by Alan Duff
OI! BOY? WHATCHU crying about? Someone hitchu? Whyn’t you hittim back? Cantchu fight? You a crybaby? Mulla aksed the boy. He happened to come out of the side door to the big (locked) gates of the HQ, on his way to buy some smokes, clear his head from anutha good pardy las’ night.
Then he noticed the girl jus’ in front and when she saw him her lack of fear surprised Mulla. And the firs’ thing he thought was, she old enuff to fuck? ’Cept she wasn’t. Not even to him. Maybe to some of the boys but not him. He was no child molester. An’, tell the truth, he felt sorry for the kid to jus’ come out on him like that, crying. Then he remembered how he mus’ look to the kid, even though the Browns were part of this street and had been for years, the closeness of a fulla tattooed up with spirals and fern-curls in ole Maori warrior design would prob’ly be frightening. So he smiled one of his bedda missing-tooth smiles, Or someone ya know die or sumpthin? he toned the question down.
The boy looked at the girl, Mulla saw her nod jus’ the once, and seein’ the boy didn’t up and run it meant she’d tole him, prob’ly her brutha, he was alright. And he liked that, bein’ trusted by a kid, a girl at that. (And a pretty bitch, too. Real pretty.) Hungry, the words came out of the kid’s mouth. Took Mulla Rota back in the instant to his own (fucken) chilehood. So he went Yeah? Are ya? That right, ya mother don’t feed yas, she’s what, out on the booze sumwhere? Playin’ cards down the road at your aunties, when he meant it aren’t-ies, as in not being real aunties jus’ what the ole lady tole her kids to make it seem alright to be playing cards all night with aunties rather than jus’ mates. Up an’ gone to the Housie, plays six cards atta time and leaves the cubbids empty, that whatcha crying for, boy? Or what? It jus’ poured outta him, did these words from Mulla Rota, aged thirty-six and over half of that time spent behind bars, of the mind and heart, too, and much of it locked back there in the chilehood that’t jus’ burst from ’im.
No. She’s broke. Broke, the sister echoed, so they were sticking up for her. Like everyone ’round here, the sister added. Which brought a li’l smile to Mulla’s tattooed features, Oh, tha’s alright then. Was thinking you mighta had a ole lady like mine (a bitch). And he reached into his jeans pocket now filthy like they were sposed to, came out with a handful of notes, tens and twenties, they’d las’ night done a good kaygee deal to a honky gang who were neutral, one of the few who were, and so everyone in The Family was loaded. Here. He handed the boy ten bucks. Go buy you ten pies, cuzzy. Feeling all soft as he offered it. All soft. But trying not to show his Santa Claus grin.
But the boy looks at his sis firs’ — Mulla saw the subtle nod; he liked that, respected it, specially from jussa girl what, ’bout twelve. So he peeled off anutha ten. Here. For you, too. Go on, take it. Pointed a cut-off mittened finger at each in turn: An’ don’t be telling no one. Ya hear?
Yeah, they heard. An’ don’t be thinking I’ll give you it every time ’cause I won’t. (I ain’t no easy mug can be taken for a ride, used.) The las’ thing the girl tole him was, Can’t buy ten pies with ten bucks. They’re a dollar eighty each. Which was double what Mulla las’ remembered paying for one, mighta been less. The changes a man inside missed. Oh, well, such is life, hahaha! Walking down that Pine Block street feeling, you know, pretty good. Laughing at the thought of smokes — tailor-mades, not roll-your-owns — the price they must’ve gone up to. Shet, if a man couldn’t afford to smoke then he may as well not live. And laughing cos he felt good. Come to think of it: real good.
TEN
THEY’D GOT IN so close to her they had her walking backwards, to keep them off, pawing at her, mild slaps (so far). Bunch of homie girls who’d changed after school and caught her coming home from a late study period; mean and thinking they were so cool in baggie dark trousers, sports jackets, a couple of them with baseball caps turned backwards. Living in a world of false assumptions, thinking they were like the real thing from America. (Can’t even be themselves.)
