From Innocence to Arrogance

by Ezekiel King

  I kicked off my sports trainers and entered the living room after locking the front door. Tanisha had gone to bed when I returned. I sat down and thought to myself, Are you fucking serious, Cyrus? “Yes, I am fucking mad,” I told myself back.

  This was and is how it’s going to be from now on; I’m a drug-dealer now, I reminded myself. The room had cooled.

  Chapter 2

  My face was stuck to the cream leather on my auntie’s sofa as my now open eyes told my brain it was morning. A mixture of eggs frying and the smell of toasted bread filled the air in the living room as I moved my head from left to right to unstick my cheek from the arm of the sofa.

  “Morning, Cyrus,” my aunty said cheerfully as she peered in from the kitchen doorway that joined the living room. I gave Delma a conservative smile and reciprocated.

  “Good morning, Del.” Delma smiled before disappearing back into the kitchen momentarily. Delma reappeared with a plate in one hand and a mug in the other. She placed the two pieces of dinning ware on the table in front of me while saying,

  “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and you should eat your breakfast every morning.”

  Truth be known, I had never been a big fan of breakfast, but I wasn’t about to tell my Aunty Delma that. Instead, I just tried to look as stoked as possible before saying, “Thanks,” as I showed my appreciation by nodding. “I usually eat breakfast every day,” I lied.

  Where the fuck was Jason? I thought as I stared down at this large dinner plate sectioned off with scrambled eggs, plum tomatoes, mushrooms and toast that did nothing for me other than turn my stomach.

  Jason couldn’t have come back last night, or I would have heard him; surely I would have heard him? I contemplated.

  My aunty had sat down on the single seat sofa next to me. She was very carefully sipping what looked like a fresh cup of coffee. “Do you have anything planned for the day, Cyrus?” she asked.

  “No, Del, I’ve got no plans today. I’m just going to chill out for a while until I have to go home when you want to get rid of me,” I joked. Delma smiled at me and shook her head. We both knew that I was as welcome at Delma’s house as welcome could be. My aunty was wearing a knee-length dressing gown, dark grey in colour, made from a kind of soft fury material. The gown had flowers etched into it in a slightly darker grey that made them almost invisible. Her hair was curly and shining as it sat just below her shoulders. It amazed me how her facial features were all in such perfect proportion with each other. Delma’s immaculately groomed and shaped eyebrows made her light blue eyes seem even brighter than they were.

  “Tanisha has gone to town with Mervin to get groceries for dinner, and I’m going to get ready because I’ve got an appointment at the nail salon,” Delma said as she continued to sip her coffee.

  “Oh, okay,” I replied as I sat still thinking about Jason; his uncle and the cannabis I wanted.

  “You’re welcome to come with me if you want? I’ll be there for about half an hour, or you can just stay here until I get back. It’s totally up to you,” Delma said as she began to get up. I thought for a second as I stretched my arms out left and right while trying to muster up a natural-looking yawn.

  “I’ll just chill out here if that’s okay?” I replied as I fell back into the sofa after stretching.

  “Yes, that’s fine,” Delma replied as she started towards the staircase to get ready.

  I had planned to run across the road to Jason’s house the second she left. I hoped he hadn’t knocked the door after I’d fallen asleep. This would not have been a good start as far as me not letting him and his Uncle Jabber down. Remembering what he’d said to me the night before, I recalled his exact words, you need people to sell drugs to, and you need money to buy drugs.

  I knew a lot of people that would buy weed from me—that was for sure! My dad smoked weed. Also, my dad had about ten friends that I’d seen smoking weed at various times. I would smell it slowly working its way upstairs as I would sit in my room playing on my computer. A strong skunk-smelling weed that I had become so accustomed to that I actually started to like it. Additionally, I had at least ten neighbours that bought cannabis, and all my friends either smoked or knew people that smoked weed.

  The next part of what Jason had said was a major problem. I didn’t have any money to buy the drugs I wanted to sell. I knew I would have a lot of money and a nice German saloon, like my aunty’s, one day. After all, that was my motivation behind wanting to become a drug dealer, but this information was not going to act as currency to pay for my initial start-up costs.

