Andrew Drew The Line...

The same untidy clump of hair...
The same tired eyes, reminding him of many sleepless nights...
The same nose, broken in two places, but with fresh remnants of cocaine residue from the previous night.

"Where the hell was I last night?"

Andrew continued to gaze into the mirror, not really knowing what to look for.
He didn't look a damned bit different.
But why did he feel so?

It was probably because he was going to wash his hands off all the dirt he'd been nestled neck deep under.
The flurry of events last week had been a real eye opener.
The death of his mother...
And his girlfriend Katherine leaving him, forever...
He had been doing a great job of cleaning up his life since last Sunday.. Barring last night..

"Really! What the hell happened last night?"


Everybody wants to live the life of a dealer at some point of time in their lives.
He's The Fonz of all druggies.
He is always there when they need him and they're always in awe of him.
He is a life saver. He is a miracle worker.
He. Is. Cool.

Andrew was a damn good dealer. And he knew it.
It was a shame he had nothing to leave behind. No legacy. And he'd gotten really attached to his little one room apartment.
He carefully picked out all the pebbles he'd laid around the cactus and shoved them down his left trench coat pocket.
His right still bore the evidence of a previous deal, gone bad.
Andrew had sat witness to one of the biggest drug brawls in the history of downtown Manhattan.
A bullet claimed one half of his ear, but he managed to get away with a pound of pure, safe inside 'Wesley', his right trench coat pocket, aptly named after his dead grandfather.
(Legend has it that his grandfather also had as much coke inside him at most times.)

Andrew knew he would be clean once he managed to sell this burden he had been dragging along for over 2 weeks.

He scraped at the freezer with an old ice pick as discretely as he could. The ugly swelling on his head was turning a shade of purple and desperately needed some ice.
"Something bad happened last night!"

That was when he saw the note.
'Stan - meet me at Hope & 6th at 9:30. Get that load off your back.'
Andrew had found a buyer. But when? Last night?

He glanced at his watch, one of the few things that he owned.
In five minutes, Andrew was already tiptoeing out of the apartment, lest he wake up the large Mexican woman lying naked in his bed.


It wasn't difficult to find Stan on a cold, November, Sunday morning.

[What transpired between Stan and Andrew is best left to what we'd already assumed as happened. A buyer found. A burden lifted.]

Andrew was supposed to make the drop at half past 10, for a whopping million quid. Andrew had no idea the stuff was worth that much, and immediately regretted having hastily agreed to sell, just as Stan also regretted not having quoted lower.
But Andrew was desperate to clean up and Stan owed someone a favour in return for not having to stare at the muzzle of a gun and so, negotiation clearly wasn't a prerogative.

They checked into a hotel room at night and waited for the buyers to arrive.
Andrew didn't think much of Stan. He knew he wouldn't last another month. Not in this part of the city. But then, he was thankful Stan didn't really feel much like talking.

And then, the door opened...


12:00 am

Andrew walked slowly, careful not to slip on the newly formed layer of ice on the sidewalk.
He jealously clutched a piece of paper in his hand.
A paper that bore digits. Numbers of a Swiss account and the illegible signature of a wealthy business mogul.

Still, he wasn't delirious with happiness. He didn't feel like bursting into song.
He felt guilty.
His mind was plagued with thoughts about how he shouldn't keep money that wasn't his, money that he had gotten out of doing what he wanted to stop doing.
The cheque slowly started to appear like the very pound of pure he had been trying to get rid of.

Andrew was slowly approaching the corner and felt uneasy about the whole ordeal.
He knew that last night was just like any other night in his life.
Involving unknown people, unknown places, hard drugs and sex with unknown women.
And he would never be able to forget what he wanted to leave behind because of this slowly crumpling piece of paper.
He stopped to ask a man at the corner what time it was.
His watch had stopped. (Was it a sign?)

*Realisation*

Even as he turned around the corner, Andrew was already taking long strides and his pace quickened.
His sweat dried up and his face broke into a healthy smile.
Katherine lived just a couple of blocks away. He would convince her about his turning over a new leaf and maybe, just maybe, she might forgive him.

Of course, Andrew knew that he would never tell her or anyone else about the million dollars.


The man with the open guitar case around the corner had yet to realise he'd become a millionare...



Author's Note:
For starters, I don't know jack about Manhattan, so places like 'Hope & 6th', the extent of claiming the biggest drug brawl, and the frozen ice on the sidewalks are all a figment of my imagination, more so attributed to my sheer lack of willpower to find out anything about Manhattan...

Everything is fictitious!
Including names, places, sex scenes, drugs, the methodology of purchasing drugs, the roles & responsibilities(?) of a drug dealer, and finally, the english words that helped frame this story.