Green - part iii

I don’t know how you are with pricks who talk shit about you, but frankly I have a lot of time for them. They inhabit me. They are with me in the bath, with me as I walk to the bus stop, with me as I turn and gurn endlessly under my bedsheets, waiting for my alarm clock to tell me to go to work. I’d had a lot of time for Tom Monaghan recently. I spent a lot of time at work licking envelopes and plotting my revenge.

Now that I was oversupplied with white drugs, it occurred to me that I could place some in his desk with relative ease. But I wasn’t sure how I could get someone to find it and sack him. Obviously, grassing would be very suspicious. This was the sort of conundrum that weighed upon me as I licked the envelopes.

It was quite by accident that the rest of the plan came to me. Doing one of my cheque runs, I noticed that there was a slight security flaw. To run the cheques off, I had to get a manager to come in and approve the run with a magnetic key-fob. There being no manager about one day, I was mucking about, waiting for someone to get back from a meeting or whatever, and I noticed I could change the setting on the machine so it would print the cheques without the manager’s signature. However, the cheques were usually double-signed, so the machine still printed the CEO’s signature, lending the cheque the appearance of authenticity. I also discovered that I could manually open the cheque run archive and reset the cheque number count, meaning that I could do a clandestine cheque run, for any amounts and to anyone I liked, then, it seemed, cover up the evidence.

I quickly printed a cheque run; ten cheques, each for random amounts between five and ten grand, all payable to Thomas Monaghan, hid them in underwear and took an early lunch. I hopped on the 62 bus, hid them in my flat, then headed straight back to work. There was no time to eat so I took a little bit of speed to suppress my appetite, and another wrap to stash in Tom’s drawer. I briefly agonized over the amount; it would have been nice to get him done as a dealer, but I decided to be reasonable and just leave a small amount, suitable for a dismissal for gross misconduct, but not of particular interest to the police. I also noted that I would have to pay for the speed one day.

All I had to do now was remember to forget to lock the cheque printing door (I left it conspicuously ajar each evening) and to deposit the occasional cheque with Tom’s bank by mail (it was easy enough to get his account details—Gothic Jenny did the payroll and was frequently away from her desk collecting mail.) After a week or so I was given a reprimand for leaving the door open. I apologized and ceased, figuring I now had plausible deniability.

*

One night, two places. First, West Prince’s Street in Woodlands, just west of Charing Cross and within ten minutes walk of the university. It was a corridor of tenements, the most important of which were indistinguishable from squats. If you had nowhere else to go on a Saturday night: you were welcome to party at West Prince’s Street, which at that time was essentially being operated as PR campaign for the band Shitdisco. I can’t claim to have known any of the members of Shitdisco. I don’t even know their names, and I’m not sure I know any of their music. But I think I was at one of their parties on the evening in question.

I had borrowed some of the pills from Malcolm’s stash. This had become a bit of a habit. I did have a plan to replace them though. For every three that I took myself, I sold another three for ten quid. Once I had made a few hundred quid, I reckoned I could buy a batch in bulk at freight prices and replace the whole lot, as long as he didn’t ask for them back before that.

Anyway, so I had basically gone to the party to sell Malcolm's drugs in order that I could afford to replace Malcolm’s drugs. I hadn’t done much drug dealing before, but it turned out to be pretty easy at first. Pretty soon I had shifted the vast majority, and my wallet was bulging with over £100. Additionally, I had attracted the attention of a group of girls who were in the first year of their law degrees.

Yes; it was odd, but since securing a temporary supply of class A drugs, I had found it a lot easier to attract women. I decided not to over-analyse this, and tried to live in the moment and enjoy it. I was just working up the courage to suggest passing a pill (gratis) to one of the law students via an open-mouthed kiss, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

‘Ben Allan. Long time no see.’

‘Hi Natasha,’

We did the chat of: who are you here with, what are you on, where did you get it, where have you been. I shared the remainder of the ecstasy with her, and then we decided to go for a walk, then when we got cold we tried to get into the casino on Sauchiehall Street, and when they (obviously) wouldn’t let us in, we took a hack to her sock in Pollokshields.

