“Hey, Hattie?” Pete said over the phone. “I was hoping I’d catch you. Are you guys at home?”

  “Sure, honey,” a gravelly voice replied. “We’ll be here all day!”

  Pete had made the call, leaving the gun range earlier that morning.

  A call to forfeit a piece of his soul.

  He knew Hattie Blalock through Donald, one of the kids on his caseload that happened to live on her property. Hattie was a seasoned criminal with her fingers in many “pies”. Most notably, illicit drugs. And after the events at the range, Pete had decided to “cross the line” in the name of survival.

  Once a person has faced the very real possibility of suicide, there isn’t much of an ethical barrier when it comes to illegal drug use.

  Hattie’s homestead was a compound. Three beaten-up trailers next to a large fenced-in acre of nothing. When he parked his car in the grass, he had to squeeze in next to several other vehicles that looked like they hadn’t run in years.

  People not from the region didn’t understand the slow, grinding wheel of rural poverty. The impact on generations of good people left without resources. But Pete knew. And God forgive him, he had come to this remote place in the hills to exploit that grim reality.

  “If I don’t try something, I’m going to fucking die!” he whispered angrily, sitting in his car.

  “Is my life not worth the risk?” He asked. “I mean, look at me. I just unloaded a shotgun to keep from killing myself! And no doctor is gonna give me what I need right now. I may not be a perfect person, but this is my only chance.”

  Living off the strands of the social welfare web required a delicate balance of cooperation and sacrifice among multiple opportunistic individuals. And at Hattie’s, it was a system perfected.

  Theft, stripping copper, even prostitution. Whatever it took to bring in enough cash to keep the lights on, or … feed addictions.

  But the true “golden ticket” was the prescriptions. Doctors on the gravy train of kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies for prescribing opioids. Hundreds of “professionals” setting aside ethics when it came to diagnosis, or even, unnecessary minor surgeries.

  “I didn’t think we were gonna see you till next week, sweetie,” Hattie said as Pete climbed out of his car. “Donald’s not even here.” She was short, heavyset, walked with a limp.

  A ruse hiding the capacity of a wily and dangerous individual.

  “Oh no, that’s okay,” He interrupted. “I actually just needed to talk to you.”

  Hattie stopped and looked at him curiously, brushing her stringy red hair from her eyes. “Okay. What can I do for you? Paperwork? Because you know I talked to your office already abo – ”

  “No, no, it's not that,” he interrupted her again. “Actually, it's about me. I . . .” It was at this point that Pete fully realized what he was doing. He hesitated, one last time, reflecting on his situation.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “God,” he thought to himself, “compromising my career, buying drugs from a criminal, so that I can keep lying to my wife. Yep.” He admitted, in disgust. “I’m a real hero.”

  But he’d gone too far to turn back now. So, he accepted his fate, allowing the humiliation to settle on his conscience as he descended into “their world.”

  “Hattie,” he finally said. “My… ribs have been killing me for the past month, and I… can’t get in to see my doctor for another three weeks. I remember you talked about your pain management ‘guy’ a while back. Do you happen to have… any extra pills that I could buy off you?”

  Hattie’s entire demeanor immediately changed. No longer playing the responsible matriarch; even her limp disappeared. She straightened her posture and, without missing a beat, stated quickly, “Vicodin is five dollars a pill.”

  It happened so fast.

  Pete always knew she put on a show for the courts and other agencies. Though, the quickness with which she went from “grandma” to “drug dealer” was more than a little scary.

  He tried to appear as relaxed as possible. He had brought a hundred in cash. “I’ll take twenty if you’ve got ’em,”

  “Steph!” Hattie yelled at the main trailer, and a girl who looked no older than nineteen emerged from the door. “Get my purple bag!”

  The young girl disappeared briefly and then returned, carrying a child’s purple backpack. Before she had even handed it to Hattie, Pete could hear its contents rattling inside.

  If the price she’d quoted him was standard, that purple backpack was worth thousands of dollars. She muttered, rifling through pill bottles. “Here!” she pulled one out with the word “oxycodone” printed on it. “Twenty count! That’s perfect!” she said as she looked at it. “Sweetie, have you ever taken these before?”

  “Yep,” Pete lied. “I had a shoulder thing a few years ago. Pretty sure I remember how it works.”

  Then, taking the money from his pocket and exchanging it for the pills, mercifully …it was done.

  “Tell Donald I’ll see him next Wednesday,” he shouted as he thanked her and walked back to the car.

  “Three days?!” He hissed, once out of earshot. “Not even three days! What the hell happened to me?!”

  It occurred to him in that moment of failure, how easily a person could get to such a point. Where a lack of resources left only “self-medication” through drugs and alcohol despite the danger it might bring into a home.

  “I’m so sorry, Natalie.” He said as he drove away.

  “Thank God nobody knows I’m here.”

  6E+24

  “So, he falls,” Gabriel stated plainly. “Despite his moments of courage, he ultimately falls like anyone else.” He sounded disappointed. “I was hoping for... more.”

  Raphael was likewise disheartened by what he had witnessed from Pete at Hattie’s. “I know.” he admitted, “But many fall, Gabriel. Especially when they're in danger.”

  “Yes,” Gabriel acknowledged. “It's just that I foolishly assumed we would have seen something by now that would shock us into action. Something definitive, a concrete reason to intervene. Something... worthy. But This isn’t heroism, Raphael. It’s not even unique!”

  “He’s focused on the short term,” Raphael countered, acting as apologist on Pete’s behalf. “He’s trying to survive the next few hours rather than days at this point.”

  “Is that how we justify it, now?” Gabriel asked. “Survival? I’ve seen plenty willingly face their own end rather than compromise what they know to be right.”

  Gabriel had spoken truth, and Raphael, frustrated, had no argument. He ran his hands through his dark hair, feeling the exhaustion of following Pete’s life during these early days.

  “He has to be better.” Raphael decided silently. “For himself. For his wife. He just has to.” It was then that his thoughts returned to Natalie Bishop. “He’s always stronger when she’s with him.”

  6E+24