by Alan Duff
She knew with the same certainty of earlier that Grace would not have witnessed this dancing (surely), or she wouldn’t have killed herself. She would have taken hope from it, if she was here making miserable comparison with her own life back over her — Polly’s now — shoulder. But then again the rapes. (How could I have forgotten about that.)
Eyes over at the Rimu Street hill-line now, window slabs of light, the background glow they all gave off, no partying sounds, just dog barks, a tyre screech, and more stars revealed above it all. Back to the house and those hideous dancers, hands up to the bough Grace’s weight (she’s a Weight until the ground finally takes her) might’ve hung from, shed a few tears for her but more than enough shed now. (That’s enough now, Poll.)
And down Polly Heke climbed, with sure grabbing hands, swift, flowing descent, like her run along the lawn in the shadow of the brick wall was a flow into night with night eyes and sure feet, a flow through air, a freeing from a memory. Grace’d be alright now. And her now older sister, Polly, too (I’m alright. Now I am. Nothing to worry about. It’s done but I ain’t. Got my whole life ahead of me.) She couldn’t wait to get home, ask her mother did she know white people can’t dance, did she know that? Laughing as she ran out the gateway. Laughing she was.
TWENTY-TWO
THAT WAS IT! Fuck Cody and fuck his useless mates — Out! He lifted a snoring head from the floor (I jus’ put the vacuum that’s not a vacuum over it this morning, while that little cunt Cody was sleeping) slapped its face — hard. You. Muthafucka. Get the hell outta my house. And he flung the man (like I used to when I was a bouncer at McClutchy’s) except this time without any punches. Not as if the fulla was fighting. And he wasn’t big enough anyrate.
Over to another unconscious form, head hung over the sofa arm-rest near to the fucken floor, empty beer bottles at his feet, Jake about to yank a handful of hair but deciding it might be a nightmare to wake up to (no one ever did that to me. Wouldn’t dare, either.) So he gave the fulla a slap instead — Oi! Wake up. The fulla came up like he’d been shot, mouth open, what the? Don’t gimme the what-the, boy. This is get the — Get the fuck outta my house! (Well, rented from the State, that is.) Then he clapped his big hands together — loud. Up! Up! C’mon you muthafuckas, ’fore I make you clean up first!
Over to Cody, sat slumped in the corner, a beer stubbie still inis hand though he was awake now and looking at Jake in confusion and near makin’ a man feel so bad he’d change his mind. (No, fuckem.) Stuck his hands on his hips. Cody. (Shit, how c’n I say this.) Took another glance around to give him reason, at the fucken mess. Pack ya bags. Though he didn’t look Cody directly in the eye. And when Cody got groggily (on the grass I bet) to his feet and tole him he didn’t have no bags ta fucken pack, in that smartarse tone (as if I been doing this, having raging parties, all the time a huge mess, as if I lost my pride in myself when, sure, a man’s had his moments. But I always came back from ’em, from being down but not stayin’ down. Whereas Cody, come to think of it and I have thought about it, a lot, he ain’t fucken changed one bit ’cept for the worse. So fuckim.)
When he said that and in the tone he did, Jake went, Tha’ right? You got no bags t’ pack? Means you only got, what, a plastic shopping bag to stick your stuff in, get you out sooner? Good. Then do it an’ get. Ya hear? I mean it. Whole fucken lot of you, get.
Stood there looking — or daring ’em to return his look — at every man as he trooped out; Cody the last. Standing at the doorway, Jake …? With that look. Start remindin’ a man of what they’d shared, from when they were both bums, a man bum and a streetkid bum, living in the park in town. Jakey, me an’ you — No ya don’t. Nemine the Jakey, Code. Tole you a hundred times, I had enough. Trying not to remember that this kid’d accompanied him to his son’s funeral — was Cody kept nagging a man, ya should go, Jake. Gwon, I’ll come with ya. Wasn’t for Cody a man wouldn’t a shown his respec’s to his shot-dead son (fucken Black Hawks). Fucken gangs whatever stupid name they went under.
Jake, I wanna, I wanna change, man, honest I do. Can’t help how I been — Uh-uh. Jake wasn’t havin’ that shit. Ya can and you ain’t. But not my lookout, not any more it ain’t. Been cleaning up your shet for (six) years now, kid. Go get your own place — But Jake, it’s three in the fucken morning, man. But Jake shook his head, looked the li’l cunt right in the eye, with warning of the old Jake. Time to go, Cody.
