Nick Reding (25 page)

“You know,” said Loya, “I’m sympathetic to big business. I’m not trying to make things hard for them. I just say to CVS via
the lobbyists, ‘Look, your clerks are in cahoots with crooks. We’re going to take them down, and you’ll look bad. Do you really
want your company to look like a criminal organization?’ ” Loya paused. “I say that, and I try to stay calm while freaking
houses are blowing up in Jefferson County. But I can’t stay calm anymore. So then I just yell.”

A few days before we spoke, Loya told me, he’d had a meeting with the vice president of NARCS. Loya listened while the man
reiterated that clerks and pharmacists in the employ of CVS and Rite-Aid aren’t police officers. They should not, said the
NARCS vice president, be expected to tell customers that they can’t buy cold medicine. If someone was shoplifting, the man
wanted to know, would the clerk apprehend, cuff, and jail the shoplifter? No—he’d call the police, as he should. And anyway,
he went on, the pharmacies aren’t legally obligated to do anything more than what they’re doing. Drugs and drug manufacturers
are police business, not theirs. The Combat Meth Act makes that very clear, he told Loya.

“After all these years, and all these meetings, and all these conferences,” said Loya, “I started to do something that I’ve
never, ever done: I started to get up and walk out. Midsentence. It was like I just . . .” Here Loya paused. His first street
buy, as a twenty-year-old agent with the California BNE, in San Francisco in 1968, was meth. He’s been contending with it
ever since. “It was like,” he went on, “something finally broke.”

But Loya didn’t get up to leave. He remained seated. Then he stopped listening. He let the vice president talk, and he tried
not to hear a word of what he said, instead summoning all the patience he could muster from the deepest reaches of his soul.
Finally, said Loya, the man’s mouth stopped moving. That’s when Loya started to explain, one more time.

In April 2008, Nathan Lein was elected to the Oelwein city council. He won, said Clay Hallberg, in a landslide. The Ninth
Ward, where Nathan lives in a small white house across the street from a former meth lab, is no longer just his home—it’s
now his charge, too. In May, Major graduated from community college in In dependence with a degree in machinery repair. Bob,
the leader of the Sons of Silence, was arrested along with his daughter—Major’s ex-girlfriend, and the mother of his son,
Buck—for manufacture of methamphetamine with the intent to distribute. Bob and his daughter await sentencing. Buck’s half
sister, Caroline, is in foster care. Buck begins kindergarten in the fall.

Lori Arnold was released from the medium-security federal work camp for women in Greenville, Illinois, on June 3, 2008. She
moved to Chandler, Arizona, to live near one of her brothers. One week later, she took her first mandatory urine analysis,
to test for illegal substances in her system. She failed, and was sentenced to five years’ probation.

The last time I called Roland Jarvis, in July 2008, he was sitting in the living room of his mother’s two-bedroom house. It
had been more than three years since we had watched
Goodfellas
in that same room and Jarvis began unwinding the strands of his two-decade struggle with meth. I was glad to hear his voice,
after my calls had gone unanswered for over twelve months. At one point, I had heard a rumor that he or his ex-wife had committed
suicide.

“No,” he said, “no one’s committed suicide.”

Aside from that, it was strikes and gutters, as some people say in Oelwein: ups and downs, goods and bads. Jarvis’s middle
son had finally received a new kidney and was doing well. Jarvis’s mother, though, would be headed back to jail soon, this
time for driving drunk. His two daughters were doing well, too; one had graduated from Oelwein High that spring. He’d been
fishing with them at the town lake just the other day.

“Same old, same old,” said Jarvis.

I asked him if he was clean.

“Not really,” he said. “But I’m still here.”

When we hung up, I thought about a trip I’d taken in the summer of 2005. I was still looking for a town to write about then.
I’d been to Oelwein twice that summer, spending about a month there. I’d been driving a lot, too, dropping into towns I’d
read about in newspapers, asking people to talk to me about meth. I spent a lot of time in emergency rooms, in courtrooms,
and in county jails. One weekend, I drove five hundred miles from Kentucky to Iowa, then back again. The problem is that I
wasn’t sure what I was looking at, exactly, or even what I was looking for. So like everyone else, I went to California.

I started out in San Diego, where I met Tony Loya. Then, for a week, I drove around the Central Valley, finally ending up
in San Jose. Along the way, I tried to insinuate myself into every town with a motel vacancy. The Central Valley was just
as Steinbeck had described it: hot, flat, and dusty, the cool, distant mountains a promise, or maybe just a mirage. It felt
like Iowa in the summer, or the Dakotas, or even Missouri. I didn’t know what I was looking at when I saw how some of the
canals in the most isolated parts of the valley ran red. Later, a DEA agent told me that, in addition to providing water for
the most prolific farm country in the nation, the canals were dump sites for red phosphorus from meth superlabs hidden among
the orange and pecan groves.

