by Ronald Smith
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I came to know a man in Edinburgh, whom I realized was a supreme rationalist. I began to admire the way he used logic to control those around him. He had been a dope dealer for twenty years and had never been busted. His house was virtually open, he dealt with the most dangerous people, with freaks and criminals coming and going night and day; and yet, in the crazy, uncontrollable world of cannabis, he led a very organized family life. He set rules and had an honourable code; he believed dope was good for people, but he would not sell cocaine because he thought it was bad. His trick was that he successfully dominated all the people around him and got them to behave towards him in just the way he liked, earning a lot of respect in the process. He would play the Devil's Advocate, employing logical thinking to support almost any point of view he adopted.
"I always argue against a person," he told me; "I respect what he says if he can back himself up with a good argument." Most of the time, the other person would lose because he kept at them mercilessly.
Since he didn't smoke roll-up tobacco, and I'd often be out of cigarettes, I'd have to ask him for one, to roll a joint, and he would say: "For Heaven's sake, haven't you even got a bloody packet of cigarettes? How in God's name can I make any money if I always have to be giving you fags?"
One could never fault what he said. One time, I was waiting for him to return, and his sister was in the room.
I reached for an L.P. cover to roll a joint on. "I wouldn't do that," she warned.
"Why not?"
"He doesn't like people to use album covers for that."
“Why not?"
"You might burn the cover." He had trained her to think as he did. He was like the sun with moons going around it; the only male in an otherwise female household, he subtly dominated them all. He was, I began to comprehend, what my father was trying to be.
After I'd come home from an uproarious weekend near Stonehaven where my friends and I had consumed a lot of drugs and scampered about on the high cliffs overlooking the North Sea, I sat down to dinner with the family and began describing a walk along the cliffs, leaving out the drugs, of course. I mentioned that there had been a strong wind from off the sea.
"From which direction was the wind blowing?" my father asked. He would refuse to let me talk unless I was precise.
"From off the sea."
"From which direction?" he barked. 1 knew what he wanted me to say - from the North East - but I wouldn't give in.
"From off the bloody sea."
"WHICH BLOODY DIRECTION?" He banged the table so hard the cutlery jumped.
"FROM OFF THE BLOODY SEA, YOU OLD CUNT!"
It was then I left home.
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