Memoir Excerpt — I Was a Teenage DEA Informant - Part I

October 19, 2026

Joshua Bennett-Johnson,  Author and Licensed Counselor & Owner of JBJ Counseling

Tom O'Connor, Publisher

This article is Part I of a two-part series and is an excerpt from my upcoming memoir, "Blue Eyed Son," which discusses my struggles with substance and alcohol use disorders. 

Stay tuned for Part II, titled "I Was a Teenage DEA Informant," coming next week.

KEY POINTS

Joshua Bennett-Johnson recalls the events that led him to become a teenage DEA informant at 17.

A demand for repayment and a threatening encounter at work made the danger feel immediate

A familiar detective noticed his distress, listened privately, and arranged a next contact.

Part I ends at the meeting in a dark SUV.

As fate would have it, three separate incidents would occur within a few weeks that would ultimately turn me into a willing, teenage DEA informant. A confidential informant to the federal organization, doing work for them that would occupy the better part of three months of my young life.

The first incident was a phone call. The Widow, we'll call her, called the restaurant. I was one of two servers that evening, and I answered the phone when it rang. I heard her voice.

" Josh. I need to know what's going on with my money," she said after I greeted her in the way I had been trained to answer customer calls.

" I am SO sorry, but Josh isn't working tonight. This happens to me all the time," I replied, dropping my tone an octave.

" Josh, I know it's you. I know your voice," she replied.

" Uh, this is John," I said, getting supremely nervous. "I'm not sure what else to tell you. I don't know when Josh is working next. Maybe I can find out. Can I help you with anything? Would you like to place an order?"

A long beat of silence passed, then she spoke into the receiver.

"Tell him that Widow called, and to call me back immediately," I said, pretending to scribble down the message and her phone number as my heart raced.

When I hung up the phone, I went and sat at one of the front tables, shakily lighting up a cigarette, feeling like my body was full of acrid poison, coursing through me. It took time and deep drags of smoke to come to my senses. Luckily, the restaurant was mostly empty.

After I shook off the rust, and with no additional phone inquiries for the next week or two, some of the rough-looking characters I'd seen hanging out at her place came into the restaurant for brunch one weekend morning—incident two.

My heart clenched when I saw them in the line waiting to be seated. They ended up with another server.

"Surely a coincidence," I told myself, and they didn't seem to notice me. When they got up to leave, however, something shifted. One of them, kinda scrawny, heavily tattooed, and with a weathered face, walked up to me and smiled.

"You're Josh, right?" He asked amiably. "Yeah! I remember you! How's it going, man?"

" Hey," I said quietly, "Good. Busy."

"Gimme two seconds," he said, not really asking. "I want to show you something. Come into the doorway."

Autopilot. I followed him into the little glass foyer.

The weather was warm, and he wore a black tee and a denim vest, sliding an unlit cigarette into the corner of his mouth.

"I wanna show you something," he said, "check this out," as he turned and rolled up his left sleeve. He showed me three ugly, deep scars on his arm. One on the inside of his arm, near the pit; another at the elbow; and one on his forearm.

"I got these from Widow, like, I dunno, three or four years ago."

He waited for my reaction. I said nothing.

"Yeah. Broke my arm in like three different places. Well, not her, but you get it. Surgery. Plates, pins, all that. And I didn't even owe her half of what you did," he told me.

He gave my arm a soft pat, said nothing else, and got into the waiting truck with one of his group as they drove out of the parking lot.

Not very subtle, but certainly enough to compel a panic attack in the middle of the breakfast rush as I walked briskly back to the bathroom to smoke and what? Think? 

What the hell was I going to do about this? Who could I tell? Loose lips sink ships. I thought of my bodybuilder friend. I knew where Widow stashed all of her wares, all the little hiding places throughout her house. I'd spent plenty of time with her by then. Maybe he and some big goons could rob her?

I was 17. She was 37.

Incident three: That very same week, I was working alone—a Sunday evening shift. We always had one server on for Sunday evenings. We barely saw any patrons on Sunday nights, the occasional takeout call or a single person asking for a table for one. As fate would have it, a takeout order came in again, and when the gentleman arrived to pick it up, his car still running in our small front parking lot, we met eyes and recognized each other immediately.

He was older. Ruddy-red Irish-faced. A massive beer belly on his wide frame. Smiling eyes. He knew my first name, and I, his. He was a city detective. He had worked in the juvenile division for decades, along with his not-so-nice partner. Despite my issues with local law enforcement, we'd always shared a pleasant rapport. He was a "protect and serve" cop, someone who truly believed in helping his community and making it better for everyone. Not a bully. He never shied away from a conversation with me in any of our encounters, and he always heard me out, no matter what dumb situation I'd gotten into that required police intervention. He always seemed to actually care about me.

The moment he saw me, he could feel it. Energetically. He knew something was off. My vibe. My demeanor. Still, he smiled and greeted me, "Hey, Josh! Good to see you! How is it?" I could see a twinge of concern in his eyes beneath his jolly presentation.

"Can I talk to you for a second?" I asked him, "Maybe in the back of the restaurant? Somewhere private?"

His smile had all but vanished, his forehead furrowed with obvious concern.

"Of course," he told me, his hand resting gently on my arm. "Josh, are you okay?"

We walked to the back area of the empty dining room. I hesitated for a moment, eyes down, then I met his gaze and asked him a question.

" Have you ever heard anything about anything going on up on Pleasant Ave?" I asked him.

His usual reddish, glowing complexion paled as he slowly answered, "Yeah, I might have heard some things about something going on up there." He continued, "Josh, what's going on, kid? What is it you need to tell me? How can I help?"

I went on to give him an overview of what was going on, and even my own criminal behavior: the tremendous debt, the threatening messenger who had dined here just days before. All of it. He sat at the table, silent, his concerned eyes fixed on my panicked, desperate stare. I was pleading with my eyes. Silently.

Then he broke the silence. " What time do you close tonight?" he asked. " In about an hour," I told him. " Ok. I'm gonna bring my food home. I'm going to call someone. Don't leave," he told me. "Someone is going to call you."

I think I just nodded at him, silently. I swiped his card and handed him the bag of food. He signed it, reached out and squeezed me gently on the arm again, and he told me in a voice that was one part compassionate and one part stone-cold, "Don't worry, Joshua. You're going to be alright."

I sat down at the front table again, trembling, jumpy, and sweaty, and lit another cigarette as he exited the parking lot. Something was definitely happening now. But what? To make matters worse, this cop I had just spilled the beans to wasn't just one of the nicer cops in the city; he was also a resident of The Highlands, probably for two or three generations. This felt personal, and my friends and I had known Widow's house was "hot" for the past several months.

Patrol and detective vehicles had been creeping through the small neighborhoods up there late at night. They drove around at strange hours, looking for signs of activity in a way none of us had seen before, and we'd spent our entire young lives playing in those streets and keeping our eyes peeled for anything unusual. This was our neighborhood. Our home.

About an hour later, I got a phone call. I was to finish closing up the restaurant and then walk over to the adjacent McDonald's parking lot, where "they" would be waiting for me, a faceless, nameless voice told me on the other end. The night was dark, overcast, and warm. I walked around to the back of the building, and a big, black, tinted SUV flashed its high beams at me. Summoning me over. The passenger-side window rolled down halfway.

" Josh, right?" He said, "Hop in the backseat.

Read Josh's bio by clicking his icon at the start of this article.

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