Scoring Drugs
One of the strangest things since moving back is trying to score some weed.
Its been about 4 years since I moved back here, and in that time I’ve been living with weed quite literally on my doorstep, if not being sold in my lounge, so trying to score has really been quite easy.
Even before my most recent domestic living situation made this a piece of piss, my dealers house was only ever a 10min walk from home, and then 5 minutes after I moved and found myself even closer. Not just smoke, but a whole selection of go faster fizzy-good-make-feel-nice type powers and pills were on offer. All you had to do was ring him up (or just turn up, and let yourself in) and sometimes be forced to accept a can of beer, or a coffee. These were happy and easy times.
Except, now that I’m back home, I’m back to playing that ridiculous “standing on the street corner, waiting for the dealer for months”-game, again.
Unlike the last city, where I could easy score of multiple people (strangely enough 4 of them had the same name), here I know one person that my brother has put me in touch with, from whom I’ve managed to score both some of the best and worst smoke I’ve ever had. OK, not actually the worst -Who hasn’t picked up ??20 of toilet tissue in their youth, but whilst one day you get 4.6g bursting out of a sealy back, others you get two tens looking like they’re both less than a gram.
“Aright man, its ______’s brother here, you got Henry with you?”
“Yeah, no problems man, 15 minutes.”
And it really should be as simple as that. 8 minutes later the house phone rings three times, and in my lacking of drugs mentality, I took this as a sign to go outside. Ignore the fact I didn’t call him from the land line and he doesn’t have the number, and lets look past the fact that he’s never shown any previous indication of being reliable or informative. I went outside anyway and waited at the end of the street.
It was 5 to 9 when I went outside, a nice easy time to remember as a base marker. He should be here at 9.
I don’t particularly enjoy sitting on street corners waiting for people. The last few years have left me with a minor anxiety problem and a rather large fear of being outdoors. Fuck the fact I used to spend my late childhood and early teens walking the streets, slipping out after it got dark and my folks had gone to bed; the last couple of years I’ve been finding the corner shop was closing well before I’d managed to get my courage together to go out the front door.
So I was a bit gee’d up to start with and sitting on the cross-roads of a middle-class neighbourhood, being one of the few alternative types wearing camo combats, para boots and long hair, I kept feeling a little… conspicuous.
I lit up a cigg and tried to look casual, but I was little jumpy. Two sets of footsteps coming up the side street, but I can’t see anything until they’re on top of me. Only a teenager and his dad, walking and talking. I’ve been worried about someone trying to do me over, and the look in their eyes says they’re expecting me to cause problems. I say Hi, and then feeling guilty add that I’m ‘hiding from my mum, if she catches me smoking she’ll kill me’. I try to come across as not a threat, and start breathing again as they disappear.
I notice a kid come round the corner. He is walking towards me, until he notices me hiding in the bush, at which point he takes a detour. I see what I think is him passing the end of the street. If it is then he’s done three sides of a square to avoid me. Half of me still a bit upset that I come across as a threat. Half of me is quite glad of it -maybe people will leave me alone a bit. And then the other half of me is thinking I might be making this up and I should probably stop dwelling on shit.
I gave it until 10 past before I call, only to have him apologise and promise to be with me in 5minutes. But he sounds sincere, so I let it slide, and get back to my waiting.
Finally a car pulls round the corner. I stand up from the side of the road where I was sitting and cross and wave. Fuck, its only the neighbour’s daughter -though she does smile and wave back.
A taxi pulls up at the end of the street, just out of sight. I sit and watch it for a bit. Sure, he’s always turned up in flash cars before, but maybe? I walk up and look at the taxi, decide its not for me and go back to waiting on my corner, and watching the tail lights of the taxi wondering if I’m wrong.
Female drug dealers? I’ve not come across one, and I’ve come across a few pot peddlers in a good few cities. I met a female taxi driver once, up in Robin Hood in Scotland, and worked with a female ICT Technician for a while, but only ever come across single digits. I suppose selling drugs, like computers or taxi driving is just another male dominated profession.