Two with shades, even when the day was overcast. They with the most mouth, teasing, taunting her with names, spat poison, and not as if she’d done them any wrong (it’s for existing as I do) got themselves into a lather at her being, it didn’t take much guessing, a try-hard.
No reason in their ugly forming of crowding (crowd) faces, Polly Heke could see it missing like a hole in them, a truck driven through their centres (of life, girl. Of the life) her own inner hurt worse that they were Maori girls like her, doing this because she was going well at school. She remembered her brother Boogie (now look where he is) had experienced the same, teased, taunted, in his case beat up, by his Maori peers for being the same thing: a try-hard. The same kids who walked around with sullen lips and permanent scowls at this world not being fair to Maoris, and increasingly so Polly Heke had noticed in the last few years. The same who blamed their lack of progress on everyone and thing but themselves. Ask any Maori kid doing, or trying to, well at school where their pressure came from.
She didn’t try and talk, she knew the faces well enough, the pack they moved around the school in and that she was one of many (or any) they did this to, it was just her turn (it’s just my turn, my unlucky number’s come up); the eyes bereft of reason, faces of girls twisted into expressions of boys, of violence therefore, aggression, blind belief in what they were and what they were doing — words weren’t gonna work with them. She knew that. More than anything on a late afternoon in this better part of Two Lakes (so I thought) Polly Heke knew this was her turn for the gauntlet.
One of them, a fat girl hiding herself behind shades (as if that reduces your size you idiot) shifted the mood on: What are you, bitch, a fucken HONK now? The question raced through their faces like a stone in a pond. To be so accused. You been working late, have ya bitch? It was the shades gave the extra edge to their nastiness. Another shaded one announced, Well she ain’t one of us now is she? As if a girl had to be. And all their heads starting going from side to funny side. Far’s we’re concerned she’s a reej. Meaning reject. She wanted to tell them surely you have to be a member before you can be a reject. But someone slapped her face — hard. And she knew it was all changed then; for a moment, it was so very fleeting, Polly Heke felt like the daughter of her father, ready to lash back, to — (go to work) the words flashed through her mind like some genetic memory. But only for a few seconds, maybe not even that long. Then she braced herself. And the blows started coming.
AT HOME, BEFORE the mirror of her dressing table, bought by her mother but at Charlie Bennett’s suggestion since Beth — who everyone still called Beth Heke that’s how much the bastard’s name stuck, his reputation — didn’t know about bedroom furniture items, just like she didn’t know much about life being other than a basic issue of day-to-day survival. A chest of drawers was just drawers to Beth, and she got shitty at Charlie teasing that he’d have to educate her on the wider ways of the world, like the restaurant he’d taken her to, a first, their humorous recounting of it.
Before the mirror as she remembered her mother before the cracked bathroom mirror back in Rimu Street, Pine Block, looking at her beating wounds about once every month, maybe more or it could have been less, Polly wasn’t counting the times, just the hours, the days, the years, for when she’d be old enough to leave all this behind her. (Oh, but not life itself, like my darling sister, please no.) Except it had happened that her mother, and Grace’s circumstances, did it for all of them. And now they had a stable father-figure in their lives who was going to be horrified at seeing his step-daughter like this, with a black eye and bruises on her face, shoulders and back from the punches that pack of girls had rained down once the fat bitch’d started it. All for working hard at school. Not for being Maori suffering at the hands of whites (as some did, no denying) but for being Maori suffering at the hands of Maori to whom the whole notion of success, having goals, being ambitious, was as if a threat to them, the collective. (They beat me up because I want a better life?)
It did occur that in her anger of wanting her
attackers to have the same violence inflicted on them, Charlie wouldn’t consider that as one of their — their: he called all matters affecting them our problems, which always lessened the load — options. Yet right now, looking at her marked reflection, especially the black eye where the punch had felt like a bus had hit her, Polly Heke had aching only for revenge of the same type as she had suffered. Thinking of the punch that it was the first time in her life she’d been punched like that, with full force; as Mum liked to boast, Jake hadn’t hit his kids. And having a stern mother meant the siblings grew up not hitting each other either. No, it had to happen from members of her own race, the same who claimed they were so staunch to each other. The fucken liars who claimed they knew and understood more as a people about love than the whites they, yes, hated. (Fuck them! I hate them!) Why don’t they leave me alone?
