Mistaken Identity...
In the mid '80s I was part of a group of caner ne'er do wells, doing our A levels. Our attire and haircuts were slightly alternative I suppose, but I didn't think it was weird enough to attract attention.

It started one lunch time, the first I knew of it was when, out of the blue, I was grabbed by the throat:
"If you sell her any of that shit again you're fucking dead!"
Bearing in mind I didn't know either the person who attacked me, or the person they were talking about, or what I was supposed to have sold her, I was somewhat flummoxed.

To cut a long story short, my bro had shared a doob with this girl at his school, she'd got an older boyfriend who was into smack, and somehow this 'guardian angel' who was her mate had made a quantumn leap to assuming it was me who was selling it to her.

It got worse. Continued threats of violence meant I had to 'fess up to my level (very minor) of involvement in the murky, hazy world of narcs, further exacerbated that (oh the luck of it) my form teacher was a family friend. Hmmm deputy head, parents, form teacher, cards marked.

Then it got weirder. An 'associate' of said hoodlum started ringing up, asking really obvious incriminating questions (prior to mobiles, all on home phone lines, fuck knows how he got the number) asking where he could score, if it was 'good stuff' etc, all proceeded by a rather obvious 'click' (like a panasonic mono cassette record button).

This was just before my A levels, and I was doing my best just to keep my head down and revise.

Then, most alarming of all, my bro's English teacher held him back after class, and said:

"I shouldn't be telling you this but I like you and your brother....they're on to you, watch out!"

Over the next few days, unmarked cars trailed us around. We lived on a cul de sac and it was pretty obvious we were being tailed by the drug squad. Scared the crap out of us. We were never taken in for questioning, and they obviously had better things to do eventually as we were totally squeaky clean by then.

The chap who grabbed me by the throat went on to join the police... and his associate wound up the wrong people later in life and got stabbed.... Makes me feel sick just thinking about the whole few months.
(Countryslicker, Tue 5 Feb 2008, 16:02, Reply)