A NICE GUY WITH A LITTLE SECRET

Mike is a nice guy with a soft, laid-back demeanor. He is one of those people who you can meet and instantly get along with. Nothing about his presence or personality that would give away his secret, a hobby that is illegal most everywhere.

The 23-year-old student knows a lot of people and is liked by almost all of them. But not many people know that he is a drug dealer. He says that he has recently begun selling small amounts of marijuana.

‘Mike’, who for obvious reasons would like to remain anonymous, doesn’t base his life around the illegal substance. He has a rather indifferent attitude about the drug.

“I really just started doing it so I could have money for beer,” he said, explaining how he got into the ‘business. “I’m basically just being a middle man for my friends.”

Mike says that what he does is a necessary thing for his core group of friends. He and his buddies would buy the stuff anyway, and he says that he just makes the process more convenient.

He does admit, however, that he is taking a big risk, although he seemed confident that he was being smart and safe about the illegal operation.

“I just remember seeing [another dealer] and how open and obvious he was about it,” he said. “I never sell to anyone I don’t know personally, and it’s never very much.”

I met Mike, like many others before me, through a friend of a friend. He seemed intelligent and interesting, and until it somehow came up in conversation, no one knew about his secret ‘hobby.’

It made me wonder about the people I meet in every day and what kind of hidden secrets everyone has.

--Tyler Hearn