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PRISONERS’ DAY

the coke had fallen and started trying to scoop it up using the cards. ‘I think we can save most of it, but there are bits of dirt and carpet in it. Just tell me how much I owe you.’

‘We’ll all chip in,’ added a British girl. ‘Won’t we?’

The others nodded, but I could see them trying to calculate how many days’ travelling budget ten grams of coke would cost them. They would all have to cut their holidays short.

‘Stop it! What are you doing, you idiot?’ I shook my head and took a step towards the New Zealander. He coiled back, worried perhaps that I was about to hit him. ‘Here. Give me those.’ I pointed at the credit cards and he handed them to me, thinking there might be some special way of recovering spilt cocaine that he didn’t know about. Then, I grabbed hold of my broom and swept the coke out the door.

‘It’s only coke. It’s not like you spilled beer or anything,’ I said.

He looked at me in complete shock. The others didn’t know how to react either; they thought I’d gone crazy.

‘But as punishment, you have to make ten more lines. And make them quickly.’ I handed the cards back to him, along with ten more grams and a different CD cover to work with. ‘You’ve lost us a lot of valuable time.’

I probably could have saved most of the coke, like he had suggested, but this was during the time I was working in the cocaine laboratories at night, so I had fifty more grams of it sitting in my cupboard that hadn’t cost me a cent. Besides, I did it for a laugh. I knew that everyone in that room would be telling the story everywhere they went for the rest of their lives.

The poor New Zealander was so relieved that he would have been happy to stay there until sunrise, serving cocaine to everyone, but by then the party was in full swing and he couldn’t keep up with the demand. Instead of having just him on line-making duty, I handed out my entire CD collection so that people could do it themselves. However, there weren’t enough CD cases to go around and some people had to resort to cassette cases, which weren’t anywhere near as good.

Eventually, my room got so full that people were spilling out onto the landing or sitting on the staircase, chopping up coke and drinking whatever they could get their hands on. No one was interested now in dancing or meeting any of the Bolivians. They just wanted to talk.