The Frantic Guy & the Vanishing Dealer

I check my watch and realise it’s just before daybreak. I finish my chat with the barman, and step into the real world.

The sun is bleak and hung over, trying to give enough of a fuck to paint a proper sunrise. The result is watery, sickly and pale. Porridge churning in the sky. I turn towards the shopfronts and the railway station.

The frosty air bites with a moist, unpleasant chill. This Kings Cross backstreet reeks of the moral decline of so many who have passed here before. Their footsteps have long since faded away, but remnants of their living hell remain. I detect the stale stench of financial ruin, of heartbreak, of moral decay and loneliness. I notice the unmistakable aroma of long-forgotten principles left here to rot.

The Kings Cross dawn is offensive. It slaps party-blinded senses with grotty reality. Newspaper-strewn footpaths show no shame. Piles of old clothes share curbside space with puddles of vomit and indistinct objects which meld with the shadows. Side streets, blank with innocence, crouch in readiness for the next round of victims whose curiosity or bravado leads them into the inky depths.

The Cross at dawn is a far cry from the Cross at night. It’s like culture shock, to leave a noisy nightclub and be assailed by this grim scene. Like a wet fish across the cheek. It brings to mind the dark side of humanity, the side the tourists don’t see from their hotel balconies, the side that silently screams in the gutters.

I’ve been out busking most of the night, then unwound with a few drinks at the pub. I too am blinking with the shock of the dank reality of the morning. I recall my evening, and nod with satisfaction that I’ve earned some money to get by.

Suddenly I recall last night’s Frantic Guy. For some reason, this particular Frantic Guy got under my skin. Perhaps it was because I actually watched this one lose his innocence. Usually I feel minimal pity because I see them bring it on themselves with their own stupidity. They’re visitors to the Cross, filled with alcohol and arrogance, who get caught up in the lull of the tourist trap attractions and the excitement of the moment. The anticipation of the next thrill. It’s always their undoing.

It feels like only moments ago that these deserted streets were pumping with excitement and glitter and sudden shocks of loud laughter, urgently almost-sprinting couples weaving in tandem through the glut of slow-moving pedestrians, aimless ranters with lots to say but nowhere to go, gaggles of office workers, world-wise ladies in impossibly sexy outfits spilling from crowded venues, aloof bikers with arms folded leaning against the wall and watching the world go by, kids with pupils large from the fast drugs or pinned small from the slow, swarms of edgy speedfreaks pounding the pavements with square shoulders and angry eyes, babyfaced con artists, unsteady drunks, and the masses of innocents dotting the streets in between.

A river of faces. And yet… I always notice the Frantic Guy.

I see him most nights I come here with my guitar, he’s pacing the main drag. It’s never actually the same guy, in fact sometimes it’s a frantic girl or a frantic Japanese husband and wife. The point is, although the face changes, the script is always the same. The Frantic Guy plays the leading role in a drama that’s played out by Kings Cross professionals all year round.

The fretfully pacing Frantic Guy is something you’d expect to see in the latter parts of the evening on William Street. Despite his obvious anxiety levels, he’s no threat, in fact quite the contrary. The appearance of a Frantic Guy sends a distinct message along the nervous system which operates along the entire Kings Cross spine and peripherals. It says “Business as usual, boys.” The absence of suspicious activity, the lack of a Frantic Guy, could signify that a major wave of law enforcement is imminent, in which case you’d naturally get yourself off the street before it hits, or be swept away.

So, at first the Frantic Guy is anything but frantic. He’s super-cool. He struts, he’s a man on a mission, he speaks with the streetwise urban drawl reserved for talking to drug dealers.

Tonight’s Frantic Guy is huddled in earnest conversation with a tall, athletic man in a trademark long leather coat. If I ever knew his name, it escapes me now.

I watch as these two conduct their initial order of business under the streetlights, aware they are also under the ever-present, sweeping gaze of the blue radar…

Using clipped, muffled sentences and minimal gestures, they make their immediate plans. The passing of the money is done with such a casual, practiced motion that although I’m watching for it, I literally don’t see them do it.

