Party Time_Raving Arizona Read online

  Party Time: Raving Arizona

  Shaun Attwood

  First published in Great Britain by Gadfly Press in 2018

  Copyright © Shaun Attwood 2018

  The right of Shaun Attwood to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author, except in cases of brief quotations embodied in reviews or articles. It may not be edited, amended, lent, resold, hired out, distributed or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s written permission

  Permission can be obtained from [email protected]

  This book is a work of non-fiction based on research by the author

  A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

  Typeset by Jane Dixon-Smith and cover by Mark Luscombe

  For Hammy, Hotwheelz and Wild Man

  Spelling Differences: UK v USA

  This book was written in British English, hence USA readers may notice some spelling and grammar differences with American English: e.g. color = colour and = jewelry = jewellery

  Acknowledgements

  A big thank you to Penny Kimber (proofreading), Mark Swift (Editor at Reedsy), Jane Dixon-Smith (typesetting), Mark Luscombe (cover design)

  Shaun’s Books

  English Shaun Trilogy

  Party Time

  Hard Time

  Prison Time

  War on Drugs Series

  Pablo Escobar: Beyond Narcos

  American Made: Who Killed Barry Seal? Pablo Escobar or George HW Bush

  The Cali Cartel: Beyond Narcos

  We Are Being Lied To: The War on Drugs (Expected 2019)

  The War Against Weed (Expected 2019)

  Un-Making a Murderer: The Framing of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey

  Life Lessons

  Pablo Escobar’s Story (Expected 2018)

  Two Tonys (Expected 2020)

  T-Bone (Expected 2022)

  Social-Media Links

  Email: [email protected]

  Blog: Jon’s Jail Journal

  Website: shaunattwood.com

  Twitter: @shaunattwood

  YouTube: Shaun Attwood

  LinkedIn: Shaun Attwood

  Goodreads: Shaun Attwood

  Facebook: Shaun Attwood, Jon’s Jail Journal, T-Bone Appreciation Society

  Shaun welcomes feedback on any of his books.

  Thank you for the Amazon and Goodreads reviews!

  Contents

  Spelling Differences: UK v USA

  Acknowledgements

  Shaun’s Books

  Social-Media Links

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Where are they now? January 2018

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  Shaun’s Books

  Social-Media Links

  Shaun’s journey continues in Hard Time New Edition

  Shaun’s journey concludes in Prison Time

  Other Books by Shaun Attwood

  About Shaun Attwood

  Chapter 1

  We approach two drug dealers, lads about our age, 20, skulking in a corner of a dark nightclub, skulls shaved.

  ‘Can we get two hits of Ecstasy and two grams of speed?’ my friend asks.

  My fingers and legs start to shake.

  ‘E’s £20. Ten for a wrap of Billy Whizz.’

  ‘Here you go.’ My friend offers our money.

  The dealers exchange looks as if pondering whether to rob us. My body stiffens like plaster setting in a cast. One snatches our cash. The other passes the drugs imperceptibly. They vanish. I worry about getting arrested for possession. It’s 1989, and drug deals rarely end happily on my TV. Bracing for undercover cops to grab us, I spin my eyes around the room.

  My friend yanks my arm, rushes us to the toilets, locks us in a stall. He reveals two white pills and speed meticulously wrapped in little paper rectangles. ‘You put the Billy Whizz in your drink,’ he whispers, tipping white powder into a bottle, ‘and swallow the White Dove.’

  Buying drugs is one thing, taking them another. Will I be hooked for the rest of my life? My fear of ending up in an ambulance and my parents finding out recedes as the thrill rises. I can experiment a few times, have fun, quit whenever I want …

  ‘Come on, get on with it,’ he says, having taken his.

  I dump the speed into a bottle of Lucozade, pop the pill, take a swig and gag on the chemical aftertaste. Oh my God! What happens now? I turn to my friend. ‘How long before I feel it?’

  ‘Within the hour.’

  My friend is a fellow student at the University of Liverpool, where I’m doing Business Studies. Raves are making headline news, so I’m at The Thunderdome in Manchester to find out what all the fuss is about. The bare square room with a stage at the front is unimpressive. Only a few people are dancing to music that makes no sense. Repetitive beats and beeps like signals from outer space. Most of the ravers are standing by the walls, gazing at the dance floor as if expecting an elephant to materialise. Nightclubs intimidate me. I feel shy in them. I don’t dare talk to anyone other than my friend. Convinced I’m about to overdose – die, even – I spend the next half-hour checking my pulse, timing the beats per minute.

  An expression blossoms on my friend’s face as if he’s having an orgasm. Exuding the kind of bliss seen on angels in medieval paintings, he can’t stop smiling or stand still. ‘Let’s dance,’ he says. Having disliked dancing since the days of punk rock, I say no. He bounces off. I regret letting him down. Frustrated that the drugs aren’t affecting me, I finish my drink. I walk towards the bar. My knees buckle and the strength drains from my legs. I try to soldier on but wobble as if on sinking sand and have to sit down.

