$40 to get off a life sentence

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I had had a few days of being quite discipline. Not smoking until the night. Fasting. Applying mindfulness to my writing and even my life, sure, why not? Then I woke up and couldn’t be fucked with it all, I decided to go to the beach for the day and get high as Yao Ming’s hat. I had found a good spot on the beach by the river. You had to walk over about 35 metres of rocks and this prevented the sand salesman from annoying you.

“Want flower sir?” Asks a tiny little 8 year old, cute as a button,

“No thank you”

“Sir, please one flower”

“No thanks, I didn’t bring my wallet”

“You're cheating”

“I'm not”

“Sir, please one flower. Just five rupee”

“Maybe tomorrow”

“No, sir now”

Piss off you little bitch. But I stay patient. With one we played naughts and crosses in the sand for 20-odd games. Every game the exact same. I would win in three moves because she clearly didn’t know the rules, but she kept wiping the past clear and drawing up a new board on the sand. Then she started to play the game where you guess which hand. She had a flower petal. I could tell which one was holding harder and I won that too. She did trick me once, by not having anything in either hand. That put the overall odds in her favour. But I got to 10 first.

I digress, this day, I was walking over those rocks with the intention to smoke and read all day. The police were there with whistles moving everyone on. I still don’t know why they randomly choose to do this. Everyone moves and twenty minutes later they return. Like a toddler playing with sheep. I found a little pocket that only one man could fit properly. My own private patch of sand on the water. Laid out my towel. Crossed legs. Put the pipe to my right and realised I didn’t have a lighter. The whole plan was going wrong!

As I realised I didn’t have a lighter, and being a 40-minute walk to attain one, a policeman stood above me on the rocks. When he saw my pipe he walked down onto the sand. Without saying anything he picked up the pipe, then went through my bag.

“Oh no brother, what is this?” he said, holding a pinch full of hash. I didn’t say anything.

“Where you from brother?”

“Australia”

“You have mum?”

“Yes”

“Dad?”

“Yes”

“Wife?”

“No”

“You family love you?”

“Sometimes”

“Oh no brother, this is very bad. This is jail”

He kept looking through my bag and I had shitloads in there. He grabbed my hand and checked my pulse through my wrist. At this point, you could assume I was scared, panicked, worried, but I wasn’t. I think I have seen hash falling from the sky in pretty much every place I've been. But the policeman kept to the script.

“You have any more?”

“Yeah”, I just told the truth.

The policeman grabbing the chunks from my bag and gasping with a disappointing undertone.

“This is life in Jail baba” Shaking his head and making a clicking noise with his tongue.

“Can I pay you?” I asked.

I had done a bit of research already and knew the stories of paying the cops off. I knew he was putting on an act to try and scare me into giving him more. He didn’t budge.

“No baba, this is drugs. This is illegal. You have thrown your life away. Come. Police station”

“A thousand?”

He stood in silence with his stature trying to shock me.

“You can talk to them at the police station”

“Can I just pay you and then ill go home?”

“No baba, this is smoking in public. What are you doing?”

“I'm sorry, I didn’t know, can I pay you though. If I pay you 2000?”

Eventually he obliged. I thought he was going to take my hash and tobacco, which would have been annoying but better than life behind bars. Me in an Indian prison just raping boys until they like it.

The cop didn’t quit his disappointed act and I did feel stupid. Smoking a pipe at the beach two seconds after I saw the police. A little straightening of my awareness and understanding. He took the money and handed me my hash. I stayed there all day without a lighter.

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