At the end of that trip, I took a late-afternoon flight from San Jose to JFK Airport, in New York. Three hours after takeoff,
looking at a map in the back of an in-flight magazine, I reckoned us to be over eastern South Dakota, heading for Iowa. At
that point, the plane would have been at the nadir of its arc, where it would remain for a short while before beginning the
long, smooth descent. With the sun slanting low in our wake, the land was awash in the refracted warmth of the day’s dying
light. In the glow, and from thirty-five thousand feet, it was impossible to see the little towns below.

At that height, too, we were caught in the temporal netherworld that is specific to late-afternoon and evening transcontinental
flights. The curvature of the earth was clearly visible. Ahead, to the north and east, the air was blue and dark. Behind,
to the south and west, the air glowed red. It was truly as though the night were pushing itself across the vast contours of
the land, driving the day before it. Below us, though, in Sioux Falls and in Algona, the light, along with the notion of possibility,
remained.

Fifteen minutes later, even the largest of the land’s features began to fade as the plane moved east. My mood soured. I didn’t
want to go back to New York. Instead, I yearned to return to Missouri for the first time in years. We were too far north to
see St. Louis, so I searched for the Mississippi among the tiny, sparse points of light visible against the opaque land. At
least the river, I thought, might give me some fleeting connection to my home.

Moments later, I found what I was looking for in the growing darkness. With my eyes, I followed the glowing river north, knowing
that one of the tiny clusters of light must be Oelwein. Suddenly I knew what I was looking at, and where I needed to go.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

O
f all the people to whom I’m indebted for help in making this book possible, the people of Oelwein, Iowa, are at the top
of the list. Without their willingness to let me into their lives, and to stay embedded there—at times annoyingly, I’m sure,
like a tick—
Methland
would have never been. Nathan Lein and Clay Hallberg’s intelligence, candor, and abiding sense of humanity make them truly
remarkable people. I’m also deeply obliged to Mayor Larry Murphy for letting me watch at close range as he whittled away at
Oelwein’s troubles. In a time when the word “hero” has been overused to the point that it’s lost all meaning, Larry serves
as a reminder of what a hero looks and acts like. Thanks also to Jamie Porter, Jeremy Logan, Tammy Hallberg, Tim Gilson, Charlie
Hallberg, Alan Coffman, Jan Boleyn, and Mildred Binstock.

There are other Iowans, too, to whom I owe my deepest gratitude. Chief among them are the addicts, former addicts, and traffickers
who have let me use their stories in the making of this book. It takes tremendous courage to open one’s life to public scrutiny,
especially a life that has in some ways been defined by crime. In that capacity, I’m grateful to Roland Jarvis, who spoke
with me over the course of nearly four years in the hope that others would not fall prey to the addiction that has monopolized
his life for two decades. Thanks to Lori Arnold for the many letters she sent me from federal prison. Her willingness to talk—and
to act as a sounding board for my own understanding of meth trafficking in America—was crucial to the making of this book.
Many thanks also to the Cooper family—Joseph, Bonnie, Buck, and Thomas, a.k.a. Major—who, along with Judy Murphy, were elemental
in my understanding of how meth affects not just parents and their children, but communities. And finally, thanks to Jeffrey
William Hayes who took the time to write hundreds of pages of letters to me from Leavenworth Prison.

Tony Loya has been battling the country’s meth problem for thirty-seven years. Like Larry Murphy, Nathan Lein, and Clay Hallberg,
Tony is an indisputable—if unheralded—hero. He was also invaluable in providing insight into the trends that have de-fined
the meth epidemic since 1972, the year he made his first drug buy as a young agent with the California Bureau of Narcotics
Enforcement. If anyone will ever succeed in curtailing this epidemic, it will be Tony.

A number of state and federal narcotics agents, police officers, and sheriff’s deputies helped me a great deal, at times leveraging
their careers to do so. In that regard, I’m deeply indebted to Bill Ruzzamenti, Craig Hammer, and Rich Camps in California;
Sergeant Tom McAndrew in Iowa; Sergeant Alex Gonzalez in Alabama; and Phil Price and Sherri Strange in Georgia. Thanks also
(wherever you are) to Rudy, the meth dealer turned federal in formant whose life story was as enlightening as it was chilling.

