Despite my amusement, even from the very beginning I always had my suspicions that Ben was a bit dodgy, but I never really asked any questions or let my thoughts linger for more than a few seconds at a time. It obviously scared me, especially since I had grown up in such a small town with very little crime and a great respect for the law and the consequences of breaking it. Firstly, I often wondered what he was really capable of, which always made me very aware that our ‘relationship’ wasn’t real and probably never would be as I couldn’t be sure I was ever told the whole truth. Secondly, I was terrified that I would get into trouble with the police. At the same time, though, he was my best friend and I trusted him. All very confusing, I know, but that’s just the way it was.
One night, after picking me up from work, he stopped in Chinatown, as he said he needed to pick something up. As we pulled over, he jumped out the car and greeted a group of men in their early twenties who were all dressed in hoodies and whose trousers were stuck around their thighs. As Ben was casually talking to one of the men, another man opened the back seat of Ben’s car and put something on the floor. I turned around, a little startled and started to move clothes off of the back seat to make more room for him, thinking he was going to get in the car. He looked up and there was something in his eyes I didn’t like. I noticed a flash of metal on his waistband, and when I looked closer, I saw a gun. I immediately felt sick to my stomach and absolutely terrified. I had never seen a gun before and very melodramatically assumed he was going to shoot me. He didn’t speak a word, but as I spied a huge bundle of cash he had left on the car floor, he gave me a look that said he would kill me without a second thought and shut the car door. As I realised I had been holding my breath I gasped for air and stared straight out the front window making sure I didn’t make eye contact with the man again.
Of course, Ben hopped back in the car like nothing had happened and began chatting about the heavy traffic. I coolly asked, ‘Why did that man open the car door?’ trying to sus out whether Ben would tell me the truth, because, of course, I already know why.
He answered coolly and truthfully with, ‘Oh yeah, can you grab it for me? There should be 25k there.’
I grabbed the money and asked him what it was for.
He said it was to give to a friend to look after but when I jokingly responded with, ‘Oh, cool. Can we stop by Chanel on the way home?’ and he answered with a very stern, and slightly scared, ‘Do you want to get me killed? That’s the protection money’ I realised there was obviously a lot more to it than that. Although I had no idea what ‘protection money’ meant, I immediately got the feeling I should let the conversation end. Ben didn’t talk for the rest of the car journey and neither did I. When he pulled up outside my house he squeezed my arm, a little too tightly, and whispered in my ear ‘Never talk about this again,’ then gestured me to get out of the car, which I gladly did.
After that, I didn’t hear from Ben for three days which was very usual, but when I did finally see him again he had a black eye. Although I asked him about it, he made it very clear it was not something I should know or worry about. At the time, I was terrified I was going to die in a drive by shooting or something just as awful, but it is honestly amazing how quickly you get used to things and how rapidly they become the norm.
Now, that wasn’t the first time I had thought maybe Ben and his friends were a little ‘outside of the law’, shall we say. One weekday night, a few months after meeting Ben, I had walked into the kitchen alongside Ben to find a well-dressed stranger weighing and mixing a combination of white powders. As I watched him, he seemed to be mixing protein powder with another similar looking white powder he had into plastic bags. As I knew most of Ben’s friends were gym junkies, I didn’t really think too much of it. Maybe he was making up special protein drinks, I thought to myself. I remember thinking just for a split second it can’t be anything illegal as he is way to calm.
Ben, the stranger and I chatted for a while about our day, what I did, and other completely normal small talk stuff. The stranger was completely relaxed, so I had no reason whatsoever to be suspicious.
After a while, Sammy entered the room. At first, he was also relaxed and chatting away, but then he spied me sitting on the kitchen stool at the end of the counter, and he froze. He started speaking in a foreign language, and the tension in the room all of a sudden became unbearable. As he started to raise his voice, he was obviously talking about me, pointing at me but screaming at Ben. Ben stepped in front of me to protect me as Sammy scrambled across the kitchen counter trying to collect all the protein powder and bags, while continuing to shout something very angrily in a foreign language.
I was so shocked at this point, as it all happened so fast and seemed like such an overreaction, that I did not move. I was petrified. How had our afternoon chit chat about our days turned into this? I sat absolutely terrified watching the stranger and Sammy, who were obviously extremely angry, continue to shout at Ben but without saying a word to me. When both the stranger and Sammy scrambled out of the room with everything that had been on the kitchen counter, I turned to Ben in absolute shock. Strangely, he was smiling.
Annoyed at his sudden amusement when thirty seconds ago I had been terrified, I asked, ‘What was that all about?’
Ben responded, half laughing, half bewildered with, ‘He thinks you are an undercover police officer. He has done since the day we met!’
Then it dawned on me, with a few hints from Ben, what had just happened. Up until this point in my life, I had never seen cocaine before, but I honestly can’t believe I was that naive. I half laughed to myself, thinking about what sort of useless police officer I would truly make. I had no idea what was going on!
When Ben eventually calmed Sammy down and persuaded him that, in fact, I was not an undercover police officer, he apologised but I knew he was still eyeing me suspiciously, obviously still a little uncertain as to whether I was going to pull a gun out of my knickers at any point. Of course, Ben found it absolutely hilarious: first that his friends thought I was an undercover police officer and second that I thought they were making protein shakes for the gym! When he told me later that there had been approximately $100,000 worth of cocaine on the kitchen counter, I definitely felt like an idiot. As always, I tried not to ask too many questions but one question I just had to know was ‘Why was he adding protein powder?’ When Ben answered with ‘That’s how they make money; they mix it with whatever white powder they have,’ I remind myself never to take cocaine.
At this time Ben in fact told me that the night I drunkenly knocked on their apartment door, the night we met, Sammy had begged him not to answer the door because they had both assumed it was the police. ‘Who else would be hammering on the front door at 2am’ Sammy had apparently said. But because I had apparently knocked and knocked and knocked for at least ten minutes, while they ‘cleaned up’ the apartment, he had had no choice but to answer it before I disturbed other residents. When he had eventually opened the door he had first assumed I was a ‘customer’ of Sammy’s who was desperate for some cocaine! I sometimes wonder what my life would be like now if he hadn’t opened the door.‘Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting their own battle.’ — Unknown.