Chapter 1

Walking up the Old Stein I check Page’s text - 149 Richmond Terrace babes. Come for fun and frolics yeah x. I get to the party just before 1am. Two grand windows of the apartment block emit a deviant green glow that bathes the single-speed bikes lined up outside. It takes five excited minutes for someone to hear the bell and buzz me up.

   The door’s been left on the latch and swings open effortlessly, inviting me in. The flat's full of flesh, shoes and hip apathy. Girls in little more than primary coloured bikinis and high-vis vests prance around the high-ceilinged room, shaking their fists and stomping their Converse clad feet to Crystal Castles. The abrasive high-pitched female vocals shrill desperately over Tetris and Super Mario-esque sound effects. Boys flick their floppy asymmetrical hair as neon lasers cut through the smoke to illuminate the slick writhing bodies in a poisoned fluorescence. I don't recognise them and they don’t recognise me, but I’ve only been down here a week so why would they?

"Bonjour, Esser."

            "Easy, Page."

She invited me. She’s not French but she does like to use the odd phrase to simulate sophistication. I met her on my degree through a shared interest in being late. As she sparks a Vogue and taps her feet the glitter gold lettering of her Adidas Ecstasy high-tops twinkle in the dark like diamonds in the rough. Holding my hand she leads me through the heaving crowd and turns every head we pass. We sit on a black leather sofa and her half unzipped Boxfresh jacket shows off a white lace bra beneath. Santigold turns into MIA while I roll a cigarette and Page cuts lines of cocaine on a compact mirror.

“Get involved babes?” She asks seductively.

“Erm, nah, I’m okay… I'm broke, cheers.”

I’ve never done class As before but I don’t want Page thinking I’m like some completely innocent little child. 

“No worries, these are on me.”

 Just tell her. It’s okay not to have done drugs. I had a childhood, I rode my bike, I read comics, I played football in the street, not everyone’s Hunter S Thompson by the time they’re 18. It’s the 21^st century, you can be cool and not know how to cook crystal meth, just look at Chris Martin.

“Esser, you wanna line?”

“Yeah sure, safe, alrighty then.”

She’s so fit. I’m sorry Chris Martin, I’m sorry Coldplay. I snort. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. I hope I don’t have a heart attack, I heard coke can do that to you. I look around at all the pretty young things sniffing white lines and swallowing colourful pills, and I can hear the horror stories my dad used to tell me.

Son, cocaine is cut with laxative. One little sniff and you’ll be defecating so much you’ll shit out your own soul, then where will you be come purgatory? Huh? Huh? Think about it.

But everyone says university is the time for experimentation so when a fit girl offers you coke, you do it and then you spend your whole high hoping you don’t die. 

“You gonna finish that line?”

“Yeah.” I snort the rest, feeling every grain of the snow-white powder shoot up my nostril and dissipate on its way to my brain.

“You skint then, yeah?” She snorts.

“Cold stinking.”

“What about your student loan?”

“Ah, yeah, I’ve been well slack, erm, haven’t even filled out the forms for that yet.”

“You might wanna get on it.” She continues cutting more coke. “Why don’t you just get a student account?”

“I’ve nearly maxed it out.”

“Already?” She says impressed, then adds, “You can have more than one ya know.”

 “How?”

 “Just don’t tell ‘em about each other.”

 “Like lovers.” I try to jest.

 “Innit.” She snorts.

 “… I don’t wanna owe any more money to the bank though.” I say to my reflection in her compact mirror and snort again as Zammo McGuire tells me to - Just say no.             

“You could make bare moolah serving up for the Beard.”
             “The Beard?”
             “Yeah, it’s his soirée.” She gestures to the decadent scene in front of us and says,            

“They call him the merchant of hedonism.”
            “Who call him?”
            “…They...” She motions again.
            “…And this merchant can get me a job?”
            “Defo babes, like courier or something.”
            Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not some completely naïve country-bumpkin. I smoke and I’ve smoked weed before, yeah that’s right, but I’m not really up for selling drugs, not while I’m supposed to be getting a degree, ya know?
            “I can’t be arsed with dealing.” I say.
            “Not dealing, Esser, just… facilitating. Anyway, what’s wrong with dealing? Dealers ain’t the despicable characters police and parents and the papers make them out to be. I know bare drug dealers yeah and none of them look like Phil Mitchell in a beanie.”

“I was thinking more like Rab C Nesbitt.”

“What, the Cold Feet guy? He doesn’t look like a drug dealer.”

“That’s James Nesbitt.”

“Whatevs, all I’m saying is they ain’t that stereotypical image loitering around street corners selling crack to kids under the flickering light of a broken street lamp. They come in all shapes and sizes and simply provide a public service.”

Public toilets provide a public service and they get pissed and shat on all day. And if TV’s taught me anything it’s that drug dealers are dangerous crooks with bad teeth. But I do need the money, even when my student loan kicks in it won’t cover the cost of my tuition fees, rent and the drinking habit I’m gonna have to start, plus my teeth look pretty good. And no doubt serving up would keep me tight with Page, maybe even impress her.