The Reaper Method™
By Jason Peck
When my brother Greg hands me hot peppers, I don’t even ask what I’m eating. I just eat. That’s how spice rehabilitation is supposed to work. Hack the human endorphin system. Play the body’s ability to handle pain against a chili pepper’s ability to inflict it. When the mouth burns from a pepper three hundred times hotter that a jalapeno, the brain counters with the kind of dopamine flood meant for a fatal injury.
But the pepper heat is imaginary. Complex capsaicins trick the mouth receptors into believing they’re on fire. Once the burn fades, it leaves me saturated in my own painkillers, the closest thing to a “natural” harmless high. The kind that should, if done correctly, wean me off the drugs that sent me in rehab this last time around.
“You’ve been plateauing since Level Three,” Greg says by way of belated apology. The official Reaper Method manual is open on the kitchen table, its pages littered with his dog-eared corners and Post-Its. “This guide says you should be halfway through Level Four by now.” I nod and approximate a grin with my bared teeth. The pepper is orange and grooved like a wrinkled thumb, it crunches hard against all the teeth I’ve got left, and the pain starts quick. Soon I’m pounding on my chest to distract myself from the burn.
Good thing no one’s around to see me suffering. Greg’s wife is at work; my brother founded a hedge fund and retired at thirty, married his college girlfriend and bought a family cottage so deep in the country that his dirt road driveway is two miles long. When his wife lets me crash on his couch, I wake to the sun coming up red and hot over the fluffy tips of the Eastern pines, my feet hitting the Big Wheel parts that his daughter scattered about the front yard like a preschool mechanic. Pure and wholesome, all the trappings of a happy, healthy family. Everything I gave up when I made the choices I did. To no surprise, my little brother was our parents’ superior son. By contrast, I’m less than nine months out of jail, my taste buds atrophied by a steady diet of lockup sandwiches and canned vegetables. When the burn hits, I need every coping strategy there is.
Five minutes in and the heat’s only getting worse. I’ve got enough snot coming out of my nose that puddles form on the kitchen table in front of me. My shirt is already soaked in sweat. Concerned, Greg walks to the fridge and returns with a glass of whole milk to cancel out the heat. But that’s a clear forty-point Reaper Method violation, a sure demotion back to Level Two. I politely wave it off.
“So, what’s your estimate?” he asks. “How many Scovilles do you think that was?”
Growers measure the spiciness of their peppers in Scoville units. Most restaurant hot sauces hang around four hundred and fifty units. A full-blown jalapeno is seven thousand. The hottest in the world – the Carolina Reaper, the namesake of my rehabilitation program – clocks in at 1.6 million.
“Five hundred thousand?” That’s about where my tolerance has maxed out. My voice comes out a cough instead. The little spit left in my mouth burns. At my feet, Greg has positioned the puke bucket in case.
“Five hundred fifty thousand,” he responds. “You did level up.” He pinches his thumb and finger together. “But only a little bit. We need more to stay on schedule. Assuming this even works.”
Just fifty thousand more Scovilles than last week? Shit. That’s akin to taking two seconds off your running time. It’s an ounce at your Weight Watchers meeting. “Improvements” that small could just be accidental. I need more. I munch raw habaneros for breakfast. I scramble my eggs with Reaper extract delivered out of a skull-shaped eye dropper, one milligram at a time. No luck. I haven’t passed the plateau Greg mentioned so much as I’ve slammed into a wall.
An endorphin rush should follow, slow and cool. I’ve watched videos of other addicts chowing down piles of Reapers, and finishing with a smile wide enough to break their faces. They’re not going back to hard drugs any time soon.
“Seriously?” I grimace to Greg and point down to the puke bucket.
“I thought you’d need it. That one got you close to barfing.”
“It was nothing,” I spit into the bucket and wipe tears from my eyes with a roll of paper towels. “We’re on schedule here.” Greg flips through the Reaper method manual and settles on a particularly well-wrinkled page from Level One.
