A very pleasant good day or good evening to you, whatever the case may be. What follows is the second part of a story that began in the last installment of this show. If you missed the first part, I would highly suggest checking that out before continuing here, as otherwise, you won’t have a rat’s chance in a snakepit of knowing what’s going on. You’ve been warned.

The substance in the little envelopes looked a bit like raw rock salt, if you’ve ever seen that stuff. Dirty grey crystals that don’t look in the least bit appetising or even edible. But this was not rock salt, it was MDMA, sometimes known as “Molly” in this, its crystalline pure form. When manufactured into tablets, it is known as Ecstasy, and I’m sure you’ve heard of that. But the pill form of this drug is often weak and sometimes cut with real nasty things that hurt people. This was the good stuff.

Now I knew for a fact that Rex had indulged in this particular substance, as we had discussed it at length during a late night drunken trip round and round the Mechanical Skyway run. Me, well I fucking love the stuff. I’d even go as far as to say that the combination of MDMA and the devil’s weed is about the most fun you can have next to flying all over Kent in Professor Niels Rauch’s fabulous airship, (but that’s another story). As for Griff, I wasn’t sure whether he had indulged in this or any other drugs, or whether, frankly, that was even a good idea, but he did have a smile on his face as he gazed at the dirty crystals.

So the three possible scenarios were these: 1) we turn the drugs over to the police, 2) we sell them and split the money three ways and 3) we keep them for a personal supply that would last a VERY long time. I think it is safe to say that while no one was seriously entertaining option 1, we may have been split on the other two. Personally, I was strongly in favour of option 3 and knew that realistically, this was the only way we could possibly go. I estimated that there were roughly 50 grams which would net a street value of around £1,500. That’s a juicy 500 quid each and I could see Rex’s face twitching with thought of it. The problem was that we would have to actually sell the stuff, and that would make us drug dealers. Or, to put it more succinctly, middle aged men selling drugs to teenagers. I knew with adamant certainty that this wasn’t going to happen, but I didn’t think the full implications had broken through Rex’s greed barrier yet.

At this point a couple of things happened very quickly. The first was that Griff suddenly popped the entire contents of an envelope into his mouth and fell to the ground gagging with the disgusting bitter taste of it. The second was the intrusive sound of a car pulling up onto the footpath in front of the PRPG entrance and screeching to a halt. Through the small opening we could see the car doors opening and legs that looked like they didn’t belong to teenagers getting out. We didn’t have to have a group discussion to know that this was not a case of bursting locals stopping for a pee. These were clearly the owners of the drugs and people who might carry guns, or at least big sticks. In all likelihood they would hurt, or even kill us us, even if we gave their drugs back, because that’s what the nasty criminal types always do in the movies. So obviously there was no point in giving the drugs back, right? Of course these were a lot of assumptions to be making with absolutely no facts to support them, but we all sort of telepathically agreed that pain or worse might ensue if we stuck around to substantiate our facts.

It is at times like this that truly primitive instincts kick in and one suddenly finds oneself doing extraordinary things. In this case, we ran. Instantly Griff was on his feet and we were all three running extremely fast down the length of the PRPG towards Sandhurst Road direction, trying not to trip over logs and debris. We did this because, well, everyone was following me and I looked like I knew where I was going. And actually I did. If we could get there before our pursuers caught and butchered us, we might have a chance. I turned around just to check if we were indeed being pursued and ascertained that yes, we were. About 30 metres away three large looking men were making a decent clip through the leaves towards us, shouting most of the obscenities and threats you would expect, plus some new and novel additions which would warrant examination at another time.

Very quickly we reached a dead end and had to stop. Our choices were to either tunnel through the thick foliage to the footpath beyond, something we didn’t have time to do, or just stand there and wait for the inevitable. There was no other way out. Or so it would seem. I quickly moved into the dog leg to the left, where invisible to our pursuers, I began lifting a large section of fallen wooden fence from the ground where it lay entangled in vines. I shouted for the boys to help me and soon we had extricated it from the weeds and lifted one end to reveal a small hole with a metal ladder descending down into darkness. Neither Griff nor Rex needed any encouragement and began descending immediately, while I held the fence aloft. I quickly followed suit, letting the “lid” fall roughly shut over my head, releasing a choking torrent of dust and debris on all of our heads.

