Law and Addiction

by Mike Papantonio

  “He’s set some pretty stringent ground rules for the hearing,” Paul said.

  Sargent had informed the lawyers that the ARCOS hearing would be conducted over the course of one day. Both sides would be allowed two witnesses; those witnesses couldn’t be questioned or cross-examined for more than forty-five minutes.

  229 / M i k e P a p a n t on io “I like our odds when it comes to brevity,” said Deke. “Nathan Ailes likes the sound of his voice too much to ever be brief. I also like it that we’ll be arguing our case in Ohio, which is pretty much where the opioid epidemic began.”

  “Have you decided on which other witness you’ll want on the stand?”

  “I’m reviewing every video of every deposition we’ve taken,” Deke said. “What I want is someone who will help us make our ARCOS case, as well as show the need for an MDL. Right now, I’m leaning toward calling one of the retired DEA investigators.”

  They’d already decided that Paul should interview Carol Morris on the stand. Her law enforcement experience and her familiarity with opioid trafficking would make her an expert witness. Carol’s testimony would be important in detailing the workings of the “OxyExpress”—the route of illegal opioid distribution that extended from New York to Florida. Through questioning, she would demonstrate to the court that the opioid epidemic extended far beyond Ohio and West Virginia. That would justify the need for an MDL and make their case for getting possession of opioid distribution figures from ARCOS.

  “I’ll focus on identifying what we need to hammer on during the cross-examination,” said Paul. “It’s too bad we don’t know who Jazz Hands will be calling as witnesses.”

  “He’ll probably want to put his best liars on the stand,” Deke said. “Right now, I have three likely candidates for the prize of best liar.”

  “I’m glad we took so many depositions,” said Paul.

  Deke offered up a few nods. He was a great believer in taking depositions during every stage of litigation. Time and again, people’s stories changed from one deposition to the next depending on what kinds of rulings were coming from various judges—a clear sign that the opposition was coaching its witnesses to say whatever they thought would have the most sway with the court.

  “It’s too bad we couldn’t put up a graphic showing the spoon-fed verbatim responses of every drug distributor employee we deposed,” said Paul.

  “Yeah,” said Deke, “the only time you hear that kind of uniformity in talking points is when everyone has read the same memo. For our purposes, though, that couldn’t be better. The more Ailes’s witnesses spout the company line, the easier time I’ll have predicting what they’ll say and how to best respond.”

  Deke found himself smiling.

  “What?” Paul asked.

  “I love liars,” Deke said. “In a strange way, they make my job fun.”

  30

  THE SHADOW JURY

  Ever since thinking that he’d heard Blake’s voice, Jake had gained a newfound determination to escape. He’d tried to be more mindful of Screech’s comings and goings in the hope of anticipating his movements. Although Jake hadn’t been awake to witness the delivery, three days ago he’d been left a change of clothes, some hand towels, baby wipes, an additional sleeping mat, DEET, and two gallons of bug juice along with some food that was nearly gone. Screech’s visits seemed to be defined by how long the food and drink lasted, which meant that Jake was being monitored.

  Jake had always prided himself on having iron willpower. In college and law school he’d thought nothing about pulling all-nighters. In high school he’d been an undersized and underweight defensive end on the football team, giving up as many as fifty pounds to those he lined up against. He’d never been a star player, but his brains and his will had often found ways to prevail against the opposing team’s brawn.

  Odysseus’s lotus-eaters had lost all their free will to the plant’s overwhelming charms. Jake was still trying to hold out from complete capitulation. That’s why at this moment his lips were parched;

  231

  he was trying to resist drinking from the drugged jugs unless absolutely necessary. It was his stubbornness, more than anything else, that sustained him. And the sensation of his brother being there encouraged him. That gave him the will to fight, even after his long captivity. Finally, he’d come up with a plan that he hoped was viable. Over the last few days, he’d been making preparations that had required some privations on his part. Based on his almost exhausted supplies, Jake was betting that Screech would be showing up tonight. Only then would Jake find out if his sacrifices had been worth it.

  But as exciting as the prospect of escape was, Jake also felt a tug of fear. Getting free might require him to be without any bug juice for a time.

  From inside his cage, Jake did a set of exercises. He needed to maintain as much strength as possible. After his workout, he started in on his daily mental exercise: he imagined he was presenting his opioid case alongside Paul and Deke. Work made him focus, sharpening his fuzzy mind. He knew that if he ever had the chance to participate in a trial, he would need to allow his anger and his sadness and his true sense of compassion for addicts like Blake to be tangible for the judge and jury.

  At least his opioid usage hadn’t completely dulled his passions, Jake thought. Deke had once suggested that, depending upon the case, it might be good for Jake to open by telling the story of his involvement in the lawsuit and why it was so important to him.

  Of course, he also remembered Deke lecturing him that there were evidentiary limitations on what he could and couldn’t say about his personal experiences, but for now Jake didn’t have to worry about that.

