by Ezekiel King
While Delma drove the ten-minute journey to her house, I began to think. Firstly, about how it felt nice to no longer have rules to follow having left the confines of my house. Secondly, that I wasn’t going to have to listen to my dad nagging at me over something or another, and it was that which led me on to my final thought, I need a permanent solution to my problem of being rule bound.
At the tender age of 15, my understanding was that problems are solved with money. I had a problem, so logic told me I needed money.
Staring at my aunty as she drove, I evaluated her financial situation. Delma had a nice car, a decent house and a good standard of life. But then again, she had a full-time job and a borderline-rich boyfriend.
I can’t clean old peoples’ arses and get a rich girlfriend, I concluded silently.
“Do you want me to get you anything?” Delma asked as we arrived at her house.
“I would really like a spliff of weed, but I don’t have any. I just have some rolling papers that I stole from my dad,” I replied reluctantly. Delma smiled; we had just pulled on to her driveway. She hadn’t even opened the front door of her house, and she was already catering to my every need. I loved my Aunty Delma. She reached for her bag and took out her purse.
“I don’t know who you can get weed from, but I will pop to the shop to get you some cigarettes. The guys that live across the road will probably be able to get you some though,” Delma said as she handed me a crisp 20-pound note.
“I know them; and yes, they’ll be able to get me some,” I assured her. Delma smiled and gave her usual look of approval.
I got out the car and walked across the road. I knew a few people on my auntie’s street. We had another relative on the street that my mum would visit every Sunday. My grandmother’s sister was old though.
While my mum would visit her, I’d go to Delma’s across the road, or I’d hang out with the guys that lived on the street. One of the lads was called Jason. He was 23 and had a reputation for being a ‘hard guy’. He didn’t take any crap from anybody. I don’t know why, but Jason had always seemed to really like me. He would always nod at me as a sign of respect and go out of his way to say hello to me. The way Jason treated me made me feel respected; also, it made me feel like I was one of the boys.
I knocked Jason’s door and waited. A blonde girl came to the door after no more than a few seconds. “Is Jason home?” I asked while trying to act cool.
“Jaasonnn, door!?” the girl bellowed toward the staircase that was a metre behind the front door.
“Who the fuck is at the door?” Jason said in an angered tone as he walked down the staircase. Jason’s frown turned into a smile as he saw it was me.
“Yes, Cyrus, what’s up, pal?” Jason asked as he joined me in the doorway.
“I’m staying at my auntie’s house tonight and haven’t got any weed to smoke, so I thought I’d ask if you could get me some,” I explained while taking out the £20 to hand it to him. Jason took the £20 note from me. He told me he would have to pop down the road to get my weed, so I should go back to my auntie’s and come back in 15 minutes. He would then be back home and have the weed I wanted. “Okay thanks,” I said as I gave him a fist pump and started back across the road.
I never knocked my auntie’s door, I just opened it. I felt more at home here than in my own house. My Aunty Delma had always seen to that. She was sitting on the sofa in the living room with my younger cousin, Tanisha. I gave Tanisha a nod and said, “Hello, Tan.” She returned the gesture.
“Get your cousin a drink, Tanisha! And he’s hungry; warm him up some dinner, could you?” I smiled as Tanisha rolled her eyes as she got up adhering to her mother’s request. I sat in Tanisha’s seat which was still warm. Aunty Delma told me to put what I want on TV as she is going to the shop. I told her I had to go across the street to see Jason, but I’d be straight back.
“Okay,” she replied. “Tan is going to make you some food, I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
After my aunty left, I ran back across the street to knock Jason’s door. The same girl answered, but before she could shout Jason again, he appeared and signalled for her to go into the room she had just came from before giving me my weed. I offered him some for himself, but he refused as he already had some, he said.
