Thailand by Angus Hansen (recommended books to read txt) 📖

need to piss or breathe, to have a normal life. Using smack felt like a temporary aberration.
For Cain it was different. He had this idea that if he could just get enough drugs then all his problems would melt away. Thailand was going to be the scam to end all scams.
When we got back to the shelter Cain said he knew a dealer who always picked up Saturday evenings, which meant Saturday morning he’d have a huge pile of treasure laid aside with which to purchase the smack. He didn’t come right out and say it but I knew he meant we should roll the guy.
I’d imagined us holding up some convenience store with balaclavas on our faces. If things did go belly-up I might do a few years inside, but then I could enjoy my life as a free citizen, having paid my debt. The debt incurred for holding up a dealer was not so cut and dry. A dealer would want blood, revenge. My neck bristled.
We were in the TV room of the shelter. There were a few other guys in there, so we had to keep our voices down.
‘All you have to do,’ Cain said, ‘is hold the gun. I’ll do all the talkin.’
At some point we fell asleep. I was pretty far gone. I had this dream we flew to Thailand and when we got there it was freezing. We might as well have landed in the Antarctic. There was a mongrel southerly blowing in, and I wanted to scream because we’d done all this shit to get there and it wasn’t what we wanted at all.
When I woke up I realised someone had left the window in the TV room open. Everything was quiet except for Cain’s heavy breathing, and the sound of cars in the distance. I went through to the courtyard to smoke a cigarette. The drugs had left my body and I had this feeling, this horrible black ball in my gut, like I was rotting slowly from the inside out. Suddenly I wanted to bolt, to leave the shelter and Cain and all his scams. I’d get a job and make things right with mum. I was huddled up on the lawn-chair against the cold wind, smoking in quick, shivery draws. Somehow I couldn’t turn back. We’d come too far, Cain and me. I knew this thing wasn’t going to end well, but an end is an end, and it’s not easy to change courses when the one you’re on isn’t finished.
*
Saturday came around, and we were strutting through the back streets, guns heavy against our chests in the makeshift holsters Cain’d rigged up from old bedsheets. Cain was remembering the stick-ups of his younger days.
‘We used to roll two, sometimes three stores a week. Hardware stores, milk bars, video stores, whatever. If they had cash, we’d do em. We used to come away with four, sometimes five hundred a pop. Course, that was worth more in those days, what with the price of gear being so cheap.’
He told me how, when he was busted on fingerprint evidence, the cops took him to the cells and laid punches into his vital organs to get him to cough up names. He’d ended up coughing up a whole lot of blood and bile, but no names.
‘I went down hard. The prosecutor tried to lay fifteen years on me, but the judge went soft cos of my age. Got eight with a minimum of four. And I made damn sure that was all I was gonna do.’
I realised I’d never even bothered to find out how old Cain was. I figured if he’d spent four years inside that’d make him at least thirty. Sometimes his eyes looked older though, with a dullness that comes from too much time waiting.
Cain must’ve read my mind.
‘I went in at twenty four, so by the time I was your age I’d already spent a year locked away. It nearly fuckin killed me. You see, some folks in the system get beaten down, like wounded dogs, loyal to the bastards that put em there. I was never like that. I answered back, spoke up if something wasn’t right. I copped a lot of beatings, but at least I could always hold my head up.’
We stopped walking. Without realising we had gone into the shadow of the high-rise flats. An old foreign-looking guy was sitting on his walking frame watching a bunch of kids playing on swings. The gun was cold against my clammy skin.
We made our way over to the entrance.
‘You’re fuckin kidding me,’ Cain said. Just through the sliding doors two cops were stationed, clear as day. ‘Fuck!’ He started pacing.
‘Relax,’ I said. ‘They’ll just be here screening. I’ve walked past cops dozens of times to go score.’
‘You’re forgetting we’re not going to score.’
I’d never seen Cain so thrown off balance. His mouth had become pinched up and his eyes darted round.
‘They don’t know that,’ I said. ‘For all they know we’re here to convert people to the ways of Jesus Christ.’
‘Fat chance of that.’
‘C’mon, be cool.’
‘If they pinch me with an unregistered firearm I’ll be in breach of my parole conditions. This time I’ll get the full eight, no two ways.’
I hadn’t thought of that. If they searched me I might get a slap on the wrist, a suspended sentence, maybe some community service. But for Cain the stakes were high.