  “Ultimately it doesn’t matter if the case will be heard by a judge or by a jury,” Deke had said. “Neither wants smoke and mirrors. They want substance, and they want the truth. What they’ll want is a story they can relate to, and that’s what you have. When the time comes, we’ll try to push the limits on what’s actually allowable in your opening statement, but you’ll see that the simpler your talk is, the better it will be received, warts and all. I know you feel guilty for not being there for Blake. Go ahead and admit that. And it will be all right for you to be mad at Blake as well. He shouldn’t have died like he did. You’ll be representing thousands and thousands of people who experienced the same heartbreak and anger and outrage for so many injustices inherent in this epidemic.”

  In Jake’s long solitude, Deke’s words were making more and more sense. Jake looked around and took stock of his imaginary courtroom. Intellectually, he knew that Deke was right to say the case was about the economic devastation of counties and cities caused by the opioid epidemic. It had nothing to do with making the Big Three admit that their actions had ultimately killed Blake, even if that’s the message Jake would take from a victory. In court the entire trial would need to focus on the analysis of lost money rather than the loss of so many human lives. But this was his cage . . . and his soapbox. He was alone in a forest, and he needed to speak words that comforted him at this moment. Later he could worry about the realities of a courtroom—and what was allowed and what wasn’t.

  Because his prison was too small for him to stand, he turned his shoulder and head, pausing here and there to make eye contact with his imaginary assemblage of people.

  After acknowledging the judge with a nod, Jake took a measured breath and said, “One week before I was due to graduate from the West Virginia University School of Law, my twin brother, Blake, died of an opiate overdose. I’m told a doctor called me with this news, but to this day I don’t remember anything about that call. It was like someone just turned off the lights in my head and left me in darkness.

  “What you need to understand is that all my early memories involve Blake. It wasn’t my childhood, it was our childhood. The two of us did everything together, from eating birthday cake to riding tricycles. Blake was always there at my side. We grew up as wombmates, we used to tell people. I never had to go find a best friend; B
lake was my best friend from the day we were born. And, yes, he was the older brother. How he loved to lord those twenty minutes over me. ‘Little brother,’ he would often call me, or, ‘Young Jake.’ I’m smiling now just thinking about it. That was Blake. From the first, he staked out his position as class clown. Since I knew I couldn’t compete in that arena, I pretended to be the class brain. I’m confident, had he wanted, that Blake could have staked his claim to that title as well. Everything always came intuitively to him.

  “When I went off to college, Blake held down the homestead. By then our parents had died. My family had lived in West Virginia for generations, and that was something Blake held on to. So, when I was told the person that I was closest to in this world was dead, I couldn’t comprehend that loss. And when I learned how he died, it seemed that much more incomprehensible. I was sure Blake was too smart to do drugs. After all, he was an athlete and strong and only twenty-five years old.

  “I needed answers as to what had happened, because Blake’s death made absolutely no sense to me. That’s when I started asking questions. But each question I asked was like pulling at a loose thread on your sweater, and then pulling another, and before you know it, ending up with a pile of yarn. There were always more questions. How is it that pill mills seemed to spring up overnight all over West Virginia? How is it that drugs that were supposed to be carefully controlled were handed out like candy there? How did Big Pharma mastermind the lie that opioids were not addictive? And how is it that over the course of time the treatment of pain management changed in such a way that so-called normal prescriptions all but guaranteed addiction?

  “The poet Sir Walter Scott wrote these lines: Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. This country’s three major drug distributors are responsible for the distribution of more than ninety percent of the opioids. Over the course of this trial, you will see all the tangled webs woven by these drug distributors. You will see how these Fortune 25 companies conspired and plotted and are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. They unleashed poison upon the land, and that poison was such a contagion that hometowns all over West Virginia are now swaths of wasteland.

  “This case was always personal for me. This case was always about my brother, Blake. His death—no, his murder—is why I am here. I don’t hide the fact that I am here for revenge. When I speak, I hope you hear more than my own voice. I hope you also hear Blake, and the thousands who no longer have voices. My journey has brought me to this place to speak to you. Blake’s story can finally be heard.”

  As Jake finished with his imaginary opening remarks, it was as if he could hear Deke offering up his critique. “There was great power in that statement, Jake, but ninety percent of what you just argued would not be admissible in the case we are actually trying.”

  Still, he wished he had a tape recorder so that he could practice delivering the words that gave him so much comfort. To hell with the economic losses to the cities of West Virginia. He wanted his words to go to the thousands of mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers who had lived through real pain that could never be measured by dollars and cents.

  There, thought Jake. He wished that could have been the real focus of his lawsuit. Later, Jake chewed on an apple and then took a measured swallow of the doctored bug juice. All his talking had been thirsty work, and he was feeling more tired than he would have wished. That’s what happens when you become an addict, he thought. It eats away your reserves and takes a toll on your body. If he wanted to continue working, he needed a boost. Raising a jug of bug juice, Jake swallowed a large gulp.

  “Short-term coping,” he said, rationalizing to an unseen audience. “This is what happens when you have to deal with increased dopamine neuronal activity.”

