He woke up to the monotone buzz of his mobile phone vibrating across the end-table, its ring silent and the blaring backlight of the screen illuminating the room. He rolled across the bed and grabbed the phone and attempted to read the display. His vision was blurred and he rubbed at his eyes in an attempt to make the screen have some semblance of sense. The phone read unknown. He dropped the phone at the side of the bed and let it buzz across the hardwood floor. After several prolonged seconds, the phone fell silent and he rested his head on the cotton pillows, relieved that he had escaped another ill-fated telephone conversation. He didn’t trust people who hid their numbers. If it was important, the call would come again. Just as he thought that, the phone started vibrating again.
He groaned in frustration as he sat up again and put his feet against the cold faux wood of the floor. He shivered as the covers slipped from his naked body and he bent down to look at the phone. Unknown – again. This time, he decided to answer. In his sleep-deprived state, he fumbled with the phone and it dropped on the floor. One of the buttons was pressed and the call was answered. He could hear someone breathing and then a sharp gasp. He grabbed the phone and put it to his ear.
“Hello, who’s this?” He spoke into the phone, his voice hoarse.
“Time’s up.”
The voice said nothing else. It seemed muffled, like they were talking in a confined space. He couldn’t hear traffic or wind. He was confused and scared. He didn’t quite know what to think. He dropped the phone. This time, it wasn’t because he was tired. He stood up in a flash and a world of pain shot through his head. He wobbled on his feet and put his hands to his head, wincing in pain as he tried to get his bearings. He pulled open the curtains and the daylight streamed through the window like an unwelcome wake-up call. He shut his eyes and blinked several times, attempting to get his bearings. As he looked around the room, he saw the mess that he was in. Beer bottles were strewn across the floor like a warning sign to visitors. Several bottles looked half empty, others overturned. The brown, murky liquid dripped onto the floor and, in the night, it had seeped into it and made it sticky.
He padded across the room, feeling the liquid stick to his feet. He groaned and kicked several bottles from his path as he tried to pace, wondering what to do. He didn’t know who was calling. He didn’t know what they wanted. All he knew was that they wanted him. He wandered into the bathroom and flicked the light above the mirror on. What he saw sickened him. His face was pale and white with grey, dark bags beneath his eyes. There were wrinkles in places that, only a year ago, had been smooth and fresh in their youth. As he turned on the taps and splashed cold water on his face, he hoped it would breathe new life into him. It brought on a fresh wave of sickness and disgust.
His chest was emaciated, the bones of his ribcage pressing against the skin like his lungs wanted to burst out of his body. He ran his hands across his ribs like a macabre xylophone. The feel of bone against skin made him sick and his body woke up to the previous evening’s exploits. In that second, he was against the bowl of the toilet, heaving his guts into a basin that was once white. Now, it was layered in grease, bacteria and his vomit. He coughed and sputtered as his stomach tried to expel the gratuitous intake of drugs and alcohol he had consumed the previous night.
He stumbled back to the bedroom with the voice of the mysterious phone call in his head, ringing in a fashion not dissimilar to the buzz of a mobile phone across wood. He was still panicking, his fingers strumming against the wood of the endtable as he sat on the bed and tried to formulate plans. Nothing happened. His head was a swirling mess of drugs and alcohol, his brain little more than a shell of matter. He heard the door knock and he stumbled out of his reverie. He paced across the room and opened the door. It was the postman.
“Your post-box is full downstairs. Thought I’d deliver these by hand.” The man was too jolly for his liking, spritely and youthful in his vigour.
He grabbed the post from his hand and slammed the door in his face. Letter after letter had that terrifying red warning sign – final notice. Final notice, final notice, final notice. Every letter was just an indication of the mess that he was in. He had no-one to turn to, nothing to resolve the crisis he was in. Every day was another rung of the ladder broken as he fell down it. It was like he was trying to cling desperately to something he knew was no longer there. He dropped the letters on the floor, ignoring them like he had the calls, the letters, the personal visits. Now, it had caught up with him. He needed a plan, he needed something to do.
