Ten Pounds

Two bedraggled friends stood in an alley that lay between a couple of the houses on a rough street in Aldershot. They were trying to keep out of the rain that had started pouring down on the two of them almost as soon as they got off the train. It was as if God was just trying to ruin their day, not that it could get much worse.

They were both checking their pockets for any money they might have left from their dole cheques that had been smoked through in a couple of hours the night before. They would be lucky to get a score up but after digging through pockets they had managed to scrape a brown note together and 2 pence.

It was not enough but it was all they had. Joey got out his mobile and brushed the rain drops from the screen before ringing Dee up to see if he was still on. It went straight to answer machine. He tried again and the same thing happened.

“For fuck sake!” exclaimed the hoody wearing soaked man in his early 30's. “He was on earlier, why did he tell us to come all the way up here for him just to blank us?”.

“Fucking postcode nobs do my head in” he exclaimed before Lee said in a frantic manner “Try TC then”, as he hopped between the rain drops, shifting from leg to leg quickly. It was as if his toes were on fire inside of his new black Nike trainers that he had acquired from the porch of someone's house in Giffard Drive the day before. "Pervy Lining" was the nickname they called it, but knickers and bras on washing lines were of no use. It was those open porch doors where they got the expensive free footwear.

Joey called TC, the phone was on, “Urr”, grunted the black dealer probably sitting in some gang flat up town. “You got any dark”, Joey almost begged. “urr, yeah wat u want”, TC grunted again, “Shit man we only got a tenner can you tick us a deal til we get some more doe?”, Joey asked knowing the answer he would get. “Fuck no, you Farnborough boys take the piss man asking for tick all the time. Go to the phone box by the One Stop, someone will be there in ten”, just as Joey tried to plead his case again the phone went dead.

“Rude cunt put the phone down on me, I don't think I've ever had a conversation with a black dealer from town that lasted more than 30 seconds, so fucking rude no need for it. How much cash we given him over the years”. Joey spat the words and rain out at the same time to the floor.

“Thousands I reckon, takes the piss mate I know. Anyway lets get down there, I ain't missing til I'm missing if you know what I mean”. Lee said as he jumped over a puddle and stared at two young kids looking out the side window of their house, sticking their tongues out. He reciprocated with a single finger and carried on puddle hopping until he got to the street.

The road One Stop was on was not too far away and in their cold sniffling rush it was an easy walk that was until Lee could not hold in his bowels any longer.

“Shit, shit, shit, I need to drop some kids off at the pool ASP man”, He spat more rain and snot on the floor as his guts rolled around in his stomach due to the gear from last night starting to wear off. “For Fucks sake man, ain't no public bogs round here, nearest ones down the Lido n you know we got banned the other day when them cops caught us cooking up in the pool changing rooms.” came Joey's reply.

“Shit yeah”, Lee responded but he was in a pickle and needed to go bad, but no time to make any logical decisions. This time the pool he was dropping kids off would have to be someone's drive way as he skanked down a drive to squat behind a Volvo and empty his guts on the households newly paved driveway.

“You got any tissue on ya?” Lee shouted at Joey after a few minutes. Joey searched his pockets but all he had were torn bloody tissues and they were no use to anyone, but then he noticed something. “Na mate sorry, but there's a paper sticking out the houses letterbox though.”

Lee then was watched amusingly by Joey crouched down like a moocher, ass flapping in the wind as he tugged the paper out of the door and scurried back behind the car and the white garage.

“Daily Express mate”, he shouted to Joey on the pathway keeping a lookout. “It's only fit for an arse hole anyway” he shouted from behind the car as the sound of paper being torn up was just barely heard over the noise from the wind and rain.

Joey, stood hands in pockets, hoody up and rain drops running down his face as he looked up and down the road before he finally saw a panda car roll down towards him.

“Pigs!”, he shouted through his teeth to warn Lee as the car got nearer and the two cops stared at him through their warm comfy seats. It rolled past Joey and then stopped on the road. “Fuck they stopped, stay hidden” Joey turned round and around again knowing that a spin was on the way.

PC Belshaw and PC Warnes got out their car and walked up to Joey.

“Hello Joey” said Belshaw as if he was somehow a friend and not just a regular nuisance to his life.

“What you doing here, waiting to score I bet” Warnes chipped in. It was a well known road for drug use and down the alleys between houses you could run out of fingers counting the used pins and coke cans ripped open for spoons and pipes on the floor.

“Na na, aint got enough money”, Joey replied looking at the two blue cops with disdain. He had been naked and squatted in front of these two blue tools more times than he could remember and he hated that embarrassment and amount of power they had over people like him.