  I had a problem that needed a quick fix. On reflection, I was glad Jason hadn’t woken me up if he had knocked the door last night.

  “Think, Cyrus,” I told myself impatiently. Where could I possibly get a large quantity of money from in the next ten minutes? The voice in my head asked impatiently.

  My trail of thought was broken as my aunty came back down the stairs and into the living room. “Bye, CY, I’ll be back in 40 minutes. Help yourself to whatever you want, okay?” Delma said as she left.

  I sat for the next 60 seconds in complete silence while in deep thought. Absolutely no idea sprang to mind, which was rare for me. I could have asked my aunty for the money, but it was a humongous request; also, I didn’t want to involve Delma in case she tried to talk me out of my plans. Twenty-five minutes later, I concluded that I had no other option other than to tell Jason. After all, I did say I wanted him to help me. I didn’t even know how much money I needed, so he couldn’t seriously expect me to just have a large unknown quantity of money just laying around.

  I got up from the sofa which now had an indent from where my large ass had been. I started up the stairs to freshen up. I had taken my tracksuit bottoms off at some point during the night, so I had only my boxer shorts and my T-shirt on. I weighed about ten stone, and most of that was made up by my thighs, legs, chest and shoulders. I was a chubby lad, but I was also fairly stocky too.

  I found my toothbrush amongst the four that were in the toothbrush pot in the bathroom. My Aunty Delma’s bathroom had tiles around the bath and sink. She had a thick black-tiled floor with a type of glitter embedded in the granite. The bathroom was spotlessly clean with a big mirror above the sink. The smell of bleach was faint but still noticeable to my acute sense of smell in the morning.

  I had my own toothbrush here, as I stayed at my Aunty Delma’s at least once a month. She had bought it for me when I had accompanied her grocery shopping sometime before.

  I finished freshening up by drying my-now clean face on one of the three towels that were hanging on the chrome-heated towel rack behind the door.

  Back downstairs, I picked up my tracksuit bottoms from the end of the sofa where my legs had been as I slept. I expected them to be a lot more creased than they were. While putting them on, well practically, as soon as I picked them up, a tremendous waft of cannabis hit my nostrils. It was the culprit that had put me to sleep the night before. I put my tracksuit bottoms on before making my way to the doorway to put my trainers on. The day was a lot cooler than it had been the previous day. The air was crisp and fresh. I had been awake the best part of an hour, but I still felt a little drowsy, like I hadn’t woken up properly.

  The morning air made me feel rejuvenated instantly. The time was roughly 11:30, I had estimated. I walked back across the road towards Jason’s house. The street was still quiet in terms of being populated, but it was now bright under the suns light; the street looked very different to how I’d left it the night before. Most of the cars had now moved from there kerbside parking spaces outside of their owners houses. My auntie’s house was one of the few houses on her street with a driveway. I walked through Jason’s waist-high gate and down his five-metre slender pathway to his front door.

  ‘Clink, clink, clink’ was the high-pitched sound made by the metal letterbox as I flicked it open thrice. A few moments passed before I heard a key turn in the lock. The girl I had seen the day befo
re stood in the doorway. She was wearing a pink belly top that left almost nothing to the imagination. I could see her sparkling belly button piercing as I looked down to avoid her captivating gaze. I felt my heart skip a beat as I looked at her beautifully tanned skin where her short top left her stomach visible. She had huge breasts that bulged at the top of her bra; like the belly top she wore was suffocating her tits, and they were trying to escape.

  Wow, the voice in my head whispered quietly as I was scared she could hear me thinking. She had skin-tight pink shorts on, identical in colour. She was stunning.

  “Hiya, is Jason there, please?” I said finally as I tried to make out her appearance was nothing out of the ordinary.

  “No, he has gone out; he said he’ll be back this afternoon.”

  “Could you tell him Cyrus knocked for him? If I’m not at my auntie’s across the road, then I’ll be back to see him soon,” I said while trying to speak calmly and confidently. On reflection, it was a nervy attempt at best.

