In 2011, at the second oil field service company that I worked for in Dickinson, about 50% of the employees were illegal drug users.  Several of the employees were currently on probation.  More than several of the employees did not have a driver’s license.

After I got the crew truck loaded in the morning with equipment and material, and sometimes had to hook up a trailer, I would leave the company yard to go pick up two or three crew workers who did not have a driver’s license.  After work, I would have to drop these crew workers off.

On the long drives to the job sites in the morning, I would listen to the crew workers talk about how drunk they got last night, how high they got last night, what drugs they did last night, what women they went home with last night.  The talk was mostly funny and entertaining.

At the job sites, when we were tying rebar, or setting concrete forms, there was more talk about each crew worker’s adventures.  How they got caught for burglary, how they got caught for possession of drugs, the police chases, their sentences, their restitution, what each of their probation officers was like.

On Friday, one or two of the crew workers would plead with me to please stop at Wal-Mart on the way into town so that they could cash their pay check.  Sometimes, they would plead with me to stop at the post office so that they could pick up a package of illegal drugs, and I would tell them no.  Half of these crew workers, they spent all of their time talking about, thinking about, and trying to get high.

After working for this oil field service company for several months, I was in a bar in Dickinson one evening playing pool, when in walked a man about 40 years old wearing a hat that said “Mason” on it.  I was thinking to myself, a brick mason would not wear a hat that said “Mason” on it.  This “Mason” was wearing jeans, white tennis shoes, and a t-shirt.  He was not sweaty, filthy, or dirty.  There was a strange looking younger man with him, that was small, who had blond hair, and crooked teeth.

This “Mason” walked right over to where I was, and he wanted to play pool.  I listened to him talk.  He said that he was from Ohio, very near Kentucky.  He said that he was working on a school project in Dickinson.  I asked him if he had found a place to live, and he said that the company he was working for let him stay in the company shop building.  He talked a little bit about the work he was doing, without me asking.  He appeared to know a little about masonry, but a brick mason would not have talked about masonry at all.

He started talking to this other guy playing pool about getting some drugs.  This “Mason” did not look like or act like a drug user, nor did he look like or act like a mason.  I suspected that he was an undercover police officer.  He went on talking with the people playing pool.  He kept returning to the subject of drugs, wanting to buy drugs.  After about forty minutes, I wanted to give him the phone number of one of the crew workers that used drugs, just to get him to shut up and go away, whether he was a cop or not.  I thought that it would be funny.  I got my phone out, and looked at my contact list, I was just about ready to give him a phone number to call, I hesitated, and I did not.

In giving the “Mason” the phone number of the crew worker that I had in mind, who was already on probation for drug offenses, I thought that this crew worker would be suspicious right away that he was a cop, and tell him to fuck off.  I did not know if this “Mason” was a police officer or not, he acted like one.

I thought about it later that night, and the next day.  I began to realize that giving that “Mason” a phone number to call, if he was a police officer, the drug task force would probably try to charge me with conspiracy to traffic narcotics, a four to ten year prison sentence.

I did not use illegal drugs, I did not sell illegal drugs, I was not involved in the trafficking of illegal drugs, I did not have any criminal record.  I came to Dickinson to work in the oil field, which was what I was doing.  The company that I worked for hired people that used illegal drugs and people with criminal records because they were tolerant and these were the people that they could get.  I had to work with these people every day, pick some of them up in the morning in the company truck, and drop them off after work, otherwise I would not have had involvement with these people.  Somehow, probably because of my association with these people, the undercover drug task force police officer came up to me and kept asking about getting drugs.  I didn’t realize that giving him the phone number of some person that was a drug user, would be enough for me to go to prison, but that is exactly what the drug task force does.

I talked to the company owner the following day, and the crew worker whose phone number I had almost given out.  The company owner said that yes, it probably was an undercover police officer.  The crew worker said, you asshole, why would you give him my number, he probably was a cop?  I said because I thought it was funny.  The crew worker said, oh don’t worry, I would have told him to fuck off, I could tell if he was a cop,  only a cop would start talking out in the open like that.

To this day, this still makes me mad.  The asshole drug task force people in Dickinson trying to entrap me into some conspiracy to traffic narcotics charge.  They are such assholes, they don’t even care if I had no involvement in using, selling, or trafficking narcotics.  These people, are worse than the criminals.