| General Fiction posted February 18, 2025 | Chapters: |
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A disturbing revelation for Marie
A chapter in the book The Devil Fights Back
The Devil Fights Back - Ch. 36
by Jim Wile
The author has placed a warning on this post for language.| Background Three intrepid women team up to conquer medical challenges. |
Recap of Chapter 35: Cedric is doing well at his violin lessons with Marie. Both seem to be enjoying them very much until Cedric begins to falter and comes to a lesson unprepared. Marie confronts him about not holding up his end of the bargain, and he reveals to her that his mother, whom he lives with along with three younger siblings, was recently fired from her job, and he must now work three jobs to support the family. When Marie presses him further about this, he reveals that his mother has gotten herself addicted to Dip and refuses to do anything except get high all day.
Marie is very sympathetic to his plight and suggests they suspend his lessons until things improve in his family.
Chapter 36
Marie
This morning, as we were all seated and about to begin rehearsal, I looked over my section and realized Corinne was missing. As the section leader, I had not gotten a call from her saying she would be absent today. It was her responsibility to let me know if she couldn’t make a rehearsal.
I whispered to my section, “Has anyone heard from Corinne?”
Another one of the young ones named Sheila, who sits next to Corinne, whispered back, “Marie, I’d better talk to you at our morning break. I know where she is.”
“Is she sick or injured? Family emergency?”
“No, nothing like that. I’ll tell you at the break.”
Hmm, what could this be about that she wouldn’t call me? Sheila had a concerned look, but there was no time to think about it anymore since the conductor had arrived and mounted the podium.
During our mid-morning break in the Green Room, Sheila approached and sat down beside me.
“Marie, Corinne told me she might not be returning. We both live in Brooklyn and usually meet at the Atlantic Avenue Station and take the subway in together, but she was late. I called her, and she told me she wasn’t coming today. I asked her why not, and she said she felt too good to spoil it. She sounded funny—dreamy-like. I asked her if she’d called you to tell you she wouldn’t be there, but she just blew it off and told me not to worry about it, because she wasn’t worried. I don’t know what to make of it.”
“She said she felt too good to spoil it? That was the reason she gave?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. Thanks for telling me, Sheila. I’ll call her tonight and find out what’s going on.”
I had a bad feeling about this, having just listened to Cedric’s story last night.
I called Corinne when I got home. Her phone rang until her voicemail message came on. I hung up and immediately tried again. Once again, it rang until the voicemail message, so I tried it a third time. This time it rang for eight rings before I heard a very mellow-sounding Corinne say, “Hi, Marie. What’s up?”
“Why weren’t you at work today, Corinne? You know you’re supposed to call in when you won’t be there.”
“Yeah, I just said, ‘fuck it.’ I didn’t feel like coming in today.”
“What’s going on with you? Are you high right now, and were you high this morning when you just said, ‘fuck it?’”
“Oh, yeah.”
“What are you high on?”
“You ever hear of Dip? That would be it.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Oh, you can get it everywhere now. You can’t get much else, but nobody wants anything else. Only Dip now. You ought to try it, Marie. Might help you get that stick out of your ass.”
“Corinne, stop taking that stuff, show up tomorrow, or there will be consequences. This is the only warning you’re going to get. Another unexcused absence, and you’ll be out. Do you understand me?”
“I do, Herr Doktor. I most certainly do.”
“So, will you be there?”
“Oh, probably not.”
“Corinne, you need help. Get it.”
I hung up then. What is going on here? I never liked that kid, but she had never shown that sort of disrespect before. This Dip is a monster. I decided to look it up on the internet.
There was a Wikipedia entry for Dip. Apparently, it’s short for Dipraxa, a street drug that was recently invented by… whoa! What is this? It was invented by Brian Kendrick of Charlotte, North Carolina and sold to a Mexican cartel! This was footnoted to an article in the December issue of Myalosoma. I looked that up and found out it was a health and wellness journal.
I signed up for a free edition of the magazine and read the article online. It was entitled “Recipe for Disaster” and mentioned that Brian Kendrick had invented both Dipraxa and Glyptophan. It claimed that Glyptophan was showing horrible side effects during its human trials and that it could be as addictive as Dipraxa.
My heart sank. I knew Brian had invented Glyptophan, but the rest was news to me. The article didn’t mention that he’d sold a license to manufacture it to a pharmaceutical company as he’d told me. Maybe he just made that up for my sake and even for Julia’s, and he really made his millions from that Mexican cartel he sold the formula for Dipraxa to? Maybe I had been right about Brian all along, and he’s another Walter White.
This was going to bug me until I found out the truth, so I called Julia.
“Well, hello, Mother. What a nice surprise. How have you—”
“Julia, do you know for sure that Brian has a licensing agreement with a drug company to produce his new drug?”
There was a long pause before she spoke. “Mother, where is this coming from?”
“Just please answer me. I’ve had a rough couple of days, and I need to know.”
“Yes, of course he does. It’s with the company he used to work for, Detry Pharmaceutical. How do you think he earned so much money for it?”
“Do you have actual proof of that, Julia?”
“Mother! What are you getting at?”
“Have you seen the proof yourself, or are you just taking Brian’s word for it?”
“I thought you finally learned to trust Brian. I don’t know why you’re suspicious all of a sudden. Where is this coming from? Now, tell me!”
“I read an article saying he made a fortune selling the formula for Dip. It was an article in a health and wellness magazine. It said Brian invented a powerful street drug called Dipraxa and sold the formula to a Mexican cartel. I know of two people whose lives may be ruined by this drug. How come you never told me about it?”
