Written on: Wednesday 28th January 2009

Ever since finding enough crumbs in my pocket with which to fashion an SS [single-skinner] in the holding cells on Monday, the entire population of A-Hall has become convinced that I am the holder of all things THC-laced. If the rumours are to be believed, I am currently sitting on a stash of Marksist proportions. (That’s Howard Marks, not Karl Marx by the way.) Cons who had previously not given me the time of day – Yardies, junkies, YO’s [Young Offenders] – now made a beeline for me, to savour my delightful company, gaze upon my handsome features and, of course, to pester me for drugs. In exchange for furnishing them with the tiniest knot of hash, I was offered tobacco, a shot of a PS2 and – had I pushed my luck – quite possibly sexual favours.
‘Here min, you’ve got hash tae sell, hiv ya?’ exclaimed the squeaky-voiced YO’s.
‘A’right man, wots dis bout you avin sum ganja?’ lilted the Yardies. At one point I looked up from using the communal fone to see a con making a smoking gesture in my direction. He certainly wasn’t after a rollie. Everywhere I walked I found myself being summoned into peters [cells] for hush-hush conversations about hash. If I still had my big bag of weed that is currently under lock and key at Filth HQ (assuming the pigs haven’t smoked it), I could have become fabulously rich in GV [Golden Virginia], the standard jail currency. If smoking was my game, I could receive enough tobacco to puff my way to an early grave. If the custard cream cons don’t kill me, the baccy will. In the police interview following my arrest, I had done my utmost to convince them that I wasn’t a dealer and that I certainly didn’t possess any weed. Now that I was in jail, where I should be free from such aggressive interrogation, I found myself on the defensive again. A dealer with weed is wanted by everyone; customers, pigs, rival dealers and thieves. But a dealer without product? Who wants to know? I deal therefore I am. Without my raisson d’etre, I fear I’ve become obsolete.