who had participated in the Purification Rundown. Previously healthy, he had developed tremors while on the program, for which the Church of Scientology recommended further Purification as treatment. Put back in the sauna, he developed seizures and was taken to hospital in an incoherent state. He was diagnosed with severe hyponatremia and required three days of medical treatment. In a similar case, a woman from Medina, Ohio required hospitalization after losing sleep and developing hallucinations during the program. In 2004, a former participant in the UK told reporters that the program had gravely worsened his physical condition, and that he had been denied medical treatment.

A 25-year-old man in Portland, Oregon died from liver failure after having participated in the Purification Rundown. His parents sued the Church of Scientology and the case was settled out of court. Scientology officials blamed the death on prior medical problems.

This seriously turned out to be bad for those poor first responders. They’ve been fucked on so many levels. Now back to where I started, what caused the end of The Majority Report w/ Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder?

It was hard to find much. I couldn’t find a quote. but here’s an excerpt from an article that covered it at the time:

The disagreement arose over the fact that Janeane has had members of the NY Rescue Workers Detoxification Project (

http://nydetox.org/

) on twice in the last 6 weeks and was planning on having them on again tonight. The group is basically a Scientology front group and has been criticized
http://www.nytimes.com/...
http://www.cultnews.com/...
as being full of junk remedies and potentially harmful to the clients. Janeane is very supportive of the group.

The first two interviews took place on Fridays when Sam is off, but he has hinted about his qualms about the group and the MRR blog
has been very critical of Janeane on this. After Sam found out about the planned third appearance of the group, he finally made his concerns vocal to Janeane on the air and stated that he would be present for the next interview. He also called the group today and stated that he intended to question them about the criticism of the program, unlike Janeane who has been pretty fawning, IMO. The group cancelled the appearance.

Well, things finally came to a boil tonight as Janeane appears to have taken Sam's criticism as a personal attack and claimed that Sam and the show's producer were actively seeking to embarrass her and the group for no good reason. Janeane (who is an atheist) makes it very clear that she is supportive only of the Detoxification Project but in no way supports Scientology and states that she thinks it's as much fantasy-based as any other religion such as Christianity, but if the Detox Project is helping the 1st responders, who cares who's funding it.

I’ll point out here. That it wasn’t just funded by scientologists. It was an idea written about by L. Ron Hubbard, the creator of the Church of Scientology, in one of his Science-Fiction novels. I’m guessing they didn’t know that at the time though.

Sam's POV is that two appearances were enough and the show shouldn't be pushing such a questionable group. Janeane (incredibly) says it's no different than having the recurring Fighting Dems segment with Markos. She also stated that Sam would not have a problem with the Detox Project if it were a Jewish group(!). Sam took offense at that comment and after a bit of loud back and forth the show went to commercial. When it came back, Janeane said that Sam and the producer had walked out. The show stumbled to close about twenty minutes later.

I mostly subscribe to the current Majority Report to kind of hate-watch. I had no clue before today that it was anything more than a recent breadtube internet show that jumped on every neoliberal, pro-war trend that rolls around, nowadays. But this made it kinda interesting.

Here’s Rick Ross(????) from Narkive Newsgroup Archive on this story:

CultNews began reporting about the Scientology-linked project more than
two years ago and the story was later picked up by the New York Times
and Associated Press.

The so-called “Purification Rundown,” which is a Scientology religious
ritual, is at the heart of the program. Hubbard invented the process,
which includes large dosing of niacin, sweating in a sauna and ingesting
cooking oil.

The Fireman’s Union ultimately dumped the project and the chief medical
officer for FDNY Dr. Kerry Kelly said, “The essence of their program is
you stay in it until you suddenly wake up and say, “I feel great. It’s
hard to have faith in a program like that.”

Kelly concluded that there is no "objective evidence" to support the
claims made by the project.

The usually sharp, well informed and at times cynical Garofalo is
typically more skeptical. But she did this show without her Internet
savvy researcher/wingman Sam Seder.

CultNews has witnessed firsthand as a guest on "Majority Report" how
this team works with Seder hovering over his laptop grabbing information
through the Internet while Garofalo gets in the zingers.

Janeanne Garofalo’s guest was Scientologist Leah Remini, star of "King
of Queens," a supporter of the New York detox project. She brought along
Jim Woodworth and Joe Higgins.

CultNews reported in 2003 that Woodworth ran HealthMed of California,
which like the "New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project" has a
history of controversy, as reported by the LA Times in a series of
articles.

I guess I’ll wrap it there. There’s a moral to this story. I learned it the hard way. It’s truly, very sad how long it took me to catch this. There’s absolutely 0 ways to pass a drug test that is fool-proof, and none that I’ve found work at all! Except one…..

……

…..

……

DON’T FUCKING DO THEM! Have a wonderful week, being free.

CONGRATULATIONS, JULIAN ASSANGE AND FAMILY!

Jordan Lee Canter, Editor-in-Chief, Declaration of War Liberty