Police state?

I mentioned in my last post that I was worried about the possibility that Wife -- perpetually soft-hearted and without the slightest shred of healthy distrust when it comes to her love life -- might some day be tempted to send some of her prescription pain medication to Boyfriend 5.

Well, somehow I managed to introduce the concept as a topic of conversation in a way that kept her from pelting me with questions. And I kept it all very hypothetical. But I tried to remind her ... just in case she ever felt any temptations along these lines ... that something like this would indeed count as a felony, and that there would be nothing I could do to intervene, and that falling afoul of the DEA is a bad experience all around.

The last time she was arrested -- a few years ago, when she stopped taking her antidepressants and then one evening began hitting me with a stick, threatening to throw a wine bottle through our living room window, growling like a wild animal, biting my cheek until she drew blood, trashing the kitchen with a large knife, and then gesturing threateningly at my balls with the same knife -- I say, the last time she was arrested I was able to get her released by paying a lot of money to an attorney we couldn't afford and then writing a sweetness-and-light account of what happened for the judge. My story didn't exactly contradict anything in the police report, but -- to the extent that this is even imaginable -- I put it all in the best possible light. (The things we do for love!)

Well, I wasn't going to remind her of that time too forcefully or too exactly, but I did say that there would be nothing I could do to protect her from the DEA. (And at some level, for all that she alternately hates me or fears me or resents the hell out of me, I think she understands that for a very long time now my job has been to protect her from things.) To make this prospect really vivid for her imagination, I proposed the theory that there really are no civil rights any more for people accused of drug trafficking or other drug offenses. This is only partly an exaggeration -- if this were a political blog instead of a personal one, I could get a lot of mileage out of the consequences for America of the War on Drugs. But I'll leave that to somebody else. Meanwhile, in talking to Wife, I asked her to imagine that the Bill of Rights had been systematically repealed for all defendants accused of drug crimes; I asked her to imagine that -- from the perspective of drug crimes -- we live in a police state. And I told her that I would be very, very frightened for her if she ever did anything to call down the wrath of the Federal Government on her head. As one co-worker of mine put it (albeit in the context of running a small business), his cardinal rule has always been, "Don't fuck with the Eagle."

I don't know if I made any kind of impression at all. She didn't argue, but then again she really didn't say much of anything. I hope that at least I planted a seed of some kind.

Meanwhile, it is no lie to say that I am scared for her.