It occurred to him after he’d picked up most of the empty beer stubbie bottles and cans in their different shapes of crushing, dented, twisted forms, the cigarette butts — on the fucken floor if you please, even if it is hard wearin’ carpet, ya don’t do that in another man’s house — and had to pick up spew — spew! — from a corner with a shovel and pan then scrub it with soapy water, then the kitchen mess like starving dogs’d been feeding, and havin’ a scrap while they were at it, that even as he was asking himself why did they get so drunk, so out of it wasted, he’d seen — no, (c’mon, Jake) ya mean done — all this before. Seen, and yet never seen, a hundred, a thousand times before. Even as he screwed his face in disgust at cleaning up their mess, even as he asked again why did they get so drunk, it was occurring at the same time that this was a mirror of himself, or what he had been.
Another thing, awake and sober at this hour had been damn near a first, a unplanned one, mind; they were out hunting — well, illegal spotlighting for deer hahaha — with Gary and Kohi and Jason along too (fulla never stopped tellin’ jokes. Had me laughin’ all fucken night. Or in between the excitement of a deer stepping into our beam which Kohi was directing off the cab roof of Jason’s pick-up, Gary driving, me and Jayse with the rifles) and kept coming onto them, four for the night, light-captured poses of innocence (poor li’l fuckers, dazzled by the light, can’t move, ya put the gun near right up to their stupid heads and fire. But it makes y’ heart go fast with excitement, and they’re worth good money, a good night is like making a week’s wages. We’re ordinary men, the fullas’t make the rules don’t unnerstan’ this, but fuckem, we’re out doin’ it anyway, hahaha!) But on the way back Gary took a corner too fast and they ended up over a bank, took several hours to get the truck out. And a man comes home to this.
He got a beer from the fridge (leas’ they left me some of my own beer I paid for with my own two hands — Well, not two hands on a shovel like I used to: the boss promoted me to a machine, a front-end loader. Handle it like I’m born to it. Could drive it with my eyes closed one hand tied behind my back — least they’d left him a beer to sit on a sofa and, you know, think about things.) Though since it was Beth’s face and accompanying voice kept coming back, as though she was here physically and he was pushing her out of the room but she kept coming back, it started to get to him.
Eventually he stood up. Yeah? Yeah, what do you fucken want, woman? Ain’t you had enough of my blood, my pride, my (innocence) right to my own life? Standing there clutching an empty beer stubbie at this ungodly hour when today, Saturday, was a rugby-playing day and he should be fresh, get plenty sleep so he played well, which he had of the coming to a close season, really well.
Standing there in the sitting room, suddenly aware he had no curtains so people — if they were up — could see him talking (yelling) to himself. Oh, fuckit. Who cares? Though he did move closer to the door to reduce possible vision of him. But first he checked the flower vase (gonna put some in it one day, yellow ones and throw some red and white ones in. Nearly did when Rita came round) to make sure it hadn’t been pissed in and if it had he’d be paying a visit to that bar they drank at in town, with their loud rap music and funny way they all dressed. That any of his kids — if he knew what they looked like now (ain’t set eyes onem in years) — if any of ’em dressed like that he’d — Well. (I’d be pissed off but then again what could I say? What rights’ve I got with ’em?)
It was like he was confronted by Beth. He didn’t unnerstan’ this, not as if he was drunk or hungover with the heebie-jeebie imaginings a man got w
hen he was hitting the booze day after day, he was near enough clean. Hadn’t had a drink since after rugby practice Thursday. Work the Friday and a pick-up at the new roading site by the Douglas brothers (laughin’ at bein’ in my ma-chine br-rooom-brr-roooom! HAHAHA!), an’ out to that (glorious) bush, not too far outta town, round this lake that you could shave yaself in, skate like one a them ice-skaters on teevee across its mirror surface, and forested hills in that mirror and birds V’ed against the fading sky, an’ the ones in the trees making last call to the day; slow drive down those pine-forest roads where a man’s thoughts were at one with, well, nature. No one sayin’ anything, as if to let the day go to sleep nice ’n’ quiet by itself.
