“You don’t love me Will Diamond.”
“C’mon don’t be like that Melissa; you know that Newcastle are playing at home today. I always go to the match when they play at home.”
“You don’t love me.”
“Listen, we can go out for dinner tomorrow.”
“You can’t even bring yourself to say it can you?”
With that, I slammed the phone down. I mean she’s a nice girl, but I wouldn’t be sitting having tea and cake with her parents in the near future. It was looking like I was single again, so I thought the best thing to do would be to celebrate.
*****
We all met up at the Centurion bar as usual before the game. There was a decent squad of us but some of the lads had already spoilt the day by mentioning they had to get home straight after the game. The joys of marriage…
The game itself was shite to be honest but we came out two-one winners in a drab affair and afterwards I headed down to the Beehive, the finest after match bar in Newcastle. I stood for almost twenty-minutes before anybody turned up…unfortunately for me the only person that did turn up was Mac.
You see, to put it bluntly, Mac is full of shit. He tells more lies than a Woolies watch. He’s the type of bloke who knows everyone and everything. There is nothing in this world that Mac doesn’t know…except maybe who his father is.
The night went from bad to worse when an old flame showed her face, giving it the old “Hiya, how you been?”
I shrugged off her attention and headed to the toilet for a livener. After putting a good stiff line of marching powder up my nose, the world seemed to be a slightly better place. So I had another to make it a much better place. As I was coming out of the shithouse Mac walked in.
“Got one of them for me Will?”
Reluctantly I passed him the Bolivian and walked out of the toilet. After ordering a couple of drinks for me and my nearly friend I began to watch Sky Sports to catch the rest of the footy results. Mac came out of the toilet looking a bit sheepish. I was thinking that he probably sniffed too much the greedy bastard. But no, it was worse…
“I couldn’t help it Will, it just fell off the cistern and straight into the toilet.”
What a fucking nob-jockey. He had just about made my night. The last of the devils dandruff had gone down the pan and Mac was standing like a fucking naughty schoolboy gawping at me.
“What the fuck am I going to do now Mac? Gary is on the other side of the river with the gear. You fucking useless twat!”
“I’ll get some more…”
“Where the fuck from?”
“Errol.”
“Who the fuck is Errol?”
“Errol’s a Jamaican.”
“How the fuck do you know Errol the Jamaican Mac?”
“He’s a friend of my brother’s.”
“Well let’s go and get some sniff then you clumsy fucka!”
With that the two of us caught a taxi to Jesmond, a nice area just north of the city-centre. We found Errol easily enough and surprisingly he seemed to not only know Mac, but he actually seemed pleased to see him. There was a little bit of hugging and name-dropping before we all sat down at a table and ordered some drinks.
Errol was full of shit. Telling me how he was connected and how the ‘Yardies’ down the country in London looked after him - luckily I managed to refrain from pissing my pants at his tales of brutality. It was at about that time Mickey Quigley came into the bar. Now he is not a man to be messed with. There were many tales floating around about him. My favourite tale had to be where he had supposedly made a bloke hug a tree and then nailed his hands to the opposite side. He then stuck a piece of plastic pipe up his arse and fed some barbed wire through it. Then the pipe was pulled out and hey presto, a very itchy arse with no hands to scratch it. Nasty…
Now at the sight of Mickey, Errol the Jamaican turned extremely white for a black man. He jumped up out of his seat and ran to the door. Mickey tried to corner him as he made his getaway, but Errol was quick enough to escape. Mac looked over the table to where I was sitting.
“Fuck me Will, what’s all that about?”
“Well obviously Mac, Errol has been pissing the wrong person off. Mickey Quigley runs this city if you don’t already know and I can’t see him being too happy about someone else flogging cocaine in his back yard.”
Mac looked at me then he started staring at the ground. He indicated with his eyes that I should look to the floor. I gazed down to where his eyes were fixed and immediately saw what he was staring at. There on the floor just under our table was a blue sports bag. I gently hooked it with my foot and pulled it under my chair. Meanwhile Mickey was doing the rounds and giving everyone the hardest stare he could muster.
He passed by us and gave me a half-smile; I had shared a couple of train journeys with him to Newcastle away games. I winked at him in a blokey manner and got back to drinking my pint. He left the bar soon after and I popped the sports bag on to my knee. I pulled open the zipper and mouthed the words “fucking hell” as I looked up at Mac.
“What…what the fuck is in there Will?”
I slowly tilted the bag so Mac could see inside. The sweat formed on his brow as soon as he caught sight of the little prize we had come across.
“What the fuck are we going to do with that? We can’t fucking keep it. Errol will have my balls off if he thinks we’ve taken it.”
“Shut the fuck up Mac. Of course we can’t keep it. There’s a building brick of uncut fucking coke in there and somebody is going to have to get it back to Errol?”
I can’t say it didn’t cross my mind to keep it, but I couldn’t be sure how well connected Errol was. The conversation went backwards and forwards about how to get rid of the stuff. Errol wasn’t answering his mobile when Mac rang him. He probably thought Mickey had us. I told Mac he would have to keep the gear, but he said he couldn’t take it home because of his parents.
I said I wouldn’t keep it because of where I lived. I mean it wasn’t uncommon for houses on my estate to be burgled and I somehow didn’t think Errol would believe me if I said the gear had been nicked.
We eventually came to a compromise. I would take the bag back to my place and Mac would borrow his brothers Rotwieller dog to look after the house for me. So I got a taxi home, and Mac turned up half an hour later with a big, black and tan killer dog to protect the gear for us.
