Queen of Green

by V E Rooney

  And if you think I’m harsh, I’m nowhere near as harsh as other dealers around. There are fellas in Toxteth and others on the south side who make me look like Mother Theresa. Try and rip those lads off, you won’t get to do it again. This lot exact their punishment with guns and machetes. If they caught up with you, you’d be lucky if you died, because you’d escape a fate much worse. Some non-paying customers had been spared the release of death only to wake up in hospital minus a limb that’s been crippled or a spine that’s been severed, or their brains bashed into mush. Bad enough for them, but also an example to those thinking of not paying either. The story of what had happened to Sammy Costigan had long ago passed into local folklore – a bogeyman for the times.

  I’d never met Sammy, he was a bit before my time, but I heard all about him. He was the archetypal big fish in a small pond, from Huyton, dealing out of his flat, or at his local pub, the Bluebell. He was the go-to man for dope, pills and smack in the area. His Toxteth suppliers knew he was good for business and let him crack on without too much interference, until Sammy, buzzing after a major win at the bookies, started doing lines on the table in the pub, too off his face to care who saw him.

  Now, the regulars in that place knew better than to get on their moral high horses and call the busies, so they sat there quietly supping their pints and pretending not to notice the clouds of white powder jumping up from the table. But the landlord being a twitchy sort, understandably, didn’t want to see that in his pub, and told Sammy to do one. Sammy lost his rag and glassed the landlord in the face before trying to smash up the pub. However, the regulars weren’t too keen on their local and their landlord being trashed, and Sammy ended up having seven shades of shit kicked out of him by a group of them before being unceremoniously dumped on the road outside, half-conscious. Some busybody neighbour heard the commotion, looked through their net curtains, saw Sammy’s battered body in the street and called the busies. After recovering in hospital, the busies promptly arrested Sammy for possession and charged him. Naturally, the busies were very keen to find out where he had gotten his supplies from. Turns out that he still owed his dealers from Toxteth for the coke, and when they heard the busies had pulled him, they were not pleased to say the least.

  Sammy knew better than to grass because that meant certain death, but after being charged with possession and released on bail, he did a runner to his sister’s in Runcorn, petrified that his pissed-off dealers would think the worst anyway and punish him for it, never mind him not even paying for the stuff. His dealers promptly tracked him down and torched his sister’s house, with Sammy and his sister still inside. The sister managed to jump out of the bathroom window with her two kids, ending up with two broken legs for her trouble. Sammy, too off his face on smack to move and trapped inside a bedroom upstairs, wasn’t so lucky and ended up with 70% burns, dying in hospital two days later.

  There was also a poor bastard from Toxteth, Frankie Wilko, a small-time street corner dealer. I don’t know if this is true, it could be one of those urban myths, but word on the street was that Frankie was a bit of a grass when it suited him, which is a big no-no for any crim for obvious reasons. Funtime Frankie liked to punt some of his profits on fun times with a prozzie behind the Anglican cathedral in the city centre.

  One night, he cruises by a prozzie in his flash-bastard motor, asks her how much, she gets in the car, he has his kecks down and is getting his cock out, only to look up to see the prozzie holding up her busy badge and a squad car coming to take him away for kerb-crawling.

  The real prozzies who are nearby get word to their pimps and punters that Frankie has been lifted and certain people start getting very panicky and twitchy about what he’s saying to the busies. He’s released the next morning. That evening, poor dead Frankie is found in his flat off Upper Parliament Street in a pool of blood, shit and vomit, with his severed arms and cock laying nearby, which, according to the grapevine, had been neatly hacked off with a machete wielded by this fella known as Metal Mickey. There was no evidence for the busies to go on, so Metal Mickey walks the south side without a care in the world to this day.

  Lesson number one. Always, ALWAYS pay your dealer.

  Lesson number two. Don’t be fucking stupid and take stupid risks just because your hormones or ego get the better of you.

  Lesson number three? Stay away from the lads in Toxteth and do not even think of selling on their patch. You will experience physical pain you never even thought was possible.

