Debbie parked her car in the dirt driveway and got out. She knocked on the door, once a cheerful red like the color of her car it was now a dirty brown with a few flecks of red paint still hanging on here and there. She knocked with a firm, strong knock and she was greeted by Grandpa Jerry, Loretta, and three young children. Everyone looked really happy to see her. The kids were yelling and running around, excited by this exotic looking newcomer. There were two girls and one boy, they all seemed to be close in age. The girls were clearly a bit older, the youngest brother seemed to be about one, he was running around in a diaper with no other clothes on, screaming loudly. The two girls jumped on Debbie, one hugging on to each leg.
"Great to see you guys!" Debbie said truthfully. She was starting to feel relaxed and at home. Grandpa Jerry enveloped her in a big hug, and Debbie noticed that he was limping a bit as he walked. Concerned, she inquired as to what was happening with his leg. Jerry gestured for her to sit down on an overstuffed, overly worn Lay-Z-Boy so he could tell her the story. What Debbie heard next shocked and amazed her.
Grandpa Jerry told her a sad tale about how he got injured while he was working in the coal mind. He had pulled a muscle in his back very badly and was having a hard time keeping up with the work. He asked for physical therapy, but the company's insurance did not cover it. They said it was extravagant, time consuming, and an unproven therapy. They wanted him to do something that would work fast. They told him to visit the only doctor in all of Kermit, Dr. Lumby, and get a prescription for something that would get him back and running like his old self. So Grandpa went to Dr. Lumby, whom he had never liked (something about Lumby's demeanor and his big, shit eating grin always turned Grandpa off). Dr. Lumby, with one of his typical big, fake smiles, wrote out a prescription for oxycodone. Oxycodone, Dr. Lumby explained, is a semisynthetic opiod synthesized from the Persian poppy. It was used for the relief of moderate to severe pain, and was an old standby in the pain management business, having been developed during the interwar period in Germany. It was a narcotic, and it was stronger than hydrocodone, which could be used for things as simple as a bad cough. Grandpa asked if there were any side effects and Dr. Lumby assured him that the drug was perfectly safe. "You will be feeling better in no time. In fact, you will be feeling better than better! You will be feeling positively euphoric. I promise it!" He nudged Grandpa with his elbow, causing Grandpa to yell out in pain. "Oops," Dr. Lumby said meekishly, "I forgot you are feeling sore. Well, pop one of those babies I prescribed you and in no time you will be fine."
Dr. Lumby was right. Grandpa had gone over to the Good Buddy, had an old fashioned egg cream while he waited, and before he knew it he was given a brand new orange bottle of oxycodone pills. He popped one and boy did Dr. Lumby get it right. Not only did his back pain suddenly seem light years away but he was also feeling really, really high. Back in the day when Grandpa had served in the army he had smoked some of that rope and gotten high as a kite, but this was even better. He didn't feel paranoid at all, nor did he feel hungry (in fact, his stomach felt just a tiny, tiny bit queasy but he was feeling too loose to pay it much mind). All the sudden he found that forty five minutes had gone by and he was just sitting slumped, staring off into the remains of his egg cream. "Whoa there, time really got away from me," Grandpa excused himself, leaving a five dollar bill on the table.
He went back to work the next day and the oxycodone got him through his day just fine. But he found himself wanting to take a little bit extra on most days and after a week had passed his pain was starting to come back. Dr. Lumby was happy to up his dose a bit, but the insurance wouldn't cover the increase. Grandpa was forced to pay the difference himself out of pocket. This same cycle went on and on and before he knew it Grandpa Jerry found himself broke. He couldn't afford his pain medicine anymore and his work performance began to plummet. Not only was Grandpa Jerry in pain, he was dope sick. He was mean and grumpy and wobbly. He took a swing at a coworker one day, fell flat on his ass, and for reasons he could never explain, as a grown man he began to sob. He was laid off and went home to try to sweat it out, but he just couldn't beat the thing. He fell down sick, sicker than he had ever been in his whole life, throwing up nonstop, fevers and chills, pain and spasms, and not to mention the intense, intense anxiety. It was too much to bear. He was addicted, and the monkey on his back was a big, nasty one.