The phone started buzzing again and he recognised the caller – a gambling friend. He ignored it. The last thing he needed was to get involved in that circle again. Hell, it was part of the problem. This was all a problem. The debt, the drugs, the gambling – what was he supposed to do? He flew into a rage, furious with himself at having let his life spiral out of control. The sound of bottles smashing across the wall was an alarm to other tenants, the glass falling to the floor like shards of crystallised anger. When he was finished, the floor was coated in small glass pieces that threatened to cut him to pieces if he slipped.
Would that be easier, he thought to himself. Would it be easier to just escape from it all? He knew he had nothing going for him. It could all be so easy, a shard of glass across the wrists, let him bleed to death. He could even think of it as a noble death, an ode to Nero. His hand was shaking as he picked up a large piece of brown glass and pressed it against his wrist. He couldn’t do it. He was weak. Suicide just wasn’t him. As he dropped the glass on the floor, he saw his mobile phone blinking. He picked it up and dialled the number for his voicemail.
“Hey, listen. I’ve heard of a game going down in a club, a select few people, nothing serious but big money. If you can get the cash, I can get you in. Let me know.”
His friend rattled off an address and he scribbled it down on a piece of paper. He knew he could get the cash from credit card withdrawals but he had to be sure that he had a shot. If he had the cash, he could buy off this mysterious caller. Was it one of his debtors? It seemed odd that they would just tell him that he had ran out of time. Was it a drug dealer looking to get his return on his supplies? He couldn’t know.
Stephen slammed the door shut as he made his way to a nearby bank and plugged his credit cards into the machine, jamming PIN numbers into each one and withdrawing as much as it would allow. This was a gamble, a huge gamble but if it paid off, he could get out of here. He stuffed the cash into his bag like some desperate, drug-addled prostitute just being paid. It wasn’t much. In fact, it was little over a grand but it was all Stephen had. He had relied on credit cards and overdrafts since he finished his degree and his life was going nowhere fast. He figured the last thing he could do was to have a little fun.
He plucked his phone from out of his pocket and dialled Mark’s number, hearing that monotonous drill of ringing in his ear. It rang and rang, infuriating him even further with every chirp of the ring like a reminder that people didn’t want to know him. At last, Mark picked up and Stephen growled down the phone in anger, a pathetic whimpering warning sign that he was pissed off.
“Listen, Mark, I got your message. Is this legit?”
“No, of course not. You don’t get big money through legitimate circles. How many times have you won playing slots at a casino or betting at blackjack?”
Mark had him there. He wasn’t much of a winner when it came to gambling. He lost more often than he won but hell, he figured that was true with most people. Still, he was afraid, frightened of the voice that told him his game was up.
“Who’s running the gig?” Stephen asked, a plea for information before he bargained his life away on a poker game.
“Some local outfit, small-time, deep pockets. Here’s a chance to make some real cash.”
“Alright, fine. When’s it start?”
“In half an hour. Get over here and drop a grand. Rumour is that there are five or six others joining you so you could be coming out of this with three, four grand.”
He snapped the phone back into his pocket and started walking to his destination, thinking about the prospect of three grand in his hand. It would give him a chance to get out of here. This town was dragging him down, he knew it. Nothing good had come of moving up here, desperate to find a job and finding nothing but rejection, heartache and depression. It was painful. Rejection letter after rejection letter, those calls that made you feel worthless, just another statistic for the government to write up. By the time he arrived at a small building that looked disused, its windows patched up with newspapers and dust gathered on the outside, he was infuriated with the world and how it had given him his lot.