Back at Delma’s, my food was ready; roast potatoes, roast chicken, veg, gravy and some fruit juice that was neither cordial nor fruit juice. It was delicious, as was the food. I thanked Tanisha as she sat back down looking unappreciated. Mervin walked through the door next. A very slim man who looked very unsure of himself. He was no fighter—that was for sure. I felt like the man of this house; plus I knew my aunty called the shots, not Mervin.
Mervin greeted me, “Hello, Cyrus, nice to see you.” He was surprised more than anything else, but he instantly accepted the fact I was there and clearly had no issue with it. Delma came back and slid my cigarettes and rolling paper under the cushion I was leaning on. I thanked her by giving her a raised eyebrow and cheeky smile.
I sat back as my food digested, feeling very contempt. I had no dad here to nag me, no mum to check I wasn’t doing anything to trigger my dad nagging or getting annoyed. No big brother here, and this gave me time to think. I took out the cigarettes, peeled off the protective plastic and took out a cigarette. As I lit it and took a pull, my mind thought of home and the fact that this feeling of satisfaction would be short-lived. I began to think how I could change that. Money, I thought. I worked out my expenses to be carefree. I needed £20 every day. £10 to buy some weed, and £5 to buy cigarettes and rolling paper, and another £5 to buy drinks and snacks from the shop. But how could I guarantee to secure this money every day? I could rob the post office near the estate I lived. I’d get a year’s worth of £20 at least. It was definitely achievable, I thought as I smoked my cigarette. I had never robbed anywhere before though, but I knew it couldn’t be too difficult. I had been involved in fights quite often and had become a fairly good fighter, plus I loved weapons, knifes, bats and guns. My dad had a gun under his and my mum’s bed. He didn’t know I knew where it was, but I did, and I knew he kept the bullets in his bedside drawer. Little gold shells with 9mm written on the bottom in tiny writing.
The gun was black, metal and very heavy. My big brother, Daniel, and I would take it out and show it to the other kids on the estate when our mum and dad were out. My dad brought me an air rifle with little led pellets. On Sundays, he would take me and usually four or five kids from the estate that would follow us to the field to shoot cans or bottles, or anything that wasn’t each other. So, I considered myself to be well accustomed to the use of weaponry. Some of the older boys on the estate would wind me up, calling me fatty and making fun of me, so I had got mad and got a knife from the kitchen drawer. The older kids had ran for their lives.
Once, I even got my air rifle and chased ‘Mick the beer drinker’. He ran to his house and locked the door. I had even taken my dad’s gun out the house. I knew he’d kill me if he found out, but for my year’s worth of £20, maybe I could make an exception. I had to do something, and I was going to do something.
The weed in my pocket was releasing a strong deep stench that hit my nose, like foul smelling body odour, almost like it was demanding my immediate attention. I adhered to this by taking it out of my pocket and examining the contents of what looked like a miniature sandwich bag filled with a bright light green vegetation that almost looked illuminous. Two balls of bud that were perfectly trimmed of its leaves to present the fruit of the female cannabis plant in all its glory. Stinky, I thought to myself as I took the smaller bud out and placed it on my lap.
Jason had given me a good deal. I’ll thank him next time I see him though, I thought as I began to construct a joint by breaking a boulder of a bud into smaller pieces. I had always had big plans and now was the time to start implementing them.
My auntie’s house was a lot nicer than ours. It was a corner, semi-detached and positioned at a 60-degree angle on t
he end of a row of houses. Delma had a double-tarmacked driveway with a small garden next to the driveway. This was only a two-bedroom house, but it was the size as my mum and dads’ three-bedroom house.
I would be sleeping in the living room tonight as Tanisha would be in her room that was her little sanctuary with teddy bears and pink and white thing everywhere. Her room was at the top of the stairs on the left, and her mum’s room on the right with a bathroom in the middle. The staircase was a metre back from the front door, the same as Jason’s across the road. Thick grey carpet ran its way up Aunty Delma’s staircase and into the two bedrooms. Downstairs had laminate flooring throughout.