She lived with two other girls in a huge first floor flat on Herriot Street, just round the corner from where the murderers kidnapped Kriss Donald. There was always reports of crime in the area at that time, but I can’t recall ever feeling scared there. Maybe because I was always wasted when I was there. I have no idea what the actual stats are, but at least around Natasha’s street it seemed liked everyone was of Bangladeshi origin. She had a pal who grew up in the area, and he claimed he was the only white person in his class in primary school.

This, he said, wasn’t a bad thing. The standard of fast food in Pollokshields was excellent. Chips and curry sauce would be purchased for £2 and would satisfy not just a dipsomaniacal stodge-urge, but would prove to be balanced of spice and heat, with delicate notes of coriander. The poverty of the area was inescapable, and this extended into Natasha’s flat, which remains the only place in Glasgow where i have encountered cockroaches (even at the grimmest squats, where mice frolicked freely on the floor, I did not see these nuclear bugs).

Anyway, back to the night in question. We never went to sleep, we just danced around the living room to britpop songs, and when the bevvy shop opened we bought some fake champagne, and then I spent the rest of the £100 or so I found in my wallet on cocaine and grass from a connect of Natasha’s and on a porno DVD from the Family Stores newsagent on the corner, and then we spent Sunday in bed watching pornography, that sort of stuff.

*

I mind that I had deposited all the cheques now, the last one had probably been a month or so prior, and I had semi forgotten about the whole caper when the polis turned up at my work and took Tom Monaghan away in cuffs. It was a Monday; I recall this as I had been spewing in the loo when they arrived, after another night at Optimo. I didn’t bother going to watch, but it was such an event that the gossip travelled even to much maligned me.

I didn’t want to gloat, but I did say to Jennifer, ‘See Jenny, I told you he was a fucking liar.’

‘So you did, Ben Allan,’ she said, and I liked that she showed me the respect of addressing me correctly. I was in a mood to celebrate, so I asked her out for a drink.

‘What are we celebrating,’ she said, as we clinked cava cups in the Wetherspoons on Bothwell Street.

‘I won £250 on a lottery scratchcard,’ I said. I must have started to believe this, as I insisted on paying for her drinks all night. Not that this was particularly expensive, but still, pretty lavish behaviour in retrospect. And no, I didn’t fuck her. I was properly into Natasha at the time.

On the way home, I stopped at Malcolm’s to pay the rent. I knocked the door, figuring I might buy some pills off him. I figured he might be suspicious that since he asked me to watch his k’s I hadn’t bought squat from him. His mother answered the door.

It turned out that my landlord had died from a heart attack. I didn’t see any merit in paying the rent.

*

With the big bags of drugs now legally mine, and with no rent to pay, there seemed to me no point in going to work any more. I decided to take a sabbatical; I would work weekends selling drugs whenever I needed money, and I would devote the weeks to self-development. I would take up running, I would read the classics. I would tidy the flat and get rid of the broken television and chaise longue, I would write my great debut novel.

Within two days I was bored dead. I could barely bring myself to get out of bed. There was nothing I wanted to do. I had zero entertainment. There were no books in the flat, and it never occurred to me to join a library. I didn’t write; for a start, my laptop hadn’t worked in years (it had succumbed to the millennium bug and I had never got round to having it fixed) and in any case I had no ideas.

I would wake when it was already dark. Glasgow in the winter is Gotham City; a world of shadows and sinister villains. I always had Real Life by the Audio Bullys in my head at this time, whenever I walked through the noir backstreets to the off licence, to stick my tenner through the bars, to take my Buckfast from the hatch.

I went to play pool one night and I was losing as I always did (I don’t understand where anyone gets the patience to be good at games) when I was told that Josh was living in a cupboard in one of the party flats on West Prince’s Street. It had been months since I’d seen him, although that hadn’t occurred to me until then. I felt a tad depressed that his life was going so badly just as mine was picking up. I decided to get him involved in the new trade. It wasn’t even a decision, it was just obviously the right thing to do. It was abundantly clear I wasn’t ready to write my novel, or to finally take up exercise, or to adjust to regular waking hours. So I was going to do the easiest thing there was to do in my circumstances, and take over my deceased landlord’s drug business. Why go searching when fate was practically pulling me by the elbow?

