 |
Roger Rabbits with |
Do I look like El Chapo? A drug lord?
Or an alleged narco‑terrorist bunked up at the dodgy one‑star Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn?
Was I meant to be selling the drugs, or buying the drugs? Or maybe I was mistaken for a drug‑addled geriatric?
So many questions. I’m confused.
Because the other morning, at a respectable 10.07, in a vaguely respectable suburban shopping precinct in quaint old Tauranga, I got hit up.
Not for “spare coins”, but by someone checking my recreational drug use. Or trying to do a deal.
“Do you use marijuana?” he asked me. Straight up. No messing. Just blurted it into my face.
“Do you use marijuana?” he repeated. I was under interrogation and I had no answers.
Was he wearing a wire? Was the drug squad listening? Would they kick in my front door if I answered yes?
Sputtered and stuttered
A nondescript sort of bloke, mid‑30s. I fumbled pathetically for a response.
Something clever‑dick like, “No, I’m just high on life.” Or “I’m more a mainlining and cocaine kind of guy.” Or any of that euphoria‑and‑energy‑inducing party stuff.
As long as the party finishes by 9, because age dictates I have early nights.
But I missed the moment – just sputtered and stuttered and said, “No. Not really.”
Not really meaning no, not ever. Does a dry sherry aperitif count?
Why did he want to know? And before I could ask, the man I suspected of trying to broker an illicit drug deal thanked me kindly and shuffled off down the road.
I will never know, and my curiosity is killing me.
2026 was only three days old and the year was already turning to cold custard with an impenetrable skin on top.
But I was also delighted to discover that Tauranga, with all its delightful aloofness and pretension, also has its allocation of crazies, whackos and weirdos.
Makes us more big‑city and colourful. They’re probably all Auckland cast‑offs anyway.
‘Neck minute’
I had just been popping into the supermarket to buy supplies for Saturday‑morning scrambled eggs. Mundane stuff.
“Nek minute” I’m pondering the modus operandi of drug dealers. Why would they conduct business in broad daylight in a public place?
Perhaps that’s a cover in itself. What would I know?
Not appearing suspicious – blending – is the art. I would have thought sunglasses, hoodies, darkness and isolation would have been a crim’s best friends.
In my day I looked more like an enforcer than an indulger. I looked like a cop apparently – I know because I was told so. Often.
It was probably the civvy CIB uniform that did it: groomed, dress shirt, tie, suit. Haircut every three weeks. When I had hair.
Bonjour Behemoth
Then a guy who should be able to sniff out a plain‑clothes man, who’s probably had his share of face time with police, confirmed it for me.
He stared at me in the public gallery during a manslaughter trial – a behemoth of a man with a clenched fist and a bulldog wearing a German military helmet tattooed on his face.
Not a good look. But if intimidation was the aim, it worked perfectly .
“You a f*****g cop?” he inquired of me during a break in proceedings. “What are you doing here?”
“I am not a cop,” I stammered back at Behemoth. “I’m a casual trial‑spotter. A justice hobbyist.”
I explained that some near‑deads like me do scrapbooking, gardening and line dancing.
I enjoy the real‑life drama of the courtroom. I probably qualify as a crazy, whacko and weirdo.
Enter Black Widow
As a young court reporter, I knew another trial‑spotter – perhaps the original. “The Black Widow” – always in black, with bright red lipstick trowelled on. Anywhere between the nose and the chin was fair game.
Every day she sat studiously through a concoction of the sad, the serious, the trivial, the tedious and the titillating – the stuff that makes a courtroom such an intriguing place, if you’re not about to be sent down by The Beak.
One day The Black Widow didn’t front – and we sensed the Judge was on the brink of signing a warrant for police to seek, find and return her.
Perhaps they did, because TBW was back the next day. A sense of ease and normality descended over the court again.
King v Fuel
Oh! And the Behemoth – after I convinced him I wasn’t a snitch or a cop, he became my new best buddy for a day or two.
We chatted – he almost cried with pride for the Warriors league team; he explained why low cut Red Bands were his footwear of choice; and how he was petrified of a forceful mum who wanted him rid of gangs.
We also argued burgers – King versus Fuel.
So one day I am going to order a Triple Whopper and explain it’s on the recommendation of the Mongrel Mob. That should get a reaction.
On my way home from the encounter with my marijuana‑mystery man, I cleared my mailbox.
There was a mass drop of pamphlets to help me “recognise the three stages of work done by one God”.
They were coming at me from all directions.
