Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
SHE KNOWS THE DRILL
Ex-user brings toughness to drug court
“Melissa gives us all hope: Because if she can do it, if she can beat these drugs, then so can we.” SHERIE WINN | NYE COUNTY DRUG COURT PARTICIPANT
The drug crowd shows up outside the Nye County Courthouse with the morning sun still an upstart; many, it seems, dressed in the same clothes they had worn the night before.
Some peer ahead in a trance, not yet awake. Others stand at the door, cigarettes hanging from their lips, arms crossed defensively, squinting into the hard-slanting light.
Mothers pull along children. One 3-year-old girl guides a stroller bearing a Cabbage Patch doll, unaware that a judge has termed Mommy a habitual offender who must appear here at random times each week to urinate into a bottle and prove she’s not using.
“I gotta get to work,” one woman complains. “I ain’t got time for this BS today.”
The regimen is called The Drop, and nobody wants to be here. When the doors open at 7 a.m., men with pants dangling on their hips and women without makeup congregate dourly in a waiting room where “One Day at a Time” is scrawled across a mirror. They make cynical cracks, rolling their eyes, waiting for their names to be called.
On this morning, like most others, “Sarge” is there to meet them. She’s a boss lady, a petite drill instructor and, sometimes, a knowing confidante.
Just don’t cross her; that’s the street-corner wisdom here.
Because Melissa Mevis once walked in these same drug-doing shoes. Twelve years ago, she made these same postdawn courthouse appearances, dragging her two young daughters, trying to show a judge and anybody else who cared that she was clean, ready to start a new life.
But that was long ago, when Mevis had a taste for meth and pot and bad choices. Now, at 34, she helps coordinate the county’s drug program; she’s a graduate-madegood who analyzes urine samples rather than gives them. With a practiced eye, she sizes up these street players to gauge whether, on this morning or any other, they’re telling the truth.
These drug users know they lie to Sarge at their own peril.
The day before, each participant in Nye County’s drug court — a gethelp program that is an alternative to prison — called in to hear a recording in which Mevis reads off the colors being summoned for the next day’s drug test: Red. Purple. Pearl. Lime.
The voice is no-nonsense, a bit weary, coming from a woman who has attended that party, taken that drug.
Mevis assists Fifth Judicial District Court Judge Kim Wanker, who oversees the drug court program. Mevis takes the urine samples, stands by in court and keeps an eye on those now-familiar frowning faces as Wanker hears their cases.
The judge gave Mevis the nickname Sarge.
“Melissa is no-nonsense; she knows crap when she hears it,” Wanker said. “She’ll barge right into my office to get her answers. She wants stuff done, and she wants it done now.” Mevis says the Sarge name fits. “Maybe it’s because I’m bossy, impatient,” she says. “I need things done right away.”
That morning at The Drop, Mevis rolls open the window to the crowded waiting room and calls a woman’s name. A 30-something blonde jumps up and walks down the narrow hallway, her spiked hair rising like an unmowed lawn. Her arms bear purple tattoos, she wears a black shirt with the word “Blessed.” Her 5-year-old daughter trails behind her.
The testing takes place inside a jury deliberation room, where participants leave their valuables on a table and step into either a men’s or women’s bathroom. Mevis follows the blonde into the restroom, the little girl in tow, and closes the door behind them.
The chatter is bright, considering the circumstances. “How you doing today?” “I’m great! Yourself?” “It’s too early to tell.” Mevis is all ears. Tell her you lost your job, and she will make calls to help you find another one. She’s got a soft spot for mothers struggling to feed and clothe their kids.
But do her wrong, give her an attitude, and she will be there like a drill sergeant dropping you for 50 push-ups. Walk in a minute late, and Mevis will turn you away cold. Dress down, wear pajamas to her drug test sessions, and you’re a goner.
“Melissa’s always right there to call you out if you get out of line,” said Alana Murphy, 22, a local brothel worker who wears a T-shirt bearing the phrase “Bunny Ranch. Eat Fresh.” “She’s smart, and she’s been there. I can lie to my friends, but not to her.”
Nearby, 18-year-old Blake Drouillard, whose heroin habit landed him in drug court, shook his head in a sort of dark admiration.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s like, before you even do it, she’s right there, knowing you’re gonna do it.”
Sherie Winn, 54, a blonde whose looks have hardened from her heroin habit, has seen Mevis go from light to dark when she suspects she’s being played.
“She’ll seem real nice, and then, if something happens she doesn’t like, her whole attitude changes, and you’re like, ‘Oh no, I’m busted,’” she said.
“But if you’re behaving, she can be your best friend. I think Melissa gives us all hope: Because if she can do it, if she can beat these drugs, then so can we.”
METH AT 16
Mevis grew up in Pahrump, the daughter of a butcher. She wasn’t a bad kid, but she hung out with troublemakers. She first did meth at age 16. She liked the rush but hated the next day, when she felt depressed coming down.
She did a stint in juvenile hall and later, after high school graduation, started waitressing. But she couldn’t give up her drug crowd. She lost her job, and crashed.
“I wasn’t used to doing meth and then not having any more,” she said. ▶ See DRILL, Page 23A