Placebo Junkies (2 page)

Charlotte comes back from her six-week protocol bloated and yellow. She takes one look at me, her gaze skipping over my patchy hair and scabby skin, and her jaundiced eyes fill with tears. “You lucky bitch. You're so skinny,” she says.

“Don't worry,” Jameson calls out from the other room. “They're starting psychostimulant trials on Four again, probably later this week. That shit'll knock the junk off your trunk in no time.”

But Charlotte refuses to cheer up. “With my luck I'll just get a placebo.”

She sounds so glum I wonder if whatever gave her a case of the oompa loompas also messed with her head. It happens sometimes. It's hard to know whether it's a side effect or just a bad mood these days. For any of us. Still, after six weeks in she should be happier—most of us would kill for that kind of stint. The longest I've ever gone in was eight days. It was heavenly. Premium cable channels and doctor's orders to do nothing but lie around drinking chalky weight-loss shakes. No exertion allowed except twice-daily weigh-ins—
aye aye, captain!
The shakes weren't bad, either. I wonder if they ever made it to market. You'd be surprised how many of these things never do.

Jameson does his little nervous-habit throat-clearing thing as he comes in with a glass of something for Charlotte. “Drink up. It's just water with a squeeze of lime. You need to flush out your system, lower your bilirubin levels if you want to get in on anything starting before the weekend.”

They don't let us volunteer if they think we still have side effects from another study. It screws up their results. But there are ways to beat the system, and if anyone knows how to do it, it's Jameson, who's kind of like a highly anxious cross between an Eagle Scout and a drug dealer, if that makes any sense. I mean, he might supplement his income with a little under-the-table pill-transfer action, but it's not like he's selling crack to schoolkids, you know? He's actually really into the medical stuff—he has all sorts of pharmaceutical reference books lying around all the time, and he reads research journals, Annals of Dermo-Oto-Neuro-blah-blah Medicine, shit like that, for fun while the rest of us play Xbox or whatever. He always wants to know what we took, how we took it, what we felt, and depending on what it is, he'll sometimes buy it off us if we have any left over. He doesn't even blush when you tell him the embarrassing parts, like rectal suppositories or period stuff. Seriously, he knows more than most of the doctors I've met—he'd probably be the world's youngest brain surgeon by now if he'd turned left instead of right back at whatever fork in the road spit him out on the low-rent side of the tracks instead.

I sometimes wonder if he shouldn't be volunteering, a guy like him. I mean, not just because he's too smart for this shit, but also because he's gotta throw off the results with all the ways he's always gaming the system.
Anomalous response
they call it, when you don't react the way they expect you to, and they get pissed when it happens. Well, pissed in their quiet, lab-coat-y kind of way. They're pretty cool in general, the techs. Most of them, anyway. They know we're just there to do a job, same as them.

Dougie and Scratch show up with beer and a stack of dirty magazines Dougie got from some Viagra-lite kind of trial, and Charlotte and I snort and laugh our way through the pages because they're the cleanest porno mags you'll ever see—completely raunch-free. They're really not even sexy at all, like the photographer was standing behind the camera telling the models to think about good hygiene. Just the thought of some middle-aged lab administrator leafing through a catalog of medical-grade pornography and placing a bulk smut order cracks me up, and before long we're all relaxed and it starts to feel like a party, so I reach for one of the beers even though I'm not supposed to have any alcohol during the study I'm in now. I glance over at Jameson before I take a sip and he gives me a tiny nod. He knows about the restrictions and he'd warn me if the beer was going to show up in the morning blood work. With his blessing I tilt my head back and enjoy.

Even Charlotte chills out. She's talking about this guy she knows, swears he's the reason for the tattoos. “Yeah, so he got into an appendix study. A big one, huge cash. Like, lottery kind of cash, and all you had to do was let them take out your appendix. Like anyone's ever needed an appendix, right? He doesn't even know what they're testing. Some robot laser scalpel, or something—freaking sutures that play ‘Ave Maria,' whatever. Doesn't matter. So my buddy goes through with it, gets his appendix removed and collects his check. But he's kind of a dumbass, see—I mean, he's a nice enough guy, just not the sharpest tool in the shed—and he goes out and blows all the money right away on something stupid. I don't even know how he possibly spent all the money as fast as he did, but he managed. So what does he do next?”