“Remember there is no heat,” Greg reads. “The chemicals are just fooling your body into thinking there’s heat.”
“Easy for you to say,” I try to manage a smile, but burp instead and clap my hand to my mouth. There’s that tell-tale bile taste in the back of my throat; try as I might to clench my stomach, I feel something coming up.
“Is Reaper Method even working?” Greg asks. “I’m honestly starting to wonder if there’s actual science behind this.”
I nod. It’s all I can do before I give out and reach for the bucket, a little too late.
Before Reaper Method, I did rehab. Nothing fancy, just standard, straight vanilla rehab. We sat around a table in a semi-circle and talked about our feelings. A shrink held private sessions. One time I did yoga. But rinse, cycle and repeat—I relapsed so regularly I could schedule my next rehab session with the certainty of a bank holiday. Those Twelve Step meetings are unfortunately still mandatory, but everything else has changed.
No more one size fits all. Right before my release, a probation officer sat me down and administered a twenty-point questionnaire that matched me with one of the private company programs that farm out work from Health and Human Services. I could have done transcendental meditation, sessions with an electrical muscle stimulator, an extended stay in the Northwest where I’d have chopped wood and built my own cabin. But Reaper Method matched best, somehow. Was it my masochistic streak, maybe? I’ve never quite figured out how those answers tallied up.
Motivation follows the training. Greg’s grabbing a new change of clothes for me when I pull out the smartphone he bought me and hit up the Reaper Method’s YouTube channel. A familiar face fills every video thumbnail—Master Carl the Mad Grower, exotic plant breeder, ex-con, owner of Inferno Farms out in Fredericksburg, founder of the Reaper Method, which he patented himself after his own release from prison.
“I know you’re all staying sober,” Carl says in his video. I’ve never met him in person, but I love how he speaks directly to the camera. I’ve studied his face and mannerisms as a student will study his sensei—handlebar Fu Manchu moustache, cranberry-red farmer’s tan, wrinkled face like a mountain face carved with dynamite. When Carl walks through rows of pepper plants in his greenhouse, his face gets obscured by the leaves, and it always reminds me of an explorer hacking his way through the Amazon.
“Have I told you about the first time I tried breeding pepper plants?” Master Carl asks the camera. His voice has the endorphin tilt to it. Odds are he was using before the cameras started rolling.
“All the time,” I say to the video.
“I started out breeding pot,” Carl chuckles at his youthful stupidity. “But then I tried breeding peppers instead…” His voice trails off. “My life changed once I got my heat tolerance became strong enough. I haven’t been high since.”
“High off drugs you mean,” I say to the video.
“Click the link below and accelerate your progress,” Carl says again, as if clarifying to me directly. “Or you can visit Inferno Farms directly, and learn about our secret Level Six.” He picks a Reaper from the vine and nonchalantly takes a bite. The screen cuts to the glamor shots of his Reaper Method merchandise, his supplements and T-shirts and advanced student guides all described in his slow drawl.
“Not that asshole again,” Greg says. Watching the video, I hadn’t noticed his return. “Nothing quite convinces me that this is a bad idea quite like watching the crazy guy who came up with it.” He leans over my shoulder and points at the screen. “Crazy. That’s the look of a lunatic who’s running a cult disguised as a pepper farm.”
“It’s a licensed program,” I say. “Look at the bottom of the screen, they’re a registered LLC.”
“It’s only conditionally licensed.”
“You’re too cynical. Check this out.”
Carl’s followers—mostly recovering addicts themselves—are pulling peppers off the vine, and Carl motions toward a table full of his latest hybrids—chili peppers laid out in little plastic baskets, a blur of reds, oranges and greens. Long angular tubes, they’re spilling over the sides like the tentacles of an octopus, like a sea of fire. I wish I could swim.
