I consider myself a smart person but there are times that I wonder. For instance, I have been on the periphery of some very serious black-market behaviour. I've seen Asian gangsters wield machetes for uses not related to horticulture. I've seen large quantities of illicit substances exchanged for fat stacks of dollar bills. These stacks seemed very attractive to me at the time (and still do!) but fortunately I've always had the good sense to avoid any situation where I'm the one actually handing or receiving that much money in those kinds of bundles.
But I've been there. I've seen it all go down. I've taken mental notes and enjoyed the show, which is how I wound up spending the night in a crack shack.
I was 18 at the time, fresh out of high school, and in the midst of exploring realms of social experience that were not available to me during my incubation period in the Catholic education system. Much of this revolved around a certain green plant and, as any young pothead can attest, I came into contact with all sorts of unsavoury characters.
These seemed to be the only people at that time who had ready access to this certain green plant. Some of them hid baseball bats in the legs of their sweatpants. None of them owned guns as far as I knew but they sure liked to talk about them. Some of them grew up and became tax-fearing citizens with regular jobs. Others might be dead. I have no idea. This was all a long time ago.
But as it happened, I spent the night in a crack shack. My old friend Sanjay*, a chronic deadbeat who was useful for mooching cigarettes and laughing at lowbrow jokes, had informed me that he had found a job and was moving into his own pad in Surrey. Please understand that at 18, everyone I knew still lived with their parents. The prospect of moving out was akin to driving a car to China, so Sanjay's liberation was a big deal indeed.
So I accepted the invitation to spend the night. Our friend Mike and I helped Sanjay ship some of his belongings to the new apartment. On the way over, Mike asked, "Are you seriously going to stay over night?"
"Sure, why not?"
"Because it's a crack shack. Sanjay's selling crack out of that apartment."
"Is that so?"
What wonders. A crack shack! Can you imagine? Of course I'd heard of crack. I'd heard many, many jokes about weird people being crackheads. I had seen real crackheads in their multitudes in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside but I hadn't interacted with any of them. Ever curious by nature, I decided that this was going to be a far more interesting night than I could have hoped for.
The apartment had one bedroom with a bare mattress flopped in the middle with piles of clothing dropped all around it. Sanjay's 16-year-old roommate/business partner Sam lived in there. Bed sheets were hanging in place of curtains at the windows. There was a pile of unopened Export A cigarette packs on the kitchen table, which Sanjay explained was payment for $10 worth of crack. So was the TV, which sat unplugged on the living room floor. So was the radio we were listening to.
That night, we were host to a rotating cast of downbeat and very troubled characters. None of them seemed to realize that the people selling them drugs were just kids. Or maybe they did. I realize now it's usually the kids who end up in the trenches, trading flaps for cash.
In any case, the customers would come in and out. Some of them came two or three times in a night. Some of them came with cash in hand, others only with empty promises that came with inevitable refusals from either Sanjay or Sam. Some were regular looking workingmen with leather wallets and nice shoes. Others had crusty sores on their face and the greying, sallow skin of the seriously addicted. More than once Sam had to escort agitated customers to the door, machete in hand.
Never once did I feel scared. I sat on the couch and smoked cigarettes. We listened to the Beatles and held regular conversation about whatever it is 18-year-olds talk about. When the customers knocked, I said little, feeling like an invisible participant in some deranged sketch comedy. The stark reality of the situation never occurred to me. Nothing of importance ever occurred to me at the time. "Invincible" was a word I might have jotted down in a job application under "Personality traits." A deranged addict could have slaughtered all three of us to rob us of our stash. The cops could have raided the place. I could have earned myself a criminal record. Bad news was written all over the wall that night and all someone needed to do was read it and act on it.
I didn't sleep that night but left the apartment thinking I had achieved something. I had reached a level of enlightenment that regular people weren't afforded — and at such a young age! I had seen the grizzled, snarling underbelly of urban life and it's something I'd never need to look at again. It was a story I never felt the need to tell anyone, so few people know. Now everyone knows. Including my parents.
Sorry, Ma. You never should have let me out of the house.
*Name changed for obvious reasons
