The prison library only permits me to print a maximum of five recycled A4 pages a day, so let’s not waste time, I only have six months as is. So: the first time I heard the term Body Broker was with Freaky Fred. This is when it all started, before the charged deaths, the forensic investigations, the media’s accusatory swarm, my incarceration here. They call me the “Face of The Florida Shuffle,” “Body Broker #1,” the first person to be sentenced to death for violating State of Florida, Section 1. Section 397.487 (2019), which declares: “a prohibition on the premises against the possession or use of alcohol and, illegal drugs on the premises, and against the use of prescribed medications by an individual other than the individual for whom the medication is prescribed.”

I was still living with Freaky Fred (aka: Wesley Olvertin) in the rectory when this all happened. During the academic year I taught private school English to the elite scions of West Palm Beach wealth; F.F. (Freaky Fred) was a pizza delivery man and community muralist who’d covered the stucco walls and stained glass windows with paintings.  Those days we used yellow late notices from Comcast as napkins and sent our landlord checks without signatures to buy more time. Sue Oh shot a film of us all called Depressed Roomies for her Sociology class.

I was saying, “It’s that time of year again. The summer hustle.”

Fred said, “Come work at Deathray;They’re always hiring. The turnover is insane.”

“Deathray” was the insider term joke for Delray Rehab and Treatment (DRAT).

We were playing our version of Madden with customized rosters comprised only of felons: cornerbacks accused of domestic assault, offensive linemen on PEDS, quarterbacks on ritalin and other such stimulants. I had just scored a TD with the GOAT, Ricky Williams, running the patented left right tackle play that always worked because there was a glitch in the script.

I taunted him, dancing around in Simpsons boxers with a PBR and a sandwich bag of benzos. “Ricky says no no no I ain’t going to rehab.”

F.F. threw his controller against the wall and then had to go pick it up. It was our version of the Walk of Shame, picking up your video game controller after you throwing it.

“The point of rehab is to keep them in rehab,” he said.

I repeated that line at my interview and soon was promoted to the Data Analyst position in the Nerd Cave, formerly the property’s racquetball court. Our mission was to quantify recovery in search of an algorithm that could describe and predict success. The secondary, and unstated mission, was to create  AI that could replace the staff, including F.F.

My motive was different than from my usual summer gigs such as Fiverr Sock Pocket, bar back, Grubhub driver, and so forth. Over the last couple of years,  I had read about a number of illicit, illegal, and quite “beyond the pale” rehab facilities operating out of the Palm Beach/Del Ray Beach regions of Florida, before the Atlantic coast was deemed uninhabitable after the Red Ride Crisis and the cyclone epidemic of 2020-2022. I had a long-time dream of being an undercover journalist, and from what I had read about the so-called “Florida Shuffle,” this was a phenomenon that needed to be recorded. I was also, then, a functioning alcoholic with an Rx habit spanning benzos and opiates to medical marijuana. But, most importantly, during my time as a teacher, standing before various classrooms of indifferent and window-gazing students, I had developed the ability to literally read minds.

For you to understand and appreciate this account, you will have to simply accept my testimony regarding my abilities, or superpowers, allowing me to focalize the thoughts of others. Once I touched, or saw, or heard, another human being, I gained admittance to their minds and souls. Sadonna more than anyone; my Sadonna (tl; dr). In other words, the truth-value, or verisimilitude, of the following pages requires that you, the reader, understand that I was The God of this World.  

 

 

James McAdams

Green Dolphin Correctional Facility (operated by GEO Group),

Tallahassee, Florida

October 15, 2025

 

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James McAdams an author and English professor residing in St. Petersburg, Florida. His short story collection, Ambushing the Void, will be published in March of 2020 by Frayed Edge Press. He isn’t in prison at the moment.