Busted (be cool and pray)

The taxi reached Fulcrum Point at the end of City Bridge.  It's called fulcrum point because that's where everything tipped over.  Here, a man in sunglasses was directing traffic.  He directed the taxi into a special lane, where big white jeeps manoeuvred to box us in.

A commotion of moustachioed men with the better grade of polyester shirt swarmed the car.  The back doors flew open and three men seized Tractor Mike.  They were screaming about a "Mr Ali."

Mr Ali?  What the everloving fuck?  Is there no end to random bullshit in this country?

A man was poised to snatch my door open, too.  I didn't flinch, a mammal playing dead.  But his official moustache, hyper smile and knowing eyes intimated this wasn't random bullshit.

We had been chosen.   Marked and ambushed.  They knew the car, the route...I wondered if they knew about the ounce of number 4 in my secret pocket?

If they did, that could mean Mandatory Life.  Before they got to throwing my carcass into the Kafka-squared goat-fuck of penal justice, we could have a conversation.  I hoped.

Not bothering to introduce themselves as Narcotics Control Bureau, the guys directed us in convoy to headquarters.  In the back seat, they worked on Tractor Mike.  Proposed he confess, since they knew about Mr Ali and the drugs.  Tractor fronted perplexity, but I figured the truth would out in due course.  Matter of time.

I focused on preparing for the next stage, the conversation.  Already dreading the stage after: withdrawal, plus whatever.  A big portion of Hell, with Hell on top, no glazed cherry.

Bundled through an office of sneering, lounging cops, I assured myself that whatever happened, I would retain enough money to score a razor.  I could make a shiv, if I wasn't too sick.  If I got too sick, I could try becoming a little green bird in my own head and fly away.

I finalised that plan while watching them strip search Tractor...

This was bad and getting worse.  I wasn't surprised too long; bad things happen.  Took a while to believe that.  Maybe sank in when I was walking with three other junkies.  We were going to score - they cheated me, of course.  A car ran over my foot, didn't stop.  As I hopped along moaning, one junkie smiled like a clown.

"Hah.  Nobody gives a fuck, man."

True.  Nobody gives a fuck, until it's their turn to suffer.  Then it's too late, so why give a fuck.

Tractor stood pale and naked, blinking from sweat.  My turn next.  First level of a deep mineshaft of indignity.  I braced myself: whatever happens, deal with it.  Humiliation, confrontation.  Prison, gang-rape.  That's right.  A helpless hate-puppet, a voodoo doll for other losers to stick.

But I won't bow.  Got it?  If they overpower my body, whatever, but that isn't me.  They can cut and burn the meat, but they won't reach the emerald green bird, soaring above.

One problem, there: heroin.  Pumping three grams of number 4 every day...the green bird is already caged.  How tough would I be after 48 hours withdrawal?

I didn't want to think about it.  Like I hadn't wanted to think about why two guys in shades had been standing near the taxi.  One even looked at the number plate, then at my face.  He nodded.

Driving away, we saw them up an alley...talking into a radio-phone.  Tractor looked to me.

"What shall we do?"

"Nothing we can do."

I denied this was happening, wished things were still routine.  My routine consisted of taking lots of smack.

Now we were having the conversation, the chief and I.  They basically had us, but their intel was garbled.  The chief claimed he witnessed the deal...I knew he hadn't.  And this fucking Mr. Ali person?  Er, no.  Also, Tractor's strip search had turned up nothing.  I was surprised at that myself.  But Tractor was a veteran, had already done five years somewhere else for crack-inspired armed robbery.

I didn't have reserves of convict cunning, but I had a good line of credit.  In many ways, I was on top of this stupid game.  At the hospital, they said I was "resourceful."  Partly encouragement, mostly an excuse to deny medication.  Like, since I was 'resourceful' I could go out and get my own supplies.  So I fucking well did.  Now I wanted to deploy my resources to escape, and go back to sleep.

They took Tractor out for a more thorough search.  Apparently, they made him put his foot on a stool, a lame attempt to dislodge anything stashed in his crack.  They forbore to manually search his rectum.  Can't blame them!  But if they'd been more professional, they'd have discovered where he reflexively stashed his grams.

Does any job pay enough to peer up a man's anus?  Yes, Narcotics Bureau can, no doubt.  Higher the rank, bigger the slice, but cake for all.  That was the subject I wanted to broach with Chief.  How much?

First I had to be guilty.  And by sleight of hand and the grace of Goddess, they didn't find my ounce.  At one point, when the disappointed cops left me alone, I almost threw it behind a monitor.  But then they pushed our taxi driver in.  Staunch fellow, played dumb.  Loyal.

So they had to let us go, with no charge and no hard feelings.  Grudgingly.  We'd stayed cool, got lucky.  Hugely.

Eugene Richards pic

The Bad Guys were given 90 percent of the script but still fucked up their role in the movie.  Cops knew who, where and when...but we skated.

How did they miss an ounce of heroin, 60% pure Moon Rocks, stashed on my person?

A magician shouldn't reveal techniques...but it's basically down to another bust a year earlier.

Preparing for a long train journey, I had 22 small folds of good brown in a snuff-type box, as well as five foils interleaved in a book called: "Four Basic Principles To Make Fortune Come Your Way."  I never got to read it, but found out one of those principles is not to act like drugs are legal.

An hour into a 36 hour journey, I was wrenched out of nod by the lapels.  Piggy eyes staring into my contracted pupils.  One of a pair of cops began a thorough frisk.  Just before he got to the cargo pocket with my kit, I thought "fuck it" and grabbed the box of wraps.  Before I could swallow them, the other cop punched my head and grabbed my wrist.  The stuff flew in the air and onto other passengers, one lady shielding her baby from the evil shower.

One cop tore my luggage to pieces, finding nothing.  While the other took me to the toilet, for intimacy.

"This will cost you a thousand dollars, or it's jail.  Where's the rest of your money?  Only $30 here."

"There's no 'rest'.  I'm a junkie, man, broke."

He even checked under my balls, in case I had a wad of notes there.  Sadly not.  Had to be content with whatever stuff they picked up in the carriage, and my pocket dough.  He kindly returned $5 for snacks, which I straight away offered back for just one bag of scag.  Leaving with my drugs and money, he refused indignantly.

"No.  We are the police!"

The rest of the journey was misery numbed by downers.  Amidst a nitrazepam fog, I decided to improve concealment tech.

This I did by stitching a credit-card-sized pocket inside my jockey shorts.  Positioned a thumb length from the button and a finger-width down.  The shorts can be manoeuvred so that the package is covered by a belt, if worn.  It should be safe from a pocket search, and from a ball-grope when cops 'check for an extra nut.'

Saved my life literally, during a very thorough palm-frisk at Colombo Airport.  The penalty for heroin trafficking in Sri Lanka is death; my fat personal supply would have qualified. 

It also saved me at this Bridge Bust.  As my partner in crime was stripped and searched, I was deploying a little charisma.  My turn came and I wasn't stripped fully, but of course they wanted to look in my underwear.   I undid my belt and jeans and hooked my thumbs in the shorts waistline, palming my stash.  Lowering the ensemble, I stretched it out so a cop could look at my groin and down the legs.

"See?  Nothing much there, sad to say, ha-ha."

As with any trick, it's partly about props but mainly in presentation.

Of course, the best tricksters seldom need props.  They perfect mind-control.  But it's hard to control other minds when your own is lost to drugs...

Fuck The Police.