  Someone kicks me. ‘Sorry, mate.’

  Staring up at a happy raver in baggy jeans, I break into a smile that wraps around my face and refuses to go away. There’s a strange feeling on my back. Has a bug landed there?
I reach over my shoulder to slap it off. No bug. It’s the sensation of my T-shirt against my skin. Running my fingertips up and down the nape of my neck feels like feathers are tickling my skin. Or are my fingers melting into my skin? A sensation so pleasurable, I massage myself. Breathing feels different, too. Each inhalation pulses pleasure through my body as if I’m getting fondled by an invisible woman. Smiling at the forest of legs growing around me, I remember I was going to the bar – but that doesn’t matter anymore, nor does losing my girlfriend, the engine problems with my car, the calculus-heavy 5,000-word balance-of-payments essay due on Monday morning … The high is demolishing every worry in my life, leaving me no choice but to be happy with the way things are.

  The club fills. Time is irrelevant. Ravers are everywhere, a kaleidoscope of coloured clothing. Hugging, grinning, grooving, jumping happiness machines, raising the temperature with their body heat. My desire to join them gains strength; it’s just a matter of time. My high keeps rising, interrupting the flow of my thoughts, making my eyeballs flutter upwards as if under the influence of the moon’s magnetic pull. Hot, I want to take my T-shirt off; pondering the urge melts it away. The music and beeping noises are making sense now. They’re saying, Get off your arse and dance!

  I’m bobbing my head, playing the piano on my thighs, when my friend finds me. He smiles. Our eyes sparkle in recognition of each other’s highs.

  ‘Come on,’ he says.

  I follow him into the thicket of bodies. He starts to dance. I jump from side to side, trying to find my groove, and settle into the same rocking motion as everyone else. I’m dancing, loving dancing, surprised by how natural it feels, experimenting with moves copied from those around me. My heart is beating hard and in time with the boom-boom-boom blasting from giant black speakers. My arms are jerking up and down as if I’m throwing boulders at the ceiling when everyone stops dancing. Has someone turned the music off? No. Only the beat has stopped, leaving a soothing sound. Hands shoot up. Whistles blow. A machine hisses out smoke. A black woman sings with beauty bordering on spiritual, tingling my skin all over. Piano notes are struck. We sway, our fingers reaching into the beams of the sun laser. An air horn sounds. Bracing for a lorry to plough through the club, I jump. The absurdity of the notion makes me laugh aloud. The soulful woman’s voice fades as DJ Jay Wearden mixes in a Guru Josh track: ‘1990s … Time for the Guru’. A saxophone solo sends a tremor through my body. My eyeballs shiver. In the square room that had bored me earlier, I feel as if I’m at one with God. I never want the party to end.

  Chapter 2

  I’m 12 and the lunch bell just rang at St Joseph’s. The herd drifts to the canteen.

  In a black blazer, grey pullover, white shirt and yellow-and-blue-striped tie, I jog to a corner shop, burst through the door – jingle-jingle goes the entry bell – rest my hands on a glass counter and ask, short of breath, ‘Can I get two ounces of pear drops and two ounces of strawberry bonbons, please?’

  Weighing the sweets, the shopkeeper wafts a smell of powdered sugar that wets my mouth. He puts them in bags and hands them over.

  I pay and dash down the road and across a field back to school. My customers are waiting. I sell sweets individually for twice the price, delighting in haggling. I accept a lunch coupon for pear drops. All sold out, I strut to the canteen for fish fingers and chips, the joy of profit jangling in my brain like the coins in my pocket.

  Thirteen and my parents – a secretary studying to be a teacher, and an insurance salesman – move from a terraced house near the centre of Widnes, a small chemical-manufacturing town, to a semi-detached in a neighbourhood where they believe the children are better behaved.

  I befriend four lads addicted to watching the same American street-gang movies. We christen ourselves The Sweats; the other boys in our neighbourhood are The Wets. When we encounter The Wets, we rough them up. When we don’t see them, we throw rosebuds at their windows to get their parents to chase us.

  We amuse ourselves in a variety of ways. We dash across motorways in a game of chicken, flipping off drivers. We stick our legs out of carriage windows in the path of oncoming trains, pulling them back in at the last possible minute. Whenever we find a dead cat on a road, we put it in a plastic bag and show it to local girls, animal lovers, claiming to have killed it in a satanic ritual. We find videos stashed in parents’ bedrooms. Watching horror movies, we get blazed on Southern Comfort. We masturbate to pornography, keeping an eye on the size of each other’s penises. We steal knickers from the washing lines of beautiful women, sniff them and wear them on our heads. We occasionally shoplift, even though we have money to pay.

  I don’t tell The Sweats that I watch birds, play chess, programme computers and collect coins and stamps.

  The leader of The Sweats is Dez. Tall. Curly-haired. The oldest. He specialises in tormenting his younger brother, Peter.

  I’m with The Sweats outside a pub called The Black Horse when Peter approaches.