  I have kept in touch with Simon since Glastonbury, to keep communication going and to let him know I’ve scaled up capacity. Our phone chats are friendly but not intrusive, and he maintains that he still definitely wants to buy off me if I can deliver the kind of quantities he’s after. It’s just a case of updating him on expected budding and delivery times, but so far, we’ve both avoided the subject of price.

  With the 100 plants derived from my Glastonbury batch now ready to bud, I call him from a phone box near to the Kirkby farm. It’s time to talk money.

  “Hello?” Simon says.

  “Hiya.”

  “Hey there, how’s it going?” he says in his slow and perfectly enunciated southern drawl.

  “Very well. I think I may be able to fulfil your requirements. That’s if you’re still interested, of course.”

  “I most definitely am,” he says in an upbeat tone. “For the full 20?”

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s all on track,” I say. “So…it all depends on what price you want it at.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  “And collection needs to be sorted out.”

  “I get you, totally.”

  “So…what kind of figure are we looking at here?”

  There is a pause on the other end of the line. “For 20k, I would want some sort of discount, obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  “But buying in bulk, obviously, I’d be looking at paying £1,700 a k,” Simon says.

  I turn this around in my mind for a few moments. That’s about £500 more a k than I was thinking. But then I remember that everything is more expensive down south after all. Now, negotiation has never been a strong point of mine, given that I’ve never really had to practice it. People want my stuff, I tell them my price, they accept. Still, first time for everything and all that.

  “I could do £1,800 a k, bearing in my mind this stuff is higher grade than your normal stuff, and also bearing in mind that I have production overheads to cover at my end,” I say.

  “I get that, sure, but I have distribution costs to cover at my end,” he says. Touché. After a sufficiently long pause, where I’m trying to give the impression that I’m mulling over costs, I say: “I can do it at £1,750 a k. That’s the lowest that’s worth my while.”

  Simon pauses. What will Simon say now?

  “I think we can do a deal on that,” he says cheerily.

  £35,000 for the lot. Now for the hard part. I know I now have the manufacturing capacity to do 20k, but I’m expecting some kind of pre-shipment guarantee and delivery schedule.

  Simon says: “Obviously I will need have a test sample before signing off on it. Quality control, you understand.”

  “Of course. And obviously I will need a deposit. If it meets with your approval, you can take the lot for £20,000 upfront and the balance when you get your orders in. That’s non-negotiable for any bulk order I process.”

  Simon pauses. It’s not like he has much choice. “Agreed.”

  Simon and I sort out the next steps, which involve him coming up to Liverpool in two days’ time, us meeting him with a sample, him giving the OK, and then Simon collecting the order.

  I brief Ste, Brian and John on the deal and tell them to make sure they’re tooled up with a knife or two just in case Simon tries to do me over.

  Lime Street Station. Ste and John are collecting Simon off the London train, and then we’re meeting up at the car park round the back of the Adelphi Hotel in the city centre. I’m in Brian’s c
ar with Brian and David and a freshly-harvested k, straight off the production line. Ste pulls up in his car, Simon steps out and joins me in the back of Brian’s car.

  “Queen of Green, how’s it going?” Simon says with a big cheesy grin on his face.

  “It’s going well, Si. Been to Liverpool before?”

  “I haven’t, actually, no. I’m looking forward to sampling the local attractions,” he says with a wink. Sorry, my posh friend. No proletariat pussy for you. This is business only.

  I pull out the clingfilmed k from under the back seat of Brian’s car, cut open a corner with my trusty little Swiss army knife, cut a small chunk off and hand it to Simon. He takes it off me and turns it around in his palm, sniffing it as he does so and nodding his approval. “Mmmm.”

  What is this, fucking Masterchef?

  Simon says: “Nice strong aroma, but not skunk-like. That’s good. Good texture.”

  I say: “Feel free to sample a roll-up. No point coming all the way up here and not having a smoke.”