  “Okay, I will do,” she replied as she closed the door after giving me a warm smile.

  She had long blonde hair, with light brown bits, and the most beautiful eyes. I had tried not to stare at her in the face too much; the nerves I had felt at the first sight of her in the light of day told me I had an instant attraction to her. I giggled to myself as I walked back across the road.

  I reached Delma’s front door not even a minute later, pressed the handle in a downward motion and let myself in. I hadn’t locked the door; I simply walked back to the lounge and slumped down on the sofa. The indent my ass had made in the sofa had completely vanished, leaving the seat a shining creaseless cream leather cushion. I had only walked across the road and back. It felt like I had run a marathon due to my lack of exercise.

  I imagined my aunty would take me home at around 6:00 p.m. that gave Jason approximately six hours to get home with an update for me. Also, it gave me time to figure out how I would pay for the drugs I wanted to sell.

  I sat back with the knowledge that I could do nothing more to further my objectives.

  The smell of weed in my pocket grabbed my attention again. It seemed to let off the same deep stench. Every time I moved my leg, the smell was seeping out from my tracksuit bottoms.

  I might as well smoke it because I’ve got a big day ahead of me. I’ll need a clear head later, I told myself.

  Sitting there in my auntie’s living room in complete silence gave me time to think. As I began to roll a joint, I told myself that I would only smoke weed at night from now on. I can’t be high on cannabis and expect to run a successful drug-dealing business. Money was going to be the focus of my life from now on.

  I took out one of my rolling papers before placing it on a book that my aunty had been reading. Next, I ripped a tiny rectangular shape from the cardboard packet the papers came in. I rolled the tiny piece of card into a cylinder and placed it onto the left-hand corner of the rolling paper. Next, I reached in my pocket to take out the small re-sealable bag that my weed had been given to me in. I took out the perfectly trimmed light-green boulder of bud and broke it in half.

  The crystals in the core glistened against the almost yellowish centre of the bud. I carefully broke the bud into tiny pieces before I mixed the tobacco from half a cigarette with it. Lastly, I transferred the tobacco-and-weed mixture into the rolling paper and rolled it into a perfect cone shape.

  As I licked the thin line of gum at the top of the rolling paper, a strong smell of weed hit my nose. Fresh and concentrated, like the strongest smell known to man.

  This is going to be the last joint I smoke in the daytime, I told myself once more.

  Smoke bellowed from the spliff as I lit it, like I had set fire to a bale of hay in the middle of the living room. I inhaled deeply, which made me choke as the thick potent smoke filled my lungs. The weed tasted nice, but it was so strong it had made my eyes start to feel heavy after no more than a few pulls on the joint.

  I mustered up the energy to get off the sofa. I walked into the kitchen to get a drink and some sort of ashtray. The little circular ashtray I’d used the night before had been cleaned. I found it sitting on the kitchen work surface.

  “Cyrus?” I heard Tanisha shout as the front door was opening.

  “I’m in here,” I replied while thinking, Shit! Mervin’s going to walk into a house that smells like someone has been growing weed in the living room, then changed their mind and set fire to the whole harvest.

  Tanisha and Mervin joined me in the kitchen. Both of them were holding different colour carrier bags. They placed the groceries on the dining table. I was already in the process of opening the backdoor that led from the kitchen into the garden. It was a pointless exercise to get rid of the smell.

  “That’s some strong stuff you’ve got there, Cyrus,” Mervin said as he raised his eyebrows in astonishment.

  “That’s exactly what I thought when I lit this,” I replied to make light of the situation. I stepped out into Delma’s modest back garden.

  The garden was not huge. It had three metal garden chairs near the door and a wooden shed at the back on the left. Only a small square of grass starting two metres from the door where the concrete slabbing ended.

  I sat in one of the lightweight metal chairs to finish my joint.

  The next few hours consisted of me going back into my auntie’s house very high, eating crisps and chocolate. My Aunty Delma had returned home, equipped with a new set of acrylic nails that had made her very happy.

