THE USUAL SHIT

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The usual shit.

They took down my name and address and radioed across to check the motor weren’t nicked. Then the big cop rifled through my pockets and ordered me to take off my Nike trainers and socks. I kept praying I didn’t have nothin’ on me. I was pretty sure I didn’t. Then again, if I did, it would have been just my bare luck.

It was when Harry give his name and address that things took on a different turn. Only turns out that one of the coppers went to school with Harry’s sister Kate. Well Bobs your uncle, Fanny’s your aunt, and the two of ‘em are rabbiting on like a couple of long lost pals. So as far as the rest of us are concerned, everything’s lookin’ sweet. Then would you believe it, halfway through the conversation the copper brings up the time Harry got nicked for selling puff.

So all of a sudden the coppers come over all fatherly. Wants to know if Harry’s on the straight and narrow.
Course I am, Harry’s gone.
I’m glad to here it son, the coppers gone. When you get home, say hello to your mum and dad. Perhaps one these days I’ll drop by for a cuppa. Who knows, maybe there’s even a career in the Met for one of you lads.

Harry was grinning like a nutter. Which was partly, ‘cause like the rest of us, he was well and truly mashed. Anyway, we all knew that Harry was never gonna mention anything to his dear old mum. And as for one of us becoming a copper...well let’s just say brov, it weren’t never gonna happen.

They was just about to let us go, when one of the coppers spotted this massive jiffy bag of weed stashed under the drivers seat. That’s it, I was thinking. Looks like I’m gonna have one hell of a shitty eighteenth birthday after all. All I could think about was the crap I’d be in if my parents found out.
So tell me lads. What’s in the bag? asked the copper that knew Harry’s sister.
He looked at each of us in turn. Only I swear to god brov, he looked at me twice as long everyone else. No one uttered a word. You could almost hear everyone’s brains ticking over-time, conjuring up their barefaced lies.

Has any body got anything else? asked the other copper…again looking at me, as if because I was black, I had to be a classic example of someone who peddled scag and crack-cocaine for a living. I pursed me lips, folded me arms and glared right back at him. Right then I was feeling like one of them kids I remember seeing in a Public Enemy rap music video. Still no one said a word. In the end the copper decided to take our nervous silences for No.
OK, he said. Well pretend this never happened. And just remember Harry, I know your old mum. And I know where you live.
Then just as I was thinking, that maybe not all coppers are dicks, his partner called me aside and asked me again if I was absolutely sure I had nothing on me. He was wearing this crafty grin on his face that I could see was supposed to charm me into breaking down and supplying him with one of those TV cop-show type confessions. I weren’t havin’ none of it blood, and to be honest it was a struggle to even answer that second copper back. I knew from experience, that he was looking for any bare excuse to get me down the station. I finally muttered something incoherent under me breath and turned around to look at me mates for backup. Anyway the copper got the message. He nodded to his partner, who grabbed the bag of weed, walked over to a drain and dropped it down the hole. It could’ve been my imagination, but for a second I think I actually heard old Harry groaning.

Anyway, can’t complain. Part from that, all we got was a caution about dangerous driving; which was a touch, cause if they’d found the rest of old Harry’s stash, mate or no mate of the blaggers big sister; the four of us would have been well and truly screwed. As it was, when my old man saw the wasted state I came home in, he beat me till I was well and truly sober.