Stephen knocked on the door and waited patiently. He couldn’t hear footsteps but he was certain that there were people in there. When no-one answered, he knocked again, his knuckles aching against the dull thud of the wooden door. It seemed to shudder in its frame, almost as if it was about to break with each knock. He heard the distant sound of chairs scraping across the floor and saw out of the corner of his eye a newspaper sheet being folded back from the window. A wide-faced man with a scar across his right jaw looked at him and then looked left and right, checking to see if he was with anyone. Assured that he was not, the door opened and he was ushered in.
“You know the deal?”
“Yeah, one grand down, texas hold’em, every man for himself. Right?”
“You got it, pretty boy.”
The scarred man hardly interrogated him with his questions but he felt uneasy even in his presence. The scar wasn’t so much a warning as a sign that he shouldn’t mess with these people. He didn’t believe Mark when he said these people were a local outfit. Now, he was scared. He couldn’t back out. They knew he had the cash on him. He’d be robbed and left for dead in some papered up old building with no-one for company except rats and dust. He sat down at the table next to two other men, one on his left a small Asian man who looked straight ahead, another on his right who nodded and grunted at him like they were casual friends.
As the cards were dealt, he felt like this was his game. After the first hand, he had a Jack and a Ten, the flop dealing another Ten, a Nine and a King. He raised the stakes, testing the waters. People bought the bait. The hand was his when he was dealt a straight and he took in a profit of £50, small change in these circles but a start. The second hand was equally pleasing, a two-pair beating a three of a kind at the last card. He raked in another £100 on that deal, leaving him up on the game. He heard people mumbling things under their breath, snide comments about his luck or that he was cheating.
“Lucky bastard.”
“Fuckin’ cheating, if you ask me.”
Every time such an accusation was made, a brute of a man in the corner would stand up, as if challenging them to make such an accusation when he was hovering over them. They fell silent instantly. After those hands, his luck changed. He made poor decisions on his betting, gambling on weak starts and hoping that the river or the turn would be good to him. He lost and lost until he started to see the pile of cash before him dwindling. He was on his last £200 when he realised that Mark wasn’t around. He’d thought he’d see him standing around, waiting for him to win so he could demand he be paid recompense for alerting him to the gig but he didn’t. All he saw were delighted faces who seemed to be gloating, their smiles more harrowing in the dim glow of sunlight that poked through the holes in the newspaper curtains.
He was starting to get desperate when he reached his last £75 and he made a stupid decision on the river, raising on a bluff and the Asian man called it. It went to the end and he lost it, leaving him with nothing. He looked around the faces, begging them for a second chance. He didn’t know what he was going to do. He’d lost it all. He was up early in the game and it had all gone wrong. This wasn’t fortune, this was disaster. When the large man in the background came forward as if to escort him from the building, he knew this was the end. He jumped when a hand was placed on his shoulder, terrified about what was going to happen.
“Wait, wait, wait. I have more cash but I don’t have it on me right now. Let me keep playing and I’ll get the money if I lose.” Stephen lied, his face showing a combination of agony and desperation.
“Hang on.” The bulkier man said, wandering into another room before returning and nodding.
That nod was all it took for him to be back in the game as the dealer dealt him his two cards, two cards that would determine whether he died here or walked away free of sense of guilt or blame. The cards were good to him. He drew an ace and an eight with the flop giving him an eight. It left him with a good solid pair. By the end, the river and turn had left him with a full house. He laid down his cards, gleeful in his ability to skate by the most dangerous moments of his life. His joy, however, was short-lived. A man across the table, shady in his refusal to talk, doing nothing but playing the game, put his hand up as if to cut short the celebrations. He set down his cards and Stephen sagged in his seat. There it was, beaten by one card, a four of a kind. Four eights, laid bare across the table like a knife wound.
That moment between him realising he had lost and the man putting his hand on Stephen’s shoulder, ushering him to another room, was the longest moment he had ever experienced. The daunting realisation was that he now had no escape. He’d fumbled his way into a get-out situation and failed to recover. Now, he was paying the price. He was shoved onto a chair and almost fell backwards with the force of the push. He saw someone sitting in a chair across a desk, the smoke of a cigarette wafting through the air and choking his lungs. The man stubbed out his cigarette in a holder and then switched on a lamp. It was Mark!
