Lazy Blood: a powerful page-turning thriller

by Ross Greenwood

  ‘So tonight, we forget, and we enjoy.’ With that comment, he presented the biggest bag of cocaine Will had ever seen.

  Will looked over at Aiden for support, ready to give it a miss. They had generally steered clear of any class A’s of late. It wasn’t that Will didn’t enjoy it, but it had started to take its toll and after doing some he didn’t feel normal until about Wednesday of the following week. So combine that with its ruinous price and it was not to be done lightly. Waking up on Sunday with that broken feeling was bad enough but at least you could drink the blues away in the pub. Monday at work however was a different story entirely. He did not miss cowering in his seat, sweat dripping down his body under his shirt, praying that no-one would talk to him and completely paranoid that everyone could see him for the ne’er do well that he was.

  Unfortunately for Will, Aiden looked like all his ships had come in at once and he had already pulled a credit card out ready for chopping. Darren rolled a couple of chunky rocks over to Aiden and taking a lock knife out of his pocket began to prepare his own. Watching the boys go about their business all of a sudden felt surreal for Will. He could hear Carl on his mobile in the kitchen ordering the pizza he now knew would never be eaten.

  He thought back to those first days of school and wondered what twists of fate had led them to be sitting here snorting coke off the world’s most expensive coffee table. Said table now had four long lines expertly prepared, sitting proudly in front of Darren like so many poodle legs.

  ‘Bloody hell Darren, you trying to kill us,’ Will said, shaking his head. ‘Carl, I hope your luxury accommodation came with his and hers defibrillators.’

  Carl came over and sat next to Will on the sofa and stared at the four innocuous looking humps.

  ‘One each eh?’

  That surprised Will and he turned to look at Carl. When it had come to drugs he had always drawn the line at marijuana. Darren had often got four of a variety of narcotics, but his friend had never weakened.

  ‘Go for it Carl, everyone should try it once,’ Darren encouraged. ‘You could do with a bit of coke confidence when it comes to chatting to birds.’

  If Carl had been teetering on the edge of making a choice, then that statement pushed him over.

  ‘Ok,’ he said. ‘What do I do?’

  Darren smiled, a kind of weird smile, which reminded Will of Nick O’Teen. That thought led him on to thinking of the Grange Hill song, ‘Just Say No.’

  ‘Right, grab yourself a note, any one will do, my personal preference is a twenty. On your salary, you will probably have a big stack of them in your toilet for wiping your Aris with.’ Darren looked around as he said that, pleased with his little joke. ‘Besides you may find the smaller notes fold in on themselves, leading you to a less than perfect yeyo experience.

  Roll your twenty up, not too tight, and place in your favoured nostrillo, whilst blocking the other with your finger.’

  ‘Then bend your heed to your product, on your overpriced Kendo Nagasaki,’ Aiden said. ‘And snort. Wham, bam, thank you Afghan.’

  ‘Right,’ Carl said, drawing a thick wad of notes out of his back pocket. Passing them each a crisp twenty with a smile, he suggested, ‘Let’s all do it at the same time.’

  ‘What, are we twelve?’ Will commented, thinking as he said it that it wouldn’t be too far from the truth.

  Needless to say they all perched on the end of their seats, rolled up notes raised in preparation. Will looked down at his chubby line, guessing that there must have been at least ten quid’s worth in that one bit. He felt a familiar grumbling in his stomach. For some reason whenever he was about to do coke he felt like having a shit.

  ‘Um Carl, if you haven’t done any before I don’t suggest you do all of that in one go, do a quarter or something.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Darren laughed, ‘It’s all in…’

  ‘Registers a win,’ Aiden finished. Carl cocked his head at Will as if to say ‘C’est la vie’. Will put his free hand on his forehead for a second, looked round the table at them all, and took a deep breath.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he said and the four of them hoovered it up in one go.

  ‘Jesus fucking H Christ,’ Will roared as he shot out of his seat. His nose was burning like someone had stuck a lit cigar in it. Aiden and Carl were milliseconds behind him. Darren however was just sitting there with a smug look on his face.