  Simon is still sniffing the weed nugget and says: “Don’t mind if I do.” He reaches into his inside coat pocket and pulls out a rolling tin. As he starts to build up, he decides he wants to make more small talk.

  “How’s business in general?”

  “Busy.”

  He chuckles. “Not giving much away, are you?”

  “Why give it away when you can make someone pay for it?”

  “Haha, I like your thinking.”

  I step outside the car as Simon sparks up. Despite being around the stuff on a daily basis, I still can’t bear to inhale it myself. If I did, would I even have the energy to grow it in the first place? Simon does a few drawn-out pulls, closes his eyes and lets his head fall back on the seat headrest. A few minutes go by. “Fucking hell. This is good. This is good stuff,” he says, his voice muffled by the windows, as he gives me a thumbs-up sign and nods his approval.

  I stand there watching him getting slowly monged and I think, you have no fucking idea, sunshine. All those hours inside as a kid, growing, nurturing and tending plants when my peers were out playing footie, bunking off school, and chucking stones at pensioners’ windows. All those hours reading gardening and botany books from the local library. All those hours perfecting cross-breeds, hybrids, new strains, to produce the best fucking weed this side of Thailand and Jamaica. You have no fucking idea, mate.

  After he stubs out the joint, I get back into the car.

  “So, it passes the quality control test?” I say, as Simon slowly opens his eyes and grins broadly.

  “If the rest of the order is from the same batch as this, most definitely.”

  “It is. Ready to collect?”

  “Most certainly, most certainly. I’ll get Loz to come up with the van and drive back down south tomorrow. Don’t think it’s a good idea to bring 20k of weed on the train with me,” he says, winking again, but much more slowly this time. For a split second I think he’s having a stroke but then I remember how strong my stuff is.

  The next day, Simon departs a happy man, and I end the day £20,000 richer. I have another pleased customer on my books and another source of income, which could turn into a very healthy continuing source of income if Simon spreads it around his own customer base. There isn’t much left to be said about Simon. He paid the balance a couple of weeks later as agreed and also promised repeat business. I could give you the minutiae of his demeanour, what clothes he was wearing, the inane small talk he tried to initiate, but there’s no need. There was no trouble, no last-minute attempts to renegotiate, no difficulties. That concluded my first large-scale bulk deal and it had gone as well as it could’ve gone. In all honesty, it was a bit of an anti-climax. But a stepping stone nonetheless.

  With the bulk order leaving around 100 plants out of action, I concentrate my efforts on the cross-strains and hybrids I’m tending. After hearing about John’s visits to Amsterdam and all the different varieties on offer to the discerning stoner (he even brought back some café menu cards), I’m aiming to develop my very own menu of varieties. A spliff for every taste.

  I’m working with a range of fertilisers and feeds that I’ve been tinkering with, and also tweaking individual lamps to see how much difference they make to growing times. There are some species that are clearly responding judging by the acceleration in growing and budding times, but a few seedlings have pretty much given up the ghost and are withering away. No matter. I note every observation down in my little notebook and ponder minute changes to the feeding regimes for each strain. I actually feel like this is the most worthwhile part of the whole process. I am in my element in my little farm and lab. It’s almost a chore to drag myself away from the place, although the boys are here pretty much every day. Sometimes they’ll be here for a quick pick-up and drop-off of money or product, sometimes they’ll be here just to hang out with yours truly for hours on end. This place is our own secret den.

  The rhythm of life continues in pretty much the same way as before. The boys are still doing smaller deals for the regular customers, I still go to see Mum as per usual on Sundays for my roast dinner, we’ll watch telly for a bit or head up to the Boffin for a drink. She’ll still go out with Janice into town for a girls’ night out. The boys and I still have our nights out, the boys still have their boys-only nights out, and everyone is happy. Not least because selling wholesale leaves everyone with a bit more time to do what they want to do.

  And the money? It’s not often you have £35,000 lying about in used notes but I’m being sensible. After paying substantial bonuses to the boys and a cash gift to Mum - “me and Janice are going to Jamaica on holiday with this!” - I stick some in the business bank account, some in my personal account, some of it goes to buying gardening supplies, and the rest? Divided up into bundles of £1,000 and tucked away in various locations known only to me, until I can decide what I want to spend it on.

