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MARCHING POWDER

When the bag came around to me, I said that I was quite happy just drinking. However, they insisted that I try some.

‘Come on, Thomas. You’ve got your first room in San Pedro. You’re one of us now. Join the party. For Pinos.’ Everyone raised their glasses and toasted the section.

I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, so, instead of arguing, I dipped the key into the bag and pretended to scoop some coke onto its tip, then held the bag in front of my face as I sniffed so that they wouldn’t notice that I was pretending. Everyone cheered, except the girl sitting next to me.

‘You didn’t have any,’ she cried, pointing at me. ‘There was nothing there.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘No, you didn’t. I saw you. Cheat!’ She was half-joking, but it was also embarrassing because she was showing me up in front of my new friends in the section.

‘I did.’

‘OK. Do it again, then!’ she challenged, grabbing the bag and holding the key under my nose, loaded up with a huge puntito.

‘But I just did,’ I protested, looking to Ricardo for support. Ricardo shrugged his shoulders casually, as if to say, ‘I don’t care. It’s up to you,’ but at the same time, ‘Why not? You’re not going to die or anything.’

‘Come on. You need to take your medicine or you’ll catch a cold.’ The beautiful girl waved the key around in the air and made an aeroplane noise. With all her confidence and joking around, she had everyone laughing and watching to see what I would do. There was no getting out of it. I was trapped.

‘OK, then.’ I let her put the key right up to my nostril and when she nodded, I sucked in hard through my nose.

‘And another one for this side,’ she said, administering more medicine to my left nostril. ‘And one more for good luck,’ she made me take a third dose that was even bigger than the first two. ‘That’s it. There’s a good little boy,’ she kissed me on the cheek and the others laughed before returning to their conversations.

I had been trafficking drugs for years, but that was the first time in my life I had ever tried cocaine.

The girl was smiling at me. ‘You see,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t that hard now, was it?’