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
Of 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.