tell Lyle during a genial exchange of cash and drugs that he does not actually shave his skinhead but is, in fact, naturally bald, which makes me silently consider what struck him first along his unique philosophical journey, the notion of white supremacy or that of white male pattern baldness.
I don’t know what I expected from drug dealing. More romance, perhaps. A sense of danger and suspense. I realise now that the average street grunt suburban drug dealer is not too far removed from the common pizza delivery boy. Half these deals Lyle and Teddy are making I could make in half the time riding through the south-west Brisbane suburbs on my Mongoose BMX with the gear in my backpack. August could probably do it even faster because he rides faster than me and he’s got a ten-speed Malvern Star racer.
*
August and I do our Maths homework in the back of Teddy’s Mazda as we cross the Story Bridge from north to south and south to north, the bridge of stories, stories like the one about the boys who beat the fire, stories like the one about the mute boy and his little brother who never asked for anything but the answers to the questions.
August holds a ten-digit scientific pocket calculator he got for his birthday, tapping numbers and turning the calculator upside down to form words. 7738461375 = SLEIGHBELL. 5318008 = BOOBIES. He taps another bunch of numbers. Proudly shows me the calculator screen. ELIBELL.
‘Hey, Teddy,’ I ask. ‘At a school carnival twenty out of eighty tickets sold were early admission tickets. What percentage of early admission tickets were sold?’
Teddy looks into the rearview mirror. ‘C’mon mate, for fuck’s sake, how many twenties go into eighty?’
‘Four.’
‘So . . .’
‘So twenty is a quarter of the tickets?’
‘Correct.’
‘Quarter of a hundred is . . . twenty-five per cent?’
‘Yes, mate,’ Teddy says, shaking his head, stunned. ‘Fuck me, Lyle, don’t leave your tax return up to these two, all right.’
‘Tax return?’ Lyle says, feigning puzzlement. ‘That one of those algebra principles?’
The drug runs must be done on Saturdays because most of the third-tier drug dealers Lyle sells to have day jobs during the week. Tytus Broz is first tier. Lyle is second tier. Lyle sells to the third-tier drug dealers who, in turn, sell to the man or woman on the street or, in Kev Hunt’s case, the man or woman out at sea. Kev is a trawler fisherman who has a side business as a third-tier drug dealer supplying many of the users in the Moreton Bay prawn trawling scene. He’s out at sea most weekdays. So we make a drive out to his place in Bald Hills on a Saturday just as he likes it. It’s good business. Lyle adapts to his clients’ needs. Shane Bridgman, for example, is a lawyer in the city who has a side business as a third-tier drug dealer for the George Street legal set. He’s always at work and never at home during the week but he sure doesn’t want any drug deals taking place in his office, three buildings down from the Queensland Supreme Court. So we make a drive out to his place in Wilston, in the inner northern suburbs. He makes the deal in his sunroom while his wife bakes blueberry muffins in the kitchen and their son bowls medium pacers at a black bin in the backyard.
Lyle is masterful in these Saturday deals. He’s a diplomat, a cultural ambassador, a representative of his boss, Tytus Broz, a conduit between the king and his people.
Lyle says he approaches a drug deal in the same way he approaches Mum when she’s in a bad mood. Stay on your toes. Stay alert. Don’t let them stand too close to the kitchen knives. Be flexible, patient, adaptable. The buyer/angry Mum is always right. Lyle bends his emotions to the buyer’s/Mum’s feelings at any given moment. When a Chinese property developer bitches about council red tape, he nods his head empathetically. When the head of the Bandidos motorcycle gang bitches about the poor quality of the revving in his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, Lyle nods with what looks to me like genuine concern, and this is the same look he gave Mum the other night when she was bemoaning the fact that Mum and Lyle never make an attempt to befriend any of the other parents at our school. Just make the deal, kiss the woman you love, take your wages and get out of the room