“Oh, thank god, Mark! How the fuck are you involved in all this?” Stephen exclaimed, his voice filled with joy that his compatriot had come good for him.
“How do you think, you fucking moron? I set this whole thing up.”
That’s when it hit Stephen hardest. Mark had played him like a chump. Or had he? He didn’t know that Stephen was going to lose. Hell, he might have even thought he might win, take a cut of the winnings and a cut of the participation. He’d make a killing on this.
“What do you mean, you set this all up? Did you set me up?”
“No. I set this game up. I was giving you a chance and you blew it. You’re in debt with some bad people, people who want to hurt you. Now, you’re in debt with me too.”
“I can pay you back, I swear! I just need to get the money from my account!” Stephen pleaded desperately, rising out of his chair and leaning on the table like it was a moral dilemma. He knew he didn’t have the money but he didn’t imagine Mark would betray him like this. Mark had been a good friend to him.
“You don’t have the money. Everyone knows your reputation. You’ll have to pay me back another way.”
“What do you mean, another way? I thought we were friends.”
“No. We’re not friends. I’m your debt collector. You’re going to take this package and deliver it to a disused warehouse over by the docks. There’ll be a few people there. Deliver it, return to me. I’ll consider that payment enough.”
“And what’s in the package?” Stephen asked, hoping that he’d get an answer but recognising that he probably wouldn’t.
“None of your business.”
He sat on the park bench, looking out across it with the brown package in his lap, wondering what it was. He was afraid to open it and yet it called out to him, whispering softly to him like the voice of a sultry seductress whiling her way into his bed. He found himself unconsciously fiddling with the sellotape, hearing that familiar sound of paper peeling from it. Before he knew it, the edges of the packet were open and he lifted it on its side, peering into it. He was desperate to know what it was that Mark had given him. Oh, Mark, a man he had once called his friend betraying him, forcing him to commit crimes just because he was desperate.
Inside the packet, the familiar look of white powder assured him that he was in a deep sea of mess, dealing hardcore drugs like some common criminal. He fiddled nervously with the sellotape, trying to make it look like he hadn’t touched it. For a minute, he thought about stealing it. He didn’t know the street value of this stuff but he knew it would give him enough to get out of her. He didn’t know just how deep Mark was in this sordid business. Would he have people tracking him down?
He found himself terrified of the thought that one night he would wake up to find himself in a dark room, his face bloodied and his legs broken. No, he couldn’t steal it. He’d just deliver the damned drugs, deliver them and get the hell out of here. He stood up and put the packet into his bag, looking across the park with its mangled, misshapen trees, overgrown grass and crisp packets all blowing in the wind. Stephen started walking towards the docks, a mere mile from where he was sat and pondered where he would go from here. He hoped that he’d be able to find somewhere to stay outside of the city, an abandoned building aplenty among the council houses of the estates. Deliver the drugs, find a place to stay. It was simple enough as a plan. As he arrived at the docks, he heard his phone ringing in his pocket and he fumbled around before picking it up.
“You know what to do?” It was Mark, his voice hoarse with smoking and drinking.
“Yes. Deliver the drugs. Simple enough. You’re not going to make me do anything else, are you? This is it, right? I don’t owe you anything after this?”
“Right, right. I’ll let you go back to your pathetic little life after this. It’s the old Bass Maltings building, you know the one, right?”
“Yes, I know it.”
“Good. Call me when it’s done.”
The Bass Maltings building wasn’t a building. It was more a complex of inter-connected buildings that had been abandoned after a fire in the sixties. There was an ill-fated attempt to patch it with wooden boards across some of the windows, the blackened bricks a warning sign to others. One particular building stood out more than most, the roof collapsed into it and birds perched atop the wall that seemed to struggle against the force of the window. He approached with hesitation, his hands shaking. Gravel crunched beneath his feet as he made his way forward, birds flapping their wings as he approached. It was silent, as if no-one was here. He entered the building at the far end and shouted out.
