Better get a day job...

When the doorbell rings
his impulse is to answer the bell,
Pavlovian really,
but when the kitchen table is covered
with aluminium foil, Chinese scales,
mix bowl, bong, and
three ounces of Lebanese hash,
a question hangs in the air,
customer or cop?

The hash has come from the largest bust
in Australian history,
the mid ‘80s,
a container discovered on the docks,
watched by the Drug Squad for weeks and
finally busted when no-one showed.

He'd seen the story on the TV news,
heard them claim the shipment had been burned,
images of a few keys going up in smoke,
hard talking detectives watching grimly,
what a waste!

Two days later his supplier calls,
yeah, well, um…
some had been destroyed for appearances
but most was now in circulation.

He assumed there were a number of upright,
clean cut law enforcers paying off the mortgage,
putting deposits down on new BMWs,
maybe even some of those hard talking
grim faced detectives.

His supplier just laughed and said he
don’t know the half of it.

Oh well,
none of his business,
he had his own small business,
better than driving a cab,
working in a factory,
or worse, the public service,
paying his way through uni,
providing a superior quality product
to a select clientele,cool people,
artistic, talented and mature,
20 bucks a gram,
100 a quarter,
(he’s not a profiteer)
bartering at the uni. market,
gram of hash for half a gram of speed or
a couple of trips,
all very warm and friendly,
feeling pretty cool,
staying permanently stoned.

His supplier is a doctor,
very well connected,
witty, discrete and urbane,
with an interesting range of distributors,
at his supplier’s legendary parties
he chats with lawyers and prostitutes,
accountants and bikers,
all of them dealing far more than himself,
he doesn’t know if there were any cops,
it seemed imprudent to ask.

The doorbell rings again,
he looks at his housemates,
they look at him,
they are very, very stoned.

The kitchen is to the rear of the house,
set well back down a long corridor,
the house is between a hamburger joint and
real estate agent in busy North Fitzroy,
when customers call it seems as if
they are going in for some late night greasies,
mohawks at the diner.

Most transactions are at night
so a customer at two o'clock in
the afternoon is unusual,
suspicious even,
particularly without a warning phone call.

He opens the door.

The biggest, ugliest, meanest looking cop he’s ever
seen is standing on the doorstep,
fingering his holstered gun,
he can tell the cop doesn’t like him.

He breathes hash fumes into the cops face,
his prospects don’t look bright,
"are you Seth?" the cop growls,
he stares at the gun,
his mind goes blank.

Seth?
Who the hell is Seth?

“No" he replies, oozing innocence,
praying to whatever universal forces protect
dope raddled druggies that his innate
acting ability will see him through.

“Does Seth live here?"
“no, officer, I've never heard of him"
“do you own this dump?"
"no sir, it's rented",
"who's your agent?" the cop asks suspiciously,
"the agent next door" he replies.

This cop really enjoys fingering his gun,
masturbation surrogate he supposes,
a cold, hard orgasm.
He’d never examined a gun at
such close quarters,
it’s very shiny,
it looks very potent,
and wonders what a bullet would feel
like as it entered his body,
then remembers the pain of a spent
.22 hitting him below the knee when
he was 12,
it hurt like hell.

The cop grumbles acknowledgment,
gives him one last supremely evil look,
then leaves.

He shuts the door,
returns to the kitchen,
takes several very potent pipes,
then laughs and laughs as the
night swirls around his head
and the stars dance above the
Fitzroy rooftops.

He thinks…
I really better get a day job.