Without any insurance coverage, Grandpa was forced to sell all of his stuff: his tools went first, then his furniture, and finally his car. After that he couldn't afford the medication at all. He was hitching rides to beg Dr. Lumby for more drugs, but Lumby told Grandpa he could prescribe him all the oxycodone in the world, but if Grandpa couldn't pay for it those paper slips meant nothing. He suggested that Grandpa could work for the drugs, however. He told Grandpa that he got lots and lots of sample packs from the distributor of the drug. If Grandpa could bring him new clients who wanted oxycodone prescriptions, Lumby would give him some sample packs for free. This system worked for a couple of months, but before he knew it he had run out of people. Everyone in town was addicted, and the good ol' Good Buddy had almost quadrupled in size and Dr. Lumby was driving around a brand new Jaguar.
Now, Grandpa was a nice old fellow. Looked a bit like a famous singer a lot of people loved, and so eventually someone took it upon themselves, out of the kindness of their heart, to let Grandpa in on a secret. "You might not know this Jerry, but oxycodone is basically just legal heroin. Except, heroin is way cheaper," his informant laughed. Grandpa pondered it for some time. "Legal heroin, huh? Well no wonder I got so addicted," he chuckled.
He knew what he had to do. Grandpa Jerry decided to get into the heroin business. Not to make money or take advantage of people, he just wanted to deal enough to cover his own habit and pay some of the bills so Loretta and the kids could live comfortably.
Debbie was listening to this story with disbelief. "And the kids… where did they come from? Are they your kids, Loretta?"
Loretta shook her head no. "Nope, these kids are Cousin Helen and her husband's Bob's. But like a lot of people in this town, they died of an overdose. Either oxycodone or heroin, who can really tell which one. It is actually a very common story in this town. Some people get all doped up, drink a bottle of moonshine, and end up dead. Others of them they just overdose and stop breathing. That was the case for Helen and Bob. It may have been a purposeful overdose though. They had a bad habit and were spending at least two hundred bucks a day between the two of them. They were in bad and they were up to their eyeballs in debt. Sad as it is to say, it may have seemed like an easy way out. I love these kids to death and I am sorry to see them orphans. But that is just how it is like in this small town. We have all been completely devastated while Good Buddy and Dr. Lumby get rich. I mean, you saw Kermit when you were driving in. It's nothing like it used to be. Good Buddy only takes cash now, and I am sure they don't pay taxes on any of it. They will bargain with the local dope fiends, which is now just about all of the town over the age of fifteen, and sell them whatever they can afford. You know a lot of people around here are poor and illiterate anyway. But what is going on is horrible. Just because the people of Kermit are poor doesn't mean they deserve to die!" Loretta hugged the three children close to her, tears streaming down her eyes.
"What's worse," Grandpa Jerry continued, "is that now that the supply at Good Buddy is getting so expensive and people are getting sharp to how cheap plain old heroin is, a lot of unscrupulous characters have moved into Kermit. Real sketchy drug dealers from out of town. Talk in different accents and they all have guns on em. I am terrified to keep peddling my own wares, but how on earth am I going to keep caring for my family? I'm not a bad guy, I feel like I got trapped in this."
Debbie's head was spinning. She couldn't believe any of this. Everything had just come together to create this perfect, crazy shit storm and Kermit was dead center in the eye of the storm. Something really bad was happening, had happened, to this town, and Debbie couldn't
help but think of the car chase she and Beth had been in and all those tablets of oxycodone that had spilled out of the trunk.
That night, after they had shared a nice meal together and sat around the living room playing card games with the kids—real sweet kids, it broke Debbie's heart thinking that their parents had offed themselves after draining their pocketbooks on dope—Debbie went to the guest room where she was sleeping and took out her cell phone to make a call to her boss, Harriet, the richest lesbian in the world.