Anton Mueller at Bloomsbury is an outstanding editor. Over the last two years, I wrote the first half of
Methland
four times before finally getting it right. Or at least before shaping it into the form in which it now stands. Though I was—to
put it politely—less than enthusiastic each time Anton read my latest effort and instructed me to start over, I’m glad now
that he held his ground. An editor with patience, a strong stomach, and an enduring passion for his author’s book is a rarity
these days indeed, and one for which I feel extremely fortunate and grateful.

Thanks also to my agent at ICM, Heather Shroder. She not only sold this book at a time when no one seemed interested in the
meth epidemic, but she also guided it through a potential disaster when the initial publisher, Houghton Mifflin, merged with
Harcourt Brace. Had Heather not found a new home for me and my book at Blooms-bury, I’m not sure what would have become of
us.

No one was more valuable in the making of this book than my mother and father. The genesis of
Methland
dates to 1999, and was defined for five years by one failure after another—all before I ever began writing. My parents’ willingness
to believe that I would succeed despite repeated setbacks stretches the bounds of comprehension. Through it all, they refused
to do anything less than support me wholeheartedly. It seems only fitting that, while reporting for this book, I got to see
for the first time the small town of Algona, Iowa, where my father was born and raised, and which he left over half a century
ago. Everywhere I went in Iowa, in fact, and among the many people I met, I caught sight of the forthright generosity of spirit
that defines my parents.

Most of all, I’d like to thank my wife, Kelly, who helped me at every stage of this process. It was she who encouraged me
to write a book proposal for
Methland
in 2005. Later that year and all through 2006, the only thing that made being away from home for weeks at a time any easier
was knowing that Kelly would be there when I got back. She was patient and kind while I wrote
Methland
, and thoughtful in her criticism as it neared completion in 2008. As a wife, a friend, and a mother to our child, she is
everything and more that I could ask for.

Finally, I’m indebted to the two residents of tiny Greenville, Illinois, who inspired this book. I met them—a white meth-addicted
felon and a black army sergeant recently home from Afghanistan—in a bar in November 2004. Over the course of several nights,
it became clear to me that two people who were so different on the surface were in fact united by circumstances beyond their
control. One of the facts of their lives was the huge sway methamphetamine held over their town. I’ll never forget the moment
when, in talking to them, I saw this story for what it is. In gratitude and in hope,
Methland
is dedicated to them.

A NOTE ON SOURCES

M
uch of
Methland
is a retelling of events as they were related to me over the course of four years by the people of Oelwein.
Interview
isn’t really a word that applies here. During the weeks and months that I spent in town, nothing was ever spoken into a tape
recorder, or written in a space below questions plotted on note cards. Rather, the people in this book shared the stories
and the facts of their lives with me at the same time that we shared the day’s events. We cooked dinner and watched movies,
drove back and forth to the grocery store, shoveled snow, and did chores around the house. They graciously permitted me to
play pool and hunt pheasants with them, go to parties and to work, eat with them in restaurants, stop by the post office on
the way to the doctor, and call on neighbors. The telling of past events unfolded simultaneously with the living out of present
circumstance, thereby—I hope—adding a depth and texture that is otherwise unattainable.

In the absence of a tape recorder or video camera, I was forever excusing myself to write notes whenever there was an appropriate
moment. Each night, I’d take these handwritten notes and expand them into scenes, while the memories remained fresh. Outside
Oelwein, too, I employed this same live-in reporting strategy whenever possible. In Independence, Iowa, the former addict
and meth cook Thomas, a.k.a. Major, preferred to talk while playing Frisbee golf, in which the players throw plastic discs
of different shapes and weights (heavier ones are “putters,” while lighter discs, because they fly farther, are “drivers”)
toward a basket affixed to a tree. When Major and I played, it allowed him to escape, however briefly, from the scrutiny of
his parents, with whom he lived. So, too, did Major’s parents seem to appreciate any chance to leave their home, where they
were not only overseeing the informal, in patient rehab of their meth-addicted son, but where they were also helping to raise
their grandchild, Buck. When I talked to Major’s parents, it was normally over lunch or a beer, preferably in a place where
they could both smoke. Seeing them briefly outside their home made clearer still the complexity of their circumstances.