  ‘Put some of that dog shit in your mouth, Peter, if you wanna join The Sweats!’ Dez barks, pointing at the ground.

  Peter spots the dog dirt on the pavement at the foot of a red telephone box. A lengthy central coil, tapering off at both ends, surrounded by sausage-like chunks, all light brown. ‘Any piece?’

  ‘Just put some in your mouth if you wanna be a Sweat!’

  Peter squats and pokes each piece as if prioritising them by consistency. ‘I’ll be a Sweat, right?’

  Revolted by what he is about to do, yet in awe, I step closer to get a better look, but the smell shoves me back.

  ‘Put some in your mouth, for fuck’s sake!’

  Peter picks up a piece, examines it, puffs. He chucks it into his mouth. His face puckers until he looks cross-eyed. ‘It’s fucking horrible,’ he mutters. ‘Is this good enough, Dez? Can I spit it out now?’

  ‘If you wanna be a Sweat, you’ve gotta swallow it,’ Dez cackles.

  ‘Yeah, swallow it, Peter Patheticus, or you’ll never be a Sweat!’

  Determination appears on Peter’s face. He gulps as if clearing a rock from his throat. He opens his mouth. Empty. ‘Urghhhhh … It’s nasty! I did it! I did it! I swallowed it! I’m a Sweat now!’ Scratching his throat, he stares at Dez.

  ‘You daft fucking bastard! I tricked you, you stupid git! Now fuck off home. You’re no brother of mine. You eat dog shit and you fucking stink. Get home before I beat the shit out of you.’

  Peter’s brown eyes glaze over in a sad way. He hangs his head and tries to leave. Dez trips him up. They stick their boots in. Feeling sorry for Peter – so young and vulnerable – I don’t contribute my Dr. Martens.

  After that incident, Peter knocks on my door a lot. Two years his senior, I take him under my wing. We hang out at a local petrol station, blasting his boombox, harassing The Wets and boys straying in from other neighbourhoods. At weekends, we offer a car-washing service at a pub. Peter gambles his earnings on slot machines, whereas I save mine.

  At 14, I elect to do Economics. My teacher, Mr Dillon, gives me extra classes on my own. He explains how to read the Financial Times and follow the stock market. From the library, I order dozens of books on the subject. I spend less time playing computer games and more dreaming of becoming a millionaire on Wall Street.

  The Sweats are on the prowl up Pex Hill, a patch of countryside at the top of Widnes. It’s a clear day, but I don’t care much for the view: buildings all the way to Liverpool, including two cathedrals in the city centre; on the banks of the River Mersey, eight giant cooling towers blotting out the sky above Fiddlers Ferry Power Station as if manufacturing clouds; in the distance, the mild slopes of the Clwydian Mountains in North Wales.

  Under an oak, Dez hawks phlegm, spits a green ball accompanied by considerable spray at a cloud of midges, scattering them, and tells us to forge tunnels through the bracken. We arm ourselves with acorns, pelt girls on horseback and take off into the tunnels on all fours like a pack of wild dogs.

  When the novelt
y wears off, Dez says, ‘Let’s go see who’s in the quarry.’

  We follow him along a footpath, winding around heather bushes and hawthorn, and elderberry trees giving off a musky perfume that refreshes my lungs. We squeeze through a gap in the railings around the quarry. I’m gazing at the graffiti on the sandstone cliffs – RAFFY, SEAN, NEZ AND NIGE – when The Sweats grab me. I’m forced to the edge and dangled over.

  Staring down – I’ll die or break my spine if I fall – I clench my sphincter, barely able to hold in what’s trying to come out. Terrified to struggle in case they lose their grip, I shout, ‘Stop! Stop! Stop!’

  ‘Teach you to hang out with my brother!’ Dez yells. ‘Let’s just drop him.’

  ‘Make sure he hits the rocks. We don’t want him to live to tell the tale.’

  They swing me back and forth for what feels like half a lifetime. Tears leak out; reluctant to add to their satisfaction, I scrunch my face to retain the rest. Eventually, they yank me up. Walking down Pex Hill, I swear my days of being a Sweat are over.

  Sixteen, but Mo, an aunt I worship – every time she gets a windfall, she flies me to Arizona and spoils me with endless shopping sprees – is changing the age on my passport to 21. Mo busts people trying to embezzle banks, earning her a reputation for being one of the toughest fraud officers in the Wild West. Through this work, she understands the ways of criminals.

  ‘Almost done,’ Mo says, running a pen over sticky tape attached to the curves on the left-hand side of the 8 in my year of birth, 1968. She lifts the tape. The 8 is now a 3.

  ‘I just aged five years!’ I say.

  ‘Now you can get into bars.’

  Later, we go to a nightclub, Zazoo’s.

  ‘ID!’ the bouncer yells over a Prince track.

  Trembling at the prospect of the alteration being detected, I surrender my passport.

  He examines it, hands it back. ‘All the way from England! How cool.’

  Mo smiles.

  Inside is a wonderland of neon lights, disco balls, adults dancing and well-manicured hands flaunting glitzy cocktails.