Nancy

Edgar had a genuine penchant for the product; which is why he could not resist a wee snort before his guests were due to arrive. The charley did nothing to steady his nerves. If anything it actually made matters worse. Edgar was shaking when he opened the door and felt like he might actually cry for the first time since he was a boy. He’d expected a couple of gorillas, but found a little woman in a charcoal grey business suit. He was about to shoo her away when she said;

“Good morning Edgar, my name is Nancy – I’m your collections agent.”

Nancy was a diminutive forty something red head who toted a small black attaché case. She affected a breezy but business like demeanour and looked for all the world like an insurance agent – she was not what Edgar had been expecting. He breathed an inward sigh of relief; he would not have his legs broken today. Nevertheless as he led her into the living room he began to anxiously intone the various excuses he had prepared for the occasion.

“I laid a lot of gear out and I’m just waiting on the returns. I should be...”

“I’m not interested in your business Edgar” Nancy interrupted, “I’m simply here to arrange the repayment of your debt.” She pointed at a chair and said, “Sit down.”

She sat opposite Edgar and opened her attaché case. Edgar had expected, rather optimistically, that she would produce some papers for him to sign. Instead she retrieved a small toffee hammer.

“You will not struggle, or in any way impede me Edgar. Do you understand? Under no circumstances will you touch me, or I can have a couple of burly lads come over to hold you down while we do this the hard way. Do you understand?”

Edgar simply nodded numbly. His surprise turned to agonised shock when in one sweeping movement Nancy leapt to her feet and struck his left knee with the tiny hammer; he writhed in pain and nearly left his chair.

“Stay still” she ordered and as soon as he had regained some of his composure she struck the right knee. The pain was searing and Edgar thought he might pass out – he was not to be that lucky. After each practised stroke Nancy gave him time to straighten out before delivering another blow. She struck each knee six times eventually leaving Edgar a crippled heap on the living room floor. Then she returned her toffee hammer to the case and laid out the conditions of their payment schedule.

“I will call by each Monday at this time. You will have one thousand pounds cash ready for me – please do not disappoint me Edgar – things could get nasty. This arrangement will continue for forty weeks – or until you have paid of the balance completely.”

“Forty?” gasped Edgar.

“That is the sum owed” replied Nancy.

“But, but, I only...” he stammered.

“Forty” said Nancy with an air of finality.

“Tell Johnny I...”

“I told you Edgar – I don’t need to know your business. I’m only here to arrange the repayment of a debt.”

“Where will I find forty grand?” he moaned.

“That’s not my problem, but I suggest you do.” answered Nancy in a matter of fact tone. “Don’t get up – I’ll see myself out.”

Edgar lay on the floor nursing his shattered kneecaps and reflecting on the fact that it was he who had turned Johnny on to the cocaine business in the first place. His protégée had become a monster and Edgar one of his victims. It took an age to drag himself to the bedroom where he had a couple of big lines before calling Psycho Peter – it was time to call in his markers and Peter was just the man to apply the necessary pressure. There would be no more mister nice guy – he had seven days to raise a grand – he’d worry about the other thirty nine later. One day he would pay Johnny back in kind – he’d revenge himself on that ungrateful fuck, but right now he was running low on coke and getting sorted was his first priority.

.

The Cuckold

It was the usual Friday night slot at Sandra’s house. Her man Archie was at the bowls and would not return until the early hours when the bowling club threw him out. I liked Archie, we were mates and I always felt a tinge of guilt visiting Sandra on the fly. However, Sandra was a real looker with a voracious sexual appetite and I like that in a woman.

She answered the door wearing a flimsy black silk negligee and beckoned me in with a wolfish grin. Forgoing our customary glass of wine we stumbled up the stairs with indecent haste groping and snogging as we went. Once in the bedroom we wasted no time shedding our clothes and getting down to business.

We were on the job for five minutes when I heard an unusual creaking sound and it wasn’t the bedsprings. I paused for a minute and asked Sandra what that sound was.

“What sound?”

“I heard something – it’s stopped now.”

We got back down to it, but a few minutes later I could discern the strange creaking again. Glancing over my shoulder I could see that her wardrobe was rocking. This was surely the source of the mysterious noise. I thought I was tripping – my blood ran cold with fright – the way it does sometimes when you are first confronted with the unknown. I leapt out of bed and opened the wardrobe and low and behold there was Archie crouching with his trousers around his knees.