His eyes were fierce.
‘I’m tellin ya, if they try and search me then at least one of em will eat a bullet. Preferably both. I’d rather die than go back inside.’
I thought about where that’d leave me. I’d either take a bullet with Cain or go down as a cop killer. Either way the outcome would be bad. Again I got the urge to bolt, and the same powerless feeling came, like I was at the mercy of some dark force. I mean, it sounds pretty corny, all Star Wars and that, but that’s what it’s like.
‘Let’s do it,’ I said. ‘Whatever happens, I’m behind you.’
Walking up to the entrance it was like the volume had been turned up on everything. Kids playing, birds singing, they all sounded different somehow, sharper.
When we came through the doors both cops looked up at us. I went over to the table and shoved my hands in my pockets.
‘How can we help you?’ one of the cops said. His name badge read Constable Reeves. He was short and built like a bull-terrier.
‘Just paying a visit to a friend.’
‘What’s your friend’s name?’
‘Steve,’ I said.
‘Surname?’
‘God, Chambers, Chalmers, something like that.’
‘What flat’s he in?’
‘Two eighty two.’
The other cop, whose name was Fellows, wrote my answers into a register.
‘And what does Steve Chambers or Chalmers do?’
It was Fellows who asked the question. He was taller than Reeves, and had a long face with a nose like a beak. He had the air of a joker.
‘Never asked,’ I said
‘What, you never asked him his profession? Not much of a friend, are you?’
‘I guess it just never came up in conversation.’
Cain’s temper was a radiant heat coming from his body. I could hear him breathing through his raspy throat.
‘And what’s the purpose of your visit?’ Reeves said.
‘Just have a couple of beers, maybe watch some telly.’
‘What about your mate?’
My whole body went cold. I thought, if they start prodding Cain, there’ll be nothing I can do to avoid a shootout.
‘We need you to sign in too buddy,’ Fellows said.
Cain’s face had the flushed look he always got when he was excited or angry. He held Fellows’ eyes the whole time, even while signing in. I could see the cops’ demeanor change – they weren’t used to people who refused to cower.
‘You seeing the famous Mr Chambers/Chalmers too?’ Fellows said.
Cain gave a courtly nod.
‘You look familiar buddy,’ Fellows said. ‘You ever been in trouble with the law?’
‘You must be thinkin of someone else.’
Fellows watched Cain for a good minute. I could see Cain’s refusal to show humility had gotten his back up.
‘I never forget a face,’ Fellows said. ‘You know how it goes – bad with names, etcetera. Maybe you could help me out by giving us a look at some ID.’
Cain slapped his pockets. Somehow he made it seem a violent act.
‘Musta left me wallet at home.’
‘Well that’s a shame’ – Fellows squinted at the register – ‘Gary Smith. You know that suspicion of providing a false name is grounds for arrest.’
Cain folded his hands over his abdomen. To the cops it looked like an innocent act, but I could see what he was doing.
‘Here’s the thing boys,’ Fellows said. ‘There’s been a number of violent assaults here in the past few months, so we’re carrying out routine body searches on visitors to the flats. Would you please both stand facing that wall and place your hands flat against it.’
‘This is bullshit,’ Cain said.
‘If you’ve got nothing to hide,’ Reeves said, ‘then there’s nothing to worry about.’
A wall of panic had come down inside me, separating me from reason. I tried to assess the situation clearly, but my thoughts were going off like firecrackers.
‘Against the wall, boys,’ Fellows said. ‘We do this the easy way or the hard way.’
Cain and me were rooted to the spot. Cain’s fingers twitched. We were very nearly at the point of no return. Once he’d shown his hand there’d be no turning back.
Just then the sliding doors opened and a bunch of Samoans came in, seven or eight of them. The cops’ attention turned squarely from us to them. Sensing a momentary reprieve, we bolted, and managed to get into a closing elevator. I heard a shout from behind us but I’m not sure whether it was the cops or the Samoans.
When we got off at the sixth floor the passageway was silent and our footsteps reverberated on the hard concrete. I was just about choking with fear. Every time we rounded a corner I thought the cops would be there, waiting to pinch us.
Cain was still bristling. His eyes stared out, four years of beaten pride and resentment toward authority rising to the surface. At that point I didn’t have much sympathy. I was mad with him for getting the cops off-side. He didn’t seem to care how