  The bad thing about having studied addiction was that Jake was aware of his own symptomology as it was developing. He knew the depressing realities of opioid addiction. Even after he quit the opioids, it took the average addict up to three years before their dopamine levels returned to normal.

  “And those that suffer from low dopamine levels,” Jake said to his unseen jury, “have to deal with mood swings, depression, and chronic fatigue, as well as the inability to concentrate.”

  What he refused to consider, at least for the moment, were the long-term consequences of recovery. How would he be able to do trial work if he was depressed, tired, and unable to concentrate?

  To stave off sleep while he waited for darkness to fall, Jake thought about the things that were important in his life. On the personal front, Anna dominated his thoughts. He’d been pretty sure, even before his abduction, that he was falling in love with her. In her presence he felt helpless, and not in control; he felt captive to her moods and what she said. All these feelings were unique in his experience; he had never felt them with anyone before. Truth to tell, he hadn’t even known such feelings were possible.

  It was a terrible time to fall in love. He was supposed to be there for Anna’s recovery. That in itself was reason enough to avoid becoming involved. Addiction muddied thinking and emotions. As complicated as their love had been, the dynamics were even crazier now. Even if Jake escaped his jail, he would return home an addict himself.

  Over the course of history, he wondered, how many other couples had found love amid the ruins? There was always some calamity going on, or some plague or some war, and yet love found a way. Jake didn’t know if it would this time, but he offered up a silent prayer for the two of them to be able to navigate all the travails that came their way.

  By now the sun had fully set, so once again Jake went over his preparations. There were any number of ways his plan could go wrong. Success would need more than its share of luck.

  At least it was a cloudy night. That was a start. The less visible he was to Screech, the better.

  It was important that he position his body just so. Screech always injected him around his hip. During previous injections, Screech had taken into account that Jake was wearing clothing. His pole syringe allowed him the safety of injecting from a distance. That was one of its advantages.

  Jake was counting on its disadvantages.

  Afraid of being monitored, he had positioned the tarp so that he could work on his preparations without being seen. He had rationed much of the food that Screech had brought, and now used it for a purpose other than eating.

  The bread he’d chewed up, making it into a paste. He applied the doughy material to his backside and hip, and then ripped off strips from one of his layered shirts. Jake tied the shirting around his backside and hips and then stuffed boiled russet potatoes inside the cloth. Between the paste, potatoes, and strips of fabric, he had more than an inch of padding. He camouflaged the lumps by covering up with a blanket, and then settled into a supine position where he did his best not to move. Jake didn’t know if a boiled russet potato had the same kind of consistency as piercing through flesh, but if he was lucky, Screech would plunge his pole syringe into one of the potatoes and not notice the difference.

  All this time in captivity, thought Jake, and that’s the best plan I can come up with. If it didn’t work, he would sink further into addiction. There’d probably come the point not too far down the road when he would stop even caring about escape.

  But he wasn’t at that point yet.

  Jake put the focus of all his five senses into one. He didn’t move as he monitored the sounds of the night. Finally, he made out what he believed to be the coughing motor of a distant vehicle. If he was right, Screech was only about a ten-minute walk away.

  Don’t think about the plan, he told himself. Don’t think about anything. He was probably just being superstitious, but he was afraid of putting any vibe out there for Screech to glom onto. He did his best to keep totally still and think only benign thoughts.

  Finally, Jake heard Screech’s approach. His captor was quiet, but not silent, revealing himself with muffled footsteps. Not far from his cage, Jake could hear a bag being placed on the groun
d. Then he listened to the faint tread of footsteps circling the cage.

  That wasn’t the only thing Jake heard. In the nearby woods, he could hear the unmistakable sound of a shovel digging into the earth.

  Someone other than Screech was there. And that someone was digging a hole.

  Jake’s heart was pounding. It took all his willpower to keep his breath steady. He could think of only one reason for midnight spadework. His grave was being dug.

  He heard a can being moved; its contents were unmistakable, filling the night air with the unmistakable scent of benzene. Before Jake’s burial, they were planning on a cremation. Out of the frying pan into the fire, thought Jake. He prayed that they weren’t planning to burn him alive. Jake continued playing possum, keeping his breathing regular and steady. He wanted it to appear that he was experiencing a deep slumber.

  “Jeezus,” whispered a voice. “This ain’t right. I’m like Punch-us Pilot. I said it wasn’t no fault of his. But they said he had to be kilt. I tol’ them there’d be no blood unto my hands. Jeezus knows that to be true.”

  Screech stopped talking long enough for Jake to hear a muted clang. Was he readying the pole syringe? Out in the woods the shovel work continued. Closer to Jake, there was a slight rustling sound, and he felt one of the potatoes being pushed into his hip. Jake was glad the potatoes had been slightly underboiled. The pressure on his hip continued until he heard the click of the plunger, and then the needle and pole were withdrawn.

  Jake held his breath. If his plot was going to be discovered, now was the likely time. He was afraid the syringe was now coated in a starchy substance and that Screech might notice that.