Stonedogs

by Craig Marriner

  Contemplate this: the depths to which the capitalists will stoop in the name of profit is well documented … and the most lucrative market in the world today is the arms trade.

  RED [repelled]: Of course. Patrician mafias see to that; western old-boy networks; the incestuous trinity: politicians, ‘defence’ chiefs, and the ‘captains of industry’.

  BROWN: Those who saw off the Kennedy upstart.

  RED: Those who trained the El Salvadorian death squads.

  BROWN [bitter as bile]: ‘Peace in our time’? In your fucking dreams. Where’s the profit in it?

  RED: But in the West itself? In the endless quest for profit, though they’ve the power to employ all manner of shenanigan, surely the capitalists would never subject us to barbarity? They must draw the line at loosing the Fiendish One here.

  BROWN: Don’t you see? Like all bullies, these people seek to justify their victimisation. They do this through theories of ‘Social Darwinism’: that under the ‘free’ market the more worthy of society will rise to its peak and, through their ‘brilliance’, keep countless others in work, and thus alive — the ‘talent-driven society’. That most of them ‘earned’ their ‘talent’ through inheritance, they’re able to overlook neatly, as they overlook the fact that most of the work they generate is tantamount to latter-day enslavement. Nevertheless, the Establishment ‘elite’ sees itself as superior to, and essential to, your average citizen. Therefore anything that boosts their holdings must ultimately be ‘progressive’.

  RED [alarmed]: They’ll stop at nothing, then?

  BROWN: Example: the western war on drugs. This war was declared by politicians with as much genuine knowledge of drug use and its ramifications as you and I have of quantum physics. They declared drugs satanic, opting for strategies of total repression over social awareness and rehab. Years on, drug use has actually increased, while the prisons fill to flashpoint, many of these inmates guilty of crimes no more heinous than pacific escapism: people with their minds now destroyed by the brutality of incarceration. And the war continues.

  Odd, though, how this campaign clears working-class society — the capitalists’ vital labour pool — of so many of its less sheep-like elements. Odd also how prison construction’s become a recurring sharemarket stalwart, a real ‘growth industry’.

  Mind you, given that business and politics have always been siblings— often quite literally — perhaps it isn’t so

  Barry: ‘I’ve got a question. Where the fuck are we gonna find some cunt with the laros to take bales of primo seedless off our hands?’

  Steve: ‘I was kinda ’oping yu dudes might ‘ave sum solutions there. If I’d got the pot from elsewhere, I could prob’ly’ve moved it, but it’d all’ve been through dudes wif Rabble affiliation. Obviously that’s not an option.’

  Me: ‘There’s only one dude I know who might have the kind of contacts we’re talking.’

  Mick: ‘Me too.’

  Barry: ‘Ditto.’

  Unison: ‘Bum.’

  Steve, frowning: ‘Who’s Bum?’

  Barry, ringingly: ‘The high priest of Narcoism. He’s about three years older than us. Vegas boy. Lives in the Smoke now.’

  Me: ‘We used to score off him a lot. Him and his mates were the dudes who could get anything. Tough cunts too; mad as hatters; death-metal freaks. But Bum never flexed muscle until he had to. He’s a good guy.’

  Mick: ‘Loose unit, though. He’s the type of dude who goes through people’s medicine cabinets. He once swiped a bottle of pills from his Gran’s rest-home, couldn’t make out the label, dropped a few for the hell of it and shat arse-acid every ten minutes for the next week and a half. He thought it was a great joke.’

  Barry: ‘Then there was the time they landed some datura off a dude who wasn’t sure how strong it was. On a dare, Bum nailed three glasses of it blind … he was still peaking the next day when his court date came up. He made it to court, but halfway into the morning he had to crawl under the defendant’s gallery and whack a gram of smack up his arm, just so he could stop laughing at the judge’s lazy eye.’

  Steve: ‘’E sounds a liddle … eccentric.’

  Me: ‘“Eccentric”? He once tried to enter the record books as the first man to reach the South Pole in T-shirt and jandals.’

  ‘How far’d’e get?’

  ‘Opotiki.’

  Barry: ‘At age thirteen, after examining all options thoroughly, Bum left school and took up dealing. He does all right out of it, too — when he remembers not to use everything he’s got for sale. His shift to the Smoke was a career move.’

