Mandino

My Name is Max. I am a drug dealer. I call myself Mandino and I am going to university.



Max stood in the street. His puffa coat was zipped up to his chin to keep the warmth in. three cars pasted him, their lights blinding him as they speed around the corner. He hadn't done this for a while and he was nervous. But the game couldn't of changed much. He patted his pocket. The sound of cling film rustled and he could hear the coffee granules crunching. He smelled like a dodgy cafe but it drowned out the smell of the drugs he carried. Weed. Just weed. Bud. Grass. Pot. Smoke. Hash. Nothing major but it smelt. He could see the familiar warm orange glow of a taxi light approaching. It signaled warmth. He stuck out his arm further and as the car slowed he nodded to the driver. The window wound down and he approach. 'couple o' stops yeah? He handed over a fifty and the driver looked at him, searching his face. Max pulled away and got in the back.

'Pull up yeah Gov' Max pulled his phone out of his pocket. The taxi meter was running. He was in the City. Outside a lawyers office. They were good business his phone rang and was answered on the first ring.

'Hey Madino, you here.'

'yes Bruv I am, usual spot.' He turned to the cabby 'Oi Geez, wait here yeah? He shut the door and walked towards a tall white guy. If the cabby had to guess he would say he was mid thirty suited and booted. He shook his head. He knew what this Mandio bloke did. He was no fool. Just keep quiet and drive the cab he thought to himself. He felt the fifty in his pocket and knew there was good money in shutting the hell up. The guys shook hand and stood chatting for a moment. He wound the window up. He didn't want to overhear. Better to know nothing. Both men laughed loudly and Mandio walked away back to the cab grinning.

Some three hours later the cab pulled up outside the half moon and flowers. 'Here Mate' Mandino passed the driver another fifty for his trouble he got out of the cab and pushed the door shut. He had made twelve stops tonight. A quiet night. The cab pulled off leaving him on the pavement in the cold. He turned his back on the main road and began walking home. It was a good ten minute walk but you never get dropped off at your house. To dangerous. He would meander home, taking a different route every time. He had been at her majesty's pleasure once before and he wasn't doing it again. The pocket of his puffa jacket was empty. He only ever left the house with just the right amount. No need to be caught carrying more than he needed. That's where he went wrong last time. But this time is different he thought to himself. Just selling smoke this time. Nothing harder he would keep his nose clean. Just earn enough to pay the bills and treat his girl right.

Max's phone was ringing. Ringing and ringing. His girl nudged him hard in the ribs. He sat up and answered. It was his mum. Her rent was due in three days and she was short. 'Don't even worry yeah. I will sort you you know ma. Don't even think about it.' He hung up and rubbed him head. It wasn't enough selling weed on its own wasn't enough. He was gonna have to set it up. His girl was looking at him. She smile and reached over and held his face. 'You're a good man' she smiled and kissed her fingers.

He wasn't going back. It was to hard how it used to be. To dangerous. He was going back like that. Selling to crack heads and junkies like he used to when he was a boy. Easy money he used to think. He could keep his ma's roof over her head. Keep that pervy fucking creep of a landlord off her back and out of her home. He could treat his girl right. He could make sure his little brother had a better time at school than he did. He always had lunch money. His clothes fit and they weren't patched. They were all new. He went to school in nike trainers and he had a laptop. He never felt hungry at lunch knowing he only had a pound in his pocket and that he should probably slip it back in his mums purse when he went home.

That's how it had started, he learnt to fight when he was was at school. The kids played rough and you only survived if you played rougher. He used to fight a lot. By the time he was in year ten none of the kids dared to touch him. There were rumors that he had stabbed someone. He hadn't. but the rumors helped protect him. That's when he got in with the big kids. They saw him. Anger and hurt and ready to fight anything. With ripped clothes and a hungry look on his face and they started paying him to make deliveries.

He used to pick up one or two small packages a day and deliver them to a couple of lads. He used to meet them in the toilet in second period. The kids paid him a fiver per-delivery. Max remembered feeling rich. How happy it used to make him to slip that crisp five pound note in to his mums coat pocket. Or to go to the shop and buy bread and milk and slip it into the cupboard.

He turned to his girl. 'coke and MD but that's all. I'm not getting back into the heavy stuff.' She nodded at him and smiled.

