Arrested for Hummus - Part II

The Heist of the Century

Read the first Part I of the Arrested for Hummus here

At the sight of us three, more than a few Sunday morning strolls were diverted.

Faz, Kat and I set a mazey course for our mark, zigzagging off cars and into hedges. We held each other up, for the most part, in disorderly show-girl formation. The supermarket was a mile away, as the crow flies, or two miles, as the crow flies, after ingesting solvents. 

The crew was in hoarse discussion over each other’s role in the heist. Eventually, it was settled. Faris was ‘the mastermind’, Kat ‘the muscle’ and I, with the most slippery underworld advantage of them all, was ‘white’.

That Breakfast of Scallywags set the tone for the day. The air was thick with the unreal texture of extreme intoxication. That level of fucked where the actions of the character a brain is controlling are messily divorced from the consequences. 

Despite what it said on the tin, the furniture polish* had neither cleansed or protected us - but had, indeed, lacquered every surface in sight with a glorious sheen.

With the smugness of hindsight, were we less polished, our execution might have been more so.

The first customers of the day, we greeted the supermarket brass with a suppressed giggle. Making a lazy zee-line for the only two aisles blueprinted on my memory: alcohol, by way of, deli. 

Safe to say, our six-legged rabble was not the typical, list-fulfilling Sunday morning shopper. What we lacked in stealth, we made up with the courage of a thousand Dutchmen.

The acute needs of my system had made the sudden and desperate shift from booze to snacks. Famously, my greed would win out over the usual disgust or indifference of any drug-induced state: a curry on pills, a pastie on acid and, for whatever reason, I had a damn-near-spiritual craving for crisps on solvents.

See: a curry on pills

My final role had been a toss-up with “the moneyman.” I was financing the operation with a fat bankroll of £1.65. That three-figure stake would only cover one crisp and dip combo.

One tub has never, and will never be, enough dip.

Faced with Sophie’s choice, I went for caramelised onion hummus. 

But, unlike Sophie, I took a stand. 

Sure a camera was trained on me, as I had been all morning, I stuffed an auxiliary hummus into my breast pocket. Then, for a nice change of pace, a cylinder of tzatziki down the front of my trousers. Without thinking, I kept it real and didn’t go for the Tesco’s Finest Range. Not today. This was no time for foolish extravagances.

Meanwhile, my slaphappy cronies were stashing goods up and down each other’s persons. 

Faris shoplifted a crate of Budweiser off the shelf, and dropped it onto the floor. The distinctive sound of beer wasted filled the store, clearing up any remaining doubts about our intentions. With the same robotic motion, he picked up another crate, like Donkey Kong readying for another barrel attack.

A step into our getaway, The Tesco Security Team sideswiped us.

The TST (for inter-aisle comms) were the usual pudgy fleet of turned-down cops and craven bouncers. Proud archivers of each other bodyslamming meat out of crackheads’ pockets. Quite-tall men who can't walky the walk, but can talky the talk. TST do you copy? Clean up in canned foods OVER. 

It was only a matter of time before they discovered the extent of our black market platter.

Overall, the three of us were exactly half white and half not: Faris, Asian, Kat, mixed race, and me, caucasian. With the way these things work, sadly, the chances of us all getting arrested were straight down the middle. 

The guard on me was a towering bungalow of a man. Security is the only profession where rank is exactly correlated with height. At all of 5 foot 11.5, he was the one divine ruler of the Tesco aisles - and boy did he know it. 

My paranoia, as it turns out, was intuition. With the practised sternness of his craft, he fished that dip straight out of my pocket. They were watching me. Great. There’s nothing worse for a stoner’s mental health than vindicated paranoia.

“What have we got here, then?” the big man gloated, pendulating the appetiser in front of my face, like a wrap of confiscated skag.        

“That’s Humous, sir. Caramelized onion.” I yielded, channelling the humouslessness of my situation into matching the humourlessness of his expression.

Even a rough stock check would reveal the inventory of my downstairs deli counter.

“Have you got anything else on you, I should know about? Anything dangerous? Anything sharp on you?”

“Some tzatziki, sir. In my groin, sir.” I said. “It does have quite strong minty undertones, sir, but I would not go as far as to say sharp, sir” I didn’t say.

After a steady scan of my ‘sirs’ for earnestness, the Chief Dip Inspector settled into his power trip. The intensity of which had him one formal address from spaffing his Tesco-issue camos. 

There, buried deep in the guard’s rear, I could smell hope. We were just three arse-nosed apologies away from freedom and a great story. 

But the crew had their hearts set on incarceration and a better one. 

As a big old teddybear, in the eyes of girlfriends**, or a big old pussyhole, in the eyes of anyone else, the TST had grossly overestimated my threat. 

Leaving ‘the Hurricane’ undermanned. 

Katrina was cursed with the strength of ten men. Around that time, a rumour was circulating she was the biological niece of former WBC world boxing heavyweight champion, Frank Bruno - a rumour, I still don’t know the validity of.

The smallish mallcop was grappling with a violent storm and a career change. Each time Kat bucked up in the air, she carried her momentum into a four-strike-combo. Sometimes landing with every limb at her furious disposal. Sometimes all at once.

Meanwhile, the Tesco-value Cicero was swaying through a tirade at - or, at least, towards - a bewildered-looking security officer. In all his years of loyal service, the guard had never been confronted with quite such an incredulous shoplifter. 

In Faris’s crossed eyes, the intervention in his leaving a supermarket with a novelty-sized Toblerone in his hood was an unconscionable miscarriage of justice. 

Faz’s drowsy fireside gravitas was falling flat. As it usually did, anywhere outside our band of smart fuck-ups, who worshipped the ground he slept on. 

“Guys, please, calm down, if you don’t calm down we’re going to have to call the police,” the big man pleaded.

Stuck in the middle, I was the slurred voice of reason. Running the same routine that’s grovelled me out of pissing on occupied police cars, while white. 

Utilising my god-given talent, I was playing it as white as blindingly possible. I mean, bumblingly apologetic Hugh Grant white. 

Frrrrrrrrrrrrightfully sorry officer, there clearly been some sort of ghastly misunderstanding here, sir.

My fellow heisters were taking their roles just as seriously. 

‘The Muscle’ was channelling the in-tight power game of her rumoured uncle “Iron” Frank Bruno, MBE. As Kat kick-punched-punch-kicked, she released the death-squawks of a burning bird of prey

Faris ‘the Brains’ Ahmed was citing some obscure bylaw, with a lucidity not often found in the solvent misuse community.

 “You simply cannot arrest me. The sum of the goods, allegedly, stolen was less than two hundred British pounds. This is an outrage, an abomination, this would get thrown out of court.”

Accepting the situation was beyond salvaging I entered the scene they were causing, and waited for the police to arrive.


Read part 3 of the Arrested 4 Hummus saga here. ** Look away for spoilers ** I get arrested.

 *It’s been drawn to my attention we were, in fact, huffing lighter fluid, not furniture polish. I would like to take this moment to apologise to you, my loyal readership, for this vile deception. As you know, I pride myself on my journalistic integrity, as you also know, particularly on matters of huffing. I hope you can find a way to accept my sincere and heartfelt apology.

**I’ve had two. That’s plural, ok.