  ‘That shit is ninety percent pure my friends, also known as rocket fuel.’

  Will felt a huge surge of energy rush through his body. Suddenly he was covered in goose bumps and it felt like his skin had shrunk by twenty percent. He felt a reassuring tickle run down his throat, confirmation that this indeed was what all the fuss was about. His bowel clenched and he scuttled to what he hoped was the toilet door and opened it to something perfect. He sat on the comfy toilet seat, admiring the wall to wall tiling and funky heated towel rail and expelled the contents of his guts like cement pouring out of a lorry. He found himself laughing, loudly.

  He practically skipped back into the lounge and found Darren and Aiden giggling like school children. The source of their amusement was Carl who was pacing back and forth like a demented scientist, uttering ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’ He then flumped down on the sofa, sweat pouring down his face.

  ‘I don’t think I can uncross my eyes,’ he whispered. Will went to the kitchen, found the glasses and poured a big one full of water. Handing it to Carl he rubbed him on the back.

  ‘Drink that you will be fine in a few minutes. You should know better than to trust Tweedledum and Tweedledarren.’

  ‘Nice shit?’ Darren enquired.

  ‘Very enjoyable thank you,’ Will replied. He felt so good it was crazy. Why had they stopped doing this stuff?

  The doorbell went so he trotted down the steps. He opened the bottom door to a slippery looking fellow clutching three large flat boxes.

  ‘Yes,’ he enquired, his smile splitting his face from ear to ear, making him feel like a Smash alien.

  The guy looked at him like he had opened the door naked.

  ‘Your pizzas sir.’

  ‘Oh yes, sorry, wonderful. That was quick.’ He took them off him and stood smiling. Stopping himself talking was almost impossible.

  ‘We are only downstairs sir,’ the guy laughed, no doubt realising he was talking to a half-witted clown who’s med’s were out of synch. As Will went to close the door, the man shouted after him.

  ‘That’s nineteen pounds eighty please.’

  ‘Oh sorry, I thought that cheeky fucker Carl had paid.’ Will sniggered as he pulled out his coke twenty and unfurled it like a sacred flag. This action seemed to take an extraordinary long time and all of his attention. He handed it over to the bemused courier.

  ‘Keep the change my friend. Three cockroaches max eh?’ and chuckling to himself closed the door on the bemused man who was now shaking his head.

  He could hear the talking before he even opened the flat door, it was as though he was about to walk into a bus full of chickens. The joys of chong. Everything was interesting. Money, women, politics, star wars, stamps, ironing, you name it.

  Darren had gone from not wanting to talk of his domestic situation to practically shouting about it. He tuned in to the acidic diatribe.

  ‘She’s changed man.’ Weird Will thought, how people say man a lot when they are high. ‘She’s all involved in the local politics. Fervent is what she is man. Anyway, I feel like a stranger in my own house. Well, her house. Anyway, they feel like strangers. Her and little Tony. I can’t seem to bond with him either. He doesn’t even look like me. Her booze hounds brothers are round all the time too, chatting shit. In the end it’s a relief to go back to war and if that doesn’t say it all, I don’t know what does.’ He came up for air, and necked an industrial measure of JD. ‘Relationships eh, what the fuck?’

  ‘Yeah man, confusing,’ Carl slurred, as though he was the sage of all sages. Will slid the pizza boxes onto the kitchen table.

>   ‘Pizza anyone?’ he proffered. No-one even looked at him. Aiden seemed to be nodding his head to an unheard tune, whilst the other two continued their concluding.

  Will opened one of the boxes and shook his head at what looked like a fantastic creation, before closing it and wandered off in the direction of the fridge. No hungry Carlo’s here.

  ‘Put some tunes on man,’ Aiden demanded. Carl selected a remote from the bewildering array on a stand that seemed to have been constructed just for the purpose of holding them and ‘The Ketchup Song’ came on.

