AR’ BACK YARD

Manchester was the one place in the country that everybody was talking about. The year had been fantastic. Some of the best parties organised were growing into bigger better things all the time. Our weekends were filled purely with clubbing and the best parties.

Before anybody knew it, one year had flowed into another and Manchester had become known in the press as ‘Madchester’ due mainly to bands like the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, The Charlatans and 808 State to name only a handful who were constantly in the press for one reason or another. It was mad business wise too. We’d stepped up into a new level with the ever-increased sales surrounding Es and an assortment of other drugs that were now in demand.

All the hype was down to the media plugging of Manchester constantly, but to us it was still town; it’s the place we’d grown up in. we thought the ‘Madchester’ hype was for the tourists.

Also around this time though, gun culture had crept into the culture with the increased sale of crack-cocaine or rocks as they were referred to. On the estates like Moss Side and along with ongoing disputes over the smack business had furthered the increased use of guns.

But despite our other successful areas of business, smack was still one of Prey’s best money-makers. As dirty a business as it was it was the one drug that they came back for time and time again.

No matter what is done to try and stop heroin use, it will always be here. So with all the wars going on around town, especially behind us with Moss Side fighting constantly, either with themselves (the estate was split into different areas) or with Cheetham Hill, Prey had us arm ourselves.

He’d used some contacts through Chan to make sure the guns were clean. And I have to honestly admit, I loved the feeling of power I got when handling my piece. The crew choose an assortment of different handguns. Personally, I went for an Italian model that was light in weight and didn’t have anywhere near the same recoil that Prey’s Austrian Glock did. Although the Glock was a lot lighter in weight than my Beretta 9mm model 92, as it was made from polymer, I thought the kickback on the Glock was more lethal than the Beretta.

It had also caused one hell of a row with Donna, as I’d left my pistol on the bedside table, which wasn’t the brightest of places to leave it, I know. She’d gone mental over what I needed a gun for. Then she’d burst into tears when I’d explained I needed it for protection; she sobbed for hours about how she couldn’t bare losing me.

Another issue at hand was the ever-increasing demand for crack-cocaine on the estate. A lot of the smack-heads were mixing it on the foil to make it run longer when they were chasing it.

Prey had asked Sean and I to meet him round at his flat to see what our thoughts were on getting into the business ourselves. ‘So what do you reckon then?’ he enquired after we’d sat there debating whether or not we thought that we should enter into that side of things.

‘We’d be dumb not to Prey,’ I simply said.