“Hiya Johnny” he said with a sheepish grin.

“What the fuck is going on here” I enquired angrily.

“He found out about us” chimed in Sandra “and he wanted to watch.”

“That’s disgusting” I retorted “you’re fucking perverse!”

I was hurriedly dressing as Archie and Sandra were trying to explain the situation. Unbelievably they wanted me to stay. I was, ironically, taking the moral high ground.

“It’s just a wee game Johnny – you like to play games” said Sandra.

“I wouldn’t interfere – I’d be quiet as a mouse – you wouldn’t know I was there” said Archie.

“I’d fucking know alright” I replied. “You pair take the biscuit – I want no part in your wee games.”

I left in a great cloud of righteous indignation vowing never to darken their door again. I did though - I met up with Sandra a couple times after that, but although I still found her most alluring the magic was gone. I’d check the wardrobe for passengers each time and though it was always empty I couldn’t stop thinking about Archie. How did he feel knowing his wife was at home with her lover while he was presumably playing bowls? Knowing he knew just ruined the whole thing for me. I’ve never forgotten the spectator in the wardrobe either and whenever I’m in someone else’s bedroom I always do a quick recce before removing my kit – which looks pretty weird; but it’s a participation sport for me and no audience is required.

.

Sweet Nothings

In the post coital haze
when you’re fuzzy warm inside
Do you pour sweet nothings
into receptive ears?
What fragrant lies
escape your honeyed lips?
What sugar coated deceptions
slip between the sheets?
And in the morning light
do you cultivate a little distance?
Do you feign casual indifference
amidst stilted words and gestures?
Or do you simply simulate amnesia
with deliberate and practised poise?
.

Lore

with the solemn progression of years
I had cast myself as the effigy of a man
and made a shrine of my heart
which I polished with tears
until it shone slick with a lustre
dark and impenetrable
I buried it deep within
where no other could survey
and paid the occasional pilgrimage
in memory of its passing into lore

Charley

Her Majesties Customs and Excise had put the kibosh on Johnny’s parcel scam. He had smuggled hundreds of pounds of sticky black hash into the country and he had become an affluent man on the back of it, but what now? What good is a dealer with no product?

Initially Johnny scored from Buddha, but he never liked that arrangement. The prices were good and so were the deals, but he just didn’t like the idea of being beholden to Buddha. So when Edgar Allen came along Johnny switched to him. Edgar, also known as Poe – though never to his face, was a wealthy man who had been dealing for years and so had loads of contacts. Soon Johnny was once more turning over pounds of hash – until Poe turned him onto charley.

Cocaine was the up and coming thing for the cognoscenti – Johnny had a different class of customer they drove Porsches and ate in fancy restaurants. Johnny aspired to be just like them. He started to drink wine instead of beer; he even had books about it. He took to reading to improve his mind, he had always been the studious type; Stewart Melville’s College had trained him well.

Johnny had a way with the ladies, especially now that he could dress in the sharpest suits and throw a bit of money around. He liked money and he liked the things it could buy. He liked drugs, but not to the extent Buddha and Psycho Peter did, he’d never lose control, he always knew when to knock it on the head.

She danced for him. She liked to dance and he liked to watch her dance. Her moves were purely sexual, not everybody can dance that way. She was going through a pupation; the final emergence of her sex. She was only seventeen years old. She was pretty basic in that she didn’t play games. He liked it like that. He had enough complication in his life. She’d dance for him and they’d dance together. Then they’d snort some coke and fuck some more.

He was chopping up another line and trying to work out how he’d get rid of her. She was young, too young really, but he liked them like that. She was in the bathroom taking a shower. He snorted the cocaine and joined her there.

“I want to shave your pussy,” he said.

“What?”

“I want to shave your pussy,” he repeated.

“Why?”

“Because I like them like that,” he said, “totally naked like a little girl.”

“I don’t know...” She was towelling herself dry.

“Ever eat pussy?” he asked.

“No,” she replied.

“I want to watch you eat some pussy,” he said.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“Doing what?”

“Acting all weird.”

“I’m not acting weird,” he said, “I’m just telling you what I want. If you don’t like it you can always leave.”

“Johnny...” she began with a whimper before she made for the bedroom and put her clothes on.