  Will sat at the table, frowning at Carl’s dodgy taste in music and pulled his packet of Benson and Hedges Gold cigarettes out of his pocket. Taking his time, he selected one and slowly lit it, the end seemingly flaring over brightly in front of him. The beat of the track seemed to make his spine vibrate as it filled the room.

  ‘Oy!’ Carl jolted him from his reverie. ‘This is a non-smoking establishment.’

  ‘Smoke this,’ Will said as he gave him the finger. This caused them all to burst into laughter. As the mad wave of euphoria slackened slightly, Will joined the others on the sofa and picked up the zip lock bag of the magic dust.

  ‘Why have you got so much of it?’

  ‘I called in a favour,’ Darren said knowingly.

  Will wondered what the hell kind of favour that could have been, before he realised he didn’t care. He felt supercharged. The night was young, they had a bag full of happiness and a whole city of women were waiting for his charms. He always felt cocaine accentuated your natural charms and considering he thought he was an amusing decent type of guy, this made him superman. He looked at Darren and thought that seeing as he was a bit of a lunatic, he should probably steer clear of it. Darren still hadn’t shut up.

  ‘A lot of the world’s Special Forces use stimulants to keep them going, especially at times of war. Obviously only for a short period. You make mistakes if you’re tired you see.’ Will suspected the quartermaster wouldn’t be doling out eight balls with the ration packs anytime soon but held his tongue.

  ‘Let’s get in the mixer then lads,’ Will said.

  ‘Hang on,’ Carl chuckled. ‘I need a dump.’

  When he left the room Darren went over to the boxes and slid a heavy looking pizza out. He then walked over to Carl’s pride and joy, the table of wealth and placed it upside down on it. He then placed the pizza box on top of it and as Aiden wandered past with another beer he gave him a shove. He was about as stable as Bambi and heavily sat on top of the box.

  Instantly he looked like he had sat on a sharpened stake and jumped off it. The three of them looked down and as Carl returned from the toilet declaring himself ‘Fit and ready sir’ they collapsed into peals of laughter.

  He ushered Carl down the steps which seemed to have become an unnavigable obstacle course. He felt like ED-209 from Robocop as he gingerly descended, but he also felt like the lord of all creation.

  * * *

  The next four hours disappeared like a raindrop on Venus and they soon found themselves in a less than salubrious establishment called The Outback. An Australian hangout, calling itself a home from home, when it was little more than a dusty barn with a bar selling overpriced drinks. Maybe that was home from home. There were scantily clothed backpackers everywhere and Will could see Aiden and Darren grinning, gurning and grinding on the dance floor, surrounded by a horde of them.

  Carl was next to him at the bar regaling two blonde haired beauties, who may well have been twins, with a tale seemingly so interesting it must have been the secret of life. Will stood there amazed. He had never seen Carl hold court in such a way before. One of them left to go in the direction of what was uninspiringly signposted as ‘The Dunnies’ and he watched still as the other one preened and fluttered her eyes. She grabbed Carl’s arm at what he assumed was the punchline and moved in for a kiss. Carl’s world had been ignited tonight, it was anyone’s guess what would emerge out of the flames.

  Will drained his beer and waited and noted the disappointed look on the other girl’s face as she returned from the toilet. He placed his empty bottle on the bar and moved in for the kill. Life was good.

  27

  26th August 2006

  Will pulled into Cherry Hinton Road with a smile. It was one of those days in England when you don’t want to be anywhere else. The sky was blue with the occasional wispy cloud floating across it and there was a gentle breeze to take the edge off the warm sun. It made Will think of summers long gone in his parents back garden and drinking ice cream floats. He pulled into number nine and let himself into his own back garden. The fuckers might have at least mown the lawn before they left he thought. It looked like the modern day pictures of Chernobyl. As though everyone had just put down what they had been doing, or got off the swing they were on and then legged it, never to return, leaving this crazy wilderness to develop over the following twenty years.