  I looked out of the living room window occasionally towards Jason’s house to no avail. Mervin had been busy in the kitchen with Tanisha cooking dinner.

  Roast beef, parsnips, Yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes amongst other things that they had told me about enthusiastically.

  I received my first phone call of the day around 4:30 p.m. It was my girlfriend, Olivia.

  “Hi, babe,” her high-pitched excited voice had bellowed in my ear as I accepted the call. Olivia and I had been in a relationship for six months. She was pretty attractive. A light-skinned, mixed-race girl, about 5’5", with thick legs and a bum worthy of winning Brazil’s Miss Bum Bum Pageant.

  Olivia had large round eyes that made her face look exotic and attractive as I would stare at her.

  I thought Olivia was sexy, but nothing like the girl that had answered Jason’s door, but still a great piece of ass. Olivia was a year older than me, nearly 17. Her birthday was going to fall in the following month. She didn’t know, but I had planned to break up with her for no apparent reason. I liked Olivia, but I didn’t love Olivia.

  “Hi, gorgeous,” I replied in a low and uninterested tone.

  “What are you doing today, Cyrus? You haven’t called me, so I was starting to get worried,” Olivia explained. She was right; I hadn’t called her, and now that I thought about it, I hadn’t even thought about doing so.

  “Oh shit, sorry, angel face. I’m just at my auntie’s house. I stayed here last night. I’ll call you when I get home; we’ll meet up and do something if you want?” I replied in the same tone. Of course,

  I was lying; I didn’t want to call her when I get home. I didn’t even want to go home. Money was what I wanted. After all, if I was going to become a successful drug-dealer, what the fuck did I need her for? With money, I could buy sex if I wanted it. And buy sex off someone that looked like the girl that answered Jason’s door. Not her! Plus, I’d had sex with her loads of times; and quite frankly, it was getting boring to me.

  “CY, please don’t forget to call me because I miss you,” Olivia said emotionally.

  “How can I forget to call you, ya nutter? I miss you too and will call you the second I get home. I love you,” I replied as I lied for the third time in less than two minutes.

  “I love you too,” Olivia replied.

  The phone went dead as we both hung up. I knew Olivia and I were never going to last together. It felt like a chore to speak to her. I liked the chase. The catch and conquer
just meant the end for me. It was like some sort of immoral animal instinct that had been imbedded within my DNA passed down from generations of womanisers.

  To my knowledge, womanising in my family could be traced back as far as my family tree could be traced.

  I let out a big sigh of trivialisation. The display in the bottom-left corner of the TV hanging on the wall read 17:37, as the news reporter reeled off tonnes of irrelevant information.

  “CY, dinner is ready,” Tanisha called through to me from the kitchen. I calculated that I would be going home in the next half an hour without hearing from Jason by the look of things.

  I hadn’t replied to my younger cousin telling me dinner was ready; instead I just joined my aunty, Mervin and Tanisha at the large wooden dining room table. My place had been set opposite Mervin.

  Mervin had strong cheekbones that were clearly visible due to him having minimal body fat. Quite the opposite to me. Mervin was white, but he had a deep tan. He had short black hair combed forward. At 6ft tall, he was a lot taller than me; it bugged me that I could never work out why he always seemed nervous and unsure of himself.

  “All right, Merv?” I said cheerfully as I pulled my chair out to sit down.

  I looked down at the huge plate of Sunday roast that my cousin and Mervin had spent the last few hours perfecting. It looked delicious. The combination of meat and vegetables that mainly came on Sundays. I imagined that eighty percent of the houses throughout the country would be sitting down to a similar meal. A glass of the same red juice I liked had been poured for me. I had figured out it was some kind of guava juice. It was thick and sweet which would leave a lasting taste that was slightly chalky.

  “Thanks, everyone. This smells and looks amazing!” I said genuinely as I dug in.

  The beef was succulent. It fell apart with ease as I effortlessly sliced a small piece to put inside one of my three Yorkshire puddings.

  On top of the beef, I put a quarter of a golden brown roast potato with a splash of gravy and a dollop of horseradish. A kind of roast dinner, Yorkshire pudding sandwich.