“What’s the number on these?” Carl asks. Every month he rattles off the names of potential new breeds with names more fitting for military black-ops. The Night Sting. The Sudden Death. Carl’s biggest creation yet is the Neon Widowmaker, for its bright yellow color. Give the stock a few generations to stabilize, he says, and it beats The Reaper, easily. I have to laugh. Who’s Carl kidding with that kind of boast? But then again, what if?
“Everything here’s at least a million Scovilles,” Carl says. “Trust me, we’re on the verge of something big. Spice training will change the world.”
Can I get my tongue to one million? I’m starting to doubt. Every mouth is different. In some people the receptors adapt with training. But a rare few have weak mouths that never change, that hit their ceiling early. No amount of dosing can do a damn thing about it.
“Enough of this,” Greg says. “Can we try something else here? Why don’t we check with your release officer and tell them Reaper Method isn’t working? We’ll get you reassigned to something else.”
“Because it is working,” I say back, a little louder than I intended.
My Twelve Step meetings are run in the basement of First Lutheran by an ex-addict named Geraldine. With her handmade ponchos and arm sleeve tattoos, we often joke that she had to choose between hippie and biker, and instead chose “both.” But her approach is old school, and she resents how private enterprise moved in with their new methods and sales pitches. When I arrive early, I’ll catch her laying out the brochures she’s required to display for programs I’ve never heard of—the Two Tokes Method, Deep Dive Corrective Meditation and the Serotonin School. But reach for one of those brochures, and her glare could cut you in half.
They’ve just started when I arrive. There’s the half-ring of rusted folding chairs, the low gospel music on a busted AM radio in the corner, a group of fellow addicts, some of whom I’ve met in my previous cycles through rehab and identify only by the nicknames I’ve invented for them—Beard Patch, Home Fries, Jitters, George. A table off to the side holds a few boxes of donuts, an assortment of chips, and a pitiful bowl of spice-free salsa.
“Sorry, I’m late,” I say. “I had to change clothes real quick.” Geraldine raises an eyebrow at my new get-up, Home Fries stifles a laugh. All Greg had for me to wear was a pair of cargo shorts that end an inch too high, and a worn polo shirt with a gross dirty-purple color that calls to mind a spoiled Easter egg. Only my work boots escaped the mess.
“So glad you could make it,” Geraldine says as I take the furthest seat away from her. “We were just talking about you.” I wonder if she’s serious or sarcastic. Her voice is honey and iron and emphysema. I can’t detect any nuances.
“Good things, I hope.” I try injecting some levity in my voice, but it comes out monotone.
“We were talking about temptation,” Geraldine says. “About inner strength. About standing outside yourself and possessing that rare ability to look inward.” Geraldine isn’t above a dramatic pause. “I hate to put you on the spot, Martin, but you’ve been doing especially well. I wondered if you could share your secrets?”
“Reaper Method,” I say. “Working great so far.” Geraldine’s face falls.
“I’ve been doing Cold Method,” Beard Patch interrupts. I named him as such for inability to grow a full beard, despite being in his 40s. When he stops shaving, the end result makes his face resemble a checkerboard of moustaches. “Same principle as Reaper, right? You’re supposed to get an endorphin rush from the cold shock. I don’t think mine’s working.”
“I just don’t trust that one,” I say. “I met a few guys that washed out early. The cold isn’t enough of a system shock.”
“I’m doing the Limited Release Dosing,” Home Fries says. I call him that because he used to cook meth out of the kitchen of his parents’ diner. “Newest thing. So cold turkey doesn’t work, right? You need occasional hits in a controlled setting. I don’t know how it makes getting high less appealing, but it does.”
“Where’s the science in that?” I roll my eyes. “Where is it?”
Geraldine sighs deep enough that I can nearly feel her breath from the other side of the circle. “I wish you would think a bit deeper,” Geraldine says. “All of you. Ask yourselves if you’re truly addressing the root cause, or aiming for a quick fix.”