I liked the fact that I’d be downstairs. I have always liked my own space, a luxury I very rarely had the privilege of enjoying. Sleeping on the sofa was a small price to pay for feeling like the king of a castle.
The gas fire was on and gave the air a thickness that made the room feel all the more cosy.
Leaning forward in an attempt to almost stay sitting, I stretched forward to adjust the setting on the heater from the second to the lowest.
My cousin Tanisha was on the single-seated sofa, and I was sitting on the three-piece sofa. The room wasn’t extraordinarily big. It only had the two sofas and a brown wooden coffee table with a glass top, and some sort of flowers etched around the edges where the glass met the wood. A fine coffee table, as far as coffee tables went.
My feet rested on a thick beige rug as I had kicked my trainers off upon entry to the house. Tanisha sat playing some application she seemed to be obsessed with on her iPad, and I sat back in the sofa, like a fat kid with a full belly that was just about to smoke a joint and chill out. That was exactly what I did. The weed almost took my breath away as I inhaled my first puff as if my lungs were protesting its presence. “That stinks, Cyrus,” Tanisha proclaimed as she scrunched up her face and made a gesture to cover her nose. No argument from me—she was right—the stuff was potent. The smell and taste had over-taken my senses at the first puff. That’s when it hit me. Well, in actual fact, two things hit me. The first was the fact that I was now high, but the second thing that hit me would be the factor that would have a lot more of a long-lasting impact on my life and would change it forever. I was going to sell drugs, and sell drugs in a major way!
The weed really started to take full effect as I swivelled my legs ’round to put my feet up. The cold leather felt soothing as I rested my head against the arm of the sofa. There was something on the big flat screen TV suspended on the wall, but I wasn’t watching it. I was still in deep thought. Forget robbing the post office and getting money once. I’d get money every day if I was a drug-dealer.
The time was about 9:20 as the sun started to withdraw its light, leaving a calmness in the sky. It’s still light, but definitely going to be dark in the next half hour, I thought.
“Tell your mum I’m just popping across the road if she asks where I am, okay, Tan?” I asked.
It was a rhetorical question, more of a statement as she just looked up at me and raised her eyebrows to confirm. I put my white sports trainers on; they made me feel about a foot taller. They had an air bubble around the back of the heel, and a smaller one on the side with a little white tick where my ankle sat when I had them on. I had to absolutely beg my mum to buy them for me. “One hundred and twenty pounds, Cyrus?” I could still hear the calling of her voice in my ears, even though a full week had passed.
I walked through the garden and started back across the road. Jason lived almost directly opposite my Aunty Delma’s, but slightly to the right. The street made a giant ‘T’ shape with my auntie’s house at the start of the vertical on the corner, and Jason’s house was on the long row of houses that made the horizontal at the top, making my auntie’s house half on the same street as Jason’s and half on a street that turned off Jason’s road.
I suppose if Jason looked out of his window, he would be able to see down the side street opposite him that broke the long row of houses that faced his house. Delma’s house would have been to the left of that break looking from Jason’s.
I knocked Jason’s door as the cool summer’s breeze swept over the short hairs on the top of my head. A high-pitched ‘clink clink’ sound that seemed louder than could be expected came from his letterbox as I flicked it open twice, letting the spring mechanism slam it shut. I could see flashes of light coming from the TV in the living room; as the room was in darkness, it would flicker from lighter to darker as the TV lit and then dimmed the room. The door opened as Jason’s slim figure appeared in the doorway. He had short brown hair that looked recently cut. The sides were bald, almost to a shine, like hair had never grown there before. Jason’s blue eyes gave him a menacing look in the twilight of the sun setting, and the pink glaze over the white of his eyes immediately told me he had been smoking the high-quality cannabis he had gotten for me.
“What’s up, pal?” he asked as if he had no clue what my second unannounced visit of the day could be about.