We tried our best to cough quietly as we descended in complete darkness for about 10 metres, eventually reaching the end of the ladder in the form of a concrete floor. And for a a minute or so we just stood there in the darkness listening. We heard footsteps on the wooden fence far above and then nothing. We waited a bit longer and then we all concurred that the thugs must have assumed we bolted through the shrubbery to the footpath, and were now quickly making their way back to their car. The problem was, we weren’t sure of this and none of us was going up that ladder to find out.

Where were we? Well as any resident of Tunbridge Wells has probably guessed by now, we were standing in one of the over 45 miles of tunnels that run beneath our good town. The tunnels have a long and detailed history and this is neither the time nor place to delve into it, so I shall limit the details to those you need to know at this time. Fact: the tunnels are manmade, the earliest dating back to the sometime in the 18th century, the most recent dug a few weeks ago by the Steam Guild (again, another story). Fact: some of the tunnels are dry and some of them have varying amounts of water running through them, from a trickle to a full blown river. This is not sewage, mind you—the tunnels are completely separate from the town’s drainage systems (at least in theory). Fact: some tunnels are public, easily accessible and mapped, some are private and owned by businesses and the town council, but the vast majority are obscure, largely disused, unmapped and known only to various fringe elements of the T-Wells populace. We were standing in one of the latter.

Fortunately this was a tunnel I knew reasonably well, having discovered it by accident a couple of years ago. At that time it was being used by a group of Ratters for hanging and smoking purposes. Now you may be familiar with the term “ratter” as one that describes a type of terrier dog used for catching rats, but in Tunbridge Wells the word carries quite another meaning. In local subterranean culture the Ratters are a group of people who live in the tunnels and trade in various rat-derived products. As you might imagine we have quite a rat population in the tunnels, and we even have two species that exist nowhere else in the world. In this particular tunnel, the Ratters used to smoke and age Hograt meat. The Hograt is a dog-sized animal that is actually delicious, especially when smoked and matured for over six months. It is considered a local delicacy. The products produced in this tunnel would have been very expensive, and could even have ended up being served at posh restaurants like Thackeray’s or The Treehouse.

But now the tunnel was deserted and we needed light. I grappled for Griff and requested his lighter. You know those torches that the villagers always carry in the movies as they’re on their way to lynch the monster? The ones that burn like they’ve been dipped in petrol because they probably have? The ones that never, ever go out even when they’re dropped to the ground violently? The ones that you absolutely know beyond all shadow of a doubt couldn’t actually exist in the real world? Well down in the tunnels we’ve got those, or at least the Ratters have. They’ve been using some combination of rat fat and who knows what else to make torches for at least two centuries. And let me tell you that these fuckers burn baby, like nothing you’ve ever seen! I had a pretty good memory of having seen several of them down here, but that was a long time ago. We needed to find one before Griff’s lighter ran out.

Well we needn’t have worried because a yelp of pain from Rex informed us that his head had found something protruding from the wall. Yep, the lighter revealed a typical Ratter torch bracket, constructed of bones, and in it, a reasonable looking torch! I told the boys to stand back, touched the flame to the business end and ducked. If you’ve ever tossed a match into a puddle of petrol (kids, don’t try this) you’ll have experienced something similar to what happened. Yeah, these things burn and frankly, the amount of light this one produced, caused us all to squint until we got used to it.

Now I started to feel buoyant, because we had a near inexhaustible source of light, a bag full of free drugs and I knew exactly where we were going. We would emerge into the light of Dunorlan Park in no more than 15 minutes.

Fifty seven minutes and 23 tunnel intersections later we finally did emerge from Stone Hatch in Dunorlan Park. Apparently I didn’t remember the route as well as I thought and unfortunately we never entered a public tunnel or saw another person to ask directions. This will give you an idea of the scale of things below Tunbridge Wells. Exhausted, (especially unfit and vastly over-exercised Rex and Griff) we fell onto the grass and just lay there for a few minutes, eyes shut, just soaking in the peaceful sounds of the monorail, water taxis and kids playing. You could just hear the Skyway gondolas clanking into Dunorlan station at the top of Sandrock, and the sound began to lull me to sleep. But just as my drifting semi-conscious thoughts began caressing bags of drugs, a cheeseburger and a woman named Sonja, I was suddenly aware of my name being spoken by Rex, with some urgency in the tone.