I think for a moment on this one. I cough. Pockets of heat get trapped in the folds of your mouth – the fibrous pepper flesh in the crevices of your teeth, the little pools of spiked saliva hiding under your tongue.
“I can think deeper,” I say. “Here’s something I figured out, and you can take it or leave it.” I take a breath. “Obviously, I wasn’t able to use when I was in jail.”
“You could have found a way,” Jitters laughs. A small dollop of salsa falls from his shaking fingers into his lap. Geraldine gives him a look and the smart-ass smile dies on his lips.
I resume. “So one night after I first got in there, I wanted to smoke worse than anything, and I got to thinking what exactly was it I actually enjoyed about getting high? Was it the taste of meth or something? Was it the feeling of getting high?”
Geraldine leans forward in her chair, hands on her knees.
“You’re not giving us much here,” George says, disappointed. “You’re holding out.”
I take breath. “I figured it didn’t matter where the high came from,” I say. “It didn’t have to be from meth.”
“So what do you go to instead?” Geraldine asked. “Tell me what’s really behind your recovery. Don’t talk to me about your spice program. Tell me what’s really making a difference.”
I’m into capsaicin, I should say to Geraldine. The active ingredient in chili peppers, which give me a chemical burn and then a little endorphin rush. I’m into thoughts of bigger rushes, bigger heat, bigger peppers. I dream of the blood-red Reaper in my hand and its fibrous walls giving way against the teeth of me, its new master. That’s what keeps me going these days. This group? Sorry Gerri, but this isn’t my first turn in your church basement.
But I also know that Geraldine can twist my words and make my chili use sound like just another addiction that’ll take over my life eventually. Don’t think I don’t know what game she’s playing. So I smile and stay quiet and munch donut. Geraldine starts glaring, but soon enough she gives up and starts talking to someone else.
Six days a week, I bag groceries at Wagner’s Market. It’s a small, family-owner grocery store, and they get a tax break for hiring me. It’s all right, I guess. I do my best to stay positive. I bag with a tight-lipped smile, carry groceries for old ladies when the load gets too heavy. When someone buys hot peppers, I give a knowing wink that no one seems to acknowledge. In the breakroom, I’ll sometimes douse my tongue with a little drop of capsaicin extract, just to keep the pain receptors working overtime.
But today I’m bagging groceries with my mouth at room temperature. My motivation’s fading. One month now of serious training, and my tolerance hasn’t budged from the half-million point. Master Carl’s soothing voice now sounds taunting instead. Legend has it that a mere poblano pepper was enough to make Master Carl cry. But broke his old limits somehow, transcended to another level that kept him centered and clean.
I’m deep in this thought when Mr. Wagner taps me on the arm and tells me there’s a shoplifter he needs me to deal with.
“Why yes, my new polo shirt is quite nice,” I say. “Thanks for asking.”
“I was talking about you dealing with a shoplifter.”
“That’s what I thought you said.” The woman I’ve been bagging for casts the two of us a nervous glance. “Also, what do you mean by ‘deal with?’”
“That came out wrong. Maybe you could say something?”
“I look tough to you?” I suppose he doesn’t know I spent last Saturday crying over a Scotch bonnet pepper that hit me wrong. But I do have visible prison ink, and when I scowl, the missing teeth make my cheeks inhale into my mouth for some starved junkyard dog vibes. But fine. Everyone has their role to play. Apparently, “grocery store enforcer” is mine.
I stroll down the aisles, past the breakfast cereals and the boxed dinners to the refrigerated aisles where Mr. Wagner keeps his produce. It doesn’t take me long to figure out who Mr. Wagner was talking about. Certainly not the grandmother with her shopping cart and its nearly empty basket of groceries. There—a man in stained jeans and a battered hoodie is examining the peppers, just near the cabbage and the turnips. The smell gets stronger as I get closer—unwashed sweat and smoke, a slight whiff of astringent chemical. A tweaker.