The taxi drives off and now I’m seriously thinking it might have been for me.
Saying that, I’ve been playing spot the dealer for the last 45 minutes, and my arse is going numb by this point. Spot the Dealer is a game that most people trying to score drugs will have played at some point or another. It usually consists of sitting somewhere usually quite busy or public, and expecting every or any car going past of being the dealer you’re waiting for. “Does he know what I look like”, “Do I know what he drives” and “I wonder of everyone who drives past realises I’m waiting for drugs”. The neighbours too; It might just bee reading too much John l?? Carre, but sitting here for 40 fucking minutes doing nothing -how bastards suspicious can I not look. ffs. There’s only so many times one can pace up and down the same street of 3 houses, or look at their watch and try to appear to anyone looking that they are slightly cheesed off at being kept waiting by a long lost friend or sick aunt who’s visiting. And I’m running out of ciggs to to make me look both cool and casual, and move over, give me something to be doing. I should have brought a book or something, but the image of hanging around street corners in the dark; reading novels by street lights, I think not.
Another phone call. He apologises again, says he’ll be but five minutes.
I wonder if I should call it off, or give up. Seriously, what is the point? This bullshit of hanging around, in the cold and the dark. It was always like this, I remember. In the years as I was failing my GCSEs some of the rediculous attempts at picking up. Hours of waiting, phonecalls that always follow the “yeah, yeah, 10 minuites” format. Travelling for miles or waiting in the snow; it was never fun and for fucks sake, I thought I’d progressed beyond this. Gains and losses. I suppose this is a small thing to put up with as I try and restart my life.
Another taxi swings round the corner and this time I decide it must be the one. Male (see the pattern), 40′s and white, but I’m sure he could sound like a 20something black gansta on the phone. It didn’t help that he was reaching into the passinger footwell as he pulled up next to me, looked to be fishing something out, so I asked him if it was for me. Turned out to be for a neighbour who’s name I recognised, so I pointed him to her house with a smile and a good night. I make a point of checking my watch; just waiting for a lift, Mr, no waiting for drugs over here.
I’m at the point of giving up, and decide to take a two minute walk up and down to stretch my legs. As the taxi pulls out down the one way road, a car careens around the corner, comes up the wrong way and has to swerve in to miss the taxi. I cringe, and then a second later as realisation crept up the back of my neck. What car would the dealer be driving? Yeah, you guessed it.
Thoughts along the lines of “what the fuck took so long?” or “seriously dood, I don’t care how long, just let me know a real time” even a little “maybe give me a call next time when you get here, so I’m not sat on a street corner for a fucking hour” quickly disappear as I notice the baby and young mother that my 20 bag is being passed over. “Fuck man, you shoulda said you were busy, it wouldn’t have mattered.
I was really quite angry about the whole thing. It seems unnessicary. Some level of legalization would mean I could walk into a shop and buy some cannabis. I don’t see the need for all this pissing about waiting and I don’t see why what I choose to inhale should make me a criminal, or have to associate with them.
A couple of friends just got back from Amsterdam. Tales of being able to go into shops and pick from variety of weeds is the sort of thing I like. Being able to smoke a spliff and not having to be either at home, or hidden away, being able to sit in a park and enjoy a smoke, or of sitting in town and have a coffee and a biff -well, it sounds damn appealing.
I should get off my arse and do some investigating before I say any more. The problem with cannabis, or rather the problem with talking about cannabis, is that everyone you speak to is usually very zealot-like in their point of view and beliefs, on both sides of the table. Smokers will usually tell you its the best thing in the world, and often believe it -I know I do occasionally. Stories of how its the wonder cure for any sort of ailment they’re having, a million and one uses and the fact that anything negative is pure propaganda put out by da man who’s trying to keep you away from this miracle.
The Man, on the other hand, tells us that smoking spiffs will lead to psychosis and that its far more deadly than just smoking tobacco.
There has to be a sensible middle ground I can find. And I could do with investigating how addictive it actually is. I wonder how many others get that worried feeling when they start to run out, or how much money people are actually putting into it.
Oh, and I got a rubbish draw 