*CHOP*
If you're wondering, I'm making Donkey's annoying noise (From Shrek II)
OK, and I've not posted for three days, but on Friday I didn't have time to write, and then I finished both day's sections at 1:00 this morning, on the dot. I'd told myself I wouldn't write past it. But here it is... I've got 12,063 words!
“A hundred and fifty thousand, little bro. I’ll help you invest it properly. You don’t wanna do anything stupid with it.” He starts walking again. I follow him, my mind blown.
We walk through the metal-detector gate, and it doesn’t beep. The guards watch Joan carefully, but he’s nice to everyone. He even lifts an old lady’s heavy bag onto the suitcase roundabout. With one hand. The guards don’t talk to us.
We walk through the tunnel to the plane. It’s moving a bit, like it’s windy outside. We show our tickets to the lady at the end of the tunnel, and she points at the front of the plane.
“First class, Seats A1 and A2, all expenses paid. The closest you can get to the pilot’s cabin without actually being in it”, she says to me, smiling. Her name’s Jaye. I follow Joan onto the plane, and walk behind him until we get to our seats. An air hostess comes and asks us what we want, and Joan says champagne. I want a fried ham sandwich. When they come I give Joan a little of my sandwich and he gives me a little of his champagne.
When we take off, I know it’s futile, but I try to see our house. We’re not that far from the airport, after all.
We’re too far away to see the house, but in the distance, I see the flashing light of a car crossing Bridge Kanulu.
* * *
The flight is really long. Joan drinks his bottle of champagne slowly. It’s just a little bottle, he says, but it’s strong, and he doesn’t want it to do anything to him. I have another fried ham sandwich, and they put pineapple in it this time, too. An air hostess asks if I want to see the cabin. I look at Joan and he doesn’t shake his head, so I say yes. There’s knobs and buttons everywhere, but the pilot says it’s actually very easy to fly, and half of the buttons are never used. He points to one which he says he knows has never been used. It says “Roman Candle,” which I think sounds like fun, but he says it’s something called a euphemism, and not even a very good one. I go back to Joan.
Hours later, I must have gone to sleep, because Joan shakes me awake.
“We’re in Canada” he says. I look out the window. It looks exactly like the airport we left. I wonder a little if we’ve moved at all, but then I see a massive animal on the side of the runway. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I point at it.
“What’s that, Joan?” He looks.
“It’s a moose. Kind of like a deer, I think, but bigger.” I’ve seen pictures of deers, but I’ve never actually seen one in real life. I don’t think Joan has, either.
We get off the plane, and Joan finds our bags quickly. I pick up mine, and we walk out of the airport. There’s a place with lots of cars, and Joan rents one, which he says is called a celebrity, and is a totally crap car, but we want to buy as much weed as we can, and the car doesn’t really matter. Just how much it costs. We drive into the city, and find a hotel. It’s not too flash, but it’s OK. There’s a pool out back.
Joan gets us a room with two beds. I get into my pajamas in the bathroom, and crawl into bed. The sheets are smooth and clean, and cold. I hug myself until I’m warm. Joan’s breathing is already heavy and slow. A couple minutes later, I’m asleep too.
Next morning when I wake up, Joan’s not there. I have a shower and get changed into the clothes I wore yesterday. I’m going through my suitcase when Joan buzzes back in the door. I look up.
“I found a dealer,” he says, and tosses me a plastic bag, taped up at the top. It’s not very heavy. “Small-time dealer. I cleaned him out for only five hundred.”
“Will we find enough weed, then?” Joan laughs.
“Of course we will. It’s actually pretty good going to get that much already. We’ve only been here a couple of hours, after all, and we’ve got a week to do this. He mentioned another guy, higher up the ladder. Apparently he gets his weed from him. That’s the great thing about the weed racket. Dealers deal to dealers, so every dealer we meet we’ll get names, until we reach the top of the chain. Then we chat to this guy at the top, buy everything he sells us, find out who his enemies are. Then… we go to his enemies and clean them out completely. A town like this, there probably aren’t more than two head honchos, but we’ll do it again in another city. I’ve called the next guy, he expects us in an hour.”
“An hour. So what are we doing ‘til then?”
“Breakfast?”
We get breakfast at a pancake place on the main street. They’re amazingly sweet. Joan says that’s because they were made using maple syrup flours, maple syrup eggs, fried in maple syrup butter, and then probably glazed with maple syrup. He dribbles maple syrup from a little metal jug over his anyway. I eat mine with butter on them, but it’s probably maple syrup butter. We both drink coffee. I think Joan wants this to be a kind of bonding time between us, and he’s trying to grow me up. I say my coffee is really bitter, and he says that’s because it’s the one thing Canadians don’t put maple syrup in. They use the bark instead, he says, but he laughs, so I think he’s joking. I put maple syrup in mine anyway, and that makes him laugh louder, but it makes it taste nicer.