“Hey.” The guy doesn’t seem to notice me. I brush my fingers against his shoulder, relieved to find his muscles atrophied. He could still swing at me, but there wouldn’t be much force. “Hey.”
He looks at me from beneath the hood, and it doesn’t take long to see too much. His mouth is covered with a ring of sores, his lower lip is swollen and angry, his neck vein bulges enough to pop. His eyes, flickering in all directions, are shot like cracked glass. I turn my head. This sight looks way too familiar.
“The spiciest thing they have is a jalapeno,” I say. “It’s not enough to work.”
“I made it all the way to Reapers,” the junkie whispers. He looks down, as though ashamed. “All the way to Leve Five. They aren’t working.”
“Bullshit. They will.” I look around to make sure no one’s looking and lower my voice. “I used to be the same as you,” I tell him. “But then Reaper Method changed everything for me.”
“Have you tried Cold Method?” he whispers. He leans in, almost conspiratorially. “I’ve heard things. I think it’s the one.” Instead, I put my hand on his shoulder and gently push him toward the exit. He allows himself to be lead, and I wave to Mr. Wagner that all’s well.
“Go big, or it’ll never work,” I whisper to the tweaker, as if I know any better. As if I’ve ever made it past Level Three. “I know it works. Take it from me.”
There’s about forty guys living with me in the halfway house. More than half will probably offend again. I can see it in their eyes when I run into them during lights out, when we’re doing our chores and cleaning the floors and mowing the lawns, when we step outside in the back entrance that’s our designated smoking section. They spent years dreaming of their release date, and now they’re asking themselves if out here is really any better. Sometimes it’s hard answering yes.
The halfway house itself is in Braddock, the steel town that died hard when the mills closed. When I jog down Main Street, all I really notice are the boarded-up windows and the panhandlers, and I know why my housemates figure the world’s run out of chances. If only they’d put us up in a nice town, we’d catch a speck of hope, but that’ll never happen. Not in my backyard, they’d say. Not in Greg’s backyard.
And then there’s the salesmen.
Sometimes the company reps go full professional – the full three-piece suit that promises a total one-eighty to the straight life. Other times they go for the Reformed Junkie look, where they clean up enough to pass as role models, but leave enough rough edges for a little approachability. The guy who’s walking up to the smoking area where Home Fries and I are relaxing has gone full Billy Mays—inoffensive blue polo with the khakis and toothy grin behind a beard so thick it’s nearly circular.
“Whoa, hold on,” I say. “Section 4A of the Private-Public Rehabilitation Agreement says halfway houses are off limits.” I drop the cigarette to the ground and stub it out. “Trust me, I know from experience. You can’t sell here.”
“Yes, but there’s an exception,” Billy Mays says. “Section 7 says we may approach halfway house residents regarding participation in test runs for new rehab programs that haven’t yet received full HHS approval.”
Home Fries looks to me for help. I shrug my shoulders. In quick order, Billy Mays slides two brochures from his pile like cards from the deck.
“The Montana Method,” Billy Mays says. “We’re talking straight biochemistry hacks here—no more of the flesh versus the spirit. We’re talking about bringing both halves in harmony.”
“You’re just talking about eating a lot of red meat.” I scoff. I’m flipping through the pages and reading the images: stacks of steak and hamburgers and Angus steers behind a sunset background, a Vitruvian man suddenly swollen to Mr. Olympia musculature. “Lots of ranching out West—I’m guessing that’s why it’s called Montana Method?”
“It’s where it was created, out in cattle country,” Billy Mays says. “All that red meat creates a testosterone spike, which results in reduced recidivism. There’s studies and everything—don’t take my word it!” His eye flickers in an obnoxious wink and he turns to Home Fries. “Say, bud…what program are you on?”
“Cold Method,” Home Fries says. I notice with some disgust that he hasn’t looked up from the brochure. “But I’m thinking of trying some meditation. Maybe a little equine therapy. I dunno.”