*

This was essentially my life’s peak epoch. I wasn’t getting taxed; not by the state, not by no landlord. I was living in a disposable cash economy. I was getting invited to every party, I had my sock, and when the mess got too grim I could go to Natasha’s. And I had Natasha obviously, and then a decent pick of the girls at the parties (I mean, I’d still say most women were playing in a different division from me, but I’d upped my odds by probably over 100%). I didn’t mind that my main selling point was that I could supply drugs; indeed, I wished I had realized there were shortcuts to promiscuity earlier. This didn’t fully explain my success though—I did know how to tell a joke, and I dress better than anyone—and it didn’t explain Natasha much at all. She would stroke my arms sometimes; she would run her fingers across the scars. ‘I just want to look after you,’ she would say. I think I brought that out in a lot of girls, and I sought to take advantage of it.

So things were as good as they had ever been, and to top it off, it had turned out that magic mushrooms were legal and nobody had realized, and now everyone was on them, me especially.

And things only seemed to get better. With Malcolm dead, the Housing Association were intrigued to learn who was living in his flat. As always, the buzzer going caused a panic, but at least since the telly had been done in I didn’t need to bother hiding it. I was filled with regret from the second I buzzed them in, but in a moment of lucidity had the wise idea of stepping out the door. I figured if it was the police it would be best not just not to let them in, but not to let them see the state of the place. It was probably for the best, because the housing association probably wouldn’t have been so decent with me if they’d seen the rate at which their property was deteriorating.

‘Mr…,’ the suited man said, ambiguously. It put me into a mind of trying to guess his name.

‘Johnstone,’ I said.

‘Do you live here, Mr Johnstone?’

‘Oh, sorry, no, I thought your name was Johnstone.’

‘So you don’t live here?’

‘No, I do. It’s Ben Allan. Enchanté.’

I had confused both of us.

Due to an administrative error, the lease was transferred into my name. Fortunately, there was no need to pay rent, because my landlord was now a cosy social enterprise with not the balls to come round and batter me with a baseball bat. In fact, they advised me that I would be eligible for dole money and housing benefit, so now I pretty much as rich as my imagination could deal with.

So obviously it was about time for Natasha to break it to me that she was pregnant. Also, I got locked out of the flat when I answered the door and had to walk to the housing association’s office without shoes on in the rain to borrow the spare key.

*

I probably took my eye off the ball for a while here; went a bit absent. Even now the memory isn’t that great. Things even got a bit fucked up with Josh. We’d been at a house party, in Clarkston of all places. He asked me for some more pills, said he had a buyer, and I was cleaned out. Had no cash either. I can’t really remember much, but it's hurtful when you are wasted off your tits and your best comrade is giving you shit for having fun at a party when we could be making money. I probably wasn’t the best business partner, and I probably reminded him that it was my business acumen that had got us the windfall in the first place. I probably said a lot more irrelevant and bullshit stuff. Who knows.

I vaguely remember that there was an elite group of diehards still partying. The sun was up, and there was no booze or class A’s, so we were reduced to doing the fainting thing. Eventually everyone else got sick of this and I was on my own. I was just sitting in the garden smoking a rollie when I saw a couple of wee kids, schoolboys, at the other end of the garden. There was a burn that ran behind the garden, and these two kids were out there, sneaking away from school to smoke a bucket (a sort of ghetto bong).

‘Haw, yous,’ I shouted. They went to bolt, so I said, ‘naw, guys, just kidding. Hang about,’ and within a minute I was round there with them. The three of us sat by a sewage pipe (one of those ones with a fence at half way, apparently to discourage kids from crossing it, but effectively turning an otherwise dull piece of fecal hardware into a dangerous airborne playground) and we each took two lungfuls. I was instantly unbelievably wasted and started talking a whole load of shit to them, then somehow managed to get across the pipe without skewering myself, pretty much just ploughed through the hedge back into the garden, before falling asleep on a trampoline. I woke up about two hours after it started raining.

I have a feeling that this is an illustrative memory. I have a feeling that if I was to recall much more I would not be able to cope with the weight of embarrassment that I’d be obliged to feel.