Nick Reding Read Online Free Page A

working-class rural whites. In that way, the meth epidemic appeared to have neither analog nor precedent in
     any time since the Revolution.
    In truth, all drug epidemics are only in part about the drugs. Meth is indeed uniquely suited to Middle America, though this
     is only tangentially related to the idea that it can be made in the sink. The rise of the meth epidemic was built largely
     on economic policies, political decisions, and the recent development of American cultural history. Meth’s basic components
     lie equally in the action of government lobbyists, long-term trends in the agricultural and pharmaceutical industries, and
     the effects of globalization and free trade. Along the way, meth charts the fears that people have and the vulnerabilities
     they feel, both as individuals and as communities. The truly singular aspect of meth’s attractiveness is that since its first
     wide-scale abuse—among soldiers during World War II—meth has been associated with hard work. For seventy years, the drug more
     commonly referred to as crank has been the choice of the American working class. It’s in this way more than any other that
     the story of meth is the story of Oelwein, Iowa, along with that of Roland Jarvis and Tim Gilson and Jeremy Logan. It is also
     the story of the remarkable, even heroic lengths to which people and communities will go in order to fix themselves.
    Some of the deeper meanings of this drug’s hold on America had been evident back in 2004, in Greenville, Illinois. Since the
     farm crisis of the 1980s, many of the farmers there had long since foreclosed on their land. People left in large numbers.
     According to Sean and James, in nearby Hagarstown, Illinois, there is but one resident who remains. By 2004, many of the employment
     opportunities in Greenville and the surrounding area were half-time, with no benefits. Out by Interstate 70, just a couple
     hundred yards from Ethan’s Place, there were no fewer than seven major chain motels, none of which contributed more than a
     few minimum wage jobs to the town’s economy. Greenville, once a proud, vigorous farm town, now depended in part on reluctant
     passersby moving between St. Louis and Indianapolis in order to survive.
    Soon enough on the night that Sean and James played pool with each other, they were talking about job opportunities. There
     were construction gigs closer to St. Louis, in Belleville, Illinois, or even farther still, forty miles beyond the Missouri
     line, in St. Charles, sixty miles from Greenville, one way. There was a night-watch job across the street from Ethan’s at
     the Super 8, a position held at the time by a forty-year-old divorced mother of two who was heading to Chicago to try her
     luck. And there was some work at Wal-Mart. James, who’d entered the Army a grunt and left it six years later a proud staff
     sergeant, was not enthused by these options.
    Sean just laughed. He knew what he was going to do: make meth. The money was good, the drugs were good, and it garnered him
     access to all kinds of women who, once they smoked a foil or two, would do anything for more. Sean clearly didn’t give a shit
     about the consequences. The way he saw it, life in Greenville was a prison anyway. It was better to live well for a time and
     go back to jail than to pretend to make ends meet on two hundred dollars a week and no health insurance that Sean said a job
     at Wal-Mart would get him.
    That night, it was unclear whether James was buying it. But it was impossible not to wonder at what point he would start seeing
     things through Sean’s eyes. After all, they’d immediately been able to overlook their immense surface differences: black skin,
     white skin; shaved head, military crew. On a deeper level, there existed a stronger, and ultimately more enduring, foundation:
     they were united by history. Life in Greenville had, in the course of their lives, changed fundamentally. And yet here they
     were together,