AMERICAN PAIN by John Temple Page B

Chris’s face and started asking questions.
    Chris said the clinic was treating patients with medication and exercise. He said his doctors thoroughly examined patients and checked medical records before prescribing. He said they were committed to catching patients who were obtaining prescriptions from multiple doctors. He showed the reporter a filing cabinet in his office. It was filled, he said, with files of patients they’d banned for suspicious activities. At first, Chris refused to identify the names of the doctors, but Ortega had looked up the clinic on the health department website. Dr. Gittens, Dr. Joseph, and a part-time doctor listed the clinic address as their worksite. When the reporter told him the doctors were in good standing with the health department, Chris confirmed that they all worked there. * Ortega asked why there were so many out-of-state vehicles in the parking lot, and Chris sidestepped the question, acted like he didn’t know. Chris also wouldn’t say whether he was advertising the clinic on billboards.
    Chris paraphrased a line from the DEA policy on prescribing painkillers.
    “Pain is a big problem right now, and we’re just doing our part,” Chris said, his mug completely deadpan.
    Chris also told the reporter that he was trying to expand the parking lot in the rear of the building by demolishing the landlady’s back yard. “That’ll solve all of our parking problems here,” he said.
    Ortega’s story came out a day or two later—N EIGHBORS C ALLING C LINIC A P AIN —underneath a big color photo of the front of the clinic, shot with a long lens from across Oakland Park Boulevard. The photo showed a couple dozen people loitering beneath the big red-lettered sign on the clinic’s low roof, a mix of men and women who looked to be in their thirties and forties, mostly. One young guy leaned on a walking cane.
    The story wasn’t too bad, Derik thought. It focused mostly on the neighboring businesses’ complaints, one saying, “It’s been horrendous. The people hang out all day.” Ortega had checked police records and reported that local cops had been called to the clinic six times, including one time in May because someone had stolen a patient’s pills. The story dropped a few hints about what was going on—the out-of-state patients, the pill thief, the fact that city leaders were looking into whether the clinic was complying with all municipal requirements. But it never mentioned pain-killers or narcotics. An uninformed reader or someone giving the story a quick scan might come away thinking it was a minor dispute between a couple of local businesses over parking.
    Chris and Derik enjoyed the video that accompanied the story on the newspaper website, especially the part where Chris said, with a straight face: “Pain is a big problem right now, and we’re just doing our part.” Derik loved that statement, especially since there was a random balloon bobbing in the background of the shot, like Chris was at some kid’s birthday party. Derik couldn’t remember where the balloon had come from, but somehow it made the whole thing even sillier. They played the video over and over, laughing. Chris had played the part well, Derik thought. He was solemn and earnest, just a well-meaning health care professional trying to solve the difficult problem of pain.

    A week after the Sun-Sentinel article came out, Derik was having a bad thirty-first birthday. He came to work hung over from the night before. Then, two neighborhood thugs attacked two elderly patients in the parking lot, grabbed their meds, and took off. Derik chased them down some back streets, past the quiet ranch houses. They splashed across a canal and got away, and Derik slogged back to the clinic, soaking wet and in a foul mood.
    It was Friday, a payday. After Dr. Gittens got her check, she told Derik that this would be her last day at the clinic. Derik was shocked. Dr. Gittens had always showed more interest than the other