The tears ran again, she knew her mother would urge her to be strong, to shed her tears quickly and get on with attacking the problem causing them, that’s how she talked, guess she would after sixteen years living with him, the bastard. Polly’d shut the door on Hu, didn’t want him seeing her like this. (Same thing my mother used to do, shut the door, go away kids, I don’t want you seeing me like this.) Thank God it was girls who’d done this, not a boyfriend, or a man. Otherwise a girl’s life might be mirroring her mother’s. Astonished at what it felt like inside at being physically assaulted; as if she had been raped, violated. So she wept again in thinking of Grace’s sexual violation; hating so much of the world.
AT HER DOOR he heard her, wanted to rush in ask why she was sobbing. He hated the sound of pain, of emotional hurt. And he had caught a glimpse of her eye, so he knew she’d been hit. He wanted to go and hit back. He wanted to sort out whoever had done this to her. Already he was the tallest in his intermediate class, the strongest, the best all-round athlete, but not a fighter. (But I could be if I had reason.) He could feel the strength in him. But refused to consider from what genetic source. (I hate him.)
He didn’t remember his father like Polly did. Nor Grace and nor his oldest brother Nig (man, they shot him, the Black Hawks did. They shot my big brother and he shot one of them.) Charlie the only adult male figure in his life who counted; every day he looked forward to Charlie coming home from work. It was Charlie’s (Dad’s) reassuring and calm presence, his attention to whoever was speaking; his surprises of food treat for the house, especially shellfish from the fishmonger’s. Hu liked to have surprise of his own, a chore done around the house, hiding behind the door and springing out on Charlie (jus’ an excuse for a hug, Hu!) Hu’s sporting achievements were part of the evening routine as they sat around sharing each’s day with one another. There was no other man Huata Heke — he wished his mother would change that damn name to Bennett, even if she wasn’t married to him — wanted to be like than Charlie Bennett. Every night he went to sleep with that wanting.
One of Charlie’s strictest house rules was no violence nor even talk of it. A rule Huata embraced, in perfect accordance with his nature, despite his physical prowess. (Like my big brother Boogie.) Though right now, hearing his sister in that state, had his young (Jake Heke) muscles flexed and surging with desire to get the person or persons. Stuff it, he could stand it no longer. He grabbed the door handle, walked in.
Who did it? he demanded of her mirror reflection. Go away. No. Who did it, Poll? She turned then, her eye … He closed his eyes. But the eye was still swollen when he opened both his. Don’t be forming fists, Hu. Which he didn’t know he had done. He forced his fingers rigidly straight. Poll, who did it? Girls did it. (Oh.) No boys with them? No. And if there was, you know the rule. He knew the rule; so he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Now what?
Now what? She looked like their mother in that moment; from memories he thought he didn’t have, in asking the question not of why she had been hit, but why the life handed out her, that’s what Huata Heke’s sister was asking. But their mother again as Polly turned the expression into a slow, managed smile with her arms outstretched, How about a hug?
HE WAS SO hyped up and anyway in instant disapproval (at a time like this?) he whacked away Mookie’s offer of a joint he’d jus’ lit up, Nah man. Makes you too easy. Las’ thing we fucken want. Throw it away, man. Later. Later we c’n get stoned off our fucken faces. I said: throw it away. And to show he meant business he took over hefting the block of steel-reinforced concrete they were lifting onto the back of the ute and finished the lift by himself. The rear end of the Holden ute sagged with this third weight added.
Le’s go, it came out like his final words on this planet. Which they would be if the job, the bizniz, didn’t get done.
