The Art Of Hiding

There are many ways of going about hiding something. But ultimately they boil down to only two: The way that gets things found again, or the way that gets things lost. Both may be correct, depending on what you want out of the process.

A grieving widow may wish to hide her dead husband’s possessions in such a way as to ensure that they will not be found by anyone, including her until she passes, her children clear out the house and stumble upon them. Many a fortune has been made by unwitting house-clearers through such frivolous inability to deal with grief in a proper fashion.

However, if said widow was merely hiding her pension book, a few crisp 50s or a treasured photo, sandwiching it in between a couple of books on the bookshelf would probably suffice- it’s not going to bamboozle a burglar but it’s out of sight. Fine. Job done.

Once you have chosen the purpose, the reason you want to hide something, it’s time to work out your methodology. At this point you need to factor in three possible eventualities. Because hiding something is just the start. It’s what happens next that matters. And this boils down to one of three possibilities

First: you find it.

Second: Someone else finds it.

Third: No-one finds it and it is lost forever.

So ideally, when hiding things your ambition should probably be that your chosen hiding place is both hard to locate yet, for one reason or another easy to remember, given the appropriate amount of motivation.

A hiding place of significant personal and/or nostalgic value would be a good choice. It is, for example, unlikely that any would-be thief could guess you might bury some gold under a particular rose bush that you and your dead husband planted together.

Another hiding strategy, popular amongst hardened criminals is to find a hiding place so foul, so disgusting that no one in their right mind would ever think of looking in there. Hence, in raids on drug dens it is not uncommon for the police to find caches of drugs and guns taped, glued or otherwise affixed to the interior of an underground septic tank, U-bend of a toilet or some other such place of foul and nauseating repulsion.

The cops rarely look in such hideous places, but when they do, they often unearth something other than the body they are usually looking for.

These are extremes though. Not everyone is trying to hide a pound of heroin or a sub machine gun. In my case I merely needed to stash my glass pipe and a few other choice items of paraphernalia… my ‘works’ if you will.

I didn’t want them around, I didn’t want them in sight. I was determined to stay clean. But… for one reason or another, I was loath to throw them away.

I had spent some time trying to figure out exactly why I wanted to hide the works rather than toss them in the bin. They were by no means aesthetically pleasing, covered as they were in grease and soot and drug residue. Neither were they useful: My resolve was strong this time and I had no intention of using the fucking things. The deleted numbers of the junkies and dealers in my phone stood as a moderate testament to my commitment.

Maybe, I had thought, it’s like that packet of cigarettes the ex-smoker carries around in his glove box… just something to keep around. Something to give you a little peace of mind.

It was possible I suppose, but the idea of doing drugs was repugnant to me, and the presence of the works if anything made me a little uneasy, not least for the fear of discovery by some as-yet-unknown visitor who, upon seeing the well-abused glassware would make a snap decision and run out of the door in well-justified horror. So no. Comfort probably wasn’t the motivation.

I think I wanted to keep them as a reminder of where I had been, and where I absolutely was not going to be going again. Which made enough sense to me as anything. Proponents of the idea that an addict should rid himself of all remnants of his past addictions do so with fierce vigour and dogmatic tenacity.

I suppose it must have worked for them, and so, like all idiots who can’t understand the complexities of the human condition, believe that it will work for anyone.

But I hate to break it to you, imaginary AA guy in my head, If I want to get high I will. And if I ever do, the herculean strength of my desire to get high has not found an obstacle yet that can slow its unshakable volition. There is in fact nothing short of a city-wide drought that can stop a junkie from getting what he wants, and even then he will find alternatives. So, hiding his tools is not going to do the trick, especially when substitutes can be fashioned from the most ubiquitous of household objects.

I will never cease to be amazed at the industriousness, the creative innovation of a drug user in urgent need of a hit. I have seen pipes made out of whisky bottles, coke cans, apples, vases… the list goes on, so, it seems foolish to believe that merely removing the works from my possession would in any way hinder the desire to relapse.

Relapse was to be prevented by me not relapsing. I had no intention of going back to that life. I had moved all the way to other side of the world to escape the sick hell of London and… having tried the local drugs with empirical rigour could say with complete honesty, they sucked.

So, the works stay, my only weapon against relapse was to be my resilience.

But where to put them? I looked around the small bedsit. Contents;

One bed, without sheets;

One kitchenette, not working;

One fridge, surprisingly modern.

One wardrobe, in peeling pine laminate.

I opted for the wardrobe. Not because it was a particularly good hiding place- it wasn’t- but… well, compared to the other options, it was the only one that made any sense. I couldn’t exactly put it in the fucking fridge can I? The Wardrobe, I decided, would just have to do for now. I placed the works in a small cereal box and placed a couple of towels on top.

And as I stood back and looked at the little pile of towels under my row of shirts. I repeated to myself that I was, under no circumstances, going to use it.