  Steve: ‘We’ll be passin’ through the Smoke. Yu’s reckon ’e could be our man?’

  Me: ‘I’ll tell you what, with what Bum used to manage to grow and rip from around Vegas every summer, he was sometimes doing deals with up to twenty gs changing hands. That’s not bad for a city this size. He’s been in the Smoke now for a year and a bit … and he had his foot in the door before he left.’

  Mick, conviction growing: ‘Yeah, I’m certain he could unload at least a lot of it in one hit, then bury the remainder somewhere and knock it out as he can. He likes us — trusts us. We can trust him too, guaranteed.’

  Me: ‘Even if not for his contacts, we’ve gotta go see him anyway.’

  Mick: ‘Why?’

  ‘We’ve got a perfect murder to share with him.’

  From Mick and Barry this earns a breathless giggle. ‘Fucking A, dude.’

  Some people do crosswords to stretch their minds, pass the time. Bum obsesses upon the perfect murder. Strictly as an intellectual challenge, of course.

  And perhaps because his vocation might one day necessitate it.

  Steve: ‘’Ow’d yu guys get t’ noe this cat?’

  None of us rushes to answer.

  Steve: ‘’Ello?’

  Barry eventually bites the bullet. ‘He’s Lefty’s brother.’

  Steve, sneering: ‘Yaw not fuckin’ serious?’

  Me, sighing: ‘Deplorably.’

  Barry: ‘Don’t worry, man. He’s nothing at all like Lefty.’

  Mick: ‘Yeah, this brother’s actually got some balls and principles.’

  Steve, shrugging half-heartedly: ‘If yu’s say so.’

  Barry, sudden: ‘Ah fuck.’

  His tone snags us. ‘What?’

  ‘I just thought of something: Bum shifted about two months ago, and I’ve lost his new address. Any of you dudes got it?’

  Me: ‘Na, I was meaning to get it off you.’

  Mick: ‘Same.’

  Me, to Barry: ‘Don’t ya know any of his mates up there?’

  ‘Since I shifted up, I’ve only seen Bum a couple of times, just to score, really. I’ve met a few people round at his crib, but I never got any numbers.’

  Steve: ‘Can’t we just get ’is new address orf Lefty?’

  Silence is a stern reply.

  Steve: ‘Speak t’ me, boys.’

  Me: ‘Lefty’s a devious fuck.’

  Barry: ‘He’ll be curious. He knows the only time we contact Bum is when there’s drugs in the offing. He’ll want in; after all, he considers himself a part of the crew.’

  Steve, flat: ‘Fuck ’im.’

  Mick: ‘He’ll drag his feet like no cunt’s business.’

  Steve: ‘Just spin ’im a yarn. Say there’s a mate of a mate u’s passin’ through the Smoke, needs t’ score sum blow somewhere.’

  Me: ‘Lefty’s a devious fuck.’

  Mick, expounding: ‘With anything concerning his mates and Bum, Lefty insists on acting the middleman, swinging a cut from things.’

  Barry, scoffing: ‘Yeah, even though Bum wouldn’t piss on Lefty if he was on fire.’

  Me: ‘What about Stiff and the boys, the usual suspects? They should know where Bum is.’

  Barry: ‘Stiff’s in the Joint. Grant and Mutt fucked off down the South Island a while back.’

  Steve: ‘Would Lefty’s old lady give it t’ yu?’

 
Me: ‘No way. She goes spastic at the mention of our names.’

  Mick, to me: ‘Can’t say I blame her. You pissing in her steam-iron that time was a little out of order.’

  Me: ‘Oh, and trying to dry her wee Felix off in the microwave wasn’t?’

  ‘I denied all knowledge of that.’

  ‘Quite convincingly, too.’

  Barry: ‘We’re digressing here, lads. How do we track Bum down? Gator? You’re the ideas man.’

  I draw a temporary blank.

  ‘Let’s sort it out later. Something’ll turn up. Even if we have to beat it outta Lefty. We’d only have to hit him once and he’ll find out for us how many craps Bum’s taken in the last fortnight.’