  If he sat in that with his ice cream he would be odds on to come out with Lyme disease, that’s assuming one of the snakes didn’t get him first. He shut the gate and went back to his car but walked past it and stood on the other side of the road, turning round to see what he had bought. What he and Aiden had bought really and he laughed at the thought of his friend trying to get his head round all the legal terms, timescales, bullshit and expense. In the end he had just left it to Will, said he trusted him and to just point and show him where to sign.

  So here they were. They were now the proud owners (Barclays may have something to say about that statement) of numbers seven and nine Cherry Hinton Road, Peterborough. Not housemates, but neighbours. ‘Gaybours’ as Darren had been calling them. Will had finally spent his life savings on a property in the new British Sugar housing estate. It was adios to travelling and he wasn’t sure exactly how he felt about it all. His mortgage was pretty nasty all things considered, but as long as he didn’t lose his job he would be fine. Great, he really was a slave to the wage. Aiden however had virtually bought his outright with the money from his dad’s life insurance and the sale of the family home.

  Still, everyone should buy their first home and move in with the sun shining Will decided. He walked back to his car, a maroon Vauxhall Vectra and shook his head. Thirty two years old and he was still doing stuff he didn’t want to do. He had been pondering buying a black BMW as his Renault Clio finally entered its death throes. For some reason he had always fancied one. Nothing flash, or that new, just a three series. Instead his dad had bought a new car and the garage had offered him a derisory amount for his old Vectra. So his dad had arrived one Sunday morning and offered it to him for the admittedly low amount the garage had proposed.

  Will had told him ‘thanks, but no thanks’, but it was as if the poor old Clio had been hanging on until reinforcements arrived, like the wounded hero waiting for the cavalry and had died the next day. This left Will to have to turn up in a taxi at his dad’s house with his tail between his legs, late for work, before driving off in an old man’s car. No swish BMW for him.

  Still he was working in Cambridge now for what could only be described as a shonky loan company and he did not miss sitting in the daily traffic jam with the temperature gauge bouncing off red uneasily wondering if today would be another day to break down.

  Yes, he had got to the age where he valued reliability over looks, how depressing. He had a massive loan over twenty five years which was equally disturbing. The most distressing part was to add to that, he had another job which he disliked but this time he had to drive for an hour to get to the damn thing. Whilst there he had to encourage people to take over priced loans that they neither needed nor could afford. As per usual life seemed to be getting away from him and he seemed to be under massive amounts of pressure and doing things he wasn’t interested in. Love your job, you’ll never work a day, hate your job and life sucks.

  The parp of a van horn knocked him out of his reverie and he turned to see a grinning Aiden pulling up in the hired Sprinter. He realised it was t
he first time he had seen Aiden drive anything that didn’t make him look like he was driving some kind of comedy clown vehicle. However he still had to prize himself out of it as though he was climbing from a tight fairground ride.

  He walked over to Will and as usual Will felt his mood lighten as he looked at his happy friend. Aiden put his arm round him in a matey manner and pointed at the house.

  ‘One day Will, all that will be ours.’

  Will thought of the twenty five years and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They began to empty the van and as they did so it became evident very rapidly that Aiden had bought and therefore owned most of the things from their previous house. After Will had put his clothes on his bed in the main bedroom he paused to consider the two other rooms upstairs. He decided the smaller bedroom would be his computer room and slid the boxes for that in there and then he looked into the last one. A guest room perhaps, or maybe a baby room one day. Was that why he had bought a suburban semi when really he had wanted a funky apartment like Carl’s? Still it would be lovely to have his own space and still know he could pop next door to see Aiden.

  He heard the front door open and wandered down the stairs, surprised to find Darren there.

  ‘Alright mate. I know you said you were coming to help move, but I thought that would mean you turned up tonight when it was all done?’ Will said.

  Darren laughed, and tapped a couple of big long boxes which had been poorly covered in cartoon wrapping paper and a smaller box.

  ‘Aiden said you had bugger all anyway, so I bought you a couple of moving in presents.’

  They carried them into Will’s empty lounge, where he began to unwrap them. Noting the paper Darren had bought specifically.