“Hello? Hello?” His voice echoed through the building but he got no response except the sound of his own voice bouncing back to him.
He stepped forward cautiously, moving deeper into the building. The stench of rotten wood, charcoaled bricks and smoke left him feeling sick and disoriented. The feeling worsened as he got further in, the frames of doors like gaping wide mouths that he had to enter. In some, it seemed like the splinters of wood hanging from the burnt wood were teeth threatening to chew him up and spit him out. The building knew he wasn’t meant to be, just another lost boy without anywhere to go. He shouted again and this time, he got a response from somewhere to his left.
“Shut up, man and get over here!”
Stephen did as he was told and entered a room where half a dozen men were leaning over a bin set alight, the flames rising up and warming them. They looked at him. He looked back. They knew he didn’t belong here.
“Mark sent me. I’ve got a package for you.” Stephen said, his voice weak with fear, cold and anxiety.
“Mark, eh? What’s he got for me this time?” A large man stepped out of the group, little under six foot but wide, his chest built like a builder. Stephen instinctively stepped back as he stepped forward, seeming to annoy the bulky man.
“Stop trying to run away, you little bastard.”
The words seemed to freeze Stephen on the stop and he fumbled into his bag. He grabbed the packet and then tossed it to the man but he fumbled, making the man miss the packet. The others laughed and Stephen was unsure whether it was him or the bulkier man they were laughing at.
“Shut it!” The man said in an aggressive tone as he picked up the packet and tore at it, revealing the white powdered contents inside. “Good, this is good.”
“So, I can go now?” Stephen asked, overjoyed that his ordeal was over.
“Not so fast.” The man said.
He pulled out a gun and pointed it at Stephen. Stephen whimpered and started sobbing, collapsing to his knees and begging for his life. The men all laughed at the pathetic display before them. Stephen seemed to care for his life only when it appeared to be at its end. In a sudden flash of movement, he heard shouts all around him and he turned his head this way and that, seeing dozens of police officers swarming the building.
“Freeze, get down on your hands!” The police shouted, pointing guns considerably larger than those of the bulky man at the people in the room.
Instinctively, the criminals tried to run and the police went after them, tackling to the ground and tying their hands with handcuffs. Stephen thought he was free and he started to get up but a police officer pushed him down.
“You’re under arrest for possession of a Class A drug with intent to supply. You do not have to say anything but anything you do say may be used against as evidence in a court of law.”
As the handcuffs were put on him, he knew he’d been set-up. Mark had set all this up, pushing out one of his competitors and leaving Stephen as the fall guy. He went limp as he was dragged to the police car, unsure of what happened next. He saw his face in the window of the police car, tears staining his pale skin and his lip wobbling, on the verge of another episode of hurt and pain. He bit on his lip, afraid that he might burst into tears if he didn’t resist. He tasted blood as he bit down even harder.
Stephen was processed and placed into a cell, an accomplice of organised drug crime. He sat in his cell, the grey walls and thick, steel door trapping him in a cage. It was hours before the shutter opened up and he heard a police officer grunt that he had a phone call. An officer followed him to the telephone and he picked up the receiver that was hanging on top of it.
“Hello?” Stephen asked into the receiver.
“Looks like you’ve had a lucky escape.” The voice said. He recognised it.
“Who is this? Tell me!” He screamed into the phone. Was he going to die? What did the voice mean? How did he have a lucky escape, he was in a prison, for god’s sake!
“Next time.”
That was all the voice said – next time. He was led back to the prison, screaming and struggling against the police officers as he tossed the receiver at the telephone. It had started and ended with a mysterious voice. As he was tossed into his cell, he scratched at the door and pleaded for his freedom, desperately hungry for something to come good. Nothing else came for him. All he had left to think of was the voice and his lucky escape.
Writeriori 