  Barry: ‘We should start working out what we’re gonna need, then. That’s if it’s a done deal …?’ His eyes pick me out. ‘Are we up for this?’

  I pussy out, passing it on to our editor. Knowing the answer: ‘The last word’s yours, Mick.’

  He stares into space for a good twenty seconds, and I can hear his brain probing the plan, flaying the fucking thing, desperate for a flaw.

  A large part of me hopes he finds one.

  Mick, at last: ‘I’m game.’

  I release a breath I hadn’t been aware of holding, the ratchet in my gut cranking a few notches tighter.

  It’s good stress, though. Stimulating.

  For the moment.

  It’s the stress of the Tri-Nations decider, the Blacks hot on attack, four points down, two minutes on the clock. It’s the stress of a chick eyeing you over, crossing the party to speak to her.

  I offer a prayer to the gods that at no point does it become the stress of waiting for a quack to tell you if the tumour’s benign or malignant.

  The stress of knowing your name’s on a Rabble shit list.

  Me, from a distance: ‘All right. We’re going then. What’s there to sort out?’

  Steve, low: ‘First things first: we need a shooter.’

  Barry: ‘That’s not a problem.’

  ‘Whose is it?

  ‘Mine.’

  Steve, doubtful: ‘Yu licensed?’

  ‘Na, but that don’t matter. A High Court judge wouldn’t get a licence for this baby.’

  The mere thought of the weapon sends a shudder through me.

  When he’s not setting the world alight, Barry’s old man’s a big deer hunter. A few months before the fallen heir was evicted for the final time, while his parents were away on holiday, Barry stayed out all night and left a back door wide open. He’d earlier lamented the house’s poor security to a mate with a penchant for burglary. All Barry wanted was fifty per cent of the fence, and the rifle — his father’s prized 30-06.

  Later, deeming it cumbersome, Barry modified the hand-cannon: cut the barrel down, fashioned the stock into a pistol grip. A ‘responsible’ peer of ours supplies Barry with all the shells he needs.

  He hopes to put his creation to its intended purpose some day, of that I’m convinced. You see, Barry applies a scientific stance toward such matters; he’s big on experimentation.

  He wants to learn what it feels like.

  Mind you, in all honesty, who the fuck doesn’t?

  Steve, shrugging: ‘If it’s good enuf faw yu cats, it’s good enuf faw me. What else? Two of us’ll be making the actual “confiscation” — that’ll be me and yu, Barry: yu meet the physical requirements beda than these two — so we’ll need t’ throw together some disguises. Just a sackcloth’ll do faw me, but unless yaw gonna wear gloves — and that’ll look tu sus this time of year — yaw hands might give yu away.’

  Me, remembering something: ‘Mick, you still got that Uncle Rangi kit cached?’

  Mick ponders a moment. Pleased: ‘Yeah, I have, actually!’

  A year or so ago, incited by an ugly ambush near the centre of town, the Brotherhood implemented a ruthless counter-strike against the homie faction concerned. It was executed late one Friday, near Vegas central, and involved the use of outer-circle members, two cars, prepaid mobiles, an hour or so of scouting, and a Jacks bottle filled with a 50/50 mix of bourbon and bovine laxative (whole days were lost convincing Barry of the non-viability of rat-poison). Mick, true to job description, insisted on fine-tuning the action with the precision of a military operation, one aspect of which included his sister, a drama student, supplying us with an ‘Uncle Rangi kit’: a wig of dreadlocks, a neat stick-on beard — black, of course — and a pot of dark foundation.

  The live run unfolded as an ‘explosive’ success, so much so that after they ‘chanced’ upon the bottle, both carloads of us contrived to trail the guzzling homies to the alley in which they were eventually caught short. Pants down in the headlights, the youngsters were in no mood for rumbling.

  We were.

  Me: ‘We’ll probably only need the make-up, but we’ll take the whole kit anyway. We’ll need to sort out some torches, and a heap of batteries, boy scouts’ motto and shit.’

  Barry: ‘And some backpacks.’

  Mick: ‘And some gloves: can’t be leaving fingerprints anywhere.’

  Steve: ‘What else?’

  Mick: ‘First, we’ve gotta make sure no one knows we leave town as a party. We should also jack up an alibi each, just in case. Me and Gator can tell everyone we’re off to stay with Rick.’