The journey into town was one of forced self-discipline, of telling Mookie to shut the fuck up from telling him to go faster; he wasn’t breaking no speeding laws, no nothin’. He jus’ wanted to get there, and get it done. Mookie cracked a cupla cans, which he didn’t mind, beer was alright, a can or two, settle a man a bit, though he did tell Mookie, don’t be sticking that can up in the air and advertising us, man. Alright? Yeah-yeah, alright, man, you fucken worry too much. And he swung on Mookie in the confines of their single-cab transport: Mook, you’ll be the one worrying if this fucks up. Unnerstan’? Mookie’s silence told him he understood alright. This night equally important to the two young men.
They drove past their back-up vehicle parked, of all the places, in a firm of solicitors’ carpark on the street adjacent to the one he next sat parked up, watching Mookie walk casually down the street, Mookie’s hand flicking out as he scattered the z-shaped nails onto the road. Then he moved forward and picked Mookie up and, with pounding heart, it was all on.
Engine screaming, but not as loud as his mind was, as though this act of this night meant more than even the utterly important event it was; as if it meant his lifetime (and others’ shortened ones) as if the entire meaning of his existence on this earth hinged on this, which is why, for once, he was wearing a seatbelt and so was Mookie but only on his orders — Oooooffff! Jeezuzfuckenchrise! that was why the seatbelts, the shattering behind them, the force of the jolt like ten-thousand punches in one as they reversed into the very building. Looking at each utha in that milli-sec mo of hearing the short shriek of metal being assaulted, how the ear picked out the descending order of sounds, the last tinkle of glass pane, the last sag of window-frame falling, a man’s senses so sharp that mighta been the last of dust and light debris he could hear falling, too.
Out they jumped from the reversed vehicle — (holy mack-’ral!) brought up short for a moment at the damage they’d done in just a few seconds: one moment it’d been a bank front and an automatic cashcard machine, the next it was one of those sites after the demolition ball’s been at it. Mookie broke the silence: Man, it fucken worked … Which it had, close to. Wait a sec. He jumped back in, drove the ute forward, slammed it back in reverse, hit the pedal, dropped the wheel left, and put that ute in under the ATM machine like a (good) daddy scooping up his child.
Just a few rivets with last cling as they rocked it hard a few times till it fell the short distance onto the back of their rear-weighted vehicle, back in they leapt. LE’S GO! he roared it this time. Had their departure path exactly picked out, between nails (to flatten the tyres of any John Citizen cunts, or the cops) everything — every-thing — so clear he could have been stoned on good head, or it could’ve been one of those dreams like he’d read somewhere of diving visibility in the South Pole being three kilometres, that’s the kind of dream he meant. ’Cept this was fucken real — he punched Mookie’s arm, We did it! Laughed when Mookie pulled away holding his arm going, Yeah, alright, man. No need to knock me out. But then he laughed, too. How they both laughed. The more when Mookie pointed out the windscreen, Jus’ watch where ya drive, bru-tha, might be nails lyin’ around! Oh how they laughed.
THEY, THE PREZ, the newly released from jail sergeant-at-arms (with the most disturbing eyes a man’s ever seen) several of the bros, counted out the last (sweet
) stack of notes, new, crisp, (man, almost glowing) then the prez got up from the (dirty) floor on his filthy (cool) black jeans, for a moment his smile caught between showing leadership and jus’ plain poor boy grown up not ’specting much, or not dough, from this life and yet here it was, thousands and thousands of the sweet stuff — they heard him take breath, as well saw the look he shot at the sarge, still with the eyes of green ice (for me, I know that an’ I know why. But I’m here, aren’t I?) told them, Eighty, boys … A long pause.
There’s eighty of the big ones you brung us here. And the room was silent; the mouths were slightly agape even when they were trying not to, of everyone fighting to regain the reality they were comfortable in, which wasn’t this (it wasn’t this they were comfortable in, this was cell talk, pass the time away of anutha sentence brag, of the BIG job they were gonna do when they got out, but no one, or not many, ever did, and even those few got caught). But THIS, this’d happened; and to make it worse, by two pros’s not them, the fullas sposed to be the bigtimer hoods, the gangstas, the patched-up with ferociously proud gang-insignia tough cunts.