After breakfast, he goes to a chemist and gets a saline solution, which he says is really just salt water and an eye-dropper. He drops salt water in his eyes until they’re red.
“’Cause, see, if I show up and they think I’m stoned, they won’t expect me to barter as well, and we’ll get more weed for less money.”
In the car he burns a little bit of weed from another bag he must’ve got from the first dealer. He doesn’t breathe any of it though - He breathes out the window, and sprays a little deodorant under his armpits, “So they’ll think I’m trying to cover up the smell,” he says, wiping his eyes. The weed makes me cough, but it makes the top of my head feel like it’s come off and floated away. It’s a good feeling, kind of. But I don’t want too much. The tiny bit he burnt in the car is enough.
When we get to the new dealer’s place, Joan puts another drop of salt water in each eye, and looks at mine. He snorts a little.
“I’ve got you stoned, James.” He has? “Your eyes are as red as mine. Next time, breathe out the window.” I nod, which makes my brain buzz. We knock on the door and the drug dealer lets us in.
“Jazz called me. Said you’d cleared him out.” He sniffed, and I saw him looking at our eyes. “Been smoking it on the way here, have you?” Joan nods. He looks kind of woozy.
“We got a bunch of mates. Massive party, and we gotta supply the goods. Well, these goods. What you got, man?” The guy nods.
“Yeah, I know about the party, Jazz told me. I got more of the stuff than he does. How many of youse are there gonna be at this party, anyway?”
“Dunno. I got all my mates together, and they got all theirs, and then they got all theirs. It’s, like, that pyramid scheme thing, y’know?” I giggle. The guy nods. “So, like, at least a hundred. And it’s gonna be a whole weekend thing. It’s the party of the year, man, if I get enough dope. We’re gonna hotbox one of the rooms and just keep it full, seventy-two hours.” The dealer whistles, long and low. Really long. He must have huge lung capacity.
‘You’ll be needing everything you can get then. How much money you got?” Joan pulls out a roll of cash. Twenty hundreds, rolled up with a rubber band around it. I know he’s got ten more in his pocket, and there’s more in the car. The dealer pulls a wooden box out from under his table and opens it. It’s full of bags, with weed inside.
“These are all fifty-bags, and they’re top of the line. There’s a hundred of them here. Wanna take the box?”
Joan nods, but he doesn’t pull out the money just yet. He pulls the box closer and starts taking the bags out, one by one, counting. I do too. The numbers bounce around inside my head. Joan looks up at the dealer.
“There’s only eighty bags in here.” The dealer looks concerned. He kneels down and counts the bags too. I do it as well. It’s fun.
“You’re right. Damn, sorry about that. What’s eighty times fifty?”
“Wait a second,” says Joan, even though I know he’s already figured out the answer. He picks up one of the bags that was near the bottom of the box and opens it. He sniffs inside and then nods. “Good. I was afraid you’d have cut the bottom ones with lavender. Jazz tried that.” Suddenly I wonder what he did to Jazz. Joan pulls out another roll of money and chucks both across to the dealer, who grins.
“Cheers. You are now the owner of a box of weed.”
“Got any more?”
“Hell, course I do. Five more boxes.”
Joan counts the bags in each box, and checks a few from each, just to make sure, then pays eighteen thousand dollars for the lot. None of the boxes have a hundred bags in them. One only had fifty. But Joan pays him all the money, and doesn’t even flick him, even though he tried to cheat us. By the end of that, my head’s not buzzing anymore, and I’m starting to get bored. Joan asks if he has any more, but he shakes his head. “You’ve cleaned me out, man. No worries, though, I can be happy with this much dough for a while.”
As we’re getting ready to go, Joan asks, as If he only just thought it, “Who’s your supplier?”
“His name’s Jim. You want his number, mate?” Joan nods, and the guy hands him a little bit of paper.
“I’ll call and tell him to expect you. His address is there too.” Joan looks at the paper.
“Thanks, dude.”
“Hey, man, pleasure to oblige.”
When we get outside, Joan growls, then laughs.
“What?”
“Well, I shoulda punched him, really. Or not paid him as much. The bags were too light, and I actually did find one that was lavender.”
“What? Why didn’t you, then?” He laughs again.
