It was spring 2007 in the year of our Lord when my reign on “the inside” finally crumbled. What is “the inside” you ask? Well, for lack of better descriptions, clinical research; guinea pig stuff; getting paid to take non-FDA approved drugs. It’s a lucrative business if you know the market well enough, and I’m not talking about the pharmaceutical part. Everyone is getting one form or another of that. No, I’m talking about the stuff we’re not allowed to have in here. I set up a ring that could get my fellow patients anything they wanted. If you had possession of any contraband chances were they came from me, or my ground crew took it and I sold it back to you for a significant markup. Everyone was involved from security, paramedics, nurses (technicians), lunch ladies, all the way down to the shuttle driver. When the tech sting was initiated to bring us down, the clinic lost 2/3 of its employees. It’s been almost three years since “The Great Phlebotomy Crash” that sent the suits to their knees when they no longer had enough people to draw blood to get the findings necessary to submit for government approval. If you’re wondering who I am, we go by initials in here. I guess they feel it dehumanizes us enough to maintain order now. I am Study Volunteer #116 of the Yellow T-shirts, T.A.R.
The repercussions were real, and now that I’m back, the plan is to fly low under the radar. I’m doing some hard time in here. Twenty-three days is no joke. The last thing I want is to draw attention to myself. Hell, I had to sneak a false number in my SSN and go by the pseudonym: Ricardo Immanuel Vasquez de Alejandro Villareal Rambeau just to get back in. You’d think they had taken a few pages from the former USSR. I swear this place is run by a bunch of Red Ruskies spreading their totalitarian regime under the propaganda of commie equality. Before, I had created the perfect empire modeled after the champions of industry on the outside. I paid doctors off fair and square, attended the right board game “fun fundraiser”parties and left good feedback in the survey boxes for the pundits I knew had a shot to apply our ideals in public offices; they remember stuff like that, and hey, let’s just say the kickbacks were nice. The juice box subsidies were just what we needed to get an edge on rival competitors come snack time. It was feast or famine, and anyone who ran with me dined well beyond their means. Who do these people think they are now to redistribute my corrupt efforts to all patients? The system is still severely flawed though.
Now, territories have been divvied for power over the shower stall with the best water pressure, the seat next to the only window in the study room, control over the pool table in the game room, and of course, access to the one remote that controls both TV rooms. I suppose the idea was to give a little to each group, rather than run the risk of the unilateral vertical operations I was running happening again. Whatever. The only way to attain status is to quite simply state it these days. All day inmates, excuse me, patients are claiming how many studies they’ve done here, but they’re all fresh faces to me. Everything was going great. I kept my head down, grew a beard and spoke to no one until the streak finally broke. I blew my cover by doing the worst thing possible, saying some funny shit.
It seems a nurse had gotten flustered that someone presumably was going to be late to their procedures. Without calling for him she went straight to the loud speaker. He had been right next to her. Embarrassed, she tried to say that she merely liked hearing her voice over the intercom. I interjected in his defense explaining that some people just had the right face for radio. The pretty phlebotomist didn’t find this to be ironically humorous. Nor did I when she jabbed me to the tendon on my ensuing blood draw demanding to know: who I was, if it were my first time and why she didn’t recognize me.
Knowing my $5800 was now in jeopardy, the race was on to rebuild alliances before I get out in less than a week. Fortunately, I get around like the plague, and the residing lunch lady, as we'll call her, is a former flame. Let's just say she's helped me acquire certain things; necessary things. Trickle down theory was a load of crap anyway, I admit it, and we’ve been working together from the ground up to spare my tainted name in time to get out and get paid. Yessir, it’s been quite eventful in here, or might all of this just be the drugs talking? My memory’s a little hazy. To these bizarre beans: we know who we are...
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