  Rick, an older mate of ours, lives in a caravan down the East Coast, surfing his life away. Mick and I have spent half the summer down there, fucking around in the bush, fishing and diving, smoking up a storm. It’s a real piece of paradise and Rick’s unlucky if he glimpses another soul in a fortnight.

  Barry: ‘Amy’ll say anything I ask her to. It’s just her and me in the flat at the moment, so she can just say we stayed in and watched the tube.’

  Amy — Barry’s woman in the Smoke — is good like this.

  Mick: ‘Steve?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll sort somethin’ out, sweet as.’

  Me: ‘What else?’

  Steve: ‘I reckon I’ll stop in at the DOC office tomorrow and pick up a topo of tha area we’ll be hittin’. The map I drew is rough as guts, so I’ll transfer all tha info over t’ the real deal.’

  Mick: ‘Yeah, make sure ya do that, Steve: the Brotherhood never moves till they’ve minimised all variables.’

  Me: ‘What else?’

  Mick: ‘No doubt we’re overlooking all sorts of crap, but I’ll draft out a precis of the mission tonight and compile a checklist. Gator, see if ya can come up with a few methods of substantiating our alibis.’

  I’ve a couple in the database already — spot the reprobate. ‘You and me, Mick, we just need to fill in a postcard each and send them down to Rick in an envelope, telling him to mail them to our olds. I’ll phone him and sort the technicalities as soon as we know them. Barry, you’ll wanna get Amy to go to a busy cinema on the right night and buy tickets to a film you’ve both seen.’

  Barry: ‘No worries.’ He’s fidgeting like a skint smack-head. ‘That seems to be that, then, gentleman. A-fucking-men. When’re we leaving?’

  Steve: ‘’Arvest begins in a few weeks. The buds’ll grow ’bout an eighth more between now and then.’

  Me: ‘In the context of the size of this crop, that’s a fuck of a lot of money. In the context of the pot belonging to Hemi, the pitfalls of pushing the margin for error too far, I say fuck the extra dough: let’s go real soon, keep the leeway as wide as poss.’

  No one moves to fault this.

  It suddenly occurs to me just how much fun I’m having. The cloak of conspiracy and fellowship draped about the four of us is nothing short of electrifying.

  Steve: ‘I ain’t got a wagon at the moment. ’Ow do we travel?’

  Barry, flourishing behind him: ‘Da naaaa. The ’Dan, man. Her preordained purpose is suddenly made clear. The ’Dan was born for the mission.’

  Mick: ‘And even if she wasn’t — something I’m not questioning for a second — she’s all we got.’

  Steve, frowning: ‘Will she make
it that far?’

  Barry, hands aloft: ‘Heyheyheyhey, bro! Not so loud. She’ll get the shits with us. Treat her like a bitch you’re desperate to screw and she’ll swallow every time.’

  Steve, grinning: ‘I used t’ own a Holden like that.’

  Mick, abruptly: ‘I hate to tell you guys this, but I’m skint till dole day next week.’

  I seriously doubt this. Mick’s a Yid: he hoards cash like a squirrel does acorns. But that’s just Mick; I gave up resenting it years ago.

  Barry: ‘I’m broke too. I finished up at the building site last Wednesday, but my severance won’t clear till next week.’

  Steve: ‘I’ve got about twenty bucks.’

  Me, grinning at the irony: ‘I’m in Mick’s boat: screwed till the Beehive next shits.’

  Lefty: ‘I’ve got enough to cover everyone.’

  The four of us jump like niggers unhooded at a Clan convention.

  He stands by the door in the garage’s far corner, ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ mask firmly donned.

  Mick finds voice first; not a tickled one. ‘Where the hell did you come from?

  Lefty, persecuted: ‘Well so-rry. Isn’t a guy allowed to visit his mates any more?’

  Mick, almost shouting: ‘Yeah, but it’s traditional to fucking announce yourself!’

  Barry’s across the floor in six strides and a heartbeat; by Lefty’s face I see he comes close to bailing.

  Barry, silk on steel: ‘How long ya been out there, Lefty?’

  ‘Well, I … I went to knock and heard you’s talking about something that …’