“Mother, that article you read was total bullshit. It was a hit piece probably instigated by one of the pharmaceutical companies to smear Glyptophan by association because it threatens their sacred opioids. In fact, I have a pretty good idea which company.
“Yes, Brian did invent Dipraxa before he invented Glyptophan. Dipraxa worked great. Brian was testing it on himself and became virtually pain-free for the first time in 16 years. But one day early in the morning, he got up to drive me to the airport for a two-month tour I was going on. He took his daily dose of Dipraxa when he got up. When he got home from the airport, he fell asleep for a few more hours, and when he woke up, by habit, he took his pills again. He ended up getting a double dose of Dipraxa, and that’s when he discovered that it could be highly addictive and induce extreme euphoria—but only at a large enough dose. It was a total surprise to him.
“When I got home from my two-month tour, I hardly recognized him. He was thin as a rail, hadn’t shaved in two months, and hadn’t bathed in weeks. The house was a complete shambles. He had done nothing that whole time except stay high on Dipraxa. The drug is that addictive.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?”
“You didn’t need to know about it. It’s a part of his life he’s not proud of or wants to share with people.”
“But how did it get out on the street then? He must have sold the formula to someone.”
“I promise you he did not, Mother. No one knew better than he how destructive that drug could be if taken at a high dose.”
“Alright, two questions then: First, how did he become sober again?”
“That was the toughest thing he ever did, and I’m not sure he could have done it by himself without my help. First of all, he realized what it was doing to him, and he threw away all of the raw materials that went into making it so that he couldn’t easily make any more. That was a very big step that he did on his own during the two months I was away. And second, I helped him get over the psychological addiction. It never was physically addictive. He became extremely depressed and anxious after his failure. He needed an antidepressant drug and a lot of love and support from me, but he made it. Now what was your second question?”
“It’s just a repetition of my original one: How did it get out for public consumption if Brian didn’t sell it?”
“The formula was stolen. That’s how. Beyond that, you’ll have to ask his sister, Fran, but she probably won’t tell you anything.”
“So, the FBI is involved with this? What exactly are they doing?”
“I’m really not at liberty to say, Mother. I’m sworn to secrecy about what I know, which isn’t that much to start with. But I will say this: You know that project that Brian, Abby, Patty, and Fran have been working on? It has something to do with eradicating Dipraxa. That’s where he is right now—on the mission to stop it. He’s due back any day now, hopefully with good news.”
“And he’s discussed all this with you, including everything about the drugs, themselves?”
“He’s discussed what he’s allowed to discuss with me, but some he had to sign an NDA for. But as far as the drugs go, I know everything about both of them because I helped him develop them. I was with him when he figured out how to make Dipraxa non-addictive at any dose, and that modified version became Glyptophan.”
“But the article said Glyptophan had serious side effects, including addiction.”
“All bullshit, Mother. The only side effects that testing has revealed are at the very highest doses of the drug, but that’s what the testing is for—to determine the proper level to take. And the side effects it was showing did not include addictiveness. That was a total misrepresentation of the facts, and Brian has his lawyers working on it. They may sue that magazine for libel. Do you think Detry Pharmaceutical would have paid him an 8-figure bonus following the successful phase-1 trials if the drug was no good?”
“And you have conclusive proof that he was paid by them and not by a Mexican cartel?”
“Jesus, Mother. Are you really going to make me send you a copy of the contract with Detry before you believe it?”
“No, if you can honestly tell me right now that you have seen it.”
“I have absolutely seen it. Look, you’ve been duped by that stupid article just as they intended. This is going to be an uphill battle for Brian to get this drug accepted. If you were that easily fooled, think about what’s stacked against him now. But he’s not taking this lightly. I guarantee you that magazine will be issuing retractions of most everything they said in that article.”
“Well… I’m sorry to have doubted Brian—again. You don’t need to tell him about this call, Julia. If you’re convinced, I’m convinced. Look, I sincerely hope he’s successful in stamping out Dip. I’ve seen its effect on two people, one of whom is the mother of my violin student.”
“You have a student now?”
“Yes, I took your advice. It was good advice. We had to suspend his lessons, though. His mother got hooked on Dip, and he has to work three jobs now to support her and his brothers and sisters. The poor guy is being run ragged and has no time to practice anymore.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s good to hear you took on a student. Who is he?”
“The doorman at my apartment house, of all people. Now let’s just forget everything else and tell me all about what Johnny’s been doing since I saw him last.”
 Recognized |
Fran Pekarsky: One of three narrators of the story. She is an FBI agent from the North Carolina field office in Charlotte.
Dana Padgett: One of three narrators of the story. She is the assistant marketing director for a Big Pharma company.
Brian Kendrick: Fran's younger brother. He is the inventor of Dipraxa and Glyptophan.
Julia Kendrick: Brian's wife. She is a world-class violinist who now plays in a bluegrass band.
Johnny Kendrick: Brian and Julia's baby boy and Marie's grandson.
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother. She is the third narrator of the story.
Cedric (aka Cecil): The doorman at the apartment house where Marie lives.
Lou D'Onofrio: Fran's boss at the FBI.
Patty Mattson: A hacker friend of Fran's. The programmer on Brian's project.
Abby Payne (nee St. Claire): A girl from Dana's past, who she used to bully but has befriended during their adulthood. The mathematician on Brian's project.
Leonard Merra: A vice president at the Big Pharma company where Dana works. He is in charge of stopping Glyptophan.
Sheila and Corinne: Two young violinists in Marie's orchestra.
Picture courtesy of Playground-v3
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