Their furtive meeting is short and sweet, with both players working towards a quick getaway. The Frantic Guy is under the illusion that he is in the process of planning a drug deal, playing it smooth and cool, high on suppressed expectations.
He doesn’t know he’s totally out of his depth.

His friend in the long coat nods once, and slips into the crowd without glancing back.

I watch the guy while he waits. He chain smokes. He doesn’t know anyone here, but gives a nod to each person he thinks could be drug connected. He checks his watch, smiles at a crazy mutterer, and gives out seven cigarettes in the first five minutes. After a time, his wrist passes across his forehead in betrayal of his casual demeanor.

Nobody can stand alone on the main drag of Kings Cross and hand smokes out forever. Sooner or later they must draw the line. The exact location of someone’s personal line depends on how well they know the dealer, how badly they’ve been burned in the past, the amount of money they have already handed over, and who the money belongs to. And of course, acceptable waiting time is an individual calculation.

I watch the gradual rise of his panic.

I see him lose faith as the time stretches out, longer and longer until it’s been too long, plainly enough time for him to consider his folly in handing the money to a stranger….. long enough to shoulder the guilt of stupidly losing his friends’ money too…..

He continually reaches for his mobile phone, but each time returns it to his pocket, impotent without the dealer’s number. I watch as his innocence slips away, as he begins to seriously consider that this deal may not happen. I see him wrestle with his frustration.

At the exact moment that he loses hope, I see his shoulders slump momentarily. He recovers immediately, once again appears unconcerned but I know it’s an act.

He’s not in top form for long. He’s become the Frantic Guy.

He’s in full freak-out now, eyes flick in a rhythm to monitor each possible point of entry along William Street as he silently pleads for the dealer’s face to appear and end this agony of suspecting (but not knowing).

His childish half-hope burns much longer than it should. Does he seriously think this dude’s coming back?

I see the evidence of his frantic stress etched in his face as he tries not to let it show. I see the blood pressure rise until the denial is washed away by the queasy bitterness of almost-certainty. He paces. He searches. He wrings his hands. His eyes dart. He sweats. He does these things while trying not to stand out on the street. His smooth exterior becomes ruffled. He starts to look emotionally messy. It makes me wonder how much money this one’s handed over. There’s no doubt I feel for him. He’s in a bad situation and I can't help him. I'm just a random girl busking alone. I often don't hesitate to leap to someone's defense, but not him, not here, not now. I keep watching, my heart reaching out to him.

Finally, he returns to his original meeting point, to discover that the locals are no longer friendly. The Frantic Guy ran out of cigarettes long ago, he’s now become a burden with his neediness and his anxiety. Nobody has nodded his way since his smokes ran out. He gave all his money to the dealer. Nobody has a smoke for him. He forces himself to cease his frantic pacing, sits down in a grungy doorway and does a thousand head miles instead.

Finally as he sits awkwardly alone on the darkened steps of a bank, watching the Kings Cross heroin junkies close ranks and avoid him, he suddenly works it out… what they’d known all along.

Reluctant to leave, but unable to remain, he has no choice but to draw his painful line. Like a man walking through molasses, he drifts slowly as treacle, observant as a hawk, towards the point of final defeat: the railway station.

He leaves Kings Cross with an empty wallet, an empty cigarette packet, an awful confession to make to his friend, and a new, burned outlook on life which will merely serve to lessen him as a person in a thousand ways. He has learned about the dark side, and in doing so has begun his own descent into the abyss.

He will now be aware that sometimes people you meet do not wear their own face…

The absence of the drugs is harsher for him under the weight of his adrenalin crash. For every high there must be an equal and opposite low.

I hope the Frantic Guy remembers this thing about the faces.

If he could have seen the long-coated man’s real face, he would never have given him money for heroin.
It’s not rocket science.

When I arrive home, I spend an hour in the shower, but it doesn't wash away the pain I feel for the broken people.