Debbie told Harriet that something fishy seemed to be going on in rural West Virginia and it involved her family. She told Harriet that she wanted some extra time off so that she could investigate what was happening. Harriet had great respect for Debbie and she had no problem with letting her do some independent sleuthing, especially when it involves family. She told Debbie to take as long as she needed and wished her and her family well.
When Debbie hung up the phone, she made one final call before heading to bed. She rang up Beth and told her that she wanted to speak with her in person about some extremely suspicious happenings in the town of Kermit. Beth, happy to hear from Debbie and welcome to any possible lead in her investigation, promised to be there the next day.
Chapter 6, Looking Around
Susan had been on the job for two weeks now and it was easy as pie. Better yet, it was like taking candy from a baby. Not only were all the people she dealt with in West Virginia incredibly friendly, but they welcomed her with open arms, and sometimes even with gifts. It was the type of super cushy, super easy dream job she had always wanted to have. It was way, way easier than selling Vieeg-gro, and she was raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in small towns all throughout West Virginia.
She had followed a strict game plan, meeting clients and taking orders starting in the northern part of West Virginia in Morgantown, moving down I-79 through Fairmount, Clarkburg, and Charlestown, and then heading West into Huntington. From there she moved south into Mingo county. She was surprised to find in the small, poverty stricken towns in Mingo that she was getting the biggest sales of all. Bigger than anywhere else in the state. She had been feeling pretty good when she was following the big highways and hitting some of the major towns in the northern region on the state, but as she got to Mingo she was seeing more and more poverty. Buildings were vacant, businesses shut down. Unemployment was rampant. It was a sad scene to see, but she knew she couldn't feel any guilt. Once you let the guilt creep in you were a fish in a barrel just waiting to be shot. But still, there was some sort of emotion creeping up the back of her mind. After all, she had so much, and these people were so incredibly poor. How on earth could they afford all this medication? All these pills that were making her so rich…?
Chapter 5, Spreading the Joy
Beth arrived the next day in Kermit as promised and she met Debbie and her family. She was really glad for the closeness she felt, getting to know Debbie in such an intimate way. She was sure Debbie would never have allowed her this peek into her private life unless something really serious was going on, though, and that kept her a little bit more sober than giddy. With all of her FBI background busting drug rings, it was not difficult for Beth to quickly put the puzzle pieces together as to what was going on under Grandpa Jerry's roof. She had seen the type of clientele that were showing up at his place before. Poor dope fiends bringing a pair of designer jeans or a power tool that they had stolen from some rube and hoping to trade it for a small bump of dope. Anything to keep them going. She didn't have a problem with it and she wasn't about to bust Debbie's grandpa for peddling dope. She just looked the other way. Grandpa Jerry was making far less money than the pharmaceutical company that was the target of her investigation.
Debbie and Beth conferred with each other about what the best plan of action would be to figure out how all this oxycodone got into Kermit. They settled on doing a little undercover work. The both of them stuck out like sore thumbs in Kermit and the whole town was already on high alert to the fact that there were two hot bombshells that looked like some kind of professionals at Grandpa Jerry's house. They weren't going to be able to get much done in Kermit. But Debbie had discovered that Good Buddy Pharmacy had gotten so much money recently that it had expanded into a chain. There were eight Good Buddy stores scattered throughout Mingo County, and Debbie thought visiting some of these dressed down in disguise was a good place to start.
Loretta helped dress the women up like locals. She lent them some of her clothing, a pair of ripped jeans and a striped tube top for Debbie and some spandex leggings with a wild pattern and an oversized black zip-up hoodie for Beth. She tousled their hair, did their makeup in the Mingo style: no foundation or powder; dark, clumpy black mascara coupled with thick black eyeliner; and over-applied lipstick in a shade so bright it was nearly offensive. "Now you guys look like you have lived here your whole lives," Loretta laughed. The kids clapped and giggled. There were hugs all around, and then Beth and Debbie headed off in Loretta's old truck.