I opened my eyes and followed his pointing finger in the direction of a group of small children playing down the hill. In the midst of the children was a grown man doing what appeared to be an Irish jig and joyfully singing in an unrecognisable tongue that in no way resembled Gaelic. The children were delighted. The man was Griff. Rex and I locked eyes as realisation hit us both like a hammer. Griff had eaten an entire gram of MDMA well over an hour ago and was now out of his fucking mind! In unison we were on our feet and running down the hill. But things took a turn for the worse as Griff, idiotic grin on his face, now appeared to be attempting to cuddle some of the children. His voice now soared to a completely new level as he launched into a rendition of “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye – a particularly poor choice of material under the circumstances, but hey, he was wasted. And now horrified parents were quickly rushing the group, some of them with phones to their ears. “Fuck!” exclaimed both Rex and I, again in unison, as we picked up our pace hoping to reach Rex before angry fathers did. Still, the kids were loving it and screaming with laughter as Rex grabbed one in each hand and swung them around. He was going to ache tomorrow.

So far today we had been lucky, but now Griff’s luck seemed to be running out, as a father reached him, grabbed a child from his arms and hurled vitriolic abuse his way. In response to this Griff only smiled and attempted to hug the father. This resulted in Griff suddenly being on the ground with the angry man’s hands around his throat. Fortunately we had reached the scene by this time and Rex grabbed the man and pulled him off Griff. As both Rex and the man tumbled to the ground in a heap I quickly grabbed Griff, still smiling stupidly and slightly foaming at the mouth, yanked him to his feet and began running up the hill with him. Rex somehow extricated himself from the father and followed us a few paces behind, screaming back to the crowd “This man is under medication! I’m a doctor!”

We had nearly reached the car park before I had the nerve to look back. We were not being followed. The crowd of parents just stood there staring at us, all of them now on their phones. It was official: we were now paedophiles in the eyes of those parents and the police, who were clearly on their way. Griff was now mumbling about space travel and was having to be supported by both Rex and I lest his legs give out. We needed to get him down to Rex’s place on Garden Road before the authorities arrived and arrested three perverts carrying 50 grams of illegal drugs.

But Rex was now staring in horror and pointing (he likes to do this) at the car park ahead. “That’s them!” he cried, as I again followed the trajectory of his arm. What he was pointing at was a parked car that looked suspiciously like it might be the one that had pulled up at the PRPG. Next to it three men were standing with their backs to us, looking up at the Skyway station. There was no way to be sure it was them—we simply hadn’t had a good enough look before—but they seemed to fit the bill. Without thinking we turned sharp right and began moving as quickly as possible out of sight of the car park. We were now practically having to carry Griff between the two of us, as he flailed wildly as though attempting 1980s dance steps and babbled about space habitats and aliens loose on the internet.

Our best bet now looked to be exiting the park at the Hall’s Hole Rd exit and hopping on the monorail. But to do this we would have to circumvent the centre of the park where angry families dwelt, and make our way to the other side of the lake. This meant taking the steep and circuitous route down the side. And this while carrying the flailing funkster that was Griff, who had now broken into a not too shabby Barry White and was tearing off “Your Sweetness Is My Weakness” at considerable volume.

Somehow we got down the hill and were making our way around the lake, when Griff suddenly spotted a group of geese, bolted from our grasp and stumbled in a Frankenstein monster sort of way towards the terrified avians. The geese took to the air and Griff took to the water, face first, in a huge splash that capsized several radio controlled sailing vessels in its wake. Angry OAPs began slowly advancing as Rex and I dragged Griff from the water and manhandled him towards the exit as frantic choruses of “Jungle Boogie” now erupted from his lips.

Eventually we cleared the car park and somehow managed to pull him up the stairs to the monorail platform. The southbound train was just arriving, and as either direction was going to take us equally out of our way, we got on.

As the train pulled away from the station and the towers of Dunorlan Wind Farm fell behind us, we began to relax. Or at least Rex and I did. Griff had his face pasted to the window and appeared to be drooling down the glass a bit, as he mumbled incoherent things, now having apparently finished singing. Yes he had taken an exorbitant amount of MDMA—about four times what I would have taken for a really good time—but we doubted there would be any lasting damage. Griff is an impetuous sort. He will routinely do extreme things just to shock people. At the pub, he will often grab a stranger’s pint, quickly drink it down in a few gulps and then buy the person another drink. He has also been known to do almost anything on a bet, the examples of which are too numerous to go into here. Let’s just say that it came as no surprise to either Rex or myself that Griff had popped the contents of that envelope into his mouth back at the PRPG.