Max shut the door of his car. Second hand but nice. A bargain because he had snapped it up with cash. Just how he liked it. Quick with no questions asked. He had a drop off. He had only met this guy once before dropped him a three grams of coke. At eighty-five quid a gram that was a lot. He hadn't really like him last time the guy had seemed shady. He pulled up outside a block of flats and waiting. A guy rapped on the window of the car making him jump. He nodded at him and the guy got in.

'alright mate' he sniffed he rubbed his nose and sniffed loudly. 'usual yeah?'

Madino nodded and handed over three grams 'two hundred and fifty-five'.

'right so, thing is, I was wandering if I could get it on tick. I don't get paid until Tuesday...'

'no. I don't do on tick. I don't want to have to come knocking on your door on Tuesday and threaten to mash your face up for my cash. I don't want to be that type of guy you get me?'

'you'll have it though... I will have it.'

'I said no man. Get out of my car.'

'what but wait I've got enough for a gram.'

'I said get out of my car.' Madino was a business man. 'I don't dealer with fuckers like you.' He drove away sighing. He had learnt from the last time. From when it all went wrong before. He didn't deal with fuck ups. He didn't want their money. There was no need he was a good person. He didn't dealer with wankers.

That's how it had gone wrong. Last time. He had been carrying heroin. A lot of heroin. He had been careless turned his back on the junkies. People like that. People who needed drugs, not wanted them but needed them. They were the problem. He turned his back for a second. There was pain a lot of pain, he had the drugs stuffed in his pants. In his gouche. He could feels hands on him. In his pockets, in his shirt all over him and in the distance he could hear sirens.

Max shook his head and snapped himself back to the present. He rubbed his back, the wound was four years healed. It shouldn't hurt anymore yet it did. In prison the doctors said something about muscle memory. About the pain being psychological about getting counseling. He didn't believe in talking your problems away. He had tried working out more, working out less but he couldn't shake it. And now, now he was back dealing the pain was worst again. This time it was different though. No junkies. No addicts.

Max pulled but in front of the tower block. He looked up at the flaking grey paint and sighed. When he was working before his stint at her majesties pleasure he was earning around a hundred thousand a year. He had offered to buy his ma a house. A nice house in the suburbs. She wouldn't let him. 'dis wa' me and your farders 'ouse' she had said and refused to move.

His mother, when he was on the stand had sobbed cried. 'I didn't raise you like dis boy' she had cried. He shook his head at the thought. He couldn't stand the disappointment, every time he went over with money she didn't ask. He could see that it broke her heart every time she had to ask his help for rent. But he couldn't let that creep of a landlord threaten her. He couldn't see his own mother out on the street.

Max left his mothers house feeling sick. She had spoken to him. Asked him to stop asked him to go straight. He didn't understand how she could ask that when they both new he couldn't they couldn't live if he didn't do what he needed to do. He drove back home he had a drop off to make. A girl, a uni student. Ten grams of MDMA. He was selling it to her for two hundred pounds. Knowing she would sell it on for four hundred.

She was waiting outside that half moon and stars. He hated people who made him wait, he nodded to himself in approval. She had described herself on the phone. Five, eight, wearing blue flowery dungarees with short brown hair. He pulled up and opened the window. 'get in girl' she looked back at him hesitantly. 'your safer in the car than out.' She got in the back nervously. He looked at her. A pretty skinny thing. It was 2 am. She wasn't safe in this part of elephant by herself. He told her this. He dropped her off home shaking his head.

Her home was a big light beige building. A university halls she told him as she chattered her way home. She was studying business looking to come out with a degree and walk into a job with a good salary. Nine to five week days. He glanced at his watch as he flicked the indicator on. It was late. He thought as he drove home. He thought about his girl. He though about the sad look in his ma's eyes, he thought about that wanker, hooked on coke begging him for drugs. He knew the time had come to go straight. This is a realization he should have had in the four years in prison. Four years of his life that he was never getting back. Now it was time. Before he got in too deep. Before he got drag back into the world of crack and heroin.

Mandino pulled up out side his house and unlocked his phone. He pulled up that girls number and look at it, he pressed dial and held the phone to his ear. 'hey girl, what you was sayin' earlier, can you sort me out?'