“Because half of the other bags were G-13! Cut-rate dealer if he can’t tell the difference.” He pulls two bags out of one of the boxes and gets me to sniff them. One smells way nicer.
“This bag of G-13 is the same size as a fifty, but it’ll sell for way more. It’s worth at least six grand back home. Three of these’ll cover the entire cost of what we just bought, and we’ve got hundreds!” He laughs again. So do I.
“I just hope Jimbo’s as much of an idiot,” he says, as he turns on the car, the boxes safely stowed in the boot and covered with some very smelly fishing gear, and a fish that smells like it was brought to Canada all the way from Bridge Kanulu.
* * *
It turns out Jim’s not an idiot, and that’s proven when he sees Joan coming in the door and immediately chucks his bag of lavender over his shoulder. He doesn’t lie once, and we leave with fifty thousand dollars worth of pot, almost thirty thousand of it G-13, which Joan says we’ll still be able to turn over at a profit of almost five thousand a bag.
Jim gives us the number of his supplier, who doesn’t have much. We only take thirty thousand worth, and Joan puts a hole in his wall the third time he smells lavender.
“If I smell one more bag full of lavender, I’ll punch you. Then I’ll punch you again. And again. And I’ll punch you until you’re hurt as badly as I was three years ago. I’m a lot bigger than I was then. You can make your stock clean, now.”
But we get the name of the head honcho off him. Apparently there’s a massive weed farm somewhere, and he lives there. Joan’s not surprised to hear about it, but he is surprised when we arrive. The farm’s massive. As we drive to the house in the middle I count twelve fields, and each field has at least three hundred plants. Joan’s eyes are popping out of his head.
When we get to the house he’s standing there, waiting for us, in a business suit. He shakes Joan’s hand, introduces himself as Jamet and looks at our car. The boot’s full by now and we’ve got “fishing gear” piled in the back seat. It stinks in there. Jamet chuckles. “Want to finish filling it up?” I think that we’re not going to need another city. Joan’s got a little more than two hundred thousand left, and I think Jamet’s got that much to sell. I wonder if Joan will buy it all as G-13, just so it doesn’t take up as much space.
“I do want to finish filling it up. I take it you’ve heard about the party then?” Jamet nods. “That party’s suddenly pretty well known among dealers here. How come none of us were invited?” Joan doesn’t even blink.
“The party’s in another city, long ways off. I already cleaned out a couple cities between here and there.” Jamet whistles. He’s got huge lungs, too. I wonder if Joan’s story was made up on the spot or if he’d planned it the moment he made up the party.
“Must be some hell of a room you’re boxing.”
“Yep. Just about everyone’s gonna be in there at some point, maybe all together. Everyone who’s not doing anything else’ll be there. And by doing, I mean drugs, booze, chicks. Hell of a party. How much weed you got?” Jamet’s smile vanishes, as business takes over.
“C’mon,” he says, nodding his head towards the building. I walk behind him. Joan buzzes.
Inside, he takes us to a room where all the walls are lined with wooden boxes, kinda like the ones we got our first lot of weed in.
“Each box signifies one thousand dollars worth of weed. The small ones are G-13. Now, I’m told you’re a picky buyer, so those boxes,” he points at the left wall with both hands, “I’ve just been through personally. No discrepancies whatsoever, and I checked every tenth bag for lavender. Half the dealers I sell to don’t notice, but I’m being honest with you.” Joan nods, then points at the boxes.
“You’ll understand if I want to check for myself?”
“Of course. How long will you be?”
“I’ve got two hundred Gs in my pocket. And I’m picky.” Jamet nods.
“I’ll leave you to it then. I’ll be on the balcony.” He walks out. Joan takes down a box, and looks at me.
“Reckon you can smell the difference between weed and lavender with your nose? It can be pretty subtle.” I shrug. He pulls three bags from his pockets and open them. I sniff, but I can only tell the G-13. He puts the bags back away.
“No help. Y’know, it was pretty damn trusting of Jamet to leave us in here. Kinda strange, that. You wanna find out why?” I nod, glad to be helpful, and go to find Jamet. He’s on a balcony around the side of the house, in a deckchair, drinking a coffee and staring out at his plants. He raises his cup to me.
“Kicked out, then? Brother prefers to work alone, I suppose.” He sips.
“Nah.” I sit on the deck and lean against the house. I picture it toppling under my weight, and almost giggle until I remember Joan’s inside. I give the fantasy up.
“Can’t smell well enough to be any real help.” Jamet nods. I point out to his fields.
“How come you can have all of this? Wouldn’t you get caught real fast?” He shakes his head.
