The Slave

Another Groundhog Day in the desert, another dealer’s car idling in front of my apartment.

 

I slip inside and smash down next to a large Eritrean displaying an inane grin and an insane Afro. The passenger seat cradles a withered Saudi in grubby cream thobe. The Slave slumps behind the wheel.

 

“Nice car man,” I shamelessly lie.

 

The new Ford Taurus epitomises banality. From a business standpoint, though, it’s a sage selection. No police would exhibit any interest in a vehicle like this, a bland car favoured by unimaginative middle management. A rep mobile. In a sense this is merely notional; Saudi traffic police seldom glance beyond the screen of their phone.

 

“Thanks bro.”

 

He passes me a short, thick joint. Arabian rolling papers manage, surprisingly, to include paper but fail to offer any glue so they always swiftly unfurl. This is precisely what happens as soon as I draw sharply on The Slave’s lame offering. Throw it into the street hoping it lands in the rubbish skip opposite.

 

I’m so dope I’m a walking kilo an indeterminate hip-hop artist brags faintly from the car’s feeble sound system.

 

The Slave smugly nods. No statement could be less fitting. He is a cheap street hustler. Why, I ask myself, has it come to this? I’ve spent my adult life selling drugs precisely to avoid dealing with liabilities like The Slave. Sidestep the end user at all costs…

 

“These skins are fucking shit man.”

 

“So much healthier though dude. No glue.”

 

“I know. That’s why they don’t stick.”

 

Don’t you think the hash and the tobacco are the problem? A thousand chemicals? Not the glue?

 

“No, it’s the glue bro,” The Slave whines in his tedious approximation of an American accent. His friends nod knowingly. Clueless fucking imbeciles.

 

I take out a thick rubber-banded stack of 500 riyal notes, undo it and hand the gurning idiot two before shoving the wad back into my shorts pocket.

 

“Be back in, like, two hours. Peace out bro.”

 

Six hours later I survey eight missed calls within the space of three minutes, unforeseen tenacity on the part of The Slave.

 

I slope down two flights of stairs from my rooftop lair and reassure myself at the heft of my property’s steel gate.

 

Back inside the Taurus I make certain not to mention his parlous grasp of time.

 

He grins like a halfwit, eyes shot through with crimson.

 

“Oh man, this is awesome…”

 

These are never words you want to hear issuing from a dealer.

 

Snatch another toothpick joint and inhale hopefully.

 

Standard commercial Afghan. Compared to the calibre of hash in a weed-dominated England it’s great. But I’m not in England and I’d never buy that shit hash anyway… In real terms it’s weak. A 3/10.

 

The Slave’s sidekick palms me a pair of minuscule pieces. What retails at 500 SAR, although unweighed, should come in at somewhere around 7-10 grams. This is half that.

 

“This is no good man. Tiny.”

 

“It’s the quality though bro. The quality.”

 

These morons could just use flash cards and reduce the evident bother of communicating. The spiel never varies.

 

I zone out and think of the street dealers in Vientiane, Laos’s singular capital. Ostensibly tuk-tuk drivers, these resilient grinders peddle your poison quite openly in the street. On one occasion I was palmed a quarter ounce of weed in plain sight of a policeman with a sidearm. Intervention seemed out of the question. He didn’t even bother to catch my eye and give me a headshake of disapprobation.

 

Each morning that Paw, my preferred connection, palmed me half an ounce he shouted, “Good one. New one. Good one.”

 

Each time I told him that the reason I could smoke half an ounce each evening was that it was anything but good, a 2/10 at very best.

 

“See you tomorrow. Will have new one.”

 

I will indeed see you tomorrow, you robbing fucking bastard.

 

Back to the desert.

 

It seems that business has been concluded. I look at the two minuscule blocks laced with the signature red seal of Kandahar. I know that The Slave will have introduced some of this wrap in a pathetic attempt to fool me. I cannot be bothered to argue or to spend any more time in the company of this buffoon.

 

“Later man.”

 

Much fucking later…