Then the spotlight beam slicing open the night, like putting a hole in it, a big yellow/white widening hole, a magic ray seeking out game for men to kill. And that was alright, too: everything’s got a fit, a place, a slot in this life. Man’d come to unnerstan’ this, out in the bush he did.
Now here he was having a ’maginary row — talk? — with Beth. And first, she told him, siddown Jake. Please. Heard it as if she was right there (Oh, Bethy, I done you wrong I know that.) Which he did. But, you know, witha scowl ’n case she thought she was the fucken boss now after all these years (of bein’ apart).
By the time this imagined (turned out to be) heart-to-heart was through, Jake was quite emotional. The things he’d done, been reminded of. The pardies he’d thrown (and ruined with my fists, my temper, my wanting to all the time be the tougharse). Feeling kind of sorry. (For what I did?) Not that he admitted that, not aloud nor in his mind. It was jus’ a feeling niggling away there. It was knowledge, it was facts that weren’t quite any of that (not if I don’t want ’em to be. So fuck you, woman.) Fuckit, have another beer, to calm this knotty ache in his stomach. These unsettled, maybe challenged, thoughts.
And another beer (musta worked up a thirst having my firs’ beer-free Friday in, what, years? Forever of my youth and adulthood?) as his thoughts churned; all the memories of himself were unpleasant, like this scene he’d walked into (stone col’ sober!) those kind of memories, of rage-up pardies a man’d never given one thought to but of enjoyment — why ya have ’em isn’t it? — weren’t as if every one ofem ended up a fight, if ya don’t count backhanders and jus’ one-punch over-in-a-sec ones. So he kept downing beers to expel them (stupid fucken thoughts. You’d a thought I been the only wrong man in fucken Two Lakes, Beth. Did the same as every other man I knew. Tha’s right: same’s every other man I — knew?) Yeah, knew. Now that struck him (like I punched myself) that he knew. Including from his childhood.
Cos he sure’s hell didn’t know a one of ’em now. Not Dooly, not Sonnyboy Jacobs (who hit me a beaudy, firs’ one was in the guts took my fucken wind. Nex’ one was flush on the jaw, when it was always me who hit like that.) Sonnyboy who’d been in the kitchen drinking with a man, not long back in town from wherever the fuck else he’d been living, when Beth’d burst in, with that (fucken) letter, from Grace, (wrongly) accusing a man of doing what’d been done to her (my own kid?) and he’d got so wild (who wouldn’t?) he up and banged Beth. No he didn’t. He upended the table and he was going for Beth. Tha’s when Sonnyboy Jacobs stepped in. Who a man used to know. Like Jackie, Denny, Monty, Matiu, Bully, and ’specially Dooley (was my best mate) they were all used-to-knows.
But hadn’t a man won his own respect with a new set of friends? Hadn’t he shown the Douglas brothers he was made of the same stuff as them (and then some, once I came to unnerstan’ what was goin’ on, the rules of hunting, that it was patience and enjoying for itself, be it a creek to cross fifty times or jus’ the birds, carryin’ a pig, deer backquarters, even the biting mozzies, a man’d learned to become one with the experience; and once I learned how rugby worked and my part to play in it an’ unnerstood the coach, even though he w’s smaller than me, meant what he said when he told a man don’t you ever punch a man when you’re playing for me unless he punches you first or unless I give you specific instructions to take out a man with a reputation. Once I unnerstood that, and once I learnt the hard way that if a man ain’t fit then the game’s a fucken nightmare not a pleasure), and now a man was as if he was Jake The Muss all over again but yet without the Muss part cos — cos well, it didn’t really madda. Not really.
Not that Gary and Kohi were wusses. They just used violence if there wasn’t no other choice. Which’d happened only once in his witness at their pub and Kohi had put one fulla out one hit, bang, Gary took his man one-two-three and Jason’s punch was so quick — an’ hard! —Jake’d missed it. Nor had that left any of the would-bes for Jake to show how good he was. Nor did they speak but one word of the fight afterward. Just a shaking of their heads (like that dream humming, as one) as if they regretted having to do the bizniz but boy don’t be fucking with them Douglas Brothers. In big leddas like that, too. Well, di’n’t they not only respect a man but like him? Hadn’t they invited him on many occasions to their home, to their family gatherings where everyone got drunk but a nice, happy, singing, joking, laughing drunk that stayed like that and men went to sleep on it, not with grazed knuckles and tingling all over of (sweet) violence just been done (again)? Hadn’t they?
