It was another weird summer morning: a scheduled meeting to make sure there was something on the calendar (I assume this was fake and never intended), [[Ernest]] acting a bit strange, Sam staying in his hidey hole in the back, smoking his Black and Mild as usual, but the biggest source of weirdness was that [[Sterling]] was dropping by at some point. Things always felt odd when he was coming through. It was almost as if there was a ton of "radio chatter" in my head and in the air around, but when he shows up, it stops. I didn't know what was happening but knew something abnormal was about to go down. I'd felt for some time now that Sterling had been secretly monitoring what was happening at the shop. I felt as if he was always plotting something. He was sitting in front of my desk, distracting me as he felt he had to, when there was some commotion in the back, a call to his phone and the warehouse bay door opening loudly. FedEx was here with something and so was the rest of Sterling's family to help with whatever this was: his wife, a local police officer, and his son, some young thug that obviously took after his dad, although, I felt some sort of animosity between the two of them. Whatever this was, I knew I had to play cool and pretend to be buried in my work. This was something big, something serious. As I sat there with them in the back, stared down the long hallway waiting to see what would come out, but didn't want them to know I was watching. Before I could see anything, I smelt it... Like burning plastic, like chemicals... I knew this was either coke, crack or meth being smoked. I wasn't sure exactly since the shop always smelled with a heavy stench of weed and tobacco, but this cut through the air like a knife. As they continued to unpack the pallet in the back, I just sat there frozen as if nothing was happening. I watched Sterling, his wife (an local police officer), their son and [[Sam]] load box after box of (obviously) something illegal into the back of their SUV. I was boiling with anger inside that I'd been used. How long had I been used? I'm sure this was just me finally seeing what always was... I was the front, the fall guy, the cloak for them to do whatever they want, which, in this case, was to help destroy their community and spread poison. How could I stop them? There were 5. I had no chance. I sat powerless and knew then and there that I had to find out the truth. I confronted Ernest afterwards, which he put off as "it was just some weed" which I knew was a lie. I knew that the only people who had authority to ship pallets of drugs via FedEx were the CIA. He brushed it off as if I was crazy, but was I? The following day I was the first to arrive as always and went back in as if nothing had happened, thinking about what to do. I knew what I smelled and saw the previous day wasn't what Ernest had claimed. I was sick to my stomach from the thought that I'd been fooled for so long. I wanted to kill them all. I didn't even want to go to the back room to confirm my suspicion since I knew he was watching the cameras, recording any and every move in the office. Eventually, I had to go to the back to grab some tee shirts and supplies and passed by boxes with white powder on them, just as I had suspected. They were so lazy that they couldn't even clean up their indiscretions, as usual. It looks like they had used plain paper packages to help conceal the true package within the pallet contents. Smart, but not smart enough considering I noticed these packs of paper sitting in the embroidery room. I was still filled with anger, but had to keep cool, which I barely did. People who abuse someone's trust and friendship deserve more than what they had coming their way. I knew I would put an end to them no matter what the cost, to ensure a future for myself and my family.