By now we're already laughing, having a good time, and my tolerance must be way down, probably from all the weight I lost last week, because my head is feeling spinny and light. We all know exactly where this story is going, but Charlotte's such a damn good storyteller, especially now that her funk seems to have worn off, that we're all hanging on her words anyway. Charlotte's a good egg. Lights up a room when she's in a good mood, you know? She already looks a little less jaundiced, too, though it might just be the dim lights. I notice Jameson scooching the beer out of her reach while she's distracted.

“Yeah, so he shaves off his goatee, combs his hair a little different, and goes right back to the same damn office. Says he lost his intake paperwork, but he still remembers his subject number.”

Scratch calls bullshit here, but Charlotte cuts him off. “No, I'm telling you. He just took a wild guess, used his old number then added ten or something. And the intake tech totally buys it. The same one, by the way, who processed him in the first time around, but he doesn't suspect a thing. It's just another lab rat checking in, right? We all look the same to them—nothing but human petri dishes shuffling through the door. So anyway, my buddy's getting prepped for surgery, and the doc sees his scar from the first time and freaks out. I mean, it's not even a real scar yet, the goddamn sutures were barely out and it's right over his appendix, of course. But I swear to God, this guy is the best liar you'll ever meet. Even better than you, Scratch.” She blows him a kiss before she continues.

“Even half dosed up on the twilight sedation stuff, or whatever it was they were using for anesthesia, he manages to convince the doc his scar has nothing to do with his appendix—no, he swears it's from a car accident the week before, just a nasty gash. And the doc's busy, he just wants to move the meat off his table, you know, so he says fine, signs the paperwork, and cuts my friend open again.”

“Whoops,” Dougie drawls out in a baritone.

“Yeah, whoops is right. No fucking appendix, and the doc is
pissed
! But he'd already signed off, already cut in, so they had no choice but to pay my buddy the full amount.
Again.
” She giggles, then wipes a tiny speck of blood from the corner of her mouth. “So thanks to him, now they do the tats.”

We nod. We all have 'em. Little
x
's or numbers, or sometimes initials. They're not tattoo artists, the techs and the nurses, so they don't try anything fancy. They just make whatever kind of quick mark they'll remember so they don't accidentally go in twice. There's this one nurse who does a tiny smiley face, though, which I kind of appreciate. I have a couple of those.

There's a lull in the conversation, so I check my watch. “Okay, y'all, it's getting late—I'm out.” I yawn a good night to everyone, then bat my eyelashes at Charlotte and Jameson. “Can you guys boost your awesome roommate creds by making sure I don't oversleep tomorrow? Pretty please? Subject processing starts at 8:30.”

“Sweet electric sheep dreams,” Jameson calls after me as I close my bedroom door and turn out the light. He's a little weird, I know, but who isn't? They're like my family out there, those needle-tracked guinea pig fools.

First thing you should know is, not all clinical trials are created equal. General rule of thumb: the more it pays, the worse it's probably gonna hurt. More on that later. But assuming you can take it, that you're not some delicate fucking flower who can't stand the sight of blood or who gets all bent out of shape about things like radiation exposure, here are some tips for how to make a living as a human test subject:

Tip 1. Have a pulse and at least one vein that's not on the verge of collapse.

Ha ha. You think I'm kidding, but this is seriously enough to at least get you in the door. Though judging from some of the people you'll meet in the waiting room, the pulse part can be negotiable.

Tip 2. Be healthy.

Be able to fake it, anyway. Hold it in, cover it up, tell the voices in your head to pipe down for a minute, whatever it takes. Do whatever you gotta do to stay upright long enough to at least get through the screening. Once you're on the books, you can let it all hang out—you'll still get at least a partial payment even if they show you the door the minute your TB test comes back dirty.

Tip 3. Come from a healthy family.

I don't care if you come from the sickliest, dead-est family ever. When filling out the forms, no one in your family has ever died,
ever,
from anything except ripe old age. Healthy bastards, your forefathers, yes sirree bob! Absolutely no family history whatsoever of high blood pressure, bad cholesterol, or paranoid schizophrenia, no ma'am. Healthy as horses, every last (dead) one of 'em.