“Bastard!” she said as she slammed the door on the way out.

Some women had said that he feared commitment and that was true. He feared commitment to the wrong woman. When the right woman came along he’d know. He felt sure he’d know.

He had certain rules of engagement because it was all about power. All relationships have that dynamic; all relationships are a kind of war with one or the other in the dominant role. Johnny wasn’t prepared for that contest again, not yet.

Johnny had other worries on his mind: like the poachers on his turf who were selling cheap adulterated coke at cut-price rates.

“There he was – bold as brass doing his loaves and fishes with my fucking coke!” Johnny was obviously angry.

“I’m not responsible for what the punters do with the product after it leaves my hands Johnny and neither are you” replied Buddha.

“No?” answered Johnny. “I’m supplying you and you are supplying Angel and he is undercutting my dealers by selling lactose at fifty quid a gram. You see my problem here Buddha and there is one obvious solution.”

“If I cut off his supply he’ll just go to someone else” observed Buddha.

“But he won’t be selling my coke to my punters at a discount. The wee bastard steps on it three times over before he punts it on – it’s a fuckin disgrace.”

Buddha just smiled – he knew fine well that Johnny stepped on his gear because it was Buddha who taught him how. First, he boiled a woolen sock full of borax for an hour or two – then he dried the borax in a thin layer so that it wouldn’t clump up. Finally he ground it into a crystalline powder that looked exactly like cocaine, weighed the same as cocaine but had no odour or taste – it was the perfect cutting agent and Johnny used it on every batch.

“When he finds another supplier and comes into your clubs – what will you do then?” enquired Buddha.

“I’ll be hiring a couple of Peter’s boys to discourage him.”

Buddha winced at the word ‘discourage’. Peter often discouraged people by breaking their limbs. He was President of the local chapter of Hell’s Angels and had his hands in many pockets. Psycho Peter was not a man to be messed with. Hopefully, Angel would take a telling and leave Johnny’s turf alone. Buddha thought it a shame it had come to this; Angel and Johnny had once been the best of friends. He reflected that cocaine had brought on a change in Johnny – he had become hardnosed and ruthless. He wasn’t the sweet schoolboy Buddha had met ten years before, he was unrecognisable.

“Do we have an understanding Buddha?”

“I understand perfectly Johnny – no more charley for Angel.” Buddha felt he’d had the squeeze put on, and on reflection realised that he had. He would have a word with Angel next time they met – which was Johnny’s intention all along. He wanted to avoid these shenanigans if he could, but he’d sell no more of Johnny’s gear to Angel, after all he’d given his word.

Buddha’s attempts to pour oil on troubled waters met with typical Angelic obstinacy.

“Bastard! Who the fuck is he? It’s not like he owns the clubs!”

“As a matter of fact,” interjected Buddha:”He owns shares in at least two of them and has an exclusivity deal with the management of the others – no one else deals in those clubs and they collect a princely kick back from Johnny. It’s all buckshee Angel and you lack the resources to compete. The only reason you aren’t parked in Warriston cemetery is Johnny’s friendship for you.”

“Friendship!” exclaimed Angel “He tries to drive me out of business and calls it friendship!”

“There are other clubs,” soothed Buddha,”you can have your pick of them. From Johnny’s point of view you are encroaching on his franchise and he’d be a poor businessman to allow that wouldn’t he?”

“Businessman?” scoffed Angel “Is that what he is now? I remember him when he was selling quarters to his bum chums at school. He’s a jumped up public school boy – that’s what he is. I could take him with one hand behind my back.”

“I wouldn’t count on that Angel. Johnny has a harder backbone than you realise and that’s why I’m advising you to back off before someone gets hurt.”

“Are you on his side? – did he get you to talk to me? – to threaten me?” Angel was raving mad now and wild about the eyes. He stormed out of Buddha’s flat with a parting shot; “You can tell Johnny to fuck right off back to Morningside and you can join him there Buddha”.

When Buddha heard the news about Angel’s boyfriend Belle he wasn’t surprised. He’d been spied dealing sugary coke in one of Johnny’s clubs and taken a real bad hiding from two biker types. It seemed Johnny was determined to enforce his franchise to the bitter end if needs be. Buddha made a mental note to distance himself from Johnny who was obviously building an empire and when you are building an empire the last thing you need is friends.

.