Going to a Crack Den With Bongo
I’ve tried to write this story many times, and it never seems to work. It sounds so stupid on paper. We were about fourteen. My friend and I went to go and get some fish and chips at my local chippy, and while waiting for the food to fry we met a guy outside, a dealer. He was an old guy, Eastern European, huge, thick glasses over his eyes, a walking stick, gold rings, a large brown coat. He wanted to sell us something and we agreed. First he said he had it on him, then that we should go just around the corner, and then that we should follow him. He called himself “Maagu.”
I live next to the biggest council estate in South London. These estates are a little like a quaint, gun-free version of the projects here. No one had been shot there since I was old enough to know about that sort of thing, but there were often yellow and black signs around, asking in capital letters for witnesses to rapes, robberies and knifings. I noticed his jacket looked really expensive. On the way, I asked “is it far?” and “my parents are expecting me home with dinner.” He always answered with a flick of the head that meant come with me.
We started ascending the stairs of his building. I smelled urine. We got to his door: black, no markings. He knocked and then got out his keys and opened it, and as we got inside he opened a black metal gate. The door — and the gate — closed behind us.
The room: bare floors, boarded windows, no furniture, a gutted kitchen, ripped wallpaper, scraps of newspaper lying about, a couple of junkies who didn’t moved when we came in and about five dealers, including Maagu, all about thirty years old. It was hard to tell if they were talking about us or not.
They spoke with each other for a while, it sounded like business talk. Then one guy, a taller, more intense looking one, an angular guy who was speaking a little faster than the others, pulled out two large hunting knives, each with a large hook on their backs, knives that would do far more damage on the way out than on the way in. I looked to Maagu for help, but neither he nor the junkies moved.
I received a couple of gentle hits to the face — warnings; do anything and we’ll fuck you up. Still none of them talked to us. They were busy deciding what to do. We were totally silent. It isn’t fear that does this, it is a lack of wisdom. One of them was holding a large tinfoil platter of what I assume was cocaine or crack. He tried to offer some to me.
I think we were with them for an hour or two, but my memory has blurred. It was simple to follow commands — go here, sit, stand, come with us, get in the car, be quiet, take this, give us money, put in your pin. The journey to the cash machine certainly awoke me somewhat. I started to remember what life outside that room was like. What free people did. Then they drove us to another carpark, this one with no facing windows, and no lamps to give light anyway. They turned off the engine, but the radio was still on. They turned around to speak to us, something about not telling anybody because they’d hunt us down. I asked them to turn down the radio. Maagu put the volume up a little, and put the child locks on the doors. I don’t know why, but the driver thought it a good time to again offer us some drugs. If this stuff was real, we had been offered a fortune. They drove us to my house.
And that was the end of it. I’d been into a crack den.