But fuckit, why should he be letting Beth’s memory tell him he was an arsehole? He cracked his sixth, or was it more’n that, bottle of beer; feeling bedder. At one stage yelling out of his thoughts, Shut the fuck up, Beth! Wondering why he’d separated her out from his angry outburst. (Why, Jake?) Who cared? He’d had enough her trying to tellim sumpthin’. (I’m alright. I done my time; it don’t have to be jail. Jail can be how you live on the outside in so-called freedom. Weren’t no fucken freedom having t’ live with that over me: even when I gave ’em my sample. Fuck Beth. How much’s she want of a man?) She, Beth’s ghostlike presence, kept trying to tellim sumpthin’ more. But he was many beers past listening (fucker. Done my suffering.)
CUNTS SPOSED TO be his team-mates were moaning at every turn at a man. Alright, he wasn’t playing so well, would they if they’d drunk till, what, ten this morning? Then hardly asleep when he got snapped awake by sumpthin’ (I think it was that fucken Beth, harp-harp-harping at a man even in sleep.) He didn’t know how it’d happened, hadn’t done a session like that for ages, and now he was paying — dearly — for it by not being able to get into the game.
The other team’d loaded up with young bloods from their gun Colts side, hungry fullas wanting another game having already played earlier. Young, fit, fast, mean and lean. Made a man feel his age.
He heard cheering from the sideline at someone coming on as a replacement, for a bullshit injury Jake was sure; halfa Two Lakes woulda heard the cheer, Jake told himself this was jus’ bluffing shit, to make his side think this was a real gun come on. Caught the smart cunt’s eye when he ran on and took his place at the side of the scrum, on the flank, openside. The hatred in the kid’s eyes. Quite got to Jake. But then so did it spark in him a desire to get his shit together.
Lineout ball sailed straight into his hands, other fulla didn’t wanna know, which suited Jake Heke. Like the gap opened up did. And he started his engine on full revs and went into it out into open country. Now he’d showem. The goalposts not that far away.
Felt like he’d been hit by a truck. On the ground, ball gone from his grasp, his team running backwards then after the ball going out along the other side’s backline, in time to see them score. (The fuck happened?) He’d been running out in wide open spaces looking for the support to pass to (and thinking I was gonna go all the way, so only making out I was gonna pass. Fuckem, criticising me earlier.) Then out of nowhere an opposition blue shirt and then the truck.
The replacement flanker was all over the fucken paddock (like he’s got them Energiser batteries inis boots!), tackling everything that moved, tidying up the loose ball, and making long, advantage-line breaking runs himself. Jake Heke, the fighter (the puffed fighter) in him admiring the man’s fine form, reminded him of Michael Jones, the All
Black. Or Zinzan Brooke, the All Black number 8 but he’d played at 7 and 6 as well. This young fulla might be one in the making, so Jake was thinking as he ran belatedly to a breakdown which was won for once by his side and so the ball came out, one player, another then him (me?) — a lock not supposed to be receiving it out this wide, he was sposed to be in there in the tight, but what the hell — He ran. (Shit!) His (fucken) legs got taken out from under him. What the?! — Sure the tackler’d spat in his face.
He asked one of the boys, Who was it tackled me? Who else, but the flying flanker. Okay. Jake The Muss’d show Mista fucken Spitter, next ruck. Then who should come screaming past but Spit, elbowing Jake aside, calling him Cunt! while he was at it. So the young punk wanted a war did he? Now war Jake The Muss was good at.
Except playing his part in the war proved difficult; he was just not there in time, he didn’t have the skills, the speed, just this lung-screaming desire to get one big hit on the flanker fulla so at least he could say he gottim back for the spit in the face, the reminder of which enraged him and yet at the same time seemed to have the effect of making him even shorter on breath. (F’ fuck’s sake, Jake — gettim!)
Halftime, the three-minute break and all Jake could think (feel) was the shaven-head tearaway flanker’s spit — oh, an’ his insults (call me names). Listening with less’n half a ear to the coach telling him sumpthin’ about the lineouts that he should turn and let his forwards drive him forward steada taking the gap — Fuckim. (Ain’t his face running with another man’s spit. How’d he like it bein’ called a cunt? That bal’-head’s mine. And my spit’s got knuckles on it — big knuckles.)