As the train neared Broadwater Down we briefly considered getting off at Bunker Station and letting Griff sober up in the café there. But we quickly abandoned the idea as the Bunker Cafe is generally populated by criminal types and chavs who might sniff out our drugs, murder us and steal them. In any case, the train would soon loop around through the Common and then deliver us into the town centre. Rex and I started discussing plans for how we were going to use the drugs, now having eliminated both scenarios 1 and 3 from the equation. I, of course, would consume mine by myself at home, with loud music on my iPod and pop videos on my screen, while Rex would enjoy his with his imaginary girlfriend whom we all knew didn’t exist, but never let on.

At Bunker Station a young female busker got on and began giving us her version of “La La” by Ashlee Simpson. She wasn’t bad, and I wholeheartedly approved of her choice in material. I was just digging some change out of my pocket to give her when Griff leapt up suddenly, stumbled across the carriage and began joining her on the choruses. The three other people on the train who had been conspicuously ignoring the busker, now became noticeably uncomfortable and fought ever harder not to make eye contact. The busker seemed pleased to now be part of a band and warmly welcomed Griff’s contribution. To be honest, they didn’t sound bad, even given Griff’s condition, and the busker laughingly shrugged off his attempts at both hugs and kisses. She was a good sport, clearly diagnosing Griff’s drugged condition and going with the flow.

By the time we reached the town centre the two monorail minstrels had gotten through The Beatles’ “Dr Robert” and a stirring rendition of “Blackout” by Muse, which reduced Griff to a weeping pile of mush on the floor. It was all we could do to drag him off the train at Town Hall Station, amidst tears and the insistence that Cat, the busker, was the woman of his dreams. I passed Cat a fiver for putting up with us and she assured me it was her pleasure and that she would pop by The Opera House sometime to see us.

And speaking of The Opera House, that is exactly where we headed, if for no other reason than it was mere paces from the station. But also because we never go anywhere else. It was 6:00. Cocktail hour.

Truth be told, our story really doesn’t properly continue until many hours later, and the events of the intervening five hours can best be summerised in a numerical list (not necessarily in chronological order):

1. Six pints each consumed by Rex and I. Eight large Jack Daniels by Griff.
2. Griff remains largely unintelligible and sits drinking like a zombie until around 10:00.
3. Bag of drugs and possible uses discussed.
4. Various local politics discussed.
5. Conversation with Professor Niels Rauch about his airship nearing completion.
6. Altercation with barmaid resulting in injury to Rex’s left eye.
7. Griff stashed in store room upstairs (with full glass) so that...
8. Rex and I can nip over to Kitsu for noodles.
9. Altercation between off-duty Moleman (tunnel police officer) and angry Steam Guild member. Blows avoided.
10. 18 total trips to toilet, Griff requiring assistance.

It was around 10:00 when Griff finally started talking coherently. Needless to say Rex and I were rather intoxicated by this time, and frankly ready to call it a night, but we diligently stayed focussed on talking our friend back down to reality. To this end we kept the Jack Daniels coming and studiously avoided subjects like the bag of drugs, which might disturb him in his fragile state of mind. Eventually we were all three having something that resembled a normal conversation and were laughing heartily at the expense of others.

We left The Opera House just after last orders and walked down Calverley Road, then Lansdowne to Garden, where Rex lived, and where Griff had left his car. Of course we weren’t allowing Griff to drive home to Langton Green. He would crash on Rex’s sofa, after we all enjoyed a nightcap.

We wearily and drunkenly climbed the three flights of concrete steps up to Rex’s place and within moments were all seated comfortably with whiskys in hand. “Alright Griff,” I said “whip out the bag of drugs and let’s see how much we’ve got.” Griff looked at us both with a puzzled expression on his face. “Drugs?” he said, “I dropped the bag back at the PRPG just before we went down the tunnel. Those guys looked mean!”

And for the third or maybe fourth time today, Rex and I looked at each other and screamed that infamous and overused four letter word that I’m sure you’re all too familiar with.