Tip 4. Be at least 18 years of age, or have parental consent.

Or, in my case, have a reasonably convincing fake ID. Don't worry, they never look too close. As long as you're a warm, willing body who meets their testing criteria, they really don't care if your driver's license has the name of the state spelled a teensy bit wrong. (For the record, yes, I DO know that Massachusetts has two
t
's. Lesson learned: proofread forged documents before paying.)

Ready to channel your inner pincushion and get started now? Just follow my lead and then rinse, gargle, repeat. Happy testing, fellow guinea pigs!

Damn.
She's a Beagle, and it's too late to move.

I should've known. Should've seen the look on her face before I sat down, that
aren't I generous
set to the mouth, that martyr's twinkle in her eyes. But there's no changing seats once the needle's in, so now I'm stuck listening to her Humble Tales of Great Sacrifice and Small Thoughts About Life.

Kill me now.

There are five stations set up in the room. Deep reclining chairs covered in long strips of crinkly white paper. Bottles of juice and water within easy reach, two types of muffins. A fan going in the corner. Everything all alcohol-swabbed and vinyl-padded faint-proof. All is as it should be, if only Mother Teresa's second cousin on my left would pipe down. Yup, definitely a Beagle—a particularly annoying subtype of serial tester. Beagles are the people who act like volunteering for a drug study is some grand act of charity, like they're doing the world the biggest damn favor ever, and
by God,
we'd sure as heck better appreciate their sacrifice. She rummages around in her enormous quilted purse and pulls out knitting needles. Of course she does. Why do they all knit so much? Seriously, what can they possibly need with all that knotted-up yarn, these
just doing my part
little old ladies? Funny the way they never shut up about just how great it is, what they're doing, though, always wearing their Red Cross T-shirts and their
I DONATED
pins. They're gray-haired junkies in reverse, always wanting to pump shit out of their veins instead of in. And they Never. Stop. Talking.

This one's no exception. On and on and freaking
on,
about her favorite Crock-Pot recipes and her grandniece's birthday party, and isn't that Kelly Ripa just the sweetest thing ever, and most of all her son, her nice-boy CPA son who's almost certainly a deviant of some variety, I mean how could you not be, with a mother like this up in your grill all the time? I pick at my cuticles without saying a word, just waiting for her to mention a cat. There's always a cat. Or at the very least there's a cat-sized dog, a Shih Tzu or a Pomeranian. Something small enough for a goddamn knitted dog sweater.

Her knitting needles click-clack while she talks, making her IV line jiggle and sway, and on the opposite side of the room there's a talk show playing too loudly on the TV.

In other words, it's a typical day in the labs.

Today's an interaction study. Two drugs already on the market, already considered safe enough to use, just not necessarily together. It's not twice the money, but close. Interaction studies pay well.

This one's not complicated, but the nurse is obviously brand-new and she keeps botching things up and having to start her checklist over. It's a double-blind study, and you can just see how that totally messes with her mind. Double-blind means, basically, nobody knows who's getting what. One pill and one IV drip per subject.
Is it real, or is it fake?
Neither the volunteers nor the nurse knows whether we're getting sugar and saline or some toxic chemical brew—an autoclaved version of Russian roulette.

As she checks us in, the nurse keeps asking everyone in this way-too-serious voice if we're absolutely
certain
that we understand the risks of the study.
Yeah, yeah,
we all say, and even the Beagle next to me looks a bit annoyed the fifth time we have to hear the same speech.

“She's awfully nervous; she must be new. It took her three tries to find my vein,” the Beagle tsks, admiring the needle marks on her skin like they're freaking stigmata. “That never happens. I have great veins! Phlebotomists love me. They tell me so every time I come to donate. They say, Phyllis, you have amazing veins for your age. You're a dream donor. If only everyone had veins like yours, our job would be so much easier….”

