Aight, I was in this wham smoking area of The Fool on the Hill, this pub everyone used to go to. Everyone called it Fools for short. It used to be some sort of proper posh 19th century theatre, on top of this really long hill connecting to my high street. Looked sick back when I was a kid but as life went on, it started crumbling apart, looking like shit. At least the cheap drinks were there and you could get served without ID if you went to this old geezer called Bean. So that’s what we did. He had a wobble in his head since time but never harmed no one.
I was there with my boy, Q. The smoking area was packed with punters and the polluted air from cigarettes and vapes. It was winter so the days lived shorter, the smoke was as thick as those cheap incense sticks you get for £1.99. Still reeling from the spliff I smoked with the last of my weed, I started sipping on a likkle brandy and coke, which got me on a nice buzz still but it wasn’t like I was proper lean. I’m not a bad guy but I’m someone who needed some enhancements for a good time, you get me?
Q starts to chat about his new ‘clean’ part-time job, helping his uncle sort out shipping packages internationally. My grandma would’ve called Q a ‘redboy’: he had this orange-y honey skin with bushes of red whenever he got vexed or drunk. Two of his canine teeth in these proper nice white diamond caps. Bare tall and sinewy like he could be modelling for Canada Goose if he was the type of guy to exist in those spaces. His government name is Quincy but everyone calls him Q because he would sell you bud and some party drugs if you needed it.
Anyways, he doesn’t do shit at work except make some calls and organise the boxes. He says it’s a calm job and sometimes he gets to drive to different cities like Bristol and Swindon with his uncle to drop off and pick up packages. Honestly it sounds like camouflage for running a trapline but Q promises it isn’t like that, just some clean money to make his mum stop nosing around. He got his first mad paycheque this month and he tells me he took all of it out of the bank. I saw his story showing a red and purple arrangement of paper notes, all spread out like one of those Chinese paper fans on his unmade bed.
“Fam, where is this guy? Man said he’ll be here ten minutes an hour ago, he’s mocking us uno,” I say as Q plays with his Stanley knife, spinning it around with his fingers so fluidly it’s like nobody even notices this guy has a knife on him, like it’s an illusion. Apparently his Uncle gave it to him to cut up cardboard. Then speak of the devil man. We get a text from Q’s guy, Ash: “Not heading Fools, too bait. Come link me around the top of Shearsmith road, soon land at ten.”
So we need to walk all the way down this steep hill and then some more, which pisses me off on the low, but it’s not like I was doing shit anyway, so I swallow my tongue. We walk down the high street, past our local chicken shop which gave me diarrhoea so I stopped going, past the bossman we robbed those 50p energy drinks when me and Q used to do them graveyard shifts in the D.T. room so we could pass the class.
We reach Shearsmith Road which is this quiet residential road off the mains. Ash is parked up in one of those Mercedes-Benz C-Class cars with black tinted windows. There’s some next girl in the whip with him, so we sit in the backseat of the Mercs to be more discreet. I never picked up from this guy but all I know is shottas have other people to serve usually so they don’t like long conversations. It’s usually just a quick wys-I’m-good-aight-that’s-blessed-shout-me-later-g then you gotta dip. That’s fair, work is work and I hate dem man who used to chat shit at my work experience like we day ones’. Ash wasn’t really like that for some reason. To this day, I wish I trusted that feeling in my gut.
I hear some Knucks tune playing from the car speakers. Ash is finishing off his zoot, throwing it out the car window into the dark night as we hop in. No wonder the prick’s fucking late.
“I ran out of the Skywalker OG but I got some Strawberry Kush, my boy in Brighton grew it himself. This is a top-shelf man going at mids price lowkey. We’re testing new strains out so I’m shotting it for 40 a 3.5 and 75 a quarter but for you man,” He stares at the bag as the corners of his lips rise upwards, “I saw your story, I know you’re patterned G.”
Q’s like “aight that’s blessed, say nuthin”, unzips his bag to take out the P’s and that’s when Ash takes out this proper small pistol and aims it at Q’s face. My heart fucking leaps out of my eyes G when I tell you I saw the gun, I ain’t ever seen a gun in my life and getting your shit robbed while high is not the situation to be seeing one for the first time, swear down. The girl in the passenger seat only looks up to register the gun, us in the back and then back on her phone like this isn’t real.
“You over there, don’t move and your bro gets it.” I don’t even turn around to gauge Q’s reaction, my eyes are focused on the black small wap, it shines in the dark and I can see the serial number is filed off. Ash snaps at Q this time: “Give me that bag G” and I finally turn to look at Q and my man looks like he’s still on ropes. The next seconds of silence unfold like hours.
“Are you deaf or stupid man? Hurry up.” Even though Q knew what should’ve happened next, there was a part in him that was saying like don’t let this man take you for a dickhead. Man’s got heart, I always rated that about Q. I can’t lie, I would’ve licked the bottom of his shoe and done his laundry if I had a gun pointed in my face. But Q is calm, replying with “Yeah, say nothing,” and handing the bag slowly to Ash before suddenly flashing his Stanley knife and launching his arm at Ash’s neck.
To this day, I think about how shit went down. I wasn’t even about that roadman life, I used to work part-time at Sainsbury’s after I flopped my exams, but sometimes life places you in these situations. I even stopped billing because of it. Crazy thing is, Ash survived miraculously, his girl must’ve got help or something. But he didn’t cooperate with the police when he was in hospital so nothing came about it, just another knife attack in the city. I heard he moved out of ends to live in Telford or something. Peak.
Q didn’t get birded, in fact, it gave him more clout than ever. Started smoking even more every day, like a 3.5 won’t even last a whole 24 hours in his yard. Last time I checked, he went ghost after his mum kicked him out. He got involved in setting up underground weed cafes around Essex sides now so we don’t really chill like that much anymore.
The one time we did link up, it was nearly two years from that situation and I’m sipping on a likkle brandy and coke, bunning a rollie. I look at his face which now has this scar arcing from his left cheekbone nearly leading up to his eyes and I can still see something, I’m not sure what, but it’s there in the blackness of his pupils whenever someone barges past him trying to get through or if a glass smashes and an orchestra of roars fills up the pub.
George Edge is a writer living in the UK.
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