“I’m a professional. I sell to the doctors that still prescribe it. You’ve gotta have a slip to buy it from them though, so I sometimes cut out the middleman. I’m a government official, me.” I snort a little. I’m training myself to do it just like Joan. I sound like a piglet being strangled. Jamet looks at me kinda weird.
“So the government pays you for this, but you sell to everyone? Aren’t you scared you’ll get caught?”
“I was, for a while. I’ll have been doing this for fifteen years, come Tuesday. You get used to it.” I imagine him, fifteen years ago, just starting to sell weed to smokers. Joan would have been just seven. I wouldn’t have been. Mum would have been alive.
“How come you left me and Joan alone in that room? Aren’t you scared we’ll nick some of your weed?”
“You ask a lot of questions, mate.”
“I know.” He laughs.
“Funny. Well, you guys seem pretty honest. I understand you haven’t shortchanged anyone so far, even when they tried selling you lavender, and half-emptying the boxes. Your brother doesn’t like stealing, it seems. Strange in a smoker, but it’s been known to happen.”
I must’ve looked like I didn’t think he was telling the truth, ‘cause he laughs again. “Alright, I’m not really that trusting. Here, I’ll show you why.” He stands up, coffee in one hand. I stand up too, and stick both my hands in my pockets, and follow him back inside. It’s cold and dark, compared to outside. He takes me to a room with a white door and opens it.
There’s six TVs up on one wall. The balcony, the main room, the front of the house, where our car is, the back of the house, the kitchen, and the weed room. I can see Joan sniffing packets and counting bags. There’s a pile of boxes beside him. A man is watching the TVs.
“He nicked any, Joe?” The man shakes his head and Jamet turns to me. “See? Told you He was honest. If he wasn’t, he’d be dead by now. Honesty’s a good policy.” I just nod.
“What, no questions? Strange.” He walks out of the room, and I follow him again. He goes to the kitchen, where I know Joe will watch my every movement. Jamet can afford to be paranoid.
“You like coffee?”
“Do you make it with maple tree bark?” He laughs at that again. I’m starting not to trust him. He laughs too much.
“Nope. I make it with coffee beans. How do you like it?”
“Long black,” I say, asking for what Josh had this morning. “As strong as you can make it.”
“Ooh, a customer who knows his stuff. Well, how’sabout this, then?” He holds up a paper packet, folded at the top, which smells of coffee. It says “Kopi Luwak” on the front, and there’s a picture of some kind of big cat in a tree. I don’t know what any of it means, so I just nod. He chuckles, and tips some beans into a little black machine, which grinds them up, then into a coffee machine. We have one at home, but this one looks more high-tech. And it’s smaller. As the coffee drips into the pot, he looks at the half-full mug in his hand and finishes it off.
“So, why are you here? And don’t say it’s because your brother needs help carrying the weed, or driving or anything. You’re too young to drive and with those arms, I reckon he could pick up the car. Well, that arm. What happened to him, anyway?”
“Gang fight,” I say. I don’t like talking about José. “He won. And he hasn’t told me why I’m here, I think I’m something to do with cops.”
“So he asks all the questions because he doesn’t like answering them.” I almost look around for the person he’s talking to before I realize he’s talking to himself. Loudly, so I know he’s making fun of me. “Well, given that your brother won a gang fight and still ended up with only one working limb, I guess you may have reason.” He pours coffee into a mug and hands it to me before pouring for himself. I follow him back out to the balcony.
“Drink that, it’s good. Do you smoke?” I take a sip. It’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted.
“Oh wow, this stuff’s good. I don’t smoke, really, but my brother does when I’m around, so kinda.”
“It should be good, the amount you’ve got there is probably worth as much as half a box.” I try not to spray the precious liquid, which tastes like molten gold, all over the deck in front of me.
“That’s a lot of money.”
“It is a lot of money. Don’t worry about it,” he says, as he sees me peering anxiously into the cup. “I don’t worry about little things like that anymore. It’s a small transaction unless there’s more than two zeroes involved, and even then only if the other number’s a five.” It takes me a while to figure out the amount he’s thinking of.
“So, my brother walking in here with two hundred thousand dollars to buy weed off you... that’s not such a big thing? I mean, Joan could probably steal half as much again and you wouldn’t know without the camera. And you’ve got so much money you don’t care?”
“I’d care… but not overly much. It’s not something I’d get worked up about.” He doesn’t seem to get worked up about much. I still don’t trust him.
Now, anyone who's been reading as I write... do you agree that there was a significant drop in my fourth instalment?