“Well it's a bit of a strange place to be standing alone at this time in the morning”, Belshaw commented as he looked up and down the road maybe hoping to see a runner doing a quick 360.

“Free county init”, Joey said, then realised it wasn't any-more “well it used to be til the Tories made you the Stazi” he added. This only seemed to infuriate the two men in blue, and they started to search him.

Whilst Joey kept the cops occupied getting a search on the street, Lee was trying as hard as he could to stay squatted behind the car and not make too much noise wiping his rear end with the newspaper. There was already a few shit stained sheets floating about the garden path due to the wind and rain.

“You got anything sharp on you inside your pockets” Belshaw asked, as he started to search Joey with no reason apart from the fact he had the power to ruin his day if he wanted. He could just assume Joey had swallowed a parcel and then keep him in the station for days until he shat it out if he really wanted to be a scum cop and Joey knew it.

He loved that power that the blue uniform gave him. In fact he always got a hard on every time he put it on in front of his mirror in the morning practising truncheon strikes as if he was a ninja with a wooden dummy stand.

“No, nothing sharp”, said Joey, hoping that Lee had the works and not him by accident. PC Belshaw carefully searched every pocket and hole he could find in his worn and torn coat, patting him down as if he was on a prison visit. Joey was just waiting for the wanker to find something to hold him for a strip search down the station and prayed to Zeus that nothing would be found.

After five minutes of intensive searching, Belshaw gave up. “Your lucky day, Joey, let's just keep it that way eh”, he said as he took another look around and a shit stained page of the Express floated past his feet.

“Fucking Aldershot, disgusting estate” he said as the shit stained paper from Lee's ass got stuck on his shoe and he quickly tried to kick it off with his other foot. “Animals, fucking animals..” he walked off towards the cars mumbling something before getting in and driving off.

Once they had done a left at the roundabout, Joey shouted, “Come on Lee”, he was hassling his mate, “We got to get to the shop, time man time”. “They gone?”, Lee asked as he poked his head up from behind the car. “Yeah course they have, come on shit bag”, Lee pulled his jeans up and joined Joey on the street as they two paced down the road to the One Stop.

The pair of hustlers hurried up and got to the bottom of the hill where the One Stop was. “Where is he, you recon we missed him?” said Joey huffing and puffing. “I need a doo da, fucking need a do da, ring him, ring him”, the snot was literally dripping from Joey's nose now and he could feel his own belly doing flip flops. He turned around only to see Lee bin diving, before coming back out with an empty can of coke.

“Give it time, you know what there like”, he said as he pulled off the ring pull and then used the sharp side to cut three sides of a square in the can. He was just peeling the other side back inside the can when a white bloke in puffer jacket stormed round the corner.

“Waiting for TC?” He said staring at Joey, who replied in the positive. He then spat out a deal from his mouth and Joey handed him the tenner they had scraped up and before you could piff paff poof the runner was gone. Joey put the deal straight in his gob so he could swallow it in case Belshaw and Warnes came back. It was just lucky this out of town postcode crew wrapped their deals in plastic and not just rizla as the white boys did.

“Come on then” said Joey as the wind picked up, puddle spray hitting them from the cars passing by in the road. “Where to?”, he asked Lee who was perfecting his cook can.

“Might as well go back up that shit alley, the Lido's too far, plus security will probably be on the lookout”, he said as the two lads stormed off up the hill to sort themselves out.

They were skint but sorted, and within ten minutes if all had gone well they wouldn't care that their only tenner had gone. Well for at least 5 hours or so, then they would have to go “shopping” again before the shops shut in town. Plus the only fence Joey knew in Aldershot usually turned her phone off at 5pm when her kids got back from school.

The twosome walked quickly and quietly back up the hill to where they had come from and dived down “pin alley” to make use of Lee's can stove. It really was the only way to cook up anything on the bottom of your can when outside and lighter flames would not stay on for long, especially in this weather. The hole in the side of the can was perfect for putting the lighter in and protected it from the wish wash rain and jism that was filling the air.

It was a shit rainy day in Aldershot all right, but the ten deal in Joey's mouth would soon see to that and make it a little brighter for a while. 

He just hoped that the runner they had just seen hadn't got COVID or HEP C as it was mouth to mouth all the way, and he had a cold saw on the inside of his lip. However he didn't really care. In fact he didn't really care about anything but the hit Lee was cooking up. 

This was daily life for them, living on the streets, stealing then scoring, rinse and repeat. Nothing unusual had happened yet today and he hoped it would stay that way.

© 2021 All Rights Reserved Robert Reid