By this time it was almost nine o’clock.
“Right should we try and catch the last couple of hours at the Swan?” I said.
Mac nodded in agreement and before we went we skimmed a couple of grams off the uncut brick that was in the bag. I mean nobody would ever miss it. I closed the living room door and off we went safe in the knowledge that Mac’s brother’s dog was in the house guarding the sniff.
It actually turned out to be a cracking night. Mac managed to contact Errol who had agreed to pick the gear up on Sunday morning from my place. He also said he would leave some with us for free because of the trouble we had taken to look after his gear. Add to that, we were truly off our heads on the best Bolivian money could buy, and you had a great evening out on the drink. The world was a very nice place to be…
We were sitting talking shite at a very high pace when we heard the bell sound for last orders.
“What you doing Mac? Are you just going to stay at my house tonight? I don’t fancy trying to convince the dog that I’m its friend.”
“The dog will be fine mate, just call his name as you open the door and make sure you give him something to eat.”
“What the fuck is his name anyway?”
“Dave.”
“Dave…what sort of fucking name is that to give a dog?”
“It’s named after David Banner, you know ‘The Hulk,’ what used to be on the telly.”
“Well why the fuck didn’t he call the dog Hulk?”
“Because it’s not green you daft prick.”
“Well it’s not exactly a doctor either is it? And that’s what David Banner was.”
“Well I know that but he always used to say, you wouldn’t like me if I got angry. You see…angry, if you got the dog angry it wouldn’t be wise. So you keep him calm and call him David, or Dave as he likes to be known.”
“Were you and your kid smoking weed when you discussed naming the dog Mac?”
“We always smoke weed Will…you know that.”
I ordered a taxi and we decided that it probably would be better if Mac stayed at my house, just to be on the safe side. Two minutes later we were there. Mac got the taxi fare and I opened the front door and shouted “Dave!”
*****
As I looked down the hallway I froze in terror as a huge, white phantom dog came running towards me. It barged through the doorway and ran straight onto the road, where it was hit full on, by a passing car. The phantom dog lay on the floor for about five seconds, and then, it jumped up and ran in the direction of the park.
“What the fuck was that Will?” Came the scream from behind me.
Mac was standing open mouthed with a tenner change in his hand from the taxi. I wasn’t sure what it was either.
“Fuck knows mate?”
I bolted down the hallway to make sure the phantom dog hadn’t fucked over Dave. As I entered the living room…well…fucking hell!
I’ll give you one guess what had turned the canine monster white…It looked like a baby suicide bomber had let off a talcum powder bomb in my living room. The whole room was covered in Bolivian. The bag was ripped to shreds on the floor and there was shit and piss everywhere.
“Oh shit!”
“Never mind fucking oh shit Mac, we’re fucked. The stupid fucking dog has eaten the gear. And what it hasn’t eaten is covered in shit and piss.”
“Our kid will go mad if the dog dies.”
“Never mind the dog you prick, Errol is going to have our balls on a skewer you fucking tit.”
The two of us just stood looking at the carnage that was previously my living room. My mind was racing and it didn’t help that I was as high as the highest bloke on the highest mountain standing on top of a fucking very high ladder. I could feel my palms sweating and my legs were starting to give.
“Fucking hell Mac, this is all your fault.”
“Fuck you Will; I was trying to do you a good turn. I didn’t know this shit was going to happen.”
He was right. It wasn’t his fault. It was just a very unfortunate sequence of events that we now needed to turn in our favour. I looked at my mobile phone.
*****
Now I’ve always known that I was a pretty lucky bloke. But if this came off I was using up all my life’s luck in one go. I had paid Mac’s brother five-hundred quid for the disappearance of Dave the dog. Fuck knows what happened to him? I had also managed to salvage about half a kilo of Bolivian from the living room and, crucially, convince Errol that everything was okay. I was now waiting for him to come over to my place. Yes I can honestly say in eight hours I had managed to sort out everything…hopefully.
So at precisely ten in the morning the doorbell rang and I opened the door.
“Hey man, how you doing?” whispered Errol in his Jamaican twang.
“All the better for seeing you Errol. I don’t like to keep that sort of gear around if you know what I mean.” I laughed as I said it and Errol laughed along with me.
I moved to one side to let Errol pass and pointed at the door at the bottom of the hallway.
“Mac’s in there with the gear mate, best be quick before he sniffs it all.”
Errol laughed again as he walked down the hallway towards the living room. I closed the front door and walked into the bedroom that was just off to the left of the hallway. Mac was sitting on the bed white as the sheet that covered it. He looked up at me and stared into my eyes. That’s when we heard the first scream.
*****
You see I’m a great believer in survival of the fittest or as I like to think of it extinction of the thickest.
So when Mickey Quigley cut me a deal I just had to accept it. The downside is Mickey has my balls in his hands now where favours are concerned. But, Errol is wrapped up in black bin liners and by now he’s probably about three mile off Blyth pier, just about to go for a swim with some rather large dumbbells tied around his ankles in the beautiful North-Sea. So all’s well that ends well and it’s a beautiful sunny Sunday.
Me and Mac are going over to Newcastle to have a few pints. We’ve wrapped up a decent amount of the devil’s dandruff and sold the rest to Mickey at a cut down price. So here’s hoping it turns out nice again tomorrow, because I have a pocket full of money and some serious Bolivian back-up in my wallet.
Belter…
(c) Will Diamond 2009