Their first stop was the town of Lenore. There was a thriving Good Buddy store at the center of the town, which in others ways resembled Kermit. Lenore was on Route 65, just 8 miles east of Kermit. Along with the Good Buddy, there were few stores open. A greasy spoon ice cream shop selling some home made goodies at prices that seemed just a wee bit high. A lot of dope fiends walking the street in their zombie shuffle. And that was about it. No one even looked twice at Beth and Debbie, they fit right in. Just what they had been hoping. They walked into the Good Buddy store and went to the back pharmacy counter. There were a few people seated around the pharmacy waiting on their prescriptions. Beth went up to the pharmacist on duty and asked if she could have a private moment. The pharmacist agreed, and Beth confided to her that she had been getting beat up by her boyfriend on the regular and was starting to have a lot of pain in one of her legs after he hit her with a hammer. "I don't have a prescription or anything, to be honest, I am scared if I went to the doctor he would want to press charges against my man. But I am really hurting and I was hoping you might be able to provide me something for my pain?" The pharmacist nodded sympathetically and told her that for forty bucks she could give her something that would make her feel better. Beth told her she only had twenty to her name and the pharmacist agreed and handed over a 30 mg instant release pill. The same kind of pill they had found spilling out of the trunk of a wrecked car only a few days earlier. And on the pill was the imprint of Best Health Pharmaceuticals.
The same story played out in other towns in Mingo county, and even beyond the county limits. The pharmacists were selling pills to anyone, no prescription needed. Debbie tested out a doctor's office and found the doctor doling out sample packs to her, for a fee of course, no pharmacist needed! They hung around outside of one doc's office for a while and found that he was dishing out the dope even to a twelve year old kid who was faking some serious pain as a result of his braces. These people had no scruples whatsoever! All the pills they got were from the same company, Best Health, and they also noticed that the name of the Kretan family came up quite a lot surrounding the drug. The Kretan's were the owners of the Good Buddy Pharmacy chain. They had gotten their start in Kermit. Somehow, all signs were pointing to Kermit, to Good Buddy, and to Dr. Lumby.
Beth wanted to move in. She and Debbie returned to Grandpa Jerry's in Kermit with their new information in hand, ready to hear from the FBI what the next move should be. But to their chagrin, when Beth appraised her superior of the situation, he ordered her to stay put. She protested that these places needed to be shut down. After all, the death toll by overdose in West Virginia was climbing by the day. The number of overdoses had risen to an unacceptable level. If things kept going the way they were going by the end of the year the town would lose over half its population, leaving dozens of kids orphans.
"The unfortunate thing about all this, Beth," her boss informed her, "is that these are perfectly legal operations. This Dr. Lumby's background check is fine and his medic
al license is up to date. He has every right to prescribe drugs. He is not committing a crime. And as for the Good Buddy chain, well, I agree no one should be selling over the counter but I am going to need more proof and bigger charges than what you are bringing me. You can't just move in on legal businesses on such scant evidence. This is America and we are a capitalist country. The right to free enterprise is a cherished value. The FBI can't just go sticking their noses in that. Not if we want to maintain our good reputation."
Debbie and Beth felt defeated. They needed more proof, that was the only way.
Chapter 6, Sparkles
Several days later, Debbie and Beth were continuing their search for evidence when they happened to walk smack dab into the middle of a heated conversation Joe Gleason was having with Dr. Lumby.
Joe had come to Kermit to discuss the distressing situation that was developing in Kermit, which had been a sort of test case for the rest of West Virginia. The problem was that after shipments of nearly nine million pills to Good Buddy pharmacy, the insurance had stopped paying out. Not only that, but a good majority of the insured had been so doped out that they lost their jobs and their benefits along with it. It had not been hard to move all those million of pills in a town of four hundred, but times had changed. Oxycodone had lost its potential. So they were discussing the option of just offering patients heroin. Dr. Lumby would be a much more approachable drug dealer than some of the strange scum that had migrated to Kermit as if they could sniff out the desperation and opioid laden sweat of the addicts across state lines.
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