“Jay, could I have a quick word with you?” I said a lot quieter than I imagined it would come out. Jason stepped out into his garden. He was wearing German designer beach sandals with a blue matching T-shirt and shorts. He was well dressed for someone wearing sandals and a T-shirt which made me feel a bit scruffy, even though I had on my best tracksuit and trainers.
“Cyrus, what’s up?” Jason urged me.
“Basically, I’m 15 now, and I leave school next month, and my dad is always on my case. I need some freedom and need to start making my own money. I’ve had a good think about it; long story short, I’m going to start selling drugs, Jay, and was wondering if you could help me?”
Jason smiled; his face said shocked and happy at the same time as his eyes lifted in thought.
“Cyrus, in order to sell drugs, you need to have people to sell them to and money to buy the drugs to sell.” Jason let out a sigh. I remained silent and just looked at him.
“My uncle sells weed in big weight, but I don’t know how he’d feel about a 15-year-old buying drugs from him. What I’ll do is, I’ll call him and tell him my friend wants to graft and see what he can do for you.”
I smiled this time. It was a natural reaction to the news, and it was a big smile as I felt my cheeks rise. Jason bought me back to reality with his next and final statement.
“Cyrus, I wouldn’t do this for anybody, so don’t let me down; you’re a good kid, so stay a good kid. If he says yes, don’t fuck it up! My advice to you is if you can’t swim, stay out the fucking sea, Cyrus; and there is definitely sharks in the water you’re talking about diving head first into, little man.” The smile had faded from my face as Jay’s eyes stared deep into mine with the most serious facial expression I had ever seen.
I knew advice when I heard it.
‘Cyrus, wear a coat today, it’s going to rain’ or ‘Cyrus, have some breakfast, or you’ll be hungry when you’re out’. That was advice. What I had heard was closer to a death threat rather than advice.
I was lost for words and just nodded at him, probably with the same gormless look I get when my dad is telling me off.
“Cyrus, if you’re not serious, I won’t ask him because I like you, and I don’t want to have to show you the other side of me. If I vouch for you with my uncle and you mess up, he’ll fuck you and me up. Then I’ll be forced to fuck you up as well, and I don’t want that, little man. This can go two ways, well three, actually. One, you do business with my Uncle Jabber. You make loads of money and become best of friends. Two, you do business with Jabber, mess it up, and he’ll come to find you and beat you, and whoever is with you, to death. Or three, you tell me right now; Jason, this is not a good idea, let’s just stay friends; and thanks for the weed you got me, and I’ll see you soon.”
He stared at me with widened eyes as he allowed my options to be deliberated.
Shit just got real, the voice in my head screamed.
“Jason, your Uncle Jabber and I are going to do business and
become the best of friends. I’m going to put my all into making that a certainty,” I finally said with as much confidence as I could have wished for.
The slim 23-three-year-old with the slightly glazed eyes and skin fade, in his matching, German-designer beach outfit, stared at me for a few seconds. As I stared back, I didn’t know if he was going to tell me to fuck off or throw a party. I had absolutely no idea what was going through this guy’s head.
Eventually, his face brightened with his smile as he shook his head in a movement that said no.
“Cyrus, you’re a fucking nutter, and that’s why I’ve always liked you. Definitely not a normal 15-year-old, and that’s why I’m going to call my uncle and tell him I’ve got someone who wants to work.”
The sun had completely fallen, leaving the street in darkness and a lot cooler in temperature. I was leaning against the waist high fence that ran five metres from Jason’s gate to the front door.
“Okay, cool,” he said. “Go back to your auntie’s, and I will come knock the door quietly when I’ve spoken to my uncle. Don’t tell anybody about this, okay, CY?” he added.
“I won’t, and I won’t let you or your uncle down. See you soon,” I reassured him, and I meant it.
I walked back across the quiet residential road towards the house on the corner opposite Jason’s house; slightly to the right and into the garden, this time in the dark. I opened the door slowly; the golden handle was cold in my hand. The door made a kind of suction noise, like a strong fridge. Like the white UPVC door was fitted with millimetre precision.