  Going wholesale has proved to be a very profitable business decision indeed.

  18. COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

  It’s after 10pm on a suffocating humid Wednesday night at the farm and I’ve got the crew in to help me do quality control and package up the latest batch of produce.

  Tonight is the “Blind Spliff” test, modelled on the TV show fronted by our Cilla. I’ve been concentrating on growing three different strains of plants which are now at the budding stage and John, David and Brian are the lucky contestants who get to have first crack at them.

  The three of them are sat on one side of a trestle table and there are three spliffs laid out in front of them, each from a different plant. Ste and I are sat facing them. I stand up slowly and place my palms flat on the table. The lads are sat there all alert, like kids in infants’ school who are doing a special job for the teacher, jiggying their legs up and down in excitement. I launch into my spiel.

  “Gentlemen,” I say with sincere solemnity. “Tonight, you, yes, YOU, have been chosen to take part in a unique opportunity. You see before you three exquisitely-rolled spliffs ready for your delectation.”

  John goes to snatch up the spliff nearest to him but like a ninja I slap his hand down.

  “Manners, please, young sir. Now,” I say, holding up the first spliff and brandishing it in the air like it’s a rare jewel, “bachelorette number one is a mellow, light-hearted kind of girl. Originally from Thailand, she’s been successfully acclimatised in the UK for some time and now she’s ready to embrace you to her fragrant, floaty bosom.”

  “She love you long time,” pipes up David in a comedy Asian hooker accent.

  “That was set in Vietnam, you soft prick,” says John disdainfully.

  “What was?” says David, genuinely confused.

  “Do you even know what film that line comes from?” John says in disgust. As far as John is concerned, Stanley Kubrick is his God and his films are his holy texts.

  “Please keep all comments and feedback until the end,” I say, as I pick up the second spliff and wave it in front of the
ir faces. Their eyes are following it like it’s floating in the air by itself. “Bachelorette number two is a dark, exotic, fuller-featured lady from Morocco. Her pungent scent and swelling buds are just teasers for the heady, intoxicating spirit residing within.”

  “Can’t go wrong with a bit of Moroccan,” Brian expounds.

  “Ooh, an exotic bird with swelling buds, I like the sound of that,” adds David.

  I pick up the third spliff, the one John tried to pick up. “Bachelorette number three is an alluring mix of Jamaican, Trinidadian and Bahamian. She promises to lift you up, send you into space and make you sleep for about twelve hours straight. Make no mistake, this lady is intense,” I warn.

  “We can handle her,” says John, flexing his biceps, as I replace number three back down on the table.

  I look at each of the boys in turn as I pick up Thailand. “Gentlemen? It’s time to spark up your spliffs.” As one, they lean forward as I hand Thailand to John. He places the filter end in his mouth and I set my lighter onto it. I sit down as he takes the first toke before passing it to David, who does the same before passing it to Brian.

  Now, this isn’t like the Pepsi/Coke test where you take a toke and then pass immediate judgment. In the interests of fairness, there is a five-minute break before they all sample the next spliff, then another break before sampling the third one. In the meantime, they’re comparing tokes as I write down the odd comment in my little notebook. I feel like I’m in one of those poncey food and drink programmes where wine experts gush with effusive praise about intangible sensations like honeycombs and elderflowers and scents of lush spring meadows and what have you.

  They’re all agreed that Thailand is a nice little number – ideal for beginners as it’s not too heavy nor harsh on the throat.

  “It doesn’t smell as bad as some of the others, it’s like fat-free Thai,” comments John as he blows smoke rings out. Brian is of the opinion that Thailand is a good gateway product “because you can get newbies started on this and then gradually introduce them to the heavier stuff.” Meanwhile, David is doing his student thing of sitting there stroking his chin and staring into space as he ponders what kind of intelligent and meaningful critique to give it.