AustLit

'Down at the Forth and Clyde where we drank at weekends and night after night in the week, Andy would come round with a big brown paper bag selling deals. Those were the early days when people came round offering it to you. You didn’t have to go round looking for it. You didn’t have to engage in a house to house search, an endless hanging out or desperate pilgrimage. It just came and you paid your thirty dollars and there you were. You didn’t even have to go down to the pub to deal with Andy. He specialised in home deliveries. Saturday morning he would cruise round Balmain with his brown paper bag, dropping in for an hour, and then off again. He never stayed long, just that hour, just long enough to disrupt your morning’s rhythm, and then off again, leaving you stoned and disoriented and disinclined to resume whatsoever it was you’d been doing. Not long enough for a social call. Not short enough just to see if you wanted a deal and then to leave you alone with it. Just an hour’s chat. Who’s doing what? What’s up where? Where are you off to? What’s new pussycat?' (Introduction)