“I’m on Reaper Method,” I tell Billy Mays. “I’m up to Level Three and it’s working fine. You can see yourself out.”
“Whoa there, you sure about that?” Billy pulls his phone out of pocket and thumbs the screen. “Says here that Reaper Method has been placed on a probationary period with HHS. The success rate dropped below the threshold last month.”
“Bullshit.” I put another cigarette in my mouth, go to light it and miss. “That’s just politics. These other companies want a piece of the action.”
Two more flicks of the thumb, and Billy hands us business cards. “Sure thing,” he smiles. “The important thing is, it works for you, right? And no one can take that from you. Right?”
Pittsburgh city limits are twenty minutes past. I’m headed south in the rusted Buick and hoping it has enough life left for a trip across a state or two. I’m thinking of Greg now, and trying to convince myself that he’d support me a move like this.
Back in high school, I was the state track champ—I ran the 1600 meter, the four-by-four relay, the two-mile. Give me a distance and I’d cross it to keep the runner’s high going. In the off-season Greg timed my laps until we got the pacing on point, the exact length of my strides, the precise amount of time for each turn. We’d train with weights on my ankles and wrists, performed sprints to keep my fast-twitch muscles sharp—any trick that helped us win. That career ended with heatstroke and a busted kneecap that still limps when I stand too long at the grocery store. New highs came after that.
No one expects me to succeed. I know this because at my release hearing, the judge said “well, we’ll see what happens,” in a voice so sarcastic even my public defender laughed. In those days, I was grateful for Greg in my corner. Which makes my decision today feel even less respectful. But he does deserve a call. I pull my phone from the charging station and dial his number.
“On one hand, you’re disrupting my family time,” Greg says when I call him. “On the other hand, are you familiar with Paw Patrol? Keep me on the phone. Please.”
“If I were to leave the state and go to Master Carl’s in Fredericksburg, you’d cover for me, right?” I take a break. “I mean…hypothetically. If I were to travel there for a weekend to try secret Level Six training. Not that I would.”
“I’d do my part to keep you out of jail.” Greg’s voice sounds hesitant. “But Virginia is a state away. The conditions of your release say you can’t even leave the county. You couldn’t really play that off as an honest mistake.”
I cough.
“You’re driving there now, aren’t you?”
“Look…”
“Turn around now, and no one has to know.”
“Whatever we’re doing isn’t working,” I tell him. “When I started this, I used to get a rush that kept me going. I haven’t felt a damn thing in weeks.”
“So that means you need to go to Carl the Cult Leader for hotter peppers because the smaller ones don’t make you feel anything anymore?” Greg snorts. “You do realize that your language sounds remarkably similar to an actual addict, right?”
I sigh. “It does sound strange, sure. But it’s fine.” From the other end of the line, Greg has gone silent. “Four hours one way, four hours the next. If the parole officer calls you…”
But then there’s that sound that lets me know Greg has hung up on me. I toss the phone in the passenger seat and hear it land on the floor. It’s been a long time since I’ve driven for any length of time, and I’m learning the feel of the highway again, the wind beating down on my face, the liberating feeling of letting my foot go heavy, the comforting sensation of seeing a sign announce an upcoming town and then watching it pass in the exact same increments as promised, and I’m telling myself that this. Is. It. I’m going somewhere of my choosing, and the steps are clear, the only necessary attribute is persistence. Monroeville, New Stanton, Breezewood. Level One, Level Three, Level Five. Hopelessness, hope, and then finally—the moment where the Reaper’s heat burns everything away and I emerge again, a complete man at last.
Jason Peck’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Smokelong Quarterly, JMWW, Jersey Devil Press, Carolina Quarterly, and Nothing Short Of: Selected Tales From 100 Word Story. He lives in Pittsburgh, and was one of the founding editors of After Happy Hour.