A slightly different protocol guided my interaction with two former meth traffickers: Lori Arnold of Ottumwa and Jeffrey William
Hayes of Oelwein. Over the course of three years, Lori and Jeffrey William, as he prefers to be called, sent me hundreds of
pages of letters from the federal prisons where they were serving lengthy sentences. The letters detailed not just the ins
and outs of major meth production and distribution in their respective hometowns, but also the ups and downs of their lives
in prison. Even though Jeffrey William hardly appears in this book, his letters were nearly as vital as Lori’s in providing
context and detail to the rise of the modern meth epidemic—and moreover, to the causal link between the industrial meth trade
in California, Mexico, and the rural Midwest that he and Lori helped to initiate. In the end, their letters are also stories
that frame a par tic ular time in the history of rural America.

In order to give specific shape to the careers of Lori, Jeffrey William, and Major, I drew heavily on reports issued by the
U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy and the National Institutes of Drug Addiction. I also depended on international,
regional, and local methamphetamine assessments published regularly by the Drug Enforcement Administration. In addition, several
people made accessible to me information not available publicly, mostly outlining the history and present role of major Mexican
meth traffickers, along with the link between these trafficking organizations and terrorist organizations. Among the people
whom I interviewed formally on at least two occasions were Bill Ruzzamenti, the director of California’s Central Valley High-Intensity
Drug-Trafficking Area; Tony Loya, the director of the National Methamphetamine Chemical Initiative; Sherri Strange, special
agent in charge of DEA’s Southeast Region, headquartered in Atlanta; and Phil Price, former SAC of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
In May 2006, I attended a meth summit between Mexican and U.S. officials, including the attorneys general of both nations,
in Dallas. In interviews there, one government official spoke openly—in return for anonymity—about what he saw as the “direct
and conscious link between failed U.S. immigration policy and the meth epidemic.”

My contention that the economic downfall of the rural United States is attributable in large part to the consolidation of
the American food business is based on a wide range of sources. Many of those sources are the farmers and meatpacking workers
of Oelwein and Ottumwa, Iowa. Along with dozens of newspaper articles written since the beginning of the farm crisis in the
1980s, these men and women helped form the foundation of my thinking on the subject. Also of particular importance was the
work of two rural sociologists: William Heffernan at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and Douglas Constance at Sam Houston
State University in Texas. I drew heavily on Dr. Heffernan’s paper—written along with Drs. Mary Hendrickson and Paul Gronski—titled
“Consolidation in the Food and Agriculture Business,” which essentially synthesized three decades of research, the bulk of
Dr. Heffernan’s well-documented career. The input of Dr. Constance, on the other hand, came via long e-mails and phone conversations.

The work of several other sociologists was fundamental in the making of
Methland
, whether or not I had reason to cite their work in the text. Three documents of particular interest were Dr. Patricia Case’s
“A History of Methamphetamine: An Epidemic in Context,” Dr. Craig Reinarman’s book
Crack in America
, and Dr. Karen Van Gundy’s paper “Substance Abuse in Rural and Small Town America,” written at the Carsey Institute at the
University of New Hampshire.

Numerous scientists contributed greatly to the information in this book. To them I owe my understanding of meth’s chemical
properties, of the specific behavioral and psychological repercussions of meth addiction, of the biochemical effects of meth
on the human brain, and of the psychological effects of a drug epidemic not just on individuals, but on communities. Much
of the information that I accessed is available publicly, though several people in particular sent me papers in progress and
also took time to speak with me about their ongoing studies, be it in person, by e-mail, or on the phone. These include Dr.
Perry Halkitis at New York University, Dr. Rick Rawson and Dr. Tom Freese at UCLA, Dr. Sean Wells at the University of Toronto,
and Dr. Linda Chang at the University of Hawaii.

The number of archived newspaper articles on which I drew directly or indirectly while writing
Methland
fills two file drawers. These articles come from papers as geographically and demographically disparate as Allentown, Pennsylvania’s
Morning Call
and the
Fresno Bee
. Taken of a piece, the articles form one of the deepest strata on which this book rests. Of particular importance was the
three-part series “Unnecessary Epidemic” written by Steve Suo in the
Oregonian
in October 2004. Equally crucial were several pieces written between 1999 and 2003 in the
New York Times
and the
Los
Angeles Times
detailing immigration violations at meatpacking plants, particularly those that followed the story of a federal indictment
against Tyson in 2001. Pieces and series in the
Chicago Tribune
, the
San Francisco Chronicle
, the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, and the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
played important roles as well.

In the end, though, nothing is as important in
Methland
as the people. The newspapers, the science, and the research papers serve only to corroborate what I saw and what I was told
by the residents of Oelwein, Iowa. They were the ultimate source of this book, which in its simplest form is an exercise in
fitting one small American town into a broader framework of crisis. Everyone who appears in
Methland
does so by choice and with full knowledge. Without them
Methland
would be empty indeed.