True Story©… Smurfin’

 

     I couldn’t stay out for long…

Me, this Moe Phillips thing, my continued petty crime spree, I am drawn to it like a moth to a flame.  Consistency with my prior edict to use Moe Phillips for net good remains in place at least.

     First thing’s first…  I KNOW Detective Woodpenis is watching his wire to be sure that Moe isn’t acting up again, for which he has promised to come for my ass.  Of course, there needs to be a new burner phone, since I gave the old one to the unhoused person to use out when I left the station last time.  Instead of making a purchase near my home, I drove to surrounding cities and approached people on highway exits with signs.  For a couple of bucks for whatever they wanted to buy, they would go into the store and buy me a burner phone.  I did this three times. 
Why three?  I would stash one burner in a location away from my house.  THIS would be *the* number for people to call me on.  I silenced it, and plugged it in at a YMCA locker room before hiding it and praying housekeeping wouldn’t locate it.  I set it to forward ALL calls to a second burner which I similarly hid at a second location.  Burner #2 forwards all calls to the one that was in my possession, hopefully miring the exchange in a maddeningly muddied chain of contact to throw authorities off of my scent.

     Now we must address the reason for the secrecy, no?
While scouring the dark web and – of all places – Reddit, I learned that in 2023, now nine years and eleven months after the death of Walter White, people are STILL trying to secure the recipe for his bleu meth from Breaking Bad.  As mentioned before, my new thing with Moe Phillips is still crime, but the “victims” are carefully selected as people deserving of punishment.  Knowing what I know about the behaviors of manufacturers, sellers AND users (sometimes one is all three at once) of methamphetamine, I had my mark.  But first I would need to zero in on how I would do it.

Y’know what?  Put that on pause, it’ll be back in a bit.

     Establishing a user name not specifically SAYING Moe Phillips but also absolutely saying Moe Phillips, I lurked for a little while to establish a little seniority.  Then I would comment on posts as conservatively and competently as I could so as to not come off as a narc or a giddy little stickup kid.  Once I had the trust of the community I began receiving DMs about whether I had a line on that blue shit, as some of them called it.  Again, not to get TOO giddy, I left the first wave of them on UNread and continued lurking and commenting.

     Once it became clear to the people of the communities that the new guy might be onto something, I started to respond to messages.  Not with words, but with a picture.  In the picture was a Pyrex baking dish full of the least cloudy blue rock candy I could find in the candy stores around.  When pressed for details on how I did it, I demurred and explained that being the only one with it was a money maker and how I was out for clientele and not to give seminars. 

     Naturally, of course, people wanted to get their hands on it to test the product.  I got aggressive, basically yelling at them for DARING question me, to either trust that one can trust that I know what I am doing or to go fuckoff.  Wild as this sounds on its surface, it has worked at least once to deliver someone to the White House.  Damn if it didn’t work here.  A couple of people naturally went on about their lives and left it alone but the desperate ones pushed through and asked how to acquire.
I explained that we would work STRICTLY through dead drops.  Public places, with people – ostensibly police – present, so no one is inclined to have to shoot it out with a tweeker with the possibility of children in the crossfire.  On the day of the deal, they call the burner, I provide them with a set of GPS coordinates and a time.  Once at the location, I am watching where he is told to put the money.  A random teenager paid by me picks up and confirms the package and gives me the signal, then I tell him where he is to retrieve his product.  I would never use the same place twice, not even for the same person if it ever came to that but this is fucking sugar and food coloring so there will not be a “same person” situation.

     I was able to complete four of these deals.  Knowing I had just sold dumdums to three users and one likely seller, I logged into the account of burner #1 in the chain and blocked the number and the user from DM’ing me as soon as I had money in hand.  All good, I have hosed a tweeker and some bad people out of their cash, right?
Well when it came to number five, I followed my established pattern for the dead drop, but got a little sweaty when it LOOKED like the cop in the park was watching.  It turns out that he wasn’t calling in or for anyone to assist with the “drug” deal obviously taking place in front of him, but scrolling through motherfuckin’ TikTok videos INSTEAD of paying attention.  Either way, the stress of almost possibly being outed by the fuzz caused me to get a little sloppy and I FORGOT to block the phone number after I had my money in hand.

     I should have known this shit would be unsustainable.  Eventually, even the blocked users would confer among themselves and either stop fucking with me or try to set ME up.  What I hadn’t thought of was that this one last asshole would keep calling and calling and calling so frequently that I didn’t even have time to decline his call and block the number.  Lord knows, I was trying but every time his incoming call would keep me from doing it and I will be DAMNED if I log into or near that burner account from my personal phone or computers.
I had to answer…

Me: “Hello?”

Tweeker: “What’s this shit you sold me, bro!?”

Me: “I believe the term, as you so succinctly put it, was ‘that blue shit’?”

Tweeker: “You sold me CANDY, asshole!”

Me: “Now that is just not nice…”

Tweeker: “Fuck nice, I want my mon--…”

Me: “Look, you asked me what I sold you as if you weren’t aware, then you TELL me and call me names?”

Tweeker: “I want my money!”

Me: “I’m going to have to cut you loose as a customer, sir.”

Tweeker: “I. Want. My. MONEY!!!”

Me: “We have a strict no-returns policy.”

Tweeker: “I am not returning shit, what you’ve done here is just wrong.  You stole my money!”

Me: “Is it?  Then you’re gonna need to call the cops.”

     I was stalling…  While we talked on the phone, I was logging into the account and setting up the block on his number.  I hung up on him and hit the button to block him and the callbacks stopped.
Everything is good, right?  I got a few bad people for a couple thousand bucks total.  No one who didn’t need a little hurtin’ got hurt, I should be allowed to enjoy the spoils of my ill-gotten gains without issue, correct?
RIGHT?!!?

Wrong™!

     Three hours later, I am cutting my front yard and an unmarked cruiser pulls up.  I kept working like I didn’t see him, I had on my noise cancelling headphones so I KNOW I wasn’t hearing shit.  He got out and walked to my driveway where he knew I couldn’t continue to ignore him…

Me: “Good afternoon, Detective Woodpenis!”

Detective: “That’s Woodcock and you know it.”

Me: “Woodpenis, Woodcock, Hickory Rooster…  what’s the difference?  What’s up?”

Detective: “We had some tweeker call the station yammering on about paying a few hundred bucks for fake meth.”

Me: “And this has what to do with me, exactly?”

Detective: “He says that he linked up with some guy named Moe Phillips on the dark web.”

Me: “And we established before that I don’t know who that is--…  Wait, a ‘tweeker’ you say?”

Detective: “Yep!”

Me: “Since when does your type invest anything in what THAT type says?”

Detective: “Well…  never usually, but this Moe Phillips thing.”

Me: “And the evidence leads you to me?”

Detective: “Well not exactly, but--…”

Me: “Am I being detained or questioned?”

Detective: “Well no, but--…”

Me: “Well either shoot me right here while my dogs and those kids over there watch, detain me and bring me in for questioning with my lawyer or have a good day sir.  I don’t know no damned Moe Phillips and I don’t hang out in tweeker circles.”

Detective: “Have a good day.”

     He slumped his shoulders and huffed before getting in the cruiser and storming off.  I drove out into the county and disposed of the one burner in my possession and let the other two expire and pray that I don’t have to meet him again.