Uh, Brandy

A Story by kay

Michelle Brandy enters the world of The Underground Economy.

The air around me is yellow and stiff. The world feels paused in the neglected side of the city. The buildings are small apartments stacked atop each other. They release a strong sewer odor, which is not blending well with the burning oil and smoke coming off the factories located on the outskirts of the city. The inner city is a ghost town. No movement except the blowing wind and the occasional street rat running into the shadows after being startled by my foot stepping to close. I can see the alleyway now; it’s dark and wet. Puddle water is soaking my socks, leaking through the mesh of my shoes. Leftover rain is still lightly dripping from the downspouts from the storm last night. My nerves grow harsher until I can see my silhouette on the grey painted door. It’s a side door leading into a two-star abandoned sushi restaurant. Goose bumps ripple up my arm as I grip the cold, metal door handle. The hair on the back of my neck stands up; my ears start ringing; the mundane sounds around me become amplified as I am hyperaware of what I’m about to do. I twist the handle. I am about to make a transaction in the underground economy.

I start climbing down the metal stairs, gripping the railing until my knuckles go white. The smell of nicotine and sweat is suffocating. There are three men sitting on old leather couches, the kind you find peeling, left at the side of the road with a ‘free’ sign on it. The expensive suits they’re wearing are a contrast to the smell of the cheap cigarettes they’re smoking and the state of the couches.

“Who is this?” calls one of the men.

“Michelle,” they stare at me. “Uh, Brandy,” I stumbled trying to remember the name I was told to use. An alias to protect my identity.

“Michelle Brandy?” the man wearing a blue suit clarifies, I nod. He looks to be the oldest of the group. His hair greying in the respectable kind of way, gelled and combed back neatly. His neck is covered in tattoos; he has the most tattoos out of the group of men. Possibly signifying that he has been involved in the underground world the longest.

“Yes, sir,” my voice comes out louder than I expected. Not as shaky as the first time.

“Well? What do you think you’re doing here?” the same man asks.

“Mr. Sahur sent me,” I say, my voice steady as I pull out a folded brown bag from my left trench coat pocket.

“You work for Mr. Sahur?” a second man speaks now, this one wearing a black suit.

“Yes,” I pull the money out of the bag. A three-inch stack of straightened hundred-dollar bills.

“What are you looking for?” the man in the blue suit speaks again. The third man, in a mulberry suit still hasn’t spoken. He only sits, leaning back on a couch, in a relaxed state, watching.

“A kilo?” I responded.

“That’s enough, I guess,” he says, looking at the stack of money, counting it in his head.

The nerves that I had been able to shake off hit me again. Forcing my hand to be still I hold out the cash, letting the man count it. “Alright, bring it out,” the man in the blue suit says to the others.

I watch as they pull a white brick wrapped in plastic out of a floorboard from underneath one of the couches. I pull on black leather gloves I retrieve from the opposite pocket of the money. They hand me the white brick. I press the hidden button located in the palm of my glove with my thumb. The door behind me bursts open as the RCMP barge in, surrounding the three men with their guns raised shouting at the men to put their hands in the air. The officers are shouting various commands at the men and each other. My ears are ringing as my nerves wear away. I stand in the middle of the room watching as the officers force the dealers on the ground, searching them and the building. The officers pull guns out of cupboards and drugs out of floorboards. It forces me to think that something could have gone wrong. I could have gotten hurt. But I didn’t. I'm safe. It’s over.

The room starts to clear out. I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here. Long enough for the warm, yellow light of the afternoon to turn into the cold grey haze of dusk. I watch as the officers pull the men up from the floor and follow them out of the building to their cars and watch as they push them inside the cages back seat of a police patrol car. I feel someone grab my arm. “You did good today, kid,” an officer says to me. He walks off before I can think of a response. Before I can register who he was. I get led to an empty cruiser and wait in the passenger seat. Working with the police forces you to see how dangerous the world is. I can't pretend to see the best in people anymore. I feel that everyone around me could be a threat. After being involved in an operation like this and conducting research on the lifestyle of the underground economy, I realize how easy it would be for someone young, looking for money, to fall into a life of drugs and crime.