I tune her out by running numbers in my head, trying to figure out this month's likely cash flow. This business is hard to predict—lots of ups and downs. It's like a freaking game of Monopoly, except instead of landing on Park Place, you find out the FDA just tightened the screws on some product and all of a sudden Mama and Papa Pharma are willing to pay double, triple for as many volunteers as they can get through the door. Catch a cold, on the other hand, and it's the equivalent of pulling the
GO TO JAIL
card when you get the boot from the study that was supposed to pay the rent that month.
Womp-womp, Do not pass go, Do not collect $200.
Anyway, I'm mentally sorting the figures into little columns, working out best-case and worst-case scenarios—am I gonna bust or am I gonna boom?—so it takes me a minute to process the fact that the Beagle's voice is starting to sound weird.

I look over and her face, which was perfectly normal last time I noticed, is mottled with bright pink splotches now. She's still talking, hasn't even stopped to take a breath, which probably isn't helping matters, but her words are coming out funny—slurred, like her tongue is growing too big for her mouth all of a sudden. And then I think she realizes something's not right, because her eyebrows kind of pinch together and she finally shuts up for a second. She's looking puffier than I remember and I can hear from my seat, even over the noise of the fan and the TV, that she's making a whistling noise when she breathes. She cocks her head and stares at me with those big concerned eyes, and God help me, but she really
does
look like an actual beagle now—a thought I shove out of my head right away, because even I know how fucked up it is to be thinking it at this particular moment.

“Nurse?” I call out, but she doesn't hear me at first, because she's messing with someone else's IV. I look back at the old lady just in time to see the pink fade out of her face like someone flushed a toilet in her head and drained out the color, and then a pale blue shade starts to creep into her lips. It's pretty creepy, actually.

“Nurse! Hey! Somebody get over here quick!” I yell it this time, and without even realizing I'm doing it, I yank the IV out of my hand and then step over and, more gently, pull the IV out of the Beagle's hand.

“What the hell are you doing?” the nurse asks as she finally gets her ass over to us, like I'm the one making the old lady twitch and wheeze.

“She's having a reaction or something. It happened all of a sudden—just now.” I can't seem to get my words out fast enough, and for a second I worry that maybe I'm having a reaction, too, that it's slowing me down, taking over, but as the nurse races over to a phone on the wall and hits a couple of buttons, I realize I'm breathing just fine.

I take the old lady's hand while the nurse is on the other side of the room on the phone. She's definitely bluish and having trouble breathing, but she's conscious at least, still staring at me with those puppy dog eyes. “You'll be okay,” I say to her. “They're getting help.”

Paramedics burst into the room a minute later, one of the good things about being right next door to a major hospital, I guess, and I get shoved out of the way when they start CPR.

“There's blood! Where's she bleeding from?” one of the paramedics shouts as they move her onto a stretcher.

“No, that's my blood,” I explain to him, holding out my shredded hand. I must've yanked the needle out the wrong direction—it's starting to sting. The nurse glares at me again, and then they're all out the door, still thrashing and pumping away at the old lady's chest.

I just stare at the door for a minute after they're gone. The whole thing seemed kind of violent and rushed, not at all like what you see on TV or in those perky “CPR Saves a Life!” instructional videos that make it look like getting CPR might even feel kind of good, just a particularly vigorous massage to work out some pesky cardiac tension.

I shake it off, look around, and the other three volunteers are just sitting there in silence. They're all eyeing their own IV lines nervously, but nobody moves.

“Do you think we'll still get paid if we pull it out?” one of them, a stubble-faced guy I've seen around before, finally asks.

Shit.
That hadn't even occurred to me. “Shit.” I say it out loud and sit back down in my chair, wondering if it's worth trying to get the damn butterfly needle back in. Probably not, even if I could manage it. The nurse already saw me moving around without it. There goes at least half my paycheck. They still have to pay you something, at least part of the fee, even if you drop out, but it won't come close to what I would have gotten if I'd kept my ass in my chair.

I close my eyes and subtract a chunk of money from my mental spreadsheet while I wait for the nurse to get back. Leaving test subjects unsupervised is a major no-no, but who's going to report it? Besides, she and everyone else even remotely associated with this study are already going to be up to their teeth in paperwork after what happened to the old lady. I kind of feel bad for everybody involved.

Better to just take whatever they'll pay and walk away from this one. There's bad juju here, and that shit's more contagious than anything else you'll run across in these halls.