It was like a clandestine eBay, a digital marketplace for illicit trade, mostly drugs. Over the past few months he had been handling customer service for the massive online enterprise called Silk Road. The fact was, Green wasn’t just your average Mormon grandpa. (The package was stamped with a red dragon, the symbol for high-quality Peruvian.) Over the whole scene was a needlepoint that said: if i had known you were coming, i would have cleaned up! Excited by the company, little Max stopped shaking just long enough to crap right in the living room. On the living room wall hung family photos-his wife, Tonya, their two daughters, and a grandson-smiling brightly above Green, lying amid $27,000 worth of premium flake. He looked at the busted door and thought, Man, that thing was unlocked. He could hear things crashing, some officers yelling, others whispering to each other. Splayed out on the carpet, Green was eye level with dozens of boots: A large tactical team-SWAT and DEA agents-fanned out through the house. Officers cuffed Green on the floor while fending off Max, the older Chihuahua, who bared his tiny fangs and bit at their shoelaces. When he tried to comfort his pups, a dozen guns took aim: “Keep your hands where we can see them!” Green dropped the package where he stood. There was Green, covered in cocaine and flanked by two Chihuahuas. Quickly the house was flooded by cops in riot gear and black masks, weapons at the ready. Just then the front door burst open, knocked off its hinges by a SWAT team wielding a battering ram. Green considered the package and then took it into his kitchen, where he tore it open with scissors, sending up a plume of white powder that covered his face and numbed his tongue. It was heavy, had no return address, and bore a postmark from Maryland. His little dogs watched him pick up the mystery package.
On the porch sat a Priority box-about Bible-sized. A pale haze washed out the white-tipped Spanish Fork Peak rising above the valley. It was winter, a day of high clouds and low sun. Also odd was a van Green noticed across the street, one he’d never seen before: white, with no logos or rear windows. The guy was wearing a US Postal Service jacket, but with sneakers and jeans. He peeked through the front window and caught a glimpse of the postman hurrying off. Green waddled to the door, his two Chihuahuas, Max and Sammy, following attentively. To get around he sometimes borrowed his wife’s pink cane. At 47 his body was already failing him: He was overweight, with four herniated discs, a bum knee, and gleaming white dental implants. Green ambled over, adjusting his camouflage fanny pack. It was 11 am, and surprise visits were uncommon at his modest house in Spanish Fork, Utah, a high-desert hamlet in the shadow of the Wasatch Mountains. Fingers frosted synthetic white, he was startled to hear someone at the door. Curtis Green was at home, greeting the morning with 64 ounces of Coca-Cola and powdered mini doughnuts. “I imagine that someday I may have a story written about my life and it would be good to have a detailed account of it.”-home/frosty/documents/journal/2012/q1/january/week1
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